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MTG Innistrad Chat Transcript 10/05/2011
http://www.rarityguide.com/articles/articles/861/1/MTG-Innistrad-Chat-Transcript-10052011/Page1.html
By chronodev (Ron)
Published on 10/6/2011
 
Transcript/Summary of the MTG Innistrad chat that took place October 5th 2011

It's 2:00pm! Time to start the chat! I'm community Manager Mike Robles. We've got some awesome guests today and I'll let them introduce themselves. Brady, Erik, Maro, you guys are up!

[14:02:26] MaRo:
I'm Mark Rosewater, the Head Designer for Magic and the lead designer for Innistrad.

[14:02:58] WotC_ErikL:
I'm Erik Lauer, the lead developer for Innistrad.

[14:03:07] Brady_Dommermuth:
I've worked on Magic for 14.5 years. Weatherlight was in development when I started. I've been editor, technical writer, creative writer, and world designer. Art director Jeremy Jarvis, concepter Richard Whitters, and writers Doug Beyer, Jenna Helland, and Adam Lee are all on my team.

[14:03:29] Brady_Dommermuth:
Oh, and rules manager, briefly.

[14:03:52] MaRo:
My design team was myself, Jenna Helland, Tom LaPille, Graeme Hopkins and some guy named Richard Garfield.

[14:04:07] WotC_Microbless:
First question comes from the forums: Are there any Innistrad-heavy decks that you think will become a dominant force in Standard, based on your playtesting?

[14:04:49] Brady_Dommermuth:
Type faster, Erik!

[14:04:57] MaRo:
This question is all Erik's,

[14:05:14] WotC_ErikL:
We don't pick the dominant decks, we let players duke it out. However I think there are some nice reanimation decks, aggressive human decks, and some strong decks based around token makers.

[14:05:35] MaRo:
I personally would love to see zombies do well.

[14:05:45] MaRo:
Just because I love zombies.

[14:05:48] WotC_ErikL:
As the block progresses, I think Zombies will do that

[14:06:10] WotC_Microbless:
From Cakewizard: Designing this set, did you intend "Zombie Tribal" to be a potential standard deck or were they meant to be more of a kitchen-table magic type deck?

[14:06:12] WotC_ErikL:
The flashback reanimation spell is very good with forbidden alchemy.

[14:06:27] MaRo:
Design never sets the power level of decks.

[14:06:45] WotC_ErikL:
I think it will be a standard deck as the block progresses and more powerful zombies show up.

[14:06:55] MaRo:
We make fun cards and mechanics and themes and then let development set the power level for the things that make for the best metagame.

[14:06:55] Brady_Dommermuth:
We wouldn't intentionally make any prominent tribe weak, of course.

[14:07:15] MaRo:
I did work hard to make zombie decks feel like zombies.

[14:07:16] WotC_ErikL:
I think there are some strong zombie right now, such as Diregrafy Fhoul.

[14:07:18] WotC_ErikL:
Ghoul

[14:07:28] Brady_Dommermuth:
I pity the fhoul.

[14:07:33] WotC_Microbless:
Ha!

[14:07:38] MaRo:
I always felt that zombie decks of the past never captured how zombies are in popular culture.

[14:08:00] Brady_Dommermuth:
Keep em coming, Mike.

[14:08:02] WotC_Microbless:
This set made me build a Zombie Commander deck. I'm excited to check it out.

[14:08:05] WotC_Microbless:
From Talinthas: how far in advance do you plan? is it possible to adjust cards in the smaller sets to reflect metagame issues created by the larger set?

[14:08:08] MaRo:
Zombies in Innistrad are slow but will overwhelm you if you don't deal with them.

[14:08:22] WotC_ErikL:
Also there are zombie combination decks using Rooftop storm with Ghoulraiser and Grimgrin.

[14:09:18] WotC_Microbless:
If it got lost, we got this question: From Talinthas: how far in advance do you plan? is it possible to adjust cards in the smaller sets to reflect metagame issues created by the larger set?

