Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #632: Morningtide, Part 2

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

This is part two of my three-part series on card-by-card design stories from Morningtide.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to continue talking about Morning Tide. I started last time and I'm going to continue. So we were up to D. So we're going to start with Disperse. One and a blue, instant, return target non-land permanent to its owner's hand. So I think this is the first time we made Disperse. Hopefully I'm not wrong. One of the things that's nice is trying to...

Like, one of the things that's very interesting about the game is we've made the game for a long time. We've made a lot of cards. There's a lot of things you think, like, oh, we clearly have made this before. But for different reasons, like, in early Magic, we had spells that bounced things, but they tended to bounce anything.

And what we found was the best things to do with them was just bouncing land, which is not you know, in general, we've been trying to not make it easy to keep people from playing land, that land destruction and stuff like that, or even early discard. We try to minimize that stuff that's early,

keep you from getting your land, or stop your land progression. So basically, this was like, okay, let's just do a boomerang-like effect. Boomerang first showed up, I think, in Legends, which was blue, blue, bounce anything, and say, okay, well, since we're not going to let you get land, we'll give you a little cheaper, so instead of blue, blue,

it's one and a blue. Or did I say that? Versus one and a blue. And, you know,? Diverses one and a blue. And, you know, it's an instant, and then you let it bounce a non-land permanent. So anyway, it just... One of the things I'd like to point out is, I mean, this card has nothing particularly to do with this set thematically,

other than we need bounce spells. Hey, we made a nice, clean bounce spell. We put it here. And so one of the things we're always looking for is places where we can do nice, clean, simple things. And it's amazing how often something hasn't been done. Like, I'm always amazed when we make

a card, especially now that we're like 25 years in, like, oh, we haven't made that yet. How have we not made that yet? As a designer, it is very exciting to make a nice, clean, simple card we haven't made yet. Okay, next. Distant Melody costs three and a blue, so four mana total, one of which is blue.

Sorcery. Choose a creature type. Draw cards for each permanent you control of that type. So one of the themes that you would see that we did in Morning Tide was we did a lot that Lorwyn has a tribal theme. So we made a bunch of cards that are

like, look, this card just lets you pick whatever you want. You know, whatever deck you build, whatever kind of tribal deck you want, assuming you have blue in it, you can play this. This doesn't care, you know, we could make a card that says for every wizard draw a card

or for every, you know, fairy draw a card. But this is sort of like, you know, play in whatever blue deck you want, then just name what you want. and cards like this just make more flexibility and allow more people to make more different tribal decks like one of the goals of this block was look there's eight races we're supporting there's five classes we're supporting uh there's also like changeling and other things and like okay we want you to build the deck you want to build. And so, you know, if you want to build a rogue deck, hey, go to town. You want to build a fairy deck, go to town. And this

card is just like, okay, you know, any deck, any tribal deck with blue in it, we're just going to help you. We're just going to reinforce that by making some open-ended cards. And this Morning Tide has a bunch of open-ended cards. Okay, next. Diviner's Wand. It costs three. Three generic mana. It's a tribal artifact. A wizard equipment. Equipped creature has, quote,

Whenever you draw a card, this creature gets plus one, plus one, and gains flying until end of turn. End quote. And, quote, four color mana draw card. End quote. Whenever a wizard creature enters the battlefield, you may attach mana draw card. End quote. Whenever a wizard creature enters the battlefield, you may attach Diviner's Wand to it. Quip three. So this is a cycle, cycle of artifacts, and they all are tied to different classes that we were supporting in the set. Wizard was one of them.

And so the idea is each one of them is an object that that, like, oh, well, what would a wizard have? Well, how about a wand? A wizard would have a wand. And so the idea is anybody can use it. The idea of the equipment

is anybody can use it. It's equipment. It has a cost. The reason that it's better in a deck of the creature type that it's supporting is that it snaps on.

That whenever you play a wizard, you can have it snap on, so you don't have to equip it. You don't have to pay the, I mean, you don't have to pay the equip cost. I guess it gets equipped when it comes in. And so there's one of these for all of the five major tribes,

maybe the classes. I think there were five major classes we supported, although there was some minor class support. I'm going to get to some of those. But anyway, Wizard was one of the major class supports. Okay, next. Door of Destinies. So an artifact.

