• In a few sentences, what is the premise of Phirback Academy?

"Phirback Academy is a top-down set that focuses on experimentation, innovation and freedom. The goal of the set is to allow the players to create their own archetypes and synergies and not be confined to specific game plans like in most other sets."

• What inspired you to begin creating Phirback Academy?

"The premise of an archetypeless set always intrigued me, but given how hard it is for me to make sets bottom-up, for a long time I kinda kept that idea in my (really big) TODO list. When I decided I wanted to make a set based on the school in my D&D campaign, I knew I wanted to make the players feel like they're learning and trying new stuff themselves. That is when I decided that I wanted to try and make an environment that adapts to each player, and that is pretty much how I got what I have today."

• Where would you say Phirback Academy is in the development process?

"It is very early. I've finished commons and quite the few uncommons, but everything is subject to change. The themes of the set will probably change as well, seeing how a bit of the "philosophy" surrounding the creation of the set has changed. There are things to figure out, but we'll get safe and steady."

• In your design document, you describe Experiment as your "pride and joy". How did it come to get such a distinction, and does that still hold true today?

"Have you ever made a mechanic or a card, and you can't explain it but it just feels right? Experiment is that. Everything about experiment just does it for me, from the flavor to the mechanics and gameplay. Experiment is the most helpful mechanic in the set: it provides both a reliable way to enable align, the main premise of the set, as well as providing the player with a solid failsafe which can sometimes be a genuine choice, like on Fariah. Honestly if it weren't for Align, I would dub experiment as the defining mechanic of the set."

• One of the core philosophies of the set is "(almost) anything, in any color, at any time". How do you design towards that mindset without shattering the color pie or just making "5 color good stuff: the set"?

"This philosophy somewhat changed the more I've worked on the set, but it still holds true. There are a lot of things all colors can do that is unconventional rather than pie breaking. The best example of this in the set is impulse draw with experiment: while most colors don't impulse draw, all colors can draw cards as cantrips (and in general), so impulsing with black is just weird and not a break. Phirback takes advantage of this weirdness to both enable in-set themes and make the set a little more special in some way. I wanted to also use abilities that are heavy bends/"kinda okay" for each color, but with the help of other people I realized that what I actually want to do is to make sure that if a color does something that it doesn't tend to do for example green artifact animation, it needs to do so in a way that feels green rather than just do it.

To make sure the set's limited gameplay isn't weird 5c piles with no rhyme or reason (although the set definitely provides a bit of support for that too), the players are armed with both set themes and buildarounds. These will both guide the players towards potential decks, as well as give them superglue to tie their decks together rather than be a pile of artifacts."

• What is your favorite card in Phirback Academy?

"Wow, this is a really hard one[...]but I have to go with Glaudia. I just imagine the absolute thrill of attacking with her and a soup of keywords on the board. She seems super exciting to play with while still requiring you to actually build your deck around her for her to be worth it. Just you wait, I'm gonna figure out how to get that indestructibility eventually :)"

• Would you like to give any special thanks to anyone for their help?

"Yes! There are a lot of people to thank, but the biggest thanks has to go to StasisBot for both helping me a ton with the set, letting me use Teach as one of the mechanics in the set, and making one hell of a guest card. Other than that, I would like to thank FourEyesIsAFish for lending me his planeswalker, Aki, as well as making a guest card, as well as Sylpha, TVP and PseudoPresent for making guest cards. More thanks go to platypeople and Janah for really helping me figure out what I want for the set and how I want it to be, making it has proven to be a challenge and they've helped me in every part of the way! Of course, I would like to thank everyone who provided feedback and helped shape the set into what it is right now."