Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1022: Invitational Cards

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Gavin Verhey recently did a video about the Invitational cards on his YouTube channel Good Morning Magic, inspiring me to do a podcast telling the behind-the-scenes stories of how we made each card.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so today, so recently, Gavin Verhey did a video on Good Morning Magic all about the invitational cards. And so he did a lot talking about the cards, like what happened to them once they got made. And I thought it might be a good story to talk about how they got made. So I'm going to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of the making of the Invitational Cards. And I recommend that you, for the full exposure, watch Gavin's video. I'm trying to make this to complement Gavin's video. I mean, I'll repeat a few things, and I guess this hopefully will stand alone as well, but it is meant to be a compliment to Gavin's video. Okay, so what is

the Invitational Cards? How do they start? How do they stop? How do they start again? Let's talk all about that. Okay, so we're going to go way back to 1998, I think. 97, 98. Or actually, maybe even earlier than that. Maybe 96. Actually, it might go back all the way to 96. Anyway, what's going on is I am the editor-in-chief of The Duelist. And so we used to do this event at Origins called the Duelist Team Challenge,

where we hosted this event, and you would have three people play, and then each person would play a different format. They're all constructed formats. I don't remember exactly. One was playing the equivalent of standard. One was playing the equivalent of vintage. And then one was playing one of the in-between formats at the time, extended or something.

Anyway, so we hosted this event for a little while, and then at some point, Wendy, who was the editor, or the publisher, I should say, I was the editor, Wendy was the publisher, said, you know, it might be fun, like, we have a little bit of money, if we want to host an event, you know, not just do something, like, the dual team challenge, just people showed up at, at Origins and signed up for it. She was like,

if you want to do something, you know, maybe a little more, with a little more profile to it, we have a little bit of money, we could do something. And so we decided, um, or I, you know, I decided she, she, she came to me and said, well, what do you want to do? And she gave me the budget. So I realized I had enough money to fly 17 people, basically 16 people plus myself to run it to, I think we were going to go to San Diego. There's a hotel there called the Hotel Del Coronado. I think that was the original plan. And the idea was

I came up with the idea of doing an all-star game. It was a 16-person round-robin tournament, meaning every person plays every other person once. I thought a round-robin would be a really cool thing for an all-star game, right? It means every player plays every other player, so that you always get the match you want to see.

Magic didn't really have an all-star game. I thought that'd be a cool thing. And it allowed me to make a very small tournament because I could afford to fly 16 people somewhere. But that was about our budget. And then we needed a prize, but I had no money, right? I spent all my money flying everybody to the event. So I came up with the idea of, well, what if they get to make a card? Because I, you know, worked in R&D and I'm like, okay, I can, you know, I could oversee this and make sure they could do it.

And so I went to whoever the, you know, VP of R&D at the time was and they said, okay, sure. And so we started The Invitational. Now, I did a whole bunch of podcasts about the Invitational, so I'm not going to go too much into the running of the Invitational. These podcasts go into it pretty in-depth. I have a bunch of podcasts on the Invitational. But anyway, the short version of the story is the first ever Grand Prix was going to be in Hong Kong for various reasons that got canceled,

but they had set up the event. So they asked if we could come, since an All-Star game felt like something that would be, you know, something they could highlight. And so instead of being in San Diego, we got flew to Hong Kong. And the Invitational, for the first bunch of years, was all around the world.

We actually went to every continent, save Antarctica, for the Invitational. But anyway, okay, so the very first Invitational is in Hong Kong, and the winner of the event is Ulla Rade. Ulla Rade is from Sweden. He is, he won like the third ever Pro Tour. He was the first Pro Tour Player of the Year.

And so it was really exciting. And so I had the players turn in cards before the event. It varied when they turned their cards. And usually I would have them do it ahead of time just so we could show what the cards were.

