Trans Lifeline Charity Stream 2026 (Vorthos Q&A)

This is a paraphrasing (not a word-by-word transcript) of the Vorthos Q&A segment on the 2026-10-10 Trans Lifeline charity stream (VOD here)

Panel

Crystal Frasier (she/her) - Senior Narrative Designer on Universes Beyond

Gray Highsmith (they/them) - Concept Artist for main sets

Amanda LaFranco (she/her) - Creative Text Game Designer

DK Billins (he/they) - Worldbuilding & Narrative Designer for Magic IP

Neale LaPlante Johnson (any) - Senior Narrative Designer for Magic IP

Questions

What MTG plane would you like to live on?

Gray: Bloomburrow … very cute and cozy

Neale: Ravnica … can get everything there

DK: I considered saying Duskmourn, not for any real reason, but I could fix Winter. I guess, Zhalfir (the new one)

Amanda: Shandalar

Crystal: I feel like the UB answer is Manhattan, but following the spirit of the question I’m a rural Florida girlie, so I feel I’d do well in Ikoria

Can you say anything about Garruk’s ‘beast within’?

Gray: Can we say anything? Probably not, legally speaking

DK: Look forward to Garruk

Neale: I’m very happy people are interested in Garruk, thank you for your enthusiasm

Is Ajani gay? As a gay man, I see a lot of my life mirrored in his own and have always wondered

Neale: While we talked a lot about Ajani and his relationships, if you see yourself in someone, that’s what matters most. If you can identify with someone in fiction, if you see elements of your life, of your sexuality, in Ajani, that’s the most important thing

Crystal: I will point out the card is called Ajani’s Pridemate

We know llamas live in the core of Ixalan, and maybe on Ravnica. As a planeswalker, what other planes might I find these wonderful creatures on?

Amanda: Maybe Ikoria? I think we could see llamas there… they might be a different size though

Neale: Probably Bloomburrow, I don’t know if they’d be a Calamity Beast or animalfolk

Crystal: I think in every llama’s heart, they are a Calamity Beast … I will point out the mechano-llamas of Mirrodin

// upsetting bitting about smooth and slick llamas commences

Gray: Lorwyn is a fantastic answer … I think “damp llama” is up there for me

Crystal Frasier: Hear me out—Innistrad dracu-llamas

Which Ravnica guild makes the best pizza?

Crystal: For context, this has been a question raging around the office for months

Gray: This is the first I’ve heard of this…

DK: not Boros

Amanda: Boros think they make great pizza but they don’t

Neale: I think the consensus answer that I’ve heard is Rakdos. They’ve got the ingenuity, they’ve got access to fire … I don’t know if I trust the toppings

Crystal: Simic Brotherhood will create the perfect pizza for you personally!

Neale: I think the Izzet guild would have the best Detroit-style pan pizza. I don’t know if the dough or the cheese would be high quality, but it would be ~caramelized~

Crystal: DK? You’ve been quiet

DK: I just said anyone but Boros, and everyone agreed, so I’m the most correct

Amanda: I think a NY style, thin crust? Definitely Rakdos … Neapolitan? I could see Izzet

Crystal: Who makes the best deep dish Chicago-style?

// arguments about deep dish not being pizza

How does the design team translate Universes Beyond characters into Universes Within characters? I love the direction of characters like Zethi and Rashelle in particular, could one of those be the example?

