damnaramegidope asked: Have you considered changing the text on cards from using "his or her" to "their"? It not only saves space, it is also gender-neutral. This is definitely not because I know a non-binary person who (jokingly) says that they aren't legal targets for cards that say "his or her". But really though, it takes up less space to write "Target opponent discards a card from their hand" than to write "Target opponent discards a card from his or her hand".

This is another topic that keeps popping up on Blogatog. Here’s the crux of the issue. The number one priority of our text is clarity. It’s important that people can read our card texts and know exactly what’s going on. Multiplayer Magic has risen in popularity over the last few years (or one could argue we’ve chosen to focus on it more) so we have worked very hard to make sure our wording is clear not just for single player play but also for multiplayer play.

Meanwhile, gender identity has also been evolving, but the English language, as languages tend to do, is taking time to catch up. As such there is no good gender neutral pronoun in English. Many have tried to co-opt the words “they” and “their” but the words already have context to them especially when it comes to plural versus singular use.

Add into this editorial style which needs to be precise and you have a situation where people want something that the tools to cleanly provide it do not yet exist. History has shown that language will follow cultural needs so I believe it’s only a matter of time before English gets there, but as we prioritize clarity in our wording, it is not something we are willing to rush into especially since the confusion with singular versus plural is of particular issue.

In short, it’s a complex issue with a lot of moving parts, all of which are important but not all of which can easily be addressed currently at the same time.