Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #526: Dissension, Part 1

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

In this podcast, I go over the design test, the third trial for the Great Designer Search 3.

I'm pulling up at driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm doing something I should have done a while ago. So, every once in a while I do a podcast where I go through a set and I talk about how the set was made, talk about cards from the set. And usually what I do is I do a block at a time. So last year I started doing original Ravnica block. I. So last year, I started doing original Ravnica block. I did Ravnica. I did Guild Pact.

And then, where's Dissension? Well, today, today is going to be Dissension. Today and the next few podcasts will be Dissension. Turns out that the card part of those requires a lot of prep work.

And so, I've just been busy. So anyway, I'm going to try to get back and do more card ones. I know people like them. I just, I been busy. So anyway, I'm going to try to get back and do more card ones. I know people like them. I just, I was busy. But anyway, Dissension has long been due.

And so it's time to talk Dissension. So Dissension was codenamed Delete. It was Control-Alt-Delete were the three, the original Ravnica block codenames. Came out May 5th of 2006. It had 180 cards, 60 common, 60 uncommon, 60 rares. This is prior to the Mythic Rare days. Mythic Rares didn't start until, was it Shards of Alara, I think? Anyway, so for those who remember, sort of remind you,

Ravnica Black was the first time we visited Ravnica and introduced ourselves to the guilds. Ravnica had four guilds in it. Let's see if I remember this correctly. It had the Golgari, it had the Boros, it had the Selesnya, and it had Dimir. Then Guildpact had the Gruul, the Izzet, and the Orzhov. So, Dissension had the final three guilds,

which were the Azorius Senate, the Simic Combine, and the Cult of Rakdos. So, Azorius is white-blue, Rakdos is black-red, and Simic is blue-green. So, anyway, this was the third set. The lead of the set, actually, was Aaron Forsythe. This was his first, I think, ever design lead of a set. And also on the design team, hostess on the design team, was Mark Gottlieb, Brandon Bozzi, and myself. And the development team was led by Matt Place. He was the development lead. And I was on the team as well as Brian Schneider and Steve Warner. So this was actually a set, not a lot of sets,

I mean, not since the early days of Magic, was I on the design team and on the development team. But this was a fun set to work on. A lot of cool cards. In fact, I'm going to have a bunch of podcasts because there's so many cool cards. So anyway, I'm going to jump right into the cards. I have so many cards to talk about. So there were three mechanics in the set, one for each guild.

I'll get to cards to talk about them, and then I'll talk about those mechanics. But there were... Azorius had Forecast, Rakdos had Hellbent, and the Scenic had Graft, and we'll get to those when I get to cards that have them. Okay, so we start with the Anthem of Rakdos. So two black, red, red. It's an enchantment, so it costs five mana total. Two generic, one black, two red. Whenever a creature you control attacks, it gets plus two plus oh until end of turn and it deals one damage to you.

So for every creature that attacks basically plus two plus oh to the creature one damage to you. And if it's at hellbent so this is the first mechanic hellbent is an ability word that said if you have no cards in your hand so hellbent meant

you got a bonus if your hand was empty. So if you have no cards in your hand, your creatures deal double damage to creatures or players. Or is it you deal damage? I didn't write that down. I think it must be your creatures, because your creatures are the thing that are being enhanced by the spell. So the idea was,

this thing basically allows you to make your things more powerful at a cost to you, because it's Rakdos. But once your hand is empty, it just gets even more powerful, because it doubles the damage. Although it wasn't... The fact that it doesn't give your creatures double strength, maybe all your damage is double. The damage to creatures and players is double. But anyway, one of the fun things about Rakdos was

they really are kind of the balls-to-the-wall, you know, pedal-to-the-metal sort of guild. You know, they are the one willing to sort of do whatever it takes to get the job done and do it quickly. So they have kind of the impulsiveness of red along with the willing to do what it takes from black and combine those together and you get a pretty

a pretty how to describe them? I always the Joker to me is always the perfect black red character that just, it embraces chaos and destruction and they are Rakdos is probably the they throw good parties It embraces chaos and destruction. Rakdos is probably the... They throw good parties, but you might not survive them sort of guild.

