Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1183: Graveyard Mechanics

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

In this podcast, I go through all the mechanics that interact with the graveyard in some way.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so today's topic is graveyard mechanics one of my favorite Okay, so My caveat today is I try to make a thorough I'm probably missed something so I apologize for that ahead of time But I'm gonna try today to talk about all the graveyard mechanics As I talk about them We'll talk a little about the history of them, how they got made, and

then I'll talk about sort of the different ways we played with the graveyard. So obviously, the graveyard is a zone. It has existed since the very beginning of the game. And even in Alpha, while there weren't mechanics that cared about the graveyard, there were individual cards. Animate Dead got a creature out of the graveyard. Nether shadow could pop back out of the graveyard under certain conditions. Regrowth existed. I mean, the idea even from the very beginning of the game, the graveyard is where things went after you used them or they died, but things weren't necessarily

gone once they went to the graveyard. So what I want to do today is just talk about all the explorations that we've done with the graveyard by going through all the mechanics we've made in the graveyard. Okay, so the first mechanic actually shows up in antiquities, but it's not named yet. It actually doesn't get named for over 20 years, 25 years. It is milling. So there's a card in antiquity called Millstone. So when Richard had made the game, he needed to make sure there's a way that the game ended. What happened if you got in a stall on the ground and nobody could attack each other? How do you make sure the game ends? And the answer Richard came up with was, well, if you can't draw a card you lose.

The inability to draw cards from your library. So if you run out of cards, that is how the game will end. So the East Coast Play Thefters, while making Antiquities, said, well what if that was a play strategy? There were people that would just have larger decks than their opponent and try to stall out and they would mill them by just having more cards in their deck. But I think the idea was, well, what if we could do that a little faster? What if I could mill you out, but it wasn't quite so slow?

And so they made Millstone. And Millstone was popular in antiquities and it just became an effect we did, with some regularity, became an evergreen effect we did all the time. Oh, by the way, I did not mention this. When I say a graveyard mechanic, what I'm using to define that, because there's a lot of ways to define it, is a card that references the graveyard in its reminder text.

I have a few exceptions, so they don't technically reference the graveyard. I'll point those out. But the idea is it's cards that care about what is in your graveyard, getting things out of your graveyard, when things go to your graveyard, things that just reference the graveyard. So milling, oh, puts cards into your graveyard. That's why I'm counting milling, that it adds cards to your graveyard. And when you're doing graveyard themes, as I will get to, milling can become an important part of that.

Okay, then we get to Weatherlight. Weatherlight itself did not have any graveyard mechanics in it but it was the first set with a dedicated graveyard theme and so there are a lot of individual cards a lot of the ideas we're talking about show up in individual cards. It is not actually till we get to Odyssey. So Odyssey came out, when Odyssey came out, 2001 I think. So we're talking eight years into the game. It is not until 2001 that we print a named, a named graveyard keyword.

In fact, we did too, because Odyssey was a graveyard set with a graveyard theme. So it had both flashback and threshold. Okay, so we'll start both flashback and threshold. Okay well let's start with flashback. So flashbacks origin I used to be the feature match judge at Pro Tours. I would choose who was in the feature matches and then I would oversee the feature match area. While I did that I had the opportunity to watch a lot of really good players play a lot of games.

Some of them were really exciting and dynamic and awesome. Some of them, a little lopsided. So whenever I would watch a game in which one player was just clearly winning, I would imagine things that the abilities of the losing player could get that would be, maybe would be helpful. It just was something I would imagine. And one of the abilities that really tickled me was the ability to cast cards out of your graveyard I really like the idea so when we were making Odyssey it was an idea that I've been forming of what if we had spells end up going instance and sorceries that you can cast once and then when you when after you once, there's a second cost and you can cast it out of the graveyard. There was a card we had in Tempest we made mechanical buyback, let you cast spells multiple

times. Buyback you can cast as many times as you wanted. That was too much. So like the idea of a flashback that you get some of the fun of buyback that you get to do things multiple times, But just do it once and because you can cast it out of your graveyard If the card got to your graveyard some other means than you casting it such as milling You could still play it out of your graveyard So if you milled cards in your graveyard, you could gain access to cards now when we first made the mechanic

