Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #528: Dissension, Part 3

Episode Date: April 13, 2018

This is part three of three, where I share many card-by-card design stories from Dissension.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so the last two podcasts, I've been talking all about Dissension, the third set in the original Ravnica block. And I got up through, I think, O. So we will continue. I actually got through N, but today starts with O. So we're going to start with Omnirion. One green, green, blue. So four mana total. One generic, two green, one blue for a 3-3 frog. Tap. Target creature becomes a 3-3 frog until end of turn. So basically it's a frog that turns other creatures into a frog temporarily. So that is...and a lot of the things that's fun. The Simic have this flavor of experimentation

and so it is neat playing around and doing things where things have different values and you can change things around. Simic is probably my favorite guild to play. I don't identify as Simic. Is it, I guess, from a philosophical standpoint. But the guild I actually have the most fun playing as a player is Simic. I love playing Simic. They are Johnnylicious, or

Jennylicious, if you will. Okay, next. Overrule. X, white, blue. It's an instant, so it costs one white, one blue, and then X, so as much generic mana as you wish. Counter target spell lets his opponent pay X, and then gain X life. So here's the thing we do a lot in multicolor cards, where we will staple two different cards together on the same card. So blue had Power Sink and Alpha. White had Guardian. Well, Guardian

wasn't preventative. Stream of Life was in Alpha. I know that was in green, not white. But we've done X spells to gain you life in white before. So this is kind of like an X spell that stops a spell by Power Sink, and an X spell that gains you life in white before. So this is kind of like an X spell that stops a spell by power sync and an X spell that gains you life and just puts it together. And the fun thing about this is often when you're trying to counter a spell, you don't need to spend the extra mana.

If you can spend more than they're able to, once X is more than the amount of mana they have, then you counter the spell. But this spell, sometimes you want to spend more because it doesn't matter that they can't pay the extra three, you get the extra three life. And so, it's kind of fun. Next, Patagia Viper. Three and green for a 2-1 snake. It is flying, a flying snake. When it enters the battlefield, you put two 1-1 green and blue snake creature tokens onto the battlefield. And then you sacrifice it unless you spend blue to play it. So there's a cycle of creatures in this set where the idea of the creatures was that you didn't have to cast it as a multicolor card.

But if you did, you basically turned it into a spell. So this creature has an enter the battlefield effect and a body. If you want to keep the body, you need to pay blue. And since you need to pay blue, it allows us to make a blue body on a green card. Normally, mono green, for example, doesn't get small flyers. I mean, it did way, way back in the day, but green really isn't a flying color. So the idea of getting a 2-1 flying creature, it really isn't a green thing. But the secret is, it's really not a 2-1 flyer unless you spend blue mana. So the secret of this cycle is, the enter the battlefield effect is in color for the amount of color

that it is, and then the creature, the stats of the creature and the abilities are geared toward the color you have to pay to keep the creature around, because you can't have this creature without spending blue. So anyway, it's a fun design. Next, Pillar of the Parans. It's a land. Tap add one mana of any color, and you may only spend it on multicolor spells. So I mentioned before in the previous podcast that there's a multi-color matters theme in this set. And so this is a good example of, this is something we do often where we give you a land that can tap for any color, but then we put

restrictions on how you can use it. So it's sort of like, oh, well, if you're doing the thing we want you to do, we will make your mana fixing easy, but there comes a restriction. So you just can't use this in any deck. You need to be doing a specific thing. So this card says, okay, if you want to play nothing but multicolored cards, this can help you. So if you want to just fill your deck with multicolored cards, hey, we'll enable you to do that. But if you start trying to play monocolored stuff,

this isn't useful to you. So it puts a restriction in order to let you play. It gives you mana fixing, provided you are doing the thing we are asking you to you. So it puts a restriction in order to let you play. It gives you mana fixing, provided you are doing the thing we are asking you to do. Next, Plumes of Peace. One white blue for an enchantment. It's an aura. Enchanted creature doesn't untap. It's an enchanted creature. And then it has a forecast. And the forecast is you spend white blue reveal it and you can tap target creature so this is a trick we do all the time where it's an enchantment that keeps you from untapping and it is an effect that taps you um this is definitely something that leans a little bit

more toward blue obviously um blue is a color that locks you down and occasionally will tap you. White a little bit more does tap target creature. Blue often will do tap or untap target creature. So this card as a whole leans bluish, but there's at least little elements of it that are a little bit more white than blue. Once again, one of the things in general when we make multicolor cards, is we try to avoid cards in which you can just do the card in one color. But especially when you're making

