Arboreal Grazer

Changing Creature Types

Hi Mark! About creature types. You’ve said before R&D is skittish about errataing creature types, but there’s been a lot of doing that anyway lately. Apart from changing the types of animal-people like viashino and cephalid to better synergize with their non-anthropomorphic counterparts, sloth was added to a few cards with Fallout, and now dragons from Kaladesh received the cat type. Efreet was phased out in favor of djinn, but not retroactively like naga - all the efreet cards are still efreet, but there won’t be new ones anymore. And lastly, despite both types entering the game around the same time, sloth gets added, detective doesn’t. Arboreal Grazer went from beast to sloth beast, but Dogged Detective stays merely a human rogue. I’m fully in favor of the general direction that’s taken with creature types, and I also understand the risk of doing a lot of this in a game with paper cards. But the way it’s currently being handled feels extremely inconsistent, and the categorizer in me feels upset!
So, my question is: could you, or someone who is in charge of this, elaborate on the seemingly complex reasonings as to which creature type gets added, added but not errata’d, replaced, or phased out (perhaps in an article)? You’ve said before it’s not, but it really does seem scattershot, and I want to understand.Thank you!

Here’s the problem. It’s mostly done piecemeal which creates the inconsistency you’re talking about. Let me bring it up with the relevant people.

Appreciation Arboreal Grazer Beast Cat Cephalid Creatures Detective Djinns Dogged Detective Dragon Efreets Game Design Human Kaladesh Naga Rogue Scattershot Sloth Viashino

Defender Power Rationale

Hey Mark, could defenders by default have higher power than 0? 0 power defenders make the keyword feel like trinket text, and make it hard to remember when cards like Arboreal Grazer randomly don't have defender.

0-power us an important tool for creatures with defender. Sometimes we want them blocking, but not destroying attackers.

Arboreal Grazer Blocking Creatures Defender Flavor Keywords

Green Mana Dorks

Greetings Mark, I am very passionate about designing magic cards and really enjoy your series Nuts & Bolts and all your articles involving Magic's game design. My question today is on Green creatures, which creature types can be mana dorks? I've noticed over the years most fall into the Human, Shaman, Druid category. But I have seen a few outliers ''Birds of paradise" which is an old card, and Arboreal Grazer which is a beast, but not a mana dork. Could Arboreal Grazer be a dork?

Flavor leans towards certain creature types, but color pie wise, any green creature can do it.

Arboreal Grazer Beast Bird Birds of Paradise Color Pie Colors Creatures Druid Flavor Game Design Green Human Making Magic Mana Shaman

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