We didn't cost a lot for the flashback Now, when we first made the mechanic, we didn't cost a lot for the flashback. And it ended up, what we learned is, you know what? It's a pretty big ability to get that spell a second time. So most spells that have flashback, not all, but most, the flashback cost is significantly more than the original cost. But what we learned is, utility of having a second card is high. The utility of casting a spell twice is high. And even with a pretty big

card. And the thing we learned that was most interesting about it was that, hey, I play the card in the early game and in late game I just have an extra card. You know, at a point in time where often I run out of cards, I just had this extra card. And even though it costs more mana, hey, later in the game I have the extra mana. Okay, so flashback, there's different ways to care about the graveyard. Flashback, so one of the ways to care is the idea of I get to reuse things. I get to get things out of the graveyard, right? It could be I get creatures out of the graveyard, it could be I get spells out of the graveyard. In the case of flashback, I get to use something a second time. But the point is, it has utility in the graveyard, could be against spells out of the graveyard. In the case of Flashback, I get to

use something a second time, but the point is it has utility in the graveyard. Something we did do in Odyssey, by the way, is we introduced a little symbol, which was a little gravestone, and what that meant was this card is active in the graveyard. You can use it in the graveyard. And not only, I'm talking about mechanics today, but there were individual cards for example that just did things while in the graveyard, right? That would get the little symbol that flashback you could use in the graveyard, you could activate it in the graveyard. But there are other cards that you could, that just while they're in your graveyard, they give you an ability and that also. But anyway, so that is us sort of talking

about different ways to get things out of the graveyard. The other mechanic was threshold. So Richard Garfield created a threshold. So he was trying to think about, he liked the idea of transition, of what if there were cards that over time got stronger, that gained abilities. But Richard was like, okay well what can I do? I want to do something that you can't get right away. I want something that kind of naturally happens and something that maybe you can have some input on but that you don't have total control over. And he finally realized that the graveyard was a great resource for that because as the game progresses, the graveyard starts empty and as the game progresses it grows over time. You're going to cast spells.

You know, your instance of sorcerers will go to the graveyard. Your creatures, when they die, will go to the graveyard. If you're sacrificing permanents, they go to the graveyard. That there's ways that you, if you mill, you go to the graveyard. There's ways for you to get cards into your graveyard. And so you can get, you have some control, not total control, but some control. Richard ended up choosing seven. We did play around with threshold having different numbers like this car is threshold five

and that car is threshold seven. What we found was it's very complicated to play with multiple threshold numbers. You know, if it's just one number, it's like on or off, you think you can sort of gauge and you have to look at your graveyard, your opponent's graveyard, you know. So we's just one number, it's like on or off, you can sort of gauge. And you have to look at your graveyard, your opponent's graveyard, you know. So we locked into one number. Over the years, our play design has gone back and forth on whether seven is the right number,

eight is the right number. Whenever we say threshold, it's always seven. Threshold is seven. But we have used eight in a bunch of sets. I kind of personally wish we'd stick to one of them. I wish we'd stick to threshold just so we can use threshold and it's always seven and you know that. Anyway, threshold was so popular a mechanic

that it kind of inspired, it's a whole subset of, like we'll talk about a threshold mechanic, which means it's mechanic that turns on under certain circumstances. Something like metal craft, we have to have three artifacts. That's like a threshold mechanic. Anyway, threshold, the idea of threshold mechanics

has become pretty ingrained to R&D, but threshold was the very first threshold mechanic, at least the first named one. Okay, next up was Soul Shift. This was a mechanic in Champions of Kamigawa. So Soul Shift went on creatures, I believe, and when those creatures died, you got to bring back another spirit.

I think it's possible that Soul Shift was only on spirits. I don't remember how we used it. But it's the first mechanic that brings back creatures. Like I said, flashback lets you reuse spells. Now creatures are a little bit different than spells. Reusing spells means they use it and it's gone and now it's done with it. Soul shift gets back creatures and the point is I could use multiple soul shifts to get back the same creature. One of the things about graveyard mechanics we have to be careful of is what we call repetition of play.

