Quaketusk Boar having reach is probably going to catch a lot of people off guard. In the past, reach creatures typically were archers, or spiders, or had "spitting" or "turret" or "bounding" or something like that in the name. I understand that reach is far more common nowadays, making it harder to keep doing this, but I feel like SOME rules for reach creatures should still exist. The rules don't even need to be about the name or creature type. Maybe its something that's communicated in the art.

Reach has proven difficult to communicate in art because it doesn’t have clear symbols like wings for flying. We make a lot of large creatures that don’t have reach.

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.

with various type of creature having common things, like goblin being red, spider having reach and other similar aspect either on the design or the flavor side, what would be the common ground ( if there's one ) for giant and vampire ?

Giants tend to be bigger, 3/3 and up. Vampires often have flying and/or lifelink, but we make too many for them all to have it.

Mark, what would you say to people that don't like class typal themes because its isnt clear what cards are of what type? A card being a Spider is clear from looking at the art, but what is and isn't a warrior is far less visibly clear.

I agree it has some visual challenges, but not ones large enough to stop doing it, for two main reasons. One, class typal has a lot of fans. Two, certain themes are more about what people do than who they are. Outlaws of Thunder Junction’s outlaw theme is a fine example. We need a way to mechanically convey that.

Why the recent increase in spiders with more Power then Toughness?

Spiders don’t inherently have to have toughness higher than power. It’s not a rule, for instance, we have to follow.

In nuts and bolts #16, you mention “sideways build-arounds”. I can’t figure out what the “sideways” in this phrase means. Would you be able to elaborate a little?

The classic example of a build around is Spider Spawning from Innistrad. It gives you a theme to build around that isn’t one of the archetype themes.

I understand why Spider Man would be white and blue, but why green?

He literally has the abilities of a spider and a spider sense that senses when something is wrong. Also, the larger lore of the character states that this connection was part of a destiny for him. The spider bite was not an accident.

Hi Mark, as a follow up to red spiders: What about red scorpions? They live in rocky areas and could conceivably have first strike as an ability. Thank-you

Scorpions feel much more red.

A bug world would be cool.WU = ButterflyUB = MothBR = Mosquito / FirebugRG = CockroachWB = BeeGW = GrasshopperUR = DragonflyBG = Spider / MantisRW = AntGU = Beetle

: )

On the subject of off color creature types. A way to do it as a theme in a set might be to have the set focus around the secondary colors for the type? Goblins are mainly red, but show up a moderate amount in black, so the set could focus more on black goblins than red ones. The same goes for elves in green and white, giants in red and white, spiders on green and black, and many others that I can’t think of off the top of my head. This way, you’re not entering entirely new space with something like a mono-white hydra, you’re just exploring existing space, like with a mono-blue ooze. Exploring existing space instead of entering new space helps you avoid the issues of designing for an eternal world.

That’s how we already do it when introducing a new color to a creature type that’s existed for while.