Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1123: Every Set

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Before I get into Outlaws of Thunder Junction, I see if I can name every non-core expansion set in order with a bit of trivia about each one.

Okay, I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, I've made a little task for me today to see if I can accomplish it. So here's my task. Between now and my getting to work, I'm going to, in order, name each magic expansion. I'm only doing in-universe magic expansions, and I'm only doing, I'm not doing core sets. But I'm going to name each one. I'm going to name a little factoid about it, and I'm going to see if I can get all of them in order by the time I get to work. That is my plan for today's podcast. Okay, we will start with the very first expansion, Arabian Nights.

Probably the most famous for A, being the smallest expansion we ever made. It's 78 cards. And also, the first magic expansion to use an outside property. The very first UB set. Okay. The second... Although we did set it in Rabai.

Technically, it does take place on a magic plane. So it is in the universe. Okay. Second set is Antiquities. That is the first set to ever have a theme. Every single card in this set, with the exception of a few of the lands

that do tap for colorless, have the word artifact either on their type line or in their rules text, meaning the word artifact is on the card. And if you count flavor text, a few of the lands actually are artifact in flavor text. Next up, Legends. So Legends was the first ever large set

that wasn't a base set, a core set. It introduced multicolor. It introduced legendary creatures, although at the time they were called Legends. Although legendary lands. Legendary was a super type for non-creatures and a creature type for creatures. A little weird. Okay, next up is The Dark.

The Dark was art directed by um um I'm blanking on the name of the person who art directed it. I'll come in a second. The flavor of The Dark was that it was trying to of the dark was that it was trying to see the dark

side of all five colors. And I guess Premier Force was the art director. He was Magic's first art director, and he led that set. He might be the only art director to lead a set, by the way. I believe

that is true. Anyway, and it showed the dark side of things. It also happens to have the first non-creature multicolored card. Dark Heart of the Woods. Okay, next up is Fallen Empires. Fallen Empires was, I think, the first sort of faction set by any loose definition of factions. Each color had two factions, and they were fighting each other.

The set had so many tokens, which was odd at the time, because we didn't have token cards yet, that the duelists, the magazine that came with Magic, they made a special punch-out token sheet that came in the duelists specifically for Fallen Empires. After Fallen Empires is Ice Age. Ice Age was the first Magic expansion chronologically to be worked on. The East Coast playsefters, Scaffolius, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, Chris Page, that was the very first expansion worked on. And they were all friends of Richard's

from, I think, the University of Pennsylvania. And they really wanted to flavor... In fact, the codename of Ice Age was Ice Age. One of a handful of sets that have a code name that was its real name. The Dark, I think, was also its code name. Okay, after Ice Age is Homelands. Homelands was designed by two members of Wizards. Scott Hungford, who was on the continuity team, later the creative team,

and Kyle Namvar, who was on, you called up, customer service. The Homelands had a release event in New York City. I think at the time, the most expensive thing we've ever done for Magic since then. I think we've done bigger things, but it was very big in its time. Also, technically, Homelands is the first set I did anything on as far as working on sets. I was on a team that playtested it outside. It wasn't inside the building, but I was on a playtest team, and we gave notes on it. Okay, next up is Alliances. on a playtest team and we gave notes on it.

Okay, next up is Alliances. So Alliances had the largest gap, other than Alpha I guess, between the set that came before it and it. It was not designed as a follow-up to Ice Age, but it was developed and sold as a follow-up to Ice Age. That was not really built in by the

designers, but the idea of having blocks was starting to form, and so the development decided to sort of make it like the second part of Alliances. Stuff like Snow-Covered Lands wasn't there. We added that in to add a little bit of continuity. Okay, after Alliances is Mirage. Oh, and Alliances was the first that I worked on, by the way. And the first cards I ever designed appeared in Alliances. Okay, next is Mirage. Mirage was the first block.

