Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #654: War of the Spark Cards, Part 4

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

This is part four of a five-part series on card-by-card design stories from War of the Spark.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so I've been doing a series of podcasts on War of the Spark. We're up to Jay. That means we start with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. So he costs one blue, blue, blue. So that's four mana total, three witches blue. Legendary planeswalker, Jace. He's loyalty of four. If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game instead. Plus one, target player puts the top two cards of the library into the graveyard. Draw a card.

Minus eight, draw seven cards. Then if your library has no cards in it, you win the game. Okay, a couple things here. First off, when you're doing 36 planeswalkers, or 37 with the buy box, you want to make sure that each one of them is pretty distinct from one another.

And so we're definitely trying to make our planeswalkers a little narrower in focus. So Jace clearly is doing... I mean, Jace is the mental planeswalker, and so we're just going all in on the milling. I mean, obviously his plus one

also gets you some card drawing to help you play it. But the idea is that this is going to either mill you out or mill out the opponent. The nice thing about his static ability is it's an all-to-win ability, an alternative win ability. It's the first one ever to be on a Planeswalker. And what it says is, look, you can mill the opponent or you can mill yourself. If you mill yourself, normally if I

mill my opponent, there's a route to victory. Once my opponent cannot draw a card, they lose the game. Well, with Jason play, milling myself is also a route to victory. That if I mill myself and I, you know, sort of the same way it works that if I ever get my opponent to be unable to draw a card, now, if I get my library empty, I will win the game.

So it gives you different options of how to play it. And the reason, by the way, it says in the minus eight that you have no cards, you win the game, is that we didn't want you to have exactly eight loyalty. You use his final ability. You draw seven cards and you've emptied your library. But now, you don't win the game, because he's not in play anymore. So, that is why that is there. It's the same...

Huatli has the same thing. I'll mention that when we get to Huatli. Oh, have I already done Huatli? Oh, no, no, it wasn't Huatli. It was Samut. When I get to Samut, she has a similar thing, where we write something twice, so that doesn't happen. But anyway, we designed Jace just to be very Jace-y.

We knew that he was going to be... All the current Gatewatch... Kaia becomes Gatewatch, but she's uncommon. But all the current Gatewatch are rare or mythic rare on the set. Those are the major characters. And Jace is one of the big characters. We thought definitely he deserves a fun rare card. Okay, next, Jaya's Greeting.

One in a red, instant. Jaya's Greeting deals three damage to target creature, scry one. So one of the things that we try to differentiate between Jaya and Chandra is that Jaya having a lot more time to have worked on her magic is much more precise in her pyrotechnics, if you will. That her pyromancy is a little more... Like, one of the big arcs of Chandra in the Bolas arc

is her learning a little bit more restraint. Chandra is not known for her restraint. And the idea is, her magic's always been a bit explosive. And working with Jaya, she's made it a little more exact. The reason I just pointed this one out is we had talked about how we wanted to make a signature card for each Planeswalker. I like the idea that, you know, a direct damage spell is Jaya's. I just like it's called Jaya's Greeting.

As if, yeah, that's the way Jaya says hello. I think that's funny. It makes me laugh. So I think that's funny. Okay, speaking of Jaya, now we get to Jaya says hello. I think that's funny. It makes me laugh. So I think that's funny. Okay, speaking of Jaya, now we get to Jaya Venerated Fire Mage. Four in a red, legendary planeswalker Jaya. Loyalty, five.

If another red source you control would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals that damage plus one to that permanent or player instead. Minus two, Jaya Venerated Fire Mage deals two to any target. Okay, a couple things. One is we knew we wanted to do Jaya.

We knew she was going to be mono-red. She's a mono-red character. And we knew we wanted her to do drug damage. She's a pyromancer. One of the things that we were trying to do is make sure we have some differentiation between Chandra and Jaya. We decided we'd do Jaya, the more straightforward pyromancer. And we played into Impulse. I taught this in previous podcasts, that Chandra and Jaya. We decided we'd do Jaya, the more straightforward Pyromancer,

and we played into Impulse. I taught this in previous podcasts, that Chandra played more into her Impulsiveness with the Impulsive Draw. So that Static ability, we like the idea that it just ups your damage. It says in Nother, we talked about whether or not

she was supposed to do one damage to any target, but then it counted herself. And what we decided is normally it just tends to confuse players and makes the card read less exciting. So now what we tend to do is just the card does the thing and it says other. That way the card is the most powerful, reads the most powerful, yet it plays the same way. Okay, next. Zhang Yangu, Wildcrafter. Two and a green. Legendary Planeswalker Yangu, Wildcrafter. Two and a green. Legendary Planeswalker, Yangu.

