Eldrazi

Exile-Trigerring Cards

abzanhouseguest asked about cards that trigger off things being exiled. We already have a few! The War Doctor being probably the strongest example. A couple Eldrazi too. It's a very rare thing but you've done it before.

Fine point.

Doctors Eldrazis Rares The Exile Zone The War Doctor

Eldrazi Card and Colourless Devotion

Could an eldrazi card care about devotion to colourless?

We don’t tend to print many cards with colorless costs, and when we do we use less colorless mana symbols, so affinity for colorless isn’t set up well.

Affinity Card Printing Colorless Eldrazis Mana

Xerex's Storytelling Potential

The fact that Xerex is beyond comprehension could be an asset for storytelling. That’s the kind of place that’s ideal for an escape story or a story about finding an important objective that’s hidden there. As far as mechanics go, that’s a bit tougher. I could see it overlapping with the flavor of the Eldrazi.

It could work in print where the player can imagine the setting. It has a lot more problems when we have to draw art showing what it looks like.

Art Card Printing Eldrazis Escape Flavor Mechanics Story / Lore

Potential Future Set Tutoring

RE: Previous set TutorHas Wizards ever planned to do a card that would tutor a card in an upcoming set (not yet released)?

We’ve done numerous cards that reference unprinted (at the time) cards in rules text. None that tutor come to mind. Here’s the closest I could think of: (no Eldrazi card had been printed yet)

Blogatog / Tumblr Eldrazis Rules Tutoring

Cosmic Horror Typing Considerations

Was there ever any consideration to re-type Cosmic Horror as an Eldrazi?

Not that I know of.

Eldrazis Horrors Cosmic Horror

Excitement for Duskmourn

Hi Mark! Guy who missed the Gen Con announcement here again. I just wanted to add to the chorus of people saying how excited they are for Duskmourn, specifically BECAUSE it's a more modern take on horror. I was worried I'd find it boring because Phyrexians, Eldrazi, and Innistrad have all done horror in MtG already. Instead we have neon lighting, puffy vests, static portals, possessed appliances, and a gang of plucky youngsters joining up with roving survivors. Neon Dynasty was the first setting to really prove that futuristic settings could be done and done well, while still feeling like it's in the multiverse we all know and love. I'm sure Duskmourn will adapt a more modern world just as well.

I can’t wait for you to see more of it.

Adapt Conflux Eldrazi Horror Innistrad Modern Phyrexian Survivor

Colorless Frame Usage

It’s something we did for the Eldrazi,Well the eldrazi are eldrich abominations, very strange templating makes sense for them. But that isn’t the case for all colorless cards. So why not just make that the eldrazi frame instead of the colorless frame?

We’ve used the colorless frame on non-Eldrazi and players seemed to like it.

Card Frames Colorless Eldrazi Templating

Reason Behind Colorless Cards Design

Why *is* the design for colorless cards formatted like a full art card with the opaque border and text box? Why that instead of following more closely to the modern colorless artifact design?

It’s something we did for the Eldrazi, and continued because players liked it.

Art Artifacts Colorless Eldrazi Modern

Executing Problematic Mechanics

Modern horizons 3 is interesting to me in that three of the major mechanics in the set were once considered failed or problematic mechanics. Kindred was considered a failure almost immediately after lorwyn and was abandoned. It was meant to be a card type and you now have a defunct card type. You used kindred not only in the tarmogoyf deck but also in a different way as an identifier in the eldrazi deck. Energy was awesome flavor wise and was a success but you failed to balance it mechanically and you had to ban several cards and because of that it seems you hesitated to return to this mechanic in standard. Finally devoid was considered a do nothing mechanic that was not popular. You used all three of these mechanics in modern horizons 3 but they are a big success. What has changed? Is it the execution? Is it experience? Why use these mechanics for such a high profile set knowing their history? Does this give hope for other mechanics that were not popular to return

First, energy was quite popular, the highest scoring mechanic in Kaladesh. Yes, a bunch of cards ended up being too strong, but that means a lot of people played with it.Second, Kindred (formerly tribal) wasn’t unpopular. Our issue with it was it led to a slippery slope where we added a lot of words on cards for little effect. Players have asked for its return.Third, devoid was unpopular, but I think we just positioned it wrong. We made it a mechanic that didn’t do anything which upset people. Had we made it a supertype, I don’t think anyone would have blinked at it.So what happened in Modern Horizons III?We brought back energy, a popular mechanic that players have been begging us to bring back for years. We brought back Kindred (renamed), but that’s not a big element of the set. Again, it’s something players have been asking for.We brought back devoid because we were doing Eldrazi, which was much more popular than devoid. I don’t think devoid is why the Eldrazi theme is popular. The Eldrazi are why the Eldrazi theme is popular. Devoid is just a callback, one we need to make the theme work mechanically.

Bannings Card Types Devoid Eldrazi Flavor Kaladesh Kindred / Typal Lorwyn Mechanics Modern Horizons Modern Horizons 3 Power Level Standard Supertype Tarmogoyf

Glimpse the Impossible Devoid Status

Hey Maro!Why doesn't Glimpse the Impossible have devoid? It seems to me like an Eldrazi brain melt would qualify for devoid status. Or, is it because it's an experience by a mortal and not an action by an Eldrazi?

Devoid being on a card is more determined by mechanics (do we want/need to tie this ability to a color?) than flavor.

Colors Devoid Eldrazi Flavor Glimpse the Impossible Mark Rosewater Mechanics

Selective Obliteration's Lack of Kindred

Why isn't Selective Obliteration a Kindred Sorcery- Eldrazi? Its a colorless Eldrazi flavored card without devoid. I thought for MH3 (and its commander set) the Eldrazi flavor cards would either be devoid or eldrazi . Thank you for asnwering our questions sir.

