I understand that there are things you can point to that are visible consequences of the Phyrexian invasion like story content and the deaths of Eldraine’s king and queen, but doesn’t it say something that you need to point those out as counter arguments to begin with?The problem with threatening a Phyrexian planar threat is that the damage was implied to be irreversible. Compleation often involved grotesque surgical mutilation, so it doesn’t make sense that compleated characters could return to normal so easily and without any significant scarring. Phyrexian oil is supposed to be so dangerous that a single drop could eventually infect and corrupt an entire plane, so it seems impossible to eradicate. Even ignoring the resilience of the Phyrexians themselves, a large scale military invasion aided by the most powerful beings on each plane should have left those planes in a post-apocalyptic state, yet all of that seems to be off-screen or completely disregarded. We went underground for Ixalan, so we didn’t see the devastation. We went into the wilds for Eldraine, so we didn’t see the courts in shambles. Ravnica seems to be the same as ever, just with more detective hats. And the last set of the year that immediately followed the invasion takes place on a plane nobody even lived on during the invasion, so there were no consequences to show off.I think the real issue isn’t necessarily that there weren’t consequences, but that you guys chose deliberately not to show them on cards, outside of the desparked planeswalkers and a few cards in Aftermath. As it is, it’s difficult to believe that the Phyrexian threat that was built up over decades could be so easily repelled AND completely defeated at the height of their power, but I would argue that the sets directly following the invasion should have all had a blatantly dark, somber, post-apocalyptic theme. Instead, we got a bunch of light hearted costume party sets that seemed chosen specifically to NOT show how much damage was done. I get that you want to have a tone shift after a darker year, but it just feels like instead of getting closure, we all just got whiplash instead. It would have been better to show a struggling multiverse slowly learning to rebuild before diving into the next big arc.

There’s a big difference between did big things happen and do we need to focus on them? For the Vorthoses who read the stories, the Phyrexian War had huge consequences for many worlds. From a game standpoint, it changed how we used a whole card type and allowed us to make sets we couldn’t make before. The impact of the events of March of the Machine on flavor and mechanics was major.The reason we didn’t focus on the outcomes on the cards and have a year of dreary sets is we strongly believed the majority of the players didn’t want that.

Something that has always confused me is that despite "infect" (my favorite keyword/archetype) being one of, if not the most, hated deck archetype at casual commander tables, it is still somehow the most popular archetype of the most popular commander in the game (Atraxa, Preators Voice). I also think it's worth noting she is by no means cEDH. So, how can her infect archetype be so statistically popular, and yet so many people dislike playing against it in person?

Infect (and poison, in general) is very polarizing, but that means there’s a group that really likes it.

Could we see a card like "Equipped/enchanted creature gets toxic X where X is its power" or would that be too close to infect levels

I’m skeptical play design would want a variable poison number.

I understand Phyrexian Mana causes a myriad of issues in a number of formats, but I'm a big fan. Not necessarily of the overly-powerful cards since I don't play competitive, but for the flexibility it provides and some of the interesting design space that seems available. Do you think we'll see a 'fixed' version, like with cascade/discover or infect/poison, that could be more broadly used and not specifically linked to phyrexians

Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine did experiment with using Phyrexian mana in different ways, such as having loyalty as an additional cost and using it in activation costs.

Does deal damage to target permanent make sense or is possible within the rules? There aren't many applications but in theory if a land gets damage and is later that turn animated it can have lethal damage. Same is true for enchantments that become creatures. I ask because it would allow cards that deal damage to battle in sets without battles. Other uses are wither or infect damage against e.g. Theros gods that aren't creatures yet.

The issue is weighing the general usefulness of it with the confusion it might cause.

Hi Mark! I'd like to invoke birthday trivia for one of my favorite sets from recent memory, All Will Be One :)

The first version of the set (which we play tested) had infect and -1/-1 counters. Happy Birthday!

How do you feel toxic did in comparison to infect?

Response has been good.What do all of you think of toxic?

Hi Maro! I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying playing with toxic in arena standard. I was skeptical at first bc I started playing magic when infect was new and I hated it, but toxic plays so well! High fives to the ONE design team

High fives shall be applied.

Hello Mark, I took the ONE survey recently and there wasn't a place to write this but I want to give this feedback. I really like poison counters, but I don't like toxic. I care about doing regular damage at all if I'm trying to win with poison. By the time I win with Toxic, I may have already won through regular damage or am very close. Winning through mill would be less exciting if every card you milled also did 1 damage. I'm happy to get poison back, but I wish it was closer to Infect.

I hear you. How do others feel about toxic?

Hi Mark, did you ever considered naming toxic something like "Infect with oil" to make it a subset of Infect and make cards that care about Toxic be backwards compatible?

Having the word infect on it would imply a lot of things that wouldn’t be true. We don’t mind keyword names referring to other keywords, but it can’t lead the players astray.