a whole bunch of multicolor cards, it becomes really difficult to do that. We do the best of our ability to do that. It doesn't always happen. But the fact that sometimes we do things doesn't mean they're necessarily what we want. Sometimes there's necessities where in order to fit something in,

you have to do things. That doesn't change the ideal. The ideal when we design multicolor cards is we'd like them to feel both colors. And we want you to say, this isn't just a monocolor card, this is a multicolored card. We are not 100% on that goal, and there's lots of reasons and different constraints that will sometimes tie our hands. But that is always the goal at hand, is trying to make sure that the multicolor card, in fact, feels multicolor. This is another example, by the way, of a forecast card where the forecast sort of adds extra utility to the thing. Because right now, without the forecast, well, I can lock something down, but if it isn't locked down, it stays untapped. It can be a blocker and it can attack once. Normally, we have

to get something that's already in a tapped state. With the forecast ability, that allows you to be able to get anything, because the forecast ability can't tap it, provided you have the mana to forecast it and then to cast it. You would need one white, white, blue, blue to tap something and lock it down. Next, Pride of the Clouds, white, blue, so just two mana, one white, one white, white, blue, blue, to tap something and lock it down. Next, Pride of the Clouds, white, blue, so just two mana, one white, one blue, for a 1, 1 elemental cat. Not a lot of elemental cats. There's some, but not a lot. Usually they're made of fire. This one's not. This one's made like a cloud or something.

It has flying. It has plus one, plus one for each other creature on the battlefield you control with flying. Or no, each other creature on the battlefield with flying. This is back in the day where we would count both sides. We don't do that anymore. So forecast is you spend two white, blue, reveal this card, and you get to make a one, one white and blue bird token with flying. And so the idea here is, this is another good example of forecast, whereas it's a token producer, and I can make a bunch of tokens. But at some point, I can cast this creature, and it's as big as there are flyers, other flyers, not counting itself. Right? Other flyers?

Yeah, each other flyers. It doesn't count itself, although it's a 1-1. And so the idea essentially is that, you know, you make 1-1s. At some point, oh, this thing's big enough. I just want to stop making my little tokens. I now want to make my giant guy. Because let's say I spend five turns putting up five tokens and I play him. You know, he's a 6-6 or maybe even bigger if you played some actual other flying creatures.

One thing you'll note, by the way, it's interesting. We didn't say 0-0 count all. We said 1-1 count all others. We go back and forth on how best to do the math. A lot of times what we'll do is we'll grant the ability to the creature and then say all other. But sometimes when it's just cleaner, we'll just...

I'm not sure whether this should have been... In fact, probably if I had to do this again, I would make it star, star. It's equal to the number of flyers on the battlefield. And it counts itself because it's a flyer. I think that's probably how I would do this, but we did not do that at the time. Next, Protean Hulk. Five green, green for a six six beast. When it dies, you get to go through your library and go find up to a combined six

converted mana cost of creature. So the idea is you can go get one six mana creature, a five mana creature, and a one mana creature, three two mana creatures, two three mana creatures, a four and a two. You can go anything that combines up to six. We've never really used it. We at R&D, we refer to that as girth. Oh no, I'm sorry. Girth is your power and toughness combined. That's not what this is doing. Sorry, I'm giving you wrong info. But anyway, the idea of counting up converted mana costs and having sort of, you have a flexibility of how to use it is sort of fun. We've talked about trying to do more of this. It's a little bit complicated.

Converted Mana cost is complicated. But there's something really fun to this card. This card was a really popular card. Psychic Possession, two blue blue, Enchantment, Aura. Enchant opponent. They skip their draw, but whenever they, sorry, you skip your draw, you skip your draw step, but whenever an opponent sorry, you skip your draw, you skip your draw step, but whenever an opponent draws, you draw. So the interesting thing about this card is the idea that if I think my opponent is drawing more cards than me,

I can kind of trade away my draws from my opponent's draws. I'm not sure, I mean, the other big question is what are you doing with it? I know I've seen people build decks that are a bunch of effects and magic where you can make other people draw cards. I know I've seen people build decks that are a bunch of effects and magic where you can make other people draw cards. And so the idea is I do things where usually my opponent drawing a card is a negative thing for me, so I get more value out of it. But here, I get to draw the card. I've also seen this as a sideboard card against decks that are just draw more than you do. Sometimes in mirror matches, you know, blue on blue, I've seen that brought in.