Ice Age was sort of retroactively tried and made into a block, but the first actual block, built as a block, was Mirage. Mirage and Visions were designed together under the name Menagerie by Bill Rose, Joel Mick, Charlie Cattino, Howard Kallenberg, Elliot Siegel, and Don Felice, known as the Bridge Club. They were the alpha playtesters that Richard met through his Bridge Club. And Mirage was the first set designed with Limited in mind. Next is Visions. Visions is the first set

that had enter the battlefield effects. That's the first set to do that. They also showed up in Portal, but that was a little later. Okay, next up after Visions is Weatherlight. So Weatherlight was the start of the Weatherlight story. It's the first set that was designed internally, although chronologically Tempest started earlier because we spent more time on large sets.

So Tempest was the first set that we started designing in-house, but Weatherlight was the first set to come out that we had designed in-house. And Weatherlight was the first set to have a graveyard theme. Okay, next is Tempest, the first set I led. Tempest was the first time in a while since... Tempest was the first time we really left Dominaria. Most early... I mean, technically, Homelands wasn't on Dominaria,

Rabid Knights wasn't on Dominaria, but the first time we made a conscious effort, and the first blockands wasn't on Dominaria. Arabian Nights wasn't on Dominaria. But the first time we made a conscious effort, and the first block to not be on Dominaria, on Wrath, which was an artificial plane, which would later get over, put onto Dominaria as part of the invasion. But Tempest also, oh, the other fun fact about Tempest is the team had me, the design team was me, Richard Garfield, on his first design since Arabian Nights.

Mike Elliott and Charlie Cattino. We made so many cards. We were so eager. Mike and I really wanted to be designers and had so many cards that I think the next eight years worth of cards had a card in it that first appeared in the design file of Tempest. Okay, Tempest was followed by Stronghold. That was, I believe that's the first time where the location of the place, it was named after a location that wasn't the plane itself. And there's a card in the set. Volrath Stronghold is a card in the set, which we had a rule

for a while of not naming cards. There was a card in Mirage called Mirage originally that we changed because the set was called Mirage. That's the first time technically it's Volrath Stronghold, not Stronghold, but it is land referencing the name of the set. Okay, next is Exodus. Exodus is the finale of the Wrath Saga. It is the point at which I got kicked off the story and the story radically changes

and all of a sudden, Mirri gets killed and Volrath goes evil. Anyway, Exodus... What else to say about Exodus? It was the first time we had a continuing story that went beyond a block, meaning it's the first set to have sort of a cliffhanger that got resolved. Although the cliffhanger would take two years to get resolved because we would go back in time for the next year. So next was Urza's Saga.

Urza's Saga, I think, has the designation of being the most broken magic set we ever made. The joke at the time was the early game is shuffling and mulliganing and mid-game is the die roll and then the late game is the card draw. That was a format in which you could win on the first turn. It was a very powerful format with lots of broken things. Ironically, it was known as the Artifact Cycle, the name of the block,

even though it was an actual enchantment-based block, the first enchantment-based block. After Urza's Saga is Urza's Legacy. Urza's Legacy, I believe, is the first time... I think it's the first time we had premium cards. Is that right? Or it might be the first time we had collector number and rarity signs. It's one of those two things.

And then Urza's Destiny. Urza's Destiny was the first set that I ever or the only set, I guess, other than Arabian Nights, said it'd be designed by one person. I was the design team. We were a little bit tight at the time. So I was the sole design team. I was also

on the development team, but I didn't lead the development team. Actually, I might not have been on the development team since I was the sole design team. Okay, after Urza's Destiny, we have Mercadian Masks. Mercadian Masks was

the first set that didn't have a named keyword or ability word in it, and a lot of people complained that there were no new mechanics, even though there were new mechanics, they just weren't labeled. We had mercenaries and rebels and spell shapers. But anyway, it taught us that we needed to label

things. Nemesis was the first expansion in the Mercadia's Masked Block. It did not take place... Nemesis takes place on Wrath. And it's interesting in that Mercadia Masked Block takes place on Wrath. And it's interesting in that Mercadian Mass takes place on Mercadia. Nemesis takes place on Wrath, mostly.