Okay, next. Assault Zeppelid. Two green blue. It is a 3-3 beast. It is flying in trample. So one of the reasons I brought this one is sometimes the thing that's kind of nice is when you can do something that is pretty elegant and simple. Multicolor cars in general tend to push toward complication because you want to justify having

both colors. And so when you can do something that's pretty simple. And the thing I like about this is it really took a common green thing, a 3-3 trampler, that's something you see in green all the time, and then it just added flying, something that green does not do. And so all of a sudden it's like it's a flying war mammoth.

I mean technically it's a beast, but it's sort of like a green, it's a pretty iconic green thing, but flying. And that's the perfect example of a really green thing with a blue element that green doesn't normally have. And so that's a nice, simple multicolor card that, you know, it's functional

and it feels like both colors, but it's not horribly complex. And we're always looking for not horribly complex. Next, Aurora Eidolon. Three and a white, so four mana total for a 2-2 Spirit. You spend white mana and sac it, prevent the next three damage to target

to target a creature or player and then whenever you play a multicolor spell you can return it from your graveyard to your hand so the Eidolon was a cycle I think they were uncommon I think it was an uncommon cycle is that right?

hold on a second, let me double check that I think Eid an uncommon cycle. Is that right? Hold on a second. Let me double check that. I think Eidolons were uncommon. I believe they were. They all cost four mana. So they all cost three generic and one colored. And they were always a 2-2 creature. And they had a sac ability. I think the sac ability always cost one colored mana.

And when you played a multicolored spell, they came back. So one of the themes you'll see... So one of the things that's interesting in a set like dissension is some of the ascension is just filling up the you know the pie if you will um that the idea is we sort of chopped up uh the whole block into three pieces and so part of the set is just doing its piece like oh i gotta do you know we've seen the other seven guilds. This is the three guilds. And there's things that we did in the other guilds, lands and, you know, signets. There's just things we did that we have to repeat here. So a bunch of the set is just kind of filling out the expectations for the last three-tenths of the set.

But we also wanted each set to have its own identity. So there's themes that run through each set. So one of the themes that runs through this set is caring about multicolor and monocolor. Having things be multicolored or monocolored means something. And so, for example, the Eidolons are all about you want to play multicolored spells. Basically, every time you play a multicolored spell, you get this back. So this wants to go into deck with lots of multicolored things. Okay, next. Avatar of Discord. So this costs three hybrid mana, which is black or red. So it's hybrid, hybrid, hybrid. You know, black or red, black or red, black or red. For a 5-3

avatar, it is flying, and when it enters the battlefield, sack it unless you discard two cards. So the idea of this thing is it is a card that allows you to get something out faster than normal, but at a cost to yourself. Very Rakdos-y. So a 5-3 flyer for three mana is pretty good. Now you've got to discard two cards. That's a significant cost.

And by the way, I'm sure why it's worded the way it is, rather than being a cost-exigent question, why it wasn't as an additional cost to discard two cards. I think the idea was that if you somehow get this into play through some other means, it still requires the sacrificing. I assume that's why we did it.

But anyway, it is definitely, it's super raptor-sy. You know, it's sort of like you can get power at great cost, cheaply, but it comes at a cost to you. Okay, Azorius Aethermage. So one white, blue. So three mana, one white, one blue, and one generic. For a 1-1 human wizard. And whenever a permanent is returned to your hand,

you may pay one and draw a card. So this is a sort of build-around-me card. We like doing this. And the idea is, if your deck has a lot of bouncing in it, especially bouncing, I think bouncing your own stuff. Let's see. Whenever, oh, to your hand. So yeah, you have to be bouncing your own stuff.

Whenever a permit's returned to your hand, then you pay one to drop. But the idea is both blue and white can bounce your own stuff. This is trying to get an overlap between blue and white. So one of the ways sometimes we do multicolor cards is we find areas where both the colors have some connection. So blue can bounce anything,

and white can bounce its own stuff. So the overlap is bouncing your own stuff. So the idea is, okay, I have this card that says, hey, if you're in a deck that somehow you want to bounce your own stuff, there's an advantage to it. There's card advantage to it. So build around it. We use card advantage quite often as a build-around tool

because usually that is a pretty powerful tool. So it encourages people to actually go the extra effort and try to Bounce the Run. That's right, try to build the Run stuff. Or in this case, Bounce the Run stuff. Okay, Azorius Guild Mage. So it's two hybrid, so blue or white, blue or white, for a 2-2 Vidalcan Wizard. So this is one of the 10-card cycles that's in the whole block.