Okay, next, pure and simple. Split've seen that brought in. Okay, next. Pure and simple. Split card. Pure. They're both sorceries. Pure costs one red green, three mana, one generic,

one red, one green. Destroy target multicolored permanent. Once again, we're talking about the multicolored matters. Here's an anti-matters, not a positive matters, but it destroys it. And the note there is

red can destroy... Well, red can do damage to creatures and green can kill artifacts and enchantments. This is the kind of effect we don't do too much more in red-green. We're more likely to do this in black-green or in black-white just because we try to avoid... Green can't destroy creatures other than flying or artifact creatures and red usually has a limitation that it's hard to destroy big creatures.

So I think we were trying to make a simplistic card here. And I understand why Gruul, you know, wants the simplistic Gruul being mono-caller or pro-mono-caller. Makes a little bit of sense. But this isn't, we probably would not do the card today as red-green. And then for simple is one green white. So three mana, one generic, one green, one white. So Selesnya. Destroy all auras and equipment. So this sort of destroys

everything that is enchanting and equipping things. Okay, next. Rakdos Augur Mage. So Rakdos Augur Mage costs black, black, red. It's a 3-2 human wizard with first strike. And then you can tap it so you reveal your hand

and your opponent gets to choose a card in your hand to discard. Then that player shows you their hand and you choose a card from their hand to discard. So basically the way it works, and you can only activate this as a sorcery, basically when you could play a sorcery. So the idea essentially is it's a 3 mana, three two first striker that has the ability of, I can make both of us discard a card of the other's choice.

Now, one of the things where it fits pretty well in this thing is there's a theme already in Rakdos that you want to empty your hand. So once your hand is empty, essentially at hell bent, this creature essentially is, I make you discard a card of my choosing. So this card was an Invitational card made by Terry So who won the Invitational at one of the LA ones at E3.

And he made this card. This card is pretty close to what he made. I think in the end it was a little bit more aggressive when Terry gave it to us and we with playtesting we found that it just wasn't a particularly fun card. If you got it early enough, you could use it to mana, to make your opponent throw away their lands. That's not really what we like to do,

so we actually made this not quite as efficient as some of the other Invitational cards. In general, we try to make the Invitational cards good, but if we find the gameplay to not be fun, we won't push it. And this is a card where the gameplay really wasn't that fun, so we didn't push it. I think it did show up in tournaments a little bit. It is a powerful ability.

But anyway, and the person in the picture, that's Terry in the picture. Anyway, if you ever wonder. Okay, next. Raktos Guildmage. So this is hybrid-hybrid, so black or red. So black or red, black or red. For a 2-2 zombie shaman, it's a zombie. All of the guildmages are either

wizards or shaman, depending on the color combination. So for 3 black and discard a card, target creature gets minus 2, minus 2 at the end of turn. For 3 and red, you can put a 2-1 red goblin creature token with haste, and you exile it at the end of turn. So either I can

kill a creature, although it costs me mana and a card, or I can attack you with a creature that's a temporary creature. A temporary 2-1 goblin. And this definitely fits in the Ractor as sort of aggro, in-your-face, aggressive strategy. Also, once again, remember, it rewards you for having no cards in hand. So this is another example where, in a normal deck, losing your card sometimes is more disadvantageous.

But in this deck, in Rakdos, sometimes you want to get rid of your last few cards because the power of being at hellb to get rid of your last few cards because the power of being at Hellbent is more valuable than the few cards you have in your hand. And this is a good example of a card that helps you in Rakdos, unless you use your card for purpose. Like, a lot of times, like, oh, I'm willing to discard a card to kill a creature and either straight up kill a two toughness or less creature, or sometimes in combat, I do enough damage that when this has a rider, I then can kill something.

The other cool thing about this card is the threat of minus two, minus two, as long as you have a card in hand to make the threat, often will keep your opponent from blocking or attacking in a certain way, because the fact that you can do it a lot of times is enough. Like, one of the things I talk about a lot is there are certain activations that the threat of the activation itself is power. That the fact that you can do it means that people will react to it even though you don't often have to do it. Like a lot of times I will attack and my opponent won't make bad blocks

because the potential of the ability is enough to have an impact. And that's one thing that's important to realize is that sometimes your opponent doesn't even need to use the ability for the ability to value and mean something. Okay, next. Rakdos Pit Dragon. So two red, red. So four mana total. Two generic, two red. For a 3, 3 dragon. For red, red, it gains flying. For red, it is fire breathing. Plus one, plus zero to end of turn. And Hellbent, it is double strike.