And then Prophecy, the next set, takes place mostly on Dominaria. So it's a block in which every set takes place on a different world, different plane. We've never done that before. And then Prophecy, the head designer of Prophecy was William Jockish, who had always wanted to leave the set. He ended up making

a very, very, very spiky set. I know Bill and I had to add a bunch of stuff in afterwards to add some Timmy appeal. It makes use of a lot of mechanics that were,

if you really enjoy like observing the... understanding full information, it had abilities where your opponent could pay mana to stop you, so you had to judge how much mana your opponent had. It had a lot of sacking of lands as... Anyway. A very dense thing.

Okay, so after Prophecy was Invasion. Invasion was the first block with a theme, which was multicolor. And then after that was Planeshift. Planeshift was, we introduced gating, which was an ability that we didn't actually label.

Early on in Magic, we did domain in Invasion, we did gating in Planeshift. Invasion had a bunch of mechanics that we didn't label, although they were mechanics. But not, we did if Kicker gets introduced in Invasion, so it did have a named keyword.

And Planeshift was the continuation. Invasion was all ally colors. Planeshift was more ally. And then Apocalypse was the first third set That had a different theme That kind of inspired a lot of my block planning That would come later It was just enemy colors

Invasion and Planeship were ally colored Apocalypse was enemy colored Okay, after Invasion was Odyssey. Odyssey was a block that had a graveyard theme. The introduction of flashback and threshold. It was... Richard Garfield had worked on it. After he...

Richard, for a while, every like four years, would work on a set. He worked on Odyssey. And it is the most spikiest thing I've ever designed. Prophecy was very spiky. Odyssey, I was trying to take the idea of card advantage and turn it on its head that, like, hey,

I have a creature on the battlefield that you can sacrifice a card to give it first strike. I will throw away my entire hand, not even care that it has first strike. And that's the right play. Anyway, it didn't sell great because being super spiky. The spikes liked it, but the Timmy's and Johnny not as happy about it. After Odyssey was Torment. Torment is the one set we've done plus Judgment set after it.

There's color imbalance. There's more black cards in the set than any other color. After doing this experiment, we learned never to do it again. It really, really, really messes with Limited. And then Judgment was the green and white set. And that was the first set led by Brian Tinsman.

Although secretly, Bill kind of needed to lead the set, but he was too busy, so Brian was doing all the busy work for Bill. But it was Brian's official first lead. Okay, after that. So after... Where were we at? We are at... Next is

Onslaught. Onslaught is the first typo set. It had a typo theme. It also introduced Morph, the first time Morph appeared. And then Legions. Legions was one of our gimmick sets. It was all creatures. Every card in the set was a creature.

All 143. After Legions was Scourge. Scourge was themed as a dragon set, but it wasn't really a dragon set. I mean, I think they're like, maybe, there's a handful of dragons in it. There's a bunch of dragon themed cards in it, but like the dragon theme is 5% of the set, maybe if I'm being generous. And so we have a history of kind of implying

dragon themes and then not following through in dragon themes. I'll get to that in a second. themes and then not falling through in dragon themes. I'll get to that in a second. Okay, after Scourge, let's see, that was Onslaught. Next we get to Mirrodin. Mirrodin was an artifact-themed block.

It went to the world of Mirrodin that became a very popular world. It's probably the second most broke set after Urza's Saga. Mirrodin had Affinity, it had Artifact Lands, it had a bunch of broken stuff. I think we banned more

cards from Mirrodin block than we have outside of Alpha that we have banned from any other block, I do believe. Mirrodin is then followed by Darksteel. Darksteel is the introduction of Indestructible. That wasn't originally a keyword.

I remember it got designed because I'm like, what don't players like? When their opponents destroy their stuff. Darksteel was followed by Fifth Dawn. Fifth Dawn was interesting in that so much stuff had broken in Mirrodin by the time we got to Fifth Dawn, the team was like, you can't use any of the mechanics.