Loyalty, three. Okay, so each creature you control with a plus one, plus one counter on it has tap, add one mana in any color, minus one, put a plus one, plus one counter on target creature. So originally, the put a plus one, plus one counter target creature was the green-white hybrid card. It was a Johnny originally, back when a Johnny was uncommon. When we decided to move a Johnny up to rare, it didn't make a lot of sense.

And then we changed the ability to put counters on everybody. We realized there still was a good chance for an uncommon that put plus and possible counters on it. If it wasn't green-white, because it didn't quite make sense for Huatli, it made sense in mono-green or mono-white. Slightly more in monoogreen. So anyway,

Yangu, the last name is in Chinese, your family name goes first and your familiar name goes second. So if you're going to refer to him by his first name, it's actually the second as written. So Yangu. So Yangu, his shtick is he has a little dog, Mawu, that comes around with him. And he has the ability to enhance creatures.

His big trick is he makes Mawu real big. So anyway, the idea of him putting plus and plus counters on things made a lot of sense. He makes things bigger. We also gave him a sort of generic green ability just to have access to mana. I'm not sure.

I mean, I don't, his character has not been super explored yet from a, uh, from sort of his abilities. We decided to give him sort of a base green ability. Just allowing you to play other colors would be good. Um, one of the things, uh, in this set is because there's access to a lot of gold cards, we wanted to give you a couple different ways to get to different colors. So we thought it was neat to have one of the Green Planeswalkers do that. I think we looked at a bunch of Green Planeswalkers and he made the most sense. It's not that he was a slam dunk for the ability as much as other characters that were green wanted to do other things.

And it made sense with him, so we put that there. Oh, by the way, I've learned something. So one of the things that I've talked about on my blog is how he can, he can travel with Mowu and that's very, normally a player,

a player, I'm sorry, planeswalker can't, can't planeswalk with a living thing. That's a big shtick of the planeswalkers. And I kept saying,

oh, well, it's a special exception, you know, that different planeswalkers sparks work differently. Turns out, by the way, I didn't know this

until I read it in the book. So Mowu, or sorry, Yangu is playing into a Chinese myth, I think. Anyway, the idea is Maou is made out of stone, I think. Stone or wood. But it's a Chinese myth and so the idea of a dog made out of this unreal material is something that's like a recognizable thing in China and so it's playing

into that trope, I didn't know that trope so I don't know whether that matters or not, meaning that Mao is not although Mao is a creature, I don't know, anyway he can travel with Mao, that is part of his spark, Mao might not be a normal flesh dog necessarily, although he looks like a dog I don't know. Anyway. He can travel with Mawu. That is part of his spark. Mawu might not be a normal flesh dog necessarily,

although he looks like a dog. But anyway. A little behind-the-scenes knowledge on that. Okay, next. Karn, the Great Creator. So, costs four generic mana. Legendary Planeswalker Karn. Loyalty, five. He has static ability

that says, activated abilities of artifacts your opponent's control can't be activated. So he shuts down your opponent's artifacts. Plus one, until your next turn, up to one target non-creature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness, each equal to its converted mana cost. So if you guys know the old... What was it called? Titania's Boon... Titania...

Not Titania's Boon. Titania's... Ah! It's an early magic card that turns all your artifacts as a green card. Titania something. I'm blanking on the name. And then minus two,

you may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. As regular readers of mine know, I do not like cards coming back from exile. I know wishes tend to do that. I'm not a big fan of that. If you use your

you know, if you use some card that we deem enough to exile itself or your opponent got to exile it, I'm not crazy about it coming back. But anyway, he does do that. So Karn has always been very associated with playing or your opponent got to exile it. Not crazy about it coming back. But anyway, he does do that. So Karn has always been very associated with playing. It's funny.