And Ula had made a card called World of Bums. In Gavin's video, he accidentally he called it World of Bums in Gavin's video he accidentally he called it World of Burns because an RN lowercase RN looks a lot like an M so probably bad handwriting on my part but anyway it was called World of Bums

and it was a red enchant world that didn't do anything and the idea was all it was was an enchant world that got rid of other it cost one red mana it got rid of other enchant worlds. The problem at the time was

R&D decided to stop doing enchant worlds, and so it was very hard to put an enchant world in a new set when we didn't do enchant worlds before, and it didn't do anything. It wasn't anything else. I think he then turned in another card that was kind of not something we could do.

So what ended up happening was, um, we, uh, just like didn't make it. Like I, I had asked Ula to turn in another card and he, he just didn't. I don't know why. Um, Ula really didn't treat it very seriously at all. Um, I really had high hopes for the card. Like I, I thought it was this really cool thing. You've got to make a card, and it was your card. And I really thought it was this, you know... Like, I, for example, in Mirage, there was a card named after me called Maro, obviously. And it was a big deal.

Like, so I felt like, you know, there was a card that I was part of the game. It just felt like a really cool experience. I'm trying to copy that for the players. But anyway, the first event finishes and the prize isn't even claimed, right? Like, it's not even something that the winner values at all. And I was kind of bummed. You know, I was like,

I really thought it was going to be something pretty cool. And it, first year out, was not cool, you know. But we had another Invitational. So what happened was, the first one was sort of so exciting that different people, you know, were asking if we could come to them. And so the South American office said, hey, would you guys come to Rio? We're like, yes, we can come to Rio. So the second ever dual sanitation was in Rio de Janeiro. Very hot.

The room we played in was the only air-conditioned room in the building. It was at a Grand Prix. I remember going up to the Grand Prix Hall, and it might have been 110 where they were playing. Anyway, Darwin Castle wins the event. He got very, very sick during it. Multiple times had to stop for him to go to the bathroom and throw up and stuff. It was not pretty.

But he powered it through, and he won the event. but he powered it through and he won the event. And Darwin, unlike Ula, was very excited for the prize. Very, very excited. When he won, getting a chance to get a card was a big deal to him. He really, really did want to do it. And so what happened was he turned in a card. The card he turned in was in fact called Avalanche Rider.

I believe it was three and red for a two one with haste, and when it entered the battlefield destroyed target land. Now it turns out so one of the plans we'd always have with the Invitational card was it was going to go through and when I got permission to do this it was, it had to go through a regular

process. Yeah, the players could design the first version of it, but just like anybody in R&D would design the first version, it still had to go through a regular process. Yeah, the players could design the first version of it, but just like anybody in R&D would design the first version, it still had to go through development, right? It still had to be tweaked and such. The other thing we wanted to do was we wanted to make sure that it fit in to the set we were making, that we wanted to make sure that it felt like a natural fit.

So we always knew we were going to tweak the card. So Darwin's card, it turned out, was a little too strong. But we found a very clever answer, which was in... So this was during... I think it came out in Urza's Legacy. During Urza's Saga block, we had a mechanic called Echo. During Urza's saga block, we had a mechanic called Echo. And the way Echo worked is you had to pay, you paid the cost on the first turn, normally, and then you had to pay the cost on the second turn or it went away.

Now it turns out that the card was too powerful as is, but with Echo, in fact we made the 2-1 into a 2-2, with Echo we could make the card almost exactly as is, except instead of a 2-1-1 into a 2-2. With Echo, we could make the card almost exactly as is, except instead of a 2-1, it could be a 2-2. But we can make the card pretty close to what he did. We even kept the name Avalanche Riders. And Echo is nice because Echo let us make the card. It turns out that Echo works really well with enter the battlefield effects because you sort of can play the card kind of like a spell, or if you pay the Echo cost, you get to keep the creature.

Anyway, we made it. Oh, and so the way it always worked was, whenever we would change the card, I would call up and talk to the winner and explain to them, okay, here's what's going on. You know, your card's too strong, but we have this new mechanic in the set. We're going to add this mechanic. We can change 2-1 to 2-2. And I said that I can keep it Avalanche Riders.