We want to be careful that you're not just doing the same thing again and again. And there's some mechanics we've made that fall into that danger spot. Okay next up, Dredge. So Golgari is the black-green guild of Ravnica and every time and their theme were black and green overlap is the graveyard. So their mechanics usually is graveyard centric. The first one we ever made was Dredge. We actually made like 40 mechanics. We were, we had some trouble finding the mechanic we wanted originally for Golgari. The original version of Dredge, so Dredge is instead of drawing a card, I can choose

to take the card in the graveyard with Dredge and put it in my hand. When I do so, I have to mill a certain number of cards. Now the original version of Dredge didn't have the milling built in The idea behind it is that their cards that are costed kind of weak I never realized that the first one we made was like four and a green for a three three So five mana for three three not particularly strong, but the idea is late in the game Maybe hey, I have the mana. I'd rather have a three three than a random card Hey, I have the mana. I'd rather have a 3-3 than a random card.

So Brian Schneider led the development team. He added in the mill cost. I think the idea was the repetition of play concern. He wanted to make sure that you couldn't use them too many times. So by milling you, it limited how many uses it had. Now, the offshoot of self-milling was that it also fed on itself, so once you got one dredge card in your graveyard, it helped you get other dredge cards in your graveyard. And the way you can tell that dredge is kind of a problem mechanic is there are landless dredge decks that exist in older formats.

Land's kind of important, the mana system's kind of important. So the idea that you can sort of not have land is a little scary. Anyway, okay. Next up is Haunt and the next pet, Guild Pact. So Haunt was the Orzhov mechanic. The Orzhov, while the G'gharia are about the graveyard, the Orzav had a lot to do with death. The idea is that if you join the orjav and then you die, well, you become a ghost and you continue to have to serve. Death isn't a way out of serving for the orjav. So haunt was a mechanic.

It worked differently depending on whether it was on the incident sorcerer or a creature. The way it worked was if it was on a spell, you would do the spell, then when the spell would go to the graveyard, you would exile it to sort of attach it to a creature or connect it to a creature. When that creature died, it would, the death trigger of that creature would be the spell effect.

If it went on a creature, the creature hadn't entered the battlefield effect, and then when it died, you exiled it and connected it to a creature. And then when that creature died, its death trigger was the enter the battlefield effect from the haunt creature. Haunt is, so there's a concept in design called stickiness. And what it means is how easy it is to remember something. Stern abilities like flying are just so natural that you hear it once and boom, you got it. It's stuck in your brain. Haunt is a great example of something that's unsticky.

The reason I went through and explained what Haunt did is even people who played Guild Facts, who played with Haunt, who had decks with Haunt in it So go, how does Haunt work again? It is just I mean, it does not help that it works in two different ways that doesn't help But it's just something about it that doesn't right now. There's something cool about Haunt. The word is excellent. The flavor is pretty good When I did the great design research three, I think One of the questions there there's 10 essay questions

that are part of getting into it. One of the essay questions was, pick a mechanic that was not successful in its first time that you think could be redone, a la Chrome or something, where we could redo it and do it better. And the very popular mechanic people chose was Haunt. So we've looked at Haunt, I think Haunt as executed was poor, but I do think there's maybe a way we can actually Haunt. So we've looked at Haunt. I think Haunt as Executor was poor, but I do think there's maybe a way we can actually Haunt better. It's something we've looked at.

Okay, moving on to Cold Snap. There are two mechanics in Cold Snap, sort of the Ice Age, Recover and Retrace. So Recover, there's a card in Ice Age, it's kind of a nether shadow variant. Nether ghoul? I'm trying to remember what it's called. Anyway, it's a creature that when a creature comes to the graveyard on top of it, I think you can get it out. Oh no, no, there's some number, anyway, yeah, I think if a creature graveyard on top of it, I think you can get it out. Oh, no, no, there's some number. Anyway, yeah, I think if a creature's on top of it, you can get it out.

Anyway, it required graveyard order mattering. And so the Colts and Knapp design team said, you know what, hey, let's make this mechanic. Hey, it'll be a throwback to Ice Age. Graveyard will matter again. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, there's a reason we got rid of graveyard order mattering. It's horrible.

