When existing cards eclipse upcomming marquee cards like the Wandering Emperor compared to Archangel Elspeth is there ever a temptation to push the newer card power level wise? And sometimes R&D does push here and there, what are the criteria you use when to push something? Because otherwise there is less enthusiasm especially with the main character cards, planeswalkers or other Mythics which cannot be good for metrics?

That way lies danger.

The wandering emperor, kaito, and tamiyo are all from kamigawa and are all heavily involved in the phyrexian story. Isnt this too much representation from one plane? Did you even know u were returning to kamigawa when u were plotting this storyline?

Their involvement in the story was because we went to Kamigawa, not vice versa.