[14:09:21] Brady_Dommermuth:
We can't be too specific about that, Talinthas, but Dark Ascension was more or less done months ago. We plan many years out, trying to leave ourselves as much ability to react as possible as we go.

[14:09:27] WotC_ErikL:
We plan aspects of the metagame years in advance, but the details are changed as we play. We both try and balance the environemnt by making the strongest decks a little less strong and weaker decks a bit bigger.

[14:09:34] MaRo:
Design plans far, far ahead, but what you are asking out is more what Erik does.

[14:09:55] MaRo:
I know what we're doing in 2017 for example.

[14:09:58] WotC_ErikL:
We also find that decks we already had are too strong, and try and give answers to them. For example, we were worried about the power of the Swords and added Ancient Grudge.

[14:10:27] Brady_Dommermuth:
Next! Gleemax demands more questions!

[14:10:32] WotC_Microbless:
From mattereaterlad: A question for creative (I think): I find it really flavorful and cool that Innistrad's 3 seasons (Harvest Moon, Hunter's Moon, & New Moon) line up roughly with the 3 seasons the block's sets will release in. Innistrad had a definite autumnal feel to me -- will Dark Ascension have a winter/Hunter's Moon vibe, and "Roll" a New Moon/spring-ish one? Also, was creating a plane with 3 seasons that roughly match the release dates for an expert-level set "IRL" intentional?

[14:10:44] WotC_Microbless:
Sort of long, but the chat won't let me cut/paste.

[14:11:52] Brady_Dommermuth:
We didn't line up the seasons with the sets, no. Because of the broad needs of each set, we want the ability to cover a wide variety of subjects in each. Also, sets' contents aren't strictly sequential. More like a set of snapshots from a particular time period.

[14:12:09] MaRo:
While Brady is typing, I will say that the moon line-up was more coincidence than a planned thing.

[14:12:28] WotC_Microbless:
From Personman: Innistrad (and many Maro designs) have lots of repetition and copying things (e.g. flashback, evil twin). What makes these kinds of effects feel so fun?

[14:12:44] Brady_Dommermuth:
Things do work in threes, though, and some of the feeling of the three seasons match the three-act story structure, largely by coincidence.

[14:12:54] MaRo:
I feel it's very meta, I too am repetitive and enjoy copying things.

14:13:11] MaRo:
Why do I keep doing these things? because players have shown they really like them.

[14:13:35] Brady_Dommermuth:
They sort of enable you to build on what you've already "achieved" in the game state. I think that's part of why players like them.

[14:13:37] MaRo:
Why do they like them? I think there's something fun about not knowing what a card's going to do each time so copying cards are fun to play.

[14:13:39] WotC_ErikL:
Copying things is fun when you make copies of different things from game to game.

[14:14:01] WotC_Microbless:
Here's another excellent question from the forums: From a design (and/or development) point of view, what was the most difficult aspect of reconciling X top down designs into (an excellent) overall set? What is the most difficult part of filling skeleton holes in a top down set?

[14:14:05] MaRo:
Why do players like playing things more than once? Part power, part liking consistency.

[14:14:30] MaRo:
Innistrad was designed very differently from how I've done past sets.

[14:14:50] MaRo:
I started by filling in all the top down cards to see what naturally occurred and what didn't.

[14:15:04] Brady_Dommermuth:
100% fealty to flavor often yields unfun cards. Compromising to keep flavor while achieving fun gameplay is tricky and took lots of back and forth.

[14:15:07] MaRo:
I didn't start with a skeleton but created one out of the cards the set felt like it wanted.

[14:15:25] MaRo:
Yes, the top-down horror set didn't have a design skeleton.

[14:15:46] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:15:52] WotC_ErikL:
Development wise, the hardest part is getting the tribes to match the design intent. For example, Vampires are supposed to be a very aggressive deck, but in practice tended to play more of a controlling role. So we needed to come up with ways to get the Black-Red players to build aggressive decks.

