Greetings MaRo, big fan, love this game you're a big part in making, and I especially love your enthusiasm for it! It's truly infectious, and your passion clearly shows.

Anyway, as the Officially-Unoffical Un-Rules Manager, I had a question if you have the time. My play group is going to be running an Un-commander night soon where un-cards are totally legal and where we each get to pick a legendary creature, planeswalker, or The Grand Calcutron from an un-set and use that as our commander. I, in the spirit of someone who loves Magic history, am going with Richard Garfield, Ph.D.. Going to do some random number generator table to just increase the randomness, to try to not keep the deck super duper busted and, most importantly, to ensure my turns don't take forever because of decision paralysis. However, this leads me to a few questions about how certain mechanics work when I control Richard Garfield, Ph.D.:

1. Flashback (or really any "cast from the graveyard" effects/abilities, but flashback is the main one). If I have, say, Think Twice in the graveyard and I pay the flashback cost, am I limited to playing it as any card that costs 1U that also has flashback, or can I play it as any card that costs 1U? I'm assuming the former, but wanted to double-check on this point.

2. Alternate casting costs, like delve or madness. I assume that, if I am choosing the pay the alternate cost, it is already too late for me to play a particular card as a different card instead? For example, if I exile 7 cards from the graveyard to delve Treasure Cruise, I can't cast it as Scornful Egotist, right?

3. Suspend, and this is the one I am the least sure about so if you only have time for one rules question (I know you're incredibly incredibly busy making this game we all love, so I completely understand if that's the case), I would love an answer to this. If I have a card suspended and the last time counter comes off allowing me to cast the card, can I cast it as a different card of the same mana cost? For example, if I have Riftwing Cloudskate on suspend and I remove the last time counter, could I cast it as, say, Slime Monster? Also, for this question, does it at all matter if I suspended Cloudskate before or after I cast Richard Garfield, Ph.D.?

Thank you in advance for your help and for your time, and I am really looking forward to all that Magic has to offer! Can I shill for a second for a plane based around the Klondike Gold Rush with Western elements?

1. To use flashback, you must treat the card as a card with the same mana cost, and then pay the flashback costs that actually appears on the card that you are “copying”. 2. Yes, it is too late. Once you start paying additional costs, you’re locked into it being that spell.3. Suspend works similarly to flashback. You can “copy” any spell with the same mana cost and then pay the suspend cost that appears on that “copy”.

After Magic Origins a.k.a. the strictly worse edition, are guys from R&D looking to make weaker editions until we get Scornful Egotist everywhere ?

You might want to watch some coverage of the World Championship where Magic Origins is holding its own.

Please explain to me this one question that we all have. Why was Scornful Egotist ever created?

Because “converted mana costs matter” was a theme of Scourge.

What was the point of scornful egotist? Was only supposed to interact with a spells that dealt damage based on mana costs?

Savior of Kamigawa had an entire theme of “converted mana costs matter” nicknamed Wisdom. EDIT: Oops. Scornful Egotist was from Scourge with had a “converted mana cost matters” theme. Wisdom was “hand size matters”.

So then is Scornful Egotist a good example of lenticular design, or does the fact that the complicated part is in the mana cost mess with that?

The card’s not so lenticular as the cost is very much noticed and does cause confusion.

Aww man, Scornful Egotist is a is a no-go these days? That card (and more broadly the kind of stories it creates) is one of my all-time favorites!

I never said it was no-go. I said it would be red-flagged for us to talk about. We will make common cards that seem weird in a vacuum but play into a major theme.

It's April Fools. Any trivia about Scornful Egotist?

He’s scornful because we costed him at 8 mana. He’s personally not a fan of “converted mana cost” matters.

What race is Ashiok? Is he like scornful egotist or something?

Ashiok is not forthcoming about much of anything.

I was going through some older cards in my card pool and noticed a Scornful Egotist. I really could make sense of the card. Why pay 8 mana for a 1/1?

Because Scourge had a “converted mana cost matters” theme. Note that the card had morph so you could get it into play without needing eight mana.

Storm Crow vs Scornful Egotist. Who wins?

Isn’t that like Chuck Norris vs. Honey Boo Boo?