There are three colorless instants and sorceries with colorless mana costs in the Modern Horizons III Commander decks. One has Kindred Eldrazi (Eldritch Immunity) and the other two (Eldrazi Confluence & Selective Obliteration) don’t, meaning Eldritch Immunity is the outlier, not Selective Obliteration. I’m not sure why one was Kindred and the other two not. It does demonstrate the slippery slope that discourages us from using Kindred often.

Appreciation Colorless Commander Commander Decks Demonstrate Devoid Eldrazi Eldrazi Confluence Eldritch Immunity Flavor Instants Kindred / Typal Mana Modern Horizons Modern Horizons 3 Selective Obliteration Sorceries

Concern About Creature Type Changes

Re: drawing the line for humanoid type changes. Doesn't that mean Naga shouldn't be changed? They aren't an original mtg name. Also, I feel like getting rid of types just because the fantasy races were made by you guys and not storytellers of the past is a bit sad. There are a lot of creatures original to magic that I hope don't go anywhere, like Brushwaggs and Atogs which could be beasts, and Myr or Sliths that could be constructs, or an extreme that I doubt will happen, Eldrazi to horrors. It feels more special.

We’re not getting rid of original creatures we made up. Those will remain. We’re just being consistent with how we treat made-up animal humanoids. Again, a change we made in the late 1990’s.

Atog Beast Brushwagg Construct Creatures Eldrazi Horror Myr Naga Slith

Missing Emrakul Wastes Desire

Mark, if I may voice a minor disappointment with Modern Horizons 3, it's that there is not an Emrakul flavored Wastes. When Wastes first came out, there were Ulamog and Kozilek variants. When Emrakul reappeared on Innistrad, Wastes was not reprinted, so she didn't get her own version. Ever since, I've been hoping for an eventual Emrakul Wastes. Between last year's Eldrazi deck and the presence of the Eldrazi in MH3, there was ample opportunity, yet it still hasn't happened. Instead, Kozilek got another Wastes in the Snow-Covered Wastes

I’m not sure anyone on the project was even aware of that desire.

Card Printing Eldrazi Innistrad Modern Horizons 3 Reprints Snow-Covered Wastes

Eldrazi Precon Lore Blurb

For everyone's information: The lore blurb from the Eldrazi precon says that Ulalek has only ever appeared once in the distant past on a forgotten plane, and as a connected product I feel that would set precedent for all the other weird Eldrazi. The set can pull from anytime and anywhere in the past, not just the times and places we know about.

FYI

Eldrazi Story / Lore

Eldrazi Precon Deck Compositions

Why does the Eldrazi precon have a mix of Spawn and Scions? I know you can help which is used when it comes to reprints, but it has Chittering Dispatcher as a new card that makes Spawn and Eldrazi Confluence and Spawnbed Protector as new cards that make Scions (the protector is especially annoying, with spawn in its name when it doesn't even make them). I wish it had just kept with the main set and only used Spawn for new cards. They would be a touch weaker but the consistency would be so much nicer.

Making a hundred card deck around the Eldrazi is tricky being how few sets they’ve been in. I don’t think the design team building the deck had the choice to not use both. And once that was a known thing, having new cards do both wasn’t a huge deal.

Card Printing Chittering Dispatcher Eldrazi Eldrazi Confluence Reprints Scion Spawn Spawnbed Protector The Protector

MH3 Eldrazi Faerie Origin

Re: The MH3 Eldrazi Faerie question

It seems like a lot of online discussion interpreted the answer as official confirmation that "Emrakul's Messenger" is from a plane in the past. I interpreted your answer as acknowledging that it was possible, not confirming it. Could you please clarify? :)

I wasn’t definitively saying from where it came, as I don’t know. I was pointing out that it could be from the past.

Blogatog / Tumblr Eldrazi Emrakul's Messenger Faerie Modern Horizons 3

Eldrazi's Mysterious Concept

Could we see ever the Eldrazi "explained" or are they in a similar spot to Ashiok, where the mystery is key to them as a concept and will remain under wraps? I'd love to learn more about where they came from or what their purpose is (or if they have any connection to Strixhaven's archaics, I'd love for that to be divergent evolution or something similar), but I could also see them needing to stay mysterious eldritch horrors.

The alien-ness and unknown-ness of the Eldrazi is a core aspect of them.

Eldrazi Horror

Eldrazi and Energy Crossovers

Hey Mark! Do you know if there was ever an Eldrazi card that interacted with energy in red or blue in the MH3 design? It feels like an easy slot-filler, given how much the Eldrazi colors & Energy colors overlap.

I believe we wanted to keep the flavor separate.

Blue Colors Eldrazi Flavor Modern Horizons 3 Red

Consensus on Eldrazi Processors

Hi mark I saw you respond to a request for future eldrazi sets so i wanted to make one too, if possible please bring back eldrazi processors they were awesome! we so rarely see cards that interact with exile and as more cast from exile etc mechanics get created id just love to see a viable effect like that again. Shout out to wasteland strangler in particular!

Processors weren’t super popular. What did you all think of them (from Battle for Zendikar).

Appreciation Battle for Zendikar Eldrazi Mechanics Processor The Exile Zone Wasteland Strangler Zendikar

Future of Annihilator in Sets

Hi Mark - at some point, I assume we will see the Eldrazi in a non-supplemental set again. I would like to ask very nicely that when it happens, it isn't alongside annihilator, please. I thinks the Eldrazi are visually really cool and I like the inscrutable cosmic horror side of them but annihilator is probably the mechanic I like least in all of mtg's history. I hate playing against it and I feel guilty if I play with it myself.

I do not expect us to bring annihilator back to premier sets.

Annihilator Cosmic Horror Eldrazi Horror Mechanics Premier Sets Premier Sets