I think we ended up using one or two, like, in just enough to say we did it. So we ended up having to come with brand new mechanics. It's the introduction of Scry. It's the first set that Aaron Forsythe works on, and he did so well on it that we brought him on to R&D. Now he's my boss, so it worked well for Aaron. Okay, after Fifth Dawn, we come to Champions of Kamigawa.

Our first top-down block based on Chinese mythology. It introduced the flip cards, which were cards that you could rotate in different directions. It was two cards in one, but both on the front face. That was followed by Betrayers of Kamigawa, which introduced ninjutsu and had a ninja theme. And then Saviors of Kamigawa

that had a theme of mana value matters. I think the only set to do a mana value matters theme, including Scorful Egotist. That is a morph card that costs 8 mana for a 1-1. The fact that it costs 8 mana was upside because you can morph it in and then it costs 8 mana. So you can treat it like an 8-mana card. Okay, after Saves of Kamigawa, we get to Ragnarok. Oh, technically, Betrayal of Kamigawa

was the first set that I became head designer, although it was in the middle of happening. Most of that block sort of already was in, I just helped finish it out. Ravnica, City of Guilds, was the very first block that I worked on, the first block that I ran as head designer. It introduced the idea of all sorts of things. Of factioning, of hybrid mana, of watermarks, of ally colors being even to enemy colors. Treat it the same. Anyway, Ravnica is

one of the most defining, I think, most influential sets I've ever made. I think maybe ever made. That was followed by Guild Pack. Guild Pack was... The original interesting story behind Guild Pack, I won't get too deep into this, is, um, when they first started building Guild Pack, the person in charge

of it wasn't so sure about this Guild thing and started by designing Red Commons. And I have to say, no, no, no, we're really doing the Guild thing. Uh, anyway, um, then that was followed by Dissension, which was Aaron Forsythe's first lead okay after that so that is Ravnica Block we then get Cold Snap Cold Snap is the only

I don't know what to call it but it came out, it's a standard legal set in a Magic Universe it was the lost set of the Ice Age blocks and it's only two Ice Age sets. It wasn't really lost. It was a joke. People somehow...

Randy Bueller was the one that wrote the article. And people thought he was lying to them rather than tongue-in-cheek. Get it? We found it in a file cabinet. And it was drafted by itself. It's the only small set ever to be drafted by itself. Okay, then we get to Time Spiral. That has the time theme block.

Time Spiral, it was past, present, future. So Time Spiral was the past. It had the first ever bonus sheet. And it had lots and lots of old mechanics in it. Lots and lots. I think Time Spiral block had almost as many mechanics in it as existed

before Time Spiral block. In fact, it might have had more mechanics in it than existed before Time Spiral block. Okay,, it might have had more mechanics in it than existed before Time Spiral Block. Okay, that was followed by Planar Chaos. Planar Chaos was the alternate reality set where we mess with the color pie that today probably causes me more questions. He goes, hey, I thought red could do this. Here's a red

card that does that. I'm like, oh, that's Planar Chaos. The idea was we want to do the present, but it's hard to do every set of the present. So we did alternate reality. And so we remade the color pie, and different colors did different things. Anyway, it was a bold experiment, but in retrospect, probably something I should have done.

Next was Future Sight. Future Sight had cards. All three sets had a bonus sheet in this set. The cards from Time Spiral were cards from the past, so old cards printed in an old frame. The ones in Time Spiral were cards from the past, so old cards printed in an old frame. The ones in Planar Chaos were cards you knew but in a different color. Damnation instead of

Wrath of God was the classic. And then in Future Sight, cards from the future, showing things that did not exist yet. And many of the cards from the future have later gone on to appear in future sets. Not all of them, but a lot of them. A surprising number of them. We always look to see if there's a future site,

future shifter card we can use. Okay, after Time Spiral block, we get to Lorwyn block. Lorwyn was Aaron's first lead as a large set. It has a, so that the Lorwyn Shattermore block is two mini blocks put together.

Each one is large, small. Lorwyn had a typo theme. It used eight creature types. Let's see if I can name them real quick. It was Kithkin and Merfolk and Elemental and Goblin and Elves and Fairies and Treefolk and Giants. And then Morning Tide had a theme of classes rather than races. A big mistake on me. Then Shadowmoor was the highest amount of hybrid ever done.

