Mark! I just turned 30 a few minutes ago! My birthday trivia request: in all of Magic's own 30 years, im sure it's gone places no one would have expected. If early mtg designers got a look into the future, at the game as it is presently, what aspect do you think would blow them away the most? (yourself included!)sorry if this has been answered across interviews and such, i just got to thinking about what a wild ride its been since i got into the game (worldwake) and the ways that magic has changed alongside my own life

Probably double-faced cards.

Regarding Whales vs. Krackens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents. The first card to group them was Quest for Ula's Temple in Worldwake - which only had one kracken: Wrexial, the Risen Deep. Zendikar had 1 Krakens, 1 Octopus and 1 Serpent, but still no Leviathans. However, at the time of Worldwake's printing no whales had been printed since Great Whale in Urza's Saga nearly 12 years prior whereas Alara block had 3 Leviathans (and another was coming in M11).

FYI

hey Mark, my birthday is technically tomorrow but I'd like to ask for some trivia! Can you give me trivia on Omnath, and maybe more specifically when/how you guys decided he would gain more colors?

Omnath started as just a fun design in Worldwake. It wasn’t until their return in Battle for Zendikar that the idea of adding colors took form. Once we added the first color, we knew where it was going. Happy Birthday!

Were traps not a very popular mechanic or was Zendikar just decided to not be in need of them? I started magic back in worldwake and whenever I think of Zendikar I think of Traps and Landfall. I was surprised to see that it wasn't involved in the "return to form" for the plane.

We did make a new version of traps in vision design, but they didn’t make it to print.

Did you ever design instant and sorceries with constellation, like you had in worldwake with landfall?

We talked about it, but felt we had enough cool designs without it.

Is there any design concept behind a specific card from one set that links te story to the next set? I mean, is there any 'foreshadowing' card?

We’ve done a bunch. The first one that comes to mind is Eye of Ugin. Eye of Ugin was in Worldwake and referenced Eldrazi spells even though none existed yet.

Walking Archive was printed in Worldwake as "Creature - Construct". It received errata before release clarifying that it was actually an Artifact Crewture. With R&D's Secret Lair in play, is Walking Archive a Creature, or an Artifact Creature?

A creature. It’s as written.

What would you say is the minimum amount of time it would take for you to consider returning to or revisiting a plane? There were seven years between Ravnica and RTR, seven between Mirrodin and Scars, Six between Worldwake and BFZ, five between Innistrad and SOI, so I was wondering what your internal "minimum" for returns to these popular planes is.

Let me turn this question back on all of you? What do you all feel is the right amount of time for a return to a plane?

I was just re-listening to the Worldwake podcast story about how you told people on Twitter that on that day you designed "Convertible Turtle." So, in that spirit of playtest names, what card did you design today?

Nothing yet, but I have to design Spaghetti block cards this afternoon.

Hi Mark! Regarding your mistake that BFZ was focused on Rise when it should have focused on Zendikar and Worldwake: Aren't you hands somewhat tied by needing to finish telling the story? People are expecting the conclusion of the conflict from Rise to be in the return to Zendikar set. How would you have balanced this expectation with your lesson learned on BFZ?

We needed to have a resolution to the Eldrazi storyline. That didn’t require as many Eldrazi cards as we had. It didn’t have to be a war that populated almost all the set.