Hey Maro for my birthday could I get some trivia about the minion creature type? What did that mean and why don't we see it anymore?

It represented creatures that served other creatures. The creative team stopped supporting it because they felt it wasn’t necessary, and was covered by other existing creature types.

Hi Mark,It’s my birthday and me and my friends are going to play some OTJ sealed today. In honor of this, can I get some trivia on Outlaws, my favorite mechanic to come out of the set?

We made a list for Outlaw of any creature type that might make sense:

• Assassin
• Barbarian
• Berserker
• Minion
• Mercenary
• Ninja
• Pirate
• Rebel
• Rogue
• Warlock

Assassin and Rogue felt like automatic includes. We added Mercenary because we wanted the “henchperson” token to be a Mercenary. The creative team asked us to add Warlock because we needed to have an outlaw spellcaster to hit all the card concepts. That’s what we handed over to set design.When making a batch, we do between two and five, with three being optimal. Four seemed in a good spot and allowed set design to add something if they had to. They added Pirate because of all the Pirate cards in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. We did talk through many of the others. We considered bringing Minion back instead of doing Mercenary (we stopped doing it a while ago). We talked a lot about Ninja. In the end though, we felt this collection best served the mechanic.Happy Birthday!

Do you know why you guys do not support minion anymore?

It was a decision made twenty years ago. I believe the creative team didn’t feel it was needed. Other creature types filled in the gap.

Loving things so far but a couple of questions, why weren't Ninjas considered outlaws and was clash considered for this set? The latter seems like it would fit flavor as a standoff with the higher cost being who drew and shot quicker.

Repeated batches, meaning things we use on multiple cards in the same set, are normally restricted between two and five items, with three being the sweet spot. We needed Rogues and Warlocks to hit all the creative executions we wanted. Mercenary was needed because that was our henchperson token. We also knew Assassin’s Creed with its Assassin typal theme was coming. We turned those four in when we handed off from vision, leaving one potential space open so set design could add something if needed. That something was Pirate due to all the ones added by The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. As I show in today’s article, we considered all the following:AssassinBarbarianBerserkerMinionMercenaryNinjaPirateRebelRogueWarlockThere just wasn’t room for all of them. Also, we prioritized what would be in the set. So some things, like Ninja, didn’t make the cut.As for clash, it’s just wasn’t popular enough when we first did it to bring it back.

As for the whole Gangster creature type thing, Minion and Mercenary could work for certain archetypes of them (underlings, hired goons, etc.) What do you think?

I agree there are takes on a gangster world where I could see those creature types working.

As a Limited player, I want to say how important the 'bad' cards are. The weak cards are needed when a draft has gone badly and you need playables – who among us hasn't been reduced to playing a Yoked Ox? They're needed to make the format work. The cards I hate opening are things like Minion of the Mighty which are clearly constructed plants, but it's disappointing to me that other players want to damage my preferred format because it doesn't help theirs.

Thanks for chiming in. It helps for people to hear things from other players.

Are other black thrulls that sacrifice themselves for something other than mana still in colour pie?

We’re more likely to do death triggers than self sacrifice, but yeah, black still gets some self sacrifice for its minions.

If I may still question about your article about the Rabiah Scale, I recall you saying the Eldrazi-less sets about zendikar were more popular than the eldrazi ones. Would you consider that the eldrazi as a race were unpopular or that they could have been better utilized on another plane, like what has been done on Eldritch Moon?

I think three giant Eldrazi legendary creatures is awesome. An army of Eldrazi minions is less so.

Can you not use common terms for a group with a type of ability instead of tying Allies, Rebels, Minions et al to certain planes?

Not and make the terms flavorful and easily accessible.

If Minion is a class why do most, including Xantcha, not have race creature types?

Not every race has a corresponding creature type.