Hi Mark! Us Vorthoses were SO happy to see the return of the Planeswalker’s guides. But can you pass along the request to bring back the legends articles too? Many players enjoy having a little background on the characters they see on the cards.

Will do.

The art and creative direction in Bloomburrow is far and away some of my favourite since pergaps original mirrodin. Thank you and the relevant parties very much for the creative direction of Bloomburrow! There is a sense of true creation with this set that takes Magic in a new and refeshingly inspired direction that Id frankly missed. Im usually excited for new cards from a Mel perspective, but today Im excited as a Vorthos first time in a while! Congratulations (:

Thanks.

If a work of fiction features such complex in universe laws of reality that there is no way to satisfy both Mel and Vorthos at the same time (like perhaps each person has a verb and a noun that are metaphysicaly connected to them and can do anything at all that can be described as [verb]ing the [noun] even metaphorically. Such as the one who steals breath being able to imprison people magically because breath is associated with freedom) does that make it less likely to get a Universes Beyond?

Can you give me an example from an actual property?

About the Phyrexian invasion thing, first, thanks for reading and responding to my novel of an ask. I appreciate that you go out of your way to address this kind of feedback.Second, I recognize that it’s not clear how best to handle things like this when you don’t know how the audience will react, and I respect that you all did what you thought was best with the given information. I sent that ask more to explain how I and (I believe) others feel about how it was handled after the fact, not to try and convince you that it was wrong.I also appreciate the narrative implications of Realmbreaker’s breeching the multiverse, creating the omenpaths, desparking most planeswalkers, and how that has shaped the upcoming arc. Actually I’m really interested in this arc because you’ve been able to do things that were never possible before. I also appreciate that there’s online story content for the vorthoses.In other words, nothing you said is wrong, obviously. I was trying to articulate that there seems to be some kind of disconnect between the expectation that the audience had about how a Phyrexian invasion would play out and what your plans were. There seems to be some missing thing that really sells the idea of “yeah, the invasion was every bit as bad as you thought it would be, and then some.” Maybe it’s because stories like this generally have a “the bad guys won” moment before the good guys win (like Infinity War and Endgame), and March of the Machine seemed to have breezed through both.Also, looking through the comments I see there are plenty of people who don’t want to dwell on the Phyrexians any longer than we have to.

Looking back, I do think we wanted to structure Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine differently. I would have started the war in Phyrexia and had the bad guys are dominating moment be the stinger at the end of that set’s story. (Note: this is all my opinion.)

Un-rules question:If I have a Vorthos, Steward of Myth naming Storm Crow (bear with me here), and a Fist of Suns on the battlefield, can I then cast Mindstorm Crown for 0 mana under the interpretation that it “contains the chosen character in its name”?

A noble attempt, but no. : )Vorthos actually cares it’s referencing the character.

The fallout of the Phyrexian Invasion appears to be pretty minor across the planes we've visited. The blockless model really seems to take its toll on Magics storytelling, whereby the consequences of monumentous or pivotal moments have very little room to breath before we move onto other topics making them feel rather insignificant. I realize its a tired drum, but Im unconvinced that mtgs prioritzation of 'player satisfaction' didnt come at the expense of Vorthos. I miss expansive worlds.

Minor? It decimated Eldraine. The king and queen were killed, and almost all the courts were in shambles. We were underground in Ixalan, so we couldn’t see what happened above ground. It nearly broke the guidpact in Ravnica and the Golgari are persons non grata right now. Thunder Junction wasn’t attacked as there wasn’t any people living on it at the time. The impact of the Phyrexian War will vary set to set, but there are many worlds were it was hugely impactful on the world, many of which will play a big role when we revisit.And that’s not even getting into all the stories that will come out of the omenpaths and the impact of them on the multiverse and individual worlds. Trust me, the Phyrexian War has a huge impact on the stories yet to come.I understand that when we spent a year on one world we could spend more time on that world, and yes, that meant creative got to dig deeper, but the players spoke pretty loudly that wasn’t what they wanted. We are doing plenty of revisits though, and we will get to build on worlds as was done with Eldraine and Ixalan last year. I do think over time worlds will get more depth. It is our intent to make the Vorthoses happy, and a lot of time and attention is being spent on story and environment, but yes, as is often the case with Magic, things evolve, meaning how we do stuff changes.

I am usually a big fan of the worldbuilding and story telling, but can I say I would have MUCH preferred just a set full of villains without canonically putting them on the same plane? It feels like it both waters down the Wild West theme and makes little creative sense. I guess what I’m asking for is more Origins style sets that are more focused than Core Sets but aren’t all set on one world? Maybe Anthology sets could be a name for them?

Part of the omenpath change was to allow us to do this type of showcase set, but yes, I hear what you (and others) are saying. This is a rare case where Timmy/Tammy and Vorthos butt up against one another.

Hey mark! I am a die hard vorthos, and I’ve noticed a bit of a trend in recent world building ,, it seems that most sets are drawing from specific source material or genres. I am personally most drawn to the aspects of Magic that are truly unique, such as phyrexia, kor, vedalken, slivers, etc. as such, I would love to request more worlds / themes that are truly original rather than “magic’s take on x”. There’s room for both of course, just throwing in my two cents :)

I’m curious. What was the last world you feel was “truly original”?

Hi Mark,I'm a major vorthos. While I do also love Universes Beyond and am excited about the Marvel cards coming out in the future, I'm worried that UB is going to slowly lead to the end of Magic as an IP. I'd like to play with Iron Man or Loki, but not at the expense of Jace or Nissa. Is there anything you can say to set me mind at ease?

Quilting, Rugby, Swimming, Tennis, Ultimate, Volleyball, Wrestling, Yachting, Ziplining, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Cairo are all started but not released yet, so there’s a lot of really cool Magic in-universe sets coming your way.

Hey mark, Murders at karlov manor is already looking to be a winner just on flavor alone but looking thru the previews a question came up that just won't leave me alone. I know this set was built top-down but I'm really curious if New Capenna was ever considered for the setting? The tone of it just seems to fit that era Capenna was going for. That, or the vorthos in me just wants to see angelic prohibition officers cracking down on halo speak-easies.

We talked about New Capenna, but the lack of strong law enforcement worked against the tropes.