Hey Maro! I don't have beef with the punny card names, they give me a chuckle and I like when the tone of magic varies a little. I am curious if you can comment on how they get translated, though- Holy Cow seems like a distinctly English phrase, and even concepts like a Red Herring or a Private Eye probably don't have one-for-one equivalencies in other languages. I know it's not your department, but do you know how they tackle this problem?

The translations usually look for humor that makes more sense in that language. They’re usually not direct translations.

You mention in your article that the red herring flavor was dropped, but I think it still works in a meta-sense. Because it's a 2/2 that has to attack, it loses value as an attacker if your opponent has a 2/3 or bigger, and at that point you can sacrifice it for a card. But if you attack with multiple creatures, your opponent is incentivized to block it, even though you plan to sacrifice it anyway, effectively distracting one blocker towards a false lead. :)

Sure. : )

I’d like to give a high five to “Red Herring” designer. Amazing, A+ flavor.

: )

So I take it that the Mystery Booster 'test' card names are not considered 'taken' or... was that a red herring?

A Mystery Booster playtest card does not use up a name.

On the white or green getting treasure debate. People seem really hung up on the fact that their called treasure rather than what the treasure do. Does this kind of problem come up often? The name of a mechanic/ability skewing perception.

The word is a red herring. It’s neutral enough that any color could come up with justification. The issue is some players want white to do things that white is not good at doing.

Conspiracy Theory: Conspiracy and Vintage Masters are actually the same thing, and the "We will never ever ever break the reserved list" is all an elaborate red herring. True or False?

False. Nice try. : )