Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1368: Getting the Banned Together, Part 2

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

This is part two of a new series, based on a talk I gave at MagicCon: Amsterdam, where I talk about the design of all the cards I had a major hand in that would later be banned or restricted.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for their drive to work. Okay, so today is part two in the series I'm calling Getting the Band Together, which is me through a series of podcast documenting the stories of every card that I had a major hand in that got banned or restricted. And so anyway, last time we left off, we left off in August of 1999 when Yagma's bargain got banned. But today we're picking up in September of 1999. The following three cards got banned or restricted and extended and vintage.

So banned and extended, restricted and vintage. So the cards, let me go through them one at a time and I will explain each of them as I get to them. So we'll start with frantic search. Franticsearch costs two in a blue. It is, I think, an instant, isn't it? I think it's an instant. It's draw two cards, discard two cards. But then you untapped up to three lands.

this is what we call a free spell, meaning that it untaps lands equal to the man of value of the spell. So it should cost you, you should have to tap three lands to cast it, but it didn't untapped three lands. So let's talk a little bit about free spells and how they came to be. So to do this, we have to go back to Ice Age. So Ice Age introduced something we call cantrips. And the idea is some of, like when you pay for a card, you're paying two costs. One cost you're paying is you're paying mana. the second cost is you're spending a card.

And the card has utility. The card actually means something. If you ever learn about card advantage, like the card itself has value. And when you cast a card, you're giving up the card, much like you're discarding a card. And so the idea of a cantrip was, what if the casting of a card didn't cost a card?

Now, originally in Ice Age, you would get the card at the beginning of the next turn. But we eventually realized we didn't need to do it. There's like one card that mattered for an Ice Age. And it didn't matter here. So we started doing cantrip, just draw a card. And the idea is that we get to cost a little bit more. Usually you cost about two more to have a cantrap, to draw a card.

Drawing a card is worth about two men, roughly. And so the idea is that we would do cantrip. So Bill Rose, I believe, at some point, decided that, you know, that if we wanted to excite people about things, we needed to sort of not do them for a while to build up excitement and do them. So one of those things he thought was multi-collar cards. That is why, like, for a couple years, the two sets leading up to invasion, Erz's Saga and Mercadian Mask had no gold cards in them. But another one he thought was cantrips. If we wanted to make canterps exciting,

we need to save up for cantrips. I argued with him at the time. I didn't win this argument. I believe canterping is a cost. Like, we shouldn't deny ourselves costs. Costs are important. But anyway, for Erza Saga, we were not allowed to do any cantrips. So I was trying to think of, could we do something? I was just how to replace cantrips. So remember, like I said, a card is two values. The value is mana and a card. Well, I can't give you back the card.

What if I could give you back the mana? That was the idea behind free spell. So the, you know, friend of search is, I have to have three mana to be able to cast it. But if I have three mana, essentially it's free because I get to untap the lands that I use to cast it. That was the idea. So free spells proved to be pretty broken. And the major reason is that they actually could net you mana. Not just pay back, man, not just be free, but gain you mana.

Probably the – we're talking to Rosa Saga here. So the biggest was Tilarian Academy. So Toulatian Academy, by the way, I'm a lot. I think I talked about this last time, where I don't count Tilleron Academy as one of the cards that I had a major hand in. I did change it from tapping for colorless to tapping for a color, because I convinced the rest of the development team that having a color cycle of lands made it a little more, made it cooler. And they agreed until we did that.

But anyway, Tilleran Academy lets you tap for a lot of blue mana. And so when you got to untapped a land and one of those lands be Tilaran Academy, you could net huge amounts of mana. So the idea is free spells not only didn't cost you mana, sort of. They netted you mana. So if I had three mana, one of which is a Tilaran Academy,

or I just have a Tilaran Academy, let's say. But imagine I have three mana, one of which is Tilaran Academy. I get untapped three lands. So I get two manner from my two other lands. And then I get some number of mana from my Tilaran Academy. Three, four, five, six. So it allows me to net a lot of mana. So it was very good.

