How do you navigate the tension between uniqueness value (this beloved mechanic shows up once every ten years, so its appearance is an exciting event!) versus giving players what they like (cycling and kicker falling in popularity as they become mundane). With something like Mistform Ultimus --> Changelings, the answer is obvious: It ceases to be unique when a set comes along that needs it. With the decision to make landfall (and now convoke) deciduous, it seems a lot less clear. How do you weigh the demand for popular mechanics against them inevitably becoming less popular?

Mechanics have a splash value and a practical value. The splash value starts high and declines with time. The practical value grows as we better understand its uses from a design perspective. We try to milk the splash value as best we can, but once that is mostly used up, we focus on practical value.Long-term, the practical value is more important than the splash value as it’s what we be impactful for the larger portion of the mechanic’s life.

Evoke, channel, sorceries and instants with kicker that make tokens and some MDFC are all mechanics that allow you to play a “sorcery” with a chance of making a creature if you have the mana. What are the factors between choosing one over the others?I’m specially intrigued on the reason for creating evoke when channel already existed.

Channel was probably a mistake in that it’s listing something we do all the time, something that doesn’t want an ability word. The only reason we brought it back in Neon Dynasty is we wanted returning mechanics and our choices were slim.We like having different tools available, which allows us to customize use to match the needs of the set.

What mechanic do you think has the most untapped design space? For me I think it's cleave.

I’ll say kicker. : )

Hey Mark! Spree is probably one of my favorite mechanics ever, but I feel it was a bit unexploited.Can we expect to see variations on spree, such as a permanent with spree, a spree cost of a different color than the original spell, a spree cost that's not mana at all, or a spree spell with flashback or kicker?

I am optimistic we will make more spree cards.

Is it possible in the current rules for a card to care about "whenever you pay an additional cost" to catch things like kicker, spree, Fling, and commander tax?

Maybe, I’m not sure.

Hi Mark, I'm hoping you can help settle this now that spoilers have started. Is spree considered a kicker variant, or a split card (with fuse) variant?

Spree is more like a three-card split card with fuse.

How often were named mechanics actually used in more than one set in a block? After looking back at some popular blocks, it appears as though it was the exception rather than the norm. Kicker being in all three Invasion sets seems like the best example, but then Kicker can literally go in any set. Spirit/Arcane were so parasitic that they probably couldn't have functioned without appearing in consecutive sets, but good examples of this seem rare given how often people cite it.

Most of the time. Sometimes if we ran into trouble play designwise, the third set just had one or two.

Has there ever been an attempt at making a mechanic family tree? Like how a bunch of mechanics descend from kicker or how devotion came from chroma etc

Not that I know of. I’ve seen mechanics broken down by the type/style.

"If. What’s the flavor?" (Regarding a Battle card as a commander)Hi Mark,As a game designer, I think your one of your most important goals should be to create designs that play well mechanically speaking that players enjoy playing with. Someone who wants to play with a Battle as a commander likely wants to do so for mechanical game play reasons, not flavor reasons.Similarly, more 4 color commanders being hard to justify with flavor shouldn't be the primary reason they are very seldom created even though there is immense demand for them.There's no flavor justification for Cycling or Kicker but they are deciduous mechanics that play very well and are extremely popular. They are examples of good game design even though one could dismiss them by saying "What's the flavor?" A hardcore Vorthros player might dismiss or dislike mechanics like Cycling and Kicker for that reason but that definitely shouldn't stop you from making designs mechanics.If you have this mentality with things like "mill", "kicker", and "cycling" and it is successful, I don't understand why you can't do other things that would lead to interesting gameplay even if it isn't a perfect flavor homerun?

Thoughts?

Intuition is a key part of good game design. You want things to play as the audience expects them to play. Flavor is an important part of that. If the flavor contradicts the card’s function, it will make players play it wrong. Some mechanics are light on flavor, so you can get away with lots of hand-waving. What does kicker represent? It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t evoke flavor in a way that will create false expectations. Commanders, by definition, are very flavorful. We can do weird things with them, but because they are so steeped in flavor, we have to be conscious of what the flavor will be, so we can design it such that players will assume the right things about its mechanical function. In short, flavor matters in some places mechanically more than others.One last thing, the reason we don’t do lots of four-color cards is all about design and play balance, and very little about flavor.

is there a reason beyond flavor that bargain isn't just a form of kicker?

I don’t believe 100% of the execution can be replicated with kicker. Nonetheless, many mechanics could be kicker. Kicker’s too broad of a mechanic, as regular Question Marks know.