And probably ever will be done. Almost 50% of the cards were hybrid. Shadowmoor was ally. And Eventide was enemy. I don't know what else to say about those sets. Probably the easiest sets to draft Monocolor that we've ever made

Shadowmoor draft is one of my favorite drafts I love drafting Monocolor I just like to draft Monocolor and it's a set where you can draft Monocolor guaranteed you can draft Monocolor that's not true in a lot of sets okay after Eventide

we get into Scar not Scars we get into Shards Shards of Mirrodin so Shards of Mirrodin. So Shards of Mirrodin was our first gold set that was three-color themed. Invasion was play all the colors. Ravnica was play two colors. And the idea of Shards of Lara was three colors.

So the way it worked was the world broke into five. Each world only had two colors of mana, a color and its two allies. So you got to see the idealized version of a white world, a blue world, a black world, a red world, a green world. And it introduced, like, Bant and Naya and Jund and Grixis and Esper. Okay, then Conflux was

the first small set in that block. It had kind of a five-color theme in it. And it was, I think, Bolas's... Might be Bolas's first Planeswalker card is in that. Bolas is behind the Conflux. And then we have a Lara Reborn in other sort of our gimmick sets. It was all gold. Every card in it was gold. That was quite the challenge and kind of got us to realize that gimmick sets are a pain.

They didn't really move the needle, meaning it didn't make people buy more of the set. And it was much, much, much harder to make. So we stopped doing those kind of gimmick sets. Okay, after Alara Reborn, we get to Zendikar. So Zendikar was a land-themed set that I'd been trying to make forever, for like eight years. Randy put it at the end of the schedule, but we eventually got there

and it ended up being a really popular set. It introduced Landfall and was super popular. Followed up by Worldwake. Worldwake had Jace the Mind Sculptor, a pretty famous card. It introduced Multikicker we've done a little bit of, I think before that we had done some cycling variants, but

the idea of doing variants on existing mechanics after Worldwake was Rise of the Odrazi so this was the first set in a block which we changed mechanics and did something new. You didn't draft it with the rest of the block. You drafted it by itself. And it had its own theme.

In fact, there are no mechanical carryovers, or at least no named mechanics, from Zendikar and Worldwake into Rise of the Eldrazi. It introduced the Eldrazi, these giant colorless creatures. And Rise of the Odrazi was interesting in that it's a, for really hardcore drafters, it's a very popular set.

Did not do well elsewhere. It was a little bit confusing for the people that weren't advanced drafters. But among the drafting crowd, a very popular set to draft. It was the first sort of battleship magic where it sort of, you couldn't, you had to play a late game

and get into the giant creatures smashing into each other. Okay, after that is, now we get to Scars of Mirrodin. So we go back to Mirrodin to learn, oh no, the Phyrexians are there! That actually was planned. The novel for the original Mirrodin hints that the Phyrexians are there. That actually was planned. The novel for the original Mirrodin hints

that the Phyrexians are there very subtly, but we come back. The Phyrexians had been killed off in invasion. We wanted them to return. This is a new group of Phyrexians, but they're Magic's oldest villain introduced in Antiquities, and anyway, we wanted to bring them back.

Okay. Then Mirrodin besieged. There's a giant war between the Phyrexians. So in Scars of Mirrodin, I think 10% of the cards represent Phyrexians. It's 50-50. In fact, in the pre-release for Mirrodin Besiege, you chose whether to play Mirrodin or the Phyrexians, and then your deck only had cards of that half of the set. Then we had New Phyrexia. Now, New Phyrexia, we didn't tell you the name of New Phyrexians, and then your deck only had cards of that half of the set. Then we had New Phyrexia.