And it's also a searching card. So like it, it was very, very good in combo decks because it helped go find the cards you needed to find that you needed. So Franic Search was broken. Tinker. So Tinker costs two in a blue. It's a sorcery. When you cast it, you have to sack an artifact you have on the battlefield.

And then you get to go through your deck, find an artifact, any artifact. put it on the battlefield, I believe, untapped, and then shelf of your library. So this card came about because there was a card in Antiquities. Antiquities, my favorite expansion up until coming to Wizards. I had an artifact transmute artifact, it was called. And the way it worked is you had to sacrifice an artifact, and then you go got an artifact out of your deck, except you paid the difference in mana.

So if I sacked a one mana value artifact and got a six mana, I'd have to pay five. and I think it costs one blue manna, I believe, is what it costs. So anyway, I was just trying to make a fixed version of it. I liked a lot what the car did. It was fun to tutor for things. But the idea of, you know, having to pay the differential, that's a lot of words. I'm like, well, I'll just charge you more.

So I'll charge you two more, but then not charge you for the differential. Well, Transmute Artifact, never been banned, never been restricted. Tinker. So we had a conversation one time in the pit where the conversation was what is the most broken card markets ever designed?

And the pit came to the conclusion that Tinker was the most broken and Tinker is mighty broken. There are many things you can cast for zero that are artifacts. Some of which even produce mana. And that means when you get to three mana you can turn that zero cost

artifact into crazy things we make big powerful artifacts. Like one of the most powerful is blight steel colossus. I think it is a 12-12 with infect, either 11-11 or 12-12-foot infect. The point is, if it hits you, you die and lose the game. And so you can get things that can win really, really fast.

Anyway, so Tinker, also mistake. Next is Crop Rotation. So Crop Rotation is a sorcery. Oh, no, sorry, it's an instant. Tinker was a sorcery. Crop rotation is an instant. It costs one green mana. It allows you to sack a land, then go into your deck, get any land you want, put it in play untapped.

So it turns a land into another land, although not just a basic land, any land. So it just color fixes you. It lets you get pretty powerful lands. In fact, Frantic Search and Tinker and Crop Rotation all were quite good with Teleran Academy. Obviously, Frantic Search let me untap it and get more man out. of it. Cropportation let me go get it out of my deck. And I believe this is the point where only one person could have a legendary permanent

in play, the same legendary permanent in play. So if you got your T'Lanian Academy out before your opponent got their Tijuanaan Academy out, that was usually game over because now you prevented them from having a Tullan Academy unless they destroyed your Tullian Academy. So a lot of games came down to who could get theirs out first. That's why Croportation was so important. And then, I guess Tinker, it's more that Tilarianianian. Academy allowed you to be able to cast Tinker and the kind of deck that Tilaran Academy wanted,

which was a deck full of artifacts, played really well with the strategy of Tinker, which wanted a deck full of artifacts. So all these three cards really played well. They got banned because they were all really useful in the same kind of mono-blue slash artifact deck. That was quite powerful. Okay. Now we jump forward to June of 2000. The following was banned in mass block. Rashiden, Rashadin, Rashad in Port. It's a land, tap for Kullis,

and you can spend one and tap it to tap a land. What was going on here? So, I said earlier that Bill had sort of put this dictum out that we weren't going to do multicolor in Erza Saga or in Mercadian Mass. So Free Spells was me trying to adjust in Erzosa Saga causing problems. Well, Rashadimport was me causing problems in Ricated Mass.

So the idea was since there were no multicolored cards, we felt we could use some of the space that we might use for... Dual lands, let me take a drink. We would use the space that we would use for dual lands for what I'll call call callous lands. That meant lands that tap for callous. And when you tap for colorless, you get a little utility, because that's weaker than tapping for a color.

And so we made five cards. I think I made most of these cards. Five cards that just... The idea is I tap for a color and then I do something what was supposed to be a little bit innocuous. Another one I made that ended up causing a problem was called Dust Bowl.