DK: I did work on the Through the Omenpaths set, which was actually a lot of fun. When we get these characters and we get these really specific mechanics that we can’t change, having those restrictions opens up creative opportunities, because we’re starting mechanic first and trying to theorize, one, what plane could this go on—so I feel like a lot of things start there, there’s so many combinations that are plane specific, so you want to start there and decide what the equivalent could be. It becomes this never ending puzzle, really, where we completely strip away what the original was so it doesn’t distract us. It’s very much a puzzle, we go mechanic forwards, we look at the colors, we’re comparing to existing Magic sets and see where it can go. To get these oddballs with zero context was almost like playing a game

Neale: I was on the second Universes Within treatment (Street Fighter translation) and the philosophy has changed so much over time. When I started it was, take every one of these characters and put them on one plane, figure out how you can match all those typelines, and make every mechanic make sense. So for that drop, we put everyone on Dominaria, and the philosophy has definitely evolved to where we can actually map characters and their mechanics to the planes that inspired them. So if we saw Landfall on a UB character, we could be like ‘well could this be on Zendikar’. And that’s a really interesting question that I think has made our Universes Within stuff resonate so much more

Amanda: When I approach those cards from a naming perspective is how I approach any other card we create in Magic IP. What is the art saying, what is the direction the mechanics are saying, and what is the story we’re trying to tell. // some fun discussion about trying to develop flavor, both in-universe and Universes Beyond, for generic draft chaff shitters

DK: We couldn’t, based on typelines, fit everything to an existing plane, so as concepters we just get to go ‘make something cool’ … we wanted to diversify our spiders, so we ended up looking at lots of spider species and attaching those references … not everyone had as much fun as I did … Some of my happy memories too are some of the rare times we were able to reuse unused art that for whatever reason was unable to make it into a previous set

I’d love to hear more about the design story of Alesha

Crystal: Not sure any of us can speak to this one, I think it’s before all of our times

DK: I wasn’t here in 2016, but did work on TDM and learn about her, bring her back in whatever way that was possible, and for me that ended up being Alesha’s Legacy where I was able to directly refer to her. So pretty happy about that

Neale: One of the lead worldbuilders there, Alison Lührs, did a really good job. Alesha kinda lives as a testament to the amazingness of the Magic community to uplift characters they think are important to them. Going from Tarkir all the way to Dragonstorm, it was pretty obvious we had to do references, pay off the love that people gave. If you love a character, let us know

Crystal: I will say that I’m really happy the second legendary card we did for Alesha shows her older, because it’s not something you get to see trans women do a lot

Which Strixhaven college throws the worst parties? And why?

DK: Silverquill

Neale: Yeah I gotta agree. Listen, they are the meanest-

Crystal: Sorry, which throws the worst parties, and why

Neale: Okay. So I feel like with Silverquill you have all the hierarchy and snootiness, but you’re also at college when that shouldn’t matter at all. Imagine a party where you can get drunk but they’re mean to you about it. I’d rather be with the Quandrix students any time of the week, and the Witherbloom students are brewing their own alcohol

Crystal: You do not want to go to a Witherbloom party, it’s the person who’s more interested in the host’s cat than the party, except it’s everyone at the party, the cat is overstimulated, and the cat is also your professor in the morning

Amanda: I mean Prismari throws the best parties

Crystal: Have you ever been to art school?

Gray: I have been to art school, I feel like there’s a couple of ways this could go, and one of them is more fun than the other. I feel like there’s a version of it where they’re throwing super big theme parties and everyone’s getting super into the costumes and themes. And then I think there’s a version where they’re, like, too into it and it’s inaccessible to anyone who isn’t Prismari

Neale: We haven’t talked about Lorehold parties

Crystal: A bunch of nerds and jocks and they’re the same people?

// group: wait that actually sounds so cool

DK: Imagine you’re trying to play cornhole and the spirit who invented it just keeps winning and you’re trying to unsummon him

Neale: In the backyard people are just digging a tunnel straight down

Neale: Quandrix parties … I went to an engineering school, it’s just a party. They need to lay off the math, they need a break

Crystal: A Quandrix party is where they meticulously organize everything via spreadsheet and everyone cancels last minute

Neale: No that’s a Seattle party

DK: Yeah I think Quandrix parties are just normal parties

Neale: When they start summoning fractals in the corner though… that’s when you have to leave

I’m a horror writer and I really like Winter. I’m so pleased he keeps appearing in everything. I’d love to hear more about his design story and what inspired him

Neale: I’m lukewarm on Winter … I like Fall.

