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.

As someone who has New Capenna in their top 3 favorite planes, I was really surprised that it wasn't beloved. Were you ever surprised by a lukewarm reaction to a plane you liked, or a very warm welcome to a plane you were unsure about?

I expected Kaladesh to be a bit more beloved.

Modern horizons 3 is interesting to me in that three of the major mechanics in the set were once considered failed or problematic mechanics. Kindred was considered a failure almost immediately after lorwyn and was abandoned. It was meant to be a card type and you now have a defunct card type. You used kindred not only in the tarmogoyf deck but also in a different way as an identifier in the eldrazi deck. Energy was awesome flavor wise and was a success but you failed to balance it mechanically and you had to ban several cards and because of that it seems you hesitated to return to this mechanic in standard. Finally devoid was considered a do nothing mechanic that was not popular. You used all three of these mechanics in modern horizons 3 but they are a big success. What has changed? Is it the execution? Is it experience? Why use these mechanics for such a high profile set knowing their history? Does this give hope for other mechanics that were not popular to return

First, energy was quite popular, the highest scoring mechanic in Kaladesh. Yes, a bunch of cards ended up being too strong, but that means a lot of people played with it.Second, Kindred (formerly tribal) wasn’t unpopular. Our issue with it was it led to a slippery slope where we added a lot of words on cards for little effect. Players have asked for its return.Third, devoid was unpopular, but I think we just positioned it wrong. We made it a mechanic that didn’t do anything which upset people. Had we made it a supertype, I don’t think anyone would have blinked at it.So what happened in Modern Horizons III?We brought back energy, a popular mechanic that players have been begging us to bring back for years. We brought back Kindred (renamed), but that’s not a big element of the set. Again, it’s something players have been asking for.We brought back devoid because we were doing Eldrazi, which was much more popular than devoid. I don’t think devoid is why the Eldrazi theme is popular. The Eldrazi are why the Eldrazi theme is popular. Devoid is just a callback, one we need to make the theme work mechanically.

How could the aetherborn exist on a place besides Kaladesh?

Aether is not unique to Kaladesh.

Good afternoon Mark, my question is regarding the new MH3 Energy cards. I noticed that the energy cards of MH3 seem to have divested themselves of the flavor from previous sets. Was this an intentional change to allow for more flexibility and design space? If so, does this increase the likelihood that we'll see energy return in a non-kaladesh set?

The energy cards aren’t all tied to Kaladesh. Energy, as a concept, is much broader than that.

I notice that MH3 has Energy cards that don't match the technological fluff used for the mechanic in Kaladesh (and the Fallout set). How much does broadening the flavor like this help the mechanic on the Storm Scale?

The more exposure and advancement of the design of a mechanic, the better for its future.

If/when on an artifact themed set like Kaladesh or Mirrodin, except that all/most of the artifacts have colored mana costs to avoid the balancing issues?

When.

What's the point of a multiverse now its so easy to move between planes? Aren't Ravnica/Kaladesh/New Capenna and the rest of the the planes mixed around Thunder Junction just like a new version of Dominaria now?

Omenpaths are unstable (they can come and go) and not super frequent, so it’s not an easy task for a character to go from plane A to plane B if they aren’t a planeswalker.

Maybe it got lost in the sea of questions, but could I get the coveted Birthday Trivia? About Arcades or about Kaledesh, as Arcades was my first commander, and Kaledesh was my first set!

Kaladesh, the plane, was originally created for Magic Origins because we needed to show Chandra’s home plane. We liked it so much we decided to make it a set and spent extra resources building it, so we’d be able to build on it a couple years later.Happy Belated Birthday!

It was my birthday a couple days ago, may I ask for late trivia on Kaladesh?

Kaladesh was designed to be Chandra’s homeworld for Magic Origins. We liked it so much we decided to use it for an upcoming set.Happy Belated Birthday!