It costs four. As Door of Destinies enters the battlefield, choose a creature type. Whenever you cast a spell of the chosen type, put a charge counter on Door of Destinies. Creatures you control of the chosen type get plus one plus one for each charge counter on Door of Destinies. So, this was inspired by... What's the card called?

I'm blinking on the card. There's an artifact I made long ago that gave each creature plus one plus one for every other creature of its type. And it was very popular. I'm blinking on the name right now. You guys, you can yell it out as you listen. And this was kind of inspired by that. It's like we wanted to make a bunch of open-ended cards and one of the things that we wanted to do was make a card that sort of let you get your creatures bigger. So this card

essentially is like I play this and then every time I play my creatures they just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So this card essentially is like, I play this, and then every time I play my creatures, they just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So, whatever you're playing, it just allows you to take things that might be a little on the smaller side and make them bigger. I mean, you can play in a deck with bigger things too, but this card is a little bit better on things that are naturally small.

Next, Earth Brawn. One and a green, instant. Target creature gets plus three, plus three until end of turn. Reinforce one for one and a green. For one and a green, you can discard this card, put a plus one, plus one counter on target creature. Okay, reinforce.

This is one of the new mechanics. So reinforce, I made this mechanic. It was inspired by cycling. So cycling is a mechanic where you get to pay some mana and you discard a card in your hand to draw a card. So I said, well, what if there was just a different reward? What if

instead of drawing a card, you got plus one, plus one counters? And the idea was that, you know, you tend to have creatures. Making them bigger often is valuable. So this card, for example, is... Like, one of the tricks with Reinforce is to have some interesting flavor and some choices.

So the idea of this card is, okay, I can temporarily make something plus three, plus three bigger, or I can permanently make it plus one, plus one bigger. And the idea is, you know, there's an interesting choice. The other thing that goes on in this set is, as I explained last time, there's a plus one, plus one counter matters theme. And so sometimes, not only do I want the permanency of the counter, but I want the counter to enable, you know, to grant some ability to my creature

because there's some other card granting things to creatures with plus one, plus one counters. Now, Reinforced ended up being not super popular. I think it's a little narrow I mean it's the kind of thing that had this just been a charm that said this or that rather than a whole mechanic I think cycling works

because drawing a card is universally useful more of the time and you know trading in for something different just has a lot of utility to it. The plus and plus one counters, I mean, there were cards that worked, and I know in Limited there was plenty of Reinforced played. I don't think a lot of,

I don't know if Reinforced made a lot of constructed decks. I can't remember any. But anyway, it's one of those mechanics that it wasn't players disliked it. Like, we make mechanics sometimes, players are like, I don't like this. it was more like ho-hum like people are like oh okay that's mechanic

in limited they played with it but it just didn't it didn't stimulate anybody it was the kind of thing where there are occasionally interesting choices and people use the card when they had it in their deck

but it never wowed anybody excuse me okay next It never wowed anybody. Excuse me. Okay. Next. Is Fertilid. So Fertilid costs two and a green. So three mana, one of which is green.

It's a 0-0 creature, an elemental. Fertilid enters the battlefield with two plus one, plus one counters on it. One and a green. Remove a plus one, plus one counter from Fertilid enters the battlefield with two plus one plus one counters on it one in the green remove a plus one plus one counter from Fertilid target player searches their library for a basic land card puts it on the battlefield tap and then shuffles their library okay so I mentioned a moment ago

that there is a plus one plus one counter matters theme in the set so this card essentially is a 2-2 creature that can twice let you rampant growth let you go get a land and put it in the set. So this card essentially is a 2-2 creature that can twice let you rampant growth. Let you go get a land and put it in the battlefield, a basic land, put it in the battlefield tapped. The one nice thing about this card is if there's a means to get plus one, plus one counters on it,

you can use the ability more times. So for example, I just talked about Reinforce. Well, maybe the reason I use Reinforce on the Fertilid is I want to get an extra basic land out of it. And so in some ways it turns my extra ability, instead of into a flexible counter, into a rampant growth. And so that's the idea. The one thing this one does is because it is a 2-2, you get multiple uses out of it.

