@Prof59: I have also met very people that are interested in the story (I’ve personally never read any of the lore, and I’m not that interested). That being said, there’s no real downside to adding that depth to the game (even if the majority of people don’t care), especially if it will matter to someone. I guarantee the price of packs would not go down if WOTC demanded the story get cut from the process. It seems like that detail was added with care, and if Alseha pops up in the meta (I’m not up-to-date), all the better! Playable + not banned + decent backstory = good design

For me, Alesha the card that taught me the difference between color and color identity, which actually opened up options for Commanders.

The player archetypes of Vorthos/Melvin, Timmy/Johnny/Spike are interesting to me, because they’re almost like personality types (especially when combined with a player’s preferred colors). I’m sure cards are specifically designed with all of these in mind (not just the un- cards)