Anyway, he was very excited. Thumbs up. And it turns out, in a total quirk of fate, I happened to be the person for Urza's Legacy that did the card concepting. I don't remember why. I had done the card concepting. I don't remember why. I had done the card concepting for Unglued, and

something happened, and the person who would normally do it wasn't there, or left the company, or whatever. There was no one to do it. And because I had done it for Unglued, they're like, they came to me and said, Mark, would you mind doing card concepting for this set? And I'm like, sure. So when I was doing Darwin, I went to the art

director, and I said, this card is of somebody specific. And in the art was this, you know, he's a human nomad, I guess. And so I said, could I make that Darwin? Is it okay if I put Darwin's face on it? And the artist said, oh yeah, just get me a picture of Darwin. And so the plan hadn't been to put the faces of the players on the card. I hadn't promised that to anybody. But I saw this opportunity and I thought it would be cool. And I don't even know whether when I did it for Darwin,

I really understood that I was signing us up to do it forever. But we managed to do it for Darwin. It came out. I don't think I told Darwin, by the way, that Estates was on it. I think I let that be a surprise to him. Anyway, Darwin sees the card. He's ecstatic about the card. The card is good.

It gets played. And I believe people started calling it Darwin. So it did it. Ula completely missed. The second year, total hit. We make the card. The person who wins is excited for the card. The image ends up on it.

And we end up with something. So it's 3R, Human Nomad, 2-2, Haste, and with Echo 3R. Anyway, big hit. Okay, second year proves that the invitation cards could be something cool. So third year, we're in Barcelona. We were bouncing around continents at that point. So we were originally in Asia. Then we were in South America.

Next, we were in Europe. So Mike Long wins that event. And Mike Long turns in a merfolk. He really wanted a cheap little merfolk. And I think what Mike did was he turned in a card. I think it was like a merfolk. And I think what Mike did was he turned in a card, I think it was like, it was like a merfolk that activated to fly.

It was a very simple card. And we ended up working with him to make something, we tweaked it a bit. I think he wanted something that was a control, like he liked merfolk and he wanted to be

a control deck card. Oh, that's another thing. We also wanted to make sure that the player oh that's another thing we also wanted to make sure that the player got it like the the cool thing about it was they were making a card usually that matched the style of player they were that is the kind of card that they would want to play um so for example darwin's card was his sort of cheap land destruction it played into the kind of deck darwin darwin loved Darwin loved, like tool belt decks and stuff. Mike was a control player, so he made a control card.

So the card we ended up making, Root Rider Thief, one and a blue, one, two, Preacher, Merfolk Rogue, blue, Root Rider Thief gains flying to 100 turn. Whenever Root Rider Thief deals combat damage to a player, you may pay two. If you do, search that player's library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles it. So it sort of did what we call a lobotomy effect. It ended up, this card was... We didn't

push this card quite as hard as we'd push Darwin's card. I think just because the effect of the card was something that we... We didn't mind it being in the environment, but we didn't want it being too good. It could be annoying if this was the most dominant card. So Mike's card wasn't quite as strong as Darwin's card. Again, in vacuum.

But it was a very powerful effect. And in the right deck, especially a deck where Murfolk mattered, it ended up being a powerful card. So Mike's card also did see some tournament play. In fact, I think over half the tournament cards, over half the invitational cards, I believe ended up in Pro Tour winning decks. And the majority of them, the vast majority, showed up in top eight Pro Tour decks. So, most of these cards ended up getting played. There's a few that when I get to, I'll

didn't see quite as much play oh the other interesting question for Mike's card was we had put Darwin on Darwin's card and so when it came time to do that card I was sort of like well can we put the art you know and they said sure the only problem was the merfolk

so let's see Darwin was in Urza Saga so this must have been Mercadian Masks I think when Mike's card came out. Anyway, the issue with Mike's card was the merfolk in the world that we were doing didn't look human. So the merfolk couldn't be Mike. So we ended up making Mike the victim of the card and not the merfolk. So he's in a rowboat or whatever.

