I really love animals and how many different species there are. When you started talking about Bloomburrow's mechanics not being directly typal, I was hoping that there'd be a lot of one-off animals. But almost all of the cards revealed so far are one of the main 10 animals, with the main exceptions being the calamity beasts.Was there ever a point in development where the focus was more on showcasing a lot of different animal species rather than selecting a smaller number that act as draft archetype groups?

I talked about this in my first Bloomburrow preview column. Here’s a snippet:“Once it was on the schedule, I did a little advance work on the genre to familiarize myself with it. I realized that there were two ways it’s traditionally done.Take #1 – Animals represent groups of people. These people are mice, those people are badgers, and these people are otters. Each animal type has qualities that are consistent among that group, usually things that feel resonant with the real-world animal. In this version, the setting is usually a biome, and all the animals in it are ones who would live in that biome. The animals are roughly proportional to what they would be in the real world.Take #2 – Animals represent individual people. This person’s jumpy, so she’s a frog. That person’s sneaky, so he’s a fox. This other person rushes into things, so they’re a rhino. Each animal is used to represent personality qualities. In this version, the setting is usually something more human in structure, often a city, and the variety of animals is much larger. The animal selection here is not limited by biome, so you can have animals living together that normally would never see each other in the real world. The animals are loosely related in size (a racoon is smaller than an elephant), but the scope of scale is compressed.Take number one is easier for worldbuilding. There are less unique types of animals, and they’re organized by creature type. Because animals are used to express groups of people, they tend to act more similarly to traditional species creature types, like Elves, Goblins, or Merfolk. This pushes us more toward a factioned typal theme.Take number two is easier for design because the designers have access to a lot more animals and can make more individually cool designs. The twelfth Mouse card, for instance, is a lot harder to make different than the first Giraffe. This approach pushes us more toward mechanics that tie into a larger animal theme. It’s more likely we’d create an environment that was about a lot of different animals working together, putting the focus more on individual top-down card design.Aaron was more interested in doing take number one, while I was more interested in doing take number two. So, we did a bunch of market research. It came back exactly even. Half the people we polled preferred take one, and half preferred take two. In a tie, Aaron’s original vision won out, so we did take one. (Also, I believe more people internally wanted to do take one.) I do want to stress that both takes would have allowed us to make a cool set. They just head down different paths and would have ended up in very different places, mechanically and creatively.”

Happy Juneteenth eve, Mark!If a hypothetical monocolored legendary creature were to read "Elephants you control have X," where X is a keyword ability, what do you suppose would be the most likely color and keyword combination, and if you have time, why? The Dermy Pack wants to know!

It would be green and say “Elephants you control have trample.”

Hey Mark, on the topic of players being worried about creature types losing their distinctiveness by being added in with the broader type rather than a specific race (ex. Viashino(Lizard) or Naga(Snake)), I looked to see how many are already currently templated this way and there are ALOT more than I realized.Archaic (Avatar), Aven (Bird), Leonin (Cat), Malamet (Cat), Nishoba (Cat Beast), Daemogoth (Demon), Ainok (Dog), Flamekin (Elemental), Loxodon (Elephant), Mycoid (Fungus), Thallid (Fungus), Akki (Goblin), Boggart (Goblin), Mogg (Goblin), Redcaps (Goblin), Eumidian (Insect), Kraul (Insect), Nantuko (Insect), Khenra (Jackal), Kitsune (Fox), Merrow (Merfolk), Selkie (Merfolk), Triton (Merfolk), Onakke (Ogre), Caryatid (Plant), Nezume (Rat), Rhox (Rhino), Amphin (Salamander), Orochi (Snake), Kami (Spirit), Drogskol (Spirit), Eidolon (Spirit), Ent (LoTR) (Treefolk), Trow (Troll), Kappa (Turtle), Liche (Zombie), Eternal (Zombie), Draugr (Zombie), Nim (Zombie), Skaab (Zombie)

Yep. Most of the ones that didn’t do it entered the game before we made this the default.

Follow up on elephants in boots problem podcast. Was there any discussion on limiting the amount of equipment a creature could have equipped?

No. It was again extra words for little impact.

Thank you for responding to my comment! I had never heard of the “Elephant in boots” problem before. Is it on the list for potential podcasts?

I could add it.

I see a lot of people claiming that certain things being able to commit crimes creates questionable flavor. I think there’s great comedic potential in things like Pacifism counting as a crime! Not a question, just wanted to comment :3

It’s what we in R&D call the “elephant in boots” problem. There’s no way for all flavor to work with every card, so you focus on the main flavor and allow Elephants to wear boots clearly made for humans. It adds some charm.

Did the popularity of the lorehold faction audits unique take on red white have anything to do with promoting the elephant student to planeswalker?

No. The popularity of the character did that.

Re: Elephant in BootsDoes that mean Mutate not working on specifically humans is bad, at least outside the context of IKO limited?

Humans are not suffering as a creature type.

Were Tusk and Whiskers from Unfinity a cheeky call-forward to the unlikely team-up cards?

March of the Machine didn’t introduce two legendary creatures appearing on one card. It’s more about unlikely characters teaming up, which I guess a mouse and elephant fit. : )

Hi Mark, could a "wildlife world" ever be a thing? A plane whose themes lean heavily towards real-world animals and biomes and stuff. Walruses, racoons, insects, elephants, clams, crabs, snakes, bats etc.Thank-you

We’ve talked about worlds in this vein.