And so this is an interesting thing where it lets you sort of combine a creature with a spell. And the cost of the spell is the reduction of the creature. So using plus and plus encounters as a cost, it does mean something to the creature. It's not just that you're paying one and a green. You're also shrinking your creature. And so, anyway, it's kind of an interesting card. And it definitely... Fertile is the kind of card that can add some glue to decks and stuff.

Like, you play Fertile because you want to, you know, fix your mana. And all of a sudden, now I have a card that cares about plus one counters, makes Reinforce slightly more interesting. You know, it just starts pushing you toward other themes in the set. It's what we call a linking card, where it starts linking themes together, and it just helps you sort of get invested in more themes as you're drafting, for example. Okay, next.

Feud Killer's Verdict. Four white white. It's a tribal sorcery, a giant. You gain ten life. Then, if you have more life than an opponent, create a five five white giant creature token. So the idea of this card is that really what you want to do

is you want to gain 10 life, but only at a time in which your life total will be larger than your opponent's. Because if you do that, then what you're making is a 5-5 giant that, you know, enters the battlefield and gives you 10 life. So it's interesting in that it's a sorcery that gives you some sort of, like, there's a little goal to play. Like, you can get a giant, but, you know, in some ways it's like a 5-5 giant that gains you 10 life that can only be played if you are 9 life or less lower than your opponent. And anyway, one of the things that's kind of cool about this is I like when we find ways to make little games for you to play where there's a little bit of strategy or a little bit of,

oh, maybe I want to play slightly differently so I can play this correctly. The other thing that happens is if I know I have this in my hand and I'm trying to get to six mana to play it, it definitely encourages me to play a little bit differently. I might chump lock a little more. I'm going to do some things to keep my life from dropping so that when I get to six mana, we're within, I'm no more than nine,

less than you. So anyway, I think it's a cool card. Okay, next, Fire Juggler. Two and a red, so three mana total, one of which is red. It's a two, two goblin shaman, so it's a creature. Whenever Fire Juggler becomes blocked, clash with an opponent.

If you win, Fire Juggler deals four damage to each creature blocking it. Okay, so clash was something that first showed up in Lorwyn. So let me explain what clash is. Each clashing player reveals the top card of their library, then puts that card on the top or bottom. A player wins if their card has a higher converted mana cost. So essentially, we're sort of playing this game in which it's somewhat random

in that what's the top card of your library, if you haven't manipulated it, is random. You have some control of how many things in your deck are big or small, although the game makes you kind of have a widespread of it. But the neat thing about this is that it sort of encourages you, I mean, it helps you smooth your deck because it's sort of letting you scry, essentially. And, hold on a second, I'm changing lanes. Always safe. Okay, in my new lane. so one of the things that Clash was trying to do was add a little variance to things

and create a little suspense so you don't quite always know what's going on like one of the things I talk about this a lot randomness makes games fun not knowing what's going to happen makes games fun there's suspense and drama but the perception of randomness tends to upset players.

They're like, oh, I want a skilled game, and I can't control this. And so trying to find a happy medium. In general, players feel the top of a library is a little more fair of randomness than like flipping coins or rolling dice, even though what you draw is mostly random. The reason it feels less random,

A, it's just built into the game and people kind of accept that your draw is random. And you have some ability to affect the top of your library. So, you know, there are things you can do to affect the clash. So it's not completely, it's not always random. So this card is interesting. It's a 2-2 that can kill big things, you know, can kill big things, or sorry, can kill things with

toughness 4 or less. And so kind of the real power of this creature is the fact that it has the threat that it can kill bigger things. So let's say you're a 3-3 creature and I have a 2-2 creature. If I normally attack my 2-2 creature, unless you think I'm sort of playing, you know, I have a giant

growth or something, you're going to block my 2-2 with your 3-3. But with this creature, you just don't know. Maybe if you block, it'll die. And you're like, oh, I don't want my creature to die. Oh, okay. You know, and that,

a lot of times, this threat of the clash is enough, like, that itself is a powerful ability. The fact that maybe something will happen will make people act in such a way that even if the clash never happens, even if you never clash with this creature, the fact that it has the clash makes people react differently to it and often not block it.