The story behind Karn is the very first Karn card we ever made was the Vanguard Karn card. And we had actually made abilities for the Vanguard cards before we assigned characters to them. Because we didn't know when we were originally making Vanguard cards right off the bat that it was going to be the Weatherlight Saga crew. So we had started making the abilities, and then we realized there was an opportunity to make it the Weatherlight crew to tie into the story. So what we then did is we went and looked at the cards we had made and said, oh, well, what characters make the most sense? made and said, oh, well, what characters make the most sense?

And one of the cards was, it turned all your artifacts, made all your nine creature artifacts into creatures. And we're like, okay, well, this is a pretty cool card, but what character would do this? And we said, well, okay, Karn is an artifact, and he cares for the legacy, so he's a keeper of a group of artifacts. And so we put it on him, more like, well, we like this card, and this makes more sense than anybody else. Then, when we went to make

his card in Urza's Saga, I think it was, we ended up using this ability just because people had associated it from the Vanguard card, and anyway, so it started to become Karn's thing, which is kind of funny originally he got this ability only

because it was just, it was the Vanguard card we had available, so anyway this ability is kind of woven through many of the Karn cards, I mean he definitely has a very artifact themed flavor and he has this synergy with artifacts, that's always been true but it's funny now that he just kind of

his animated artifact things have just become a pretty staple funny now that he just kind of, his animating artifact things have just become a pretty staple Karn ability. And it kind of started in a very backwards way. One of the tricky things in general, by the way, about doing colorless planeswalkers is you have to you kind of want to make them a bit niche-y.

I know Ugin's less niche-y, but like Karn, like, oh, well, Karn's good in a deck that has a lot of non-creature artifacts, for example. You know,gin's less niche-y, but like Karn, it's like, oh, well, Karn's good in a deck that has a lot of non-creature artifacts, for example. You know, he's not quite as strong. You know,

that's where he shines. And, you know, as a co-creator of Karn, it's kind of fun to watch Karn have a neat identity. In general, all the planeswalkers in the set were trying to say,

oh, you know, it's a little more narrow in what it's doing, but it can be really powerful in the right deck. Part of making so many Planeswalkers in Standard at one time is making them such that not every Planeswalker easily goes in every deck. We don't want in Standard to have like 10 Planeswalkers on one deck. I mean, there might be a Super Friends deck. But in general, barring a specially designed deck to do that, we didn't want that to be something that was just done all the time. Okay, next, Kazmina, Enigmatic Mentor, three and a blue. Legendary Planeswalker, Kazmina, loyalty five. So it spells your opponent's

cast to target a creature or planeswalker you control. Cost two more to cast. Minus two, create a two-two blue wizard creature token, draw a card, then discard a card. So she's a brand new character. I will be very vague. I will say she is someone we have plans for. Part of introducing new characters was not just making up characters for no reason, but a little bit of introducing you guys to some characters that maybe you'll see down the road. And so I will say there are some plans for Kazmina. She's a pretty cool character. We don't know a lot about

her. She's enigmatic by her name. I don't want to say too much about her. I will say this card was designed knowing who she is. And so there's a little bit, a little bit of a nod of who she is based on this card. I mean, there's a little bit of stuff to figure out, but I don't want to tell you too much about her. The reason she came about was when we were making the set and we filled it in, there ended up being some holes where we didn't have a clean character. The funny thing, by the way, is one of the reasons we made Kazmina was that we had a blue hole. We didn't think that Mu Yanling, the other Chinese planeswalker, was going to be in War of the Spark. And she ended up being in the novel, so she's there.

So anyway, when making the set, we didn't think she was going to be there. And then I guess when Greg West was writing the book, he was interested in seeing whether she could be there, and the franchise team was like, oh, sure, why not? Anyway, so maybe if we were aware that Mu Yang Ling was going to be there, maybe this would have been... But even though I really like the idea of this was a great opportunity to introduce a couple new characters and get people to know them before they show up

so that when they show up, it's like, oh, it's that person. So I do think that Kazmina being here is going to do some good work. But anyway, she is very much enigmatic. Kasmina's Transmutation, one and a blue, Enchantment Aura, Enchant Creature. Enchantment Creature loses all abilities and has base power and toughness one. So one of the things we were very careful of is we wanted answers to cards in the set, but we really were trying hard not to hose a mass. And so, for example, one of Blue's normal things is a lockdown card.