So this is an interesting dragon. This is actually one of the rare dragons, especially in red, that doesn't fly, or naturally fly. In fact, I'm not sure if there is another red dragon that doesn't naturally fly. I mean, obviously, you can gain it. It can gain flying, so it's capable of flying. And the

fact that when you get hellbent, it gets double strike, so the cool thing is, it's a 3-3 dragon, and Double Strike essentially does 6 damage, and then all of a sudden at Hellbent, the Fire Breathing goes from being essentially a plus 1, plus 0 ability to being a plus 2, plus 0 ability. Practically, I mean, not 100%, but from a damage standpoint, essentially.

You know, for each red mana you spent, it now does 2 damage rather than 1 damage. Next, Rakdos the Defiler. So two black black, red red for a 7-6 legendary demon. So Rakdos is the leader of the Rakdos. That's who the Rakdos is named after. So a bunch

of the guilds, by the way, are named after people. The Azorius are named after Azor. That's the Sphinx that you guys met in Rivals of Ixalan. The Izzet are named after Niv-Mizzet, the dragon that runs them. And the Rakdos are named after Rakdos, the demon that runsivals of Ixalan the Izzet are named after Niv-Mizzet the dragon that runs them and the Rakdos are named after Rakdos, the demon that runs them I think those are the three that are named after people I might be missing one

but I think those are the three anyway, he has Flying and Trample and when he attacks you have to sacrifice half your non-demon permanents rounded up and then when you hit a player they have to sacrifice half their demon permanents, round it up. And then when you hit a player, they have to sacrifice half their demon permanents, round it up.

So one of the funny things about this card is, in the early version of it, we didn't have the non-demon rider on it. And it just said, sacrifice half your permanents. And what ended up happening was, as soon as it was disadvantageous for this creature, sometimes people

would sacrifice it. And so we decided that it was just more flavorful to say, oh, look, it can't sacrifice itself. You know, we talked about doing other and this and that. But the non-demon, the thing I liked about that was that it allowed you to sort of make a demon deck. That if you're playing with a bunch of demons, not just this demon, but a bunch of demons, it's kind of cool because it doesn't hurt your other demons. And we like the idea that wherever we can find a little bit of tribal,

you know, people love tribal, and demons haven't had a lot of tribal, so this is, I mean, not a major tribal, but it's a little push toward tribal, that if you want to put a few extra demons in the deck, they're just a little bit more synergistic with Rakdos. Rakdos, he likes hanging out with other demons. Okay, Ratcatcher. 4 black, black for

4, 4 ogre rogue. He's got fear, so for those who don't know what that is, this creature can only be blacked by black creatures or artifact creatures. Fear would later become Intimidate, which would later be replaced by Menace. Fear was an ability that

showed up in Alpha, although not named, on a card called Fear, and then we eventually put it in. Fear was an ability that showed up in Alpha, although not named, on a card called Fear. And then we eventually put it in. Fear was always a weird name because really it doesn't represent fear. It represents that this thing is scary and that your opponent is afraid of it. But Fear is sort of weird since it's a creature having fear. It's not afraid. Anyway, every upkeep you get to look through your deck, through your library, for a rat card. You get to reveal it and put it in your hand.

So the Rat Catcher is a rat tribal deck, basically. It allows you to go get your rats. And you can have a lot of different kinds of rats. So you can, you know, this, it's this Tutor's for Rats. So it allows you to sort of have what we call a tool belt or, you know, or toolbox that you can sort of go get the thing you need when you need it. I mean, you're limited. You only get rats. But anyway, it's a pretty cool card. Riot Spikes. It's a common hybrid card.

So it costs one hybrid mana, black or red. Enchanted Gage, it gets plus two, minus one. One of the tricky things about hybrid is trying to find nice, simple cards that are hybrid. And one of the neat things is plus power minus toughness is something that both black and red do. Black does it more than red, and red more often does it on its own things and less often on its opponent things. But the idea of having this,

I get a power bonus, but at the cost of toughness, definitely has a very Rakdos feel to it and does fit in both black and red. Okay, next we have two cards. Seal of Doom and Seal of Fire. So Seal of Doom is two in black for enchantment. You can sacrifice it to destroy a target non-black creature and it can't be regenerated. And Seal of Fire is you can sacrifice it to deal two damage to any target.