[14:16:01] Brady_Dommermuth:
(Mark stills types with two fingers. True story.)

[14:16:07] WotC_Microbless:
From RelentlessAsRats: How important do you consider multiplayer when designing cards? If you had a major mechanic what suits duels perfectly but plays very badly in multiplayer, would it see print?

[14:16:09] MaRo:
I'm fast though.

[14:16:28] MaRo:
We always keep multiplayer in mind.

[14:16:47] MaRo:
Commander has also become something that we think about when designing.

[14:17:14] Brady_Dommermuth:
My opinion, RelentlessAsRats, is yes, it would still see print, but we would understand that printing that mechanic would require some extra consideration of multoplayer elsewhere in the product.

[14:17:16] WotC_ErikL:
Cards that are fun in multiplayer, but a dud in two player is fine with development. But if it is ruinous in two player, development will change it.

[14:17:17] MaRo:
We don't let multiplayer stop us from doing things that are cool in two-player but not in multi-player.

[14:17:28] WotC_Microbless:
I remember Mark saying "This set was 10 years in making" With that here's the next question from Talinthas: why no callbacks to homelands or the dark?

[14:17:53] MaRo:
Because this set isn't set in either of those worlds?

[14:18:18] MaRo:
We just did a big nostalgia year with Scars of Mirrodin. This block was more open open rsonance.

[14:18:40] MaRo:
I'm fast with two fingers but I still make typos.

[14:18:45] Brady_Dommermuth:
We want each plane to feel like its own place. Ulgrotha had some horror elements but was also saddled with outback minotaurs and sea dwarves. The Dark was a melange of stuff with no unified sense of place. Our standards for world design and cohesion have raised since then.

[14:19:07] WotC_Microbless:
From Woozie810: How did Richard get involved with design?

[14:19:17] MaRo:
Um, he designed Alpha.

[14:19:28] MaRo:
He get on the Innistrad design team?

[14:19:47] MaRo:
Richard and I were both at Worlds in Memphis and we were hanging out and playing games.

[14:20:17] MaRo:
At the end of the event, Richard said that he had fun hanging out with me and that he would enjoy being on the next design team I was running.

[14:20:35] MaRo:
Obviously, when Richard offers something like that you jump at it.

[14:20:46] WotC_Microbless:
From SunByrne: Question: Innistrad appears more top-down than previous sets. Did it doing it this way change the relationship between creative, design, and development?

[14:20:53] MaRo:
Luckily the next set I was doing was a top-down set which plays to Ricjard's strengths as a designer.

[14:20:58] Brady_Dommermuth:
Richard gets alarmed when you jump at him, I've found.

[14:21:43] MaRo:
Top-down design requires working very closely with creative to make sure that what the cards represent is what they will be on the final card.

[14:21:43] WotC_ErikL:
Development checked with creative more frequently to find which concepts were going to work. We always do that, but it was more prevalent in this set.

[14:22:03] Brady_Dommermuth:
SunByrne: Yes. To some extent, "top-down design" is card designers doing the creative designers' job. It required more collaboration and communication. Jenna Helland was on the design team partially for that reason.

[14:22:06] MaRo:
I had Brady go through the set numerous times to tag things we top-downed that wouldn't fit in Innistrad.

[14:22:30] MaRo:
Chainsaw and Broomstick, for example, were two cards we made that had to change for flavor reasons/

[14:22:31] Brady_Dommermuth:
It's true; I played "bad cop." I would vet concept-dependent designs and tell them what they couldn't do.

[14:22:54] MaRo:
All in all, as the set shows, it worked well.

[14:23:00] WotC_Microbless:
From Cakewizard: Do vampires and humans coexist to a certain extent in Innistrad? Do Vampires treat them like lowly subjects or something other than just food sources?

[14:23:22] WotC_ErikL:
During development we wanted to tie humans and spirits together; Adam Lee came up with humans that created Spirits when they died.

