I seem to always find lots and lots of discourse about block sets. Two sides of the same argument every time.
Side 1 says something like:"I hate all these random sets, I miss block sets."
To which, Side 2 says; "Well block sets never sold as well at the end, players attention span's are better suited for one and done blocks."
My problem with this response is that it essentially ignores the initial statement. Rather than clarifying what they mean, they assume and answer.
Personally, I miss block sets, but ONLY from a story perspective.
Basically, do sets exactly the same as you're doing now. Draft is better now than blocks were, standard with Foundations sounds fantastic. The only thing I'd like to see is a set of setup, and a set of payoff.
MKM was a set based on a murder mystery with the big twist ending basically included in the release, as an example. It could've benefitted from a real, but delayed, payoff. Set up the consequences for each suspect, then reveal and give different consequences that were hinted at in other ways. Bam. Improved.
The last time we visited New Phyrexia, it was a block, I remember ubiquitous speculation over how the story would wrap up. There were factions events at local game stores, branded posters and packs for the factions at play, etc. I had a friend get the New Phyrexian emblem tattooed on themselves. The story felt *Important* and so much less divorced from magic than it does today.
Usually, in my experience, when someone asks for blocks, they're asking for the story to matter. There are lots of mechanically interesting card games out there, and mechanics are only part of what makes magic, magic!
All I would ask is that writers get the opportunity to do setups and payoffs with magic's evolving story with multiple sers, and that story related sets have *some* play synergies. They don't need to share mechanical themes just to share story themes, but it would be a nice little florish if they had mechanical synchronisets,
Hell, a REALLY good idea (in my opinion) would be to do these sets in a different order than the old method. Modern fantasy novels swap POV characters and follow different stories. Why not set up multiple stories in a row, then start to alternate resolving an older, established plot line, and then starting a new one or swapping to another established one. This really gives players time to get interested and speculate (and making the story FEEL present will likely also boost novels and comics numbers, etc., if you need a monetary reasoning.)
What do you think Mark?

We already do a lot of what you’re asking. Each Magic “year” does have a larger connected story, often with different POV characters.

Mark. Please pass along this feedback to the appropriate people please. Thank you. The decision to not have an emergency ban on nadu in modern is deeply concerning, the best case scenario is that we have a few weeks of terrible magic and then a ban hits this deck and we have to hope it wasn't obscuring any other must ban issues the format. The worst case is you stick to no bans mid season and modern season is entirely unplayable. This deck is immensely powerful and slows down events like eggs

I will pass along the message.

How successful was Modern Horizons 3? Did its reception meet your expectations?

It’s doing very well. Expectations met. : )

The core of the supplemental set issue is that players want a Future Sight 2 type of set to exist, but we all buy the crap out of Modern Horizons, which occupies the "high complexity deep cuts" slot, so Wizards will always pick making a Modern Horizons 4 over a Future Sight 2

For curiosity:

Which would you prefer? Modern Horizons 4Future Sight 2No preference

Maybe it's a bit of a reductionist view, but at a larger timeframe, eternal formats don't really exist. They thrive for a time and are then replaced by something else. Legacy replaced Vintage, Modern replaced Legacy, one day Pioneer will replace Modern and after that, new formats will be born. Yes, there are still Vintage and Legacy players, but at a macro scale, the percentage of players is shrinking.
I think it is very okay to accept this as a fact of the game.

The word “eternal” is a poor choice as we use “eternal” to mean formats with access to (mostly) all the cards. Vintage, Legacy, and Commander are all eternal formats. So eternal formats do exist. : )But your larger point of how Magic keeps shifting where it focuses its formats is true.

Hey Mark, could cards be reprinted as text less full arts with the same art they already had? I just saw Campbell White's art for the elemental incarnation cycle in the MH3 special guests for the first time, and think that it actually gets hurt by the text box blocking a bit of it, and think it would be really cool if versions with just the art could exist.

It depends on the art ratio.

"The issue is many players enjoy the higher powered designs of the straight to modern sets." I think there is a larger issue, but its impossible to capture given the character limit. There is an article from 2019 by Jeff Cunningham called "Lands and Spells" I would love if you could read just the section that starts with "I asked Randy Buehler once.." and ends with "Taking in the big picture.." ...Does the game designer have any business designing beyond what the most customers want? I think yes

I went and read the section in the article you mentioned. My primary goal as Head Designer is to make Magic the best game it can be. Market research (along with talking with all of you here) helps inform our choices, by giving us a better understanding of what the players want.Good game design isn’t just doing what the players want though. We need to surprise you and push the game in directions you don’t expect, but I am, and the rest of R&D, are negligent in our duties as game designers if we don’t have a good understanding of what the players interests in the game are when we plan out future designs.

If we can acknowledge that a number of players have complaints with the "card influx" from Modern Horizons sets causing the power level of formats to spike drastically, do you have any insights on how this issue is going to be tackled, or if it's even something that needs to be fixed at all?

It’s an issue being examined. The issue is many players enjoy the higher powered designs of the straight to modern sets.

Hey Mark! Not to be confrontational or anything but can we, at this point, say that the MH sets (specially mh3) caused power creep? The meta on the pro tour was pretty rough. Thanks for all your hard work!

It raised the power level of the format. That happens whenever enough new (relevant) cards enter a format. Before we starting making cards for Modern (when sets were mostly focused at Standard), the influx of (relevant) new cards was low, so format churn was low. Olds cards did get forced out by new cards, but it happened at a much slower rate. That’s not what “power creep” is. So, if you want to be unhappy with format churn due to products being created with a higher power level as they’re aimed at Modern, that’s very reasonable. It’s a “card influx” complaint not a “power creep” complaint.

Since the decision seems to be that you won't be returning to blocks, have you guys considered other ways of including additional sets for beloved planes? I think some interesting ways to do it could be by having modern horizons/commander legends sets focused on a single plane.

The mixing and matching of old mechanics would make it tricky to do a Modern Horizons set on one world.