I really love animals and how many different species there are. When you started talking about Bloomburrow's mechanics not being directly typal, I was hoping that there'd be a lot of one-off animals. But almost all of the cards revealed so far are one of the main 10 animals, with the main exceptions being the calamity beasts.Was there ever a point in development where the focus was more on showcasing a lot of different animal species rather than selecting a smaller number that act as draft archetype groups?

I talked about this in my first Bloomburrow preview column. Here’s a snippet:“Once it was on the schedule, I did a little advance work on the genre to familiarize myself with it. I realized that there were two ways it’s traditionally done.Take #1 – Animals represent groups of people. These people are mice, those people are badgers, and these people are otters. Each animal type has qualities that are consistent among that group, usually things that feel resonant with the real-world animal. In this version, the setting is usually a biome, and all the animals in it are ones who would live in that biome. The animals are roughly proportional to what they would be in the real world.Take #2 – Animals represent individual people. This person’s jumpy, so she’s a frog. That person’s sneaky, so he’s a fox. This other person rushes into things, so they’re a rhino. Each animal is used to represent personality qualities. In this version, the setting is usually something more human in structure, often a city, and the variety of animals is much larger. The animal selection here is not limited by biome, so you can have animals living together that normally would never see each other in the real world. The animals are loosely related in size (a racoon is smaller than an elephant), but the scope of scale is compressed.Take number one is easier for worldbuilding. There are less unique types of animals, and they’re organized by creature type. Because animals are used to express groups of people, they tend to act more similarly to traditional species creature types, like Elves, Goblins, or Merfolk. This pushes us more toward a factioned typal theme.Take number two is easier for design because the designers have access to a lot more animals and can make more individually cool designs. The twelfth Mouse card, for instance, is a lot harder to make different than the first Giraffe. This approach pushes us more toward mechanics that tie into a larger animal theme. It’s more likely we’d create an environment that was about a lot of different animals working together, putting the focus more on individual top-down card design.Aaron was more interested in doing take number one, while I was more interested in doing take number two. So, we did a bunch of market research. It came back exactly even. Half the people we polled preferred take one, and half preferred take two. In a tie, Aaron’s original vision won out, so we did take one. (Also, I believe more people internally wanted to do take one.) I do want to stress that both takes would have allowed us to make a cool set. They just head down different paths and would have ended up in very different places, mechanically and creatively.”

Salutations Mark. I would like to complain about the modern aesthetics in recent Magic. You see, the yellow hard hat was invented in second half of the 20th century. However, Goblin Artisans from Antiquities don such apparel. Apparel? More like APPALLING. I slap my glove at thee sir and demand adorable artwork as reparation. ADORABLE I SAY.

I’ll see what I can do. : )

In contrast to most people I'm seeing, just wanted to say I adore the 70's/80's vibe of Duskmourn and I really like you guys touching different eras/styles. Id find MTG boring as heck visually if it was ALL just medieval fantasy and swords and goblins, so its cool to see westerns and 80s horror and aliens and so on :) Its honestly one of the things that got me to start playing magic: Hearing it wasnt just LOTR style fantasy anymore.

I am getting a lot of responses on this topic from absolutely adoring it to hating it with a passion. As I often say, we prefer topics getting 1&2’s and 9&10’s than just everyone grading it a 7. Magic tends to work best when it provokes strong reactions.That said, we know we’re pushing boundaries with Duskmourn and we have to wait and see what players think a few months in after first impressions fade away.

Hey Mark! I was just curious about something very near and dear to my heart, as a Scion of the Ur-Dragon EDH player. will we see any major returns in the future for say, a Tarkir re-boot? also I HAVE to both Thank and Curse your team for the coin flip goblin archetype. it is so so silly and has been a strong archetype for so long

The set codenamed Ultimate is a return to Tarkir.

So we have Goblin Balloon Brigade and Manta Riders; when are we going to see the rest of the "1/1 that can fly for C" characteristic race mega cycle?

Two dots do not necessarily form a cycle. : )

Hi Mark! I wanted to give my own thanks to you and the card game I love so dearly. When I was 16, friendless and hopelessly autistic without realising it, a friend of my sister saw me walking down the street and gave me a tupperware box of Magic cards that he was about to throw away (mostly goblins from 10th Edition).

I went to my LGS to learn how to play the game and found not only a love for the game, but a creative outlet, a great group of friends, and the confidence I needed to grow as a person.

I was hired to run their Magic events and eventually worked my way up to manager/"The Card Guy" and some of my happiest life moments, including finding an equal passion for reading DC comics, were made during my decade of working there.

I can only imagine where I would be if I hadn't gone to my LGS to learn Magic that day, but I know I can't imagine my life without it, so thank you to everyone who helped make, and continues to make, such a wonderful game.

P.S. the first booster I ever opened was Avaycn Restored and after being blown away by Vorstclaw I've been a Timmy ever since!

Thanks for sharing.

Do Myrs truly have an alignment? I know they were built by Memnarch, but after that they kinda just hung out like lil robot goblins, until the Phyrexians, where they were... active dissedents? But other than some cards it just seems like they were just useful creatures for the Rebels to utilize.

The Myr work for whoever will allow them to be useful.

Hey Mark. I wanted to say that I’m sorry that the recent ban announcements made you sad, and I’m sure it’s very frustrating seeing a design you believe in (Unfinity) not receiving a very warm reception.

I got a lot of feedback from people who enjoyed it, and it is, by far, the best selling Un-set of all time. The people frustrated at ______ Goblin in Legacy were not the intended target.

Hi Mark, long time listener, long time player and we've met a few times.I just read the Banned and Restricted announcement and I'm a little annoyed at the banning of ____ Goblin because I enjoyed playing that deck.However, the thing I find more upsetting is the refrain of "...[it] could be played in Commander, but there's no existing way to make a bunch of cards legal in Commander and not Legacy."You made the rules and you can change them. Claiming to be handcuffed by them doesn't make sense to me. The legacy community has asked for this rule to be changed specifically. Cards that are released in Commander decks don't need to be automatically legal in legacy.

We (aka Wizards) don’t control what makes cards legal in Commander. That legality being tied to eternal legal cards is something decided by another group.

with various type of creature having common things, like goblin being red, spider having reach and other similar aspect either on the design or the flavor side, what would be the common ground ( if there's one ) for giant and vampire ?

Giants tend to be bigger, 3/3 and up. Vampires often have flying and/or lifelink, but we make too many for them all to have it.