Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #430: Guildpact, Part 1

Episode Date: April 28, 2017

This is first part of a three-part series on the design of Guildpact.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, it's design time. So last time I talked about design of a set, it was Ravnica. And so now we're getting the Guild Pact, the second set in the block. So it was Ravnica, City of Guilds, Guild Pact, and Dissension. So Guild Pact was codenamed Alt for it was Control Alt Delete. Code GPT. So Guild Pack had 165

cards, 55 commons, 55 uncommons, and 55 rares. That was the size of a small set at the time. There were no mythics back then. And all rarities had the same number of cards in it. That would change. We realized over the years that that was just a faulty thing to do. Anyway, it came out February 3rd of 2006,

so this was many, many years ago, about 11 years ago. Anyway, it introduced, so the way the block worked, for those that might not remember, is Ravnica introduced the ten guilds. There were four guilds in the first set, which was Golgari, Selesnya, Dimir, and Boros. And there were three in the second set. The Orzhov Syndicate, white-black, the Izzet League, blue-red, and the Gruul clans, red-green. So the way it worked is in the first set in Ravnica, black, blue, and white each overlapped. There were two guilds that had them, which meant in the two remaining guilds, each of the remaining colors of red and blue

overlapped once. So Guild Pact is the red overlapping set. There is two different guilds that have red in it. Obviously Izzet and Gruul both have red. So the design was led by Mike Elliott. So I've mentioned before, Mike has done more designs than anybody, save me. Although there are a few people catching up to Mike. Aaron Forsyth, this is one of his early design teams. Devin Lowe and Brian Schneider. Brian Schneider at the time was the head developer, the role that Eric Lauer fills now. And then the development team was led by Henry Stern, and Aaron was on it, Brian Schneider was on it, Mike Turian was on it, of Hall of Fame fame,

and a man named Cormac Russell, who worked at Wizards, who actually worked on a lot of other things at Wizards. We used to rotate people in, so he was on the development team. So the big thing about Guild Pack that was kind of different for its time was I had taken over as head designer in the middle of Champions of Kamigawa, and that block was kind of already in motion, so I just sort of let it play out the way it was playing out. But, uh, starting with Ravnica, I did something a little different, which is I did sort of

formal block planning, which meant, the way we used to do it is we'd have a theme and we'd start and make a large set. And then the small set was supposed to pick up on the themes of a large set. But really, we didn't plan out that much stuff for the small set. It was more like, you know, well, just, you know, continue our themes and find little ways to play off the mechanics that we already have, maybe introduce a new mechanic. And then, we kind of accidentally, not accidentally, but during Invasion Block, we came up with the idea of Apocalypse being the enemy color set. And we saved stuff. We actually didn't do things in Invasion and Planeshift so we could do them in Apocalypse.

And Apocalypse was very popular. In fact, one of the most popular third sets we've ever done. So, when I became head designer, I'm like, you know what? I think we need more planning. So when I became head designer, I'm like, you know what? I think we need more planning. That we need to think blocks out, and blocks have to have a cohesive whole. And I like the idea that things would be, like, within a

block, there's certain things that went on each set. That it wasn't like the first set got everything, and then this other set just did complicate, you know, evolutions of the first set. So, I mapped this out. I did the 4-3-3 plan. I mapped out which four were in the first set, which three were in the second set, and which three were in the third set. The funny thing is Mike Elliott had been doing magic design a long

time. I mean, he and I both started our first sets for Tempest, and he'd been doing it a long time, and he, I was trying to do something different, which is, he was not used to that at all. And so, you know, he was on Ravnica, and he saw what we were doing on Ravnica, and then when he got to Guildpact, he was like, yeah, I'm not sure we're going to do that. Which is funny, because like, to try to understand is,

that just wasn't the way we did things. I was trying to change things up. And so one of the funny stories we tell is, normally what Mike did is, when he't the way we did things. I was trying to change things up. And so one of the funny stories we tell is normally what Mike did is when he built a set was he tended to start just in the normal places. Like every time he ran a set, he would run it the same way. I think the first day he'd always do red commons was the way Mike liked to do a set.

