Asking for a friend:If The Grand Calcutron is in play, can foretell and plot abilities be activated from the program?

The Grand Calcutron only affects how you cast spells from your hand, so no.

While I was definitely part of the "Foretell sounds like it should exile stuff face-up while Plot sounds like it would exile face-down" gang at first, I did recently realize one thing: Sure, for normal people, plotting is something you'd probably do in secret (i.e. exile face-down), but this is the Villain set, and what self-respecting villain doesn't monologue about their evil plans at great lengths to the hero (or, at the very least, to the audience) before setting out to do them? That's "exile face-up" energy if I ever saw it!

: )

"Foretell, the name, needed to be in the Norse mythology-inspired set, and plot, the name, in the villain set. Both mechanics fit the set they are in. So no, I wouldn’t change them." What about those mechanics make them better for the set they're in than the other set?

We build sets so the mechanics in them are synergistic and create the larger structure. You can’t just swap foretell and plot and have them work properly in their respective set structures.

If you could go back in time and swap Plot and Foretell names, would you? It feels like Plotting should be done in secret while Foretelling you would just pay the cost and tell it will happen later. :P

Foretell, the name, needed to be in the Norse mythology-inspired set, and plot, the name, in the villain set. Both mechanics fit the set they are in. So no, I wouldn’t change them.

From the new mechanics shown so far, Plot feels very similar to Foretell and Spree seems identical to kicker, but neither will trigger effects that care about that specific mechanic ("whenever you cast a kicked spell...", "... for each foretold card you own..."). Other than "changing the name to fit the set theme", what's the design philosophy behind "new mechanic that's almost identical to old one but doesn't synergize with effects that care about that mechanic"?

Plot overlaps with foretell only if it’s a two-drop with foretell 0. (And even then, it’s facedown if foretell.) The two actually play very differently. Looking similar is not the same as playing similar.As for spree. A lot of mechanics are “sort of kicker”. Technically kicker can’t do what spree does, at least not in a way that could actually fit on a card. Maximizing synergy with cards that care about a specific mechanic is much lower than making a cohesive exciting new set. Yes, backwards compatibility is important, but more in making sure larger themes have old cards that work with them that strengthening specific old cards.

How is it decided what a keyword will be named? The names of keywords often affect their ability to return, even if they would be a good fit mechanically. Foretell is a relatively vague term, but something like prototype is a lot more limiting in where it can go flavorfully. A lot of the new mechanics in this set seem to have very limiting names in when they could return. How mindful is the team of this when they name keywords?

We’re mindful.

You've said in the past that Megamorph was a mistake for the third Tarkir set. Would Foretell have been a superior replacement, since it'd constitute a continuation of the face-down mechanics of the previous two sets while still deviating in a unique way?

I think it needed to be a morph variant.

We had a lot of really cool mechanics over the last few years that were immediately abandoned after a single set. Mutate, energy, companion, and foretell, to name a few, could all use some support

Magic keeps coming back to old mechanics. I wouldn’t call them abandoned.

Hi Mark! I was wondering if you have data for this. Do players prefer when mechanics strongly tied/introduced on a given plane, stay strictly associated with that plane, making it more likely on returns but less likely in other places? Like, hypothetically, DFC transforming werewolves outside of Innistrad, Energy beyond Kaladesh, or Allies not in Zendikar. I enjoy seeing old mechanics in new places (Exploit in Innistrad, Foretell in Faldorn's deck, Convoke anywhere that isn't the Selesnya Conclave), but does the data say anything about this?

Players expect certain places to have certain mechanics, but players don’t seem to mind when other worlds also have those mechanics.

What goes into the process of how many cards a mechanic gets to feel right? There are some mechanics where from the jump you could make a full deck focused on it (Blood tokens, mutate, etc.) and others that just dont have enough cards to work with imo (Foretell comes to mind). Do you just go with what feels right, take into consideration how many cards are needed for a commander deck, etc.?

A single set usually can’t make enough cards to make a “build around me” mechanic for a Commander deck. It takes six and half times as many cards to work in 100-card singleton decks than for a 60-card 4-of deck. Note that a lot of mechanics can be splashed and don’t need a volume to work. How many cards we want to make is based on lots of factors, but the biggest two are design space and room in the set.