He's a fisherman getting attacked by the merfolk. But we did get him in the card. Okay, the fourth year, we were in Kuala Lumpur, and the very dramatic final, Chris Pakula beat John Finkel, which is, that whole story is an amazing story. Go listen to my podcast on the

Kuala Lumpur. It was, the fact that Chris won was a miracle. I think Chris considers it his greatest accomplishment in all of magic. Anyway, so Chris turns in a card. I think Chris considers it his greatest accomplishment in all of Magic. Anyway, so Chris turns in a card, I think he called the Meddler, and I believe it was like one blue blue for a 2-2.

When it enters the battlefield, you name a card, and then for like one blue blue sack, you can counter the named card. So the set that it was going in was Invasion, which was a multicolor set. So we wanted it to be multicolored. So instead of

being just blue, we made it white-blue, but that let us drop the cost from 3 mana to 2 mana, and we decided that we didn't want to, like, we made the card better. We're like, why do you have to sacrifice the card? How about you name a card and just all copies of that card can't be countered?

Right? Just you stop all copies of that card. You know, I think Chris's version, like, you've got to stop one version and you lost the creature. So I end up calling Chris, and so we made a bunch of changes. So it's two mana, not three mana, but it's multicolored, not monocolored.

And you get to name a card and then all the cards get countered, not just and you don't have to lose the creature. And you get to name a card, and then all the cards get counted, and you don't have to lose the creature. So I remember reading this to Chris, and Chris was ecstatic. He's like, you can make that? That's okay, we can print this card. Chris couldn't believe we were making the card.

And I'm like, yeah, are you happy with it? He goes, of course I'm happy with it. So we ended up calling it Medley Maid. So once again, Darwin's card, we kept the name. I don't remember what Mike called his card. We tried to make a nod to the player in names when we could. And if the player gave us a name that could work, we tried to use as much of it as we could.

We often couldn't use all of it. And I remember that this, this was another good, uh, Medley Mage might be one of the best examples of just, like, the pinnacle of an Invitational card. I mean, to this day, the cards still see play in, in various formats where it's playable. Um, and Chris was ecstatic with his card. He was super, super happy. Um, in fact, he would later buy the art, I think from Mike Long, if I remember correctly. Anyway, so we started demonstrating how the Invitational card really can be

when done correctly, could be something that's this really cool amazing thing. So the next year we are in Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Bopping around those continents. So John Finkel wins. John Finkel had lost to Bakula the year before, but he manages to win Sydney against Ben Rubin.

Again, go listen to the podcast about the actual Invitational. There's lots of cool stories about the Invitational. Anyway, so he turns in originally a card called Wrath of Leknif. Leknif is Finkel's Felt Backwards. And basically it was a Wrath of God,

like a free Wrath of God, meaning you untapped, I think it was like two white blue, and then you untapped four lands. You destroy creatures that can't regenerate, and then you untap four lands. It was just over the top. We couldn't make it. So we asked him

to turn in another card. So he turned in a card called Shadow Mage of Lek'neth. So that became Shadow Mage Infiltrator. So one blue, black. One three. And it is a human wizard.

It has fear. It means the creature can't be blocked by artifact creatures and black creatures. Whenever Shadowmage Infiltrator deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card, what we call Curiosity.

So the idea, so that card is, I think, exactly as John turned it in. I mean, we changed the name. We didn't want to put Lekniff in. But we kept Shadowmage. We made it Shadowmage Infiltrator. And I think that's the one

in the initial card we did not change mechanically at all. I think John just did a good job of making a card that was strong, but not too strong, and that's another example of a card that saw play. I mean, I think it was

a little bit more powerful back in the day. We've made some stronger stuff since then in a similar vein, but once again, it played into the kind of deck that John Finkel liked to play. That was the fun part, is that, you know,

not only did you get to make a card that was your card, but it usually was something in the vein of the style of play you liked. So it was a card that you yourself could play, which was a lot of fun. I know the players had a lot of fun playing their card. Okay, now we get to Ulirate. So Ulirate comes to me at a Pro Tour

and says to me, Mark, I didn't understand the value. When I won the Invitational, I'll be honest with you, I didn't think it was a good, no one had ever won it before. I didn't understand it. I really blew it off. I did not value the prize.