So it actually has an ability, which is... The clash ability actually can be effective and impact the game without the clash ever happening. And that, I think, that part I actually think is very interesting. That's why this design, I do kind of enjoy it. Okay, next. Gilf, Leaf, or Archdruid. So three green green. So it is a, it's an elf druid.

It's a 3-3 elf druid, so it's a creature. Whenever you cast a druid spell, you may draw a card. Tap seven untapped druids you control. Gain control of all land target player controls. So this is a druid matter cards. Another class that we care about. So one of the cool things about this card is, we have a bunch of these where it's a creature that says whenever a certain kind of spell, whenever you cast a certain kind of class spell, you get an effect.

Green card drawing is tied to its creature, so it's like, okay, this is a good thing. Getting cards is really effective. So, one of the things that this is trying to do, and the reason this card is so powerful is, druids on average are not that powerful a race. They tend to be smaller creatures, they tend to be mana-focused, you know, and so one of the things, one of the reasons

this card is so strong, every time you play a druid, you draw a card and have seven druids and you stop your opponent from having mana, is it is a challenge to build a druid deck um my guess about this card actually now that i look at it is my guess is that druid might not have been one of the five we were pushing it might have been i'm not sure um but we also made a bunch of one of class cards that were trying to let you build a class deck even though that wasn't a theme and limited you would do a lot of.

My gut looking at this card, maybe, I actually don't remember whether green was druid or not. I think we supported warrior. Green, I think, was warrior, because white was soldier. I think green was warrior. So I think druid was not the main green-supported class, but I think there were cards like this that sort of said, hey, this is a

really powerful card to try to encourage you to play a deck of a creature type that would be really hard to pull off. And so I think that that's what this is doing, saying, okay, not easy to make a druid deck. Druids tend to be small, they're mana focused, they're, you know, the win condition

is tricky, but this is, okay, we're going to help you, you know, get more things, and you can play other spells to help you, and maybe your druid deck has a few non-druids in it, but we're going to have a win condition that's really good for you that seems very druid-focused. Druids are all about

mana. Well, I'll steal my opponent's mana. That's going to make it hard for them to win the game. And so, anyway, I think this is a cool spell. Okay, next. Great Bow Doyen. Doyen? Doyen? D-O-Y-E-N. It's four and a green, so it's five mana total,

one which is green. It's a 2-4 elf archer, so it is a creature. Other archer creatures you control get plus one, plus one. Whenever an archer you control deals damage to a creature, that archer deals that much damage to that creature's controller. So this is another one. Archers were not a class

that was one of the main supported classes, but we liked the idea of making some one-off class support cards. So we did archers. Archers tend to show up in green, occasionally show up in white. I think we made one or two in red, but mostly it's a

green and white thing. think we've made it one or two in red, but mostly it's a green and white thing. And the idea here is that a lot of the things that archers do is that archers often deal damage to creatures. And, you know, creatures, when they attack, get blocked and stuff and deal damage to creatures. So this is just sort of saying, okay, you know, we have a lot, like there's an ability called range strike. We don't do Range Strike as much anymore, but Range Strike was you tap the creature, sometimes paying mana, and you do some amount of damage

to target an attacking or blocking creature. And we often made Range Strike creatures archers because the idea is I stand back and I fire arrows at you. And so this ability was made to play really nice with Range Strike, which is an ability that archers had. We do less Range Strike now, but that's what that was doing.

Okay, next. Heritage Druid. So Heritage Druid costs a single green mana for a 1-1. It's an elf druid, a creature, obviously. Tap three untapped elves you control. Add green, green, green to your mana pool. So this was a card helping elves. And I believe this is a card that sees play, I think, in Modern, in the Modern Elf deck.

