Do you have a DtW where you break down Beast a little more as a type? I'm trying to figure out where it fits in the devolution of the type line, and I just read "Human Barbarian Beast," on [[Barbarian Outcast]],"Beast Horror Spirit," on [[Chupacabra Echo]],"Nightmare Beast Elemental," on [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]], and"Plant Elemental Beast," on [[Carnivorous Moss Beast]], so it feels like there's been a few changes on where it should be placed?

Beast is one of a small handful of creature types that can fill both race and class slots depending on how it’s used.

Hi Mark! I got to play my Ravnica: Clue Edition box for the first time today, and found it to be a lot of fun! I like how it puts multiplayer gameplay and mechanics at more of a draft power level, and the Clue aspects are integrated really well. I do have to echo the common set of complaints: I didn't like the packs being randomized (I got duplicates of three guilds and one exact deck, and no primary red decks), and it felt odd not being able to use the new Clue cards within the game.

Thanks for the feedback.

Hi Mark,I have a dim memory of hearing Slivers were inspired by a fan made set and refined by wotc, but in an interview with Richard for your podcast, I think you said something like you originally designed them for Tempest. It's early in the morning, so how confused am I about Slivers' origins, how true are both these stories, and do they link together? Thanks Mark !

Slivers were originally designed by Mike Elliott for a homemade set he made called Astral Ways. When Mike was hired by Wizards, they also bought his homemade set. I then put him on the Tempest design team, and he brought many designs from Astral Ways to Tempest. Slivers were one of those things. Echo was another, but that would get removed from Tempest design and ended up in Urza’s Saga (which Mike led the design for).

I wanted to echo the compliments for the BNR announcement. In particular, if you could pass along a high five to Gavin for his Pauper announcement for his usage of data in explaining the state of Pauper. Thanks!

Will do.

Ovidio is incredibly good at communicating the vision of LCI and himself. Kudos to him and I echo his comments at the end about seeing worlds and viewpoints we're less accustomed to as a way to learn about those cultures. (Also I really loved having three podcasts on vision, set, and art and wouldn't mind if that was a more regular podcast series when a set is released.)

Glad you enjoyed it. I do the vision design and set design podcasts for all sets, but I can try to do the art ones with more regularity.

On the topic of red color pie: Mana Echoes feels out of place for red, one of my favorite cards but is it a bend or break? (however in a balance sense I know any othwer color with it would be broken, except maybe black but i just like zombies loll)

I think it’s in color pie, at most a slight bend. Red is number two in mana production.

Here to cash in my birthday question (though it's been a week) and to echo the hope for raccoon tribal.With all the recent changes in magic, was there another conversation about changing the card back? And, was there more or less willingness to do it this time?

It comes up every few years, but it’s never gained much momentum. Happy Birthday!

Mark, thanks for your commitment and iconic contributions to this fantastic game and community. I drew my first hand in '94 and never looked back. Long time Blogatog lurker, first time questioner.Can you elaborate on the tools and techniques you all use to gather play data and player feedback? Surely digital platforms like Arena tell you a lot about play patterns (at least the play patterns that prevail in the formats those platforms support). Blogatog and other social platforms like Reddit tune you in to enfranchised voices, but I assume you've got an echo chamber effect to balance there...What other play/player data collection methods (especially those that we don't know/hear about much) do you use and which do you think have been the most reliable/useful to you? I've seen and responded to a few of the web-based player surveys over the years, but those seem to appear quarterly(?) at best. I would love to know more about this crucial side of the design process. Thanks!

There are a number of sources for data. Here are the big ones: Play data: We get data on all sanctioned tabletop play and all digital play. Obviously, the digital play data is more in depth, but the tabletop data tends to tell us a lot about what formats/sets are popular. Sales data: We get data on how sets are selling. This can also clue us in to what players want out of a set. Market data: We do a lot of market research. It varies from opt in surveys which skew towards the enfranchised players to deep dives which let us see the more casual end of the spectrum. Market research lets us get more granular with what we can examine.Social media data: There are a lot of tools these days to analyze all sorts of qualities through how the audience talks about the game.Interactive (anecdotal) data: The public talks directly to us, so there is a lot to pick up. This is the least scientific from a data gathering standpoint. Digital data: There is a lot of data from digital beyond just play data. Public data: There are a lot of places where fans accumulate publicly visible data that we can see. Miscellaneous data: There are numerous other sources we can pull data from.

