Rarity

Bloomburrow's Box Buying Rarity

Hi, mark. Bloomburrow’s buy-a-box is only obtainable as a buy a box. Is this a 1-off thing?

I don’t think so, but more a hunch than knowledge. Buy-a-box designs aren’t something I interact with much. (They happen in set design.)

Rarity Set Design

Balancing Creature Types in Bloomburrow

Hi there Mark!I know previews for Bloomburrow aren't quite over just yet, but one thing that I've noticed that I'm a bit sad about is how some of the creature types seem to be more favored than others in terms of number and rarity. This seems especially apparent when you look at Frogs vs. Bats.I was REALLY into the aesthetics and world building given to the bats of Bloomburrow, but looking at the spoilers so far, Bats have 50% fewer spoiled cards than Frogs (10 vs. 15), as well as only 2 rare bats revealed thus far compared to Frogs having 5 rares and 2 mythic rares.

The ten main animals are not exact in number, but they are in the ballpark of one another.

Bats Bloomburrow Creatures Frogs Mythic Rares Rares Rarity Spoilers Rarity

Distributing Card Rarity Per Set

How does the team decide how many rares and mythics or just overall cards each color gets from set to set?

Colors are always balanced in common and uncommon, and often rare. Mythic rare is the only rarity where there’s usually never a totally even split.

Colors Mythic Rares Rares Rarity Uncommons Rarity

Disparity in Spirit Guide Rarity

Why is Simian Spirit Guide printed at common but Elvish Spirit Guide uncommon?

The Planar Chaos timeshifted sheet did some wonky things to rarities.

Elvish Spirit Guide Planar Chaos Rarity Simian Spirit Guide Spirit Uncommons

Proportions of Double-Faced Cards

Do sets with double-faced cards generally want a certain proportion of cards to be DFCs?

Double-faced cards have to be on their own sheet, so the sheet math dictates their as-fan. We have some wiggle room with how many cards of each rarity we have, but the collation math steers as-fan.

As-fan Card Printing Dual Faced Cards Rarity Rarity

Miku Secret Lair Bonus Cards

I just got my Miku secret lair and generally I'm very happy with it; it looks gorgeous. However, I must comment frustration that there's two separate bonus cards, with a difference of rarity it seems, no less. It sucks that 'oh actually there's another Miku card you don't get without going to the secondary market which will absolutely ratchet up the price." This feels different to the more generic bonus cards like the slivers which weren't attached to any one secret lair

Two questions: (for everyone to answer) 1) Do you prefer the bonus to be connected to the Secret Lair theme or separate? 2) Do you like the ability to occasionally get rarer bonus cards, or would you prefer all of them get the same thing?

Colorless Rarity Secondary Secret Lairs Slivers The Secret Lair

Land Control in Color Pie

Hey Mark, a color pie question: where would “gain control of target land” and “create a copy of target land” be? Also it’s my 40th birthday, can I have a land-related trivia? Thanks!

Assuming we wanted to do them, permanently stealing and copying things is blue. Land is actual a rarity. Happy Birthday!

Birthday Blue Color Pie Lands Rarity Rarity

Snow-Covered Wastes rarity and precedent

Why is the Snow-Covered Wastes an uncommon and is that a precedent for the future?

I don’t think anything in a Modern Horizons set is a precedent, except maybe for a future Modern Horizons set.

Modern Horizons Rarity Snow-Covered Wastes Uncommons

Foil Rarity Symbol Discussion

Has there been any discussion to make foil its own rarity and give it a different color set symbol. That would be idiotic. Rarity is how rare the CARD is, not that specific printing of it. And having some cards only available in foil would make the foil treatment completely meaningless.

I think what the person was asking was foil cards happen at a lower occurrence than nonfoil cards. Could the rarity symbol reflect that? The challenge is it would require a bunch of new rarity symbols as foils of different rarities occur at different rates.