Let people rearrange their graveyard, you know. And if we bring it back here, then there's all these other formats that now have to care about it. We've managed to push it off. Don't do that. And so we ended up doing something where you can get it back, but only, I think, when a creature enters the battlefield, like you can do it then there, but otherwise it gets exiled. So like there's this, we try to mimic the idea that you can get this creature back when other creatures die.

But it was done really in the moment that it happens rather than tracking it over what's on top of it. Retrace was a went on instance in sorceries and it allowed you to sort of turn your lands into that spell. So if the spell's in your graveyard, you can discard a land and pay the cost of the spell to essentially cast the spell. So the way to think of it is you sort of turn your lands into the spell. I guess technically you don't do that, but it's the easiest way to think about it.

I think Retrace was a little bit more fun. It had the repetition of play issues that a lot of recursive mechanics do. And you could do it multiple times. Neither one of those mechanics were slam dunk, I will stress. Okay, next up we get to FutureSight. So FutureSight had the future shifted seat.

The future shifted sheet, that is hard to say. And on it were a bunch of mechanics that did not exist yet, that maybe one day would exist. Those two mechanics were Delve and Gravestorm. So Delve was a mechanic that said, hey, you can exile a card from your graveyard to make my spell one cheaper. We would end up, Delve did find a home eventually in the Sol Tye in Khans of Tar'kyr and it

turned out to be a broken mechanic. One of the things about graveyard mechanics is they're sort of like card drawing mechanics. They're one of the mechanics that has potential to be problematic. Anyway, so we did Delve in Khans ofter Kheer. It didn't actually cause a problem in Standard, I believe. It was good in Standard, I believe, but we actually had abandoned older formats. It's really good. Delve's really good. Older formats had to go to fill up your graveyard much faster, and so it was quite good. And then Gravestorm was a storm variant. The idea is when you cast a Gravestorm spell, you get a copy for every, I think every, forget

whether every creature that died this turn or every permanent that died, I think it's every creature or it might be every permanent that got put in the graveyard. I don't remember exactly. But anyway, the idea is instead of like normal storm, you get to copy it for every spell that you cast. I think it's for every creature you control that died. So the idea is you get to copy it for deaths. Grave Storm, much like Storm, is kind of dangerous.

Not that we can't occasionally do it, but you have to be careful because it can make very explosive turns. Okay, next up is Persist in Shadowmour. So, interestingly, Persist was originally designed for Lorwyn. The idea was we were doing two mini blocks, one large, one small, and one was kind of the mirror image of the other. One was light, one was dark, one was day, one was night. So the idea was we wanted Lorwyn to be a gentler, kindler place. A kindler, kinder place. And so originally instead of killing creatures what if we just injure them so we tried using minus one minus one counters so

like the idea is that we don't kill the creatures we injure the creatures but it felt meaner so we ended up saving minus one minus one counters for Shadowmore we actually made persistent that window where we were playing around with minus one minus one counters I think Nate Heitz designed this mechanic anyway the idea is it went on creatures when the creature died if it didn playing around with minus one, minus one counters. I think Nate Heights designed this mechanic. Anyway, the idea is it went on creatures. When the creature died, if it didn't have a minus one, minus one counter on it, it came back with a minus one, minus one counter. So the idea is the creature sort of comes back once,

but it has a counter on it. And once again, this is also playing in the space of things coming back and forth of being in the graveyard. Okay, next, Unearth from Shards of Alar. This was the Grixis mechanic. So the idea of Unearth, it was a variant on Flashback. I think we called it Flash Dance of the Dead because Flashback was a mechanic and the Dance of the Dead was a reanimation spell. So the idea here is if I have Unearth on a creature, I can activate it, it comes back to the battlefield, it has haste, but in return I sacrifice it. So I get to reuse my creature but just for one turn.

Next, morbid. Morbid was an innistrad, it's an ability word. Morbid cared if a creature died this turn. Didn't care what creature. It went on spells, it went on different spells, instant sorceries and creatures and whatever. All it said is, hey, if a creature died this turn, it usually enhanced the spell or sometimes on permanence, it granted an ability. But the idea essentially is, it cares about whether something died.

Innistrad had this, we wanted you to be afraid, so we liked the idea, and we wanted death to matter. So we liked the idea that when things died, bad things could happen. And so like, let's say my opponent attacks with a creature that I could clearly block and kill. Normally, okay, I'll block and kill it, but I'm like, oh, do they want it to die?

