Flying

Donald Duck Flight Potential

If Donald Duck was a card, would he have flying?

Unlikely. People don’t think of him as flying.

Flying

Flight Characteristics in Characters

Do marvel characters that can fly but not naturally have flying? For example, storm doesn't fly, she rides air currents. Magneto doesn't fly, he is manipulating metal in the ground to simulate flight. Jean grey doesn't fly, she uses telekinesis. Do these characters have flying or do they have activated flying or something to else to represent this is not true flight

If you can propel yourself through the air through whatever means, you can have flying.

Flying Marvel Telekinesis

Balancing Flying and Reach Abilities

Is R&D down on flying or high on reach? From Midnight Hunt through Murders at Karlov Manor sets averaged just over 5 creatures with reach, topping out at 7 four times in those 11 sets. In OTJ there were 10 creatures with reach, and Bloomburrow has 13. A rather high number for a set where the theme is small woodland creatures.

Bloomburrow has more reach because two of the ten dedicated animal creature types (Birds and Bats) all have flying.Other than that, I think it’s just an ebb and flow thing.

Bats Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Flying Game Design Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction

About Flying's Storm Scale Rating

Would you consider flying an honorary zero on the storm scale?

Still a 1. 0 isn’t a thing.

Flying Storm Scale

Future Golgari Card

serra sphinx is one thing, but when are we getting that golgari 5 mana 4/4 flying vigilance?

I have faith it will eventually happen.

Flying Golgari (B/G) Mana Vigilance Serra Sphinx

Blue Serra Angel Reprint

Hey Maro,If/when functional reprint of Serra angel into blue with a relevant creature type. Just realized now that blue has vigilance and flying.

Been there done that. (Okay, it was Planar Chaos, but we could reprint it.)

Angels Blogatog / Tumblr Blue Creatures Flying If/When Mark Rosewater Planar Chaos Reprints Vigilance Serra Angel

Understanding Enchantment Aura Mechanics

Hi Mark - please settle a question. My opponent has a 1/3 with an enchantment aura giving it 2/2 and flying for a 3/5 flier. On a later turn I make it a 1/1 frog losing all abilities. Is it now a 1/1 without flying or a 3/3 without flying. Thanks for your help, we couldn't find a good internet amswer!

It depends on how the card is making it a 1/1. If it’s changing the base stats, the aura boost would still apply.

Auras Enchantments Flying Frogs Mechanics

Disappointment on the Bloomburrow Preview

Gotta admit some disappointment with part of the bloomburrow preview. It was really cool seeing the counters in set list until the set dropped and it became “two of these are evergreen, two are ability counters which are deciduous, one is flood which has appeared on and off for two decades…and the ones new to the set are actually all just flavorfully named charge or verse counters in how they work if it’s just one-off cards building on themselves for an effect to count.” Which is super disappointing as it feels like if new counters are named they should mean something

I list counters a lot of the time, and it’s mostly for flavor. The majority of Magic sets have existing evergreen counters (like +1/+1), sometimes deciduous ones (like flying), and usually a few new ones that are charge counters with added flavor. Usually, if there’s some new functionality, that’s it’s own bullet point.

Bloomburrow Deciduous Evergreen Flavor Flying Spoilers

Symbols and Readability Concerns

Considering the readability of Reach and Flying, do you think if magic started from the beginning it would try and tie mechanics and abilities to Symbols to help with readability accross the table?

Or do you think there would be to much a risk of consuming text space and the text box becoming poluted.

Symbols quickly get overwhelming to beginners.

Beginners Flying Mechanics

Questioning Quaketusk Boar Reach

Quaketusk Boar having reach is probably going to catch a lot of people off guard. In the past, reach creatures typically were archers, or spiders, or had "spitting" or "turret" or "bounding" or something like that in the name. I understand that reach is far more common nowadays, making it harder to keep doing this, but I feel like SOME rules for reach creatures should still exist. The rules don't even need to be about the name or creature type. Maybe its something that's communicated in the art.

Reach has proven difficult to communicate in art because it doesn’t have clear symbols like wings for flying. We make a lot of large creatures that don’t have reach.

Archers Art Boars Creatures Flying Rules Spiders Quaketusk Boar

White Cards With Flying Ability

Bloomburrow birds made me think if from now on White will have more cards with "Give flying to a creature without flying"

We’ll have to see how that theme goes over.

Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Flying White

Trivia on Sphinxes

Hi Mark, it's my birthday for another hour or so, and so I'd like to request some trivia on Sphinxes in Magic.

We had trouble finding blue’s iconic creature. It needed to fly as blue is the color most associated with flying. We also wanted the creature to be intelligent. Dragons were red’s iconic. We stumbled upon Sphinxes one day, and said, “they tell riddles, that’s pretty smart.” Happy Birthday!

Birthday Blue Colors Creatures Dragons Flying Sphinxs

Flying Angels Flavor Necessity

If/when Angels without flying?

If. It needs a strong flavor reason.
Apparently losing your wings wasn’t enough. : )

Angels Blogatog / Tumblr Flavor Flying Humor If/When

Acknowledging Atraxa's Fall

FYI Atraxa's Fall has "Destroy target artifact, battle, enchantment, or creature with flying."

True.