DK: Winter really invested himself through Jeyhon (Choo)

Gray: Jeyhon did concept art for survivor art, and he did this like round of characters and everyone was like that guy, we need to do something with him, he looks great he’s really fun. He just kinda went from there, if I remember correctly

DK: Sometimes it just happens in a concept push, someone just designs a guy that looks that cool that us on the narrative team want to make it a legend, want to make it important … In short, Winter is based and cool

What’s the echoverse version of a plane you would want to live in?

Crystal: I want to live in Echoverse Duskmourn, where Valgavoth is just like a tradwife

Gray: That still sounds horrible to me

DK: Yeah I’m even more afraid of him I think

Neale: I gotta pick Bloomburrow so I can save Mabel. Gotta overthrow King Glarb, restore communism to Bloomburrow please

Amanda: I really liked how we did Mirrodin, I really like Koth’s card. I think Koth was one of those instances where Koth’s life was really happy, he has a son, his son is named after his best friend, and he’s very happy.

Gray: I’ve got a soft spot for New Capenna, it was the first set I worked on, and I wanna see what New Capenna looks on without that whole shield that’s keeping the city bound within this little area. What does New Capenna look like if it never got messed with by the Phyrexians, if the demons never took over

Crystal: I do believe that’s just the American Midwest as imagined by Walt Disney

Gray: Well now I’m less interested

Neale: Okay wait, Art Deco… is now Brutalism?

Gray: Could we go Art Nouveau with it?

Crystal: I’m not gonna sit here and tolerate this anti-Brutalism rhetoric

DK: Everything really just sounds like it sucks

Crystal: That’s the point of Jace! He makes everything worse

DK: I guess Mirrodin seems chill. I was thinking of what are planes in the Echoverse that maybe don’t suck, but a lot of the stuff we’ve seen where theoretically the Echoverse wouldn’t suck still sucks. Innistrad still doesn’t look great, yeah I don’t know I don’t think there’s anywhere I want to be. If you forced my hand… surely Ikoria can’t be worse

Crystal: I mean, we could make it worse. What if it was just full of tiny dinosaurs Neale: I think Echoverse Ikoria might be one where humans have hunted monsters to extinction

Is it true that Phelddagrif did not appear in Reality Fracture because Jace does not have a compassionate heart and has no friends

Amanda: Jace does have friends! They tried to save him

Crystal: Jace tried to make friends!

Neale: I think Jace just doesn’t have whimsy in his heart

Amanda: I think Tam could have convinced Jace to put one in the Echoverse

DK: I think Phelddagrifs are already vibecoded, so they just became something else entirely in the random scramble

Crystal: Oh maybe they were replaced by winged llamas

What’s your favorite LGBTQIA+ Magic character

Gray: Ashiok

Amanda: yes, yes

DK: dammit

Crystal: okay what’s your favorite, no repeats

Neale: I wanna say Cruelclaw. Bi king, terrible lover, just the greatest to ever do it. Pure disaster class

Amanda: I like Huatli a lot, I like that you can have a soft side and a tough side

Crystal: I’ll say Alesha, she was cool enough to bring me back to Magic. Maybe I’m projecting, but I like when trans women aren’t portrayed as adorable little girls and can throw a punch

DK: I’m just gonna say Hugs and call it a day

Neale: That’s the secret of Bloomburrow

Crystal: They’re all gay. That’s why it’s the happiest plane!

Crystal: Okay okay, we’re gonna prove a fan theory here and now Neale. Ms. Bumbleflower, trans or not

Neale: No comment. But I will say, like I said before, if you see part of your identity in a character, let us know

DK: I will once again say, I love excuses. So please tell us your thoughts for everything.

