Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1041: Costless Artifacts, Part 1

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

This is part one of a two-part series where I talk about zero-mana artifacts.

I'm not pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for Other Drive to Work at Home Edition. Okay, so today I'm going to start talking about, I'm going to do a card-by-card episode. I'm going to talk about artifacts that cost zero. There are 44 of them in the game's history, and so I'm going to start talking about them and just sharing stories about when and how they came about. Okay, so first up, Alpha had six of them. They are pretty famous. We have what we call the Power Nine.

They are six of the Power Nine, so pretty popular. So I'm talking about Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, and Mox Sapphire. So let's start with Black Lotus. So Black Lotus costs zero. They all cost zero. So I'm going to read you the original text on it. This is when it was first printed. It says, add three mana of any single color of your choice to your mana pool, then is discarded. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt, and it's a mono artifact.

discarded. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt, and it's a mono artifact. So for those who don't know, in early magic, the artifacts were divided into mono artifacts, poly artifacts, artifact creatures, and I think static artifacts were just called artifacts.

But anyway, the idea of a mono artifact was the tap was implied without shown. So a mono artifact, you had a tap to use it, but it didn't have a tap symbol. And eventually we realized that that was just confusing. And so then on, we would start adding tap symbols. Mono artifact did not last very long.

Okay, so Black Lotus is pretty famous as being sort of the pinnacle of, you know, I don't know if it's actually the most powerful magic card. There's fun discussions to be had, but what's the most powerful magic card? But Black Lotus definitely sort of has a special, you know, of all the cards. Like, if you could own one card of magic,

the one that's, you know, the most exciting to own and show people is a Black Lotus, so that's pretty cool. So I think when Richard made it, he was trying to... I mean, basically the idea was I think he made the Mox Emerald... Sorry, the Emerald, the Moxes. I think he made the Moxes as a neat way to sort of be off-balance from a land.

Obviously, he understood they were more powerful than the land. He made them rare. But the idea, I think, of the Moxes were, okay, here's a way to sort of get ahead a little bit on mana. You know, they cost zero. Now, once again, I should stress, the way Richard built the set when he built Alpha was he assumed that people would consume what they normally consume when they buy a game. So somebody would spend, you know, $20, $30 on the game, on cards, and then they'd have this small

card pool. So the idea was, maybe you have a Mox, maybe two at most, but, like, you're not going to have a lot of them. And the idea was, in small number, they're kind of nice. They give you a little bit of boost, you know. So in the world that Richard envisioned, where no one person really had more than one or two of them, you know, it occasionally had helped games a little bit. But the world in which decks were nothing but moxes,

that was just beyond the scope of what, you know... It's hard to design a game and assume it's going to act not like normal games. Magic didn't, but you can't design the game assuming that, you know... You can't design it to be a phenomenon. Phenomenons happen very infrequently. So he just made it to be a game. And so the idea was, I think the moxes were made as just clean and simple ways to sort of get a little bit ahead. I thought Richard thought it was, you know, they were fun cards that help you jump a little bit.

Only one mana. And because they were permanent, I think he liked the idea of, okay, well, I have these that are permanent. I'll have one that's a one-shot. And my best guess is, because of the boons, I think Richard liked the idea of sort of threes. I think that was sort of on his brain. I mean, the Black Lotus isn't a boon.

