I don't know if this is fit for a regular article, a podcast or a Nuts and Bolts, but I'm very curious to know about how you determine numbers/as-fan for Limited archetypes, especially A+B stuff. Like, why did WOE's WU have many tap triggers while OTJ's GU only had one explicit plot-matters card? Why did the tap triggers were all at uncommon but other themes usually have at least one common trigger? I understand it's a feel and testing thing mostly, but any effort to put it into words would be appreciated. :)

The short version is every theme is different and we endlessly playtest to get a sense of the appropriate as-fan. Maybe I can turn that into a whole column or podcast. Not sure.

Hi Mark! You've mentioned many times that flavour-wise, creature tokens are identical to creatures. Mechanically though, I feel like more and more, they're being treated differently. There's more abilities that only trigger for things related to non-token creatures, cards that can only target token or non-token creatures, stuff like that. While this of course makes sense mechanically because creature tokens are something that can more often be easy to abuse, how is this justified from a flavour perspective? In Bloomburrow for example, we've got "Conduct Electricity" - this targets a creature and then specifically a creature token. This makes no sense to me flavour-wise if they're the same thing.There's of course been a difference between the two mechanically for a long time, Pawn of Ulamog only triggers on non-token creature's deaths, but it feels like more and more, they really aren't the same thing in-universe.

Magic cards often do mechanical things that aren’t reflected creatively.

Un-Judge call: I cast More Or Less on Krark's Other Thumb to instead roll three dice and ignore one. Do I get to use both results, potentially activating two triggers, or is it implied that I add them together?

You would add them together. You can only get one result.

Since Zirda's companion condition checks for Activated Abilities, could we in theory have a companion whose condition was checking for Triggered abilities?

The game can check if a card has a triggered ability.

"The timing of upkeep made a lot more sense in early Magic when it dealt actual upkeep costs...Now that most of these effects aren’t upkeep costs, you want to let players draw their cards first to have more information for when it triggers."If it were at all within your power, do you think, then, that you would move the upkeep step to be after the draw step if you could?

It’s another in the camp of “if we started over, we’d do it this way”.

Hey Mark would you mind following up on the Party-Crasher-Monarch question? Folks in the notes pointed out a monarch-specific rule that says the current monarch controls the monarch triggers and thus the active player wouldn't get to order those triggers to insure they become monarch. Seems reasonable but wanted to clarify since we're still in silver border land.

The answer isn’t very Un. It has to do with stacking triggers. I did miss who gets to stack the triggers. Rules are not my forte.

Can the rules handle a ward cost that only triggers once each turn or would you write it out as its own ability?

My gut is no.

There are some effects that require a target, even though they often do nothing with that target. (For instance, there are many effects written like "At the beginning of your end step, you may pay {5}. If you do, target creature picks its nose." The "if you do" wording means you pick a target even if you have no way to pay the {5}.)These effects create a way to commit a crime at no cost, but I fear that many (if not most) players won't even recognize that a target is being selected for this kind of effect, thus not acknowledging that a crime has been committed for abilities that care about this.Was any thought given to this problem when the mechanic was designed? If so, is there any solution to this problem for newer players?

There are lots of things less enfranchised players are unaware of. The question is can the game progress if they’re unaware? If kitchen table players play with commit crime cards and have fun and are unaware of this particular thing happening, it doesn’t keep them from enjoying the cards.Magic has a complex rules system, and quirky interactions are going to happen. I will note that “if” triggers will happen, but “when” triggers" will not. For example, take the card Hypothesizzle.

This card only commits a crime if you discard a nonland card.

There are triggered abilities now that trigger more than once a turn. They usually use “whenever”. Triggers that happen based on a certain phase/step starting or ending can only trigger once.I think he’s talking about something like “this ability only triggers twice each turn”, where it still has a limit, that limit just isn’t once

I don’t think you can trigger twice. Triggers trigger once per event that trigger it. You can double the effects if you want.

So, since were changing ETB to just "Enters", would LTB triggers be able to be simplified to "Leaves"? Or is that too restrictive?

We looked into it, but it can’t as we use “leave” as we use the word for other zones, such as the graveyard. “Enters” is exclusively used with the battlefield.