March of the Machine

Plans for Lessons Learned Podcast

Hi maro! Do you have any plans for a Lessons Learned podcast episode on March of the Machine?

I do. It’s the next Lessons Learned podcast.

Drive to Work March of the Machine Mark Rosewater

Planescase and Dr. Who Review

I like Planeschase but dislike Dr. Who. Mechanically, the Dr. Who product added some fun and interesting cards, but I skipped it because of the IP. How well did it do and is there a chance of getting more in-universe Planeschase?

The feedback on March of the Machine Commander decks and the Doctor Who Commander didn’t have the planechase element listed as high points of the set for players.

Commander Commander Decks Doctors March of the Machine Planechase

Introduction of Extra Creature Types

What was the first set you started to inject extra creature types into for bloomburrow?

Either Phyrexia: All Will Be One or March of the Machine. Not a lot of animals fit in Phyrexia though.

Bloomburrow Creatures March of the Machine Phyrexia: All Will Be One

Interest in Unvisited Planes

Which unvisited plane on March of the Machine battles most caught your attention for a premier set? (As a personal opinion. I know you can't disclose about Magic's future)

There’s an “unvisited” plane we’re visiting in Tennis (with unvisited meaning it hasn’t be the main setting of a set).

Battles March of the Machine Planes Premier Sets

Battles as Deciduous Mechanism

Will Battles become deciduous/evergreen or are they more of a thing saved for the big story event sets?

Battles are deciduous. We’re not quite to the sets yet where we got the feedback from March of the Machine that people liked them. Remember we work two years ahead. Also, deciduous means we use them where they make sense.

Battles Deciduous Evergreen March of the Machine Story / Lore

Product Forcing Pattern Break

I believe including both in the same product would have been a mistakeWell then you should have started with non siege battles and then made sieges later.Because the first version of a thing gets considered the default (which it really shouldn’t be in this case science it’s explicitly labeled as not being that by having a sub type but people love to not care about that for some reason)

They’re a default until they’re not. There are many things in Magic history that started one way and then evolved,March of the Machine needed Sieges, so we made Sieges. I get that we more often start with the simpler versions of things, but sometimes product needs force us to break patterns.

Battles March of the Machine Sieges Subtype

DFC Count in March

"25 is a decent amount, comparative to other DFC sets." There were 61 dfcs in March of the Machine

March of the Machine had two different DFC sheets, one for Battles and one for the rest, so it’s twice of a normal DFC set. Innistrad, the set that introduced DFCs had 28.

Battles Dual Faced Cards Innistrad March of the Machine

Father-Son Bonding

Some Magic-inspired stories, all about bonding with my son, who is now 7-and-a-half: I don’t remember what I did first to get him interested in Magic, but it was probably playing with my friend Max, who taught me and my now-wife how to play - but I know Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox 360 helped get my son into the game with the effects and music but especially archenemy variant and a Nicol Bolas final match.In the years since then, he and I occasionally get to talking about his favorite creature types and characters, and after quite some time, we have slowly narrowed down his choices to 4: Spiders, Zombies with Liliana, Nicol Bolas, and Niv-Mizzet. Not surprisingly, two of Magic’s most common dragons in that list. I don’t know what it is with dragons but I’m glad WotC had realized their appeal so they’re prominently there for my son to enjoy, and with quite a few options so he may get a Nicol Bols dragon deck that’s much different than any dragon deck I have tried to make myselfThanks to War of the Spark, I finally created a Horde Magic deck and he loved hearing about the storyline of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation leading up to the actual WAR set, as I explained those stories using key cards before we started the game, to establish the setting. Coincidentally, it was my son with his Gideon that ultimately dealt the final blow - no need to sacrifice himself the way it played out in our match! My son will still reference this game and it’s nearly been a year.Also since that time I learned that the classic Planeswalker webcomics had been bundled as graphic novels, so I got those and our nighttime routine for a bit was to read about Garruk’s corruption by Liliana and that build up to Rise of the Eldrazi and Mirrodin Besieged; coincidentally we finished as March of the Machine previews were going on, and my villain-loving son is now waiting for me to build a Phyrexian horde so he can battle Elesh Norn. We look forward to many more years with the game, and especially learning what comes next for some of our favorite still-active villains: Ashiok, Oko, and Tezzeret!

Thanks for sharing.

