I once had a Maro dream that we were playing horse shoes, but instead of the horseshoes themselves, it was gigantic centipedes.Maro, what is your opinion on bugs? Can we get some insect tribal toys?

I’m sure we’ll find a world where Insects make sense as a core component.

I wonder if non-mammal animals (such as crab, fish, insect, octopus, or spider) were considered as a draft archetype for Bloomburrow.

Lizards are one of the ten two-color pair animals.

How come hornet queen doesn’t have the creature type hornet?

Because we use Insect as a larger grouping.

Hey Mark, on the topic of players being worried about creature types losing their distinctiveness by being added in with the broader type rather than a specific race (ex. Viashino(Lizard) or Naga(Snake)), I looked to see how many are already currently templated this way and there are ALOT more than I realized.Archaic (Avatar), Aven (Bird), Leonin (Cat), Malamet (Cat), Nishoba (Cat Beast), Daemogoth (Demon), Ainok (Dog), Flamekin (Elemental), Loxodon (Elephant), Mycoid (Fungus), Thallid (Fungus), Akki (Goblin), Boggart (Goblin), Mogg (Goblin), Redcaps (Goblin), Eumidian (Insect), Kraul (Insect), Nantuko (Insect), Khenra (Jackal), Kitsune (Fox), Merrow (Merfolk), Selkie (Merfolk), Triton (Merfolk), Onakke (Ogre), Caryatid (Plant), Nezume (Rat), Rhox (Rhino), Amphin (Salamander), Orochi (Snake), Kami (Spirit), Drogskol (Spirit), Eidolon (Spirit), Ent (LoTR) (Treefolk), Trow (Troll), Kappa (Turtle), Liche (Zombie), Eternal (Zombie), Draugr (Zombie), Nim (Zombie), Skaab (Zombie)

Yep. Most of the ones that didn’t do it entered the game before we made this the default.

Can you tell us about the bug situation in Bloomburrow? I was thinking with a firefly in the key art, that there'd be at least one cute, friendly bug in the main cast.

Insects are not one of the ten animal archetypes.

Hi Mark! As a Vorthos I wanted to voice an opinion on the creature type "Alien". In brief I don't like it flavorfully because alieness is relative, especially in a setting that is composed by different worlds interacting with eachother. Mechanically I understand its role similar to Beast to group a lot of creatures whose species wouldn't get their own typeline, especially with sci-fi Universes Beyonds' products.
Creatures like "Davros" and "The face of Boe" that would be class-only without their species featured make sense as alien for a mechanical reason, but I think that cards like "Spelling Bee" or "Star Whale" work just fine as Insect and Whale and sticking the alien type on them just feels wrong.

Until we make a card that mechanically cares about something being an Alien. : )

Hey mark, theoretical set question

If in a set they had a portion of the characters be an Insectoid race, y'know like ant-people, bee-people, beetle-people, and the design idea was to make them work better together like other "tribe" based mechanics, would it be better to have it be an "Insect" as a singular "tribe" having the bees work with ants, etc, such that their color differences would have them working moreso with their own design space?

Or would it be better call to in such a case separate insect into more defined subsections, Like insect bee or insect ant, etc? would such a design in the first place be turned away as such to avoid such rules changes?

I assume they’d be Insect and not also a sub-category of Insect.

Hi Mark! The discourse over spiders and scorpions in red has me thinking about were different insects, arachnids, and bugs in general place within the color pie. Not only do I feel scorpions would be a great fit in red, but I think it would be cool if we saw stuff like white bees or blue red dragonflies. Could we see more diverse bugs in the future?

It’s a possibility.

On the topic of the theoretical BugWorld, If/When: A Draft Archetype in a standard set built around Insect Typal?

My guess is when, but not necessarily anytime soon.

I was severely disappointed that Ikoria focused on nightmares instead of insects, as bugs are one of my favorite things ever. I'd like to also voice my intense interest in a bug set.

Insects were on the table, but didn’t capture the feel we wanted for the set’s monsters.