Neale: Please don’t make me be the PR person, I’m not actually very good at it

If a train leaves Ravnica traveling 30 miles per hour…

// laughter

Do you have a favorite story about a card from Reality Fracture

Gray: I can speak a bit to the concept push, one of my favorite memories was one of our artists (I think Amanda Lee) submitted this page of just fucked up Jace shit. Like the pin with his eyeball, the jird, and all the responses on this team’s post are just ‘dude what the fuck oh god oh no’

Amanda: The reprint slowlands. The concepts are really cool, the art that came in was incredibly weird. They were all referential of things that Jace had gone through and experienced, and were really abstract representations of it, and the flavor text of ‘Jace remembered’ quotes and what he took away from it, you can see him now saying ‘I’m taking this away, which is why I’m doing this in the Echoverse’. So I really liked these as a way to convey a lot of his motivations and tying back to a lot of context

DK: My favorite time on the set was whenever I got to do an alt version of a card where the direction was ‘Jace it up’ and make it weirder.

Neale: I didn’t work on the set, but please, put Medic’s Kitesail in your limited deck. Please do it. It’s a good card, you’re underrating it

Can we hear the story about how Amanda punched an alligator

Amanda: Oh no… it wasn’t me that punched an alligator

Crystal: That’s what they paid for!

Amanda: Oh no!! So I was down on a bayou tour, and uhhh. One fact you don’t know is that alligators really like marshmallows, that’s a fact that I did learn on a bayou tour (where I didn’t punch an alligator). So uh yeah.

Neale: What did it feel like?

Amanda: It felt, um, hard. You wouldn’t expect them to be so full of like, hard. scales and bones. Takes a lot of effort. When they throw you in a fighting pit with an alligator, they don’t tell you that, they just give you a handful of marshmallows and say go out and do it

What are Squen and Cragg like in real life?

Neale: Divas. They are the worst. Everything they sign in their contract for preshow…

Crystal: The red millipedes…

Neale: it makes your Madonnas look like saints

Amanda: I come to the office, I stay home that day

DK: They’re always eating the cards, they don’t even care if it’s a red or mythic

Gray: Do you know how hard it is to sort out all the red millipedes from the others while they’re moving?

Crystal: And they won’t eat them if they’re dead. And they will only drink Fiji

Crystal: I will say, they’re both a lot taller in person than you’d expect. I’m 6 feet tall and they tower over me. Critter, the snake, she’s like 5 and a half

What is your favorite creature type that is mostly limited to one color?

DK: Nightstalker?

Crystal: I like Eyes

Neale: Doesn’t only show up in this color, but Kor is primary white, and I really like Kor … Kavu was mostly red, Baloths are great in green

Crystal: Clams

Neale: Clams are excellent. Sponge. Starfish

Amanda: Giraffe’s my favorite. One card laughs

Neale Jellyfish is a classic

DK: Unicorn … there’s a decent amount of colors I think, but mostly white

Gray: I think my answer, and it’s very basic, is probably Vampires

We’re out of questions, so… Neale, do you have any questions?

Neale: What? Me? Moi?

Crystal: Do we want to give a little bit of insight into the creative process for a Magic set

Neale: Internally we have processes that are outside our creative team where a larger team full of leadership and other folks and creatives will come up with our lineup of sets. Example, Bloomburrow used to be called something called “Beast Nations”, just vague, anthro stuff. So we really start on these big, blue sky high concept places and we whittle down through testing/iterating—thinking like, no it’s actually not cool if our anthro world is actually an apocalypse, that was a real pitch I sent to Emily Teng, it was Stalker but animals, not very fun, not very cozy.

