Outlaws (and the oft-suggested 'Sea monsters' batching) seem like a great hit. In retrospect, do you think that - with appropriate modifications to the rest of the set accordingly - Party in ZNR would have been better received as say, 'Party members (Clerics, Rogues, Warriors and Wizards are party members)'?

Party needed you to have one of each which is slightly different than batching.

Hi Mark!Regarding Doubling Down, in yesterday's article, you say that was allowed by last year's rule change. That rule change actually happened with Lithoform Engine in Zendikar Rising (September 2020), that was 3 and a half years ago 😲On the other end, I know you work on sets almost 3 years ahead of release, so that would mean that when you were working on OTJ, at that point it would have been about a year since the rule change became public.Now the question is this:Did you state "last year" because that was true when you wrote the article (i.e. it was written well in advance), OR is working so far ahead simply making it hard to keep track of when changes were made?

Just a bad memory. I should have double-checked.

I apologize if the portion of my last ask about return sets came off as wanting to deny other people of what they like. That was not intent. Rather, I was under the impression that the consensus were that Midnight Vows and Zendikar Rising were kinda boring. Your yourself bring up in your State of Design article that the sets did not innovate enough. So I always assumed those sets were made safe to please the higher ups, not the players. Was I mistaken?

You were. There’s a split in the audience about whether or not returns should revisit what made the world fun last time versus pushing in new directions. Obviously, we like to find a happy medium, but there are different audiences that want different things.

I heard Neon Dynasty wasn't confirmed to be on Kamigawa at the beginning (even though you wanted to.)Does it make NEO a backdrop set as well? If not, what makes a return set (such as THB, ZNR, DMU, BRO, ONE, and WOE) a "non-backdrop set"?

NEO is more a rebuild than a backdrop set. THB, ZNR, DMU, ONE, and WOE all keep the same mechanical core. BRO is the closest to a backdrop set in that Dominaria was more a setting than a mechanical core. The odd part is Brothers’ War mechanical core was copied from Antiquities which was set on Dominaria.

Do you think we'll see batching for a creature type + something that isn't a creature (like "Wizard, instant or sorcery" from Zendikar Rising) again?

I do.

Are two-faced cards decidous now? I might be biased because of the Zendikar Rising to Strixhaven, but it feels like we have been getting a lot recently.

DFCs are deciduous.

Just left my LGS after having a great time drafting Dominaria Remastered. As someone who started playing when Zendikar Rising was released the vibe in the room was a mix of nostalgia and excitement from both new and old players. And someone ripping a foil old border Force of Will made everyone cheer.

Thanks for sharing.

After 10 months of watching this blog and asking questions, I'd like to invoke birthday trivia! My favorite card type is sagas, and I try to fit some into every deck I make. I watch a lot of your DTWs, and one thing I remembered was that sets like ELD, ZNR, and STX also had pushes for sagas in them but they didn't get too far. Is there anything you can say about those? If not, some trivia on the foretell mechanic would suffice.

We liked Sagas, but were worried about making them too often, so we limited how often we used them. As time has gone by and it’s clear the audience is comfortable with us doing more of them, we’ve upped how often they get used. The fact that so many sets wanted to use them was very telling though.Happy Birthday!

Now that ZNR has rotated out of standard are the party creature types going to be used less often?

The party creature types happen to be things we normally use a lot regardless of party existing, so while there might be individual cases of a tournament card not being a party type, it won’t be a big change.

Hello mark! It's my birthday today, so I'd like to request some birthday trivia about my favorite card, cliffhaven kitesail (if you've got any). Thanks :)

All the equipment in Zendikar Rising automatically attach to a creature when they enter the battlefield because Erik feels equipment should do that. Happy Birthday!