Why do you change rarity with reprints anyway?

Four main reasons: 1) There are cards in a gray area between rarities which can change set to set.2) The game ebbs and flows, and what effect is what rarity can change.3) We could have gotten it wrong the first time out. 4) Different sets, especially supplemental sets, can have different rarity needs and parameters.

I took time out of my day to give you some notes on your product about Jumpstart boxes having 18 packs, and you called me a conspiracy theorist. You have a habit of exaggerating your critics' points so you can shoot down the straw men. Besides which, how can a company's internal decision even be a conspiracy? A conspiracy requires multiple parties. And it was such a minor complaint. All you had to say was "I see your point" and I'd move on. Instead you chose to insult me and double my grar. Why?

It wasn’t my intention to insult you. I sincerely apologize for doing so. I was just trying to make the point that most reasons behind non-game design decisions are tied to mundane production and business concerns.

My understanding is that currently sets can't be changed about nine months to a year out, are there ever conversations about trying to make it possible to do changes closer to release? Is it a significant issue not being able to have sets that are soon to be released able to react to how players are recieving the current set?

The lead times used to be longer. We chopped some time out, but there’s not a lot of fat left trim from the schedules.

I know Commander politics keeps you out of it normally, but have you tried 1v1 Brawl or Commander at all? If you have time between killing Magic and world domination, of course

Besides other factors, I don’t have much time out of the office to play Magic. My son and I play occasionally, but with Planeswalker decks.

Hi Mark, I finally got the chance to draft unstable in cube form and wanted to say thanks. We had one weird situation we hoped you could rule on what happens if someone targets one of my creatures with timeout while I have a split screen in play?

The owner of Time Out gets to choose the library (pile) to put it in.

What happens if you use Time Out to put an opponent's Animated Library into their library under the top X cards?

Read Animate Library: “If enchanted library would leave the battlefield, exile Animate Library instead”.

I think part of the reason people are upset about Eldritch Moon is misunderstanding. You see Innistrad has "horror world," they see it as "Gothic horror world." An important difference, right?

Innistrad first time out was gothic horror world, but we mined most of that space. A return required us finding some more horror tropes to use.

Mark, we haven't seen your toaster in a while, can we get a pic to see he's okay?

I think my toaster’s been enjoying its time out of the spotlight.

I just want to say that I love that you take time out of your day to answer fan questions. You really are a model to all spokespersons for a brand because you truly care about your product and love spending time talking to your fan base about your product. It's passion and dedication like that that will keep Magic at the forefront of gaming for years to come

I’m happy so many people seem to enjoy this blog. It definitely keeps me from ever getting bored. : ) Thanks to everyone who keeps sending me questions.

You've said that popular planes are more likely to return than unpopular ones, but what about mechanics? Are mechanics that tested poorly less likely to be reused?

Absolutely. Less popular mechanics have a smaller chance of returning. That said, if a mechanic fits perfectly or we believe we didn’t execute it correctly the first time out and we could do better (such as chroma), it could come back.