If the concept of Land Destruction causes player ire, yet old heads like me think it’s a vital stop gap, can we sidestep the problem? Phasing them out for X turns or X number of stun counters? Functionally the same, less feelsbad than the straight Armageddon.

Phasing them out causes most of the same issues.

Follow up to my recent question about upgrading mechanics: like I said, it's become more of a recent trend to either introduce new mechanics as upgrades of older ones (Disguise, Cascade, Blitz) or even just tweaking old mechanics to make them a bit more intuitive to use (Hideaway, Amass, Phasing).Is this a conscious and active effort on R&D's part? Or is it more a product of the game's long lifespan? I.e. you can only create so many new mechanics before you have to start reinventing the wheel, so to speak.

Design technology keeps improving and the game keeps adapting. Good mechanics can fall out of favor due to changes, so updating them is just good design practice.

A brief run down of the differences between flicker and phasing. Flicker protects against all targeted removal and delayed flicker from all removal. It nombos with Voltron strategies and tokens but has bonus synergy with leave/ETB triggers plus resets cards (say an undying creature). Phasing meanwhile offers no synergies positive or negative but AFAIK all phasing is long term so will protect against anything. When coupled with hexproof and Indes I enjoy the range of protection options we have.

Each has its positives and negatives, and we want access to both.

what happens if my library phases out while it is a creature?

It’s phased out (and phasing out doesn’t make the card leave the battlefield). You’ll probably lose when you can’t draw a card.EDIT: Oops. I messed up. The rules don’t prevent you from drawing off a phased out library.

Is caring about things phasing in or out part of white's color pie? Growing up with mirage, I'd've thought it was blue, but we got that WB card in LOTR and now the War Doctor in WR. Also I think phasing matters is a super cool direction considering the changes to phasing no longer being tied to the old keyword--which I guess is why it's no longer blue.

“Phasing matters” is white and blue.

Vehicles are pretty good but sagas are better and yet vehicles are in every set and u won't even make sagas deciduous. Phasing is deciduous. Think about that. Which mechanic is better? Obviously sagas

Sagas *are* deciduous.

What would past maro be most surprised to hear is on multiple cards in standard: affinity, phyrexian mana, or phasing out?

Probably phasing out. : )

You’ve said that blue isn’t supposed to get creature removal like Pongify anymore, the transformations should either be temporary or on auras. That being said, is phasing of zhalfir a bend or break? It’s basically just a mass Pongify, and since it’s it’s from DMR, half the time it’s just a sorcery that only says the third chapter

It’s a major bend on the third chapter of a Saga. Things can slip through as we’re phasing things out of colors (pun intended, of course).

Just a heads up on your recent storm scale article you have phasing listed as a 9, that's likely because of how phasing used to work. But it has become far more common in design since it's rework.

That’s phasing as a creature ability like it occurred in Mirage (aka here every other turn). The deciduous ability is phasing out. That said, I get the confusion and will change the 9 example in my next Storm Scale article.

Is there any benefit to having something permanently phase out vs exiling it?

They mechanically do slightly different things.