Could Delve be limited by card characteristics? (type, color, subtypes, mv, etc...)

I think so.

Is Collect Evidence something of a 'fixed Delve', as if adds more knobs and removes lands in graveyard (Fetches + Delve = bad news) from the equation?

It’s playing in similar space, but delve is locked into mana costs, which collect evidence isn’t.

"Delve has significant play balance issues." Do you think like how discovery is a fixed/adjusted version of Cascade, we could one day see one such version of delve?

It’s a possibility.

Was delve ever considered for LCI due to its association with dungeon diving, whether as a one off or general theme in either the main set or commander set?

Delve has significant play balance issues.

Hello Mark, do the rules support Delving only certain card types? ie Delve Instants?

I believe it would require rewriting delve, but my gut (note not a rules manager) is it’s possible.

Regarding card-by-card design stories, your Khans of Tarkir part 2 (The part 1 link seemed to be broken still) had 5 Mythics, 3 Rares, 2 Uncommons and 2 Uncommon cycles, and 3 Commons and 1 Common cycle. One of the Uncommons was really the story of the 3 pre-existing delve cards, two commons and a rare. Your Dominaria United Part 2 (I skipped Brother's War because you only covered Urza) had 2 Rares and a Mythic. Unfinity part 2 was 3 Commons, 3 Uncommons, 1 Rare.

I try to mix it up, but there’s a lot of desire to talk about the highest profile cards.

Would it be fair to say that a lot of the stuff that the 75% of players don’t encounter either is stuff they’d like if they ran into or, or that has secondary benefits for them as players? Like, magic story kinda creates a background radiation of “stuff is happening, this event is part of a bigger thing” that you can appreciate passively without necessarily digging deeper.

Absolutely. I think Magic sets feel better as a product even if you don’t delve deeply into the details of it.

Greetings MaRo, big fan, love this game you're a big part in making, and I especially love your enthusiasm for it! It's truly infectious, and your passion clearly shows.

Anyway, as the Officially-Unoffical Un-Rules Manager, I had a question if you have the time. My play group is going to be running an Un-commander night soon where un-cards are totally legal and where we each get to pick a legendary creature, planeswalker, or The Grand Calcutron from an un-set and use that as our commander. I, in the spirit of someone who loves Magic history, am going with Richard Garfield, Ph.D.. Going to do some random number generator table to just increase the randomness, to try to not keep the deck super duper busted and, most importantly, to ensure my turns don't take forever because of decision paralysis. However, this leads me to a few questions about how certain mechanics work when I control Richard Garfield, Ph.D.:

1. Flashback (or really any "cast from the graveyard" effects/abilities, but flashback is the main one). If I have, say, Think Twice in the graveyard and I pay the flashback cost, am I limited to playing it as any card that costs 1U that also has flashback, or can I play it as any card that costs 1U? I'm assuming the former, but wanted to double-check on this point.

2. Alternate casting costs, like delve or madness. I assume that, if I am choosing the pay the alternate cost, it is already too late for me to play a particular card as a different card instead? For example, if I exile 7 cards from the graveyard to delve Treasure Cruise, I can't cast it as Scornful Egotist, right?

3. Suspend, and this is the one I am the least sure about so if you only have time for one rules question (I know you're incredibly incredibly busy making this game we all love, so I completely understand if that's the case), I would love an answer to this. If I have a card suspended and the last time counter comes off allowing me to cast the card, can I cast it as a different card of the same mana cost? For example, if I have Riftwing Cloudskate on suspend and I remove the last time counter, could I cast it as, say, Slime Monster? Also, for this question, does it at all matter if I suspended Cloudskate before or after I cast Richard Garfield, Ph.D.?

Thank you in advance for your help and for your time, and I am really looking forward to all that Magic has to offer! Can I shill for a second for a plane based around the Klondike Gold Rush with Western elements?

1. To use flashback, you must treat the card as a card with the same mana cost, and then pay the flashback costs that actually appears on the card that you are “copying”. 2. Yes, it is too late. Once you start paying additional costs, you’re locked into it being that spell.3. Suspend works similarly to flashback. You can “copy” any spell with the same mana cost and then pay the suspend cost that appears on that “copy”.

You've had a lot of trouble printing future-shifted cards into sets where they seem like they belong because they don't line up with Creative: Tombstalker doesn't fit the delve set because at the time Creative said no demons, Ghostfire doesn't fit the Devoid set because Ghostfire is Ugin-themed, Centaur Omenreader doesn't fit Kalhdeim because Creative said no centaurs... looking back, is there anything about future-shifting you wish you'd done differently?

Designing cards for potential futures is just very difficult. There’s not really an easy answer even with hindsight.

Just finished your podcast with Chris Pikula. I enjoyed it very much but was surprised you didn't talk more about what he has done to fight cheating in the game. I think that would have been very interesting. Is there a reason you didn't delve deeper into this topic?

We only had thirty minutes. Chris and I could have talked for hours.