Just because red commons are always tricky. Anyway, he would start with red commons. But obviously this was a set up on multicolor. Clearly, there were things to spell out. We had set up patterns that were going to happen from Ravnica. And Mike sort of started out. And I remember some of the team came to me and said, he had us make red commons.

What's going on? And I talked with Mike. And I had to convince Mike that we were, this was a structured thing we were doing and that, you know, it wasn't magic as usual. It wasn't, we weren't designing sets

the way we normally were. That in fact, under my reign, we were going to be doing things a little differently. And he had part two of a three-part plan. You know,

he had to do the Orzhov, the Izzet, and the Gruul. And he had to look at how we did Ravnica and like there's a lot of structures that had been set up that he had to follow. There were certain cycles he had to include.

And Mike got on board, but it was funny that Mike, when he started up, just wasn't in the mindset of a brand new, I don't know, way to do things. So I always remember that. Okay, the set had a bunch of cycles. It had Ley Lines, Mage Marks, Nephilim, and Rusalkas. I'm going to go to card by card.

I'm going to talk about all those things card by card. Also, the mechanics, Orzhov had Haunt, the Izzet had Replicate, and the Gruul had Bloodthirst. I'm going to talk about those as I get to the card by cards. So I just want to dive in and start talking about cards. But I promise as I talk about the cards, I will talk about the different elements of the set. Including the mechanics, the cycles, and all stuff like that. Okay, so we start with Aetherplasm. So, Aetherplasm is two blue blue.

So, four mana, two of which is blue. It's a 1-1 illusion. And whenever blocking, you can swap it with a creature card from your hand. So, the idea is, ooh, what is it? It's an illusion. What is this card? Now, on attack, it's always what it claims to be. It's a 1-1.

But the cool thing is if you attack and you got a block with it, it could turn into something else. And you didn't know what it was until you blocked. And so it was this kind of neat illusion that, you know, in order to sort of understand what it really was. It was fun. It was goofy. I like playing around with illusions. I like when we can take illusions and do kind of neat things with them. And this card definitely was cool. It was messing in dangerous space in that you got things into play without paying their mana cost.

So that's definitely a little more risky. Although, because it was unblock blocking, it wasn't quite as... It did make people not attack as much. I will say that. Okay, next. Agent of Masks. Our first gold card from the Orzhov. So, three white-black for a 2-3 human advisor.

At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent loses one life, and then you gain it all. So, let's talk a little bit about how the deck plays. Or the guild plays. So one of the things we did with each of the guilds, we did this in Ravnica, we did it in Guild Pack, we did it in Ascension, is we said, okay, what style of play does these colors have? And not just kind of what, well, two things.

The kind of things the color does, what does it lead itself toward? And where's the strength when they combine with each other? And the kind of person the color does, what does it lead itself toward, and where's the strength when they combine with each other, and the kind of person that likes playing these colors, what kind of deck do they like to play? So what we found out is Orzhov is sort of what we call a bleeder deck. And what that means is it's very defensive and controlling, and it kind of beats you by just death by a thousand paper cuts.

It's the kind of deck where it's, a lot of times I'm beating you because I'm sort of slowly controlling things, and I'm slowing things down, and just, I keep nicking you here and there, and I beat you in those small amounts. So this is a good example. Draining is a popular thing to do in Orzhov. So this card, like, every turn just drains you for one. You know, and then all you have to do is just keep, you don't have to attack with this creature, you don't have to block with this creature, just keep the creature around

and little by little just start sucking off the opponent. And there's a lot of, you'll see there's a lot of drain in Orzhov, a lot of sort of stalling in Orzhov, and a lot of, like, damage, but slow incremental damage. That's kind of Orzhov's thing. So one of the things we did with the Orzhov is we tried to find a place for each of the guilds to have a role

in the city, in Ravnica. So the Orzhov are this interesting combination between organized religion and the mafia. People always ask me, what's a good example of Orzhov? I used to say organized crime.

Organized? White. Crime. Black. And so it is a weird mix. It is I used to say organized crime. Organized white crime, black. And so it is a weird mix. It is, it's as if you had a religion where the mafia was mixed into it. One of the things they do, we'll get to, is they, there's indenture you can get sort of under contract where you have to serve them.