But now, seeing Darwin's card and Mike's card and Chris's card and, you know, John's card. Wow. I think I really misunderstood. I didn't, I didn't value it, but I do now. And he's like, I know, I know you don't have to let me make it, but please, please, I please, I really would like the card. And so I said yes. The one caveat I gave him was he had since been in the army. He had to shave his head. But when he won in the original Invitational, he had this very long blonde hair.

Kind of what people knew him when he first sort of came on the scene. So I said to him, well, I'm fine with making you a card. I don't mind making you a card, but I want the card to represent you when you won, not now. And he said, fine. So we ended up making Sylvan Safekeeper. So green for a 1-1 human wizard. Sacrifice the

land. Target creature you control again. Shroud until end of turn. Shroud means it can't be a target that dispels their abilities. Shroud is the precursor to Hexproof. But Hexproof stops everybody else. Shroud stops you as well as everybody else. Anyway, I think the way he turned it in,

it bounced the land to your hand because there's a famous creature we had made where you bounce the force to your hand to I think to untap a creature. Anyway, that card was a bit strong. And it ended up going into Odyssey and Odyssey had a threshold mechanic where you were trying to get cards in your graveyard.

So Sacrificing the Land more played into the theme and balanced the card a little bit better. Again, it's the same thing where we interacted in each of these cases, I would talk to the player and walk through, here's the issues, here's what development says, you know, here's our fix for it. Most of the time, it's like, okay, I understand. Every once in a while, they'd ask, you know, could we do this other than that? And I would always go ask, like,

oh, you know, hey, development, could we make this change and that change? Normally, because one of the goals of the developers was we would try to make what we call a tier one card, which means we wanted to be a card we thought would see tournament play. Usually, we'd make a card at a level where the player's like, okay, you know, that card seems like a good card. We will get to it. There's a couple cards, one coming up that didn't quite get there, but I'll explain. get to. There's a couple cards, one coming up that didn't quite get there, but I'll explain. So next up, Voidmaid Prodigy. So, um,

the next event was in Cape Town, uh, going to Africa, um, and Kai Buda won that. Um, so he made a card. So the card that ended up coming up, Voidmaid Prodigy, is blue, blue, 2, 1, human wizard, uh, blue, blue, sacrifice a wizard, counter target spell,

and it has morph for single blue mana. Okay, so what happened was Kai made, I can't remember what it was. It was some creature that allowed you to counter a spell once, I think. And so it came out as an onslaught. And so we were trying to make it feel part of onslaught. So what we ended up doing is we made it a wizard, and then instead of sacrificing itself, we let you sacrifice a wizard. And so the idea was, okay, I think Kai's original card, you had to sacrifice itself. So we're like, okay, we can make it sacrifice a wizard, it's a wizard,

we ended up giving it morph. So it had morph. It had creature types mattered. Wizards mattered. So it really played into what Onflot was doing. But one of the things that happens is around the time we were making the set, blue and white was causing problems in standard. So when that happens, what it means

is the set that is coming out needs to adapt to what's going on in the environment. And it meant we kind of had to nerf white and blue. And so the wizards, as the blue tribe, got quite a bit nerfed. And so we didn't nerf

Kai's card specifically. We left it alone. But it really was dependent upon wizards being good. Like the deck really couldn't shine without being in a way. It really wanted wizards to be good. And wizards weren't good. So the card ended up being on the weaker side.

It was the weakest of the Invitational cards we had made at the time. The other interesting questions we made when the card first came out, we had made at the time. The other interesting question is we made, when the card first came out, we'd made a thing and then there's a lot of comment from the public that it didn't really look like Kai. So we ended up doing a promotional version where we redid the art, which is the only Invitational Card.

By the way, the way the Invitational Cards work is the first version of the card is the player. But if we ever redo it or reprint it and have new art, the new art does not have to be the player. So that's the only time we've ever done two different arts that had the player on it. Now Voidmage Prodigy, I think

has showed up in, like, I believe there's been some wizard decks in some larger, older formats where when there's a wizard deck in a larger format that has Voidmage Prodigy that's good, it is a card that sees play. So it's seen a little bit of play, but not as much as the other plays.