It is just really good because it's a 1-1, and it just turns all your elves into mana producers, essentially. I mean, you have to tap them in increments of three. Note that there's no tap on this. So it is not one time you can get three green mana. It's for every elf you have, you can get a green mana out of it, but you must do it in increments of three. And so in a lot of the elf combo decks, this is the card that really helps you get some of your more expensive elves or more expensive cards out because like i said it turns every elf essentially into a lano or elves with the caveat of you've tapped them in three

okay next hunting triad so hunting triad costs three and a green so four mana total one of which is green uh it's a tribal sorcery elf create three one one green elf warrior creature tokens or reinforce three for three and a green, which means for three and a green, discard this card, put three plus one counters on target creature. Okay, here's another fun one. One of the things that I like with reinforce, we're trying to make cards that the decision, the decision, they, it seemed like you're making a decision, they seem connected to each other. So this decision was a cool one, which is, do you want three 1-1s, or do you want three plus and plus counters on the same creature? So sort of, do you want to go wide,

or do you want to go tall? And the interesting thing here was, this is a card where both sides cost the same amount. That for four mana, you can get three 1-1s, or for four mana, you can get three plus and plus counters. What are you doing? three one-ones, or for four mana, you can get three plus-one-plus encounters. What are you doing? What's the strategy? And for example, let's say you're playing... Once again, these make Elf Warrior, because all the creature tokens in Lorwyn and Morning Tide are race and class, to give you two things to play off of.

But for example, let's say you have the Heritage Druid I just talked about. Well, making three 1-1 elves, that's three green mana. That's pretty valuable. But let's say I'm playing a different deck and I have an evasive creature that, oh, maybe I just want to make it bigger so I can just beat you quicker.

I can speed the clock up. So I thought this was a real, it's one of my favorite of the reinforced cards. It's interesting. I, the audience was ho-hum on reinforced. I thought reinforced was interesting. I mean, in retrospect,

maybe it's not deep enough that there's a lot of space for a mechanic with it. Maybe like a card like this just, once again, becomes a charm card. And this one particularly because both effects are the exact same cost. It literally could just be a charm. We could redo this card like this just, once again, becomes a charm card. And this one particularly because both effects are the exact same cost. It literally could just be a charm. We could redo this card saying three green, do one of these two things. So, anyway.

I do think it's a cool card. Okay, next. Idyllic Tutor. Two and a white. Sorcery. Search your library for an enchantment card. Reveal it and put it in your hand, then shuffle your library. So I think the previous enchantment tutor put it on top of your library

for Mirage. I think this is the first time we just did the clean get enchantment, like enchantment tutor. I think this is the first clean enchantment tutor. And once again, not that Lorwyn... I mean, Lorwyn was a while ago from now, but still, it was far into magic. Magic was many years old at this point,

so it's always neat that you sort of still get to do clean, interesting things. Okay, speaking of clean, interesting things, Indomitable Ancients. Two white white. It's a 210 Treefolk Warrior. So ititable Ancients. Two white white. It's a 210 Treefolk Warrior. So it is a vanilla creature. It is not often

you get to make an entertaining and interesting vanilla creature. I mean, you can make vanilla creatures that are useful, that you play, especially in Limited. But this was a card that we were trying to do something that was just super flavorful and wonky. And one of the things we love doing is making vanilla creatures we've never

made before. And I'm pretty sure when we made this, we had never made a 2.10 before. And the neat thing is, it really, we were trying to do treefolk in white. We said, you know, what's a good white treefolk? Well, how about something super defensive? You know what I'm saying? It's really tough. It can block just about anything. It's got two powers, so it's not going to kill most things. It'll stop small things, but

it's something in which, okay, you know, I'm pretty much going to block any creature you have in my way, and while I might not kill it, I'll stop it. We like the idea of a very, very defensive white tree folk, and that felt pretty cool. And flavor liked the idea of a very, very defensive white treefolk, and that felt pretty cool.

And flavorfully, it felt like a pretty neat thing to do. Okay, next. Inspired Sprite. Okay, Inspired Sprite costs three and a blue, four mana, one of which is blue. It's a 2-2 fairy wizard, so it's a creature. It's got flash, it's got flying, and it has whenever you cast a wizard spell, you may untap Inspired Sprite, tap, draw a card, and discard a card. Okay, so this is what we call a looter, where you get to draw a card and discard a card.

It's got flash and flying. I think all the fairies had flying, and I think most of the blue ones had flash. Black, only a handful of black. Flash is tertiary and black. We do it with a few cards that kind of need to have it, but flash is primary and blue.

