Wazzzaaaaap, Mark da Shark,Just wanted to send kudos and share my excitement about so much of Bloomburrow! It's gonna be my first prerelease in a long while, since M20, I think, as well as there's so many things to love about it. I've been a big fan of Doug Beyer since Kaladesh, glad he was the lead designer on this set. Also super pumped to be getting both a revisit to the Heroic mechanic in Valiant, one of my favorite mechanics from Theros, and the amount of rabbit typal support. My Cadira commander deck is gonna go through a major redesign when the set is properly out. Hope you have a lovely day!

I’m glad you’re so excited. I can’t wait to hear all the prerelease stories.

"The issue is many players enjoy the higher powered designs of the straight to modern sets." I think there is a larger issue, but its impossible to capture given the character limit. There is an article from 2019 by Jeff Cunningham called "Lands and Spells" I would love if you could read just the section that starts with "I asked Randy Buehler once.." and ends with "Taking in the big picture.." ...Does the game designer have any business designing beyond what the most customers want? I think yes

I went and read the section in the article you mentioned. My primary goal as Head Designer is to make Magic the best game it can be. Market research (along with talking with all of you here) helps inform our choices, by giving us a better understanding of what the players want.Good game design isn’t just doing what the players want though. We need to surprise you and push the game in directions you don’t expect, but I am, and the rest of R&D, are negligent in our duties as game designers if we don’t have a good understanding of what the players interests in the game are when we plan out future designs.

Why do you keep appearing on my dashboard? I don't even follow you yet I keep seeing your posts. I don't even know who you are? 😭(You seem cool, though)

My name is Mark Rosewater. I’m the Head Designer for a game called Magic: The Gathering. Hello to all the non-Magic players that the Tumblr algorithm has decided to post my responses. : )

How much of developing a new plane (specifically in the earliest parts you do as Head Designer) is original and specific world building, vs adapting inspirations? Ixalan is my favourite plane and it seems to do a great job adapting the faction/setting inspirations, while also being original and unique, and it feels like Bloomburrow is doing the same so far with the right mix of familiar animal fantasy tropes and new unique worldbuilding, but do planes usually start with more of one than the other?

It varies a lot by what the world is.

Hello! I'm very new to Magic, my husband introduced me to it and so far I'm actually in love with it! I came across your blog by chance and you seem to be some kind of Magic Master?? Or maybe you just work for Magic?? I'm not sure, but I'd figured I'd ask and then try to look you up on Google or LinkedIn after. anyways thank you & happy 4th of July!

Hello. My name is Mark Rosewater. I’m the Head Designer for Magic. I’m here to answer questions about how the game is designed.

hi sorry i'm drunk and you keep showing up on my dash are you famous or something

I’m a big fish in a small pond. : )I’m the Head Designer for a game called Magic: The Gathering.

Were are you from Mark

I grew up in a city named Pepper Pike, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.

Hi Mark, it's my birthday today and I was wondering if you have any cool desing stories related to some key cards of my favorite villan, Yagwmoth. Could be his MH1 card, Will, Bargain or even K´rrik.
Thanks for your all your hard work!

Mike Elliott and I parallel designed Yawgmoth’s Will, but Mike designed it in black and I designed it in green. Mike was the lead designer, so he put his version in the file. Happy Birthday!

Hey Mark!
Loving OTJ so far, and I was wondering if you or Gavin could talk about how Paul Bunyan made it into the set.

As with any set with a top down component, we’ll make lists of all the tropes/characters/objects associated with the source material. The lists are put where the team can reference them and are encouraged to make designs that capture things off the list. If the lead designer (or string second) likes it enough, it goes in the file.

Hey mark. Y’all in R&D infamously “avoid doing two-colour creatures which could be done in a single color”, like a creature with flying and vigilance, for example. I am not rehashing that argument, because I fully understand why the answer to that question is GB (although since vigilance is allowed in blue now that means that the UB option that was wrong at the time now is also a correct answer). That said, I do have some qualms with the premise of that question. We see multicolored cards that don’t need all their colors CONSTANTLY. Just in Thunder Junction, we got:- Wylie duke, which can be in white or green, and doesn’t need to be both- Vraska joins up, which can be done in mono green and doesn’t need black- Selvala, which can be done in mono green and doesn’t need white- Seraphic steed, which can be done in mono white and doesn’t need green- Rakdos joins up, which could be done in mono black and doesn’t need red- Miriam, which could be done in mono green and doesn’t need white- Marchesa, who can be done in blue or black, and doesn’t need to be both, and DEFINITELY doesn’t need red- Lilah, who could be done in red or blue and doesn’t need to be both- Jasper flint, who can be done in Black or red and doesn’t need to be both- Jem, who could be done in mono blue and doesn’t need white- Form a posse, which could be done in red or white and doesn’t need to be both- Breeches, who can be done in mono red and doesn’t need blue- At knifepoint, which could be done in mono red and doesn’t need black- Obeka, which could be dimir or izzet and doesn’t need to be grixis- Vihaan, who could be done in boros and doesn’t need black- Kirri, which could be in mono green, and doesn’t need red or white- Yuma, which could be done in mono green (and maybe mono red?) but definitely doesn’t need white- Olivia, which could be boros or rakdos and doesn’t need to be mardu- Pest control, which could be mono white and doesn’t need blackI don’t really know what I’m asking, but I just wanted to bring up that unnecessary colors appear on multicolored spells VERY frequently; and I wanted to know if you have any thoughts about this.

That’s why I say “we try” and not “we always do”. When a multicolor card doesn’t have abilities of two colors, we’ll tag it in the Council of Colors pass, and the lead designer will see if hey can find an elegant solution. It’s not a mandatory thing though, as it’s hard to do without making cards extra wordy and clunky. Again, that’s why I say “we try” to do it as it’s something we do when we can, but often don’t do.