Some Magic-inspired stories, all about bonding with my son, who is now 7-and-a-half: I don’t remember what I did first to get him interested in Magic, but it was probably playing with my friend Max, who taught me and my now-wife how to play - but I know Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox 360 helped get my son into the game with the effects and music but especially archenemy variant and a Nicol Bolas final match.In the years since then, he and I occasionally get to talking about his favorite creature types and characters, and after quite some time, we have slowly narrowed down his choices to 4: Spiders, Zombies with Liliana, Nicol Bolas, and Niv-Mizzet. Not surprisingly, two of Magic’s most common dragons in that list. I don’t know what it is with dragons but I’m glad WotC had realized their appeal so they’re prominently there for my son to enjoy, and with quite a few options so he may get a Nicol Bols dragon deck that’s much different than any dragon deck I have tried to make myselfThanks to War of the Spark, I finally created a Horde Magic deck and he loved hearing about the storyline of Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation leading up to the actual WAR set, as I explained those stories using key cards before we started the game, to establish the setting. Coincidentally, it was my son with his Gideon that ultimately dealt the final blow - no need to sacrifice himself the way it played out in our match! My son will still reference this game and it’s nearly been a year.Also since that time I learned that the classic Planeswalker webcomics had been bundled as graphic novels, so I got those and our nighttime routine for a bit was to read about Garruk’s corruption by Liliana and that build up to Rise of the Eldrazi and Mirrodin Besieged; coincidentally we finished as March of the Machine previews were going on, and my villain-loving son is now waiting for me to build a Phyrexian horde so he can battle Elesh Norn. We look forward to many more years with the game, and especially learning what comes next for some of our favorite still-active villains: Ashiok, Oko, and Tezzeret!

Thanks for sharing.

You stated during & after Amonkhet Block that each set was part 'top-down Egypt' and part 'top-down Nicol Bolas', with AKH leaning heavier towards the former and HOU leaning heavier towards the latter.
With regards to Outlaws of Thunder Junction, would you say it leans heavier 'top-down Wild West', or 'top-down villain set'? Or neither? Or can't you really go into it yet?
Thanks Mark.

It’s built mechanically more like a villain set, but the flavoring leans towards the Western aesthetic.

How was the Amonkhet / Hour of Devastation limited format received? I know it soured design on -1/-1 counters, but I seem to remember people really enjoying the format. If so, does that do anything for -1/-1 counters' standing in the Storm Scale?

Amonkhet block is what soured R&D on -1/-1 counters.

In Amonkhet, the exert mechanic was only used for attack triggers. In Hour of Devastation, exert was also used on tap abilities. Can you tell us anything about why exert on tap abilities didn’t appear until the second set with exert?

In blocks, we liked to have the mechanics evolve over time.

Hey Mark, thanks for taking us back to ixalan! I started magic with the hour of devastation prerelease, so ixalan was my first full block and i think it's still some of the best world building of any magic set. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the return is like, both for the world and the mechanics

I too am excited for you to see it.

When did humility effects move out of white? We had a variant in Overwhelming Splendor as recently as Hour of Devastation so I'm a little surprised the effect is out of color now.

Overwriting the abilities and stats of other creatures is primary blue as blue is the main shape changing color. We did move “destroy target creature and its controller gets a token” out of that flavor space and thus out of blue (now just in white). So white can destroy your creature and give you a 1/1, but blue overwrites the creature making it a vanilla 1/1.

Hi, Mark! I enjoy seeing Urza's Saga join the ranks of Time Spiral, Mirrodin Besieged, and Hour of Devastation, among others. Can I request more cards named after sets (or more sets named after cards)?

R&D seems to enjoy doing it.

Can I request more multicolor gods? I love the design of the Kaldheim gods, but with them we’ll have 5 complete cycles of mono colored gods. Only one complete cycle of 2 color plus 5 others (3 from hour of devastation and the 2 from TBD). I was hopeful Kaldheim would have our first 3-color gods.

The reason we err toward less colors on our Gods is to increase the number of different decks that can play them. Tri-colored Gods is something we can keep an eye out for when the right opportunity presents itself.

Green (Bonds of Mortality) and Red (Hour of Devastation) have cards that remove indestructible. Why not Black? I could see it replacing the discontinued "creatures destroyed this way can't regenerate this turn."

Black already has “target creature gets -N/-N until end of turn”.

Trivia question for you: What was the last Standard-legal set that took place entirely on a new plane and did not include the plane's name in the set name?

Hour of Devastation.