[14:23:42] MaRo:
They coexist kind of like lions and gazelles.

[14:23:53] Brady_Dommermuth:
Depends on province. In Nephalia vampires and humans coexist (nervously). In Gavony, no way. Kessig has few vampires.

[14:24:16] Brady_Dommermuth:
Stensian humans live in the shadow of vampires constantly.

[14:24:50] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:24:51] WotC_Microbless:
Here's a question from forums/chat We seemed to cover the Universal Horror Tropes pretty well on this one, including a guest appearance by a few more modern contemporaries. I am going to be thrilled if we sneak in more references to Hitchcock. (CalicoFox Were there any horror creatures you wanted to get into Innistrad, but couldn't, either due to design restrictions or set limitations?

[14:25:14] MaRo:
Not every horror trope made sense in Innistrad.

[14:25:36] MaRo:
Also, the block isn't over so some tropes you haven't seen yet, you will.

[14:25:48] Brady_Dommermuth:
I prevented them from doing some things to keep it in the realm of fantasy. For example, hockey-mask-wearing psycho doesn't make sense in Magic.

[14:26:27] Brady_Dommermuth:
I wanted a Gothic-horror-inspired plane of the Magic multiverse, not "pile of all random horror tropes."

[14:26:33] MaRo:
We were more Universal Pictures 50's horror and less Saw.

[14:27:01] WotC_Microbless:
From MonKei: Have the names been influenced by german Bundesländer? What's the influence of the german language in general?

[14:27:10] Brady_Dommermuth:
And if I were King of Everything, it would've been more "penny dreadfuls" and 1920s German expressionist film, less Universal

[14:27:54] MaRo:
I have no idea what that last question means. Brady?

[14:28:07] WotC_ErikL:
I was thinking the set as more Ozzy and less Slayer

[14:28:09] Brady_Dommermuth:
We want each plane to have its own phonetic quality, and I wanted to keep Innistrad off Ravnica territory. So the names are a mix of Northern European languages: Old English, German, Dutch, Danish, Flemish, a little French, etc.

[14:28:48] Brady_Dommermuth:
Some stuff might seem close to Eastern European, but the names draw an arc from London to Copenhagen, sort of.

[14:28:52] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:28:53] Brady_Dommermuth:
Next!

[14:28:54] WotC_Microbless:
From Polochon_street: How did you represent the 'immortality' of vampires?

[14:29:22] MaRo:
They'll live on in Magic forever?

[14:29:53] Brady_Dommermuth:
They're ageless but not immortal. Unlike some folklore vampires, where if you "take the stake out" they come back to life, Magic vampires stay dead once killed -- unless they're exceptionally powerful.

[14:30:20] WotC_Microbless:
Evil_Dave83: Can you share any card designs that perfectly captured the top-down essence of something but unfortunately couldn't be concepted into the world of Innistrad (the Trepanation Blades that didn't make it).

[14:30:32] Brady_Dommermuth:
(And they don't sparkle and don't care about garlic.)

[14:30:58] MaRo:
We had a card based on the alien from Alien that popped out of someone's stomach and killed them.

[14:31:09] MaRo:
I think we ended up sending that card to New Phyrexia.

[14:31:16] MaRo:
Jaws didn't make it.

[14:31:52] MaRo:
There was a whole bunch of stuff we tried that didn't fit but I can't recall too many of them now that I'm on the spot.

[14:31:59] Brady_Dommermuth:
Not too many megasharks in Gothic horror.

[14:32:28] MaRo:
How are we ever going to change that Brady?

[14:32:50] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:32:53] WotC_Microbless:
From Guest2139821851: How strong can we expect the Lovecraftian influence to be? Zendikar had a good crack at the cosmic horror aspect, but perhaps something more akin to, say, a color out of space? Pernicious and insidious?

[14:33:34] WotC_Microbless:
(there's a lot of similar questions I'm weeding through! Sorry for the delay!)

