mtgplayer asked: Hi Mark! Seeing how Standard is now, are you still happy with Kaladesh block? And Energy? Thanks!

I’m very happy with Kaladesh’s design. I consider it one of my best designs (I co-designed it with Shawn Main). My only design regret is I wish we’d designed some anti-energy cards.

As for energy specifically, I believe it’s a fun and interesting mechanic that has mostly been well received by the players. Yes, we missed on the right power level in our first outing with the mechanic, but that’s not a flaw of the mechanic. Usually, if you can go back and just change costs to fix everything, it’s not the mechanic that’s the problem.

The free mechanic from Urza block is an example of a mechanic that costing can’t fix. That’s a design flaw not a balancing one. Usually though design mistakes are when something isn’t fun to play or leads to unfun choices. Design flaws are when themes don’t mesh or the mechanics don’t match the flavor of the world. None of that happened in Kakadesh.