When you were creating Outlaws of Thunder Junction, where you ever concerned that when people talked about drafting OTJ that some older players might be worried about seeing UG madness?

: )For those non-old timers out there. Blocks were often nicknamed with the first letter of each set in the block. So Odyssey/Torment/Judgment draft was often called OTJ. One its major draft archetype was green/blue madness.

In respose to power creep. Power creep doesn't only exist at the top end of cards. Yes design hopefully will not print more powerful versions of the power 9 of Tinker, but power creep at common and uncommon cards is very real and has made a huge impact on limited and kitchen table magic games especially on creatures(there is no one who can say todays creatures do not outclass creatures from Alpa all the way through Odyssey). Now some of this power creep was needed and some pushed into dangerous areas but ultimately power creep is real.

Creatures have gotten better because creatures in the early days were very weak. So yes, the power curve for creatures has gone up over time.The thing you’re describing isn’t power creep. It’s the nature of how non-rotating formats work. In any group of cards, there’s a top tier. As you add more cards to the system, it becomes harder to make it into that top tier. Let’s say each set adds a few cards to it. With time those new cards will displace old cards.

We've seen a slight increase in cards that care about being targeted recently after what I feel has been a fairly long absence (From ~3/year since Odyssey block to ~5/year since KHM). Since there seems to be some design space for this mechanic (even at common with Illusory Servant effects and Cactarantula) do you think we might see a greater focus on these kinds of effects in future sets?

It will ebb and flow. It’s a natural part of the game we can care about.

"This card's name is Dragon's Approach in the graveyard" - There actually are two cards like this already from the Odyssey block, Diligent Farmhand counts as a Muscle Burst and Pardic Firecat counts as a Flame Burst for the purposes of those effects. I"f [card name] is in a graveyard, [other card]'s effect counts it as an [other card]"

FYI

If it hasn’t been mentioned, let me note that my favorite thing about the Fallout decks is that we’ve completed the Odyssey dual land cycle. Well done!

Sometimes it takes a little time. : )

Hey Mark. Trying again on my birthday trivia.I liked Avens ever since I saw the art of Aven Fisher. And I really enjoyed Francisco as a legendary cockatoo. He has a similar expression to my late parrot. Yes also once walked around with a (dull) knife 😅Can I get a trivia on avens, Fransisco or legendary birds in MTG?PS: I love to play Fransisco simply as a reminder to my parrot who spent a lot of time on my shoulder when I first started MTG.

When Avens first appeared, in Odyssey, I made sure every one was Bird with a Class type, mostly Soldier, as I was trying hard to get more creature types on the card type line. Happy Belated Birthday!

Of all of the sets you've been involved in making, from which set design process did you learn the most?

My gut response is Odyssey, but I learn from them all.

Torment leaned Black, Judgement leaned GW, was there any talk about leaning Odyssey UR?

No, Torment and Judgment taught us the dangers of doing it, and we’re are unlikely to color weight again.

What sets/blocks do you think were made with the most focus towards Spikes?

Odyssey was the spike-iest block we ever made.

how likely is that we could get a plane with only odd/less printed creature types? for example: brushwagg; zubera; kavu's ... etc

That’s what I did in Odyssey. It didn’t go well (as we didn’t plan as ahead as we do now and didn’t know Onslaught was going to be typal).I think we like to find spots for new and less used creature types, but as this blog shows there are a lot of existing favorites that need their time in the sun.