Why are backdrop sets a thing? If we are going to Ravnica and I don't get what I expect from Ravnica, im disappointmented. If the set does well, it still feels like a waste of Ravnica. Duskmourne seems similar where it could be a spooky house on any plane. Why are these sets so frequent now

So frequent? (War of the Spark, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and Murders at Karlov Manor) We’ve done three, two of which (the last two) were successful.

Set B "obsoletes" set A is a strong word, but let's focus a moment on pioneer, not very old vintage cards. I have a database of "top playables" in pioneer, restarted after every banning. Cards get into list based on certain number of appearances in goldfish's tournament winners, but criteria is equal to all cards. 9 OG Theros cards are on the list, 5 KTK cards. 4 RTR cards (+ shocks) 21 MKM cards are. 20 LCI cards. 13 OTJ. New sets have vastly more cards in list, thus are stronger.

The switch for a Standard-focus to an Eternal-focus forced us to up the overall power level of premier sets in Throne of Eldraine, so yes, Throne of Eldraine and sets after do have an overall high power level. That wasn’t set by set creep though, but a conscious one-time adjustment.

Hi! This is sort of a random question about the reskins we've seen with universes beyond cards vs. functional reprints to change the flavor of an in-universe card to another in-universe card (like llanowar elves vs. fyndhorn elves). I could run Paths of the Dead (from LOTR commander) in a standard deck, since it *is* cavern of souls. I could not, however, run fyndhorn elves in place of llanowar elves in one of the formats where llanowar elves is legal but fyndhorn elves isn't. The tradeoff to this is that in commander, I can run one fyndhorn elves and one llanowar elves, since they're not the same card, but I can't run a Paths of the Dead and a Cavern of Souls from another printing (ex. LCI), since they're the same card. Would it be possible to print in-universe cards as reskins instead of functional reprints to change the flavor? For example, say you're designing a faction set with tri-color factions, and you want to use the triome lands with cycling, but you're not on Ikoria/New Capenna, so the names don't really fit. If you did a functional reprint to change the flavor, then players in eternal formats could double the number of triomes they run. Is reskinning the card an option you have at your disposal for this kind of situation?

Reskinning is an option, but a resource we want to be careful with.

Hi Mark,It’s my birthday and me and my friends are going to play some OTJ sealed today. In honor of this, can I get some trivia on Outlaws, my favorite mechanic to come out of the set?

We made a list for Outlaw of any creature type that might make sense:

• Assassin
• Barbarian
• Berserker
• Minion
• Mercenary
• Ninja
• Pirate
• Rebel
• Rogue
• Warlock

Assassin and Rogue felt like automatic includes. We added Mercenary because we wanted the “henchperson” token to be a Mercenary. The creative team asked us to add Warlock because we needed to have an outlaw spellcaster to hit all the card concepts. That’s what we handed over to set design.When making a batch, we do between two and five, with three being optimal. Four seemed in a good spot and allowed set design to add something if they had to. They added Pirate because of all the Pirate cards in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. We did talk through many of the others. We considered bringing Minion back instead of doing Mercenary (we stopped doing it a while ago). We talked a lot about Ninja. In the end though, we felt this collection best served the mechanic.Happy Birthday!

Hi Mark,
How many players ask for more stuff to be set on existing (or different) planes, but the stuff is different to what the hat of that plane is?
Like the wild wasteland/crime set could have been possibly retooled to fit on New Capenna outside the city.
I really enjoyed that Caverns expanded the world of Ixalan. I would also like to see one of the other continents/new locations on Innistrad, or Ixalan, or Arcavios, or some ancient ruins outside the (former) Hekma on Amonkhet.

We’re experimenting with new mechanical themes on old worlds. It worked well with The Lost Caverns of Ixalan and less well in Murders at Karlov Manor. We’ll do more.

Hi Mark! Thunder Junction looks great! Very excited to get my hands on the new cards at pre release. One thing I’ve noticed from the last two sets is that the print quality of foils has gotten much better, haven’t had a single foil from LCI or MKM curl so I’d love to give high fives to whoever is responsible for this

High fives to be passed along.

Maybe blocks might be much, but would it be possible to have at least a bit more mechanical identity through the year? For example, discover being used in LCI and MKM, or disguising being in both MKM and OTJ. As it is now, most new mechanics in premiere sets rarely see reuse in the same standard, if at all.

Finding workable overlaps is tricky, but I’m happy to try it if I find a good example.

Loving things so far but a couple of questions, why weren't Ninjas considered outlaws and was clash considered for this set? The latter seems like it would fit flavor as a standoff with the higher cost being who drew and shot quicker.

Repeated batches, meaning things we use on multiple cards in the same set, are normally restricted between two and five items, with three being the sweet spot. We needed Rogues and Warlocks to hit all the creative executions we wanted. Mercenary was needed because that was our henchperson token. We also knew Assassin’s Creed with its Assassin typal theme was coming. We turned those four in when we handed off from vision, leaving one potential space open so set design could add something if needed. That something was Pirate due to all the ones added by The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. As I show in today’s article, we considered all the following:AssassinBarbarianBerserkerMinionMercenaryNinjaPirateRebelRogueWarlockThere just wasn’t room for all of them. Also, we prioritized what would be in the set. So some things, like Ninja, didn’t make the cut.As for clash, it’s just wasn’t popular enough when we first did it to bring it back.

Hi Mark, birthday week question here. Do you think Lost Caverns of Ixalan meets the desire for an "underground" plane? I loved LCI but still feel like you could do a more "underground" focus, either on a Magic plane or a future Underdark focused supplemental set.

The reason we included a “lost earth” (which is a huge trope) is there’s just so much dark underground art we can do before it gets monotonous.

Just an observation, I think people care more about aesthetics than mechanics when thinking about things like connectivity or "feeling like" a plane/block/whatever. For my evidence, LCI and MKM were both backdrop sets with little mechanical connection to their planes, but LCI looked and thus felt like an Ixalan set, whereas the aesthetic of MKM turned off a lot of people because it didn't look like Ravnica.

The feedback I’ve been getting is more that the set had a concentration on theme and tone that players didn’t prefer, moreso than it didn’t feel like it was taking place on Ravnica.