Neale: But we’ll sort of go and test and iterate, drill down with game designers, developing mechanics in tandem with what we’re doing. And then, when it all culminates, we have this thing called a concept push, and that’s the fulfillment of all that early iteration and testing and brainstorming and coalescing into this one big grand moment where we get ~6-10 artists

Gray: It’s about 9 nowadays, I think. We have our small internal team and we get a bunch of external artists to come in. The art directory and narrative designer have set up what we know about the plane, the set, e.g we have 5 factions and I’ve put together this mood board. We want it to look like XYZ but not like ABC. Let’s figure it out, we have 3 weeks. We draw a lot—so much—during the concept push. What is costuming look like, what does casting magic look like, how is that different from this other set we’ve done 10 years ago, it can’t be too close. We’re trying to figure out what makes this set unique, what makes this set look like Magic but also communicate what we’re trying to get it to communicate. Then, all of that goes into a big world guide and that goes out to artists who are doing cards

DK: At this point, if I’m just concepting on a set, we have our world guide and a lot of time the concepters have contributed to that as well. We focus on how we’re trying to populate the world, because not everything that’s in the world guide makes it into the card set. It’s a map to guide us. We try to map what about the world the players to see while they’re playing, it’s important to us that everything makes sense when it comes together. We try to anticipate future things, we try to be considerate of creative text, we want it to be almost self explanatory on the card and not contradict the mechanics. We work with game mechanics, like, ‘Hey, I think this would explain a crucial detail of the world, is it cool if I change the creature type’. And we have a little bit of an editing process to finalize things

Neale: Just for clarity, after we’re done writing the world guide, the next stage of development that we call concepting is when the worldbuilding lead and a team of writers go in and write an art brief for each card. That includes what the art needs to look like and all these worldbuilding details, and then that art gets commissioned by the lead AD and the AD team.

Crystal: Universes Beyond it’s very similar, but the biggest difference is that we don’t necessarily need to introduce you to each of these characters. It’s nice if the art is evocative and iconic, but it’s like when we put Chandra on a card. People know who Chandra, Bolas, is, you don’t need the card to explain that to you. So we want the card to feel very genuine and true to that person, but it doesn’t need to be explanatory or an example of it. So we want to focus more on the aspect of the character being showcased mechanically and the art to back this up. Like, is this a picture of Leonardo leading, or is this a picture of him training, etc.

Crystal: Working with partners is a huge part of the job, every partner has a different process for licensing. It’s an issue of where are you allowed to take reference from—some are really good about you just grabbing it offline, some want you to only pull it from these specific books or movies, or from their specific content database that they have—so a lot of it is digging through to find very specific references. And there’s a lot of back and forth, after we write the art brief, we’ll take it back to the partner and they’ll approve it or provide feedback.

Amanda: Creative text is the last stage in the creative lifecycle of a card. A lot of it is working off the foundation that the narrative designer set. We approach all our sets and come up with core themes and tones, moods that we’re trying to hit. That’s true for MIP but also UB, what are the goals we’re trying to hit with this set. A lot of my work is translating those goals, how they appear in the creative text of the cards. I work with an external team of writers for each set, each set is new and has different needs, and we work card-by-card. On the UB side, I know for them they’re looking for folks that are really ingrained in that IP, that know the material and can make all the references. We love to find fans, of Magic too. I make sure that the creative text that doesn’t conflict; sometimes we have late mechanic changes, crazy art that changes, and we have to solve on the card level, and then it goes off to editing!

Neale: I think all of that is before our time, but legendary creatures, when we have a spot in the file, a lot of times we’re trying to pay off something we haven’t paid off before. Leviathan I think is our way of evoking that it’s larger than the life. A lot of time we’ll add that second type to describe something additional about it, and I think Leviathan evokes this primordial, gigantic creature

A not-uncommon reading of Jace following Reality Fracture is, at least subtext wise, that Jace is a repressed transfem and Tam is out. Was this at all intentional?

Crystal: I will just say, estrogen would have fixed him

Neale: I think there was a lot of stuff going on with Jace….. and that’s what I’ll leave it at!

DK: Same response as the Ajani answer

Crystal: So you’re saying Ajani is trans?

Neale: You know what. I can’t say it as canon, but I will say: hell yeah! That’s cool