In your Bloomburrow article, you mentioned that there are over 140 lizards in Magic. However, I'm pretty sure that number is including Viashinos. Does that mean the decision to change Viashino's type line was made before you decided to make Lizards one of the 10 animals?

We’ve been talking about making the Viashino change for years. Adding Lizards just forced our hand to do it before the set came out.

Was the Lizard typal in Bloomburrow part of the motivation for making the Viashino errata at this specific time?

I’m sure it influenced the timing.

I'd like to voice my dislike of the paring down of some of the creature types, because I feel like differing viewpoints are good in game design and I've not really seen that many statements voiced in opposition to these changes. My view of it is that it strips out a lot of uniqueness of Magic as a setting. Other settings have humanoid lizards, but they don't have Viashino. Other settings have undersea-dwelling peoples, but they don't have Cephalids. Naga becoming Snake was completely understandable, and I think the justifications for it were valid. I do not think Viashino becoming Lizard or Cephalid becoming Octopus were remotely justified. On top of that, it creates some weird points, where you can see clearly crocodilian humanoids (the Viashino from Alara) now labeled as Lizards, which not only are separate types in Magic, they're not even closely related in real life (crocodiles are more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than lizards). I've seen a number of very loud people advocate for trimming all the "unnecessary" types in Magic out, but their proposals usually end up as "there should be about 20 creature types total." This is not only unsatisfactory from a game design standpoint--as it would make tribal decks a bit *too* easy to accomplish--but absolutely catastrophic from a flavor perspective as well. At that point, why not just have typelines be "TYPE1", "TYPE2", and so forth? Flavor and function have to work together, and sacrificing too much of either is a bad thing. Too little function, and the game becomes unplayable. Too little flavor, and the game becomes cold and sterile. This is not to say that trimming on creature types is a bad thing--I think Magic wouldn't be hurt by trimming on a few more creature types if you asked me--but just that I think the choice of creature types being trimmed is odd, to say the least. Why does a regularly printed creature type with new cards that were printed just earlier this year get the boot, and not something like trilobite, which has all of 5 cards, with a 4 year gap between the printing of the most recent one and the one before that? If this is to help tribal decks, why are there still one-off or two-off creature types being printed, like Varmint and Coyote?

We’re not getting rid of Viashino. They will continue to creatively exist. We will still refer to them in titles and flavor text as Viashino. All we’re doing is consolidating the creature types so that we’re consistent in how we use them. Magic has been treating animal humanoids this way (aka using the animal as the creature type) for two plus decades. All we’re doing is going back and fixing the few that got done before we adopted this policy back in the early days of Magic.

Howdy Mark!I sat with my thoughts and the replies you've given recently about not changing Minotaur or Merfolk to Ox and Fish respectively, and I gotta say, I can't square this circle.You say that WotC won't be changing these specific humanoid-animal races because they have prior mythological notoriety. But to be honest, one could make that excuse for every humanoid-animal race. There are a lot of Mythos that exist throughout the world, and finding a name for every humanoid-animal race wouldn't take too long if someone took the task seriously. I say this to show it doesn't feel like a really consistent or genuine reason to resist a rule that WotC is taking big lengths to adhere to (they are doing errata, which you've said is something that isn't done lightly).However, my biggest issue comes down to consistency with this "rule" you are mentioning. WotC changed Cephalids, Viashino, and probably Homarids soon so that they would fall in line with a rule that WotC wants to follow. Nothing drives me more insane than a rule that isn't applied equally to all, especially when as I mentioned above, the reasoning for the exception doesn't feel like a particularly strong one; at the very least, it doesn't feel strong enough to resist a rule WotC is taking seriously enough to errata 100's of cards so they fall in-line with said rule.I try to be open-minded as often as possible, but even after mulling over the things you've mentioned here on Blogatog, I don't think there is anything you can say that will change my mind on this. I suppose I will just have to sit and wait patiently until ya'll decide to finally finish what you started.Yours Truly,A fellow Ape

The thing you’re missing is the bar is not “does a mythological version exist anywhere in the world?” The question we ask - “is there a popular and well known version of it?”Here’s a different way to think of it. If we picked 100 random people (not specifically Magic players) and gave them a list of creature types, which ones are words they know and which ones aren’t?Some they wouldn’t know because they’re made up things we created that have no well known equivalent. Outside of those, we want to use words people recognize. It makes the game more resonant and lowers the barrier to entry. Our fanciful made-up terminology does have a place - in names and flavor text (aka the text areas focused on flavor). In mechanical rules space, familiarity is more important.

In the new update, Cephalids have become Octopi, Viashino into Lizards, and Naga into Snakes. Why have Homarids not followed suit?

If Homarids return, I believe they will.

With Viashno no longer in use… are Homarids in danger?

Viashino are still in use. It’s what they are called and will be used in names and flavor text. All that’s changing is it’s not going to be used as a creature type, opting for Lizard instead. I do expect us to change Homarids if we put them in a new set.

With the reduction of types, viashino being lizards for instance, has there been talk about errata-ing insect, pest, worm and the like to "bug" instead?I assume spiders would likely stay separate for thematic and mechanical reasons

There has been no Bug talk.

I think people feel differently about Viashino than they do about Naga because Viashino have been in the game for so much longer. The Viashino type even predates most Cat Warriors!

Again, we’re not getting rid of Viashino. The race will still exist and appear on cards. All that’s changing is what creature type we use.

Why should types that are original Magic IP like Viashino be folded into generic types like Lizard, but the same is not true for UB types like Astartes or Cyberman? Is there no value to building resonance for Magic's IP?

The Viashino are still flavorfully Viashino. It’s still a unique race of creatures. That’s what they’re called. All we’re changing is their creature type. We’ve decided to be consistent with how we’re labeling animal humanoids such that they and their animal equivalent are connected typally.

I understand why some older creature types are being rolled together, like Naga and Snake, or Lizard and Viashino. However, is there a reason coyote was introduced in Thunder Junction instead of using Dog?

The problem is we tend to use creature types to match the words people use and not what lines up by species. People call lions and tigers “cats”, but don’t refer to wolves and coyotes as “dogs”.