Lifegain

Mono Blue Card Food Creation

Is it ok for a mono blue card to make food? Blue's not supposed to be able to gain life, right?

That’s not something blue should regularly do.

Blue Food Lifegain

Green or White for Life

Would you say green or white is flavorfully more about life (as in, the state of being alive, not lifegain)?

Green.

Green Lifegain White

Keyword Action for Life Gain

Has making a keyword action for gaining life been considered? Healing (so gain 3 life becomes "heal 3") feels like an easy to understand term for a common effect

I think adding the vocabulary actually makes things harder to learn. “Gain 3 life” is something players intuitively understand.

Keyword Actions Lifegain Heal

Existence of Life Gain Hate Cards

Is there any major reason why there two life gain hate cards in the next two sets?

It’s not like a giant conspiracy or anything.

Giants Lifegain

Compliment on Bloomburrow Bats

I just want to congratulate the team on the bats from Bloomburrow. They were the archetype I was most excited for, and I absolutely love the lore we've got for them - and the way the idea of them seeking balance is represented through both losing AND gaining life is a fantastic synergy of mechanics and flavour. High fives all round, please!

High fives to be applied.

Bats Bloomburrow Flavor High Fives Lifegain Mechanics Story / Lore

Ward Costs Overview

Regarding the hypothetical Ward costs that give opponents an upside instead of directly costing you anything, there's at least one card which does that repeatedly: Wall of Shards has an opponent of your choice gain life as a cumulative upkeep cost. This demonstrates that the game already treats benefiting your opponents as a cost.

Just because a card was printed once that does something doesn’t mean all problems with that thing were solved. Wards have to be costs and another player doing something isn’t a cost.

Cumulative Upkeep Lifegain Solved Three Color Wall of Shards Walls Ward

Artifact-Related Issues in Bloomburrow

I was checking out the previews for Bloomburrow and people were raising concerns about Ygra turning every creature into an artifact creature (since Foods are inherently artifacts). Someone raised the point that those tokens (Clues, Treasure, Food, Maps, Blood Junk, etc) could have been given a unique type to avoid unwanted artifact-related issues. Was that ever considered/discussed?(loving the cards so far and I already love "Hop/bounce" as a mechanic for frogs and foraging for squirrels! Also looking forward to the pay/gain life for bats since Orzhov is my favorite pair. My compliments to the chefs! Great cooking!)

We consider artifact synergy a feature, not a bug.

Artifacts Bats Blood Bloomburrow Creatures Food Frogs Junk Lifegain Mechanics Orzhov (W/B) Planechase Spoilers Squirrels Tokens Treasure

Unpacking Bat Card Lifegain Mechanic

Do Bats have something more interesting going on than lifegain?

Their play pattern is intermixed with gaining and spending life, but there’s a lot more nuance to it.

Bat Battle for Zendikar Lifegain Mechanics

Keyword 'Draw' Consistency

Re: Keyword 'Draw': "We increase confusion for what?"We'd gain some consistency. As the previous person noted, it'd put drawing cards in line with things such as scry, survail, and mill. It also would be adjacent to the changes from "enters the battlefield" to "enters." In the same way that the battlefield is the only thing that can be entered, cards are the only thing you can draw.I personally don't feel either way is inherently better, I just see the merit the previous post was getting at.

But we simply don’t template everything that involves a number like that. We don’t say Lifegain 3 and Discard 2 and Tutor 1.

Card Draw Discard Enter The Battlefield Keywords Lifegain Mill Scry Templating Tutoring

Usage of Emblems

Is there a reason cards that prevent cause an effect on a player for the rest of the game don’t use emblems as a memory aid? You have stared using emblems for effects like “you have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game,” but not for “you can’t gain life for the rest of the game” which seems like it could benefit from the memory aid.

It’s just not how we currently choose to use emblems.

Emblems Lifegain Your Hand

Color Flexibility Explanation

Mark, I recently went back and listened to your podcast, "Five Requests I Refuse" and appreciated your points about why you can't let every color do whatever the players might ask for. I get it: limiting each color keeps its identity distinct and gives other colors ways to win against it.But that raises the opposite question: why do the colors overlap as much as they do? Vigilance is available to green, white, and blue. Lifegain is in green, white, and (sometimes) black. Prowess is in blue, red, and white. Most colors get access to some form of creature removal. Ditto card draw (although with different conditions).

I get why the colors have to be as distinct as they are. Why shouldn't they be *more* distinct?

Because we have a lot of Magic cards to make and we need the flexibility to make them feel different from one another.