But the tricky thing about the Orzhov is those contracts go beyond death. So if you sign a contract and then you die, your ghost gets put to work. It's not like death gets you out of the contract. No, no, no, not with the Orzhov. But anyway, they are fun. The Orzhov Syndicate is quite fun.

Okay, talking about the Orzhov. Angel of Despair. Three white, white, black, black, 5-5 angel flying. When it enters the battlefield, destroy target permanent. Oh, wait, one quick thing. I just forgot about Agent of Mask.

Let me hop back to Agent of Mask. Note in the template, each opponent loses one life, and you gain it all. It was templated, so in multiplayer game, it can have a larger effect. Puts a little more bullseye on you,

but that's why I didn't note that template was made for multiplayer play. Sorry. Angel Despair! So, seven mana, two of which is black, two of which is white. It's an angel, and enters the battlefield. Destroy something. Destroy permanent. So, what we did is we took all of our creature types, and we sort of, we didn't put them in, obviously there are four guilds that have a certain color. So, angels are the white iconic. Well, do we put them in... Obviously, there are four guilds that have a certain color. So angels are the white iconic. Well, do we put angels in all four white guilds? We did not.

In fact, they're in two of them. They're in Boros and they're in Orzhov. So, for example, neither Selesnya nor Azorius have angels. And so kind of the good or justice-holding angels went into Boros and kind of the little sketchier angels, if you will, went into

Orzhov. So it turns out that white and black and black and green, those two color combinations, can destroy a permanent. So here we put it in white-black. Black-green can also do that. So that's an ability that doesn't go in any one single color. It only goes in the combination colors.

Okay, next. Beast Master's Mage Mark. So this is a cycle. I'm going to talk about the green one, but I'll talk about the whole cycle. So two and a green aura, and it's an enchantment, an aura, enchant creature.

Creatures you control that are enchanted get plus one, plus one creature, creatures you control that are enchanted get plus one plus one, and creatures you control that are enchanted when blocked get plus one plus one until end of turn for each blocker. So what Mage Marks do is they grant an ability to all enchanted creatures. Now, the Mage Mark goes on a creature,

so at bare minimum, this creature is enchanted. So for example, what this does is it makes you, gives you plus one plus one, example what this does is it gives you plus one plus one and then for each blocker you get plus one plus one so let's say you're a 2-2, you're a grizzly bear, you're a 2-2 creature well if you put the mage mark on now you're a 3-3 creature and if one creature blocks you

you're a 4-4 if two creatures block you you're a 5-5 if three creatures block you you're a 6-6 you become hard to deal with and so one of the neat things about this about the the Mage Marks in general, is we were trying to do, I think they were inspired by Slivers. Mike Elliott, who designed Slivers, designed for this set. So Mage Marks, they're basically Sliver auras, so that sounds right up Mike's alley.

But anyway, the Mage Marks. So one of the things is, one of the neat things about design in general is, there are always major designs and there are minor designs. Now if I ask back to people who think of Ravnica, people think about the guilds. You know, that was a major issue of what was going on. People remember that. Most people don't remember that there was a little tiny aura theme running through the block. For example, Ravnica had auras with Enter the Battlefield effects. So in this set, there are the Mage Marks, which are the main cycle. And there also are a bunch of other cards,

we'll get to some of them, that kind of just reward you for having enchantments, for being enchanted or having enchantments. So there's this little theme running through. Like, when we got to Theros, and Theros had more of a focus on enchantments, and people were like, ooh, finally a block that has enchantments in it.

And it's like, oh, no, Urza Saiga did, Ravnica did. There were blocks that had some amount, and Urza Saiga was a pretty major thing. But even in Ravnica, it was there, and I don't think people will remember the enchantment theme. Okay, next, Belfry Spirit. Three white, white, spirit, one, one, flying. And it is Haunt. It has the Orzhov mechanic. So the Orzhov mechanic. So haunt, I think in my mind haunt is the worst mechanic of the block.

The mechanic in Boros is, it's bad. It's not really a Boros mechanic. And overall, it's not a great mechanic, and it's confusing. But, I think... Either the Boros mechanic or Haunt, the Orzhov mechanic, is the worst. So here's what Haunt does. So, Belfry Spirit,

1-1, flying, has Haunt. When it enters the battlefield, or a haunted creature dies, you create, 1-1, flying, has haunt. When it enters the battlefield or a haunted creature dies, you create a 1-1 flying black bat token. So the idea is I play this creature. It's a 1-1 flyer. When I play it, it enters the battlefield, a 1-1 bat creature. And then when this creature dies, I haunt a creature, which means I exile it, and then I haunt a creature in play.