There was a card called Strip Mine that was made in... What was Strip Mine made? Antiquities. That was quite problematic. It was a land that you could tap and sack to destroy a land. I then tried to make...

make a fixed version of in Tempice called Wasteland that while weaker, weaker than shrimp mine was still pretty powerful. It destroyed a non-basic land. So it didn't destroy basic lands, but still really good. Dust Bowl was my next attempt at it. I finally get a ghost quarter, I think, was my, the solution of the one I like where you destroy one of their lands, but they get replaced with a basic land from their deck. So it does allow you to deal with problematic lands, but it doesn't make them go down on mana. So anyway, I did finally tell us that one. Anyway, The other ones, I just thought what I was doing were tiny effects. I really didn't think I was doing anything.

And Rashad and Port, it turns out, messing with the opponent's mana, is quite powerful. And I don't think I really respected how powerful it was. And it's a good example of why you just, like, this is, this card was made during Mercantian Masks. And that is just the beginning, or I guess, no, no, no, before we got it. We realized from Urza Saga that we really needed sort of better developers, people who were really, really good at power level. A lot of the people, like the first wave of, or sorry, the second wave of R&D that I got hired in, which was me and Bill Rose and Mike Elliott and William Jockish. William was the only one of the three of us that was, even had some developmental aspects. And really, we then hired Henry who had come from the proctor.

And we started hiring people with the proctor, Randy and Mike Drenay. and Mike Turian and Matt Place and Brian Schneider and we just started hiring people who, like, they were good at breaking things and understanding what the good things were. But anyway, it's a good example of not quite having those people around. I made a card that seemed innocuous enough to us that we really didn't test it.

And once people started playing with it, it was obvious it was good. We just didn't recognize that. So that is Rashad important. Okay, next we get to March of 2001. These cards were banned and extended. First is replenish. Three in a white sorcery. Return all enchantments to the battlefield.

There have been some cards before this. All Halloween Eve, Living Death. They returned all the creatures in your graveyard to the battlefield, although some of them did other things. And I think we had done something that returned all the land from the battlefield. Anyway, I just said, we were making... So Urza Saga, although it was not so obvious after the fact,

had an enchantment theme to it. And so we were playing around with enchantments. So I was just trying to make a useful thing for enchantments that I hadn't seen us to do with enchantments before. And the idea was, okay, well, let's just get Enchantments back from the discard pile. I think when I made it, I thought it was more of this novel thing. And I definitely, by the way, when I used to...

Back in the day, back when I was a developer, I mean, I guess I'm a designer at this point, but I still did development. I would play in the FFL, the Future Future League. And I actually, when Erza's destiny was in the Future Future League, I made a mono-white deck with Yagmoth bargains in it. And the idea was I discarded the bargains in other ways, and then I used Replenish.

Replenish was the way I got them into play. I didn't even have black man in my deck. I remember Yagma's Bargain I talked about last time. was like, what did it cost? It was a lot of black mana. It was expensive. What was your name? Oh, it's four black black.

So it's six mana. So the idea was I would get it into my graveyard and then replenish to get it like probably way before I could even cast it out of my hand. And anyway, I... The replenish was pretty fine. I knew replenish was powerful even back then.

But it turned out to be even more powerful than I thought. The funny thing is when I turned over replenished because Erz's Destiny, I was the design team. We were kind of pinched on design. So I did all the design myself. And I believe I turned Replenish over at three in a white. Now, given I was the design team,

it was my job to properly cost things. But I gave my, and it didn't change. I used to joke that if I realized they wouldn't change it, maybe I should have cost it higher. But anyway, that's replenish. Survival of the fittest is one in a green. It's an enchantment. For one green mana, you can discard a creature card in your hand,

and you can go get a creature card out of your library and put it in your hand. So turn any creature card in your hand to any creature card in your deck. It's another engine card. I like... The idea is you turn a creature card into another creature card,

but ideally you're turning less valuable creature card into more valuable creature card. There is a card... What was it called? It's a mirage. Where you could sack a creature to go get a larger creature

from your deck and put it into play. And I really liked that concept and I was just kind of tweaking it. And I was like, But what? Instead of turning a small creature in play into a bigger creature in play, I turned a small creature in hand into a bigger creature in hand. And my thought, for instance, at the time is you still have to cast it, right? You know, like, I'm not taking...

