May 1st will mark the beginning of my 42nd trip around the sun. Now that I am 41, I would like to invoke birthday trivia on the boy I call my son, Fblthp.

Fblthp was a happy accident. Here’s the art description for Totally Lost from Gatecrash:Color: Blue spell (unguilded) Location: Streets of Ravnica Action: A little Homonculus is lost amidst a sea of feet on a busy Ravnican street. Focus: The lost homunculus. Mood: Poor little guy. His flavor text would give him a name (Homunculus don’t have vowels in their name). The audience began memes with him almost immediately. Seeing his popularity, we’ve put him in other art, made cards for him, made plushies out of him, and just embraced the joy that is Fblthp.Happy Birthday!

Very specific, but could I request a reprint for Enter the Infinite? It's a very iconic and unique effect, but it's never been reprinted since it's first appearance in Gatecrash over a decade ago. I'd love to see it in the modern card frame, and maybe with some new (but equally trippy) artwork.

I’ll pass along the request.

I know Tempest was your first set and it's one of my faves...
Which sets were you the main lead on?Another way of asking this is. Which sets have the most Maro in them?

Sets I was the lead designer or co-lead on for design/vision design:TempestUngluedOdysseyUrza’s DestinyMirrodin Fifth DawnUnhingedRavnicaFuture SightShadowmoorEventideZendikar Scars of MirrodinInnistrad Dark AscensionGatecrashTheros Khans of TarkirBattle for Zendikar KaladeshAmonkhetIxalanUnstableDominariaGuilds of Ravnica Ravnica Allegiance War of the Spark Throne of Eldraine Ikoria Zendikar RisingStrixhaven Innistrad: Vampires

Hi Mark! Could I request some more white counterspells? They're still listed as tertiary in white but I believe you haven't made one since Gatecrash

I keep trying.

As a collector, one thing I've noticed is that in standard-legal expansions, like Gatecrash or Ravnica Allegiance, hybrid cards are numbered after the traditional gold multicolour cards, but in reprint/special products like Commander or Planechase, they're number in amongst the gold cards. Is there any reason for this difference or are the two kinds of product maybe collated by different people?

I don’t know. I’ll have to ask.

Here's a better question: Any chance there's an Ooze tribal legendary upcoming soon? c:

I’ve publicly stated that I felt not making an Ooze lord in Gatecrash was a mistake and we are about to release a Ravnica set with the Simic. I’d less get my hopes up for a legendary lord for two reasons. One, Ravnica has so many legendary demands that it’s hard to squeeze new ones in that don’t serve a story/set structure purpose. Two, we default lords that can mechanically stack to be non-legendary to allow players to have multiple on the battlefield at once and first time lords are more likely to stack.

Why did we not get the 1 drop hybrid mana creature cycle completed in Gatecrash?

Something’s are built as ten-card cycles that hit all the guilds and done are five card cycles meant for a specific set to give that some done of its own identity. The one drop hybrids was one such cycle.
Gatecrash has the same set-up of hybrid cards (one common, one uncommon and k e rare), but had different designs.

You mentioned you realized in gatecrash that you couldn't put something into RTR because it was too far along? Was that used in Guilds?

It was not. We talked about it in exploratory design and felt that Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegusnve wanted to be a more traditional approach to a guild set.

Hi Mark! It’s my birthday today, so I wanted to cash in my birthday trivia coupon. Can you give me some juicy facts about the Simic? Thanks in advance and have a wonderful day!

Because the previous block (Kamigawa) had a lot of animal humanoids, we held back from doing too much of that in Simic in Dissension, but on their in Gatecrash we ramped it up. Happy Birthday!

Ravnica Dinos: Ripscale Predator from gatecrash has been errata-ed to be a dinosaur

FYI