And definitely when it came out, it was not nearly as powerful as a lot of the other cards we had made. Next up is Jens Toren. So a Solemn Simulacrum. We, if you guys, I did a podcast about my speech at, I did a talk about my speech at, I did a talk in 2022 at Magic 30 in Las Vegas.

And I shared the story of the year that my budget got cut to zero for the Invitational. And I ended up going to the Arena team to fund it. We ended up having the Invitational at the Wizards offices in Renton, Washington, near Seattle. So that's where this event happened. It was won by Jens, who is from, I think, Sweden as well. And he made a two-color creature, a green-blue creature,

that when it entered the battlefield, you got a land, put it in play tapped, and when it died, you drew a card. So we turned it into an artifact creature. So our card is Solemn Simulacrum, four mana, artifact creature, Golem, 2-2. When Solemn Simulacrum enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a basic land card, put that card onto the battlefield,

tap, then shuffle. When Solemn Simulacrum dies, you may draw a card. So we basically took Yen's card and made it into an artifact creature. It made it have a little bit more vulnerability because now artifact destruction can destroy it. But it was now generic mana, not two colors.

This is another one. I remember when I talked to Jens, he felt like the card just got better, which I think it did. And Psalms of Melechim went on to see a lot of play. It definitely is a very useful card. It fixes your mana. It draws you a card. I know it sees a bunch of commander play.

So anyway, that is Yen's card. And like I said, I think the only thing we changed is we made an artifact creature. So next up is Dark Confidant. So that was, for three years we went to E3, which is a trade show for video games. And because we were part of Magic Arena at the time, they were sponsoring us. We went there to help sell, not Magic Arena, sorry, sorry, Magic Online.

This was before Magic Arena existed at all. Magic Online was who we had worked with the previous year. So, also the E3 years had sponsored it. Anyway, Bob won that tournament. Bob had turned in a card, I forget the name of it, but it was like green, sorcery for one green mana

that you give your opponent nine poison counters. It just wasn't a card we could make. With two of them, you could kill somebody. Literally, on turn two, you could kill somebody. Or turn one, if you could somehow get two green mana on turn one, which was possible. Anyway, Bob didn't really know what to do. So Bob came to me and said, I'm stumped.

So what I said to Bob is, look, Bob, one of the resources is I can help you. You know, I mean, we want the player to design if they want to design, but if they need help, I'm more than happy. So what I said to Bob is, what do you want? You tell me what you want. I will help you make a card. So what Bob said is, I want a black creature that's cheap, one or two mana, that has card advantage.

That is what Bob asked for. So there was a pro tour, I think it was in Seattle. So I came to the event. I'd made, I don't know, like 10 cards. And so in between rounds, well, I think at the beginning of the event, I showed them to Bob. He gave me some notes. And in between rounds, I would keep tweaking the card. And every round, I would show him

the latest version of it. Until we finally got to Dark Confident. So Dark Confident is one and a black. It's a human wizard. What is it? I think it's a 1-1? It's a 1-1 or 2-1.

It doesn't say here. At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose like equal to its mana value. One thing Bob fought for that I would not give him is he wanted to make it optional whether you lost like whether you got the card and thus lost the life.

And I said, well, I said two things to him. I go, one, that's not very black. That's not how black functions. And two, well, three things. One, it's not black. Two, I couldn't make him a one or a two drop. Like, if it did that, it was optional. It wasn't going to be a two drop. And three, I felt like part of the fun of the card was the challenge of using it.

There's a lot of, like, what made the card fun was you were taking a risk. And Dirk Confidant ended up being a really good card. It's one of those powerful invitational cards but it definitely has a risk reward to it which is a lot of the fun of the card

and so that is how we ended up with that card that is another card that got the nickname it's nicknamed Bob and the reason

it's named Bob is because it's named after Bob Marr Jr. oh and a good example is the flavor text on that is greatness at any cost I believe is the flavor text on that is Greatness at Any Cost, I believe is the flavor text.

