If/When: more vanilla creatures?

When. We do less of them, but they’re not gone.

As a Jasmine player, I was wondering, are we ever going to get more vanilla creatures printed better statlines than creatures with effects ?

The biggest problem is that we have to cost cards with whole mana symbols (other than Un-sets, we don’t do ½) and many abilities simply aren’t worth a whole mana by themselves.

Could *french* vanilla work as a set theme?

Probably not. It has many of the same problems as trying to build a vanilla set. If you don’t draw the cards that care, the set is overly simplistic.

Would Tarmogoyf be considered vanilla because it has no abilities, french vanilla because it's power and toughness are defined in the text of the card (albeit not by an ability), or neither because complexity or any other reason?

To be vanilla you have to have no rules text (not no abilities), so Tarmogoys if not vanilla.To be French vanilla, you have to have no rules text other than keyword abilities, so Tarmogoyf is not French vanilla.

Hey Mark! Is there a chance we could get flavor text on basic lands in premier sets? I used to love Vanilla creatures BECAUSE they had flavor text instead of abilities, it helped flesh out the world but we're seeing less of them nowadays so itd be nice if basics could take that role since non-full art ones typically lack rules text of any kind

We tested this and players strongly preferred the basic lands with just the large mana symbol. That doesn’t mean we’ll never do other types. Dungeons & Dragon sets have flavor text on basic land. The set just needs a strong reason.

You mentioned that you think of powercreep in Magic as a matter of newer sets being more powerful than older sets. When I think of powercreep in Magic, I tend to think of individual cards being more powerful than older cards.For example, when Savannah Lions was first printed, it was a rare, since having a vanilla 2/1 for 1 mana value with no downside was considered good (I assume). Nowadays, there are seven 2/1s for 1 mana in standard alone, most of them are uncommons, and they all have abilities that aren't downsides. (That list is: Ascendant Packleader, Cheeky House-Mouse, Cult Conscript, Embereth Veteran, Falkenrath Pit Fighter, Hotshot Mechanic, and Recruitment Officer.) Furthermore, Savannah Lion's recent reprint in Dominaria Remastered puts it at a common, meaning that its relative power over Magic's lifetime has seemingly decreased.Is this idea of powercreep something that comes up during your design process, and if so, how does it get addressed?

The power level of creatures in Alpha was pretty weak. There is not, for example, a single Alpha creature we couldn’t reprint today for power level reasons. In contrast, there are a lot of noncreature cards we couldn’t reprint today for power level reasons.We have made a lot of creature cards. Many of them are below the top tier of what we can print. Making a card better than an existing card is not power creep. Making creatures above the top line of what’s acceptable is.

Have you ever designed a card you didn’t think was fun? Not vanilla or smth, but like actively not fun. Also! Which card that you personally designed do you like playing against the least?

I have made cards that ended up being quite unfun, not on purpose, but mistakes have been made. Rishadan Port comes to mind.

I'm missing something if the definition in the rules of a face down card is changing. Disguise and Morph do the same thing so why use a new keyword?

Face down cards are not definitionally 2/2 vanilla creatures. The thing that puts them face down tells you what they are. For example, Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist makes cards it turns face down 5/5.

If/when: Vanilla planeswalkers, lands, sorceries, or enchantments?

I don’t know what that means.

I'm not thrilled at all with the few reveals of the new Xalan set. The power creep is unreal. It seems like it's not even baby steps anymore, but leaps and bounds. The more it creeps, more cards will be completely invalidated and the game will get quicker. Soon, the only thing that will matter is going first. I remember when the "vanilla test" was actually a thing. It felt like a gold standard of evaluating cards, and it worked well. We're long past that. We're getting 7 and 8 mana, 12/12 creatures with insane upside and evasion on the regular now. I wish we could bring back that "vanilla test" standard, but once a stage of power creep has been attained, non-rotating formats can't go back. It'll forever be stained with the negative affects of power creep.

I think you are misjudging the power level of the new cards. Let’s wait and see how they actually impact formats. Also, the game being too quick and seven and eight mana cards being too powerful seem to contradict one another.