So the interesting thing about this is both of these are pre-existing spells. And in, I think it was Nemesis, I think Nemesis, we made a cycle of seals, which basically were basic classic spells that you might put in your deck, except they're enchantments that you can put in play and then use them when you need them. The reason we did a seal in black and a seal in red is seals work really well with the Rector strategy. It says, oh, I have basically a shock in my hand, but if it stays in my hand, I can't get to Hellbent. But if I cast it, I give away the surprise that I have it, but I now still have access to my shock, and my hand doesn't have the card. So we put the seals

in to do that. We're not super crazy about seals in R&D. We like having the surprise value of cards in your hand, and we find it's better gameplay most of the time. You don't know it's coming. Because once it's on the battlefield, then everyone feels obligated to sort of take into account what's going there. And then when you make mistakes because you didn't remember it,

you feel bad. So we do them occasionally. We tend not to do reactive seals as much, which these are. I'm sorry, proactive seals, which these are. We more often do reactive seals these days where the right situation has to happen,

so it's not as if you can just do whatever you want. But anyway, this was Ravnica, or Dissension, and back then, we did them, so Seal of Doom and Seal of Fire. Next, Shielding Plaques. It costs two in a hybrid. The hybrid's green or blue. It's an enchantment. It's an aura, a chance-targeted creature. So when Shielding Plaques enters the battlefield, you draw a card. And then enchant a creature

can't be the target of opponent's spells or abilities. So this, by the way, technically gives Shroud, or not Shroud, Hexproof. This gives Hexproof

written out at a time that Hexproof wasn't a thing. Oh, no, no. It's not Hexproof. It's not Hexproof. Because Hexproof only protects you... Is Hexproof...

No, Hexproof prevents you... Yeah. Hexproof... Is this technically hexproof? It is close. I think it's not technically hexproof. But anyway, essentially the idea is I protect my guy blue and green of access to abilities like that. They now have hexproof. And because it's not really worth a card,

we let you draw a card to replace it. Okay. Simic Guild Mage. Hybrid-hybrid. So it's green or blue because it's Simic. So green or we let you draw a card to replace it. Okay, Simic Guildmage. Hybrid-hybrid, so it's green or blue because it's Simic. So green or blue, green or blue, 2-2, Elf Wizard. For one and a green, you can move a plus-and-plus encounter to another creature with the same controller. And for one and a blue, you can move an aura from one creature to another creature with the same controller.

The reason the rider is same controller is this is not about you stealing something from somebody else. It's you either building your own monster or messing with your opponent's creatures. I know I made this card. Remember when I made it? The reason I really liked it was a lot of the Simic is sort of playing around with resources and sort of doing things with your creatures and changing things around. And it is kind of neat that this card, it allows you to do a lot of neat interaction things.

And you can definitely make some threats for your opponent. There's things you have to be careful of because your resources can be shared. So, like, one of the reasons I say I like playing Simic is, like, this card, I mean, I made this card, but I love cards like this. This is a really, really fun card to me. There's a lot of weird and fun interactions you can do. It lets you feel clever and do clever-y things in the board. Um, I'm not sure clever-y is actually a word.

Clever is the word. Um, but anyway, it is, it is something that really, I think, plays into the gameplay style of the Simic, which is there's a lot of sort of micromanaging your creatures and your side of the board. And, you know, it is a fun creature to play. I always cackle giddily when I play Simic Guildmage. Next, Simic Initiate. So Simic Initiate costs a single green. It's a 0-0 human mutant with graft 1. So one of the things that's fun to do when you make new mechanics is it's neat to see

what is the smallest version of the new mechanic you can make. So obviously this card says, okay, I want to make a graph. What's the least I can do? Well, for starters, let's have nothing but graft on the card. It is a French Vanilla. It only has an ability on the card, a keyboard ability on the card. And it now just has just Graft. It has the lowest path, Graft 1. So the idea of this creature that's kind of cute is it's a 1-1 you play in the beginning of the game, and then at any time you play another creature, or even your opponent plays a creature,

there's a few reasons to do this, you can make it bigger. It's essentially like I have a 1-1 that I can use early game, and then later game when the 1-1 isn't that practical, it essentially beefs up one of my other creatures. So I like the design a lot. It's actually, it's very elegant. It's very simple. It gets across what mechanic does,

but it has some neat uses to it. Okay, next, Simic Ragworm. So three green for a 3-3 worm, blue untapped card name. So a couple of things. One is this is at a time before, it wasn't until Future Sight that we decided that we wanted to, or actually this is after Future Sight. This is after Future Sight. Future Sight was before this. So the interesting thing about this is green has vigilance. So in some level, this is not an awesome design in that green has access to vigilance.