You know? I mean, normally, something does that, you're thinking, oh, they have a combat trick, but now it's like, oh, maybe they don't have a combat trick, maybe they want it, do I want to kill it? Maybe I don't want to kill it, you know? It created a lot of interesting decisions. Okay, next up is Undying from Dark Ascension. So Undying was, I wanted to play, the monsters were taken over, the humans were on their

last legs. And the idea was I wanted a mechanic that really played up how cool it was to be a monster. The trope I was playing into was in horror films, the hero kills the monster, it is dead, let's celebrate, yay, things are over. And no, they're not dead, they're not dead yet. And so I actually, this mechanic came about because I was talking with my wife, Laura, and I was just, sometimes I talk things through with her

and I was saying, oh, I'm trying to do this mechanics represents creatures coming back. And so Laura said, well, have you done it before? Is there anything like it? I go, yeah, there's a mechanic called persist, but we're not using minus one, minus one counters. And she goes, why not? I go, well, we're using plus one, plus one. And you know, she's a little, we can't use minus one, minus one counters. And she goes, why not? I go, well, we're using plus one, plus one.

And you know, she's like, we can't use plus one, plus one. I'm like, I can use plus one, plus one. So Undying is persistent, except it gets bigger. Undying is hard to make, only because the creatures look kind of sucky, that the fact when it dies, it comes back even better. It is a strong mechanic and people liked it,

but it is hard to make spells with. Next up is salvage in return to Ravnica. We're back in Ravnica, Golgari gets another chance to be Golgari. So in this one, the Golgari have the ability, salvage goes on creatures. When creatures go to the graveyard, you can exile them from the graveyard

to put some number of plus one plus one counters on the creature, usually equal to the, they normally they had square stats and you would put on equal to their power slash toughness. Also sometimes we would grant abilities to the creature head ability. But anyway, the idea is I die, but just because I'm dead doesn't mean that my contribution goes on. And there's a lot of like Golgari building armor out of skeletons and former Golgari and stuff. Okay. Next up shadows of Indusart Head Delirium. So it's sort of a variant on

threshold, but instead of caring about how many cards are in your graveyard, it cares about how many different card types are in your graveyard. And Delirium, there are, if you count at the time, Tribal, which is now Kindred. I think there are eight card types. Anyway, it just allows you, it had a really different building. When you built it, you wanted to think about, oh, I want to make sure I have maybe, I want to instant in the Sorcery and maybe some artifact, artifact creatures are good or maybe I want an aura because an aura will die and then I'll get

enchantment in my graveyard. So anyway, just was a different way to think about things. So delirium, by the way, I didn't mention this, is what I called graveyard as barometer, meaning that I care about what's in my graveyard, that as my graveyard fills up, I look and I care and I see what's in it. And there's a lot of fun things we can do with graveyard as barometer. In

contrast to that is graveyard as resource where I'm using when I get to a resource mechanical talk about it I'm getting to one soon but the idea there is that the graveyard is a resource that grows over time I eat it and I use it so that it it those mechanic delves is a good example of a graveyard resource mechanic right that every delve card I use makes it harder to use other delve cards and so graveyard barometer you want to play them all together and the more the merrier hey once I'm committing to threshold or delirium I might as well commit but something like delves there's some tension that maybe maybe I want to play some together because maybe

I'm playing cards I'm playing million cards that get stuff into my graveyard, but I want to be careful not to play too much because it'll fight itself. Okay, next up, Revolts from Aether Revolt. Basic Revolt, it didn't, this is one of the cards, I said that most of these mention the graveyard. Revolt does not mention the graveyard. It mentions leaving the battlefield.