And when the haunted creature dies, then the same effect happens. Now, there also is haunt on spells. The way it works on spells, let's say I have gain five life. I'm not sure whether I spelled this, but let's say it's gain five life. I cast the instant, gain five life. I then exile it, and I haunt a creature. And when that creature dies, I gain five life. So for starters, the spells and the creatures don't work the same.

They're different. I mean, they're thematically similar, which is a haunt creature, upon playing it, does something. And then at some point, when it goes to the graveyard, it haunts the creature, and when that creature, the haunted creature goes to the graveyard, the effect that happened when you first did the card happens again. So there's a thing we talk about stickiness, which is things that just, or maybe I talk about grokkability, is

you read it and you just get it. It makes sense. You get it. It's grokkable. Haunt is what I would call kind of ungrokkable, which is there's something about it that is just hard to wrap your brain around. Haunt's the kind of mechanic that every time, like, Haunt, I have to remind myself, okay, what does Haunt do again? Like, I have to think about it.

Like, if you ask me what Replicate does, I know exactly what it does. Haunt is like, okay, how did haunt work? Like, I knew haunt worked differently from spells and creatures, and like, I have to mentally process it every time. And so what happened was haunt's just not very grokkable. It's not easy to understand. And as such, it just was a hard mechanic for people

to put their mind around. Now, the flavor is good. The flavor of, you know, that you have this thing, and it haunts creatures, and the haunted creature lives is good. The flavor of, you know, that you have this thing and it haunts creatures and the haunted creature lives with this thing. And, like, you know,

the general idea, like having a creature called Haunt that, you know, haunts, you know, the dead creature haunts a living creature. Like, there's some coolness to that. But this mechanic and how it executed,

I think originally they were going to put it just on creatures because that's where the flavor goes. But then they didn't have enough space, so they added spells. But, like, why a spell is haunting you flavor-wise is weird. But anyway, Haunt was not a great success. It was hard to understand. It wasn't super intuitive.

It didn't quite follow the flavor, which is a cool kind of flavor. But anyway, I consider it to be a failure. Probably the biggest failure on the block. Although the Bors mechanic is a close second, if not tied. Okay, next. Bioplasm. It's a green creature. Three green greens.

So five mana, two which is green. It's a 4-4 ooze. When it attacks, you exile the top card of your library. And if it's a creature card, your creature gets plus X plus Y, where X is the revealed creature's power, and Y is revealed creature's toughness. Now, there are not a lot of cards in Magic that have a Y on them. I mean, as a variable. There was a version of Fireball that we made.

So there's one printed version of Fireball that used X and Y to separate targets from damage or whatever. I made a card in Unglued called The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizard of the Coast Customer Service that was X, Y, and Z in its cost. Although I did it perfectly to joke about how we make confusing cards from time to time.

And I think this is the one other card. I think I might be forgetting cards. I think this is the one other Y card. Now at least, I think this card, even though he wasn't on the design team, I think this card was one other card. I think I might be forgetting. I think this is the one other Y card. Now, at least, I think this card was, even though he wasn't on the design team, I think this card was made by Ken Nagel, who does love his green fatties. And I think Ken's idea was, I want to do plus power plus toughness. Those are not the same number. How do we do that? I think Ken turned it over as plus X plus Y.

And I think it stayed plus X plus Y because there's just no clean, easy way to not have two variables, so we kept two variables. I will say as two variables go, this one's pretty easy. It's like, oh, I reveal a creature. You know, I'm a 3-3, and I reveal a 4-2. Oh, well, I'm plus 4 plus 2. I'm a 7-5 creature. I'm sorry, it starts as a 4-4, right? So if I'm a 4-4 and I get plus 4 plus 2, I'm an 8-6 creature. Okay, next, Blind Hunter. Back to Orzhov.