How do you distinguish between criticism being the majority opinion or just a vocal minority online? Several online communities are mostly just bashing every single decision you guys make. I'm checking in as a fan of Universes Beyond, eternal legal un-cards, and Alchemy on arena. It's exhausting seeing almost nothing but anger and derision directed at everything, but I don't know if I'm in the minority, or they are. Not saying I agree with every WOTC decision of course!

We have a lot of data we can look at (market research, sales, play, digital, online metrics, etc.), so we have tools to understand how the majority are feeling about things. The echo chamber of the Internet can definitely warp perception. For example, you would have thought from the reaction of the Internet that the Walking Dead Secret Lair was universally despised, yet it went on to be the best selling Secret Lair at the time.Also, I have a lot of people individually writing to me, so I get to hear a wide variety of thoughts that people might be unwilling to share publicly.

Mark - I think the main reason people are upset about stickers is because they are eternal-legal. I myself am very excited to experience them in the limited environment of Unfinity, but will feel uncomfortable seeing them across the table in commander, as it feels too whacky compared to the “normal” style of gameplay which I have become accustomed to over many years. Even though stickers mechanically work within black-border rules, I can’t help but view them as silver-border territory, which I feel requires a certain “goofy mindset” to enjoy. I think it’s wonderful that Magic continues to push boundaries (it’s the reason the game keeps me invested and excited) however I believe it is equally critical to provide players with the option to “opt-out” should they feel that a new set/product/mechanic does not resonate with them. A good comparison would be the frustration caused by the mechanically unique Universes Beyond cards (The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, etc). From my perspective, the majority of frustration was not caused by the creation of these IP crossovers, but rather the inability of players to opt-out of interacting with (playing against) these cards in eternal formats. Thankfully, WOTC addressed this frustration by agreeing to print “Universes Within” versions, which more-or-less seems to have satisfied the upset community. In the same way that players were afraid of being unable to “opt-out” of interacting with certain cards (non-Magic IP’s), I feel the same anxiety towards being unable to “opt-out” of playing with a certain mechanic (stickers) that has now become “welded” to the game’s structural foundation. Thanks for taking the time to listen and respond to people’s frustrations and concerns, and I hope that you realize there is a powerful, protective love of “Magic” at the core of which all these emotions are orbiting. P.S. have you seen The Professor’s latest video on stickers? He sums up these concerns quite nicely.

Here’s the problem with “opt in”. It can’t work. It presumes that players all want certain things, and are equally hesitant about the same things that they would prefer to opt-in to. But that’s not how the Magic audience actually functions. (I know the echo chamber of social media often creates the illusion that everyone wants the same thing, but it’s just that, an illusion.)Each player has their own list of what they want in the game and what they don’t. And those lists are all over the place. Let me give you an example. Here are some of things that you would have to opt in to if we removed things that a number of players have asked be removed from the game(and this is just a small version of the list off the top of my head): violent imagery, land destruction, black cards, fairy tale references, anything using counters, double-faced cards, counterspells, hybrid mana, outside play aids, stealing effects, humanoid animals, other IPs, discard, anything creating tokens, skeletons, cards that are humorous in nature, copying effects, anything “modern”, cards accessing cards outside the game/from the sideboard.Everything you love about the game, that makes Magic Magic for you, someone else despises and wishes it weren’t part of the game. That’s why I like my buffet metaphor. The key to our success is to offer lots of different things and let the audience pick and choose which parts they want to partake in. But what if my opponent plays thing I don’t like? Well, that’s what playing a customizable game is all about. You get to experience what makes other players happy. Maybe you’ll come to realize it’s not as bad as you imagined, maybe you’ll even come to love it yourself when exposed to it, or maybe you’ll continue hating it, but accept it as a by-product of you getting to play what you love. That’s the core of the issue. It’s not our job to keep people from being exposed to things they hate, but others love. It’s our job to provide a wide range of gaming options and let the players sort out which pieces they want to interact with. That can be through formats, through play groups, through play spaces, etc. To return to the buffet metaphor. Our job is to provide a wide variety of different food, so that everyone’s meal can be a combinations of things they enjoy. We’re not going to remove popular dishes from our buffet because some diners don’t like them. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. If you hate the smell of it, don’t eat at a table where someone else is enjoying it.“Please force players to have to ask my permission if they can play what they want to play” is a recipe for disaster.