Creature doesn't attack. Well, that and pacifism are really strong against the mass. So instead, in Blue, we made transmutation. So the idea is it's enchantment, it turns you into a 1-1. The reason it's not good against the army is the army has plus one, plus one counters. So, let's say the army is, you know, a 4-4 creature. Putting Chaos Meme's transmutation on, all it does is makes it one bigger. It doesn't stop it.

Now it's a 1-1 with four plus one, plus one counters. And, you know, any other abilities that other things are granting. And so this was designed that it doesn't have to be useful against the army, but it's very useful against other things. Especially, by the way, the gods. I know a lot of people like to play blue or splash blue because this card is a very effective answer. It's a common answer to a lot of the rare bombs.

So anyway, I think this card has a neat design. Next, Kaeya, Bane of the Dead. Three hybrid, hybrid, hybrid. Hybrid is white or black, so three white or black, white or black, white or black. So six mana total, three of which is hybrid, white or black. Legendary Planeswalker Kaeya, loyalty seven. Your opponent's impermanence, your opponent's control with Hexproof can be the targets of spells and abilities you control as though they didn't have Hexproof minus 3, exile target creature okay, so this ability started

I believe this is one of the earliest hybrid cards we made, we liked the idea of a white-black card that exiles creatures the reason, by the way, she has such high loyalty is we wanted the ability to be expensive so that it wasn't easy to proliferate. Like one of the things that proliferate did was when trying to set boundaries of how powerful something was

we had to keep in mind how many proliferations got you to another use. So this is a very powerful card. So we wanted you to use it twice but we didn't want it to be super easy to proliferate. So the answer to that was just make it cost a bunch of energy, and then give her more energy when she comes into play. Okay, it costs three energy. She comes in with seven. The reason we show seven is two uses, plus she can

survive. So really, you need to proliferate twice to be able to use her ability one more time. Her static ability is something that is not super useful, although in the right situation, it might be useful. I know they spent some time coming up with this. One of, as a character, one of Kaia's big things is

she's good at sort of getting to the creatures that can't get got. She's an assassin, and ghosts are traditionally hard to kill, being already dead, and, you know, intangible and such. But one of her things is that she can get to, you know, she can kill ghosts. She can herself become intangible and thus she can get to things that normally can't be gotten to. So the ability of getting to Hexproof was basically that. Also, some of the static abilities like this one are things that maybe in Constructed might be something you're more conscious of needing

as a tool. Her ability is pretty straightforward. She kills creatures. For six mana, she exiles two creatures. So just forget her doing anything else. Just by that, it's pretty good. If her ability has any meaning to you, that might be important. And then, also in a deck with any kind of proliferation,

it just takes two proliferations before she can kill a third creature, which is pretty good. Okay, next. Gaia's Ghost Form costs a single black mana, so it's one black, or it costs black. It's an enchantment aura, enchant creature,

or planeswalker you control. When enchantment permanent dies or is put into exile, return that card to the battlefield under your control. So this is a card we make from time to time where the idea is you put it on your creature

and if your creature dies, it gets to come back. Often we have it come back as a zombie. They didn't do that here, but often we will do that. This one says creature or planeswalker you control because one of the things we were trying to do is, look, it's a planeswalker set, and so we just try to make more cards that were

planeswalker referencing than normal. Because there's 36 planeswalkers, it allows us to reference Planeswalkers at much lower rarities and just have a wider spread. Normally, if you had three Mythic Rare Planeswalkers, we'd just be more shy at low rarities of just even mentioning Planeswalkers because to people that aren't seeing them, it just feels like the 6-Raining Stacks. Okay, next. Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner. Two and hybrid mana. The hybrid is green or blue.

So two, green or blue. Three mana total. One of which is green or blue. Legendary Planeswalker, Kiora. Loyalty, seven. Whenever a creature with power four or greater enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card. And minus one on tap target permanent.