The boon is, there's five spells in Alpha. Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and Giant Growth that for one mana give you three of something. It's not a boon. This costs zero, not one. But I just think the idea he liked three, and so the idea is you can get one permanently or three as a one-shot. It turns out that getting three as a one-shot is insanely powerful,

but it was a fun card. Like I said, I think Richard was much more comfortable with a higher variance in power level because of the nature of how he thought it would be played, that no one person was going to have more than one Black Lotus, and most people wouldn't have a Black Lotus, so it'd be a special thing. Obviously, with the Moxes, what he wanted was,

he wanted them to be Precious Stones, and so he just went and found whatever precious stone was that color. Like, emeralds are famously green, rubies are famously red, sapphires come in multiple colors, but blue is one of the colors they come in. I think the

interesting thing, pearl, obviously, are white. I think jet was interesting in that that's one of the ones that is, you know, I think Jet was interesting in that, that, that's, that's one of the ones that is, you know, we think of sort of the most famous of precious gems, but there's not really a top tier, I guess it was Black Opal, um, he could have done Opal, I guess, but anyway, he decided to go with Jet, so, um, anyway, so the set came out, so the interesting story, I'll tell you my story about Mox Emerald. So when I first got into the game, I was just really excited.

I instantaneously, I'm like, this is going to be the next thing. I remember I called my dad the day I saw the game. That night that I was at the game convention where I bought the cards. And I said to him, Dad, this is going to be the next big thing. I said, it's the next Dungeon Dragons. And so when I went to visit my dad later that year, I brought him some cards. When beta came out, because I was trying to find people to play with, I bought two boxes of beta starters and two boxes of beta boosters so that I could try to get my friends involved. I was trying to find people to play. None of that worked out great

per se, although my dad did get into the game. Anyway, I got my dad a bunch of cards, and when I visited him, he opened it up. And one of the things he opened was Mox Emerald. And I didn't, at the time, think it was a good card. I just didn't own it yet. And I was intrigued by it because I didn't own it. And so I traded him... I had two fungosaurs. And I swear, I swear, I thought the trade of a Fungusaur for Emerald was to my dad's advantage,

because I thought Fungusaur was so awesome that I thought I was giving him a really good card. I, in retrospect, I mean, my dad and I joke about it, but I mean, it's, it was, uh, one of my crazier trades. I didn't really understand. At the time, I was really intrigued by, like, this seems like a forest. Why, why is it not just a forest? And I wasn't, I was missing the whole, like, this seems like a forest. Why is it not just a forest? And I was missing the whole, you can only play one forest a turn, but you could play Mox Emerald in addition to your forest. I didn't quite get that right off the bat. But anyway, so early on in Magic, Magic started out of the gate saying,

zero artifacts are a thing. Obviously, colored cards, at least at the beginning, couldn't cost zero. We would later make technology and things that allow us to do that. But there were no colored artifacts, sorry, there were no colored spells that cost zero early in the game's life. That would happen later.

And I'm only talking artifacts in this podcast. So I'm not, I think all my artifacts are actually colorless. I don't think I have any colored, no, there are no colored artifacts that cost zero.

Okay, next up, we get to Ornithopter. So this is in Antiquities. So Antiquities, the East Coast Playstructures made it. Skephalias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, Chris Page. And I think they were trying to make some real... Like an Ornithopter is something that was designed back in the days that was kind of like a flying machine. I don't know, like Leo da Vinci, maybe?

I don't know who actually invented the ornithopter, but it's something that's invented the idea of a simple artifact that can give flight. I don't know if anyone's actually designed an ornithopter that actually works. I don't know. Maybe they have. I don't know. So anyway, they designed this card, and the idea they're fascinated by is, can we make an artifact creature that costs zero? And so they ended up making,

it's a zero-two creature with flying. And so the idea is, in a vacuum, by itself it can't do anything, right? It's got zero power. But if you enhance it in any way, if you do anything to pump it up, okay, you know, you get the flying and the zero two part for free.

I mean, it costs a card, but it doesn't cost any mana. And they were very excited by that. So the funny story about Ornithopter is Richard had a meeting with somebody to talk about making another trading card game. Magic was the first, but Wizards... Early on, the reason Deckmaster's on the back of Magic card

is Wizards really had a dream of making lots and lots of different trading card games. Hold on one second, I'm going to take a drink. And so Richard was meeting with somebody, some license, some other company that we were trying to license a thing to, and we were talking about, he was talking with them about making a trading card game. And the person said,

okay, but I just don't want you making anything that's broken. And he was referencing to this broken card, and Richard was trying to figure out what he was talking about, like Black Lotus, or, you know, what was he talking about? And the card he was talking about was Ornithop card. And Richard was trying to figure out what he was talking about. Like, Black Lotus? Or, you know, what was he talking about? And the card he was talking about was Ornithopter. The thing he thought was most broken was Ornithopter.