He was known as The Great One, was his nickname. And so where we could, in the names of the flavor texts, we always tried to sort of make nod to the player. And that was a good example where we did that. Okay. Next up, our second year E3

was won by Terry So. He made a card called Rakdos Augur Mage. The one we put out was black, black, red, human wizard, 3-2, first strike, tap, reveal your hand, discard a card of your target opponent's choice. Then that player reveals their hand and discards a card of your choice. Activate only as a sorcery. So the idea that he came up with was a creature in which they take a card out of your hand and you take a card out of their hand um we did a lot to try to bring that to life the problem with this

card was it just isn't a fun effect and so while we found a way to make it we didn't we did make the card that terry made um or a version of the card that Terry made. My big regret on this card was, because the effect just wasn't fun enough, we didn't push it at all. It's probably the weakest of all the Invitational cards. And the reason was, it just wasn't a fun card. And so, I wish I had talked to Terry. Here's what I wish I had said, and I feel bad. I wish I had said to Terry, look, Terry, if we make the card, we can make it, and here's what we'll do, and here's how we'll do it, but you know what? We can't push this card. It is not a fun play pattern, and so we don't want this card being too good. So, if you want to have a card that's a higher power card, look, let's come up with something different, and then we can do that. So, I mean, we did make the card Terry made. I mean, we made our version of it. But in retrospect, I wish Terry had understood

that the nature of his card kept us from pushing it. Okay, next up. So Antoine Ruel won our final year at E3. He made a card called Ranger of Eos. Three and a white, human soldier, ranger, 3-2. When Ranger of Eos enters the battlefield, you search your library for up to two creature cards with mana value one or less.

Reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle. I don't remember the exact card that Antoine turned in. He wanted a small white creature. He wanted, like, a very common thing that pro players would want when they win the Invitational was a cheap creature with card advantage. That was very possible. You know why?

Because those are good. Those are good cards. So he wanted a cheap white card that had card advantage. That was very possible. You know why? Because those are good. Those are good cards. So he wanted a cheap white card that had card advantage. In Fifth Dawn, we had played around with, we called them cogs at the time, which were cards that interacted

with artifacts that cost zero or one. That had played quite well, and we'd gone back to that well a few times. So we tapped into that, but with creatures. Anyway, we made a card that was a lot of fun.

This card seemed plenty of play. I know that Antoine liked it. Okay, then we get to the final Invitational card. So the final Invitational was held at E3 in Germany. It's a giant German event. In fact, I think it's the biggest game convention in the world, I think. I'd always wanted to go to Essen, so I was excited that we were having an...

Sorry, we were having an international at Essen. It would end up being the last invitation. I'll get to that in a second. Anyway, Tiago Chan won it. So the card we ended up making for him is called Snapcafter Mage. One and a blue for a 2-1 human wizard. Flash.

When Snapcafter Mage enters the battlefield, target an instant or sorcery card in your graveyard. Gains flashback to end of turn. The flashback card is equal to its mana cost. So I think that he turned in a cheap blue creature that got back a spell, is what he had done. We were trying to make it

fit into the set we were making. It came out in Innistrad, and so the idea of flashback was in Innistrad, and so the idea of flashback was in Innistrad, so the idea of instead of just returning a spell, you know, instant or sorcery, what if we granted instant sorcery flashback?

And so, now we were pretty aggressive with this card. Like I said, I think that Snapcatcher Mage, Meddling Mage, and Dark Confidant, probably the three most powerful invitational cards, true invitational cards, I'll get to the precursors in a second, that we made. Anyway, this card ended up going to be

very good and I know Tiago was quite happy with it. So what happened was at that point we stopped doing the Invitational. I know in video Gavin kind of implies that the card was the reason we stopped the Invitational. Now it was true the card was a pain. It was a lot harder to do than we had thought. Um, but we could do the card. The card wasn't, it wasn't undoable or anything. Um, the reason it stopped was behind the, behind the scenes, you know, budget stuff.

The reason it was stopped had nothing to do with the making of the card. So it got stopped for other reasons. Anyway, so the Invitational stops. And people often talk about how they miss the Invitational card. That was sort of a cool thing. The thing that when I made it, I just didn't know how it would go over, ended up being a pretty cool prize. And the players who had won one really, really did value it.