Now, New Phyrexia, we didn't tell you the name of New Phyrexia. It was either going to be Mirrodin Pure if the Mirrodin won the war, or New Phyrexia if the Phyrexians won the war. The Phyrexians were always going to win the war. It wasn't based... A lot of people think, like, how people pick cards at the pre-release determined that. No, we had to make the set. It was always going to be New Phyrexia. New Phyrexia introduced

Phyrexian mana. And was the first, it was, we made it slightly bigger than a small set. It's kind of the first medium set. We haven't made a lot of medium sets, but it was a bit bigger than our normal small set at the time. Not quite as big as a big set. Okay. After Scars of Mirrodin was Innistrad. So Innistrad was our first sort of top-down block of the modern era, in my mind. Very popular. It had a monster-type-al theme. Introduced, well, I didn't introduce Flashback. Introduced, I'm sorry, introduced Double-Faced Cards. Introduced Transform and Morbid.

And it was a very popular set. Very thematic. Followed by Dark Ascension, which is the only second small set I ever designed. Usually I would do a large set and I'd jump to the next large set. But the year that follows was Return of Ravnik and I thought it would be a good set

for Ken to leave because it was a return set. Anyway, Dark Ascension played a little bit more into the typo theme, introduced Undying, and was sort of the humans were on the brink of extinction. We then get to Allara Reborn. Allara Reborn was another third set that was separate. We did this time carry over, like Undying carried over. So we did do a little bit of carrying over

of the lessons from Rise of the Eldrazi, although mostly there's new mechanics. Allara Reborn introduces Miracle. I believe it's Dave Humphrey's first lead, I think. At least first

expansion lead. And it was, Avacyn gets released from the Hell Vault and saves the day. So it was... Avacyn gets released from the Hellvault and saves the day. So it was our angel set. Okay, after that, we get to return

to Ravnica. So we had obviously returned to Mirrodin in Scars of Mirrodin. But Ravnica is super popular. In fact, there's a great video when we announced we were returning at a convention and the response was one of the most endearing

responses you've ever seen. People hugging. It was awesome. Return to Ravnica. The one big change is the first Ravnica was 4-4-3. We ended up going 5-5-10. That way every faction,

you could draft it by itself and have the chance to draft the faction. In original Raptor, the second and third sets, you had to play three-color. You couldn't really play two-color. And so, we were trying to improve upon the Raptor draft. Then after that was

Gatecrash. Gatecrash, I co um, co-led. I think this was, um, oh, no, Mark Gottlieb had done Mirrored in Besiege, but this is the first large set, and I co-led it with him. Um, and Gatecrash had the second five of the guilds that weren't in the first five.

Oh, Gatecrash did have two mechanics in it that were designed during the Great Designer's Search 2. Uh, Battalion and Evolve were both in Great Designer's Search 2. Then we had Dragon's Maze. The lead designer of Dragon's Maze was the winner of the first Great Designer Search.

And it, oh, another, I talked about how we had, we hinted at dragons as a theme and then not following through. It was called Dragon's Maze. Dragons was in the name. I don't think there was a dragon in the set.

Literally no. I think there was like, Form of the Dragon might have been in the set, but anyway. It was very low on dragons. No, Form of the Dragon was in Scourge, which was the last dragon set. Anyway, it was very, very light on any sort of dragon connection whatsoever with a set with dragon in its name. The Dragon's Maze

was referencing Niv-Mithit. And okay, so after that were we. We are in Return to Ravnica. Then we get to Theros. Theros was our Greek mythology set.

Our second enchantment-themed block, although the first one people recognized as being an enchantment theme, it really put gods on the line. Oh, it had devotion. We took a mechanic called Chroma that didn't go well before and even-tied, and then repurposed it and re-flavored it, and it went

much, much better in the set. The second set was called Born of the Gods. So each of the three sets had a cycle of five gods in it. It was the five mono gods. Born of the Gods had the five ally color gods. Journey into Nyx had the five enemy color gods. Journey into Nyx was Ethan Fleischer's first design.