And we had a big laugh at that in R&D. And just the... I mean, Ornithopter is really interesting. And we'll get into, like, what can you do for zero mana. Obviously, the Black Lotus and the Moxes are more than you're supposed to get for zero mana. Those are highly, highly powerful cards. Ornithopter is actually the first zero cost. That is fine. We could print it tomorrow at zero.

In fact, we have. It was in, I believe it was in Brother's War. At least it was on the bonus sheet, if not in the main set. And that is a printable card. So Ornithopter is the first zero cost card that was at a power level that was the correct power level for a zero-cost card. And like I said, we printed it again. Okay, next up, there were three zero-cost artifacts. The next would be in the dark.

So remember, Alpha came out. There was Arabian Nights, no zeros. Antiquities had one zero. Legends had no zeros. Then we get to the dark, which was the fourth set. So the dark had in it three cards. So first is Dark Sphere. Cost zero, artifact.

Tap. Sacrifice Dark Sphere to prevent half the damage done to you by a single source rounded down. The idea of Dark Sphere was it was supposed to protect you from something. But I think early on they were nervous about what they made cost zero. And so the idea that it could prevent you from all the damage, that just seemed like too much, and so they're definitely hedging a little bit here

they're like, okay, well I want to save it and I don't want to use it just to prevent a little bit of damage so maybe if I have it out it makes it hard for you to, like my guess is this was made the darkest before my time at Wizards but my guess is, they were thinking about things like fireballs. Like channel fireball was definitely a thing in the early days.

Channel's a spell where you can turn life into mana. So it allowed you to do giant fireballs. And so I think Dark Sphere, the idea of Dark Sphere was it was supposed to protect you against one large spell. Fireball being probably the most famous example. But it ended up being very narrow. I mean, maybe it's all placed somewhere, but not that I know of.

And I think it's a good example of us being, sometimes we're a little wildly uncautious with zero, and sometimes we're very cautious. We're a bit overcautious with Dark Sphere. Okay, next up, Fountain of Youth. So a zero cost artifact. Two in tap, gain one life. Now this was a pretty popular card back in the day.

One of the things we've learned is that new players really, really enjoy life gain. And they enjoy... Zero cost artifacts are very intriguing because it's like, oh, it's free. And so the idea that it's free and I can gain life off it made this a very popular card. I don't think it was ever a particularly powerful card. But it was definitely

a popular card. And the fact that it costs zero... Like, this is... One of the interesting things is... And I mentioned this earlier, but let me go into a little more detail. So when you pay for a card, there's actually two costs. One is the mana cost. You're paying some amount of mana. But the other is that you're using a slot, a card slot.

If you go back and listen to my podcast on card advantage, cards have meaning and value, and they're worth something. So the idea that a zero-cost card has no cost, well, it has no mana cost, but you are spending a card, and the card has some value. So one of the interesting things about costing zero-cost cards is trying to understand the value of what you're getting. So Fountain of Youth is a good example where you don't even get anything exactly.

You just get the right to spend mana to do something. So the idea essentially is, oh, once per turn, it allows me to turn two mana into one life. And, hey, look, I mean, I know there were decks early on that were more controlling decks that used Fountain of Youth. I probably, once again, early Magic used what was available, and Fountain of Youth, in a control deck where I'm just sort of stalling and not using my mana, at the end of my opponent's turn before it's my turn, if I have two floating mana, Fountain of Youth just turns that into life.