It's always a hybrid, two-mana hybrid, 2-2 Wizard. I think the race changes from guild to guild. And they all have two activations. Azorius Guildmage has two and a W to tap target creature and two and a blue to counter target activated ability. So one of the ideas of the Guildmages was that you have two activations. It's always hybrid mana, so you can cast it with either of the two colors, in this case, white or blue. And then there's two activated abilities, one that requires the first color, one that requires the second color. So, the idea is you can stick this in a deck that has just one of the colors. So, for example, if I have a white deck, well for white, white I get a 2-2 and for 2 and a white I can

tap something. It's not as good as if I have access to both blue and white but playable. And so the idea was we made the guild mages have a little more flexibility so that, yeah the person who's playing both colors wants some more but someone who's playing one color might want it. It's something they can consider.

And but someone who's playing one color might want it. It's something they can consider. And one of the things we did in rounding a block is some of our cycles were very tight. This is a good example of a tight cycle. Every single guild mage costs exactly two mana, both of which are hybrid. It's always a 2-2 creature. It's always a creature-led wizard. It always has one being one activation, second being which are hybrid. It's always a 2-2 creature. It's always a creature-led wizard. It always has

one being one activation, second being the other activation. And all of them work that way. Now, there's a lot of flexibility, even within that template. So, obviously, we were able to make 10 cards. And then some of the cycles were a little looser. I'll get to that in some of those looser cycles. Next,

Biomantic Mastery. So, it costs 4 and 3 hybrid mana, which is green or blue. So it's four, green or blue, green or blue, green or blue. It's a sorcery. You draw a card for each creature target player controls, and then you draw a card for each creature another player controls, another target player. So the idea is in a two-player game,

I'm drawing a card for every creature on the battlefield. In a multiplayer game, I'm drawing a card for me, and I pick another player. Actually, I don't even have to pick me. I just pick two players. So a multiplayer game doesn't even need to be me. We worded it this way so in multiplayer it wasn't quite

so crazy. In the early days, when we first started doing multicolor stuff, we got super broad and made things that were really powerful in multicolor and it ended up being problematic in multicolor. So this is like, okay, it is better in multiplayer play. Did I say multicolor? Multiplayer. It's better in multiplayer

play because you have more players to choose from, so the number of creatures that you will get probably will go up on average, but you're not drawing some insane, truly, truly insane number of cards, merely a lot of cards instead of a lot, a lot of cards. Next, Blessing of the Nephilim. White for Enchantment Aura, Enchant Creature. Enchantment Creature gets plus one, plus one for each color that it is. So this is another example of us

playing around with the color space of caring specifically about color. And in fact, this thing wants to go into deck with lots of colors. And be aware, it says, Blessing of the Nephilim. The Nephilim were a cycle of creatures we put into original Ravnica that were four color. So for example, for one white mana, if you put this on a Nephilim, it gets plus four, plus four. Pretty powerful. So we made a little nod to the Nephilim here. But really, this is a card that just says, hey, I'm good in multicolor. You know, W for plus two, plus two, which is

when it goes on a two-color card, which a lot of the cards in this thing are two-color, it's fine. You can play with the Nephilim, or it also lets you go backward compatible and find other things. Like, there's some five-color magic cards you can put on. Makes Sliver Queen plus five, plus five. Pretty good. Okay, Bound and Det other things. Like, there's some five-color magic cards you can put on. Make Sliver Queen plus five plus five. Pretty good. Okay, Bound and Determined.

So one of the things we did in the set was we had some split cards. So split cards first showed up in Invasion. I had a whole podcast on this. They originally were going to be in the second Unglued, the Unglued sequel that never happened. I convinced Bill to put them in Invasion. They ended up being in Invasion and Apocalypse, I think. They were a big hit. And so we decided to bring them back. And what we did was,

so here was a tricky thing, is the first set was the four guilds. The second set had the three different guilds. And the final set's the three different guilds. But we were wondering if there was some sneaky way to give a little more spells for the first few guilds in a way that felt fair. And then we came up with this. What if we put some split cards in the set? So we did two cycles.