Black Blue Card Draw Colors Creatures Drive to Work Green Lifegain Prowess Red Vigilance White

Lifelink in Green/Red

Would it theoretically be possible for a green/red creature to have lifelink? Not necessarily permanently, maybe temporary through activation or through a specific trigger. Green has access to lifegain, and red often cares about damage, so something with both hurt and help makes thematical sense.

Lifelink isn’t primary or secondary source n either color, so I’m skeptical we’d do that.

Colors Creatures Green Lifegain Lifelink Lifelink Primary Red Secondary

Keyword Viability

Hi mark, you said it’s important to specify life loss and life gain so you’re sceptical on viability of ‘drain (target) x’ being keyworded. But lifelink is keyworded obfuscating the gain to new players is it just a volume thing or is the life loss vs damage in drain the real sticking point ?

It’s a volume and awareness thing.

Beginners Keywords Lifegain Lifelink Lifelink

Ancient Cornucopia Design

Can you speak to the design behind Ancient Cornucopia? At Mythic, I was surprised to see the once per turn clause there. Is gaining life like that something that needs to be limited in green, the way card draw is in white?

It’s not core to green life gain to limit it. That was a choice for that particular card’s design.

Ancient Cornucopia Card Draw Green Lifegain Limited Once Per Turn White

Lifelink in Green

Why is lifelink not in Green's pie? It seems like life gain that scales with a creature's power would be a sure fit.

Green and white overlap more than any other two colors, so we’re careful to do things to keep them separate.

Colors Green Lifegain Lifelink Lifelink White

Popularity of Food Tokens

I don't see why people like food tokens so much. Treasure is obviously very good, maybe too good when done in large amounts, clue tokens seem balanced even in large amounts, food is too weak to be viable yet people love it. Can you explain why designers and some people seem to like food tokens so much? Thanks

Food isn’t inherently “too weak”
Life gain is popular
Food, as a flavor, is popular

Clue Tokens Clue Tokens Flavor Food Lifegain Power Level Tokens Treasure

Blood Tokens Mechanic

Regarding Blood Tokens: Did you ever consider adding “You gain 1 life” in addition to the rummaging? I think this would have pushed the Vampires a bit, which lacked some Standard appearance, contributed to the life matters sub-theme in the set and made them way more flavorful.

The effect was base red (and black) which doesn’t get life gain.

Black Blood Flavor Lifegain Mechanics Red Standard Tokens Vampire

Color Pie Outputs

You’ve said how with white ramp & card draw, it’s essentially “the more white the input is, the less white the output has to be”. Taxing Noncreature spells is very white, so the payoff being card draw (like Esper sentinel) is a-okay. Is this the case with other effects too? As in, could a black card make treasures off of a zombie entering the field? Could a blue card gain life when you scry? Could a green card destroy creatures when it deals a bunch of combat damage? Stuff like that

The output still has to be something the color does. My point was that the closer to the core the input is, the less close to the core, the output can be. If you want an output that the color is tertiary in, the input should ideally be primary. The input being primary is not an excuse to be out of color.

Black Blue Card Draw Color Pie Colors Creatures Destroy Esper (W/U/B) Esper Sentinel Green Lifegain Non-creatures Primary Scry Sentinel Spells Tertiary Treasure White Zombie

Hybrid Cards Analysis

Hybrid cards are supposed to be effects that could work in either color individually, since they can be cast with either color individually. But I’ve noticed recently that a lot of hybrid cards aren’t really in pie for all of their colors. Spitting image, augery adept, several of the companions, and many others all are hybrid cards that aren’t actually in pie for one of their colors.

Let’s talk them through. Spitting Image - Green normally only copies its own creatures, but it is tertiary in copying creatures, often in token form, so it’s a bend, but not a break. Augery Adept - White normally doesn’t get curiosity (saboteur draw), but it can jump through a hoop once a turn to draw a card, so this is a bend. The life gain is the more serious issue. Blue doesn’t normally get to gain life, but we let it do so on rare occasion (there are two blue cards that make Food), so I’ll call it a strong bend. No part of the card is a clean break though. Have we ever made mistakes with hybrid? Sure. Shadowmoor block pushed hybrid a bit more than it should as almost half the cards were hybrid. That said, the percentage of color pie breaks among hybrid cards is below monocolor cards, so it’s not an increased threat of a color pie break.

Bend / Break Blue Card Draw Color Pie Colors Creatures Food Green Hybrid Lifegain Monocolor Once Per Turn Rares Shadowmoor Spitting Image Tertiary Tokens White

Augury Adept Discussion

Is Augury Adept in-pie for White now? It has to attack to get the card, which naturally limits it to once per turn. (I know the life gain means it's still a problem in Blue).

Let’s call it a bend.

Augury Adept Bend / Break Blue Lifegain Once Per Turn White