Does no one at wotc think it's silly how you can put an emrakul or griselbrand into play turn 1 but making a bunch of squirrels with earthcraft is too far?

I think it’s not far enough. : )

You said in a recent ask: "[UB] isn't Magic to you. And that's a fine stance. You get to define what Magic is to you. Play with whatever Magic cards you feel embody Magic. But you don't get to define that unilaterally. To many people Universes Beyond cards are Magic."You also compared UB cards to Un-cards, but that is not really a fair comparison.I only have control over my decks, I do not and cannot control what other people put in their decks (which is a good thing!). I can choose not to put UB cards in my deck, but in a tournament my opponent could have a deck with only UB cards and if I was adamant about not playing with them, I'd have to just drop out. Silver boarder cards are different because you do get to choose to participate in a game with them. Before the game, the person who wants to play with silver boarder cards has to ask if the other players are ok with that. That is not the case with UB. You either put up with UB or you don't get to play.

There are many things in Magic that players don’t like, yet encounter in other people’s decks. For example, there are many players who don’t like horror imagery. There are ones than dislike things that pull too far away from fantasy. There are ones that don’t like when cards get too cutesy.Part of playing Magic has always been that you craft the kind of deck you want and your opponent does the same. And if they play things you are unhappy with, that’s part of the communal experience. If you care enough, you can play with people who share your sensibilities. But the idea that a player is protected from the parts of the game they dislike has never been true since the game premiered 31 years ago.

Why every set needs to introduce so many new keywords? I believe there are already enough. Stuff like Disguise, Cloak, Collect Evidence, Suspect, are born (and I believe dead) within Murders at Karlov Manor. LCI had Craft, Descend, Discover, Explore. OTJ has Crimes and probably more. I understand that it's fun to draft with new mechanics, but I hate when I am playing any format and have to search online what a specific new mechanic does.

We make new mechanics because players tell us it’s the number one factor of why they buy new sets. Disguise and cloak are just us updating Morph and Manifest, which I do expect us to use again. Collect evidence played well, so I assume it will return. Suspect is the mechanic I’m least sure we’ll use again, but I’ve said that about plenty of mechanics that went on to come back.If an excess of mechanics is frustrating for you, you might want to try a rotating format, like Standard, which greatly limits how many mechanics are available at a time. Non-rotating formats are just going to continually go up in mechanics. It’s their nature.

For your top 20 (non-evergreen) mechanics I noticed none were from this decade. What would you say is the best new mechanic from this decade so far?

Note that I would pick the mechanic that started a trend. Foretell is an awesome more recent mechanic, but Morph is the first to use face down as a resource, so I chose that for the talk.Amass, while not technically from this decade, is only five years old. Mechanics I really like from this decade include: alliance, backup, collect evidence, connive, corrupted, decayed, enlist, escape, foretell, incubate, learn/lesson, magecraft, mutate (although it has its complexity issues), party, prototype, reconfigure, role tokens, and shield counters.

The sets so far this year have given us lots of token resources (roles, maps, clues) and graveyard resources (descend, cycling variants) and ways to use them (bargain, craft, collect evidence).Are we in a secret Crafting-themed year-long block?If so, nice job on the cross-set mechanical synergy! I know it’s been a consistent goal of the post-block era.

There is a goal to provide synergies. We’ve found being loud about it (“this is the year of ______”) is harder and have moved away from that.

Would you consider Lost Caverns to be a success in terms of being the first backdrop set (or is it too early to tell?) It seems like the majority of content created and discussion online still revolves around the typal aspects that were present in original Ixalan rather than newer aspects like Craft or Cave

War of the Spark was the first “backdrop” set in the way we define it. I think the reason we use the world is because fans are fan of the world. The set is still built around the underground theme rather than the faction structure of the initial outing.

I was surprised to learn that LCI has only 3 fewer artifacts than BRO. With Craft being a key set mechanic I suppose it makes sense, but the story and theme really don’t tie to Crafting as being important.To me it almost feels like Craft was first intended for BRO from a thematic standpoint, and Unearth was destined for LCI. Were these two switched at some point?

They were not. The Brothers’ War story involves the brothers digging up old Thran technology.

Hey Mark, I just wanted to say that I like craft as a mechanic, but the wording is really bothering me. Why "Craft with artifact" instead of "Craft with an artifact?"

Templating is not my area of expertise, but I know Magic templating follows its own rules rather than always following the rules of English.

Caverns of Ixalan has Craft a "Graveyard as a resource" mechanic like Flashback & Scavenge and Descend, a "graveyard as a measure" mechanic like threshold and undergrowth. From what I can tell a graveyard had set has always been built around one or the other because the themes clash. Why does Caverns mix the two? Thanks for answering our questions, sir.

Both mechanics work with things that fill your graveyard, so there is some synergy, even if there’s also some tension.

"As long as you’re not playing in a competitive event, you’re not required to play the strongest version of an effect. [...] A lot of enjoying Magic is playing what personally makes you happy."That's a valid point, but doesn't address the whole issue. In Magic, the cards *I* play with are, at most, only half of the cards in the game. When someone says they want you to stop making so many of X effect, they are asking you to make an environment that encourages their opponents to play cards they enjoy having in their games. Granted, you have a lot more control over the metagame in Limited than you do in a big format like Commander, but I think the concern is still worth addressing.

Magic, by its core design, is about creating a lot of different options to allow players to craft their own experiences. This structures makes it good at making things players want, and bad at removing things players don’t want. Let’s use my buffet metaphor that I like. We find out that there are a significant amount of buffet guests that enjoy seafood. Great, we can add seafood, and increase their happiness because now they can eat seafood. Let’s say we learn there’s another smaller group that hates seafood. There’s not a lot we can do. Removing the seafood makes more people unhappy than happy. All we can do is suggest seafood haters don’t eat the seafood. If they really hate it, maybe they choose to never sit at a table with someone eating seafood.Part of playing Magic is understanding that it’s a large community that enjoys different things. Try to embrace that other people like things you don’t, and that maybe their happiness has value to you.