Do you have a favorite draft environment?

I really enjoyed Shadowmoor/Shadowmoor/Shadowmoor.

Perhaps a question for the readers: when people ask you for a return to Lorwyn, do they typically mean Lorwyn, Shadowmoor, or both?

Readers?

Can I please request that we replace Ravnica with Bloomburrow as the go to two-color plane. I don't think I've been this excited for a magic set since the end of the weatherlight saga? Maybe Shadowmoor/Eventide?

I know its fleeting and we have a lot I'm going to dislike next year so I'm going to enjoy the heck out of this set. But PLEASE consider making this a soon return.

Success breeds repetition.

Does the way hybrid works in Commander makes you unlikely to do another set heavy on hybrid cards? (But probably not as heavy as Shadowmoor.) I ask a fan of hybrid, hoping that's still possible.

We’re going to use hybrid how we need to use it. Commander will use it how it wants to use it.

So I understand that three set blocks tend to wear people out, but has there been any consideration for two set blocks? I've been feeling more and more over the years that a lot of recent mechanics just don't get enough support because they're often one-and-done, and it'll be a miracle to ever see them again. It also feels like recent settings don't get fleshed out and don't get time to breathe, save Eldraine which got revisited surprisingly quickly.

Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan were all two set blocks.

If R&D strives for mechanical uniqueness in the Eldrazi and Phyrexians, why then do we see such creative homogenization between the two in MH3? The Eldrazi were never borg-like assimilators, thay was very evidently the Phyrexians. Now we have (had?) two antagonists whos primary threat is assimilation. Besides Eldrazi being unintelligible, whats even the difference anymore?

The Eldrazi don’t assimilate. Emarakul can mutate things, as seen in Shadows over Innistrad, block.

Hi Mark! It's my birthday! I hereby invoke the sacred rite of Blogatog Birthday Trivia! What is some awesome and preferably previously untold trivia about Rhys the Redeemed? (I think one story you told was about how the card came from experiments of "how do we make a 1 mana legendary creature," so I guess something beyond that)

The Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block was a bout a world that completely changes, so most legendary creatures in Shadowmoor (and Eventide) were new versions of characters you’d already seen on a card in Lorwyn (and Morningtide). The Elves were black and green on Lorwyn and green and white on Shadowmoor. We wanted both Rhys cards to play in the same deck, so we made both castable in a monogreen deck, but then game them elements that showed their second color. As Shadowmoor’s main theme was hybrid, that was the tool we used for Rhys the Redeemed.Rhys the Redeemed’s first ability was aimed towards an Elf deck, something we expected in limited and constructed. The second ability was grander in scale and encouraged a different style of deck, although one that would still work in just the Elf deck.Happy Birthday!

Not fully educated about bloomburrow but under the impression it's just/similar to lorwyn/shadowmoor, so I must ask, are noggles coming back?

They’re pretty different. Bloomburrow is full of anthropomorphic animals. Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is not that.

I just want to say hybrid might be one of my favorite mechanics in the game. I started playing in 2010 so I had just missed Shadowmoor block, but looking back through it as I was getting into the game the set just really resonated with me. I know we'll never get that much hybrid in a set, but do you think it can have a larger presence than what it typically does? To use a metaphor, it is often the candles on a birthday cake and I'd want it to be the icing.

I just did a two-part article on the history of hybrid. Our usage has been climbing over the years.

If/when, an all-hybrid set?

If. Shadowmoor was fifty percent hybrid and it proved to be too much.