Hi Mark! Your efforts to destroy Magic didn’t come to fruition last year. Can we get a hint on how you’re going to kill Magic in 2024?

Just trying different things than we’ve done in the past. Maybe a murder mystery, Western-inspired, animal centric, or modern horror set will finally drive people away. : )

"Most fight cards are between a creature you control and one you don't control."

First, I should qualify my perspective as being from the Bo1 Standard perspective. In the event that it's relevant at all.

Could green hypothetically get a fight spell that allowed you to choose between any two creatures? Could that be in-pie? I feel like the big problem with green's creature removal right now is that it suffers from the same blowout potential that Auras do. Not to mention every single other color has 1-2 drops that can be used to manage opposing creature presence while having an empty board. Even blue has bounce spells that can be used the turn their first land hits the table.

I feel as though allowing fights between any two target creatures would still tick the box of being creature-reliant, as you would not be able to use the spell on a singular creature on an empty board. And would have to wait for your opponent to play a second creature if you don't have one available yourself. But if your own creatures are immediately burned on entry, you wouldn't be stuck with a dead card in your hand and have to sit there eating hits from the aggro decks until turn four, where _hopefully_ your turn three 4/4 isn't also hit with a Shock or something after being forced to block a 2/2. This also makes the spells usable in midrange and control archetypes. Where the available creatures in your deck are much more sparse. Avoiding the problem of locking you into creature-packed aggro or bust. (And I do recall green is supposed to be the midrange-y color if I'm not mistaken?)

Finally, it would still have the self-limiting nature of almost always leaving the biggest creature behind in these instances where you're just making two of your opponent's creatures fight. While also still rewarding you for having your own creature if you swing in. Say it gets blocked and killed by your opponent's biggest creature, and then you make that creature fight one of their other creatures with the damage still on it. Leaving you with a 2-for-2 trade (your creature and your fight spell for two of their creatures)

I feel like this would fit green's flavor of "big thing eat small thing" as is the case with nature. It would really feel like tapping into those aspects of wildlife and manipulating predator-prey relationships to your benefit. As I recall, part of green is about accepting your role in nature. But the green mage and/or their creatures 'accepting their role' as prey isn't really conducive to coming out on top. But using green magic to force these roles to fruition amongst _any_ two creatures makes this ideology not an inherent setback. If that's worth anything.

Is there any snowball's chance in Rath of this ever happening?

A green mage is supposed to be reliant on their own creatures, not any creature.

Hey Mark, do you think Wizards plans on revisiting the My Little Pony IP in the future? Seeing as wilds of eldraine is coming up, and with what happened in brothers war, (i.e the release of tournament legal Transformers cards (previously only ever printed as silver bordered hascon exclusives)), this would be a good time to make the move. Considering the only My Little Pony cards available are silver bordered, do you believe this might come to fruition some day?

Perhaps one day. It’s not off the table.

Was there any Universes Beyond the team worked towards that didn't come to fruition?

Yes, numerous ones. And no, I can’t tell you what they are.

Do you have any articles on how the color pie was first developed? Specifically, I'm wondering on the order that A) the number of colors, B) what colors they are, and C) their respective philosophies all came to fruition.

I did a podcast on it. What colors and the number of colors kind of happen at the very beginning. Their respective philosophies evolved over time, but haven’t deviated much from their initial version. Mostly, we’ve added nuance.

I started playing during the very end of the original Phyrexian arc all the way back in Invasion. When I met new players and they wanted to know the story whether we were fighting eldrazi or Bolas, I always made sure to remind them that New Phyrexia was, one day, going to be a threat.I love ONE. It's a masterpiece. The threats have finally come to fruition, and the whole multiverse is in danger. The number of Compleated walkers, the failed detonation, the ongoing threat that the Phyrexians represent--it's my favorite story elements combined with some of the best mechanics and flavor I've seen in a long time.You've delighted this old hand. Thank you, and thanks to our storytellers who remembered the inexorable push that made Phyrexia so terrifying in the first place. High fives requested.

Compleated high fives to be delivered. Glad you’re enjoying it.

I never thought i see Ashnod in standard before commander ( i asked a long while ago) and its actually coming to fruition! Thank you so much!! :)

You’re welcome.

Is it Nicol Bolas' hubris that forces the sets where his evil plans come to fruition (Conflux, Hour of Devastation) to include a card named after the evil plan?

Hmmm…

My birthday is tomorrow, so I'm asking now so you can enjoy your crab legs :) Could I get some trivia on Forced Fruition or Bazaar Trader?

Ooh, birthday mates! Forced Fruition came about because we liked the idea of too much of a good thing. It’s awesome at first, but soon you’re like “Too much information!” It was an in-flavor to do in blue something we most often do in black.

As a followup to yesterday... why didn't Power Lunch ever come out?

Because it never got made. It was just an idea and not all ideas make it to fruition. Archenemy ended up in the basic space of Power Lunch.