Hi Mark,Why did it take so long for full-art lands to make a comeback after original zendikar? What changed to make you want to do them for almost every set now?

A change in philosophy in how we wanted to use them.

Please pass my thanks to whomever decided otters should be a thing in Magic.I've carried an otter plushie around with me to events through my entire Magic playing career, so almost 15 years. Ive had an otter along for the ride from pretty much every FNM to PTQs to traveling everywhere I could drive within 8 hours to play Legacy for several years or even trips to the other side of the US for large events a couple of times.I was screeching and immediately tried building an otter deck when Lutri and Theving Otter came out with Ikoria. I was literally babbling with joy at the otters in Wilds of Eldraine for MONTHS. To say I'm beside myself with excitement for Bloomburrow would almost be an understatement.My favorite thing to build or play in Magic are tribal-based decks. I built an angel one as my second ever deck (Shards of Alara/Zendikar standard) so I could teach my mom to play before she passed. I was known for a knight/Sword of _____ and _____ deck for years. I've even played Merfolk and Tribal Lightning Bolt (burn) decks a time or two. But I can now have my beloved otters as a theme for my deck.Literally the only way that it could be more perfect for me would have been if there was an Otter Knight named Rora for my little tournament companion.So thank you for making my love for Magic even stronger by adding otters.

I like making otter people happy. : )

I’d like to say thank you for not making the bats in Bloomburrow vampires. Or at least not making vampirism their main thing in the lore. Vampire bats are cool but overdone considering only 3 out of over 1,400 bat species drink blood (and those 3 species of vampire bay are only found in Central America and South America.)

In Bloomburrow, the Bats are the clergy.

were bats ever a consideration for the black cards? what made you go with squirrels? is it their inherently fiendish nature? inquiring minds and such

Bats are the white/black archetype.

could we see an A+B mechanic designed around A exiling cards and B getting cards exiled with mechanic A back? Kinda like an inverted version of the processor setup from BFZ where you do it for your own benefit?

We need to be careful that a mechanic can’t get back cards that were exiled by a card where the intent was it wasn’t to return.

"From a big picture, Magic excels at creating variety and does poorly at consistency."I would argue that historically, it's done well at both. Variety and consistency are not opposing concepts; you don't need to sacrifice one for the sake of the other. Ravnica, Theros, Zendikar and Bloomburrow are all very different places, but they're easy to see side by side. You could take a character from each of those planes and put them in a story together, and they would all be very distinctive, but none would feel out of place. Put someone from Duskmourn in that lineup, and they'd stick out like a Ghostbuster in Middle Earth. The complaints aren't from people who, as you seem to be implying, dislike variety. They just think that even in a very varied setting, you can still have cohesiveness, and Duskmourn's aesthetic breaks the cohesiveness that Magic has actually done very well at previously even with its great variety (there are other reasons people may dislike it as well of course, but that's most relevant to this point).

There are people who thought Ravnica *did* break the mold of what Magic was. A city? Core fantasy is not urban. There are people who thought Theros *did* break the mold of what Magic was. Theros borrowed too heavily from an existing mythology. Magic is about creating its own things, not being influenced by non-fantasy real world sources. There are people who thought Zendikar *did* break the mold of what Magic was. It leaned to heavily into adventure tropes and not enough on basic fantasy. There are people who thought Bloomburrow *did* break the mold. It was too cutesy and didn’t have the gravitas of a real Magic set. The idea that the thing you felt went too far is the actual thing that went too far is what everyone believes when we stretch to a place that they aren’t comfortable with. But that place varies from person to person. And more importantly, it changes as the game adapts. Innistrad was once the world that went a step too far, and now it’s the thing Duskmourn is being compared against as the sign that we went too far.Magic has since its beginning changed and adapted. And it’s always pushing into new territory because that’s what it means to change and adapt. That doesn’t mean every person is going to agree with everything we do. It’s fine to not like something, but please be aware that for each player who felt we went too far, there are many others excited by what we’re doing.My point when I say “we do poor at consistency” is that there’s no definitive dividing point. There’s not a clear line in the sand where this side “is Magic” and this side “isn’t Magic”. That line varies person to person. The reason we have 27,000+ cards is so that each person can focus on “what Magic is” for themselves.

Hi Mark! When you track the metrics of how well, or poorly, something is received, does the nature of the metric affect its likelihood of returning? e.g. with the Processors from BFZ, would "players didn't think they had a strong enough pay off" be more likely to risk another try compared to "players found ability confusing" or "players found there wasn't enough exiling in sealed/standard"?

We do take into account why we think players didn’t like something, but player disapproval of something in its first outing does lessen the chance of a second outing.

I want to object to the assertion that there's no faeries on Zendikar or Innistrad. Just because you don't see the fae doesn't mean that they're not there :)

A fair point.

So I understand that three set blocks tend to wear people out, but has there been any consideration for two set blocks? I've been feeling more and more over the years that a lot of recent mechanics just don't get enough support because they're often one-and-done, and it'll be a miracle to ever see them again. It also feels like recent settings don't get fleshed out and don't get time to breathe, save Eldraine which got revisited surprisingly quickly.

Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan were all two set blocks.

Hey Mark, I really like Allies, especially those from the first and second Zendikar blocks. Is there any possibility that we will see any more like these on Zendikar or other planes in the future?

I think Allies, as a typal component, will return one day.