So untapping, while technically something blue can't do, I mean, green doesn't tend to do, green doesn't untap itself, blue does. This is an ability that is not so far away from something that mono green can do. So this design I have some issues with. But there are a bunch of tap abilities that go on in the set. There are some things that allow you to tap. So the one difference here is if you give a tap ability to the ragworm, you can untap it and then reuse abilities.

So if it somehow gets access to an ability, then the activation means something. But anyway, there's a cycle of cards. I throw out the whole block. In fact, I think there's two cycles, one going each direction, where it's a creature, it's a color, and then, so for example, for Simic,

there's a green card with a blue activation, and there's a blue creature with a green activation that is something that's in the guild that allows you, if you have both cards, you have access to extra ability, but if you don't, for example, if you have green and not blue, look, you might just play this as a four mana 3-3. Eh, it's not a top pick, but

maybe it's your 23rd pick, maybe it fills out your deck, maybe you need a four drop and this lets you have access to it even if you don't have blue. But the person who's playing green and blue has more reason to want this and is more likely to take it. And so there's a whole cycle of those, not just in the set, but throughout the block. Okay, Simic Skyswower.

Five green, blue, six, six, Leviathan, Flying Trample Shroud. I think Shroud is written... Oh, no. Shroud doesn't exist at this point. Shroud showed up in Future Sight. Future Sight was right before Ravnica. Oh, no. Did I say that backwards?

Was Ravnica... No, no, no. Okay. I do have it backwards. I do have it backwards. Okay. Then that's what's going on with the green card with the blue untapping. Future Sight's ahead of this. We hadn't yet made Vigilance, and we hadn't yet made Shroud. I'm sorry. We'd made Vigilance. We hadn't put it in green

yet, and Shroud wasn't a keyword yet. Future Sight added more keywords secondarily to different colors, including Vigilance in green, and it added a bunch of keywords. Lifelink, Death Touch, Reach, and Shroud. Shroud later became Xproof. All that introduced in Future Sight.

So anyway, this was flying, trample, and a written out shroud. But anyway, it's a nice thing where blue gets flying and green really doesn't. Green gets trample and blue really doesn't. Although, interestingly, blue is tertiary and trample and green is tertiary and flying, meaning every once in a while we have a green flyer, every once in a while we have a blue trampler, but it's infrequent. So each one of these is primary in the first color and tertiary in the other color. And then Shroud is an ability that overlaps blue and green.

Both blue and green can prevent things from being targeted. Anyway, it's a pretty nice, simple card. Spell Snare, blue, instant. Counter-tar target spell with a converted mass of converted mana cost of two not two or less exactly two um one of the fun things when you make a lot of counter spell variants is it's fun sometimes to make really narrow but very efficient ones so a lot of times this is the kind of card people will sideboard in if they need to it is an answer if i go second and my opponent, you know, my first turn

I play an island, and then my opponent's second turn I can counter the thing they play on their second turn. And in constructed environments sometimes being able to do that is pretty important. Stomp and Howl, two green sorcery. Destroy target artifact and enchantment. So sometimes

by the way, we make things that are just less optimal than other things obviously we do naturalize this is not artifact or enchantment this is artifact and enchantment so it's not an instant it's a sorcery it costs one more but instead of having to choose you get both

that can be problematic because it says and I think you have to have both targets. Not a particularly strong card, but in situations where you expect them to have both, you know, it can be. Swift Silence, two, white, blue, blue, instant. So it is five mana, two generic, one white, two blue. Counter all other spells and draw a card for each spell. So the idea of this thing was that it could counter a spell, but really what it wants to do is counter a whole bunch of spells. For example, I think this might be an environment because Storm was in the environment. That if my opponent plays Storm, a normal counter spell can't stop Storm because it only stops one of the spells.

It doesn't stop all the other copies. If my opponent goes off with Storm and you have this card, not only can you stop the Storm, but you can draw a lot of cards. So this is a really, really good anti- I mean, in a white-blue deck, a good anti-Storm card. Also, it's the kind of thing people ask for a lot.

This is a very narrow card that's not often you know, it's hard to net a lot of value out of this card because most of the time you're not counter-spawning all that many spells. But, every once in a while, you do something, they respond. Every once in a while you can get some value out of this card because most of the time you're not counterspelling all that many spells. But, every once in a while you do something they respond. Every once in a while you can get some value out of this card. Thrive. XG.