One at uncommon, which I think were two ally pairs. And one at rare, which I think were two enemy pairs. So obviously a split card has two different costs on it, and so if you have five of them, you can hit ten different costs, meaning you hit ten different guilds. So the idea is, uncommon, we're a little more geared toward limited, and had ally... The thing we always did is the split card always overlapped in one color. So for example, bound to determine is three black green and green blue.

So, the left side of it is a Golgari card and the right side of it is a Simic card. So, the fact that these are enemies means this must be a rare card. Both sides would always be the same card type, either instant or sorcery, but we didn't change... One side wouldn't be sorcery

and the other side instant. If one side's an instant, the other side. Just to be clear how to use this card and not cause confusion. And so the idea is that this is a chance for us to sort of revisit, get a few more cards in for the guilds,

and just add something a little extra to the third set. A little excitement to the third set. Okay, so Bound costs three black green. It's an instant. Sacrifice a creature. Return up to X cards from the graveyard to hand, where X is the number of colors. Then you X out of this.

So the idea is I sac a creature. The more colors the creature is, the more things I get to bring back. So, for example, in Limited, I can sacrifice a two-color card, I can get back two creatures. Now, if you're playing around with a Nephilim or a five-color creature, you can get back even more

in Constructed. Then the Determined was green and a blue. So other spells you control can't be countered by spells or abilities and then draw a card. So when you play this, it's an instant,

for the rest of the turn, your stuff can't be countered. And not just your spells, but your abilities. Both your spells and abilities can't be countered. And then, to make up for it, because it's a small effect,

you get to draw a card. So the idea, by the way, for those who don't remember, the two names of the cards for split cards have a convention that I came up with during Invasion, which the cards, if you, they're two words that go together if you say blank and blank.

So it's bound and determined. Now, there's no ampersand or anything, just bound determined. But you go, oh, that card is bound and determined. Then for some reason, the way they wrote it was bound slash slash determined, like completely missing the whole it's an and thing. It sounds like and. Like not putting an ampersand or something.

We tried for years to change it to ampersand, and I somehow always failed doing that. Okay, next. Bronze bombshell. It's an artifact creature. Cuts four. For four, one. It's a construct. When another player controls it

controls Bron's bombshell they have to sacrifice it and it deals seven damage to them so basically what it is it's a 4-1 creature that if I somehow

can give it to my opponent somehow can get my opponent to get control of it it blows up their face and does seven damage I'm not sure how to do it in this block

I mean there's a bunch of juxtapose-y type stuff where I give you one of my things and get one of your things. And there's some donate type stuff where I give you one of my things. So you got to figure out how to get it to your opponent. But if you figure out how to get your opponent, ba-boom, it blows up in their face. Okay, next, Celestial Ancient.

Three white white for a 3-3 elemental. It is flying. Whenever you cast an enchantment, put a plus one, plus one counter on each creature you control. So some of you might recognize this ability as being Constellation. So a very common thing that'll happen is,

just because magic's been going so long, that sometimes when we come up for a mechanic, it's something we have, in fact, done before on a card-by-card basis. This is a good example. So Constellation didn't show up until Journey into Nyx, uh, and it's, uh, basically a landfall for enchantments, as whenever you cast an enchantment, something happens. Now, in Journey into Nyx, um, all the

things that had, um, Constellation were themselves enchantments, and this is an enchantment, so this is executed a little bit differently than Journey into Nyx executed it. But anyway, this is the idea here is, it's a card that says, hey, oh, so one of the things that Ravnica had done, in fact, Ravnica Block had done, was there was a little bit of an aura theme that ran through the set.

For example, in Ravnica, Richard had come up with these cool auras that had an effect when you cast them. So there's reasons to try to bounce them or try to use them more than once. And then, anyway, throughout the block, there's an aura theme that runs through the block. It's a subtle thing. It's not a giant thing, but it's there.

And now this card doesn't care that they're auras. It just cares they're enchantments. And so we did try to build into white-blue a little bit of an enchantment theme also. White and blue are the two colors that tend to have the most sort of controlling type enchantments. And just in general, we'll play a lot of global auras. Sorry, global enchantments, not auras. Global enchantments. White also tends to have a lot of auras. Blue has some auras.

