Fate Reforged

Upcoming Card Tutor Observation

Re: upcoming card tutor:Renowned Weaponsmith from FRF tutors up Vial of Dragonfire from DTK.

Ooh, I forgot that one. Good catch.

Dragons of Tarkir Fate Reforged Tutoring Renowned Weaponsmith Vial of Dragonfire

Fate of Original Tarkir

After Sarkhan's timey-wimey shenanigans in Fate Reforged, what happened to the original timeline of Tarkir?

It doesn’t exist anymore. It got rewritten with the new timeline.

Fate Reforged Shenanigans

Battle Card Design

I know nothing about Fallout, but just from a basic mechanics point of view, was there any discussion of making the new "Battle of Hoover Dam" a battle card rather than a fate reforged style enchantment?

Universes Beyond sets have a greater lead time because we need to run everything by our partner. This means Fallout was designed before March of the Machine was released, so we didn’t yet know how Battles would be received. In addition, for production reasons, it’s difficult to put DFCs in Commander decks, and a single card in a supplemental product is probably not how we wanted to premiere single-faced Battles.

Battle of Hoover Dam Battles Commander Decks Dual Faced Cards Enchantments Fate Reforged March of the Machine Mechanics Partner Universes Beyond

Play Booster Land Slot

Play booster question: in LCI, draft boosters have a chance to contain a cave in the basic land slot. In upcoming sets that use play boosters, will some of those sets use the basic land slot for other lands like LCI, MOM, DGM, and FRF did?

It’s an option available.

Boosters Caves Draft Boosters Dragon's Maze Fate Reforged Lands Play Boosters The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Siege Card Names

The only thing I'm disappointed with Sieges is that we got a cycle of cards called siege in Fate Reforged, but they aren't battles and even less sieges. Those names would have been perfect for the battles!

It’s hard to predict the game’s future.

Battles Card Names Cycles Fate Reforged Sieges

Time Travel Set Possibilities

Does brother’s war allow us maybe to go back in time and see planes that are now dead but back then are full of life and see what brought the death of the plane?

Going back in time for a premier set isn’t off limits. We’ve actually done it a number of times (Brothers’ War, Fate Reforged, Champions of Kamigawa block), but there has to be a strong narrative reason for it.

Champions of Kamigawa Fate Reforged Planes Premier Sets

Double Choice with Far Out

Does Far Out let you choose both Khans and Dragons for the siege cycle from Fate Reforged?

It does.

Dragon Far Out Fate Reforged

Premier Set Names Possibility

I was curious how likely it was that we would ever see a premier set not named after the plane on takes place on again. It was mostly old sets like tempest, onslaught, etc. But it has happened with Fate Reforged and War of the spark recently.

The Brothers’ War is later this year. And there are more coming.

Fate Reforged Onslaught Onslaught Premier Sets Tempest The Brothers' War The Brothers' War War of the Spark War of the Spark

Past-Set Terminology

Besides the first visit to kamigawa Is “brothers war” the first set in standard to ever go to the past rather than present/future

Fate Reforged is set in the past.

Fate Reforged Standard

Visiting Plane's Past

Is visiting a plane's past something that's theoretically on the table? I don't mean a timeline change, like Fate Reforged. But rather a set that shows us the formation of the Guildpact, or Amonkhet pre-Bolas, that kind of thing.

It’s not off the table.

Amonkhet Fate Reforged Guildpact

Dragon-Tribal Limited Archetype

Will we ever see "Dragon-tribal" as a limited archetype?

It’s tricky to make work as a limited archetype as dragons tend to be in higher rarity. Fate Reforged/Dragons of Tarkir is probably the closest we’ll get.

Dragons Dragons of Tarkir Fate Reforged Limited Rarity

Megamorph and Manifest Design

Might the answer have been to do megamorph in Fate and Manifest in Dragons?

Putting Manifest in Dragons would have worked provided we could find something that felt proto-Morph for Fate Reforged. Megamorph is not proto-Morph.

Dragon Fate Reforged Manifest

Effects of Set Model Changes

Hey Mark, concerning all the recent power level talk, I think a big portion of it is because magic switched from the 2-1 model the every set is individual and large model. 2-1 allowed sets to specialize (i.e Khans had great standard, Fate Reforged had fun limited, and Dragons had cool commander cards) allowing power to be spread out. New sets feel like their trying to do to much. Is it possible to go back to the old model? Also I wanna say thanks for all the hard work you do :)

I am skeptical we a returning to the block model. There was a big drop off in sales for the second and third sets of a block, that we aren’t seeing under the new model.

Appreciation Commander Dragon Fate Reforged Limited Power Level Standard

Standard-Legal Set in the Past

If/When: A Standard-legal set that's a century or more in the past or future, relative to the surrounding sets.

Little when. We’ve done it a couple times before with Kamigawa block and Fate Reforged. I assume when we find the right reason, we’ll do it again.

Fate Reforged If/When

Ojutai Clan Trivia

Hey Mark! I started reading your blog just after my birthday last year (no regrets, it's a super fun blog to read), so I've been waiting a while for my birthday trivia opportunity - can I have some trivia about Ojutai or his Clan from the new Tarkir timeline?

The tricky thing about designing the five dragonlords was that each of them has two versions - a young version in Fate Reforged and an older version in Dragons of Tarkir. Ojutai is smaller in his dragonlord form (5/4 vs. 5/6) and that led to a lot of arguments. In the end, we decided we liked the dragonlord and left it as is.Happy Birthday!

Birthday Dragon Dragons of Tarkir Fate Reforged

Theme Visibility

How much has "if your theme isn't at common, it isn't your theme" changed over the years? Between Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir's dragon theme, Dominaria's legendary theme, and War of the Spark's planeswalker theme, it seems like you don't lean quite as hard on that idea as you used to.

It really should be “if your theme isn’t at high enough an as-fan, it isn’t your theme”, but that’s a little harder for players to grok.

As-fan Dominaria Dragon Dragons of Tarkir Fate Reforged Planeswalkers War of the Spark

Manifest Design Impact

How, if at all, did manifest affect the creature to noncreature ratio in the Fate Reforged design skeleton?

It’s fuzzy, but I think we counted them as some percentage creatures, the more certainty of a creature, the higher the percentage.

Creatures Fate Reforged Manifest Skeleton

Narset's Martial Arts

Is the current (post Fate Reforged) Narset a martial artist as well? This is important to me because I love Kung-Fu movies.

I don’t know. I hope yes.

Art Fate Reforged Pop Culture

Green Flying Justification

So Mark, I know that you consider Flying a break in Green, so I have two questions for you. Given the nature of Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir, do you consider it a mistake that there are mono-green Dragons? The second question is in a new unset, would you consider creating a (nongreen) card that grants only green creatures flying and calling it "Technically Not a Break" or something to that effect?

Flying is not a break in green but a bend that we willingly do on rare occasion.

Bend / Break Creatures Dragon Dragons of Tarkir Fate Reforged Flying Green Rares Un-Magic / Silver Border / Acorn Un-sets

Flashback Expansions

"Fate Reforged did exactly that, so yes, it’s possible." Fate Reforged had the time travel component to justify it. I think the asker was wondering if we could get an expert expansion (not core set) that was just a flashback, without time travel or any other shenanigans.

Maybe. : )

Fate Reforged Flashback Question Marks Shenanigans