I seem to always find lots and lots of discourse about block sets. Two sides of the same argument every time.
Side 1 says something like:"I hate all these random sets, I miss block sets."
To which, Side 2 says; "Well block sets never sold as well at the end, players attention span's are better suited for one and done blocks."
My problem with this response is that it essentially ignores the initial statement. Rather than clarifying what they mean, they assume and answer.
Personally, I miss block sets, but ONLY from a story perspective.
Basically, do sets exactly the same as you're doing now. Draft is better now than blocks were, standard with Foundations sounds fantastic. The only thing I'd like to see is a set of setup, and a set of payoff.
MKM was a set based on a murder mystery with the big twist ending basically included in the release, as an example. It could've benefitted from a real, but delayed, payoff. Set up the consequences for each suspect, then reveal and give different consequences that were hinted at in other ways. Bam. Improved.
The last time we visited New Phyrexia, it was a block, I remember ubiquitous speculation over how the story would wrap up. There were factions events at local game stores, branded posters and packs for the factions at play, etc. I had a friend get the New Phyrexian emblem tattooed on themselves. The story felt *Important* and so much less divorced from magic than it does today.
Usually, in my experience, when someone asks for blocks, they're asking for the story to matter. There are lots of mechanically interesting card games out there, and mechanics are only part of what makes magic, magic!
All I would ask is that writers get the opportunity to do setups and payoffs with magic's evolving story with multiple sers, and that story related sets have *some* play synergies. They don't need to share mechanical themes just to share story themes, but it would be a nice little florish if they had mechanical synchronisets,
Hell, a REALLY good idea (in my opinion) would be to do these sets in a different order than the old method. Modern fantasy novels swap POV characters and follow different stories. Why not set up multiple stories in a row, then start to alternate resolving an older, established plot line, and then starting a new one or swapping to another established one. This really gives players time to get interested and speculate (and making the story FEEL present will likely also boost novels and comics numbers, etc., if you need a monetary reasoning.)
What do you think Mark?

We already do a lot of what you’re asking. Each Magic “year” does have a larger connected story, often with different POV characters.

When/if: a single set split into two draftable packs. There is some overlap (land cycles, equipment, colorless artifacts, etc) but one pack is Team X (Bolas let's say) which is 3 different archetypes in his colors and the other packs are Team Y (Ugin let's say) which are 3 archetypes in colorless, white, black. All the cards together make a single set, but you would draft Ugin packs with Ugin packs, and then only play against players who drafted Bolas packs.

We did this in Mirrodin Besieged. The set was split in Mirran and Phyrexian, and you chose which side to play when you played in the prerelease.

I've seen a lot of Duskmourn speculative criticism so I just wanted to express how excited I am for it. The concept reminds me of House of Leaves, which I love, but it's different enough to feel fresh. The monster designs we've seen so far feel imaginitive and genuinely chilling, the same way I felt a long time ago when I first started playing magic and saw the original Phyrexians. For people who are upset about TVs... I have always assumed the multiverse was large enough to house all variety of technology types, it just makes sense.Keep it up Mark, and know that Duskmourn is highly anticipated for some of us.

I do know that. There are a lot of people writing to me saying how much they’re exited for Duskmourn.

"The design for Scars of Mirrodin was my most stressful point in my career." Can you elaborate?

The short version. Scars of Mirrodin was originally New Phyrexia. We would visit New Phyrexia for the block and only at the very end would we learn it was Mirrodin.I had real trouble making the original New Phyrexia. Bill was so unhappy with the progress that he threatened to take me off the design. I had a month to fix it.I eventually had the realization that we needed to end on New Phyrexia. The block wanted to tell the story of Mirrodin falling to the Phyrexians.Bill came up with the idea that we wouldn’t announce who won the war in the middle set until the third set came out. We advertised it as Mirrodin Pure or New Phyrexia.

Slickshot Show-Off really didn't need +2/+0 for every noncreature spell for being a cheap creature with flying and haste. And what happened to abilities triggering only once each turn? This is ridiculous. Just give cheap creatures prowess and give something like this to more costlier creatures. We're past the Phyrexian arc, can we get back to a level of normalcy please?

It’s a rare costed for constructed formats. It gets to be very good in limited.

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.

I'd like to add my support to the voices disappointed by the lack of fallout shown from the Phyrexian invasion... of Dominaria. I just checked the cards in Odyssey block, and there's no ruined buildings, no dead Phyrexians, nothing! Sure, the block's entire story comes about as a result of Karn gaining a spark, but I was looking forward to a year of mourning families and civil construction projects. All I got instead was a cool story about pit fighters wrestling over a mysterious artifact.

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I would like to add my voice to the group that wanted more visible and lasting consequences of the Phyrexian Invasion. If the consequences aren't visible on the cards without digging for more than a couple of references (liike the Virtue enchantments in WOE) most players IME are just going to miss it. Most players around me don't seem to read the story but still seemed surprised at MOM'S lack of fallout into the next few sets. I think I'd have liked to see that impact clearly on like 20-30 cards to make it loud enough without being a focus of the set, but that's just a gut feeling. It just seems like wanting to do the apocalyptic invasion without giving its fallout similar focus is just destined to limit the perceived impact of doing that story in the first place.

It is on 20+ cards, but if you don’t have the context, it’s hard to see.I often use the word “lenticular” to describe a mechanical component, one where it has advanced strategy, but only to the players that have enough understanding of the game to see it. We also make many “lenticular” flavor cards. If you’re following the story, you can see the references, but if story isn’t your thing, then the story doesn’t get in your way. You can just enjoy the cards in a flavor vacuum.

If R&D "strongly belived" that players didnt want to see the consequences of a multi-planar war why have the war at all? I strongly believe that creative's ability to tell a story is severly disserviced by wotc's desire to placate players. Help me understand the need to have a storyline if its going to be so consistently undermined by the whims of the company, most releases dont have one, so why do premier sets need them if they're not going to be allowed to live to its potential?

The Phyrexian War has huge impacts on many planes. Just look at the ones we visited. It totally destabilized Eldraine, wrecked the courts, and resulted in a large chunk of the populace being in a sleep spell. It drove Ixalans underground. It resulted in huge divisions in the guilds and major murders on Ravnica. And Thunder Junction is full of refugees who fled their suffering worlds. All of the above of which is shown on cards. Us not wanting to have a year of downbeat sets doesn’t mean we don’t want consequences. It means Magic is many things to many people and we like changing things up for variety.

Hi Mark!
If/when: another new symbol in the mana value, like Phyrexian Mana or Hybrid/Twobrid?

When.