But anyway, we like the idea of the Azorius, which is the guild that most likes to control things. In Magic, the way you control things tends to be enchantments. So there's a little bit of an enchantment theme running through it. Not a major thing, but a little minor thing that you can build around. In Return to Ravnica,

Azorius, we almost gave them a full blown out enchantment theme. We ended up not doing that. In fact, that is the first place that we ever used the mechanic, or we tried to use the mechanic of Constellation, was actually in Azorius in Return to Ravnica. So it's kind of funny that obviously here it is right here in Azorius. So clearly there's something cool there.

The biggest reason we tend not to make that the major mechanic in Azorius is it is hard to make enchantment matters blend well with all the other guilds. Even though there's some enchantments in the other guilds, it just doesn't overlap quite as well. So one of the tricky things about making a Ravnica set is you need the mechanics to have some interaction with one another. So if I get mechanic from one... Let's say I'm playing two colors in which I'm grabbing mechanic from one guild

and from a different guild, that there's some synergy between them. Okay, next, Coiling Oracle. It costs green and a blue, so two mana total. For a 1-1 Snake Elf Druid. Not a lot of Snake Elf Druids in Magic. When it enters the battlefield, reveal the top card of your library.

If it's a land, you put it on the battlefield. If not, you put it in your hand. So this card is a pretty good card. It has a lot of card advantage to it. So pretty much, you sort of gain some card advantage. Either you're gaining the land or you're gaining the card draw. But nonetheless, you're gaining card advantage. So it's a two-drop, one-one that nets you something. And with manipulation, blue especially has manipulation on top of library. Sometimes you can set this up. I know there's definitely decks that use this for it.

It's not a surprise when you cast it. Sorry. Yawned today. Okay, next. Coiling Oracle. I just said Coiling Oracle. Condemn. White. Instant. Put target attacking creature on bottom of its owner's library,

and then the controller of that creature gains life equal to the creature's toughness. So one of the things we're always trying to do is figure out cool ways to make white creature removal. One of the things that we've definitely done more of, you can see here, is trying to restrict a little bit when white can destroy things. Source of Plowshares, back from from the early days was a little too universal, a little too easy, and a little too cheap. Actually, early on made white the best at creature removal when black is supposed to be the best at creature removal.

So the idea is white has this thing that says, okay, mess with me, I'll mess with you. And it's a lot of the Federation good, like, I don't fire first sort of thing. Now, white sometimes will fire first. If it considers its enemy evil enough, it will. So this is nice. A lot of times white goes, okay, well, we've got to be in combat. So if you're in combat. Now, I think the way this works is, it says put target

attacking creature on the bottom of its owner's library. It doesn't force you to do it to your opponent's creature. Most of the time, you'll use this as a means to get rid of do it to your opponent's creature. So you, most of the time you'll use this as a means to get rid of a threat from your opponent. But one of the things it does let you do if you want is you can use it on your own creature as a means to gain life. Let's say you're having a race with your opponent. I could, and I have a low powered high toughness creature, which white tends to have a lot of. I might be able to attack with my one five and then use this on it to gain five life because maybe that

resets the clock so that I can beat you rather than you beating me. Okay, next, crime and punishment. So crime and punishment is another split card. So crime is Orzhov. It costs three white black. It's a sorcery. Punishment is also a sorcery. It's X black green.

So it's Golgari. This means this is a rare, part of the rare cycle. Okay, so Crime for three white black, five mana. It says put target creature card from an opponent's graveyard on your battlefield under your control. So this is a reanimation spell, but only a reanimation spell that reanimates my opponent's stuff.

We're allowed to make this... The reason we were able to put this on a split card, because split cards usually have to be a little bit cheaper, is the fact that we restricted it to your opponent's graveyard makes it a little bit different. It's a little harder to set up. It allows you to use your opponent's stuff against them, but it's a little harder to build

around in your own deck. And then punishment is X, black, green. Destroy each artifact, creature, and enchantment with a converted mana cost of X. Not X or less, mind you, but X. So unless you have a razor pinpoint, something black has done before, that black can have

sort of a pinpoint, destroy something, you know. If your opponent has a bunch of things at a certain rate and that you have less there, it lets you deal with that. Okay, next. Cytoplast Manipulator. Two blue blue for a 0-0 human wizard mutant. And it has Graft. So let me explain what Graft is. Graft 2.

