"We make the full range from simple to complex. The issue is the design vein for new simple mechanics is just a lot lower. Thirty years in, we’ve discovered the majority of the simple ideas."

Hi Mark,

Why do you feel that Magic needs to keep exploring virgin mechanical design space at a rapid pace?

MH2 is the best selling set of all time and it didn't include any new mechanics or abilities. That indicates to me that players can be enticed and excited by some new products that don't have new mechanics. But it seems like this is something you're very rarely willing to explore more which I find interesting because often success breeds repetition in Magic.

Surely it's possible to make a few new dynamic premier sets without having to make and introduce new mechanics? Or maybe a few more sets where the only mechanics that are introduced are workhorse mechanics primarily for Limited play.

So we do constant market research. We’re very interested in what drives players to want to buy new sets. The number one driver - new content (of which a big part of it is new mechanics) We’re not constantly making new mechanics just to entertain ourselves. The audience has spoken very loudly that it’s a huge driver for them. We also track what social media and media talk about when a new set comes out and new mechanics is almost always the top spot.Modern Horizons is an exception, but it does have access to every mechanic we’ve ever done, so it’s not a fair comparison. It has an increased complexity that no other sets get.

If a set played well but only had unexciting workhorse mechanic, would RnD be okay with that?

We’d throw in a splashy cycle or two and a few exciting individual designs.

You've talked about paring down the number of mechanics in a block. Has R&D experimented with reprinting some "workhorse" cards in the second set of a block? It occurs to me that I like getting ahold of redundant copies of commons once I know I'm in a particular deck.

We’ve actually talked about that a number of times.

Landfall being upped to a 1 on the Storm Scale is disappointing. I'm aware this is an unpopular opinion but I think it is the single most boring mechanic you've ever printed in the decade I've been playing Magic, and not even good in a workhorse way like cycling or kicker. The only thing it does is enable turn-three kills. I hate hate hate landfall.

Landfall should be a 3, not a 1. It’s not evergreen nor deciduous.Landfall requires more care to do correctly, but I think it has potential for fun game play when done correctly. The cards you’re referring to are not in that camp.