Amonkhet Archenemy Battles Creatures Devastation Dragon Eldrazi Hour of Devastation Hour of Devastation March of the Machine Mirrodin Besieged Mirrodin Besieged Nicol Bolas Phyrexian Planeswalkers Pop Culture Pop Culture Pop Culture Rise of the Eldrazi Rise of the Eldrazi Sacrifice Spider Spoilers War of the Spark War of the Spark Wizards of the Coast Zombie

MH3 Battle Cards

Are there no battles in MH3? I kinda figured there would be at least one or two since it had a double faced card theme. I feel like we would have seen them by now though if there were.

We work two years ahead. The majority of work on Modern Horizons III was done before the public saw March of the Machine.

Battles March of the Machine Modern Horizons Modern Horizons 3

Phyrexian Invasion Implications

About the Phyrexian invasion thing, first, thanks for reading and responding to my novel of an ask. I appreciate that you go out of your way to address this kind of feedback.Second, I recognize that it’s not clear how best to handle things like this when you don’t know how the audience will react, and I respect that you all did what you thought was best with the given information. I sent that ask more to explain how I and (I believe) others feel about how it was handled after the fact, not to try and convince you that it was wrong.I also appreciate the narrative implications of Realmbreaker’s breeching the multiverse, creating the omenpaths, desparking most planeswalkers, and how that has shaped the upcoming arc. Actually I’m really interested in this arc because you’ve been able to do things that were never possible before. I also appreciate that there’s online story content for the vorthoses.In other words, nothing you said is wrong, obviously. I was trying to articulate that there seems to be some kind of disconnect between the expectation that the audience had about how a Phyrexian invasion would play out and what your plans were. There seems to be some missing thing that really sells the idea of “yeah, the invasion was every bit as bad as you thought it would be, and then some.” Maybe it’s because stories like this generally have a “the bad guys won” moment before the good guys win (like Infinity War and Endgame), and March of the Machine seemed to have breezed through both.Also, looking through the comments I see there are plenty of people who don’t want to dwell on the Phyrexians any longer than we have to.

Looking back, I do think we wanted to structure Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine differently. I would have started the war in Phyrexia and had the bad guys are dominating moment be the stinger at the end of that set’s story. (Note: this is all my opinion.)

Invasion March of the Machine Omenpaths Phyrexia: All Will Be One Phyrexian Planeswalkers Story / Lore Vorthos

Phyrexian Invasion Impact

I understand that there are things you can point to that are visible consequences of the Phyrexian invasion like story content and the deaths of Eldraine’s king and queen, but doesn’t it say something that you need to point those out as counter arguments to begin with?The problem with threatening a Phyrexian planar threat is that the damage was implied to be irreversible. Compleation often involved grotesque surgical mutilation, so it doesn’t make sense that compleated characters could return to normal so easily and without any significant scarring. Phyrexian oil is supposed to be so dangerous that a single drop could eventually infect and corrupt an entire plane, so it seems impossible to eradicate. Even ignoring the resilience of the Phyrexians themselves, a large scale military invasion aided by the most powerful beings on each plane should have left those planes in a post-apocalyptic state, yet all of that seems to be off-screen or completely disregarded. We went underground for Ixalan, so we didn’t see the devastation. We went into the wilds for Eldraine, so we didn’t see the courts in shambles. Ravnica seems to be the same as ever, just with more detective hats. And the last set of the year that immediately followed the invasion takes place on a plane nobody even lived on during the invasion, so there were no consequences to show off.I think the real issue isn’t necessarily that there weren’t consequences, but that you guys chose deliberately not to show them on cards, outside of the desparked planeswalkers and a few cards in Aftermath. As it is, it’s difficult to believe that the Phyrexian threat that was built up over decades could be so easily repelled AND completely defeated at the height of their power, but I would argue that the sets directly following the invasion should have all had a blatantly dark, somber, post-apocalyptic theme. Instead, we got a bunch of light hearted costume party sets that seemed chosen specifically to NOT show how much damage was done. I get that you want to have a tone shift after a darker year, but it just feels like instead of getting closure, we all just got whiplash instead. It would have been better to show a struggling multiverse slowly learning to rebuild before diving into the next big arc.

There’s a big difference between did big things happen and do we need to focus on them? For the Vorthoses who read the stories, the Phyrexian War had huge consequences for many worlds. From a game standpoint, it changed how we used a whole card type and allowed us to make sets we couldn’t make before. The impact of the events of March of the Machine on flavor and mechanics was major.The reason we didn’t focus on the outcomes on the cards and have a year of dreary sets is we strongly believed the majority of the players didn’t want that.