So what Graft is, is usually there's 0-0 creatures. Sometimes they have stats beyond that. Graft means you enter the battlefield with that many plus-one, plus-one counters. So in this case, the Cytoplast enters with two counters, so it's a 2-2.

And then, whenever your opponent casts... I'm sorry, whenever anybody, not just you, whenever anybody casts a creature, you're allowed to put a plus one, plus one counter on that creature. Now normally, normally with Graft, you would put it on your own creatures because you want to make your own creatures bigger. And the way the Graft cards work is often the Graft cards care about things that have plus one, plus one counters on them. They often grant them abilities.

So usually what you want to do is get it out, stick it on other creatures you control, and then use the ability of the graph creatures to enhance them and make them better. Cytoplasm Manipulator is a little different. So its ability is you and tap gain control of target creature with a plus one, plus one counter as long as Cytoplasm Manipulator remains on the battlefield. So the idea is I can steal things, and because I have Graft, I'm able to put plus one, plus one counters onto other creatures.

Now note, this thing only has two counters, and if it removes the second counter without something helping it, without an enchantment or an aura or something giving it extra toughness, it'll die. So really, without any guidance, this thing allows you to steal one creature your opponent plays after you play this. But if you play this with other graph creatures, those will be granting plus and plus one counters. So graph creatures have nice synergy with one another. That if graph creature can function by itself, you don't need to have multiple graph

creatures, but there's synergy that if you do have them, they allow you to interact with one another. Okay, next, Cytoshape. So one green-blue, so three mana, one of which is green, one of which is blue, one generic. It's an instant. Choose a non-legendary creature, and then target creature becomes a copy of that creature until end of turn. The reason we say non-legendary is at the time, all legendary versions of something will be destroyed.

So the point of the spell wasn't to be a destruction spell. It wasn't to kill your legend. It wasn't to kill your legend plus one other of your creatures. So the cool thing about this is it kind of takes Blue's sort of, you know, Blue's cloning and it sort of puts it in the shell of a green combat trick. So it's sort of like green, one of the green things it does with giant earth stuff is,

ha-ha, I'm not what you think I am. Well, green, blue, Simic takes it to the next level. It is, again, ha-ha, you're not what I think I am, but no, really, really, you don't know what I think I am. So this is a fun spell.

There's a lot of combo potential with this. I know people have used this to do interesting combo-y things. And just in limited, there's fun, there limited, there's fun combat stuff you can do. Okay, next, Supply and Demand. Some of these, I alphabetize my spells, but it's alphabetized by either of the two spells in it. So this is Demand, obviously. Supply is a Selesnya, so X, green, W.

X, green, white. It's a sorcery. They're both sorceries. Put X, 1, 1 green sapling creatures onto the battlefield. So it's just a sapling maker. So X, green, white, make X saplings. And then demand is Azorius. So 1 white, blue. So 3 mana, 1 generic, 1 white, 1 blue.

You get to go through your library for a multicolored card. I said there was a theme of multicolored and monocolored in the set. Well, this lets you tutor for a multicolored card. The thing we tried to do with these, by the way, you can tell, is they both sides have a lot of function to them. Sometimes we make split cards,

we try to make them overlap, but usually what we wanted to do, the idea essentially is you can play them in the right color deck for example, in a green-white deck hey, I can just use the Selesnya half in a Azorius deck I can use the Azorius half or often in draft

people would draft three colors a real common thing to do in Ravnica was draft three colors. And this was another subtle way for us to make some cards that rewarded three-color drafting. So, for example, like I said, we always overlapped in one color. So, for example, this card is green, white, and

blue. And so if you're playing green, white, blue, and you draft this, it now gives you access to two different spells. And the spells have different functionalities that sort of lean toward the guild that it's in, but they also you know, making creatures and tutoring for a card are both things that you could

do in a controller's green, white, blue deck, for example. Okay, next. Demon Pyre. So, X and a red for a sorcery. You deal X damage to a target creature or player. And then if you put it into the graveyard, you exile that instead.