Two white-black for a 2-2 bat flying in its haunt. When it enters the battlefield or the haunted creature dies, it drains the player for two. So you do two damage to a player and then gain two life. So this is another example of a haunt card. Another sort of a bleeder card. So like I get this thing out when I play it I sort of drain you for two and they can attack you with it. At some point you kill it. Then another creature gets to be haunted. And then when that thing dies it

drains for two. So the idea is for four mana I get a 2-2 flyer and probably I'm going to drain you for four during the course of the game. So, you know, none of the Honk cards didn't have their uses. It just was a confusing mechanic. Okay, Bloodscale Prowler, 2R, Viashino Warrior, 3-1, Bloodthirst 1. Okay, so now we get to talk about Bloodthirst. Bloodthirst was the gruel mechanic. If Orzhov was one of the most unsuccessful mechanics of the set and the block, I would say Bloodthirst was one of the most successful. In fact, we repeated it.

We put it in a core set. So what Bloodthirst does is it says, if you've damaged the player this turn when you cast me, through creature damage, through spell damage, any kind of damage, I could have bolt them, I could attack with creatures. Bloodthirst and, in this case, Bloodthirst 1, it means you come in with that many plus one, plus one counters.

So this is a 3-1 creature, but if you've damaged your opponent this turn, it's a 4-2 creature. So Bloodthirst did a bunch of things. One, it is flavorful. It's kind of like, you know, if there's blood, you know, if the creature can smell blood because the opponent's been damaged, it's a little more lively and, you know, eager to do its thing.

And it does its neat thing. So the Gruul clan is red-green, tends to be mid-range creature base. It really wants to attack Boros, which is red-white. It's the weenie creature. Red-green because it has access to sort of what red and green have access to, including mana. And green has better access to a curve. And just its creatures are a little bit bigger. So you tend to get out beefier creatures in red-green.

So it has a strategy of wanting to attack. So this does a good job of making that happen. Also, it does something really neat, which I like a lot, which is, normally, let's say I have a 2-2 in play and you have a 3-3, and I attack with my 2-2. Now, I could be bluffing. There's a little bit of bluffing and magic, but normally what I'm saying when I attack my 2-2 and you do 3-3 is, look, I got a trick.

I have a trick in my hand or I'm bluffing. I have a trick in my hand. But with Bloodthirst, sometimes you just wanted to get through, and you're more likely to bluff because Bloodthirst can be pretty valuable. So because you bluff a little bit more often, there's more of a game about bluffing. In normal Magic, I'm not saying no bluffing happens, but usually if someone with a 2-2 attacks into your 3-3, usually they have it. It's not super common.

I'm not saying never that bluffing happens, but it's not super common. But in this set with Gruul, there's a lot more bluffing. Because Bloodthirst matters. And so there's a lot more like, I'll tech my 2-2 and your 3-3 hoping you think I have something in my hand. And so it just makes combat a little more interesting when you're playing with Gruul.

Okay, speaking of Gruul, Borborygmos. Three red, red, green, green. So it's seven mana, two which is red, two which is green. It's a legendary creature. It's a Cyclops, 6-7. It's got trample. And when it deals combat damage to players,

you put a plus one, plus one counter on all your creatures. So this is the leader of the Gruul. He's a giant Cyclops. He is... So the Gruuls are less organized. They're the least organized. They're kind of the organization when the Gilphek got formed

that, like, was probably the last to go find what will be a group. They kind of hold together out of, like, they just have similar needs. But, you know, they're not a really tight-knit group in the sense that there's no...

I mean, they have a rough leader in Barbarig most, and they kind of stick together, but it's not... it's way less formal than all the other guilds. In fact, in Return to Ravnica, we did this cute thing where when you showed up and you picked a box, your guild wrote you a letter, and the gruel was like the only one kind of like written in blood or something, like, you know, in blood or something. Attack good or something. Words misspelled and things. So gruel definitely is the anti-blue one. There's no blue in it. There's no

thinking. It's all impulse and instinct. Might makes right in the red-green version of that. Okay, next. Burning Tree Blood Scale. Two red-green for Venus Sheen or Berserkers. Okay, next. Burning Tree Blood Scale. Two red-green for a Veen or Sheen or Berserker. It's 2-2.