One of the tricks of the fairies is to make them sort of tricky and sneaky. We gave a lot of the blue ones flash. A lot of times you can surprise the opponent and do things. And a lot of the ways the fairies felt like a control deck was fairies that had Flash on them and did effects that normally would be Instants. The interesting thing here is

that this is one of the cards that cares about when you cast a spell. I think this has Flash just because most blue fairies have flash. The synergy here. I don't believe you can respond to the casting of a wizard, flash this in, and get the trigger. I think you missed the window

that has been cast, I believe. I'm not 100% sure on that. But anyway... Oh, okay. It doesn't really matter, though. I see what's going on here. It doesn't trigger it, but you'd have an untapped creature anyway, so getting to untap it isn't particularly valuable.

Aha, now I see why it's okay to have flash, because it doesn't trigger, but you wouldn't want it. I mean, it doesn't mean anything to trigger. So basically what's going on here is sometimes we do this where we make a trigger that untaps the creature and then give the creature a tap ability. And it's kind of a cute way to make the, really the cash trigger on this card is when you play a wizard, you get to loot. But it's done through a creature where, you know, it has, it's using, it's filtering through the tap ability. And we do that from time to time, and it's kind of a cute design.

Okay. Next, Kithkin Zephyrnaut. So two and a white. It's a 2-2 Kithkin soldier. It's got kinship. This is a new mechanic for the set. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with Kithkin Zephy your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with

Kithkin Zephyrnaut, you may reveal it. If you do, Kithkin Zephyrnaut gets plus two plus two and gains flying and vigilance until end of turn. So we were trying to follow up Clash with something else that sort of had this little moment of, I don't know what's going to happen. And we decided

since this was a tribal set, what if we cared about tribes? So the idea essentially is, kinship always says, look, look at the top card. If you match the creature type with the creature I am, and normally the creature you are tend to have a race and a class. This has a Kithkin and Soldier.

So essentially this is one of the branching cards we talked about where this card says, hey, if you have me, I work with Kithkin and I work with Soldiers. And so especially in Limited, if I draft this card says, hey, if you have me, I work with Kithkin, and I work with soldiers. And so, especially in Limited, if I draft this card early, although at the time, I think this was back in the time

where you drafted this pack second. Now you draft a later, or eventually we made it so the later pack you would draft first. I mean, now we draft all sets by themselves. But when this came out, I don't think we had done that yet. So you were drafting Lorwyn.

I think I actually went Lorwyn, Lorwyn, Morningtide. Later it would go Morningtide, Morningtide, Lorwyn. I mean, how we would do drafts. But anyway, assuming you get this card, it sort of says to you, look, you can think about Kith'kin or think about soldiers. Or maybe I draft this card late because it's in the third pack. But when I'm building my deck, maybe because I have it, maybe I'm making a Kith'kin deck, but because I draft this card late because it's in the third pack. But when I'm building my deck, maybe because I have it, maybe I'm making a Kithkin deck, but because I have this card,

I go, you know what? I can throw a few soldiers in, and this card will help me with my soldiers. Kinship, by the way, did not go over well. Both it and Clash. Basically, here's a random effect that you don't know is going to happen. I don't know. I mean, it's a random effect that you don't know is going to happen. I don't know. I mean, it's funny. When

we can hide the randomness stuff, it actually is pretty fun, but when it's really on the surface, players get antsy about it. And anyway, neither Clash nor Kinship did particularly well. Latch Key Fairy. So Latchkey Ferry.

So Latchkey Ferry costs three and a blue. So four mana total, one of which is blue. It is a 4-4 fairy rogue, flying, and it has prowl. Let me explain prowl. I don't think I've talked about prowl yet. Oh, wait, wait, sorry. Not a 4-4. It's a 3-1.

It's a 3-1, sorry. It's a 3-1. It's a 3-1. Sorry. It's a 3-1 Flying Fairy. As I was saying, 4-4 for 4. That'd be really good. It's a 3-1. And it has Prowl

for 2 and a blue. So what Prowl means is you may cast this for its Prowl cost if you dealt combat damage to a player this turn with a Fairy or a Rogue. So essentially,

normally this costs 4 mana, but it costs 3 mana if I've hit my opponent with a fairy or a rogue. So essentially, normally this costs four mana, but it costs three mana if I've hit my opponent with a fairy or a rogue. When latchkey fairy enters the battlefield, if its prowl cost was paid, draw a card. So the other thing it's saying is, okay, you can get me to play normally. You can play four mana and put me in play. But if you can get me to play with prowl,

