alright mark unrulings question
so me and my opponent both control infinity elementals, however a third player has crookclaw transmutered my opponent's meaning its' infinite power is actually infinite toughness
I attack them with infinity, they block with infinity, what happen

A creature with infinite power can’t destroy a creature with infinite toughness.

" I am interested in feedback if you all like the idea of a showcase set. If the answer is yes, are there other themes you'd like to see?" I would like to see the idea expended on, yeah. Some ideas of showcase themes: -A tournament or competition; -a trapped plane/prison plane that captures people from across the multiverse; -a clash between two or more planes.

There are many ways to do a showcase set. Everyone should remember that when I say a “showcase” set I mean, the set is built around a theme, and then we bring characters, and potential other things like objects, there that fit that larger theme. Next year’s omenpath set is Tennis and it’s a different kind of set, what I’m calling a travelogue set" where there is something that takes place over multiple worlds, in Tennis’ case a race.

Loving things so far but a couple of questions, why weren't Ninjas considered outlaws and was clash considered for this set? The latter seems like it would fit flavor as a standoff with the higher cost being who drew and shot quicker.

Repeated batches, meaning things we use on multiple cards in the same set, are normally restricted between two and five items, with three being the sweet spot. We needed Rogues and Warlocks to hit all the creative executions we wanted. Mercenary was needed because that was our henchperson token. We also knew Assassin’s Creed with its Assassin typal theme was coming. We turned those four in when we handed off from vision, leaving one potential space open so set design could add something if needed. That something was Pirate due to all the ones added by The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. As I show in today’s article, we considered all the following:AssassinBarbarianBerserkerMinionMercenaryNinjaPirateRebelRogueWarlockThere just wasn’t room for all of them. Also, we prioritized what would be in the set. So some things, like Ninja, didn’t make the cut.As for clash, it’s just wasn’t popular enough when we first did it to bring it back.

Was Clash on the table for Thunder Junction? Or perhaps some "Fixed" version of Clash? Seems a flavor slam dunk to evoke quickdraw duels to me

Clash just wasn’t that well received by the players.

I keep thinking about the one-off use of Battle Cry in MOM. Is this a sign that we may get more keyword mechanics returning as one-offs (also like Clash on Marvo, Deep Operative)? New mechanics are obviously great because everyone loves new content, but I also think bringing back old mechanics helps enforce the idea that they are still a part of the game, and not something just done once and then forgotten about.

We’re calling them cameos. We’re allowing one-of callbacks (in limited amount) at high rarities.

Hi Mark. I love the design of Marvo, Deep Operative, but I am curious the reasoning behind making a Clash matters commander when Clash is a very unpopular mechanic that seems unlikely to see new cards made with it.

Sometimes we make cards to make a narrow band of players very happy.

With tarkir appearing on arena, has there been any consideration for other older sets, such as lorwyn making an appearance? I think arena handling the interaction would make Clash a more fun mechanic as it would speed up the process, and I’d love to have more kindred effects to play with. Kindred is my favorite style of play ❤️ And those sweet, sweet filter lands.

The reason they were able to do Khans of Tarkir was that’s what they coded to test Arena way back in the very beginning. That means it was basically already done, so came with very little coding needs.

Do you think a Clash variant where you win by having the lower mana value could play well?

I think it would feel worse than clash, which wasn’t popular.

Hi Mark, thanks again for doing this blog, its a wonderful read +makes for good days. Question/request- I play a lot of limited, Clash was a mechanic with an extremely "untapped" potential. It came out before Scry. With impactful payoffs it can be a "heart mechanic" for a set. An entire limited set revolving around setting up your best top deck w scry/grave/hand, with fun reveals & then cheating things into play would be a new style of play. Know its a storm 8. Anything like this considered?

Clash is one of the lowest scoring mechanics since we’ve done market research on them. Players mostly didn’t like it, so were apprehensive to bring it back.

What are the chances we see galaxy foil retro frame cards?

Don’t those two things kind of clash thematically?