Now, it wasn't a great card, so not a lot of control decks used it, but it saw a little bit of play in control decks, I think. Maybe not the best control decks, but it did see a little bit of play, because it allowed you to sort of slowly gain life over time as you were stalling, which could just help you, you know,

help you stall the game more. Okay, next, the third card in the dark was Tormod's Crypt. So Tormod's Crypt costs a hero artifact. Tap Sacrifice Tormod's Crypt to remove all cards in target player's graveyard from the game. Okay, so Dark Sphere saw, I think, no play. Fountain of Youth saw a little tiny bit of play, I think.

Tormod's Crypt saw lots and lots of play. So Tormod's Crypt was an answer for cards that cared about the graveyard. And it was a pretty good answer. Like, if your opponent is reanimating things or really using the graveyard, this really wipes out that resource. And there have since been other answers.

So Tormod's Crypt is not the only answer. But there was a period in time where if I was fighting a deck and they were doing shenanigans with the graveyard, this was my answer. And Tormod's Crypt got run in a lot of decks. Of these three cards from the dark, this was the one that got played by far the most. And was a competitive card. Now, I think the card was more of a sideboard card than a main deck card, unless the metagame was such and such direction you just main decked it.

But it was a very strong sideboard card, just because it is a very loud, clear answer. And the funny thing is, I don't know whether it needed to cost zero. I think if it costed one, probably it still would have seen play. But it's interesting. I think Tormod's Crypt is the first card here, as we go through it,

where it cost zero, it was powerful, meaning it got played in tournaments, but we can still reprint it. It's not too powerful. Tormod's Crypt is within a power band we can still make. So, Tormod's Crypt, for example, if we finally get a card that's cost zero, that's played in tournaments tournaments that is still doable today that is in a band that we can do okay, next up is Deleth's Cone

so Deleth's Cone costs zero so today I'm reading you the original text, when it was printed what it had, because these are fun to read tap, sacrifice Delella's Cone. A target creature you control attacks and is not blocked. You may choose to gain its power in life.

If you do so, it deals no damage to opponent this turn. So the idea of Della's Cone, it's a one-shot. It sort of, instead of doing damage, you gain life. Now, it only works on creatures. But the idea is, now, it's not. Now, it only works on creatures. But the idea is... Now, it's not a surprise because it's sitting out there. Your opponent's aware that they can do this. But basically, it takes one creature

and sort of flips it. So instead of losing life to that creature, you gain life to that creature. Yeah, not a particularly strong card. Oh, the one interesting thing about Delos Cone, though, is... So, Don Felice was one of the designers of Mirage and Visions. And they made a card for him. What was the card?

Oh, Felden's Cane. Felden's Cane was originally, I think, like Felden's... It was... Originally, Felden's Cane was Felden's something else and anagrammed to Don Felice. And then they changed it based on the art because it didn't... I forget what the original name was.

Probably you can figure it out because it spells... It anagrams to Don Felice. Anyway, because of the art, they had to change it. And so this card became, in its place, obviously Felton's Cain was earlier, but to make up for it,

Delos Cone is the anagram of Don Felice. So in a trivia question, what is the anagram of designer Don Felice? It's Delos Cone. So another name. Felton's Cain obviously saw a little bit more play's Delos Cone. So another name. Felton's Cane obviously saw a little bit more play than Delos Cone. Okay, next up we have Mana Crypt.

So Mana Crypt did not come out in an expansion. It came out, it was a book promo card. It was, so it was one of the Harper Prism book promos. I forget which one. I think it was in the last of the books Prism book promos. I forget which one. I think it was in the last of the books. Anyway, so it's a cost zero. It's an artifact.