And the idea is things revolt when they go to the graveyard but also when they get exiled I think also like when they return to your hand or top of library or whatever whenever they leave the battlefield but I mentioned graveyard because one of the most common ways that you'll get revolt is things going to the graveyard so even though it doesn't mention the graveyard it kind of is a morbid variant. And morbid specifically talks about dying, but revolt affects other things other than just creatures. Okay, next up is Embalm from Amonkhet. So we were in our ancient Egyptian inspired set, so we wanted to have mummies. So we made a mechanic called Embalm. The way Embalm works, one of the

specific creatures, you could pay a mana, exile that creature, and then you made a token copy of that creature that, in addition to everything else, was white and a mummy. And then we made tokens for each one so that if you wanted to play the card, there was a token that showed that creature but wrapped up as a mummy. And then in the very next set, Out of Devastation, we made Eternalize, which was the exact same mechanic, except it always defaulted to being a 4-4. Nicole Bolles was raising an internal army of zombies that he would later use in the War of the Spark, and so we wanted to show him making the Eternals, and so Eternal Eyes

represented that. The fun thing about Eternal Eyes was because the power toughness would change The creatures tend to be smaller have abilities that cared about the power toughness in some way And then when they got bigger they got stronger. So the idea is the early version the creature was not as strong as the later version of the creature Okay, next up was undergrowth. We're back in Ravnica back to the Golgari. So undergrowth There's a card in Ice Age called Lurgoif. Lurgoif cares about how many creature cards, I think they're in all graveyards, but Lurgoif

cared about. Undergrowth, I forget what undergrowth is, just your graveyard, all graveyards. I think it's your graveyard. But anyway, undergrowth is, they're scaling effects, meaning things that care, things that when they do their effect, they look at how many creature cards you have in your graveyard, and that's how big the effect is. And so, like I said, there's a lot of individual cards

that interact with the graveyard that eventually we make a whole mechanic on. Undergrowth is a good example where we sort of take what was fun about Lurgoif and turn it into a whole mechanic. After that, there's Afterlife, the Orjav in Ravnica Allegiance. Undergrowth was in Guilds of Ravnica. So Afterlife, like I said, the Orjav don't let you get out of your contract just because you die.

It went on creatures. When they die, they made a little flying 1-1 spirit token. If it was white and black, it might have been white. But anyway, you made a little flying one-one spirit token. If it was white and black, it might have just been white. But anyway, you made a little one-one flying spirit token. Next, Theros Beyond Death is escape. So the story about Theros Beyond Death was Elzbeth was trapped in the underworld and needed to get out. So a lot of the story took place in the underworld.

And so since it was all about Elzbeth escaping, we had a mechanic about escaping death, escaping the underworld. And the underworld was kind of the graveyard because that's where death happens. So we made a mechanic where you had to pay a cost, but part of the cost was exiling some number of cards from the graveyard to return things back. So again, this is like I said,

this is both an example of a returning card, something that gets things back, but also uses graveyard as a resource. So it's a mix and match. Um, as we make more graveyard sets, we, we can mix and match stuff. Next up is Encore, which was in commander legends. Encore is kind of a multiplayer version of unearth. The idea is you pay mana, you exile the creature, then you make copies equal to all your opponents, put them on the battlefield, and then they can attack for the turn, but then they go

away. They hasten, they can attack for the turn. So I think what happened was Unearth is a fun mechanic. They wanted to make it a little better for multiplayer play, and so Encore is just sort of, okay okay not only do I get it once to attack one person I get it once to attack all my opponents and that was pretty fun. Okay next up let's see is Disturb that was introduced in Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow.

It went on double face cards. The idea of Disturb is you play the front side of the card, but then you can play the backside from the graveyard. So the idea is you play the front. So, uh, Oh, I forgot about this. There was a mechanic. Like I said, I didn't hit everything. Uh, there was a mechanic called Aftermath that was in Amonkhet. Uh, the way Aftermath worked is there were kind of like a split card except there was one on the top and a sideways spell on the bottom. You always cast the one on the top from your hand, then you can cast the sideways one from

your graveyard. So it's kind of a variant on flashback, kind of a variant on split cards in the sense that you can cast one spell from your hand and one from the graveyard, but they're not the same spell like flashback. But in split cards, you can't choose between them. You cast one at one time and one at the other time. Disturb at a little bit of that quality. You always cast the front side. Then you have the ability to cast the back side. The difference between disturb and aftermath is aftermath, they had to be instance and

sorceries. Disturb, the back could be a permanent. I believe the way we did Midnight Hunt was the back, I think was a spell. But in Crimson Valley, the back was an enchantment. I believe we have the way we did in Midnight Hunt was the back I think was a spell but in Crimson Valley the back was an enchantment I believe. So the idea of the disturb is it's kind of like Aftermath but it uses two sides two faces and the backside can be a permanent. In theory also I guess the front side could be a permanent. In theory not 100% sure. I don't know how the rules are set up for disturburb. Next up is Paradox. Paradox was in the Doctor Who set.

