Was it ever considered for winter moon to have the “as long as this is untapped” clause that winter orb has? I know that having it would make moon way stronger, but it feels like it would’ve added a chefs kiss to the call back. It’s not there wasn’t enough space on the card.

R&D, in general, is not a fan of artifacts that shut off when tapped, so it’s not something we tend to add to cards.

Hi Mark, Could you please send out many hi-fives to whomever was involved in Winter Moon? It made this old Winter Orb player very happy.

Will do.

Glass Casket has me concerned. It feels like, ever since colored artifacts became an every-set thing, there just aren't that many mechanical niches for enchantments anymore. Artifacts get to also be creatures, cost generic mana, have tap abilities... the list goes on. The only thing enchantments can do that artifacts can't is attach to objects other than creatures you control.

Artifacts have had global effects since the game began back in Alpha (Ankh of Mishra, Black Lotus, Copper Tablet, Dingus Egg, Gauntlet of Might, Howling Mine, Kormus Bell, Meekstone, Sunglasses of Urza, and Winter Orb). The change is we’re allowing artifacts to have colored mana costs (and even this we’ve done for over ten years - just not at the current levels). This means the overlap between artifacts and enchantments, which has always been there, is a little more noticeable.The color pie is determined by the mana cost of the card, so if white can do something as an enchantment, it means it can do it as an artifact, The result of this is we have to lean a little more on the flavor to help make them feel different from one another.

Hi Mark! It's my birthday and I was hoping for some birthday triva on the card dueling grounds, winter orb or Estrid, thank you!

Winter Orb is one of few cards in existence that got functional errata that stayed because we printed it on far more cards than the un-errataed version. The reason the Alpha version didn’t need “If this is untapped” is because back then all artifacts turned off when tapped.
Happy Birthday!

It's my birthday! Any triva on winter orb or animate library?

Animate Library was the last card added to Unstable. I’d designed it long ago and during a development playtest, I remembered it and right then and there added it to the file. Happy Birthday!

Would you like to see Spectral Searchlight get errata to restore its mana burn functionality? Winter Orb recently got errata to restore its continuous artifact functionality.

Spectral Searchlight never had mana burn functionality. The game at the time it came out had mana burn functionality.

It's my birthday today! Any triva you can share on winter orb, dueling grounds, or hydra's?

It took us a while to consider Hydras as Green’s iconic because Richard had originally put the first one (Rock Hydra) in Red and inertia is strong. We finally tried it because everything else we tried had failed.Hydras luckily worked.Happy Birthday!

MaRo, you've made it clear that you avoid functional errata whenever possible. So why is it that Winter Orb received errata in Eternal Masters? It doesn't include the "only when untapped" condition either in the Gatherer or on the original card.

It did have it on the original card because it was baked into the rules.

There is a portion of the MtG community that get the most enjoyment out of the game if they are causing others to be miserable: ie Sinkhole, Counterspell, Winter Orb, etc...what profile do they fit?

Most griefers are Timmy but there are Johnny and Spike griefers.

Why was "if untapped" considered functional errata on Winter Orb? That was text specifically designed to keep its original functionality.

But that rule wasn’t card functionality but game functionality. Are things with protection from Alpha supposed to work how protection worked during the time of Alpha?