not only am I cheaper, I'm one mana cheaper, but there's another bonus. I become a cantrip. And so some of thel, not only am I cheaper, I'm one mana cheaper, but there's another bonus. I become a cantrip. And so some of the Prowl cards not only were cheaper, and some of the Prowl cards, some of them might not even have been cheaper. They might have just generated an effect, but I think most of them

are at least one mana cheaper. But a lot of the value of this Prowl card is the saving of mana is not as much a deal as drawing the card. So the reason you want the Prowl more than anything is you want the effect of the card. So some of our Prowl cards, we generated effects that were another important part of why you wanted the Prowl. Okay, Lightning Crafter, Three in a Red, Creature, Goblin Shaman. Champion a Goblin or Shaman. When this enters the battlefield,

sacrifice it unless you exile another Goblin or Shaman. When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you exile another Goblin or Shaman. You control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield. And it has the ability Tap. Lightning Crafter deals three damage to any target. 3-3. Okay, so Champion was an ability that first showed up in Lorwyn. What we did when we brought it to Morning Tide was we now Champion for one of two things. We championed in Lorwyn when it was only for the race. So if this card was in Lorwyn,

it would have been champion a goblin. And the way, I talked about this during my Lorwyn podcast, champion was us trying to evolve things, you know,

create some sort of sense of evolution. But to make better gameplay, we, instead of it going away forever, you exiled it. So if the creature ever dies, you kind of get it back. So it sort of sort of functions like I'm kind of like an aura

that makes your creature better but if you the creature dies I kind of lose the aura rather than getting two for one so this card was kind of fun it taps to bolt which is a pretty powerful ability but the neat thing about champion is it has a real cost you know

three and a red for a three three that taps the bolt sounds really good but the fact that you need a Goblin or Shaman is an extra cost that seems insignificant but actually is a little bit more significant okay, Lunk Errant, or Lunk Orant

I think it's Lunk Errant five and a red for a four four giant warrior and when Lunkerent. Five in a red for a 4-4 Giant Warrior. And when Lunkerent attacks alone, it gets plus one, plus one, and trample until end of turn. So one of the issues with Giants is we try to make some Carson-Curt Giant tribal, but the other problem we ran into is that it's hard to get a lot of Giants out. So one of the themes we played around with a little bit with giants is what we call the loner mechanic,

where, hey, if the giant's kind of functioning by itself, it gets a bonus. So this is a 4-4 creature, oh, but it becomes a 5-5 trampler if it attacks alone. And so we like the idea that, you know, if you're playing giants and maybe you don't get all your giants out, but you get one giant out, okay, well the giants sort of have another reward that if you're playing giants, and maybe you don't get all your giants out, but you get one giant out, okay, well, the giants sort of have another reward.

That's what you're like. While you only have one giant out, maybe this gets... This is a cheaper giant, and, well, maybe cheaper is incorrect. But it's a giant that you get out. If you don't have other giants, okay, well, then I can just attack with this alone. And when I get other giants, the giant rewards can be pretty big. So then I'm, like, happy that, okay, I have two giants, but I have a giant reward. Giant rewards for giant.

Okay, next. Lys Alanna Bowmaster. Two and a green for a 2-2 elf archer, a creature. It has reach. And whenever you cast an elf spell, you may have Lys Alanna Bowmaster deal two damage to target a creature with flying. So, A, the Archer Lord I talked about before, this ties into that,

does damage. And so allows you to do damage to the player as well as to the creature. And the key thing about this basically is it just allows you to use elves

to deal with flyers. This is one of those kind of cards that you tend to throw in your limited deck because it, you know, you have to worry about flying your limited deck,

so this has some use. And then if you actually have flyers to worry about, it starts making you think about wind casting your elves. And one of the neat things about elves is elves are pretty cheap. So later in the game, when that 1-1 elf might not matter board state-wise, I might hold it back a little bit because cards like this might allow me to care about when I cast it. And in some level, it turns my elf into a spell and allows me to use later elves judiciously in a way that instead of just casting them, I'm using them as a resource.