During your upkeep, flip a coin. Opponent calls heads or tails while coin is in the air. If flip ends up in opponent's favor, mana creep deals three damage to you. And then tap, add two colors, manage your mana pool, play this ability as an interrupt. So basically, it's kind of like Sol Ring in that it taps for two, although it costs zero and not one,

but 50% of the time it does three damage to you. My guess is that this card... I know the book cards were made to match flavors of things in the book. Is it Mana Crypt? What's the name of the book? Could have been called Mana Crypt. I don't think it was, though. of things in the book. Is it Mana Crypt? What was the name of the book? Could it be called Mana Crypt? I don't think it was, though.

Anyway, in the book, there was a thing called the Mana Crypt. They were trying to match it. So I think the idea they had is, oh, it's like Sol Ring, but you could take damage. So, you know, Sol Ring, you spend one mana,

but you know you're never taking damage. Mana Crypt costs zero, so you're saving one mana, oh, but you'll average some amount of damage during the course of it. What they didn't take into account is the difference between zero and one is quite powerful

in the game of Magic. Mana Crypt is the next broken card we're talking about, and by far the best of the book cards. I don't know if any of the book cards. I don't know if any other book cards saw, if they did, they saw a teeny, teeny, tiny bit of play. But Mana Crypt saw lots and lots of play.

Mana Crypt was, it's a very powerful card. And it's a good lesson about the differential between 0 and 1. That taking an average of 1.5 damage per turn, it's still better than paying 1. So let that sink in. Let's assume the card just said you took taking an average of one and a half damage per turn, it's still better than paying one.

So let that sink in. Let's assume that the card just said you took one and a half damage every turn, assuming half damage is a thing. That that, that taking one and a half damage every turn for zero is a more powerful card. Well, is it more powerful? Sol Ring's really powerful. I'm not sure it's more powerful.

Let's just say it's as powerful. And Mana Crypt's a lot to play. I mean, I guess Sol Ring's really powerful. I'm not sure it's more powerful. Let's just say it's as powerful. And Mana Crypt's got lots to play. I mean, I guess Sol Ring's got lots and lots to play. So maybe I'm incorrect that it's more powerful, but is it at least as powerful? That Mana Crypt was, you know, that it wasn't weaker. So anyway, Mana Crypt's got lots and lots to play.

It might be the most powerful, most powerful... Most powerful... Let me think about this. I mean, it's the most powerful promo card for sure of all time. Yeah, oh, it might be the most powerful card used in coin flipping. That's what I was going to say.

It might be the most powerful card used in coin flipping. Okay. Next up, I was going to say. It might be one of the most powerful cards used in coin flipping. Okay. Next up, Jeweled Amulet. So, Jeweled Amulet, so,

Ice Age had three cards in it. Jeweled Amulet, it's one tap, put a charge counter on Jeweled Amulet, note what type of mana was used to pay this activation cost,

use this ability only if there are no charge counters on Jeweled Amulet, remove the charge counter from Jeweled Amulet to add one mana to the type last used to put a charge counter on it. Play this as an interrupt. So basically, this is a confusing card. What it did is, it could store

colored mana. So let's say I had an extra red mana in my turn. I could sort of put the red mana into Jeweled Amulet and then on a future turn, I could get the red mana out of it. So it sort of stored your mana, is the idea. It's written kind of confusingly. Let's see.

Yeah, it's funny. Even the current text is... It's wordy text. Mostly what it did is it allows you to store colored mana. Next are Urza's Bauble. Urza's Bauble costs zero artifact. Tap Sacrifice Urza's Bauble to choose a card at random from target player's hand. Look at that card. Ignore the disability that that player has no cards left in their hand. So essentially this card let you cycle it, right? I could, for zero mana, I could tap and get another card.