So it destroys something, and if that thing would go to the graveyard, it's kind of like disintegrate from alpha. Just, you totally, your direct damage spell just burned it all up. And it has hellbent. Once again, hellbent is if you don't have any cards in your hand. The spell can't be countered or prevented.

So one of the things, red's two enemies are blue and white. Blue likes to stop red's direct damage spells by countering them and white likes to stop red's direct damage spells by preventing them. Well, this one says if I'm at hellbent, you know, balls to the wall,

if I'm a penalty to the metal, if I'm, if I have nothing left in my hand, this last spell I'm casting on my hand, you can't counter it, you can't prevent it. And it's an X spell, so it can do a lot of damage. Okay, next. Research and Development. So Research

is a similar card, green and blue. It's an instant. They're both instants. You get up to four cards from outside the game and shuffle them into your library. So it's kind of like a wish. So you go get four of any cards and you shuffle them in. They don't go to your hand, though. They shuffle into your library. Or development is three blue R's.

So it's is it. So it's five mana, three generic, one blue, one red. Create a three, one red elemental creature token. And last, your opponent lets you draw a card. So basically what happens is your opponent, and then you repeat that two more times. So three different times your opponent says, what do I want to do?

Let you have a three ones, or I'll let you have a card. And your opponent can mix and match whatever they want. They can let you have three three ones, three cards, or a mix and match of them. So the funny story about this card is, so research and development, R&D, actually the

funny thing is R&D technically doesn't stand for research and development anymore. It changed a couple years ago to research and design. But anyway, most places R&D stands for research and development. And when this card was made, R&D stood for research and development. But anyway, so we needed to go to brand to get permission because there's a vanity thing that goes on and was it okay for us to make a card that referenced the group that made the card and so I had to go up and defend it

and my argument, I forget who made up this joke it was a great joke, the argument I made to them was well we should be able to make a card called research and development we already made one called Brand, because in Mirage there's a card called Brand, like Brand like you would brand a cattle. But anyway, they said, sure.

It wasn't referencing a particular person. It was the whole department, so we got the okay. And so Research and Development. In fact, we have a giant copy of Research and Development that hangs, or used to hang. I'm not sure where it is now. We moved. If you ever see it, there's a picture of me with it that I've used for social media on a couple different occasions. Like when I did my Tumblr Q&A, it was a picture of me holding that card.

I think when I was Geek of the Week recently, or not super recently, but I was holding that card. Okay, next, Dovescape. So Dovescape costs three generic mana and three hybrid mana, white or blue. So three, white or blue, white or blue, white or blue. It's an enchantment. Whenever a player plays a non-creature spell, counter that spell, and then put X11 blue and white flying bird tokens onto the battlefield under their control. So the idea of Dovescape is it turns all your non-creature spells basically into creatures, into birds.

And so it is very good with disrupting your opponent's strategies because usually their deck relies on their non-creature spells doing what they need to do. Hopefully you've built around this. Obviously, if you're building a Dubscape deck, you need to have some non-creature spells. But probably what they're done is they're made to help you get to the state where Dovescape gets into play. And then you have conditions by which you will win with Dovescape.

Next, Dread Slag. Three black red for a 9-9 Horror with Trample. Sounds pretty good. Five mana for a 9-9 Trampler. But it gets minus four, minus four for each card in your hand. So once again, this is a fun... You'll notice with Rakdos, one of the things we're trying to do is we're trying to make something that really encourages...

We want to encourage Rakdos to play a very aggressive, empty-your-hand kind of game. You'll notice there's a bunch of things that cost cards, that let you discard cards or make you discard cards. There's obviously Hellbent that rewards you for having to discard cards. And then there's some spells like this that sort of kind of sideways reward you for having, like this card really needs you to have an empty, for all intents and purposes, this card could say Hellbent.

This could be a 1-1 Hellbent plus 8 plus 8. But the idea is you can play. You don't actually have to have a completely empty hand. If you have two cards in your hand, it's a 1-1. If you have one card in your hand, it's a 5-5. So it allows you... For example, this creature doesn't necessarily die when you draw a card. Well, unless it's your third card.

