Hey Mark - I'm yet another enfranchised minority player who is really, really disappointed that the golden standard for MTG storytelling is Batman repeatedly locking up the Joker. I would hate for MTG to become an IP where the card game repeats the same story over and over because that's what worked in the past. There's been a lot of backlash at Marvel and DC for leaning into that strategy for the comics in favor of other media (movies, TV, etc) being where the innovation is.

We’ve never repeated our story, but we have had villains show up again. That’s pretty standard for any ongoing story. And while it’s fine if comics aren’t your personal media of choice, they are very popular with a lot of people, myself included. Please remember that different people might enjoy things you personally don’t. You not liking them doesn’t inherently make them of less quality. Many excellent stories have been told in the comics medium, a large number using Batman. The Dark Knight Returns, for example, is in my person top 10 of comic stories. I recommend Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics if you want to get a better understanding of comics as a storytelling medium.

R&D devotes more time and attention to commander than ever before and that's cool. People should be able to play in a way that they enjoy and if R&D can help then that's even better but every time I see someone talking about Commander here they seem to want the game to be designed solely with Commander in mind. I know you probably wouldn't want to bring attention to it because it's negative but is there some Commander backlash in the asks?

The tricky thing about designing Magic is making sure that every Standard-legal set speaks to every Magic player. I think it’s fine for players to want to look out for their favorite format, as long as they understand that we can’t look out for only their format. Most Question Marks seem to understand that.

What was the process behind making Ixalan's dinosaurs feathered like? I know it's more likely for real dinosaurs to have often been like that, but weren't the folks at WotC worried about the same backlash that Jurassic Park 3 got? I don't mind, but I do slightly prefer the featherless ones like gigantosaurus.

The setting wanted feathers anyway, so it seemed like a good fit. Not all of Magic’s Dinosaurs have feathers.

How big of a community backlash would be needed to finally kill the Reserved List?

If community unhappiness was what it took to get rid of the Reserved List, it would have been gone ages ago.

I'm not sure if this would help, but what if there was a series of smaller multiple choice tests over the course of 1 week? So, 25 "easy" questions, cutting off the bottom 50%, 25 medium questions, cutting off another 25%, and then finally the last 25 difficult questions, bringing it down to the 100. I think a lot of the backlash is coming from the high threshold, so by artificially lowering it, the cutoff doesn't seem as steep, despite being the same. It would be a logistical nightmare, though.

The same number of people fail to advance. Would having to do it through three tests rather than one make people happier?

Hey Mark! Just wanted to say, as a person with OCD, I did not even immediatelly notice the mismatch of 7ns in Griselbrand, which remains one of my favorite cards ever and one that I fell instantly in love with. Any chance you are over-stating how much backlash you got from other players regarding this issue?

I am not overstating it. It was the loudest complaint I got from Avacyn Restored. And it was many times more complaints than anything else.

I think a part of the negative reaction to Devoid may have been backlash against the problems you already noted about BFZ being a return to the wrong setting. Devoid may have been less disliked because of itself, and more because it was seen as a representation of the Eldrazi.

Maybe, but I think it goes deeper than that.

Would a new Oath necessarily have to be an enchantment? Or after the backlash of the OGW incomplete cycle would you shy away from printing one as another permanent or spell type?

Oaths will always be enchantments.

The first day changeling was spoiled there was a backlash, you got upset about people saying "you made mistform ultimate less special" but by the time the whole set was out and we saw what could be done with it, we loved it.

You are correct. I’d had forgotten the initial impression.

You just mentioned there are only two planeswalker cards in oath of the gatewatch. Are you ready for the inevitable backlash and rage for the planeswalker not being printed out of Jace, Chandra, and Nissa?

Prepare yourself now. In a completely unrelated point, Nissa’s looking mighty nice in the key art for Oath.