If there had been colorless spells in the Force of … cycle or the Evoke elemental cycle, do you know think their alternate costs would have been to exile any colorless card, or would they have limited the alternate costs to non-land colorless cards?

My gut is discarding non-land colorless cards (and it would have to be non-land) would be a bit too restrictive, especially in the age of colored artifacts.

Grist is able to be a creature while not on the battlefield. Would the same technology allow creatures to be sorceries while not on the battlefield, to achieve something close to what you wanted with Evoke?

I don’t think that works, but not my area of expertise.

Does your article from today mean that evoke creatures count as instants and sorceries in the design skeleton?

The fact that they can be creatures means you count them as creatures from a design skeleton standpoint.

Is there an internal reference somewhere with what you're "going for" with creature types? I'm thinking of a designer asking "should this be a Warrior or Soldier token?" When neither type has specific mechanical relevancy in that product. Even without a mechanical throughline, different creature types can evoke different things about the setting or about the action depicted by the card.

Creature types, when not mechanically relevant, are determined by the creative team and are driven by what the creature is flavorfully.

I have to echo those that feel like the set is a bit off. Ravnica has an established high fantasy aestethic, and all these cards featuring people with clothes so close to being contemporary feels... off. Like they don't belong in the setting and were just hammered in. It's worsened when we have Ravnica Remastered so close to make a comparison. The fedoras on weirds and gargoyles dont make this any better. I get the idea you wanted to evoke, and that resonance is an important part of top down sets, but in this case it feels like it's coming at the cost of Ravnica's overall feel.

I can pass the note along. Howe do others feel about it?

"If. What’s the flavor?" (Regarding a Battle card as a commander)Hi Mark,As a game designer, I think your one of your most important goals should be to create designs that play well mechanically speaking that players enjoy playing with. Someone who wants to play with a Battle as a commander likely wants to do so for mechanical game play reasons, not flavor reasons.Similarly, more 4 color commanders being hard to justify with flavor shouldn't be the primary reason they are very seldom created even though there is immense demand for them.There's no flavor justification for Cycling or Kicker but they are deciduous mechanics that play very well and are extremely popular. They are examples of good game design even though one could dismiss them by saying "What's the flavor?" A hardcore Vorthros player might dismiss or dislike mechanics like Cycling and Kicker for that reason but that definitely shouldn't stop you from making designs mechanics.If you have this mentality with things like "mill", "kicker", and "cycling" and it is successful, I don't understand why you can't do other things that would lead to interesting gameplay even if it isn't a perfect flavor homerun?

Thoughts?

Intuition is a key part of good game design. You want things to play as the audience expects them to play. Flavor is an important part of that. If the flavor contradicts the card’s function, it will make players play it wrong. Some mechanics are light on flavor, so you can get away with lots of hand-waving. What does kicker represent? It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t evoke flavor in a way that will create false expectations. Commanders, by definition, are very flavorful. We can do weird things with them, but because they are so steeped in flavor, we have to be conscious of what the flavor will be, so we can design it such that players will assume the right things about its mechanical function. In short, flavor matters in some places mechanically more than others.One last thing, the reason we don’t do lots of four-color cards is all about design and play balance, and very little about flavor.

You’re correct, the Iconic/Characteristic races podcast is going to lead to more discussion. I don’t have too much of a preference on green’s iconic, as I’ve always leaned more into black. However, I think it would help if there were a few more legendary and/or sapient hydras. Dragons, demons, and angels all evoke visceral emotions, and having a few more characters for green fans to connect to would be beneficial. There are only 10 legendary hydras, and already 23 legendary dinosaurs thanks to some cycles. We also see some smaller Angels, Demons, & Dragons at lower rarities, which I think helps too. A few more hydras here and there to remind people.

I agree that we could have a few more legendary Hydras. I’m not convinced they need to be sapient, but it is a hotly debated topic.

Could we ever have a creature that has convoke, evoke, and provoke?

Would it be broke? : )

I know Evoke as a keyword isn't a beloved mechanic in R&D, but how likely are we to see creatures printed with an unkeyworded and/or fixed version of evoke, like Azorius Herald from OG Ravnica?

Evoke was pretty popular. It’s one of the few Lorwyn block mechanics that scored well. I hope to see evoke return one day.

“Like evoke?” You’ve used it different ways, but I guess I meant from a game design psychology perspective. Kicker type mechanics says “pay more and you get a better effect!” Negative-kicker types say “pay less and you get a lesser effect, or the same effect plus a drawback.” Even though they can actually be exactly the same mechanically (just reverse what’s base cost and what’s alternate) they feel different to the player. What are your thoughts/ideas for when/why to use what?

In general, we want you to feel like I can pay more to upgrade, so we can do what’s being asked, but we’d template it as more upside than downside. The normal spell has a down side, but you can pay to get rid of it.