And the whole block did a lot to introduce a lot of enchantment themes. Constellation would show up, which is when you play an enchantment that showed up in Journey to Nyx. Okay, after that was Khans of Tarkir. Khans of Tarkir was I was trying to shake up the block structure so Khans of Tarkir was drafted with Fate Reforged, the middle set, the small middle set

but not drafted with the set Dragons of Tarkir, they were separate but you did draft Fate Reforged with both of them. It was flavored as Sark and Vol go back some time to save the dragons on Tarkir, and he makes a brand new timeline. So Fate of Reforged is the past, and you draft it with different timelines. Conjuring of Tarkir

was a wedge set. It didn't start as a wedge set, but ended up as a wedge set. Fate of Reforged then was trying to sit in the middle between the two sets to set them up. And then Dragon's Arc here was a new timeline where dragons have returned, and it was a strong dragon. And this was a dragon set with dragons in name that actually had lots of dragons in it.

It took three times, but we finally made a dragon set that was actually a dragon set. Okay, after that, we get into Battle for Zendikar. Battle for Zendikar was a return to Zendikar. Really, it was about a fight with the Eldrazi. There was a lot of colorless. We had a whole mechanic in the set of making colored things colorless, devoid. And then the first set was Oath of the Gatewatch.

That introduced the storyline of the Gatewatch, which was a big storyline for a while. It was the one set that actually mentioned teammates on rules text. It had a teaming up theme to play into the Gatewatch coming together. Then we had Shadows Over Innistrad, which was a return to Innistrad. It had more of a cosmic horror vibe into it. And the first set was very mystery, introduced Investigate.

The second set, Eldritch Moon, introduced Meld. And we had big... It had a much more of a Cosmic Horror flavor. The first part was more the beginning part of the mystery, and the second part is strange things are happening and mutations. Emrakul got drawn to Innistrad, and bad things happened there.

Okay, then we had Kaladesh, and then Aether Revolt. That was in our... We introduced it in Magic Origins, which was one of the core sets. Our first throw forward. And then it was our steampunk world. It was where Chandra was originally from. And it was a bright, happy world with an invention theme and a lot of artifacts.

Because it had an artifact theme, it of course broke. Because all artifact themes break until we started doing more colored artifacts. That was followed by Ixalan. not Ixalan, that was followed by Amonkhet and then followed by Hour of Devastation which was our Egyptian inspired world. Bolas had taken over this world and things were

going awry and then during the course of the block the gate rats show up to try to stop Bolas and get crushed by Bolas! It was a three-act block. People didn't know it was a three-year storyline. And then Outer Distantions where everything gets destroyed. And there's not a lot left to nominate, but there's some things, I assume. Okay, after that was Ixalan.

Ixalan was our Mesoamerican in theme set. It had a typo theme. It introduced pirates and dinosaurs. I don't know if introduce is the right word. There were pirates and dinosaurs technically before that. Introduced the dinosaur keyword and then brought back pirates in a big way. Pirates technically pre-existed that. And had merfolk and had vampire-caused dinosaurs.

And then after that was Rivals of Ixalan. They introduced Ascend and was the one small set that I didn't work on. My time as head designer, I think I've been on every single design team, I believe

almost every single design team, especially later on, and that's the one set I wasn't on because we were switching over. That was followed by Dominaria. Dominaria was our first vision design set. It was us returning to Dominaria, repurposing Dominaria, introduced sagas,

had a legendary theme, a legend in every pack. That was followed by Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance. That was our third trip to Ravnica. We did yet another guild thing. We mixed up, it was five and five. You draft them separately. But it's still, it's the first time we ever, I think Guilds of Ravnica repeated Convoke.

We never repeated a guild mechanic before. And that led into War of the Spark, which was our first giant big event set, our capstone event set, as I like to call it,

where we saw the finale of the story of Nicole Bolas. And there's a giant war between all the planeswalkers. War of the Spoke had 36 planeswalkers. Most magic sets had three to five. So it was a big deal.

That was followed by Throne of Eldraine. Our first editor to the fairy tale world. It was a mix between Camelot and fairy tales. It had a little monochrome theme in the courts. And then there are all these, a lot of top-down fairy tale stuff. That was followed by

Theros Beyond Death, which is a return to Theros. We rescue, or she rescues herself. Elsmeth rescues herself from the underworld. And we have, we introduce some escape as a mechanic. And we introduce a graveyard theme into Theros.