Aftermath Card Types Compleated Detective Devastation Eradicate Flavor Infect Into the Wilds Invasion Ixalan March of the Machine Mechanics Phyrexian Planes Planeswalkers Story / Lore The Wilds Vorthos

Lord of the Rings Battles

Out of curiosity, why didn't the Battle of Helm's Deep/the Hornburg and the Battle of Pelennor Fields get, well, Battles printed in any of the Lord of the Rings products?The Black Gate got a random Gate, so it just seems like a missed opportunity.

The Lord of the Rings was actually designed before March of the Machine as Universes Beyond products have numerous review cycles with the licensor and thus have a longer design schedule. So why didn’t it have Battles? Battles didn’t exist yet.

Battles Black Card Printing Cycles Gates March of the Machine The Black Gate Universes Beyond

MOM Planes Familiarity

Do you have a sense where the new planes introduced on MOM sit on the Rabiah Scale?

No planes in March of the Machine were new as of the set. Every plane referenced in it had been referenced in other places before.

March of the Machine Planes Rabiah Scale

Phyrexians Future Rating

What's Phyrexian as a creature type on the Beeble Scale after what's happened in march of the machine

I’m skeptical we’ve seen the last of the Phyrexians, but I don’t expect to see them soon. Let’s call Phyrexian a 5.

Beeble Scale Creatures March of the Machine Phyrexian

Odds of Battles in Sets

Does the fact that we know final act is in the set raise the odds that battles might be in the set?

I’ll say this. Battles went over well in March of the Machine, and R&D intends to make more. I can’t promise it’s in Modern Horizons III.

Battles Final Act March of the Machine Modern Horizons

Possible Aminatou Creature Upgrade

Hi Mark,Since many planeswalkers got desparked after March of the machines, does the chances of us getting a new Aminatou at least as a legendary creature improved?

The chances are improved.

Creatures March of the Machines Planeswalkers

Issue with Reprinting Oko

I don't like the argument that because original Oko is at a higher rarity on a bonus sheet, it's impact in Limited is minimal so it's fine.

Not everyone plays on Magic Arena and does Limited events dozens of times. Some people only play Limited in paper a couple times or at a pre-release and it's extremely discouraging when the one or two times you play limited, you get bodied by a notoriously OP card that isn't even a mechanically new card.

Magic makes numerous different products, various products where they can reprint cards that aren't also used for Limited (i.e. collector boosters, FNM promos, Secret Lair, pre-constructed Commander decks) or even high powered reprint Masters sets that can be drafted.

I don't see why Oko needed to be in the Play Boosters and I thought the same about Ragavan in March of the Machine. If it's thematically important to release the reprint associated with the set, then why not just do it in collector boosters?

One thing I don't like about all of these bonus sheets is it means in nearly every limited environment with them, the best and most powerful cards are oftentimes old cards that I'd played with or against rather than the new cards I want to be excited for.

Let’s see what the Question Mark’s think about this specific topic.
Should Oko, Thief of Crowns be on the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Breaking News bonus sheet?Yes No Don’t care See Results

Blogatog / Tumblr Bonus Sheets Boosters Collector Boosters Commander Decks Limited Magic Arena March of the Machine Oko, Thief of Crowns Outlaws of Thunder Junction Play Boosters Promos Rarity Rarity Reprints Sealed Format Secret Lairs

Aftermath Planning Insights

re: MKM Aftermath.Was the decision to not execute on it made before or after MAT failed so spectacularly?

We wanted to do an Aftermath for the next Magic year, and started by asking what set should have it. We then came to the conclusion that it should be the last set in the “Magic year”. All of that happened before March of the Machine: Aftermath came out.

Aftermath March of the Machine March of the Machine: The Aftermath Murders at Karlov Manor

Dual Legends Planeswalkers

In March of the Machine we got legendary creature cards with two legends depicted in the art, name and similar abilities that the original legendaries had. Is it unrealistic to see planeswalkers printed the similar way? For example in Throne of eldraine we got The Royal Scions for Will and Rowan. Flavor wise it was one of my favorite cards to play with on Arena just from the voice lines of the two characters bickering with one another.

It’s on the table if there’s a reason to do it.

Art Card Printing Creatures Flavor Legendary Creatures Magic Arena March of the Machine Planeswalkers Scion The Royal Scions Throne of Eldraine Throne of Eldraine

Omenpaths Current State

How are the omenpaths as of this moment in mtg's story? I was confused when listening to episode 2 and they mentioned the town being built around the omenpath, in my head the feel like they are only a few months old - definitely not old enough to have a town develop around them with a hidden vault. Thanks!

There is an eighteen-month gap between March of the Machine and Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

March of the Machine Omenpaths Outlaws of Thunder Junction Story / Lore