Hi mark thanks so much for your blog.It must happen sometimes you work on a mechanic or card that everyone understands how its supposed to work and its clear what that card wants to do but the rules of the game cant technically allow for it to work. Can you share an example of something that seems simple but has never been done because of a rules issue?

The best example would be to look at the acorn cards of Unfinity. While a few we’re kept acorn for Legacy concerns, the vast majority of acorn cards simple don’t work in the rules. Here are some I get asked about all the time: Claire D'Loon, Joy SculptorFar OutGoblin BlastronautsGrand Marshall MacieHow Is This a Par Three?It Came from Planet GlurgLila, Hospitality HostessSolaflora, Intergalactic IconSole PerformerTrigger HappyTruss, Chief Engineer

Unrules Question: For Trigger Happy, in the additional rules it uses Exalted as an example as a keyworded trigger but without the attack trigger it isn’t very clear what is getting the +1/+1 because it doesn’t target. How do you grok a trigger like this and others? I think it’s a really cool spell but I think it’s odd to use something so unclear as an example

Doesn’t exalted only trigger if there’s only one target?

Can you talk about the choice to print Trigger Happy at uncommon? It seems more like a rare to me (not that I'm complaining, I had two in my draft deck and went 3-0)

It was on the cusp between uncommon and rare, and it played well in draft, so we made it uncommon. Plus, it was less rare than the other options.

Why doesn't Trigger Happy work in eternal formats?

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s a number of issues. Trigger abilities aren’t necessarily always set up to work in isolation. For example, some effects are conditional on their trigger happening. “Whenever a creature without a counter dies, return it to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter.” How can you return something that didn’t die?