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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Wow, lots of good questions answered well! Here's my responses to:

Reprint Policy: C'mon MaRo. The spirit of the Reprint Polciy has been violated repeatedly. It started off covering nearly all rares and many uncommons, then became selectively chosen, then phased out completley, then retroactively revoked for several cards. If the reprint policy means so much, continue doing it. If not, scrap it. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me. I just can't fathom why of all things in the halls of WotC, the reprint policy is sacrosanct.

Suspend not worth it? Noooooooooo! I love suspend and don't much care for Cascade!

Impressing girls. VERY good answer!

Being iconic for art. Man, I remember those days.

No multicolour in the future. THANK YOU! Now, where's my enchantment block?

Timeshifted cards. I love them. I hope that every single cards does get reprinted one day. I wait for the day that I finally understand what "Assemble" and "Contraption" are/does.

i'm really happy that he went over the flash/faerie situation. given their unpopular tournament supremacy, i think it's hard for people to see how fun and flavorful flash really was with faeries (when you weren't running a competitive faerie deck), which explains the unbalanced way flash was given to blue in that block. i am hoping green gets its share of good flash cards in the near future.

maro]Three, one of which is a planewalker that's appeared previously.

blue/whit wrote:

With the amount of time spent on talking about how the next set will contain 'Purple', I wouldn't call that 'unexpected'.

MaRo]We like each color to have access to a few things that only they get to do. Symmetric discard, by the way, I would put into white, under the same reasoning that allows white to get all the mass destruction effects: its desire for fairness, and for everyone to be treated the same.

Hah! I know Wrath was still in White's color pie, even if they change the card, it'll still be in White!

We like each color to have access to a few things that only they get to do. Symmetric discard, by the way, I would put into white, under the same reasoning that allows white to get all the mass destruction effects: its desire for fairness, and for everyone to be treated the same.[/quote]
Hah! I know Wrath was still in White's color pie, even if they change the card, it'll still be in White!

MechTroid]What's the average landspeed of a swallow?

Hey! He didn't answer this one!

The correct answer is 'With or without coconuts?

What's the average landspeed of a swallow?[/quote]
Hey! He didn't answer this one!

The correct answer is 'With or without coconuts?

MaxieWawa]I know you read every email, do you read every tweet you receive?[/quote wrote:

I know you read every email, do you read every tweet you receive?

-MaRo]Yes, I do

Which begs the question: Do you read every forum post (or, did I miss the article that he answered this in)? I hope so, because I like to think that I'm smart (and thus worth listening to), and I always try to comment on the boards when I find what he said interesting/needing comment. I rarely email him (only twice in I over 2 years I think of reading his articles), so the forums are the only way he'd 'hear' me...

WolfV]what would stop you from ever making a set that completely lacks a single color?[/quote wrote:

what would stop you from ever making a set that completely lacks a single color?

MaRo]The fact that it would be a terrible idea.]

Would you ever make a set with only creatures? :whistles innocently:

Thanks,

The fact that it would be a terrible idea.][/quote]
Would you ever make a set with only creatures? :whistles innocently:

Thanks,
Hdier

Because not everything can be evergreen. Yes, cycling is awesome and it does all sorts of great things, but the only keyword mechanics we've chosen to make evergreen are creature mechanics that are very flavorful and have enough design space to be used every set.

Cycling may not be flavorful, but it has more design space than any other mechanic in Magic, since almost any card can have cycling added to it at the cost of a slight reduction in its power level.  It doesn't define the set it's in; it's a simple workhorse mechanic.  It would make more sense to me if R&D treated cycling as a tool like multicolored or hybrid rather than as a mechanic, even though the rules say it's a mechanic.

Honestly, no. Hurloon Minotaur, as a mascot, proved much more popular internally than it ever did externally. The reason why? I'll be blunt—the card's pretty bad from a power perspective, and that's before R&D decided that the overall power level of creatures could be juiced a little. Yes, the art's great, but iconic cards nowadays have to not just look good but be good as well.

*cough*Lord of the Pit*cough*

Green gets it because it's the creature color and has the biggest, bad-assiest (I hope time credits me with that word) creatures.

Then why is blue still the color of Huge Fatties That Are Hard To Deal With?  Shroud is part of green's slice of the color pie, but the biggest (mono-)green creature with shroud is Kodama of the North Tree, while blue gets Inkwell Leviathan (which, as far as I can tell, is mechanically a green card except for its artifact-ness).