So essentially it made your deck from 60 cards sort of into 56 cards because it didn't cost anything to use and replaced itself. It also gave you a minimal, minimal thing. You got to see a card from the opponent's hand. That could be relevant in certain circumstances. Urza's Bobble... So, the interesting thing is,

so Urza's Bobble and all the cantrips in Ice Age don't give you a card until the beginning of the next turn. And the reason for that is Urza's Bobble. Urza's Bobble and all the cantrips in Ice Age don't give you a card until the beginning of the next turn. And the reason for that is Urza's Bauble. Urza's Bauble is the reason for that. They were worried if this gave you the card right away, it would be too good. And so all the cantrips in Ice Age

are the slow trips that you get them next turn because they thought Urza's Bauble would be too good if it had it. And then finally, Zurn and Orb. Zero artifact, zero colon, sacrifice the land to gain two life. It's funny. In the current version,

it's sacrifice the land, colon, you gain two life. So we liked doing zero colon in the early days. Anyway, Zurn and Orb, as we get into other broken things, Zurn and Orb was also a powerful tournament card. I talked about this in the Ice Age pre-release, um, podcast. Um, Xur and Orb got, uh, banned in formats and restricted in formats, I think. And anyway, it's a very powerful card.

Um, Found of Youth turns two mana into one life. Um, Xur and Orb turns a land into two life. Uh, and, but it doesn't, you can just sac it anytime you want. You can sac as many lands as you want. So it wasn't involved in a lot of things. It's a very powerful card. And it is definitely another one of the... Let's see, how many broken zero-cost cards?

We're up to... Seven, eight? Yeah, there were six in Alpha. There's Mana Crypt, there's Xernorb. So we're up to eight. So if you don't balance a zero-cost card, it definitely six in Alpha. There's Mana Crypt, there's Zernorb. So, we're up to eight. So, if you don't balance a zero-cost card, it definitely can cause problems. And apparently, by the way,

getting mana out of a zero-cost card is usually quite good. Okay, next, Goose Deceptor. Goose Deceptor costs zero. It's an artifact. If Goose Deceptor leaves play or you lose control of it, put all cards under Goose Deceptor into your graveyard. Tap. Put any card from your hand face-down under Goose Deceptor leaves play or you lose control of it, put all cards under Goose Deceptor into your graveyard. Tap. Put any card from your hand face down under Goose Deceptor.

You may look at that card at any time. Tap. Return any card under Goose Deceptor to your hand. Okay, so this is famous, among other things, for being the first card I ever made that saw print. There are actually three. This is from Alliances. Alliances has three zero-cost cards. I'll get to the other two

in a second. I made... There are two other cards that I made, but this is one of the ones I made. So one of the first cards to ever see print that I made. The idea behind it was that you could hide cards from your hand so that you can do things with your hand and not lose those cards.

This card would see tournament play. In fact, there was a deck around the time of Pro Tour Rome, so when Urza's Saga was out, there was a deck that used this with Lion's Eye Diamond, and anyway, it did shenanigans, and this card that seemed,

the funny thing about Goose Deceptors, it seemed like, what are you doing with it? You're putting cards in your hand, you know, and in the right combination with the right sort of circumstances, it was really strong. Now, it's not particularly a strong card in a vacuum. It was very strong in that circumstances. But anyway,

I was happy that one of the cards I made, one of my first cards I ever made, like, was in a tournament deck, so that was sort of cool. Next up, Lodestone Bauble. Zero cost artifact. One tap. Sacrifice Lodestone Bauble to put cost artifact. One tap, sacrifice Lodestone Bauble to put up to four target basic lands from any player's graveyard

on top of his or her library in any order. That player draws a card at the beginning of their next turn. So the idea here is it allows you to get back your land. It works with like Xern Orbs or Xern Orbs in a different set. It allows you that if you sacrifice your land for something

to get them back, it wasn't particularly strong and I know that in Ice Age there were some things that sacked land, there might have been a few that sacked snow covered land because that was a Ice Age Alliance thing anyway

not super memorable card next, Shield Sphere zero cost, zero six counts as a wall if Shield Sphere is assigned as a blocker put a minus zero, minus one counter on it so the idea is it's a zero six wall, but every time it blocks

