Maybe this is early to say but I'm really excited for the return to Ixalan but I'm slightly worried when looking at the sets right before it. I remember in your year in review for Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan that one of the issues was that both the sets before and after the Ixalan block didn't seed enough additional support for the tribes. While I don't know what'll come after the set it doesn't look like there'd be much room to seed most of the tribes prior to Ixalan (besides maybe Merfolk?).

Lost Caverns of Ixalan is not a traditional return set. I’ll talk more on that as we get closer to previews.

About Phoenix Chick, I really like how the art breaks from the standard mold of what phoenixes in Magic always look like. They are nearly always hawk-like birds-of-prey. My favorite phoenix art in Magic is the owl-like Rekindling Phoenix from RIX. I know it's not your department, but I was hoping you could pass along a request to the creative/concepting team for more species variety in the creature type? Thanks!

I’ll pass the request along.

Hi Mark, both my friend and I got dice in our m21 prerelease kits that were from different sets (mine was Theros Beyond Death and his was rivals of Ixalan). Are there not M21 dice, or is this a mix up? Thanks for your time!

I’m not sure. Did anyone get M21 dice?

Hello Mark! It's my birthday today, and I was wondering if there have ever been any designs for a Sphinx Planeswalker card that ultimately got dropped from a set? Perhaps an early appearance of Azor or Crucius?

Azor was originally going to be a Planeswalker card in Rivals of Ixalan, but the color grid didn’t work out and we had to change it to a legendary creature.

Was it a mistake Rivals of Ixilan had cards portraying events that didn't actually happen?

What events didn’t happen?

How much of Dominaria's success is attributable to it being the first set under the Vision/Set/Play Design system? (Rivals of Ixalan doesn't count because it was sort of caught in the middle).

Some, I hope.

What is the breakpoint for A25? Is it Rivals of Ixalan?

Rivals of Ixalan is the most recent set to have a reprint in Masters 25.

Something I've noticed, especially in Rivals of Ixalan, is expanding red's ability to use opponents as a resource (Etali, Dire Fleet Daredevil). I like this, especially for Commander, since it fits with red's identity while being useful in multiplayer. Can we expect this to continue, at least for the near future?

It’s an area I expect us to continue to explore.

I'd didn't get to play in the pre-release, but I did play Explorers of Ixalan with a couple of friends last weekend. The tiles add an additional level of fun to the games. I played once as the vampires and once as pirates. This weekend I will pick up the Rivals of Ixalan Planeswalker decks and add them to the box as alternative decks to play with. As a lapsed player I'm definitely one of the targets with these products and this one is a win for me. High fives to all involved.

High fives to be applied.

Any thoughts on adding a fifth tribe in Rivals of Ixalan? Like maybe a tribe exclusive to the golden City that would get tribal support cards.

There wasn’t room. Small sets already have to fit a lot in a little space.