It goes to your hand, so I'm not putting it to play. But what I missed is... One of the things about magic is late in the game, sometimes I draw dead cards, right? And one of the ways I draw dead cards is I draw creatures that would be valued to be early in the game. but aren't valuable late in the game. Oh, look, it's turn 8 and I draw a Landor War Elf. I don't need a Lander War Elf.

I don't need a lot of the Manner War Elf? You know what I really need? Rather than Landau War Elf? A better creature. And so it turned sort of suboptimal creatures into optimal creatures. It's like instead of my Lano War elf, I get to go get the absolute best creature

for me at that time. And in general, I think one of the things you can see a through line here is just not having enough respect for the power of tutoring. Tutoring is very, very powerful. Going to get the exact thing you need when you need it is infinitely powerful. As you will see, as we continue through, a lot of the cards I'm making to get banned restricted.

In fact, do Tudor. Okay, now we're going to jump ahead. October of 2002. The following card was banned in commander. Test of endurance. Two white-white enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, you win the game if you have 50 or more life. So let's go back.

This story begins in antiquities. a lot of stories begin. I really like. The antiquities had big impact on me. There's a card in antiquities called Millstone. So Millstone was a card. It cost two, I believe, and two in Tap.

You put the top two cards of the Port of the Library into the Target Player, I think. But you mill the Target Player, two cards from Target Player, Mill 2. So you put the cards from the top of the library into the graveyard.

And so there was, when Richard Garfield made magic, he understood that, you know, the game was normally going to end because you did damage to the opponent. But what happens if you get a stalemate? How does the game end? And so Richard came up with a backup

that said, when you can't draw, you lose the game. So the idea is somebody at some point is going to deck themselves and then, well, then they'll lose. That was kind of the backup, like to make sure the game ends. You draw a card every turn,

so eventually it's going to draw their last card. So the East Coast play of chapters in antiquities, their design team, made a card called Millstone. And the idea of Millstone is, oh, I can put this in my deck as a means to mill out my opponent. Like, if I just sort of control the environment

and I mill them, rather than just having weight for them to mill out, I could speed it along. I was so enamored with that card. I loved milling. I thought milling was so cool. And then in Legends, Venex said, there was two cards that introduced poison counters. Now I could win the game by giving my opponent 10 poison counters.

And I just became enamored with alternate win conditions. So much so, I made the cheese stands alone and unglued. I made, oh, what's it called? There's the first ever five-color sorcery that you win the game. If you have one of every color in play, I'm flicking the name on that. I think that was in... Anyway, the point is, I really, really, really... enjoyed all wind conditions.

So when I was working on Odyssey, I came up with a master plan. Instead of having one wind condition, what if we had a cycle of wind conditions? But because I didn't think of such as much wind conditions in them, I said, what if we stretched

them across the block? And so, I can remember all these. So Battle of Wits and Chance Encounter, the blue and red one, Battle of Wits is, if you have big enough library, which ended up being the real powerful card that people played. Chance encounters about flipping coins.

Then there was Mortal Kombat, which was about creature cards in graveyard. That was in torment. And then in judgment, there was, what was the green one called? Epic Struggle, which was about having a certain number of creatures in play. And then this one was Test of Endurance. Notice all of them have a synonym for like a challenge. And Testive Endurance, we thought life was cool. Now, to be fair, we picked 50 life because you started at 20 life.

And okay, doubling your life and then 10 more seemed like a real challenge. That was something to work. Because you start with 40 life in Commander. And because the early games is a little less rigorous, you know, people sort of build up. Getting 10 life really just wasn't that much of a challenge. Nowhere near as much a challenge as getting 30 life. And once again, two-player games are a little faster than the Commander game. So it just, the card was broken only because it was designed for one thing,

and then when it was played in a different format with different structures, yeah, it was just imbalanced. I don't think Testive Adurance is problematic in two-player. I don't think it's ever been banned in any two-player format. But anyway, that's just me trying to do all-win conditions. Okay, March 2003, this card was banned and extended and restricted in vintage. In-tomb! This is from Odyssey.

So Odyssey was a graveyard set. So I decided to make a graveyard tutor. So in Tomb, it costs a single black manate. It's an instant. You search your library for a card and just put it in your graveyard. That's it. Just put it in your graveyard. It's not in your hand.

