Hi Mark! My birthday was this past Saturday, and as per the rite of Birthday trivia, I would like to ask about any trivia pertaining to Chronomancy or Chronurgy (Time Magic) as it relates Magic the Gathering, or, failing that, some trivia on my favored counterspell "Rewind". Thanks!

In Urza’s Saga, I made the “free mechanic” as an alternative to doing cantrips. (At the time, we weren’t allowed to have them in every set.) Rewind was me applying the mechanic to a counterspell. The “free mechanic” would prove to be horribly broken, but it appears there’s one case where it’s not - reactive spells (things you can’t just cast whenever you want, but only do it in reaction to something specific happening). So Rewind turned out to be a free spell we can reprint.
Happy Birthday!

I asked this question a week or two ago, but have not had an answer. Don't mean to be a pest, just wanted to make sure the question did not get lost. Have you considered revisiting the free spell "cycle" in Urza's Block, or other pseudo-free spells? I am referring to Snap and Rewind, and the rest of the "cycle". I know free spells can be troublesome, but Rewind has stood the test of time, and Glissa Sunseeker is a nice take as well

The free spells when first done in Urza’s Saga block proved to be problematic. With time we have found that a few of the reactive ones are okay, but this just isn’t a mechanic that I think we’re going to be messing with in a big way anytime soon.   Time has shown that getting to play things for free tends to be playing with dynamite. This isn’t to say we won’t mess in this area but we’ll probably do it more cautiously and in new ways rather than rehash old ones that caused problems in the past.