But anyway, it is definitely something that plays in Rakdos space. Okay. Okay, next is Odds and Ends. So Odds and Ends is another split card. So Odds is blue-red, so it's Izzet.

It's just two mana, one blue and one red. And Enz is three red and a white, so they're both instants. So that's Boros. So, for Odds, you flip a coin. If you get heads, you counter-target spell. And if it's tails, you copy that spell. So the idea essentially is that your opponent casts a spell and you play this, and one of two

things is going to happen. Either nobody gets a spell, or you both get the spell. And then ends is cost five mana, three red-white. Target player sacrifices two attacking creatures.

So that is sort of a defensive spell. Red is often racing you. Boros is often racing you because it's all about aggressively attacking creatures. And so this allows you to sort of have some answers. Well, you're attacking your creatures. You can fight the clock to help you win.

I'm really... Odds is a spell that tickles my fancy. I really like fun coin flip cards. We don't do coin flipping all that much, but that felt like a neat, flavorful one where the fun part is to try to get a situation where either way you're happy, whether it's countered or forked, you know, or copied, either way it is happy. Whether it's countered or forked or copied, either way it is something that has some value to you. Next,

Enemy of the Guild Pact. So it's four and a black for a 4-2 creature, 4-2 spirit. And it has protection from multicolored. So I talked about how there's a theme of caring about multicolored and monocolored. Well, here's something protection from multicolored.

So the idea essentially is this creature goes, hey, okay, you know, I can't be blocked or damaged or harmed by anything that's multicolored. And in this environment, especially in Limited, there's a lot of multicolored things. So this card actually was a decent card in Limited. Okay, next, Trial and Error, another split card. So Trial is white and a blue.

So it's a Zorious card, costs two mana, one of each. So Trial is white and a blue, so it's an Azorius card, costs two mana, one of each. And Air is blue and a black, so it's a Dimir card, instant on both sides. So this isn't uncommon because it's two ally combinations. So Trial is return all creatures blocked or blocking target creature to the owner's hand. So it allows you to sort of, when you either attack or block with something and it's blocked, it allows you to sort of bounce a bunch of stuff. So maybe you attack with a big thing

and they multi-block it to kill it and then you can bounce all the creatures or they attack and either you block their biggest thing or you're able to block multiple things you're able to, uh, block multiple things, because sometimes, uh, white can block multiple things, um, and then air is counter-target multicolored spell. There's another theme of the multicolored, uh, shining through. So, uh, normally, uh, blue-black doesn't do a lot of counter spells. Um, uh few, obviously. Blue being the counter spell color.

But this is nice. Also, it's a counter spell. I mean, it's not a hard counter in that. It only counters multicolored spells. But it costs just two mana to counter a spell. And it obviously can counter any multicolored spell, which is pretty powerful in this environment. Okay, next.

Evolution Vat. This is an artifact. It costs three. So for three and tap, you tap target creature and put a plus one, plus one counter on it. And then until end of turn, that creature gains two green, blue, double all the plus one, plus one counters on me. So this was interesting.

The idea essentially is the way you're ideally supposed to use this is enhancing your own creatures. And and remember there's a lot of synergy in the cynic with plus one plus one counters so that is very valuable and the idea is if you're playing a green blue deck this can do some neat stuff oh so this was one

we had a cycle of artifacts I think it was through the whole block, in which it did something, and then it did an extra thing if you were in the guild. So the idea is, hey, maybe I want to use something that's three and a tap, attack a creature and put a plus and plus counter on it. I can use it on my own creatures, make them powerful. Maybe I'm tapping things I need to tap if it's really big and dangerous, and I just keep using every turn to tap the one big thing. But if I put this in Simic, all of a sudden there's a little more value in Simic, a little extra ability in Simic. And so the idea is these are artifacts that anybody could take, but a certain guild might want more. And like I said, not only does this give you an extra ability

if you're Simic, but Simic already has synergies with plus one, plus one counters. So this just has some extra synergy. So anyway guys, I'm now at work. So I got all the way one counters. So this just has some extra synergy. So anyway, guys, I am now at work. So I got all the way through E. So this is going to be a bunch of episodes. I'm not sure whether it'll be two or three, but I hope you guys are enjoying it. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to Dissension, but

hope you're enjoying it now that I'm here. But anyway, I am now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.