With regards to "Gift a tapped fish" being a single 'keyword', are the rules being written in such a way that Gifting in general can be referred to by other cards?

I.e. Something like "If a player gives another player a gift [do this thing]."Or will they have to refer to SPECIFIC gifting effects?Like, will "Gift a tapped fish" "Gift a Card" "Gift a Food" all technically be a different as First Strike, Trample, and Flying from a rules point of view?

They’re connected like protection connects protection from red and protection from instants.

So when looking through creatures that grant keywords in typal abilities, I’ve noticed that most creatures have the keyword and grant it to other creatures, but some just grant it to all that have the type. For example, Drogskol Reinforcements, a Spirit, has “Melee” and “Other Spirits you control have melee.”On the other hand, Lancer Sliver just has “Sliver creatures you control have first strike.”Why is there a difference? Is there a specific formatting or rules reason that all typal keyword-granting abilities don’t just follow the Lancer Sliver version? The latter seems simpler.

For clarity, the template is the creature has the ability and then grants the ability to “all other creatures you control”. Slivers use the old template because when you have a bunch of them, it’s easier to add up all the effects.

Could there be a pseudo-last strike by saying “creatures blocking and blocked by (CARDNAME) have first strike” ?

We’ve made cards that do that.

Un rules question: Is alpha strike a first strike variant, for the purposes of first-strike matters effects?

I’d say alpha strike, last strike, and triple strike are all first strike variants.

Nature's Blessing has only one paper printing and its text is: "{G}{W}: Choose and discard a card from your had to have target creature gain banding, first strike, or trample or get a +1/+1 counter." Since before keyword counter were a thing I used glass beads with 'banding' or the other keywords to mark this change to the creature since this effect lasts indefinitely, and the wording (although cumbersome) does suggest using counters. What do you suggest I do to avoid misrepresenting the card?

Using glass beads is fine. Just be aware they aren’t technically counters for cards that mechanically care about counters.

Could "Last Strike" be made black-border by doing something like creatures blocking this creature get first strike until end of combat/turn? Maybe needing additional wording to make it work.

There is a card that does that. It’s not quite last strike, and doesn’t allow triple strike.

Just reminding you about the purple New Mechanics look up. If you do manage to find what they are, could you let us know which one is New Mechanic A and which is New Mechanic B? New Mechanic A was on a rare with first strike, and New Mechanic B was given to all creatures by an uncommon enchantment.

Remind me what article this is from again.

I REALLY enjoy the design of Weeping Angel. It's an angel, a white creature type, on a blue black card. But even though it's blue black mechanically, flash, first strike, vigilance, and removing an attacking creature are all white effects. It's white's iconic creature type out of color but still feeling white. That is just so cool. It also perfectly captures the Weeping Angel as a character so high fives to everyone for that amazing design.

I’ll pass the high fives along.

I've been really enjoying the "keyword mix-and-match" that's been possible in Limited several times recently (examples being mutate in IKO, disturb auras in VOW, and backup in MOM). It's been fun trying to give deathtouch to a first strike creature, or flying to a big creature, and many more. I'm unsure if that's more Vision or Set Design, but could I request more and/or ask you to give a high-five to the appropriate designers? Thanks so much!

Mechanical choice and execution is both team’s responsibility. I’ll try to make more.

Hi Mark. If you could go back to the beginning, do you think the game would be better if First Strike had an "only works when this creature is attacking" clause built into the keyword? I've noticed WotC using the "First Strike only on your turn" templating much more frequently because of how much it improves gameplay, and I wonder if it would've been better for that to just be the keyword. It makes sense from a flavor perspective too, since the person who attacks is almost always striking first.

We’d seriously consider it.