Why wasn't there a Meld Emrakul in Eldritch Moon, though?

There was only one rare/mythic rare Meld pair and the story strongly wanted it to be Brisela. (It was two known creatures that literally melded together to make a new creature.)

During Eldritch Moon design, was there ever any discussion of having Emrakul have a 5-color emerge cost to have a 5-color identity for Commander?

Not that I remember.

Is the reluctance to make werewolves with other mechanics in non-Innistrad sets a reaction to backlash against their implementation in EMN? I get the impression there may be confounding factors there.

Let’s just say it didn’t help.

In your podcast you mentioned Eldritch Moon WotC had an idea for a theme (cosmic horror) and chose Innistrad as a plane with horror theme to execute it in. As a lesson learned you said that may not have been a good idea to drift from Innistrad's core gothic horror theme because players had an attachment to Innistrad's flavor. We are returning to Ixalan and Eldraine this year and I was wondering if the theme was chosen first and WotC found planes to fit them or were the planes chosen first?

Wilds of Eldraine - started with return to Eldraine.Lost Caverns of Ixalan - started with underground world (original plan was new world).

"We did something similar in Eldritch Moon (Werewolf on front and mutated version on back) and it didn’t go over well." They were a bit awkward to play with Immerwolf, but still surprised to hear they weren't popular. Was it just the synergies, or some other issue?

The market research more measure what they think than why. My best guess is that Werewolves had a tight mechanical identity and these didn’t fit with it.

Why was the EMN card Cryptolith Fragment // Aurora of Emrakul deemed special enough to receive a unique creature type in Reflection, with it still being the only card with the type? Wouldn't Illusion or Spirit have served the same purpose?

You made Spirit Mirror cry.

Hello Mark, I was looking through all the ravnica blocks and just wanted to comend you (especially on original ravnica) for the wonderful design work! Totally irrelevant to my question though, which is: Is cosmic horror something that would be revisited, or was Eldritch Moon a more one time visit to the genre?

Thank you for the kind words.I don’t expect Innistrad to do cosmic horror again, but I never say never. I do expect us to do other sets with horror themes that aren’t on Innistrad (it’s a deep genre), and one of those might touch upon cosmic horror.

Mark, I am delighted to notice increase in the main story quality with Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. While there is some parts I am lukewarm on, it warms my heart the effort made to connect the story to original Kamigawa and more recent Magic fiction, from the Agent of Artifice, to web fiction from Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh interlude! The effort made in keeping character's stories and tones consistent made them feel distinct and memorable, and was absolutely vital for the final reveal to sting as much as it did. I was worried I was growing numb to Magic story, but the creative team and Bowman have proven me wrong. Please, pass out my hight fives to the team!

Will do.

Hey, Mark! Just to respond to some previous asks about why Day/Night doesn't affect older werewolves - while Innistrad and Dark Ascension's werewolves could work with a modified Day/Night token affecting human and nonhuman werewolves, Eldritch Moon's Eldrazi Werewolves have no human side and aren't meant to repeatedly switch between forms. Not saying you couldn't have made a Day/Night token that works for them all, but it'd have likely been super wordy.

The backward compatibility issues were never meant for the Eldritch Moon Werewolves.

Expectations due to the initial name of "Innistrad Werewolves" aside, a lot of disappointment is also due to MTG's werewolf history. Of Innistrad's 5 tribes WWs are the ONLY one absent from other planes, absent from Avacyn Restored, & not getting a commander deck. Their mechanic was abandoned as they became Eldrazi in Eldritch Moon, & day/nightbound is a soft reset, etc... Given all this I was hoping MID would go above and beyond w/WWs. Not just be a normal Innistrad set w/minor theming.

Obviously, we could always do more than we did, but I do want to stress that we did more with Werewolves than we ever have in any set before. • The set has more Werewolves than any other set. Yes, I get it’s only 7 more, but when the previous record was 12, that’s a big jump up. • We did Werewolves as a vertical cycle in a third color. • We did Werewolves as one-of’s in a fourth and fifth color.• We brought back our Werewolf planeswalker• We designed what we think will be the definitive Werewolf Commander, something players have been begging for years.• The set’s main mechanic is a tweak on the “Werewolf mechanic”. • The set’s story revolves around the Werewolves. I think calling Midnight Hunt “a normal Innistrad set w/ minor theming” is unfair characterization of the set. It’s clearly a Werewolf-focused Innistrad set. I get maybe not Werewolf enough for some players, but it’s not like Scourge where we sold it as “a dragon set” and it had four Dragons (and a bunch of Dragon-themed cards) in it.