"From a big picture, Magic excels at creating variety and does poorly at consistency."I would argue that historically, it's done well at both. Variety and consistency are not opposing concepts; you don't need to sacrifice one for the sake of the other. Ravnica, Theros, Zendikar and Bloomburrow are all very different places, but they're easy to see side by side. You could take a character from each of those planes and put them in a story together, and they would all be very distinctive, but none would feel out of place. Put someone from Duskmourn in that lineup, and they'd stick out like a Ghostbuster in Middle Earth. The complaints aren't from people who, as you seem to be implying, dislike variety. They just think that even in a very varied setting, you can still have cohesiveness, and Duskmourn's aesthetic breaks the cohesiveness that Magic has actually done very well at previously even with its great variety (there are other reasons people may dislike it as well of course, but that's most relevant to this point).

There are people who thought Ravnica *did* break the mold of what Magic was. A city? Core fantasy is not urban. There are people who thought Theros *did* break the mold of what Magic was. Theros borrowed too heavily from an existing mythology. Magic is about creating its own things, not being influenced by non-fantasy real world sources. There are people who thought Zendikar *did* break the mold of what Magic was. It leaned to heavily into adventure tropes and not enough on basic fantasy. There are people who thought Bloomburrow *did* break the mold. It was too cutesy and didn’t have the gravitas of a real Magic set. The idea that the thing you felt went too far is the actual thing that went too far is what everyone believes when we stretch to a place that they aren’t comfortable with. But that place varies from person to person. And more importantly, it changes as the game adapts. Innistrad was once the world that went a step too far, and now it’s the thing Duskmourn is being compared against as the sign that we went too far.Magic has since its beginning changed and adapted. And it’s always pushing into new territory because that’s what it means to change and adapt. That doesn’t mean every person is going to agree with everything we do. It’s fine to not like something, but please be aware that for each player who felt we went too far, there are many others excited by what we’re doing.My point when I say “we do poor at consistency” is that there’s no definitive dividing point. There’s not a clear line in the sand where this side “is Magic” and this side “isn’t Magic”. That line varies person to person. The reason we have 27,000+ cards is so that each person can focus on “what Magic is” for themselves.

Hey Mark! I came back to the game after a lil break recently and was reading over Thunder Junction: can you sacrifice your lands in standard now? (I thought there was something about that that RnD didnt like)

We always let you sacrifice your own lands. We normally don’t let you force other players to sacrifice their own lands.

When/if: Dropping the "(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after [...])" reminder text from Sagas (e.g., for space to add flavor text, or an applicable existing keyword).

We like cards to tell you what they do as much as we can.

Some Magic-inspired stories, all about bonding with my son, who is now 7-and-a-half: I don’t remember what I did first to get him interested in Magic, but it was probably playing with my friend Max, who taught me and my now-wife how to play - but I know Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox 360 helped get my son into the game with the effects and music but especially archenemy variant and a Nicol Bolas final match.In the years since then, he and I occasionally get to talking about his favorite creature types and characters, and after quite some time, we have slowly narrowed down his choices to 4: Spiders, Zombies with Liliana, Nicol Bolas, and Niv-Mizzet. Not surprisingly, two of Magic’s most common dragons in that list. I don’t know what it is with dragons but I’m glad WotC had realized their appeal so they’re prominently there for my son to enjoy, and with quite a few options so he may get a Nicol Bols dragon deck that’s much different than any dragon deck I have tried to make myselfThanks to War of the Spark, I finally created a Horde Magic deck and he loved hearing about the storyline of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation leading up to the actual WAR set, as I explained those stories using key cards before we started the game, to establish the setting. Coincidentally, it was my son with his Gideon that ultimately dealt the final blow - no need to sacrifice himself the way it played out in our match! My son will still reference this game and it’s nearly been a year.Also since that time I learned that the classic Planeswalker webcomics had been bundled as graphic novels, so I got those and our nighttime routine for a bit was to read about Garruk’s corruption by Liliana and that build up to Rise of the Eldrazi and Mirrodin Besieged; coincidentally we finished as March of the Machine previews were going on, and my villain-loving son is now waiting for me to build a Phyrexian horde so he can battle Elesh Norn. We look forward to many more years with the game, and especially learning what comes next for some of our favorite still-active villains: Ashiok, Oko, and Tezzeret!

Thanks for sharing.

Just want to weigh in on the viashino-lizards thing. It takes away a lot of flavor, and I don't see why its necessary. A lot of times, a flavor sacrifice is made for a better play experience. But this isn't helping people build lizard tribal decks, as best I can tell there is NO Lizard tribal support. Its just taking away a cool thing from Magic.

It allows us to make some. : )

When cards say die vs destroyed does it mean something different

“Die” means a creature card goes from the battlefield to the discard. This can happen from the creature being destroyed, but there are many others ways, such as sacrifice. “Destroy” is a keyword action that puts a permanent from the battlefield into the graveyard. Any permanent type can be destroyed, not just creatures. If a permanent is indestructible, destroy won’t work on it, and it won’t go to the graveyard.

Please perform a negative high five with the play design team. The new Gitrog doesn't sacrifice lands, something that is core to the identity of the monster.

I don’t do negative high fives, but I acknowledge your unhappiness.

If some evil wizard sent you back in time and forced you to recreate Magic without one of the colors, which one do you sacrifice and why is it white?

I think green is more likely than white.

Hi Mark. If or when a morph-style mechanic for instants and sorceries? I understand there’s a slightly awkward feeling to having to sacrifice a 2/2 creature to get an effect and am interested if you think that’s enough of an issue to discount you using it as a mechanic.

My guess is when. There are play issues, but things I assume we’ll solve one day.

Looking at the mechanical color pie article should self sacrifice be primary in white and sacrificing creatures be either secondary or tertiary?

We don’t want white very often sacrificing other creatures. While white can sacrifice itself, it’s not the color that does it the most.