It’s currently a green ability, but could blue and red share “This creature must be blocked if able”? They both have forced attack, and red is already secondary in both forced block and limited lure (single turn, only one creature must block). It also plays into blue evasion in a way that I believe can shoulder some of the burden currently managed by blue Jump effects.

Red already has access to that ability. We’ve really moved away from forced blocking in blue.

Hi Mark. I was sick during my birthday a week ago and forgot to message you. As a Spike limited player I was reminiscing earlier about simpler times. I started in Revised, and still love MTG after all these years. When I first started playing as a kid, I was in love with the combo of Bog Wraith and Evil Presence (so much flavor). Can you give me fun trivia about a combo that YOU enjoy?

The first combo that fascinated me was Lure and Thicket Basilisk. The first deck I made was monogreen as my first Starter deck had a Craw Wurm.Happy Belated Birthday!

To answer a previous user's question about Paper Magic doing things digital cannot: There are a number of examples of decks that involve very long sequences that a computer cannot handle easily (or sometimes at all) that often involve long loops. These Paper Legacy decks are quite powerful, but because it is very hard to say "I want to this a million times" on digital, they tend to be played less because it is annoying to play through on a digital client (e.g. Aluren, Food Chain, Bomberman).

FYI

Merry Christmas Mark! It is also my birthday, so I would like to request some trivia you have on Aluren, please!

Aluren was designed by Mike Elliott. At the time, green was the sole “creature color” and Mike made a card to encourage a green weenie deck. (For green, “weenie” is 3 power or less.) We later upgraded white to being more creature focused and let white excel at small creatures and green at big creatures.Happy Birthday!

Dear Mark Note Blue has Amnesia, Dismal Failure, Forget Minamos Meddling, Piracy Charm, (my favorite)Probe with Kicker, Riptide Pilferer. Venarian Glimmer potentially Apathy, Coral Net, Mind Bomb and Trapfinder's Trick are all examples of Blue Discard so, no Black does not have a monopoly on Discard.

You can do the same with non-blue counterspells. Note both lists lean pretty heavily on early Magic.

Printed Aluren refers to creature "cards", Oracle to creature "spells". Given Adventures, is this a functional change?

Early magic used “cards” lazily. The intent was always spells, we just didn’t have tight enough templating.

Has green gone away from having powerful, interesting enchantments? Like Sylvan Library (out of colour pie, I know), Survival of the Fittest, Aluren, Pattern of Rebirth, etc? Seems like a space green used to play in that it doesn't any more...

Green is still allowed access to powerful, in color pie, enchantments.

This is a way back question, but did the flavor text on Aluren influence the converted mana costs of Mirri, and later Squee?

Not that I know of.

Finished the podcast on Innistrad today, and you don't mention it at all. Were flip cards ever considered for werewolves? I know they weren't a success or anything, but they fulfill a similar purpose in-game, although the psychological effect is obviously much smaller.

Flip cards were a dismal failure so no I never considered them as a choice for werewolves. The only thing flip cards did do was make me doubt a little if double-faced cards would work. But they avoided a lot of the problems with flip cards (muddy image, confusion on tapped state, etc.) so we gave them a try.