Blood Thirst 1, so another Blood Thirst creature. For two and a red, target creature can't block card name this turn. For two and a green, target creature must block card name available this turn. So one of the things we love to do in multicolor is find things where the colors are opposite each other, where they do things that are related to each other.

So the fact that red can make you block and green can make you... I'm sorry, that red can keep you from blocking and green can make you block is kind of a cool sort of parallel thing. So this is a neat thing. We set it up. They're at the same activation cost. So anyway, that's a nice clean card. Next, Burning Tree Shaman. One red green for a 3-4 Shaman. Whenever a player activates

a non-mana activation, it deals one to them. And this is any player, includes you. So basically, not lands, because lands are mana producing, and there's a few other things like, you know, land or elf or something. But basically, anytime you activate something, this card just sort of zaps you one. And the idea in Gruul is like, you know, less fiddling around, more attacking, you know, and so it plays in the mindlessness of the Gruul. Castigate, Sorcery, white, black. So one white, one black, so it's Orzhov Sorcery. Opponent reveals their hand, you choose a non-land card in it, and then exile it. Back in the day, exile was mostly a white thing. White was really the color of the exile things. We've loosened that a little bit. Obviously, we had Battle for the Diamond Card and Earth of the Gatewatch, where exile zone was a thing, so we sort of loosened up exiling some.

As a general rule of thumb, we were more willing to let other cards exile now than we were at the time. So the reason this is a white-black card back then was really the exiling part was white. Nowadays, we can make this card in mono black. Cerebral Vortex, one blue red instant. So three mana, one blue, one red. Target player draws two cards. Then card name deals damage to that player for every card they've drawn this turn. So this is a neat kind of card. So if you use it on yourself, it's basically, you know, it's essentially pay two life to draw two cards, which interestingly is a black effect. Normally black does this. This is one of the neat things about multicolor.

But when you add together two colors, sometimes they can do something that a different color does as a monocolor effect. Now, the neat thing about this is it says target player. Clearly, if you need the cards, you can use them yourself and pay the penalty. But you can also use them on your opponent. And if you use it on your opponent, A, you can let them draw the normal card for their turn, and B, you can also sort of wait if they do other card drawing,

and then I can sort of zap them where, yeah, I'm giving them cards, but I'm hitting them for a bunch of damage. So I've watched people, for example, do effect where they draw a whole bunch of cards, and the opponent goes, bam, yeah, yeah, I'll give you a few extra cards, but I'm going to hit you for a lot for you drawing all those cards. Okay, next after that is Crystalline Seer, four and a blue, Vidalcan Wizard, that's a 2-2. When it enters the battlefield, you look at the top four cards and then put them back of your library, and then put them back in any order.

And for four and a blue, you can turn it to your hand so this is definitely uh uh is it is messing around uh the is it clan uh focuses on spells there uh blue is number one in spells and red is number two mostly because blue is number five in creatures and red is number four and in the the number of blue has more spells than any other color uh in in any one set it just has a higher percentage of spells where red has a second the second highest percentage um obviously creatures and spells are opposite each other so by having the most spells you have the least creatures so from a play style is it is a very tempo oriented uh clan they do a lot of tricky things and they are very focused in instants and sorceries.

From a flavor standpoint, they're the creative guild. They're the mad inventor guild. And I will admit that Izzet is the clan that we've done the least good job of making their mechanics kind of match their flavor. We always tend to make mechanics that reflect their spell orientedness, which is part of their clan, but we've yet to really do something that plays up their inventiveness. It's a hard thing to do. Making a Johnny mechanic,

because you still have to care about sorceries in instance, so making a spell-oriented Johnny mechanic is tricky. We've never quite done it wonderfully. I'll get to their mechanic in a second. But anyway, here's a good example of a card that has an effect, and it allows you, if you want to get the effect, you can bring it back.

You also can use the bounce effect to block and use this as a blocker. Okay, Lulling Sun, two white, white, black. So it is five mana, two white, one black, sorcery. Destroy each creature with a converted mana cost of three or less. Traditionally, white tends to destroy all creatures. Every once in a while, it messes with things. Usually, black is the one that destroys smaller creatures. Historically, white has, although we're moving away from that.

