When you were creating Outlaws of Thunder Junction, where you ever concerned that when people talked about drafting OTJ that some older players might be worried about seeing UG madness?

: )For those non-old timers out there. Blocks were often nicknamed with the first letter of each set in the block. So Odyssey/Torment/Judgment draft was often called OTJ. One its major draft archetype was green/blue madness.

If/when: A draftable set with an intentional imbalance of colors of cards printed? Say, 30% white cards.

If. We did it in Torment (more black cards, less white and green) and Judgment (the opposite), and learned that it warps limited too much.

can i request a set similar to torment/judgment that has heavy focus on one or two colors?

Torment and Judgment taught us to be wary of doing it again. It’s a huge amount of work, messes up limited, and didn’t even move the needle of making players more excited about the set.I never say never, so maybe there will come a set where doing it will be important, but it’s a high bar to clear.

You use the word trope a lot and I know what you mean by it but I don't think it has a super great connotation. It implies that your product relies on stereotypes and is less than original, which I know is far from the case. I'd consider trying to find a different way to say that Magic design plays to our expectations.

It’s the word that means exactly what I’m trying to say. Tropes and stereotypes are different things. I’d rather educate the audience with proper vocabulary than change words because people don’t know definitions.Trope: Something, such as an idea, phrase, or image, that’s often used in a a particular type of art, in the media, in a particular artist’s work, etc. It’s a commonly used theme or device to shorthand a concept.Stereotype: A standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment.

We’re less than a month before the release of MOM, and we already know all the cards in the set. Are you nervous about how we, the players, will receive it?(For the record, I know I already love backup, Phyrexian tribal, Transform as a theme, and the Multiverse Legends bonus sheet. I’m reserving judgment for Battles until after I play with them)

No, I think you the majority of players will enjoy it quite a bit.

Look at what you and your incredibly talented team did Mark! You went and actually made a Kamigawa return, but you not only returned, you did it so perfect in every conceivable way and satisfied both players who wanted a return and players who were skeptical of one that you now have people actually clamoring for a return to Rabiah! (I'm even in this camp now!) I will never question your judgement again and I'm sorry I ever did. You mad genius; never change!

You’ll never question my judgment again? : ) I really am very happy Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has been received so positively.

Follow up: is Compelling Deterrence from Shadows over Innistrad a bend or break as it’s a mono blue card that can makes a player discard a card?

It’s a pretty big bend.

You talk about complexity, and how it applies to certain sets. Supplemental sets like MH2 can be more complex then average, while core sets tend to be less complex. Is there a specific scale you use when designing the sets to determine its complexity? Is there some measurable threshold that can be measured, and set as the bar for a particular set? Or is it more of a case-by-case judgment, individual analysis of each design kind of thing?

It’s more of a feel than hard and fast metrics. The closest we come to an actual metric is we measure average word count, which, if high, can sometimes point towards increased complexity.

How feasible do you think it would be to design a four-faction set where all factions have one color in common (i.e. WU, WB, RW, and GW)?

Not very. We don’t like doing sets with color imbalances. Torment and Judgment taught us that.

I think what the last question meant was a set without white at all, then a set without blue at all, etc for all the colors. So each set would be color balanced among the four present colors.

I understood what was being asked. Darksteel and Judgment were color balanced when put together. That didn’t prevent them individually causing problems.