Artifacts Battles Creatures Destroy Enchantments Flying Atraxa's Fall

Keyword Counter vs Non-Counter

Can the Rules distinguish between when a card has a keyword counter on it versus having the keyword not from a counter? E.g., Creatures you control with Flying Counters on them also have Vigilance.

Yes, I believe the rules can, much like it can care about a card having a +1/+1 counter.

Creatures Flying Keywords Rules Vigilance Vigilance

Bird Versus Mole Mechanics

Now that Bloomburrow is in preview season, feels like a great opportunity to ask a question about magic which has always bugged me. How come birds get to fly but moles and other similar creatures don't get an evasion mechanic called "burrow" (i.e. flying but underground)?

Because we have an evergreen mechanic called flying and not one called burrowing. : )The closest we have to burrowing is “target creature with power 2 or less is unblockable” first seen on Dwarven Warriors in Alpha.

Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Evasion Evergreen Flying Humor Mechanics Moles Spoilers Warriors Burrowing Dwarven Warriors

Critique of Flavor Words

Hey, Mark, I'm not to make another UB-related request. This isn't coming from an anti-UB place, and it's just one Goose's opinion, but I'm sure there are others who feel this way.Can we get rid of flavor words, please? I haven't seen a single upside to them presented, just downsides:

For decades, one of MtG's biggest strengths was capturing the ludonarrative. Having to spell it out makes it seem like you all have lost confidence in your ability to make card design that makes sense with the captured flavor.
If a design is intended to be funny (the Street Fighter cards come to mind), it feels like you're pointing at the "joke" and saying "See? Please laugh." As a person who has a comedy background, I'm sure you understand why killing the frog is bad.
Death of the epithet: The most minor of the criticisms, but I really think "Ian Chester, Science Teacher" reads better than "Ian Chester" and then calling his ability "science teacher." (I may be mixing up the WHO teachers, but this applies to both, luckily.) Epithets also make it easier to depict multiple "moments" of a character without giving a card up as the "definitive" version of that character.
It feels like you don't trust players to get why the card text is what it is. Telling your audience you don't expect them to be smart (or rather, literate) enough to "get" it doesn't really help. I've seen people say they add flavor to the cards, but the flavor isn't diminished by removing the flavor words (flavor is when things are fleshed out and living, not when things are spelled out). If it's for fans of the IP, then they already get it (Oh, the activated ability that grants flying is referencing this character's rocket propulsion). Non-fans of the IP aren't benefited either, as they will sus out said character has rocket propulsion or be left completely in the dark (see Cult of Skaro: These words do nothing to tell me about the ability. If you were to leave them out, I'd still be able to sus out that each ability corresponds to one of the four Daleks depicted).
Lastly, they make cards harder to read. When trying to grok a card, there should be as few words as possible I'm supposed to ignore.

I understand some people will go "I recognize the thing" and a bulb in their brain will light up, but something being easy like this doesn't mean it's better or that we actually like it more.I guess there's the potential upside that you could slot in numerals to power up my Baron von Count deck, but I don't see any real tangible upside to them. Obviously I'm missing something. Can you say what it is?
(Also, even if you don't answer it,thank you for taking the time to answer this book of an ask. These are feelings I've been sitting on since AFR and keeping an open mind on in case I changed how I felt from my initial reaction.)

Flavor words can do some things that we can’t replicate elsewhere. I agree they can be overused, and are not always used optimally, but I don’t think we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Appreciation Baron Von Count Cult of Skaro Daleks Epithets Epithets Flavor Flavor Words Flying Frogs Humor Replicate

Lack of Evasive Creatures

In the Fallen Empires DTW (which I loved by the way), you mention that Fallen Empires had almost no flying or other evasion. Do you think that might have been the result of building the set “too top down,” meaning they had great ideas about the factions and simply forgot to include evasive creatures because the factions they came up with were all land and sea armies? This feels like a good lesson that could be useful to anyone designing a set without a design skeleton.

The East Coast Playtesters just weren’t super fond of flying. Most their sets had a smaller percentage of fliers than average (at the time).

Army Creatures Drive to Work Evasion Factions Flying Lands Skeletons Top Down

Mechanics of Gifting Explained

With regards to "Gift a tapped fish" being a single 'keyword', are the rules being written in such a way that Gifting in general can be referred to by other cards?

I.e. Something like "If a player gives another player a gift [do this thing]."Or will they have to refer to SPECIFIC gifting effects?Like, will "Gift a tapped fish" "Gift a Card" "Gift a Food" all technically be a different as First Strike, Trample, and Flying from a rules point of view?

They’re connected like protection connects protection from red and protection from instants.

First Strike Fish Flying Food Gift Mechanic Gift Mechanic Instants Mechanics Protection Red Rules Trample

Mount Creatures in Type Line

Do you think we will ever see the creatures who are serving as mounts in art show up in the type line? It’s become almost a running joke when, for example, a knight card which has flying because they’re riding a giant dragon seems to ignore the existence of the dragon everywhere else on the card. I just think it would be a cool way to get more cards for non-humanoid creature type strategies.

I never say never, so there’s always a chance, but I’m skeptical. Type lines are already tight.

Art Creatures Dragon Flying Giant Humor Knight Mount