Hey, Mark, I'm not to make another UB-related request. This isn't coming from an anti-UB place, and it's just one Goose's opinion, but I'm sure there are others who feel this way.Can we get rid of flavor words, please? I haven't seen a single upside to them presented, just downsides:

• For decades, one of MtG's biggest strengths was capturing the ludonarrative. Having to spell it out makes it seem like you all have lost confidence in your ability to make card design that makes sense with the captured flavor.
• If a design is intended to be funny (the Street Fighter cards come to mind), it feels like you're pointing at the "joke" and saying "See? Please laugh." As a person who has a comedy background, I'm sure you understand why killing the frog is bad.
• Death of the epithet: The most minor of the criticisms, but I really think "Ian Chester, Science Teacher" reads better than "Ian Chester" and then calling his ability "science teacher." (I may be mixing up the WHO teachers, but this applies to both, luckily.) Epithets also make it easier to depict multiple "moments" of a character without giving a card up as the "definitive" version of that character.
• It feels like you don't trust players to get why the card text is what it is. Telling your audience you don't expect them to be smart (or rather, literate) enough to "get" it doesn't really help. I've seen people say they add flavor to the cards, but the flavor isn't diminished by removing the flavor words (flavor is when things are fleshed out and living, not when things are spelled out). If it's for fans of the IP, then they already get it (Oh, the activated ability that grants flying is referencing this character's rocket propulsion). Non-fans of the IP aren't benefited either, as they will sus out said character has rocket propulsion or be left completely in the dark (see Cult of Skaro: These words do nothing to tell me about the ability. If you were to leave them out, I'd still be able to sus out that each ability corresponds to one of the four Daleks depicted).
• Lastly, they make cards harder to read. When trying to grok a card, there should be as few words as possible I'm supposed to ignore.

Flavor words can do some things that we can’t replicate elsewhere. I agree they can be overused, and are not always used optimally, but I don’t think we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

This is kinda a complicated question, but do you think any color has more exclusive effects than others? Like white is really good at exiling things, but for 7 mana colorless can exile anything like scour from existence or 5 mana introduction to annihilation. More so, I was looking at weird counterspells and I don’t think colorless can just full counter a spell for any mana value, all of them have riders.So is blue any more “exclusive” in its effect? Or does any other color have more things that other colors just can’t replicate

There are small number of effects, like counterspells, that we mostly keep out of colorless effects. It’s based on the effect though and isn’t a larger color issue.

Not sure if this question was asked allready, but about the Colorpie. As each color is good at something, does that mean other colors cant do it at all or just that it needs a lot more effort to replicate those effects. As an example, counterspells. while in blue, you get to counter any spell for just 1-3 mana. other colors had the super rare one, like black has withering boom. Why dont we see more of that, even if those cards are worse then in their intended color?

Most players are bad with judging power level, so they can’t tell that it’s a weak version of the effect. Rather it produces the opposite effect. They see an ability in a color and just assume the color does that.

if/when a mechanic that uses another mechanic like a card with adventure and the adventure having replicate/madness

When, but. It’s likely in something like a Modern Horizons product.

"Why is it so important that players know immediately that an effect can only be used once?" I would dare to say it's just human psychology. If I recall correctly, boast was badly received because "it was a downside" whereas "When this creature attacks, you may pay" has no problem. Escalate and strive were also badly received, but kicker and replicate are beloved or at least okay. It seems people really care a lot about templates "taking away" what the rest of the card does.

We default to “additive” templates when we can, but not everything is templatable that way in a form that’s easily grokable.

"Humans generally like stickers" But what happens if stickers don't like you? I suffer from hyperhidrosis in my hands (a fancy way of saying my hands are almost always sweating) and my hands tend to eat through adhesive meaning stickers and tape really don't get along with me.

That’s why stickers are not mandatory to use the sticker mechanic. You are allowed, for example, to use paper and pencil to replicate stickers if you either don’t wish to handle the stickers or you don’t have them.

Buyback, Replicate, Entwine, Fuse, Exploit, Awaken and Escalate are all really just versions of Kicker. Why not just use Kicker so that these abilities could be backward and forward compatable?

1) We value flavor and excitement of individual sets over keyword continuity. There isn’t that many cards, for example, that care about kicker. As I’ve said many times, one of the big drawbacks of kicker is it’s too broad a mechanic. 2) Not having to keyword it as kicker gives us more flexibility on how individual mechanics work. Not every mechanic you named, for instance, is exactly kicker.

Meanwhile we wait to the UR evergreen ability to be discovered, can we get a spell evergreen ability? Replicate, Flashback, Surge or something like this?

It’s not something we need. Sets are better if the spell mechanic isn’t always the same.

On the subject of trolls losing regenerate, couldn't they have "[cost]: [name] gains indestructible until end of turn. Tap it." To effectively the same end?

Our goal with Trolls is to forge a new mechanical identity not replicate the ability we stopped doing.

I just wanted to say thank you to all responsible for printing Prime Speaker Vannifar, as I think it's a very elegant way to breath some life into the old Birthing Pod style lists without making the effect overly problematic. It's one of my favorite cards printed recently. Is it possible we could see a similar fix for Splinter Twin?

That’s a little trickier to replicate on a creature.