[14:33:51] Brady_Dommermuth:
The whole gag with Lovecraft is that stuff is so reality-defying that just looking at it or even thinking about it makes you insane. That makes it hard to show in illustrations.

[14:34:07] MaRo:
Also Rise of the Eldrazi hit the Lovecraft theme.

[14:34:34] MaRo:
Gothic horror doesn't have tons of tentacles.

[14:34:36] Brady_Dommermuth:
Also, I think Gothic horror and the Cthulhu mythos are related but very different, and I thought mixing them would prevent us from doing either as thoroughly as we'd want to.

[14:34:51] MaRo:
And no sh.

[14:34:57] MaRo:
And no sharks apparently.

[14:34:58] WotC_Microbless:
From Rekavik: what inspired the introduction of unconventional color combinations?

[14:35:02] Brady_Dommermuth:
(And frankly I'm kinda bored of the Lovecraft-Victorian-steampunk mashup.)

[14:35:30] MaRo:
What does unconventional mean? We do all ten two-color combinations all the time.

[14:35:52] WotC_ErikL:
Development worked a fair amount on enemy color combinations to make limited play, especially draft, more interesting.

[14:36:06] MaRo:
Why did we stretch where the flavor went? Why blue zombies and red vampires?

[14:36:15] WotC_ErikL:
The allied colors have great tribal feel, but not everyone wants to play a tribal deck.

[14:36:22] Brady_Dommermuth:
With all set designs we try to create multiple layers of stuff for players to encounter. You might see tribes first and notice the enemy-color themes later, for example.

[14:36:27] MaRo:
In order to have enough space for players to play with a new theme, we have to stretch boundaries.

[14:36:51] MaRo:
The design team and creative spent a lot of time on how to make horror that wasn't black.

[14:36:58] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:37:16] WotC_Microbless:
This is sort of an odd one, but I like it.

[14:37:19] WotC_Microbless:
From JaffetC: Do you guys listen to music as you design the sets, and if so what kind of music did you listen to while designing Innistrad?

[14:37:40] MaRo:
No, I don't tend to listen to music when I design. Sorry, that was a boring answer.

[14:37:55] WotC_ErikL:
I watched "bark at the moon" when working on various werewolves.

[14:38:03] MaRo:
When I do listen to music, it tends to be insturmental.

[14:38:13] Brady_Dommermuth:
I did the writing for the vampires and Stensia myself, and I remember listening to Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre while doing so.

[14:38:26] WotC_Microbless:
From Wanderer.of.mists: Re: Flavour text: As a fan of Victorian Gothic fiction I was *very* excited about this set, it's obvious the writers of the flavour text are too. I'm wondering at what point is flavour text decided on/written, who writes it?

[14:39:08] MaRo:
I like how it's clear on each question whose supposed to answer it. This one's all Brady.

[14:39:43] MaRo:
Back in the day, I was very involved in flavor text writing.

[14:39:53] Brady_Dommermuth:
We build a team of freelance writers for each set, and they contribute gobs of stuff for each card. We go through it, select what we like, write a bunch more stuff ourselves, and then wordsmith the one chosen option until we're happy with how it reads. Each team is 5 - 10 writers plus our staff.

[14:40:21] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:40:23] WotC_Microbless:
From Gordcooper: In design terms, what were some of the restrictions the team put on themselves prior to starting the process? Conversely, were there existing restrictions set by another branch of the team?

[14:40:53] MaRo:
The design constraint was the top-down quality of the set. We could design anything... as long as it felt like horror.

[14:41:20] WotC_Microbless:
Keep those questions coming!

[14:41:22] WotC_Microbless:
From Cakewizard: Who's Ludevic and just how crazy is he?

[14:41:24] Brady_Dommermuth:
I laid out a few things: No mummies, no gypsies, no war between vampires and werewolves.

[14:41:26] MaRo:
As I already explained, we had to match the world creative was building so there were restrictions from creative.