It's not on the battlefield. How much problem can this cause? That's what I thought. So the idea was I was a very Johnny deck builder before I came to Wizards. And I loved making reanimation decks. I used, at the time, animate dead was the one from Alpha that I used. But there are other ones that came along. And the idea is I somehow get a really big creature in my graveyard.

And then I animate it. And then either I attack it or some weird cases I'd give it to you. But the idea is I get something that would way, way sooner than I should. If I can somehow discard a card or somehow get a big creature card into my graveyard and then animate it. And so I liked the idea of just making easier to do like one of the things I tend to do, especially early on at Wizards, is just think of decks that I made that I enjoyed and go, could I do that a little bit easier?

And so the idea was, I just want to get stuff in my graveyard. How much damage could that do? Well, it turns out in turn one, if you put your giant creature into the graveyard, and turn two, with animate dead you take it out of the graveyard, you can get things on turn two that you shouldn't get. But anyway, in Tomb, I mean, one of the lessons of today is tutoring is very powerful. And even tutoring to a zone that you think, like, oh, what does it matter? Like, I can't even cast it.

Well, if you're putting in your graveyard, there's something you're doing with that. And we make cards that interact with stuff, like reanimation. And there's other ways, too. There's also cards that have effects in graveyard. Anyway, it turned out to be better than I thought. Okay, that gets us to May of 2003. The following five cards are banned in Commander. Golden Wish, Cunning Wish, Death Wish, Burning Wish, Living Wish.

As I said, the theme of today is how Tudors can be broken. So the wish is, so what happened is a judgment, so Odyssey Block was about the graveyard, but we did this little thing, we're in Torment, the second set in the set. We had more black cards than any other color and less white and green cards. So to balance it out in judgment, we had more white and green cards and less black cards. And so one of the things we did is we had brought back like Sanger Vampire in torment. So we brought back Ernam Jin in judgment.

We thought it was fun to bring back a powerful creature of the past. It wasn't quite as powerful as people remembered it, but, you know, early magic creatures were pretty weak. So what was powerful was subjectively different, I guess. But anyway, we brought it back. And so we were looking for a splashy rare cycle that we could tie to the Ernam Jin. because we're planning to earn them gin for our marketing.

And so I was really inspired by a card called Ring of Maroof that Richard Garfield had made that let you get a card from outside the game. Dun, da, down, outside the game. And I thought, well, what if we tutored from outside the game? And I think when I pitched it, I in fact called them wishes. Because the idea is, oh, I have a gin. Well, the gin grants me wishes. And the wishes, let me go get the thing.

my deck really needs that I didn't remember to put in my deck or I didn't, you know, that I can go get something that's not in my deck. And we chopped it up. So let's see. Golden Wish. Golden Wish is three white-white. It gets an artifact or enchantment from outside the game. All these go into your hand.

Carving Wish is two in a blue. It goes against instance. Death Wish is one black, black. Gets any card, but you lose half your life. Burning Wish is one in a red. It's a ghost gets its sorcery. and Living Wish is one in a green against a creature or a land.

So we got all the car types at the time. There's some ones that wishes didn't get, but they just didn't exist at the time. The Plains Walker, for example, wasn't the other creature. It was a car type. But the idea was that you can go and get whatever you need when you need it.

And this is pretty fun. In fact, I like the wishes quite a bit. I've played in a few formats. I remember I played in, there's one format where the public played Wizards. It was an online event. And I had a burning wish, and I had to list all the sorceries I could get.

I wanted to win a game with coin flipping. I never actually had an opportunity to do it. But there's a game by which you can do damage to the opponent by flipping coins. Game of chaos, I think. Anyway, and I wanted to go get that to winning a game. It didn't end up happening. I did use the wish, but I didn't end up doing that. Anyway, the challenge here is wishing is powerful.

But ironically, that's not why they got banned. The reason they got banned and Commander is there is no outside the game in Commander. There's no side. So in constructed play, we change it so when you wish you go and get cards that are in your sideboard. Later, we let you go get cards that had been exiled, which I don't agree with. But there's no sideboard. There's no out of the game. So any card that lets you go get things outside the game, there is no outside the game.