White usually, if it's going to destroy a subset, is more going after the big guys, not the little guys. It protects the little guys. Black loves hurting the little guys. Black has a lot of minus X minus X effects. And Black specifically has cards that, like, destroy a target creature, which for a man costs three or less.

So this is sort of taking the wrath of a god-y sort of feeling of white and adding in the more punish the tiny things that Black is more apt to do. More apt to do. Next, Debtors Nell. So there was hybrid in the set. So this set is four, these are all white or black

hybrid, so four hybrid, hybrid, hybrid. Meaning I need a combination of three white or black mana and four generic mana. It's an enchantment. It says, beginning of your upkeep, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. So Golgari is the one that does

the most sort of bringing things back from the graveyard. But Orzhov definitely says, hey, you know, if you're under my debt, if you owe me, I might call on you. Don't think death's going to get you out of debt.

With the Orzhov, death does not get you out of debt. And so this is sort of cool that every turn you're bringing back a creature that is, you know, has to serve you. But this is a flavorful card. Okay, Gin Illuminatus. This is another hybrid card. Five hybrid hybrid. So

seven mana total, two of which is either blue or red. It's a 3-5 Gin, flying, and all your instants and sorceries have replicate. So here's what replicate is. And the replicate cost is equal to your mana cost. Replicate says I have a spell. Let's say, like, draw two cards.

So I spend, I don't know, two you, draw two cards. Then I have a replicate cost, which I think is always the mana cost. So let's say it's two you. Actually, it's probably two you. Let's say it's three you, draw two cards. And then it replicates three you. And the idea is you can cast this spell as many times as you like. And every time you cast a spell, the spell goes off again.

So with replicate, it's kind of like, instead of normally I get a spell and I can cast it once, replicate says I can cast this as many times as I'm able to cast it. And there's some fun combinations of things. I mean, that was us trying to... I don't know if combination is a good term. But anyway, it's spell-oriented. And Djinn Illuminatus is us doing what we often do, where we say, hey, here's a spell-oriented mechanic.

Apply it to all your instants and sorceries. Okay, Droning Bureaucrats. Three and a white. Human Advisor, one, one. X-Tap. Creatures with a converted mana cost of X or less can't attack or block. So the idea of this card is it's a card that you can tap to stop things from attacking, but it has to build up over time to be able to stop the bigger things,

and it requires more sort of use to do so. So the idea is I play it on turn four, because it's three and a white. On turn five, assuming I have a land, I could stop creatures of five power, I'd say five, from attacking or blocking. But if I do that, I'm using up all my mana. So kind of what you want to do is be strategic in how you use it and what mana you use so you can cast other spells. But it's a neat design that can be very powerful, but it takes time to be more

powerful. I like spells like that. Okay, Dryad Sophisticate. One and a green, a 2-1 Dryad. It has non-basic Land Walk. So we stopped doing Land Walk a few years ago. So for those who don't know what Land Walk is, Land Walk is an ability that says, so let's say it's Forest Walk. A Forest Walk would be if I attack and my opponent has a forest, you can't block this creature. This creature is unblockable if you have the land type that's named. So this is non-basic land walk. So what that means is, so the basic lands are plains, islands, swamps, mountains, forests. Any other land is a non-basic land.

So if you have a land that's not one of the basic lands, it's non-basic, you can't block my Dryad Sophisticate. And this is a multi-color block where there's a lot of need to get different colors. It's pretty common for people to have non-basic lands. Okay, Dune Breed Nephilim. So it's black, red, green, white. So it's not blue. All of the Nephilim are four mana, one of each color minus a color. This is the not blue one.

And it's a 3-3 Nephilim. Nephilim are all creature type Nephilim. When it deals combat damage to a player, you create a 1-1 color sand creature equal to the number of land you have. So every time I hit you, every time I do damage with my Nephilim, I get sand creatures, 1-1 sand creatures equal to the number of land I have. The goal of the Nephilim, by the way, the cycle of Nephilim,

just the cycle of them, was that we wanted to create something that if you weren't really into the theme, the guilds, there's something kind of outside the guilds. In retrospect, I wish we had tied them to the guilds. I would have flavored them as two guilds. In retrospect, I wish we had tied them to the guilds. I would have flavored them as two guilds teaming up. I also would have made them legendary.