And that's kind of cool. Marilyn of the Mourn Song. So one black black for a 2-3 elf wizard. It's a legendary creature. Players can't draw cards. At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player loses three life, searches their library for a card,

puts it in their hand, then shuffles their library. So this is kind of... Normally black does this thing where it's like, I'm going to make a deal with the devil and things might turn out bad but maybe they'll turn out good. And so this is the kind of thing that Black normally does to itself. This is now doing it to everybody. Black sometimes does that. And so the idea essentially is instead of drawing a card you're going to demonic tutor. You're going to tutor every turn. You're going to go get the card you want.

So every turn you're getting exactly the card you need. But, you're losing three life a turn. Which is a very black way to do things. So, the idea here is, I can do one of two things. A, if I have a lot of mana as a resource, I can go get exactly what I want.

Maybe this is a deck that's a combo deck, or something in which having the ability to get exactly what I need. Maybe this is a deck that's a combo deck or something in which having the ability to get exactly what I need together can do something really potent and powerful. Or maybe my opponent's just really low on life and, yeah, they can get whatever they want, but, you know, one or two draws and they're going to be dead.

And so this card has a couple different uses. It's kind of fun. Okay, next. Meadowboon. Two white, white for a 3-3 elemental creature. It's a of fun. Okay, next. Meadowboon. Two white white for a 3-3 elemental creature. It's a creature that's an elemental. When Meadowborn leaves the battlefield, put a plus-5 on each creature

target player controls. Evoke three white. You may cast a spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it sacrifices when it enters the battlefield. So evoke is another lore win mechanic. The way Evoke works is the creatures haven't entered the battlefield. In fact, if you pay it for its

Evoke cost, which is creatures at its normal cost, the creature gets sacrificed when it enters the battlefield. So essentially what this is doing is saying, hey, do you want a spell or a spell and a creature? Now the nice thing is it's still a creature even if you sacrifice it. So it would trigger things like there's the cycle of creatures that care if you cast something.

Well, if you cast this card, it's an elemental. And so things that say if you cast an elemental, although I'm not sure, all the cast triggers are actually classes. So assume it's a vote card that has a class on it. So the way it worked in Lorewyn is allwyn is all the evoked creatures had an enter the battlefield effect. Um, so that's how it made a spell effect out of. The way it works in, um, Morning Tide is all the creatures have a die, a death trigger,

which means instead of them doing something when they enter the battlefield, they do something when they die. So if you evoke them, that means you're going to get the effect right away. Because they're going to die right away. But if you play them as creatures, then you have an effect that's going to happen later.

The idea here was, we've got to do slightly bigger effects because it was a death trigger. Because if you cast the creature, you don't get the effect right away. Most of this was done to try to do something

a little bit different. In retrospect, especially since we know Morning Tide was extremely complicated, this is one of the things I probably wouldn't have done. I think I might have just done

evoke creatures with ETB effects. There were more ETB effects we could have done. In fact, a lot of the stuff we did here I think I might have just done Evoke Creatures with ETV effects. There were more ETV effects we could have done. In fact, a lot of the stuff we did here as death triggers could be done as Ender's Battlefield triggers. This is one of those things

where we were trying to do something a little different. And I appreciate when we change things up a little bit. There were a few of these cards that people did play. But with all the complexity in the set, I don't know,

my sort of belief on this is maybe this particular tweak in the set wasn't necessary the one other interesting thing to note is it puts the pulse of counter not just not on your creatures but on target players creatures and the reason we did that is we're starting

sorry hiccups we're starting to get more conscious of multiplayer play and the idea we like here is well maybe I'm playing two at, well, maybe I'm playing two-edged giant, or maybe I'm playing in a game where there's politics, and I'd like to help somebody else, or somebody else is working with me, and they

have more, you know, I just have one creature, but they have eight creatures, and that it's much more valuable to help them than help myself. And so the putting on target player is interesting. One of the things well anyway that's why that's the target player okay guys how we doing on time

okay we had a little longer drive today but I'm now here so I'm not done yet obviously I'll continue on next time I hope you're enjoying all the morning tide talk and hoping you like

hearing me hiccup but anyway I gotta go get rid of these hiccups and I'm now at work so we all know what that means it means it's my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me

to make it magic I'll see you guys next time