You can't do that in Commander. So the cards weren't banned for power reasons. they're just bent because they don't work in Commander. Okay, next up is October of 2003. Banned and extended, restricted and vintage. Gush! So Gush is from Acadian masks. It costs four in a blue,

and it's an instant where you draw two cards, but if you bounce two islands, meaning you put two islands from your battlefield into your hand, your islands, you get a cast Gush for free. The reason this came about, was we were working in Mercadian masks, and we were trying to find some new and exciting thing to do. I thought back to the pitch cards,

which were cards in antiquities, in alliances, forso will being the most famous one, where you could cast a card by discarding another card of the same color. And there was a cycle of them. And I really liked them, and I thought that alternate casting costs were really cool. So we decided to come up with five new alternate costs. Can I remember all of them?

White, I think, was tapping creatures. Blue was bouncing islands, black was sacking creatures, red was sacking mountains, and green was giving the opponent life. We'll get to that one later in the series. But anyway, it turns out that being able to draw cards for no mana

is quite powerful. And that is why Gush got banned. I mean, the idea behind it was pretty good. Like, the reason bouncing lens, like, well, you're setting yourself back. and, you know, you are giving up mana. But the idea, essentially, is there are a lot of ways to offset that, like, with the cards you're drawing. And also, late game, once they get established, like losing the man, it's not as, it's not as powerful as the first one or two turns.

But anyway, that is what happened with gosh. Gosh, it's quite good. Next up, in December of 2003, banned and extended, ancient tomb. This is from Tempest. It's a land that you tap for two colorless mana and the day. does two damage to you. So obviously Solring was in Alpha. Soul Ring costs one mana to cast, and then you could tap it for two mana. And so I was like, okay, I would make a land that taps for two mana. What is the right cost for it? Obviously, and you're not paying mana because it's

a land. So zero life wasn't right. I said, what did you pay one life for it? That felt not too good. then we said, how about two life? We said, oh, okay, maybe two life is okay. Two life was not okay. We kind of finally figured out, it took us a little while, that lands tapping for more than one manna really were problematic, and we really stopped doing it. In modern day, we do, I mean, every once in a while,

like we make some cards, we have to transform it first, but without jumping through some major hoops, we do not give you lands to tap for more than one mana. That is just proved problematic. And that card, which seems innocent enough Look, I'm just paying life for mana But it turns out

In some ways, like I say, it's like an engine, turning life into mana is pretty powerful. Okay, next up is, and this is going to be the last one for today, is in 2003, restricted in vintage, was Chrome Mox.

Chrome Mox is a zero artifact tap, that is imprint. When you cast it, you have to put a card from your your hand on the bottom of it, and then it taps for any colors that are in the imprinted card, the card that you exiled. Technically you excite. When I say put it under, just to remind you, but you technically exile it. So what happened was, well, mockses were in alpha, obviously. There were five of them, one of each color. Mox Pearl, Mox, Sapphire, Mox Jet,

mox Ruby, and Mox Emerald. Very, very power, part of the Power Nine. We later made one in Mirage block, I think, Mox Diamond, where the idea is, okay, moxes are zero-cost artifacts to produce mana. Can we make those fair? So the idea of Mox,

what is this? Of Chrome Mox was you had to imprint a card meaning it costed you a card. So it wasn't just free. It cost you a card. And it cost you, not just a land because lands are called all this, it would cost you an actual colored card.

And the idea there was we thought like that would be enough of a cost. end is not quite enough of a cost. Free mana is very powerful. But I mean, it was definitely us experimenting and trying, and we have made mockses since then that we haven't had a ban.

So we're getting a little bit better at making moxes. But Chrome Mox was our attempt in making a mox, and, you know, moxes are hard. That's powerful. Anyway, guys, so we're up to... Where do we end today? December 2003. So we've got a ways more to go.

I hope you're enjoying this series. it is interesting to look back at all the and my many mistakes that I made but anyway guys I am now at work so all that means it means at the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic. See you all next time bye-bye