This is another one that does not mention Graveyard by name. It rewards you for casting cards not from your hand. Well, it turns out there's two major ways to do that, the Graveyard and Exile. So stuff like flashbacks, stuff like unearth, all those kinds of effects, Paradox cares about them. So it is very much caring about you getting things and casting things out of your graveyard. Next is Descend and Fathomless Descent from the Lost Caverns of Ixalan. That was a mechanic that cared about things that went to your graveyard, but specifically

cared about how many permanent cards were in your graveyard. So there's Descent 4 and Descent 8, so they're kind of like threshold, but it cared about a specific thing, much like Delirium cared about a specific thing. In this case, it cared about permanent cards. Fabulous Descent, I believe, was scalable, where Descent had a number, but anyway, other than the fact that there was a lot of different ways to do it, maybe we could have done it one way, it's a fun mechanic. Also, also in Lost Caverns, Ixalan, there was the crafting mechanic that allowed you to use resources and use those resources were from the graveyard to transition something

and turn it into something else. So you tended to craft out of resources from your graveyard. Okay, we're almost done here. Collect evidence from murders of Karloff Manor. So that was an additional cost. It was a keyword action that you can collect evidence and had a number. In order to collect evidence, you had to remove that, whatever the number was, that amount of mana value of cards

meaning if you're exiled the cards if you added up the mana value of the cards you removed that's what you had to do so collect evidence six which was the most common one oh well i have to exile cards whose combined mana value is six or greater and then it would generate an effect so once again using graveyard as a resource i like like click events a lot. I think it's a pretty cool mechanic. Finally, as recording this, Bloomberg is the set that is out. Forage. Forage is the squirrel mechanic. You get to do things, but in order to pay for them, you have to either exile three cards from your graveyard or sacrifice some food. So it's not, it doesn't always care about graveyard because you can't use food.

But because it uses the graveyard, I will mention it here. Like I said, graveyard is a very rich, powerful, awesome thing. A lot of sets, almost every set makes use of the graveyard some way. Not every set has a keyword mechanic or an ability word or a keyword action, but a lot of sets do. They're very popular, like I said. We've done a whole bunch of them and I'm sure I forgot a few, so I apologize for the few I forgot. I try to be as thorough as I can, but in the morning when I decide on my topic, I don't have so much time to do my research, so this one I did a bunch of research, more than I normally do, but

I apologize if I missed something. Once again, the ways to use the grave, the big categories of the graveyard, graveyard's barometer, I can care about what's in the graveyard, graveyard is a resource, I can chew up and eat the graveyard as a resource. Returning things from the graveyard, giving the ability to reuse things or get things back. Or caring about things entering the graveyard. And oh, the one thing I didn't mention, this is not a keyboard mechanic, but in Shrixhaven, the lore hold, which is the red-white, they had a theme that cared

about when things left your graveyard. So that was something, not a name thing, but anyway, there's a lot of ways to use greater mechanics, it's a really fruitful space of design. And the one thing I will say before I leave, we once talked about what if there was a format, played obviously in R&D, where you could only use cards that you designed, meaning, you know, or the format was you could only use cards designed by one designer, maybe that's a better way

to think of the format, So all you could play. What would be the most powerful deck for each designer? Like what's the most powerful rosewater deck? And I decided, because I love, love, love graveyard mechanics, and I love graveyard, and I've made so many graveyard cards. Like if you look at all the mechanics here I had a hand in most of them and a lot of them at least I think the most the the best rosewater deck you could make using rosewater design cards would be a graveyard centric thing anyway for

those for those that are playing the R&D designer format anyway guys I'm now at work and it's time for me to go but I hope you guys enjoyed this peering into the graveyard and I will see you all next time. Did I do my out go? I don't know if I did, but since I'm here at work, and if I drive to work, instead of talking magic, it's time to be making magic. I apologize if I said that twice. I'll see you all next time. Bye bye.