it shrinks, and so it can block six times so Shield Sphere so this is a good example of a card that I think I mean, we wouldn't print it today only because we don't really want to, I mean, we might reprint it today in the right set, but we wouldn't put it in a premier set

because we don't use minus zero, minus one counters anymore. But Shield Sphere is interesting in that there are definitely decks, like Fruity Pebbles was an old deck that would keep casting the same card

multiple times, doing damage with it. And so Fruity Pebbles really wanted a zero-drop creature. I think they used Ornithopter for some of the time. Shield Sphere got used for some of the time. So, I know Shield Sphere has seen tournament play just because

a zero-drop 0-6, when you're trying to be defensive and not offense, is better than a 0-cost 0-2 flyer. Now, given you can only block so many times with it, but whatever. If you can block usually six times, it's doing its job. And a lot of the reason it got played was shenanigans with it

being a 0-cost card. Okay, next up. Lion's Eye Diamond. This is from Mirage. So, Lion's Eye Diamond is a very interesting story. So, Charlie Cattino made this

card because he wanted to make a bad lotus. And, uh, so originally, Lion's Eye Diamond wanted to make a bad lotus. And so originally, Lion's Eye Diamond is zero. Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond. Discard your hand. Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Play this ability as a Manasaurus.

So originally it tapped for Cullis because Charlie liked making bad cards. So he was trying to make a bad version of a lotus. And in development, I said, look, if we're going to make a bad Lotus, it should at least be a Lotus. So I got them to change it to make it colored mana.

So here's a good example of how powerful Black Lotus is. So we redid Black Lotus, except you had to discard your entire hand. So it's Black Lotus with the downside to discard your entire hand, and that card is still broken and still causes infinite problems in different formats.

This card has been banned and restricted. So Lion's Eye Diamond, we really made it as a card that we thought was going to be... I think we thought it was just a bad card. Ha ha, it's funny bad. And it ended up being a little better than bad. So it is funny. So Lion's Eye Diamond is a good example.

If you ever want to know how powerful it is. Okay, next up from Visions is Phyrexian Walker. Zero mana, zero three. So we had made a zero mana, zero two flyer. We made a zero mana,-6 that can block 6 times so the next step was to try a 0-3 Phyrexian Walker once again, 0 cost

creatures Fruity Pebbles and stuff I think Shield Sphere got used the most of these, Phyrexian Walker might seem a little bit of play but something about it, players seem very excited about 0 cost creatures and so seen a little bit of play. But something about it, players seem very excited about zero-cost creatures. And so,

note that thus far, none of them have any power. Obviously, there's enough of these that I'm going to do a second podcast on them. And in the second podcast, we do get to one, eventually, that has power. But we haven't got there yet. So, Phyrexian Walker was just another attempt to do

a zero-Cross creature. Okay, we're going to end today to hammer home the theme of how powerful a Black Lotus is. I will talk about Lotus Petal. So, I made Lotus Petal in Tempest. So, Lotus Petal costs zero. Tap, sac, add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Play this as a mana star. So it's a black Lotus for one mana.

Not three mana. For one mana. For one mana. Broken. It's been banned and restricted. So even Lotus, when you take away two of the mana, just for one mana, is still quite good. I mean, this was clearly made...

Obviously, we called it Lotus Petal, so it was clearly made as we were trying, a lot of early Magic, we made what we call fixed cards, where it's like, oh, let's take this broken card and make a not-broken version of it. And we would make it weaker, and then a lot of the time it was still too good.

So take Black Lotus, give a third of its abilities, and still too good. Okay, guys, so it's clear to me, as I look at my, I and still too good. Okay, guys, what's clear to me, as I look at my, I have a lot more cards to talk about, and so I'm going to have to do another section of this. So, hope you guys enjoyed part one. It was a lot of fun to talk about cards. I love

doing these card-by-card things. But anyway, guys, I am now at my desk. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my Drive to Works. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.