[14:41:56] MaRo:
On a crazy scale Brady with 1 being sane and 10 being looney!

[14:42:05] WotC_ErikL:
A big constraint on development was the size of creatures in some colors. Humans tend to be small creatures, smaller than a 3/3.

[14:42:17] Brady_Dommermuth:
You'll hear more from Ludevic in flavor text. He's a fun flavor-text point-of-view character but not a protagonist.

[14:42:33] MaRo:
This feels like question juggling. Hope you all are following.

[14:42:43] Brady_Dommermuth:
I'd put him at 6.8.

[14:43:13] WotC_Microbless:
Next question

[14:43:15] WotC_Microbless:
From mafteechr: As you are designing the set, does the team start to notice the potential interactions and combos with the other sets in the format? How often are you surprised by what players come up with?

[14:43:38] MaRo:
We always design sets very aware of what comes before and after.

[14:44:01] MaRo:
Design tends to like to make open ended designs so that players can explore and find cool interactions.

[14:44:26] WotC_ErikL:
Development tries to seed the environment with cards in the year before that have nice interactions with the set. if you look at Magic 2012, there are some black cards that work well with Zombies.

[14:44:33] Brady_Dommermuth:
Millions of players will always come up with things that the 20 of us didn't, but we do okay.

[14:44:42] MaRo:
I am always surprised because I don't know what interactions exist.

[14:44:59] MaRo:
I mean I know some but a small perentage.

[14:45:15] WotC_ErikL:
Part of the reason development went with a +1/+1 counter theme on Vampires was the interaction with Proliferate.

[14:45:32] MaRo:
I like to think of design as creating tools. Who knows what players will build with the tools we make?

[14:45:53] WotC_ErikL:
Magic 2012's Jace was developed, in part, to do interesting things with flashback.

14:46:01] Brady_Dommermuth:
(Next.)

[14:46:09] WotC_Microbless:
From raadface: How does creative try to make a character or world, that feels very unique to magic? and not just another part of the fantasy genre?

[14:46:23] Brady_Dommermuth:
Uh . . .

[14:46:48] MaRo:
Yes, Brady, how do you do that?

[14:46:57] MaRo:
 
[14:46:59] Brady_Dommermuth:
It's really dang hard. Fantasy fans are quick to say, "That's not fantasy." So we have to figure out how to deliver the expected and the unexpected at the same time.

[14:47:30] Brady_Dommermuth:
I try to come up with an inner conflict for a character that's more personal than "I must protect the innocent and save the world." That's a start.

[14:47:46] MaRo:
It works for Superman.

[14:47:59] Brady_Dommermuth:
But a lot of the visual look is up to art director Jeremy Jarvis and whatever illustrator he chooses to design the look of the character.

[14:48:33] Brady_Dommermuth:
We do meticulously avoid the pointy-hatted wizard or anything that looks Ren-faire or stock Medieval.

[14:48:44] Brady_Dommermuth:
The rest is trial and error. Next question.

[14:48:46] WotC_Microbless:
Here's one from the forums: You might not be able to mention this one, but what was the process that you guys went through to decide to include the Markovs in the set? Obviously this has implications for why Sorin is there, but if you can talk about it, I'd be interested to know why the Markovs were implemented here.

[14:48:47] MaRo:
Poor Merlin.

[14:49:27] MaRo:
Sorin Markov here on Innistrad? *shock*

[14:49:52] Brady_Dommermuth:
Sorin is more popular than I expected him to be, but once we knew we were going to do a Gothic-horror-themed setting, it seemed practically criminal for him NOT to be from there.

[14:50:39] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:50:47] WotC_Microbless:
How much thought went into the concept that Innistrad is a colder than average world, and to what extent did you make the decision? Was it mostly just to put people in fancy coats, or were there other creative decisios that were related to that?

[14:50:55] Brady_Dommermuth:
Planeswalkers have become such a prominent part of Magic that it wasn't enough to have him simply be an Innistrad native; it made story sense for him to be instrumental somehow. And boy is he. He and his evil grandfather.

