I was looking through my collection and came across Relentless Assault. Back then Magic was still new and so the design innovation might not be considered monumental by today's standards, but I was wondering if you often think about these one-offs that became basic parts of the game. You mention Flicker in your recent article.

I do. Often they become the nickname for the effect.

What ever happened to Flog (the other character named in the Relentless Assault flavor text)?

We’ve yet to learn his fate, I believe.

Hi Mark, thank you for making the game I love! I was wondering if you had any birthday trivia about my favorite creature, Squee! Alternatively the Gitrog Monster is also a thoroughly enjoyable fellow.

Squee was named after the flavor text from the original Relentless Assault. I wrote that flavor text in a meeting to replace a previous rhyme I didn’t like. Squee came from me trying to find a goblin name that rhymed with “tree”. HappyBirthday!

Hey mark, it's my birthday! I was hoping I could get some trivia about either my favorite character, Squee, or my favorite planeswalker, Sorin. Thanks!

So here’s the story of how Squee got his name. I was in a names and flavor text meeting for Visions (back in the day, I did a lot of naming and flavor text) and it was the last meeting before we had to turn over the names and flavor text. Relentless Assault had a cute concept for flavor text of a Goblin nursery rhyme/war cry but I thought the execution was poor. The person running the meeting said that if I could come up with an alternate before the meeting ended, he’d change it, but otherwise it was staying as is. So during the meeting, I worked on it. I got “_____ and _____ / Up a tree/ See the enemy/ Flee, flee, flee.” All I needed was two Goblin names that were one syllable. Squee came about because I needed one of them to rhyme with ”tree” and I liked the sound of Squee.Flash forward a year later and I’m working on the Weatherlight Saga with my cowriter Michael Ryan. We decided we wanted to have a Goblin character to act as comic relief. I told Michael I had a name because Squee had really grown on me. Michael liked it and that’s how Squee got his name, by rhyming with “tree”.Also, a little bit of goblin trivia. Goblins are often named after the sounds their mother makes while birthing them. Another reason Squee felt right.Happy Birthday!

You've posted recently about how you are fine with bending the color pie, but are adamantly against breaking it. Can you explain the difference between bending and breaking here? How do you draw that line?

Bending the color pie is where you let a color do something it normally doesn’t but it’s not deviating too far from what the color can normally do. Red doesn’t normally get Time Walk but we allowed it Final Fortune because it does get things like Relentless Assault and it is a nice red twist to the ability. The key to color bleeding is it still stays true to the general essence of what colors can do pushing in a place that doesn’t cause long term problems. Color breaking is when you let a color do something it’s not supposed to do. You are filling in a color’s weakness or defining it in such a way that it contradicts something key about the color. Every block does color bending because Magic is always changing its focus and we want all the colors to play in the area that the block is about. For instance, Rescue from the Underworld was key to capturing the feel of Theros. It isn’t exactly how black normally functions but the essence of what it was doing was elements black can do and the overall feel was very black. Hornet Sting, in contrast, gave an ability to green (direct damage to creatures) that green is supposed to be poor at. It didn’t add much to the set it came in and was mostly only flavorful unto itself. Even though it was low powered in contrast to other colors, it still ended up getting played in tournament sideboards because it filled in a weakness Green had and kept players from having to go to another color.

For today's trivia question, I believe it was Sisay, and the card was Sisay's ring.

Correct answer but wrong card. Sisay did appear on Sisay’s Ring in Visions but Squee appeared on Relentless Assault in the same set. Sisay first appeared on three cards in Mirage (Cerulean Wyvern, Teferi’s Drake and Teremko Griffin) with the attribution of Captain of the Weatherlight.

Is there anything I can credit you for doing in Visions or 7th Edition?

Cards I remember designing (or co-designing) in Visions: (note this is a long time ago so my memory might be faulty) Anvil of Bogardan Brood of Cockroaches Chronatog City of Solitude Eye of Singularity Helm of Awakening Juju Bubble Necrosavant Ovinomancer Quirion Ranger Rainbow Efreet Relentless Assault Rowen Squandered Resources Suq'Ata Assassin Talruum Champion Triangle of War Cards I remember making (or co-making) in Seventh Edition: (once again my memory is not perfect) Arcane Laboratory Archivist Coat of Arms Compost Confiscate Delusions of Mediocrity Elvish Lyrist Elvish Piper Engineered Plague Evacuation Fervor Grafted Skullcap Gravedigger Hibernation Lightning Blast Maro Mawcor Might of Oaks Nature’s Revolt Opportunity Opposition Persecute Pygmy Pyrosaur Reclaim Relentless Assault Revenant Rolling Stones Rowen Seeker of Skybreak Seismic Assault Serra’s Embrace Shock Spellbook Sudden Impact Telepathy Temporal Adept Thieving Magpie Tolarian Winds Yavimaya Enchantress