Do you have data on what people thought the outcome to Mirrodin Besieged was going to be? It was always very obvious to me that New Phyrexia was going to win out for a number of reasons, and I was curious if that was the majority opinion.

I believe more thought Phyrexia was going to win. The biggest misconception was that the Mirrodin Besieged prerelease choices were going to influence the third set in the block.

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.

Re: upcoming cards-named-after-sets. So far, they have all been specific references. e.g. Mirrodin Besieged(card) is a reference to Mirrodin Besieged(set). Is it possible for there still to be cards that use a set name but aren't related? e.g. Prophecy(set) is not a reference to Prophecy(card). There are still sets with names that could be on a generic card.

R&D seems tickled doing it. I’m sure one day we’ll do a generic reference.

Hi, Mark! I enjoy seeing Urza's Saga join the ranks of Time Spiral, Mirrodin Besieged, and Hour of Devastation, among others. Can I request more cards named after sets (or more sets named after cards)?

R&D seems to enjoy doing it.

It's been a few days, but I would like to try again and cash in my trivia voucher from my birthday. Do you have anything about my favorite set and plane New Phyrexia?

I believe New Phyrexia was the only time we commissioned art that we had no intention of ever printing. For New Phyrexia, the audience didn’t know the outcome of the war in Mirrodin Besieged. The set was going to be New Phyrexia if the Phyrexians won and Mirrodin Pure if the Mirrans won. As part of the promotion, we mocked up products for both sets which involved us getting art for Mirrodin Pure even though we knew that set would never happen.Happy Belated Birthday!

Was there ever a complaeted Karn or corrupted Karn creature card planned for Scars/Besieged?

No. The art of it does appear in Mirrodin Besieged.

Cost this card: "CARDNAME deals 3 damage to target creature or player. Infect." (Supposing the rules didn't disallow infect on anything but creatures in the end.)

The infect bolt we had dealt 2 damage and was red. It was designed in Scars of Mirrodin design and was planned for Mirrodin Besieged but the rules weren’t written to support infect on spells so it got dropped. (It didn’t seem worth a bunch of extra words for a single spell.) EDIT: I went back and looked. Faulty memory. The Infect Bolt only dealt 1. Even 2 was too much.

The card Gruesome Encore feels a a lot more Innistrad that Scars of Mirrodin. Is it a card that was first designed for Innistrad/DKA then bumped into Mirrodin Besieged? Does it happen frequently?

One of the problems with having Scars of Mirrodin bump up against Innistrad was that both were using horror tropes as a core underlying feature. (We tried to separate them but other factors prevented us.) We ended up letting Scars of Mirrodin have science fiction horror and Innistrad have gothic horror but even then yes, there were plenty of overlapping cards that could have gone either way.

When you have a new idea for a block, do you make a plan of sorts when you pitch it? How much time would such a plan of approach generally take, and how big is it?

Once I get a plan for a block, I then have to present it to various other people and essentially sell it to them. Part of doing that is breaking down how exactly the block theme will play out in each set. For example, I sold Scars block as such. Scars of Mirrodin: we revisit a popular world but we learn that something sinister has festered since we were last here. Mirrodin Besieged: The Mirrans learn of the existence of the Phyrexians and the two sides go to war. New Phyrexia: We learn who won the war and see how the Phyrexians have converted Mirrodin into New Phyrexia. Different blocks take different amounts of time to plan. Part of it depends on how long I take to come up with the idea and part of it depends on how much I have to make changes based on the feedback I get.