If or when: a plane where the usual creature types are shuffled around a bit, but still fit their new colors? Ex. goblins on this plane are more civilized and selfless than average and are in White, merfolk swim in lava and live in volcanoes and are Red, undeath is seen as a natural part of the cycle of life thus zombies and animated skeletons are in Green, etc.

Designing for the eternal world, especially Commander, complicates this. Because we’re trying hard to connect with themes of the past, it becomes hard to add new cards to a theme, but specifically put them in a different color(s) than they originally appeared in. We do like to stretch creature types to new colors, but usually associated with a color that has some history to it.

Hey Mark! Quick Color pie question: why does green get a lot of recursion? It seems unnatural for green to be able to bring things back after a natural life is over. Thanks!

The cycle of life and death is a big part of green.

In the multiple choice questions for GDS2, number 34 asks what mechanic would be most at home in the golgari guild on ravnica. Your correct answer was flashback, but I thought about it otherwise because flashback can only go on instant's and sorceries, and thus would not be a good mechanic for a guild that cares mostly about creatures, and ravnica guilds can only have one mechanic. Am I misinterpreting the question?

Golgari cares about the cycle of life. That’s often represented on creatures because there are many ways to bring creatures back from the graveyard. Golgari doesn’t care anything specifically about creatures, unlike Selesnta that does, so giving it a mechanic that lets it use cards out of the graveyard, even if they are instants and sorceries, is right up Golgari’s alley.

Voldemort green? But he stretches the boundries of magic in order to break the cycle of life and death. Surely making it so that you never die is one of the least green things you can do?

Okay, I’m convinced he’s Grixis and not Sultai.

Just got a chance to really listen to the Blue podcast, and I'm still at a loss for why there needs to be such a hard line between blue and red philosophy. Everything about them seems to be polar opposites rather than the subtle differences that exist between the other colors, like BG focus on the cycle of life, RW focus on overwhelming forces, GU focus on evolution, and WB focus on the group. UR doesn't seem to have this true cross-cutting theme that connects the two.

Blue and red are the two colors who enjoys trickery and they have a number of mechanics (like forking, redirecting, temporary stealing, etc.) that play into this feel.

I've heard people say that after Black, Green is actually the secondary color for graveyard interaction. Is this true, and if so, do you usually use it in the Vengevine "care about specific cards in graveyard" sense, or the Splinterfright or Ghoultree "It's the quantity that matters" sense?

Black is clearly number one when it comes to graveyard interaction. Green is number two with white a close third.  Green’s graveyard interaction comes from its cycle of life feel where it gets life from death (aka returning cards from the graveyard to the hand). Green does a little of creatures in graveyard coming back into play but if that’s the part you’re studying the color pie for, white is ahead of it.