Up until a very recent commander product, we didn't have four-colored legendary creatures, and for years and years it was a complaint. In fact, the only four-colored cards we'd ever done at the time were these creatures, the Nephilim. And a lot of people kind of defaulted them to being legendary, because they wanted to play four-color commander.

But anyway, I do wish in retrospect we had made them, knowing what I know now, we'd made them legendary. Also, they kind of feel legendary. Next, Electrolyze. One blue-red. It's an instant. Card name deals two damage as divided as it likes between creatures and players, and then draw a card.

So you have two damage. You can divide it any way you like. Hit creatures and players. Go one to a creature, one to a player, two to one creature, two to player, one to, anyway. You can mix it up however you want it. And then there's a cantrip. And it was a nice, it was a good sort of little trick for Izzet to help deal with things. Like I said, it's very tempo based, so it wants a lot of have a lot of answers that can do things. And also, if I attack and you block, this can be used to sort of pick off things that didn't quite die.

Next, Feral Animus, one red green. It's a 2-1 Goblin Shaman. For three mana, it gets plus X plus O where X is its power. So this is a fancy way of saying it doubles its power! I think I made this card, and when I made it, it doubled its power.

And then we don't say the word double for power. We'd say plus X plus O, where X is your power. But for every three you spend, it doubles. And so you spend three, you double it. You spend six, you quadruple it. You spend nine, you octuple it. You spend 12, you do something that I don't know the word for, but it's 16 times. But anyway, a pretty cool card.

Next, Frazzle. Frazzle Dazzle. This is called Frazzle. Three and a blue, four mana, one of which is blue. It's an instant. And you counter target non-blue spell. So one of the things is, normally when we do counter spells,

especially back then, we've been slowly making a deception. We used to make sure there always was, if it was a hard counter, meaning it countered anything, it would have two blue or two colored mana at least in its cost, mana cost.

This technically says non-blue so it is not technically it's a soft counter, but it does let you splash this in a lot of decks that have a little bit of blue and deal with a lot of things. It's kind of neat in that it deals with everything but blue itself.

So the flavor of the card is cool. Okay, next. Gatherer of the Graces. One green for a 2-2 human druid. It gets plus one, plus one for each aura on it. And you can sac an aura to regenerate it. Note that when you say sacrifice an aura,

it is not sacrificing an aura enchanting this creature. It's any aura. So I talked earlier with the Mage Marks about how there's a little bit of an aura theme in the set. Here's a good example. So example, this is a 2-2 creature. So let's say, for example, I get an enchantment that just grants plus 2, plus 2 in flying, let's say. I put that in this creature. Okay, so now it's a 4-4 flyer. But wait! It gets plus 1, plus 1 for every aura Okay, so now it's a 4-4 Flyer. But wait! It gets plus one, plus one for every aura on it. Now it's a 5-5 Flyer. And then

I get a, you know, plus one, plus one in First Strike enchantment. I put it on. Now, it's a 7-7 Flying First Strike. Real quickly you can turn this into a really pretty powerful thing. And the cool thing is, because you can stack a, like, one of the problems normally when you stack a lot of auras on a singular creature is, I spend, you know,

I spend five cards making my creature into this giant creature, and you spend one card, you know, spend a murder, dark banishing, terror, whatever, and you kill it, and like, oh, wah, wah, wah, you know, all the equity I put into it, I lost. But what this says essentially is, whenever you try to kill it, well, your kill spell will kill one of my auras, but just one of my auras. So you don't kill the creature, you don't kill the best aura unless it's the last one. So you know, it is definitely a card that sort of encourages you to sort of build around an enchantment theme, an aura theme.

And we'll get to it. There's a few more cards in the set. It's like I said, one of those themes that's not the most obvious theme, but definitely a theme. So anyway, I'm driving up to Rachel's school. So the plan on this is I have a whole bunch of cards to talk about. Doing the pace I did today, I expect this to be three to four podcasts, leaning toward four maybe five

if I get really chatty about something but anyway I will continue this on so definitely come back for future podcasts so I can tell you all about Guildpact

and the the orge of the Izzet and the Gruul you can see what all we're up to but anyway as I'm pulling up to my daughter's school

we all know what that means it means this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you all next time.