Servo

Winning Card Preferences

Do you have any thoughts on the difference between cards that outright say "win the game" vs cards that effectively win the game (I.E. Felidar Sovereign vs Aetherflux Reservoir, Door to Nothingness vs Sawnspire of Ulamog, etc.). I've always been partial to the latter. Thanks : )

R&D, as a whole, also leans towards the latter.

Aetherflux Reservoir Door to Nothingness Felidar Sovereign Humor

Against Tribal Errata

I wish you’d bring back tribal and errata older cards. Make the criteria simple: If the name kf the card has a creature type’s name in it, eg Goblin Grenade, Dragon Arch, Demonic Tutor, or if the card mechanically cares about the creature type, eg The Hive should be Insect tribal, Whirlermaker should be Servo tribal, Raise the Alarm should be soldier tribal. You guys did a giant creature type update in the past so mass erata isn’t foreign territory.

It adds a lot of words on cards for minimal mechanical relevance.

Creatures Demonic Tutor Dragon Dragon Arch Errata Errata Giant Goblin Goblin Grenade Insect Kindred / Typal Raise the Alarm Servo Soldier The Hive Tutoring Whirlermaker

Preference in Game Design Members

On the same theme as a previous question; which would you prefer be a member of game design? A goblin, a sliver, a servo or a pest?

Goblins are very inventive.

Game Design Goblin Pest Servo Sliver

Trivia on Angels and Demons

Was wondering if I could get some birthday trivia on the angels and/or demons of Kaladesh. They’re my favorite creature types and Kaladesh had the most interesting ones, but not a lot of lore outside of “they’re made by people and they’re cool to look at.”

Angel of Invention started as a small white creature with Fabricate that granted +1/+1 to your team. That pushed towards you always getting the Servo creature tokens, so we added flying, vigilance, and lifelink to encourage you to sometimes get the +1/+1 counters. Then when we looked at the final package, we said, “We’ll, I guess this has to be an Angel.”Happy Birthday!

Angel Angel of Invention Birthday Creatures Demon Fabricate Fabricate Flying Kaladesh Lifelink Lifelink Servo Story / Lore Tokens Vigilance White

Applicability of Beeble Scale

Does the beeble scale only apply to creature cards in premire sets or does it also count tokens? For example there’s no Servo cards but I’d imagine servo tokens would be low on the scale.

The Beeble Scale counts tokens in premier sets.

Beeble Scale Creatures Premier Sets Premier Sets Servo Tokens

Themes in Core Sets

How likely are we to see certain themes seen on certain planes return on new cards (and preferably still themed to the respective plane) in core sets? Like, Investigate/clues, servos, deserts, white vampires, green merfolk, Food, etc?

The more flavorful/understandable in a vacuum, the better.

Flavor Food Gates Green Investigate Merfolk Planes Servo Vampire White

Kaladesh Artifacts Redone

If you had to re-do the most powerful Kaladesh artifacts, would you do them as colored ones? Would aetherflux reservoir be a Boros card? Paradox Engine blue?

If we had to redo Kaladesh, we’d embue many of the artifacts, especially the broad, powerful ones, with colored mana. I would need to think about the whole file to properly dispense the colors.

Aetherflux Reservoir Artifacts Blue Boros (R/W) Colors Kaladesh Mana Paradox Paradox Engine

Aetherflux Reservoir Trivia

MaRo, it’s my birthday! Can I get some trivia on my favorite card, Aetherflux Reservoir?

When I originally designed the card, it had the same first ability but a completely different second ability. Happy Birthday!

Aetherflux Reservoir Birthday Mark Rosewater

Artifact Sacrifice Rules

Say I'm paying a cost of 'sacrifice an artifact,' can I sacrifice two halves of different artifacts? Like half a treasure and half a servo I've somehow acquired? If the answer is no, does that mean I couldn't pay 2 halves of different colors of mana to pay for 1 generic mana?

You can sacrifice two halves of different article to meet a “sacrifice an artifact” cost. Likewise two halves of different colored mana can pay a generic cost (or a hybrid cost of those two colors).

Artifacts Colorless Colors Hybrid Mana Sacrifice Servo Treasure

Storm Scale and Birthday

Its my birthday today :). Do you mind me asking a question and a trivia? If not: Question: If storm is a 10 on the storm scale, why is aetherflux reservoir, which is essentially a storm card allowed? And Trivia: Any trivia on my favourite commander, wort the raidmother?

There’s a big difference between doing something on one card and doing it on enough cards to use a keyword. Wort, including the whole conspire mechanic, was created during Shadowmoor development. Happy Birthday!

Aetherflux Reservoir Birthday Commander Conspire Keyword Abilities Keywords Mechanics Shadowmoor Storm Scale

Token Creation Terminology

Was the keyword "spawn" considered instead of "creating" a token for the new token template?

Create is more neutral than spawn. For example, spawning Servos wouldn’t have worked flavorwise.

Keywords Servo Spawn Templating Tokens

Myr in Kaladesh

Were Myr ever on the table for Kaladesh block? Seems like you could replace servo with myr and everything with fit right in.

No, they didn’t fit the aesthetic we wanted for Kaladesh.

Kaladesh Myr Servo

Bushido vs Fabricate

Isn't the problem with Bushido is that it doesn't fit on every plane? Doesn't Fabricate have this same issue since its makes Servos which only exist on Kaladesh?

Fabricate has far less design space than Bushido.

Bushido Design Space Fabricate Kaladesh Servo

Storm Weekend Confusion

I"m not in the US, so am unsure whether "Big Storm Weekend" refers to some inclement weather on the way to your neck of the woods, or a prediction that Aetherflux Reservoir will do well at the Pro Tour...

Seattle is scheduled to have a major thunderstorm tonight.

Aetherflux Reservoir Competitive Play Keyword Abilities Seattle

Myr in Kaladesh

Did you ever consider introducing Myr to Kaladesh instead of creating Servos?

I don’t think Myr fit the aesthetic of Kaladesh technology.

Kaladesh Myr Servo

Kaladesh Expectations

Given that Kaladesh focuses on lots of Servos, do think setting up the expectation for Kaladesh Thopters in Magic Origins was a mistake?

Making a throw forward when you haven’t done design on the future thing is always tricky. I think a focus on artifact creature tokens is close enough.

Artifacts Creatures Kaladesh Magic Origins Servo Thopter Tokens

Fabricate Flexibility

Hey MaRo, Was there ever a version of Fabricate that was more "flexible" ? For instance, with Fabricate 2, you could either create 2 Servo tokens OR create 1 Servo token and put a +1/+1 counter on [Cardname] OR put two +1/+1 counters on [Cardname] ?

The confusion wasn’t worth the gameplay.

Fabricate Game Play Mark Rosewater Servo Tokens

Fabricate vs Assemble

Was Fabricate ever considered to be Assemble at some point? I could totally see Servos being Contraptions.

Nope.

Assemble Contraptions Fabricate Servo

Return to Paper Magic

I had an absolute blast at the kaladesh prerelease today! I hadn't played paper since original Zendikar and was kind of nervous about keeping up with everything, but it was easy! Even though the mechanics had a lot of choices (servo or counter, how much energy to use, when to use it) it never felt overwhelming. I had an absolute blast and am thinking about coming back to paper magic finally. Thanks for everything you do! Dish out all the high fives! Loved the box/thopter too!

: )

High Fives Kaladesh Limited Mechanics Prerelease Servo Thopter Zendikar

Papercraft Servo Props

Give props to whose idea it was to put the papercraft servo in the prerelease packs, they are so cute !

I will.

Limited Prerelease Servo