Naamloos

What is the funniest word?

I would choose “guacamole”.

Hey Maro! Speaking of angels, in your opinion what would be the go to three-color combo for a legendary angel that served as a tribal lord?

I’m not sure. People wanting an Angel tribal lord Commander, what three colors would you like?

After listening to your social media podcast, I have to wonder: do you all ever consider bringing on a dedicated social media team?

We have a dedicated social media team.

Are there any blogs that you know of that talk about Arena stuff? I had a question about the music, but I know few people at Wizards (if any) are as available as you

I don’t believe there is.

I set a false expectation that people answer questions every day at the rate that do. I am an outlier. Many have tried to keep a daily Tumblr blog. It’s very hard. I’m just too stubborn to realize it. : )

Kiora is clearly the greatest thief in the multiverse. She stole Thassa’s Bident.

Interesting.

Based on your article yesterday, it seems like Tamiyo is considered to be a Bant character. Lore-wise, what makes her green? I know she was Bant in Eldritch Moon, but I thought that had more to do with color balancing Planeswalkers than anything else. Nothing I've read in the story makes me believe she's green. Mono blue and U/W make sense, but the green does not.

She’s an observer and a big fan of nature.

How likely is it for us to visit a Camelot (high fantasy) world?

That’s more when than if.

You've said Nissa is Ex Gatewatch, but as of the War novel she has rejoined.

I hadn’t read the book yet when I wrote that column, so I was unaware she rejoined.

Could we see llamas in magic?

Perhaps one day.

Is there any particular reason why mythic rare cards tend to be much stronger than common cards?

Yes, common cards show up at a high as-fan in limited. Limited would get super swingy if commons had the power level of mythic rares.

You have said that the names of colors can be used only for names of cards with that colors. Gideon Blackblade is monowhite, but is it allowed?

It was a special exception.

Hi Mark. Any insight into why the original wedge names didn't stand up to the test of time and were replaced?

I’m not sure what you think the original wedge names were. The first wedge names we meant to be official was Khans and they gave stood up.

I don't really get why it's so hard to find a home for three color planeswalkers in standard sets. A powerful enough one is enough to push a color combination otherwise underplayed, giving the exact kind of restriction that breads creativity. It also avoids players putting powerful planeswalkers into every deck that can cast them.

Just making three colors viable in Standard is often a challenge, edoscyskky wheb we’re not enabling a three-color set.

I'd just like to voice, I do not like 3 week spoiler season. It's too slow. I want a 1 week spoiler season. I like getting lots of spoilers in a shorter time frame.

How do the rest if you feel? How many weeks of previews do you prefer? One, two or three? And why?

Hey Maro, today's my Birthday (no joke)! Could I get some trivia on brain freeze?

Brain Freeze was originally in Alpha, but got cut at the last minute for Thoughtlace.

Happy Birthday!

When it comes to people asking for more nonhumans, it's clear you're on the "We don't need them" side. Which is fine, of course, but it comes across as very dismissive every time you respond to such an ask with "Humans just want to see more humans", or "We already have plenty, you should be happy with them". It makes it seem like not only do you not understand where we're coming from, but that you don't care to understand.

One of the tricky things about designing Magic is that there are a lot of different players and they want different things. Because we make so many cards, usually we can solve this problem by making individual cards for each different subset of players.

Planeswalkers though present us with a problem.

1. We make far less of them than any other card type.

2. They are very important to our brand and thus are under more scrutiny.

3. They have to serve numerous purposes beyond just the trading card game.

This all means that we don’t have as much freedom as we do with other card types. As planeswalkers are so important to the brand, we’ve done a lot of market research on them. Here’s what we’ve learned (as a strong message over many years). For planeswalkers, players prefer humans to humanoids and strongly prefer humanoids to non-humanoids. If we do non-humanoids, they prefer them intelligent, aka they have agency.

I understand that there are players who identify with the non-humanoids as they symbolically represent a move away from the norms of society. And we work hard with creature cards (including legendary creatures representing characters) to provide some of that for the audience who wants it.

It’s just difficult to do that with planeswalker cards. The demand is simply not large enough to offset the various problems non-humanoid planeswalkers present. We have been trying to push a little with non-Human humanoids to possibly make some of that group happy.

I’m sorry you read me as being dismissive. I’m trying my best to be honest and explain why we’re not doing the thing you want. I know it’s hard to hear, “the majority want something different”. And because I answer this question all the time, I might come off as flippant rather than trying to be entertaining saying the same thing for the fiftieth time.

I would like to use this post as an opportunity for the fans of non-humanoid planeswalkers to better explain why it’s something you want. While I might not be able to offer it in planeswalkers, it’s possible I can find elsewhere to meet some of this audience’s needs if I understand them better.

Hi Mark, I think my birthday trivia question got lost in the shuffle, but is there a possibility for a mono green angel? We’ve had monocolor angels in each other color!

It’s tricky as Angels fly and green doesn’t normally have flying creatures.