MaRo has been hinting for a while that he is ready to tell the story, and I vaguely remember a blog post or podcast where he mentioned he was just waiting for explicit confirmation. It's possible he received permission, and while it was on the short list for a future podcast or article, he felt it acceptable to share a nice moment with a fan and brief them on the details at their request.
I agree with your point that Spikes are often misunderstood, but I believe you're mixing up Timmy/Tammy and Johnny/Jenny. The former likes big, splashy effects and the latter enjoys unique card interactions.
Someone still hasn't answered this question yet: what is the main appeal of the Un-sets besides the lands and the nostalgia, and why should my friends and I buy any of this product?
It's difficult to foresee a situation in which this is good. I would kill for a traditional, single-player, console-based Magic RPG. A huge open world with access to a dozen or so planes could be a lot of fun. But I'm skeptical something like this will be executed properly.
They should have just banned it with the first announcement. All this scrambling creates really poor optics. From an outside perspective, it looks like they aren't quite sure how to react to Standard performing worse than expected and they're getting increasingly frantic trying to fix the problem.
It's fun.
I wonder what changes MaRo is going to announce. The language they're using reminds me of the way they teased the move to two-set blocks.
And I hate Theros. But many people love both and are very eager to see their return.
Hierarch was in MM15. I only opened one pack and that was my pull.