Sorcery. X and a green sorcery. It's common. Put X plus one plus one counter. Oh, sorry. Put a plus one plus one counter on X creatures. X different creatures. I'm not a big fan of X spells that are common, although you could word this so actually it doesn't have an X in it. But this is a spell we use quite a bit. Basically, I get to put a plus and plus counter to as many creatures as I want, but I got to spend more mana to do that. Anyway,

it's a fun card. It's something we've used a lot. Transguild Courier. It's an artifact for four, and it has no text. It did have a text. Originally, it said that the card is all colors, but now with modern technology, it has a color indicator that it's all five colors, and that color indicator means that technically you don't have to have any text in it. And then also the frame is a gold frame, even though it's an artifact. Although it might be a gold artifact frame.

That technically is a thing. I think we... Because of some of the stuff... Have we done it anywhere else? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that elsewhere there's a gold artifact frame. Yeah, yeah, there is. Esper has gold artifact frames. Yeah, yeah, there is. Esper has gold artifact frames.

Okay. Although, does it do... The thing is, usually when we do that, we might have done... Well, I'm not sure. Anyway, there are... It is both an artifact creature and a multicolored creature.

Not... Esper has a bunch, but it's not something we do all that much. Twin Strike. Three black-red instant. You do two damage to each of two target creatures, and then if you're hellbent, instead of dealing damage to them, instead you destroy them.

So the idea here is, this is one of those spells where, like, the spell is red, but if you meet conditions, it gets to be black. And so sometimes we overlap the two colors in a multicolor card sometimes it does one or does the other or it's modal you know usually you have to see the red component and the black component this card is red normally but can sort of

get into black if you have the hellbent condition. Next, Unliving Psychopath, two black black zero four zombie assassin for black mana it gets plus one, minus one to end of turn. And for black and tap, you can destroy a target creature with a power less than card name.

So these are two abilities that are interesting to each other. It's a creature that can kill things, but normally it has to have a power lower than it, so you need to spend black mana. You spend one black mana, you can kill zero toughness things. Two black mana, you can kill one toughness spend one black mana, you can kill zero toughness things. Two black mana, you can kill one toughness. Three black mana,

you can kill two toughness. You've got to be careful, though, because if you make this bigger than the three one, if you try to make it a four zero, it'll die. So now, if you can somehow give it extra toughness, then you can kill larger things. It basically kills small things,

provided you have the mana to do it, makes it more vulnerable, and with help, can let you kill bigger things, but it basically kills small things, provided you have the mana to do it, makes it more vulnerable, and with help, can let you kill bigger things if you can make it tougher. Next, Vesper Ghoul. Two and a black for a 1-1 zombie druid. Tap, pay one life, add one mana of any color. Sometimes, black has this flavor of, it can do a lot of things, provided it pays a cost for them, beyond just mana.

So this is a good example that sometimes what we let black do in multicolored environments is we give it access to colors at the colored mana, but at the cost of life. So it's sort of like, well, you can get colored mana, but it hurts you to do so. And that's what we did right here. Vigian Hydropod, one green blue for a 0-0 plant mutant with graph 5,

and the card can't attack or block. So in playtests, we called this Wall of Hats. And the idea was it was a graphed creature that itself could never use the counters, that all it was doing was something that you wanted to give to other things. And there was a lot of debate about this card, because you don't normally make a creature that you then say you can't attack or block. Not text we put on many creatures. The cool thing about this creature was it had a value even if you couldn't attack or block.

And the reason was all the graph was on creatures, so it was kind of us wanting to make an enchantment, but we couldn't make an enchantment, or at the time didn't want to make an enchantment. So we came up with this clever solution. It definitely was something that was a little on the confusing side, and we did have a lot of debate about whether it would confuse people too much, because if a card does something that doesn't make sense to people, they read it differently, and they go,

well, it must not mean that. But anyway, Wall Hats went on to actually, I know it got a bunch of play in Limited, I don't think it was a constructed card, but it went on to have some charm. I think when we do things that are weird, that there's people that really enjoy cards that just say text that other cards don't say. And I think this card got some reward for that. Okay, next. Void Slime. Green, blue, blue, instant. You can counter-target spell, activated ability, or triggered ability.

So blue obviously counters spells, and green, for a long time, got to counter activated abilities. Little by little, we've moved this ability more into blue and less into green, although green gets to do it every once in a blue moon. So this is an ability that's sort of dipping in where blue and green overlap. I'm not convinced this card can't be done in mono-blue. In fact, we might have done it in mono blue. But at the time we made this card,

green was more the one that was doing activate abilities. I mean, trigger ability, I'm not even sure if we had done before this card. We might have done it. But anyway, we decided to put it into green blue. A little bit of a stretch. Next, Walking Archive. It's an artifact creature that costs three. It's a golem that is a 1-1.