[14:51:09] Brady_Dommermuth:
Coats and hats. Yep.

[14:51:19] MaRo:
Horror tends to like cold.

[14:51:33] Brady_Dommermuth:
That and trying to typify spooky + Northern European.

[14:51:56] Brady_Dommermuth:
Brotherhood of the Wolf was among the many influences. Not a super-awesome film but had a great look.

[14:52:28] WotC_Microbless:
I think this next question has been addressed indirectly, but not as a straight up answer: Haomin: Does design make a lot more cards than needed for development to cut, or does development ask for more designs to filll the holes?

[14:52:34] Brady_Dommermuth:
Cold temps also allowed us to have humans bundle up whereas vampires can flaunt skin. Made for nice contrast.

[14:52:55] MaRo:
Design tends to turn over the set with a few extra cards but there is a lot of hole filling during development.

[14:53:00] WotC_ErikL:
Design makes extra cards, but development also make its own cards.

[14:53:55] WotC_Microbless:
Haomin: Where did the idea for Innistrad's class struggle come from? Is it a political commentary (a la Night of the Living Dead?)

[14:54:35] MaRo:
Magic is not all that high on political commentary.

[14:55:02] Brady_Dommermuth:
I think you'll find indications of class in most Magic settings. But yeah, Gothic horror does like to play around with how the peasant and noble are differently affected by threats from outside their walls.

[14:55:23] WotC_Microbless:
Got time for about 1 or 2 more questions.

[14:55:27] WotC_Microbless:
From SniffnoyNo2: Why no guns in Innistrad? I know Magic generally avoids guns due to them seeming out of place in fantasy but it seems like muskets or arquebuses would fit well on Innistrad without breaking fantasy flavor, especially with silver bullets.

[14:56:00] Brady_Dommermuth:
(1) Guns do alienate some (not all) fantasy fans, as well learned from Portal Second Age. (2) I didn't want to be accused of becoming more like WoW.

[14:56:01] MaRo:
I'm not a fan of guns in Magic.

[14:56:32] MaRo:
Guns feel too modern for me.

[14:56:36] Brady_Dommermuth:
I also just feel like they're not needed -- magic, arrows, and crossbow bolts do the job.

[14:57:07] MaRo:
Next question.

[14:57:08] WotC_Microbless:
Our time is just about up. I want to thank Mark, Erik and Brady for taking time out of their day to answer these questions. The last question is: nevarin: What is your absolute favorite card from Innistrad (flavor, mechanics, and art.... everything combined)?

[14:57:33] MaRo:
Endless Ranks of the Dead is my overall favorite. It also has my favorite art from the set.

[14:57:59] WotC_ErikL:
My favorite is Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

[14:58:11] Brady_Dommermuth:
Tough to beat those two. Hm.

[14:58:24] WotC_ErikL:
Brady's favorite is Forbidden Alchemy.

[14:58:29] MaRo:
Zombies:2, Everyone Else: 0

[14:58:59] WotC_Microbless:
Still thinking Brady?

[14:59:05] Brady_Dommermuth:
Maybe Reckless Waif / Merciless Predator -- I like the backstory I imagine for the Waif -- scraping by in the Erdwal, then raging out and tearing out throats.

[14:59:29] MaRo:
There are a lot of cards I really like.

[14:59:39] MaRo:
I'm very happy with how Innistrad turned out.

[14:59:49] WotC_Microbless:
I think we all are. Again thank you guys very much for being a part of this!

[14:59:55] Brady_Dommermuth:
Thanks all for attending.

[14:59:56] MaRo:
I feel like design, development and creative all brought their A game.

[14:59:58] WotC_ErikL:
Thanks everybody!

[15:00:03] MaRo:
Thanks for coming!

[15:00:41] Brady_Dommermuth:
You can always ask me more Magic flavor questions on Twitter (@dreadbrothmummy).