Was it considered that "gift a tapped fish" makes it more difficult if design wants to eventually gift someone a 2/2 green fish? Or is that so unlikely to be necessary for a future set as to be not worth thinking about?

It’s pretty unlikely.It does prevent the following card for a potential Dr. Seuss Secret Lair:Gift a 1/1 Fish.Gift a 2/2 Fish.Gift a red Fish.Gift a blue Fish.: )

Is the Ubiquitous Token of a plane something we should expect from visit to visit? Like, how Capenna has its gw citizens, Innistrad has black decayed zombies, LTR had orc armies [applicable to some silmarillion-based visit, I guess]I was looking at the Fish tokens in Bloomburrow and Mercenaries in otj and wondering if those were also more Worldbuilding statements or not.

It’s a mechanical tool that adds flavor, and something we definitely use when shaping a set.

Will there be any Legendary Fish or even non-token "Creature - Fish" cards in Bloomburrow? I just seems weird in a set full of anthropomorphic animals to treat a very large group of animals with varying levels of intelligence as if they are inanimate things to be bartered with and eaten.

The fish aren’t sapient on Bloomburrow.

First of all, LOVE Bloomburrow! Especially the otters, frogs, and rabbits. Re: Gift a tapped fishGift is like Haunt in that the instant/sorcery version and permanent version do different things. The spell gifts the fish before other effects. The permanent gifts when it enters. I see this having similar challenges with Haunt. Also the rules text doesn’t specify a 1/1 blue fish. Reminder text isn’t technically part of the rules. Can I gift my opponent other kinds of fish? I see the “gift a tapped fish” as being potentially “rules-challenging”.

Rules text has meaning beyond what’s on the card. Reminder text is telling you relevant information. That is real information that has rules weight. Reminder text just isn’t written in technical Magic templating.

Is there a reason Gift wasn't formatted like Ward to remain a generic keyword? It seems like the kind of keyword that could become evergreen if it wasn't specifically tied to hardcoded options like "Gift a tapped fish." For example:Gift - Draw a card (As you cast this spell, you may choose an opponent. If you do, they draw a card before the rest of this spell's effects.)

We can say Gift a _________ a do whatever gift we like. It’s not very restricting.

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.

I wonder if non-mammal animals (such as crab, fish, insect, octopus, or spider) were considered as a draft archetype for Bloomburrow.

Lizards are one of the ten two-color pair animals.

I think Duskmourne looks awesome and I love how different the analog horror approach is. The "fish out of water" aspect of traveling between wildly different planes has been a core part of Magic since we first left Dominaria, but that becomes harder and harder to do the more sets you make since there are only so many ways to make high fantasy settings feel truly distinct from one another. This feels like a logical evolution.

Glad you enjoy it.

I understand why you changed Cephalids, but why don't they get the Human type as well as the Octopus type?
Other "part X, part Y" creatures get both types — Bubble Smuggler is both an Octopus and a Fish. And Cephalids are closer to Humans than Octopi — their bodies are a mix of both, but their minds (and therefore the role they play in stories) are clearly far closer to Humans.

Because Humans are so prevalent, we’d usually don’t put Human on things that are half Human, half something else.

Howdy Mark!I sat with my thoughts and the replies you've given recently about not changing Minotaur or Merfolk to Ox and Fish respectively, and I gotta say, I can't square this circle.You say that WotC won't be changing these specific humanoid-animal races because they have prior mythological notoriety. But to be honest, one could make that excuse for every humanoid-animal race. There are a lot of Mythos that exist throughout the world, and finding a name for every humanoid-animal race wouldn't take too long if someone took the task seriously. I say this to show it doesn't feel like a really consistent or genuine reason to resist a rule that WotC is taking big lengths to adhere to (they are doing errata, which you've said is something that isn't done lightly).However, my biggest issue comes down to consistency with this "rule" you are mentioning. WotC changed Cephalids, Viashino, and probably Homarids soon so that they would fall in line with a rule that WotC wants to follow. Nothing drives me more insane than a rule that isn't applied equally to all, especially when as I mentioned above, the reasoning for the exception doesn't feel like a particularly strong one; at the very least, it doesn't feel strong enough to resist a rule WotC is taking seriously enough to errata 100's of cards so they fall in-line with said rule.I try to be open-minded as often as possible, but even after mulling over the things you've mentioned here on Blogatog, I don't think there is anything you can say that will change my mind on this. I suppose I will just have to sit and wait patiently until ya'll decide to finally finish what you started.Yours Truly,A fellow Ape

The thing you’re missing is the bar is not “does a mythological version exist anywhere in the world?” The question we ask - “is there a popular and well known version of it?”Here’s a different way to think of it. If we picked 100 random people (not specifically Magic players) and gave them a list of creature types, which ones are words they know and which ones aren’t?Some they wouldn’t know because they’re made up things we created that have no well known equivalent. Outside of those, we want to use words people recognize. It makes the game more resonant and lowers the barrier to entry. Our fanciful made-up terminology does have a place - in names and flavor text (aka the text areas focused on flavor). In mechanical rules space, familiarity is more important.