Hey mark! I enjoyed your alphabet podcast, but I might have another one for you. When guilds of Ravnica came out, R&D referred to the nightveil predator cycle of cards as costing CCDD. Does that give you an entry for D?

D moved to N when C moved to M. Now the translated version of that sentence. We used to use C to mean any colored mana, so if we were making a tight cycle (all the cards have the same mana value) where all the costs cost two generic mana and one colored mana, we’d write it as 2C. If we were making a cycle of two-colored multicolor cards, we’d use D for the second color. For example, if it was a tight cycle with two generic mana and one of two different colored mana, we’d write it as 2CD.But then Oath of the Gatewatch came out and we introduced colorless mana in costs. We needed a letter for that, so we used C for colorless. That meant we had to change the old usage of C as it would make a cost of 2C ambiguous. We changed from C to M to mean any colored mana. When we changed it to M, we changed the secondary color to N as N follows M like D followed C.

Why is it that premier sets occasionally reference teammates but not commander mechanics?

Only two premier sets have ever referred to teammates (Oath of the Gatewatch & Future Sight). The first was playing into the larger theme of the story of the Gatewatch teaming up and it was part of a mechanic, and the second was a single futureshifted card teasing what future Magic might do.

Is there any chance a non Eldrazi based set would use colorless mana like OGW did

I believe there will come a set, that isn’t Eldrazi-themed, that makes use of colorless mana (as a cost).

I am extremely excited for MOM because of how well it will play for 2HG and I can't wait to slot some cards into my 2HGEDH decks! It really feels like everything I wanted OGW to be and can't wait to see what you guys do with the new mechanics in Battlebond 2! Thank you for an awesome set and making it Standard legal!

Glad you’re so excited.

If or whenReprint of basic wastes (from oath of the gatewatch)

When.

In retrospect, I think it's odd we didn't see Wastes in the mix for ZNR, assuming there hadn't been a great amount of time since the Eldrazi laid waste (no pun intended) to the plain. Was there consideration for including wastes in the set? And how likely would it be to see them return in a mainline set in the future?

Wastes we’re in Oath of the Gatewatch as a support for colorless mana in costs. There’s not much need for them if the latter isn’t in the set. Also, not everything on a world shows up in a set. It has to be relevant to the set’s needs.

Surge was a standard legal keyword that talked about multiplayer formats and having partners. Will we see more of these mechanics in standard legal sets?

Oath of the Gatewatch was a special set in that it had multiplayer themes tying into the story of the Gatewatch coming together and forming. It’s not something I expect us to do often and only when there’s a strong narative reason, especially when we have so many other products to do multiplayer cards.

Kaldheim seems a great set so far, but one thing that really disappointed me is seeing the "play two spells" theme in White-Black. I loved it in Oath of the Gatewatch and couldn't wait to see it again in Blue-Red. What's the reason behind this change?

Sometimes we like to try themes in different color combinations because they play out differently.

I understand not wanting to reference non-Standard formats (e.g. "Commander") in Standard sets, but could I request more Standard cards that acknowledge the existence of multiplayer in general? Like Surge in Oath of the Gatewatch or the Battlebond Lands. Magic's infrastructure directly supports multiplayer, but it's rarely utilized outside of a few "each opponent" cards. It would make Two-Headed Giant and non-EDH free-for-all formats so much richer.

All cards work in multiplayer. We reserve cards that specifically reference multiplayer (mostly) for products that focus on multiplayer play.

Hi Mark! I was wandering if you recently considered 'cast 2 spells in a turn' (like in oath of the gatewatch) instead of 'draw 2 cards in a turn' as a UR theme in a set. I think the former is more interesting since you don't have 50％ of the work already done (the card of the draw step) and doesn't feel like an A/B mechanism.

We like to mix things up, so I think we can do both.