Colors Foils Rares Rarity Rarity

Rarity Evaluation Changes Since 2018

I recently tried my hand at the Great Designer Search 3 Test from your "Make a choice" articles in 2018 and was wondering if some of the answers might be different now in 2024. Specifically, I wanted to ask do you think about rarity differently than you did then? How so? (For reference: the rarity questions were 2, 5, 16, 48, 52, and 55)

You can ask me about a particular question, but you need to list it. I’m trying to answer as many questions as I can. I usually don’t have time to track things down.

Rarity Rarity Search Your Hand

Foil as Separate Rarity

Has there been any discussion to make foil its own rarity and give it a different color set symbol.

I have not heard such a thing talked about.

Colors Foils Rarity

Easiest Rarity to Design

What would you say is the rarity that's the easiest to design for?

Probably rare.

Rares Rarity Rarity

DFC Sheet Rarity Guidelines

I can’t find uncut DFC sheets and I was wondering when you have DFCs (or other bonus sheets), what general principles can you give us for rarities and number of cards for our custom sets? It seems to change every time, but are their guidelines that we can understand like how many cards can be on a sheet or if multiple rarities are on a sheet, how many times a a single card of a rarity must appear on that sheet? Just so we can approximate something close to the restrictions you have. If only to breed creativity. ;)

Just pick your favorite DFC set and use those numbers. The DFC sheet numbers are all about collation and having cards show up at the right ratio, and we don’t get into collation specifics.

Bonus Sheets Card Printing Custom Cards Dual Faced Cards Humor Rarity Rarity

Common Legend Rarity

"Also, Homelands which came out in 1995 had two common legendary creatures (Chandler and Joven), so I wouldn't call this a new thing. "It certainly isn't a new thing. The issue is more of a frequency thing, so I suppose the better phrase would be that common legendaries aren't very.....common :D

They are not. : )

Chandler Creatures Humor Joven Legendary Creatures Rarity

Card Rarity Concern

Mark, can you pass along the request for a common paper printing of chainer's edict. It's pauper legal form VMA but is only physically printed in uncommon.

I can pass it along. We tend not to put two for ones at common, which makes doing so tricky.

Card Printing Chainer's Edict Pauper Rarity Uncommons

Beebles Rarity

Has there been a set without Beebles? And if so why? 🧐

There have been many. Why? Because too many R&D members have yet come to understand the genius that is the Beeble. : )

Beeble Humor Rarity

Green's Flying Rarity

Why exactly doesn’t green normally get flying?

The game works best if every color doesn’t have access to any one ability. Green/Blue had an earth vs. sky conflict (among many others), and there were things green could get (reach, flyer destruction, etc.) to address it.

Blue Colors Flying Green Rarity Simic (G/U)

Fortify Mechanic Rarity

Why is the fortify mechanic so unused?

Because it has to go on an enchantment that goes on a land that you want to move. That’s a tiny landing strip for design.

Enchantments Fortify Fortify Lands Mechanics Rarity

Big White Creatures Rarity

"Avacyn’s in color pie. We don’t do a lot of big white creatures, but we can do a few from time to time." I'm curious, why do you avoid doing a lot of big white creatures? Every other color, even blue, seems to get them a lot more than white.

White is more focused on smaller creatures teaming up.

Blue Color Pie Colors Creatures Rarity White

Green Buff Spells

hi MaRo, looking at the various mecanic each colors has, that come back every set ( counterspell or draw for blue, kill spell or reanimate for black, damage of impulsive draw for red, ramp or bite on green ) its quite safe to see why those keep coming back, tuned a little or improved for the powercreep, since those are fondamental to the color on top of being useful as a whole.However there's one thing that come back, yet I'm always confuse of why, given how seemingly weaker than most other effect it is, that being : green buffing spells. Things like "gain +2/+2" or "+1/+3". Given how the game evolve, I always wondered, why those low cost spells with simple stat increase spells keep coming back ? Are those viewed as useful enough nowadays to be worth making ? Or are those easy to make, cards that help fill the lowest rarity ?

Those spells see plenty of play, especially in limited formats.

Black Blue Colors Evolve Fight / Bite Green Limited Mark Rosewater Rarity Red Spells