It's got Defender. And it enters the battlefield with a plus one, plus one counter. And then during your upkeep, you draw cards equal to the number of counters on it. And then for two white and blue, you can put a counter on it. So this is another one in the cycle of artifacts that anybody can use, but are more efficient in the right hands. So the idea is, hey, if I have this creature, for three mana, I get a 1-1. Not a 1-1. I really get a 2-2. For three mana, I get a 2-2 that draws me a card each turn. Not bad. It's not a bad card.

Probably play that in limited, even if I'm not playing White-Blue. But, but, if I'm playing White-Blue, all of a sudden this card gets significantly better. It's bigger, I'm drawing more cards, it becomes a much more interesting card. Okay, next, Wind Reaver. Three White-Blue for a 1-3 Elemental. For a White mana, you can give it Vigilance at the end of turn. Also for White mana, you can give it plus zero, plus three until end of turn. For a Blue mana, you can swap its power and toughness. And also for a Blue mana, you can give it plus zero, plus three to end of turn. For a blue mana, you can swap its power and toughness. And also for blue mana, you can return it to your hand.

So one of the fun things about this is between the toughness pumping and the switching, it allows you to manipulate sort of whether it's defensive or offensive. We give it vigilance to allow you to be both defensive and offensive. And then the bounce is something we did to sort of be able to protect it. This is a powerful card, but if I make it vulnerable, my opponent might try to kill it. If I make it, you know,

let's say I give it plus zero plus three to make it a one six and then swap it into a six one, well, my opponent could do one damage and kill it. So we want to put a little protection onto it. But anyway, this was a popular card. Next, Witits End. Five black black sorcery.

Opponent discards their hand. Their whole hand. We like to do this every once in a while, usually at higher rarities, which is like, you know that effect we do? This color does it all the time? Let's just turn it up as loud as we can go. Well, you know, often we make you discard one or two cards.

Well, how about all the cards? And so we just costed this appropriately, seven mana. Mind Twist did exist back in Alpha. That was an X spell. If you spent enough mana, you can make them discard their hand. But that card was powerful because, you know, if they had a smaller hand, you didn't need to spend it. With this card, you need to spend seven.

Okay. And the final card of my Dissension podcast is Wrecking Ball. Two black red instant. Destroy a target creature or land. So this was a little mini cycle we did in the block where we were playing around with destroying one

of two things, a modal card, that were nice, clean, simple cards. I think all of them cost well, they cost two or three mana, but I believe but anyway, they didn't cost much. They were nice, clean, simple cards. I think all of them cost... Well, they cost two or three mana, but I believe... But anyway, they didn't cost much. They were two, three, maybe four mana at most. And then it's destroy A or B.

And the idea was it was something in which neither color could do both things. Although, actually, as I say that... Is that true here? Well, black can destroy creatures and land. So that's not true here. So... I think what happened was we were trying to do out the cycle,

and then there's some cleaner ones, like black-green kills a creature or enchantment. Black can't kill enchantments. Green can't kill creatures. Mortify, I think that's called. But anyway, that's part of that cycle. This one's... As you see as I look back,

one of the things about looking back many years is you see things that we did like, oh, well, you know, I go, eh, yeah, mono black kind of could do that. And you see little flaws and things. But I think we were trying to make a nice clean card. We're not really pushing land destruction all that much. So by giving it creature destruction or land destruction

allows you to put in your main deck it. And I mean, I do believe that card is still in play. Anyway, that, my friends, is Descension. So that was a fun set. I had fun going through it and looking at it.

There were a lot of cool designs that I kind of forgot were there until I went back and looked at it. I work on so many sets that sometimes I just forget the nuance of sets

until I go back and look at them and I'm like, oh yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff in this. I like Descension. It was fun to look through. And hats off to Aaron.

That was his first design as lead through. And hats off to Aaron. That was his first design as lead design. So hats off to Aaron. And hats off to Matt, the lead developer. But anyway, and I apologize for taking so long to get to Dissension. I should have got to this sooner. When I get busy, it's hard to do the card-by-card one just because they're the thing that actually requires the most prep of anything I do. So I will keep trying to do them.

I know you guys like them. They're a little bit hard to do. But anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know thing that actually requires the most prep of anything I do. So I will keep trying to do them. I know you guys like them. They're a little bit hard to do. But anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.