That was followed by Ikoria, Lair of the Behemoths. It was a giant monster theme set that had mutate and companions that caused some problems. That was followed by Zendikar Rising, which was our third trip to Zendikar. Sort of a return to Aswith. It had the party mechanic in it. After that was Kaldheim.

We finally did a Norse set where there was ten different worlds within the North thing and Snow returned into a premier level set and we had Boast and Fortel, which was a fun mechanic. After that was Strixhaven's

School of Mages. Our magical school themed. It was our first instant sorcery themed set. It had enemy, it was our first instant sorcery themed set. It had enemy factions that were representing schools, that represented different school subjects. After that, I was only mentioning magic themed. I will mention that we did our first Dungeon of Dragondead

Adventures in Forgotten Realm there. I won't get too deep into that, but it technically was, it's the only, it was a standard legal set, but it wasn't, it's not, you know, I'm not going to spend too much time on that. After that, we get into Innistrad Midnight Hunt and Innistrad Crimson Vow. We go back to Innistrad.

We actually stay on it for two sets. The first set has a werewolf theme. The second set has a vampire theme. First one has sort of a, they're having a harvest festival. The second one, they're having a wedding. We then have Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, our return to Kamigawa after many, many years. It's a mix of old versus new.

Half the set is kind of inspired by Japanese pop culture, half inspired by mythology and a callback to the original Kamigawa. Then we have Streets of Nuka Pena. It is a shard theme set. Arc or shard, where the original Kamigawa. Then we have Streets of New Capenna. It is a shard theme set. Ark or shard, where the color is two allies. It has kind of a 1920s vibe, and it's what we originally

called Demon Mobster World. It had a lot of demons and had five shard factions in it. After Streets of New Capenna was Dominaria United. We go back to Dominaria and have another trip in Dominaria. We see Ajani in Neon Dynasty.

Tamio got Phyrexianized. And then we see Ajani get Phyrexianized in Dominaria United. That was followed by the Brothers War. We go back in time and we see this Urza and Mishra fight, something we talked a long about but hadn't really ever seen in cards or mostly just mentioned in cards. So we go back and had a whole fight and had a prototype

and lots of artifacts and all sorts of cool stuff. That was then followed by Phyrexia All Will Be One. The Phyrexian story is coming to a head and the heroes go to Phyrexia to save the day, but they don't. They get Phyrexianized. And then there's a giant war. That war is March of the Machine.

And it's the magic set that takes place on almost every single plane we've ever been on. And introduces battles and has all sorts of craziness. Also, we made March of the Machine Aftermath. Didn't go over quite as well.

But it was a set that wasn't drafted that introduced some new cards. After that, we have Wilds of Eldraine, which was a return to Eldraine. And introduced rolls that were really cool, and leaned a little bit more into the fairytale aspect of

Eldraine. Then we have the Lost Caverns of Ixalan, which was a return to Ixalan, but it was an underground set, so it was a backdrop set, as we call it. Something we had introduced with War of the Spark of, okay, it's not about the thing that the world is known for mechanically, but it is a backdrop. So there were dinosaurs and pirates and things there,

but it had an underground theme. And that gets us to Murders at Karlov Manor, which is the current set, which is a murder mystery themed set, set in Ravnica, another backdrop set, but it's a murder mystery set. And it has, Morph gets redone, it's disguised, and we have, you can have suspected creatures. And there's Collect Evidence. And there's puzzles built into the set, which was really cool. Anyway, guys, it took me 40 minutes.

I've been here for 10 minutes. So talking through every single magic set took a little bit longer than my normal ride. But I said I would do it, and I've done it. So anyway, guys, that is every set, every in-universe magic expansion, non-corset, that we have done. Anyway, I hope you guys

enjoyed today's podcast. It was fun to see if I could do it, and I did it. It took me longer to do it than I expected. So anyway, guys, I'm now at work. We all know what that means.

It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time. Bye-bye.