It was actually a big deal to them. So I was excited about that. I was happy with that. So a couple of years back, we decided to sort of redo them. And once again, they're not technically invitational cards because there's no invitational, but they became what we call world champ cards. And so the way it originally worked, so Javier Dominguez won worlds. And so the way it worked that year is they talked to Javier. They showed a bunch of cards. And so, the way it originally worked, so Javier Dominguez won Worlds, and so the way it worked that year is, they talked to Javier, they showed a bunch of cards, they were all

reading the file. Javier did not get to make a card, but they talked with Javier, and so they said to him, which of these cards would you be most excited by? So he picked Fervent Champion. So Fervent Champion is red, Human Knight, um, what is his power toughness? It is a 1-1.

It has first strike and haste. Whenever a Fersen champion attacks, a target attacking knight you control gets plus one, plus O until end of turn. And abilities you activate the target Fersen champion cost three less to activate. So I believe it was in Throne of Eldraine because it has a knight, there's a knight thing.

I think it was in Throne of Eldraine. it has a knight. There's a knight thing. I think it was in front of Eldraine. Anyway, so we didn't let him design it. We learned that the players designing cards, this often caused a lot of problems. And that we wanted to make sure we had a card that matched the player and matched their play style. Oh, and we continued doing, putting the face on it. So it really got to be their card something associated with them but what we found was some of the best cards like dark confidant hadn't even really been designed by her necessarily but it had been designed in consultation with the player

and that is what we realized like we wanted the player to get something they were happy with and something that that you know they would play that we thought would be good, be a tier one card. And so after that year, I think what happened is we've started working with the player. So it's not that the player designs the card as much as kind of how I worked with Bob. The player says, here's the kind of card I like and then works with R&D to design that card

and then gives input and gives feedback, but isn't sort of doing the brunt of the designing. So the next year was Elite Spellbinder, two and a white. Oh, Paula Vito Damodarosa was on this card. Elite Spellbinder, two and a white, Human Cleric, flying 3-1. When Elite Spellbinder enters the battlefield, look at target opponent's

hand. You may exile a non-land card from it. For as long as that card remains exiled, its owner may play it. A spell cast this way costs two more to cast. So that's a pretty cool card. It did an effect that White had not done before. I believe Paulo was pretty happy with it. And the reason that the whole video got made in the first place

by Gavin was the premiere of Fairy Mastermind. One and a blue, Fairy Rogue, Flash Flying. Whenever an opponent draws their second card each turn, you draw a card. Three and a blue, each player draws a card. Two, one. It was for Yuta Takahashi. So we lag worlds by a little

bit because we work far ahead making cards. So when you win worlds, you're promised to get a card. But there's a lag between you winning worlds and the card coming out. So Reed will get a card eventually. Anyway, now it works. I need to wrap up. I had a little bit of traffic, so you will get a card eventually. Um, anyway, uh, I'm now at work. I need to wrap up.

I had a little bit of traffic, so you guys got extra content. Um, what I wanted to say is I have very fondness for the Invitational cards. I have fondness for the Invitational as a whole, but the Invitational cards in particular really were a cool thing. Um, there's an innovation on the new cards

where now the World Champion cards have the name of the World Champion written on the card. I wish I had thought of that. I wish all, like, I think a lot of the cards, like Gavin said when he did the video, one of his number one responses was people going, oh, I didn't realize that card was an Invitational card.

And because some of the cards are old enough that we've redone them, the art isn't even necessarily the player anymore because only the original art has the player's picture on it. So, it's not... I do wish, in retrospect, that we were able to be a little more vocal about it. I mean, I guess, if you were playing at the time,

we did make a big deal of it. And people in the know clearly knew those were their cards. And obviously the players know they're their cards. But anyway, I'm super happy. Like, a lot of times you make something cool that comes out of necessity, meaning I had to figure out a cool prize for no budget, and I think I came up with something really cool. And so I'm happy we're continuing today.

I'm happy the Invitational Cards exist. And anyway, I hope this podcast gave you a little insight into the Invitational Card process, the making of the Invitational Cards. But anyway, guys, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.