Hi, Mark! A templating question (with some recent card text for reference):

Whenever you commit a crime, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. This ability triggers only once each turn.

Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn.To save space and avoid any sense of letdown, why does Magic not more frequently use phrasing such as the following?

The first time you commit a crime each turn, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

The first time one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist each turn, draw a card.Unrelated feedback: I quite like these designs, which slot perfectly into a certain Burn deck of mine: Amped Raptor; Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury; Fear of Missing Out (such good art); Bloodbraid Marauder; also Inventor's Axe.

Two main reasons. One, it becomes a memory issue where you have to think back to what you did before you cast this spell. Two, it increases the chances that you miss a chance to use the card the turn you play it.

Akroma, Angel of Fury is the only legendary card with a morph or disguise ability. Considering that morph/disguise is a way to make extra copies of legendary cards useful, is there a reason that the more recent sets have not included any with those abilities?

It allows players to accidentally turn a second one face up and destroy it, so we try not to make that happen too much.

RE: GOGGLES. chandra is depicted wearing her goggles (over her eyes) on at least 5 cards: act on impulse, chandra pyromaster, chandra's fury, chandra's revolution, and fiery confluence. there are also multiple cards where she is facing away from the viewer or depicted too small to tell if she is wearing them. young pyromancer, who is dressed to look like chandra, also has the goggles on.

FYI

Hello Mark, why has Magic not had more horizontally framed cards like Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire?

We don’t want to do it in a card that taps (as Magic players are trained to see a certain orientation as tapped/untapped) and there aren’t a lot of opportunities. I do think we’ll find one some day.

Did you know that Unquenchable fury from the Kamaigawa commander deck is also the name of a Theros Battle the horde card?

I do.

What is the largest number of cards you could think of that could define a cycle? So far my highest count from what was done is 20. (A tie between the Magus cards and the cycle from the original Ravnica block that has 2 monocolour cards from each guild that gave a bonus effect if you paid for it with the other colour, as in Boros Fury-Shield)

It depends how loosely you define a cycle. Twenty is about the tops without getting super loose.

There was a question from November 2016 about Chandra, Flamecallers +0 (discard your hand, draw that many +1) and your answer was "the debate is whether that's a bend or straight up allowed in Red" - we've had Heartwarming Redemption and Khorvath's Fury since then but nothing on a permanent - how did that debate end?

For now it goes on spells and Chandra.

Has there been any consideration for full art lands where the art is oriented in landscape mode, rather than portrait? I'm thinking of "Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire", but with the frame oriented correctly.

Because tracking the tapped state of lands is so important, we don’t want to mess with art orientation. Note Burning Cinder Fury was on an enchantment and thus doesn’t tap.

Hey Mark. Do you think, moving forward, the planeswalker-specific spells in the Planeswalker Decks could be more general, as opposed to requiring a specific card? For instance, having Angrath's Fury care about any Angrath card as opposed to the one specifically in the deck?

Usually some are specific and some are general depending on different issues including power level.

Are damage redirection effects still in white's section of the color pie without requiring another color (usually red, as in Deflecting Palm and Boros Fury-Shield)? Could something like Harm's Way still be printed?

It’s still in white’s part of the color pie.