So the interesting thing here is her better ability is the static ability. The static ability is a card drawing ability and allows you, basically what it says is, hey, play me with big creatures and I will net you card advantage. So she's really good in a deck that has big creatures. She's designed to go into ramp deck, and the idea of her minus ability is it you can use it on many different things if you have giant creatures maybe you want to untap them to block

but she also helps you because it's permanent to untap mana untap land so you can get mana so she also in the early game kind of helps you ramp so part of the idea is she can help you get out the bigger creatures and then she rewards the bigger creatures. Kiora's big shtick as a character is she loves her giant sea monsters,

and so she just has affinity for giant creatures. And so her cards tend to do that. That's something blue and green tend to overlap. Green naturally has the largest creatures. Blue has a lot of serpents and things that are big. And so that is kind of Kiora's thing to do. Okay, next. Krinko, 10 street kingpin.

Two in the red. He's a legendary creature goblin. One, two. Whenever Krinko 10 street goblin attacks, put a plus plus plus encounter on it. Then create a number of 1, 1 red goblin creature tokens equal to Krinko. Okay, so once again, we're on Ravnica. We are back.

Krinko showed up... What did he show up? Like a supplemental set? Krinko is not a leader of the guild or anything, so it's a little bit harder to get him in a guild set. But we did include him. This is the second Krinko. He kind of leads the goblins, or

I mean, you know, he's... The idea, essentially, is he's on Ravnica, kind of, the goblin king of Ravnica, although he's more of a kingpin than a traditional king or anything. And so the idea was just a different take on him. We liked the idea

that he was aggressive. We liked the idea that he made goblins, so the thing that's kind of cool is he gets bigger and bigger the more he attacks, and he's creating more and more goblins. I actually played against... On Tuesday, we have... At lunch, we play

the latest set. I had a play against Krunko the other day. And at first, he doesn't seem so bad. He gets out of hand pretty quickly. I think my opponent at one point attacked with like 15 goblins and then I lost, so.

Anyway, that is Krenko, 10th Street Goblin. Oh, sorry. 10th Street, hard to say this. 10th Street Kingpin. That is not easy to say. Okay, next. Law Rune Enforcer. Costs a single white mana.

It's a human soldier. One, two. One and tap. Tap target creature with front of mana cost two or greater. So this is another example of us designing around a mass. A mass is one of the mechanics in the set. We liked the idea that we had a tap, or tappers are valuable. But we didn't want you just tapping down the army. So we came up with a clever solution. It can only tap things that cost two or more.

And the clever thing about that is a mass is a token which costs zero. So the good thing here is it doesn't lock down little things. We've done this before. So it doesn't lock down little things, which usually aren't that much of a threat. But it can lock down the bigger creatures. But the one exception that gets through this is, oh, your army token, your zombie army token, doesn't cost more than two. So it isn't

a good answer for stopping the zombie army. So the law of rune forced her to stop many creatures, but not the dreadhorde. Okay. Next. Liliana, dreadhorde general. Four black, black. So six mana total, two of which is black.

Legendary Planeswalker, Liliana. Loyalty, six. Whenever a creature you control dies, draw a card. Plus one, create a 2-2 black zombie creature token. Minus four, each player sacrifices two creatures. Minus nine, each opponent chooses a permanent they control of each permanent type and sacrifices the rest.

Okay, so first off, her static ability is a lot of the power of the card here. Normally, I mean, Liliana is a necromancer. Her cards all need to be necromancy themed. Now, one of the things people ask is why we didn't use a mask on Liliana. She is a planeswalker that would make sense with a mask. She's controlling them. I think we liked a lot the idea of how this one played, and the fact that when each creature died, you draw a card,

works better if you're making separate tokens. So obviously her plus one is making tokens. She's a Necromancer. Her minus four, often she kills things. So kind of Liliana's big shtick is she can kill things and she can raise the dead. That's kind of her necromancer abilities. And then minus nine allowed her, her ultimate does basically a major sacking, you know, a major killing. And the idea is because of her static ability, like, she can be a little more killing-oriented than normal.

of her static ability, like, she can be a little more killing-oriented than normal. And here, her ultimate allows you to kill a lot of things, but also allows you to draw a lot of cards off the thing. So, anyway, we expect Liliana. I think Liliana's a pretty strong card. I think people will be playing her in Constructed. She's a Mythic Rare. So, Liliana, in the Bolas story I think so from a writing standpoint

the character that has the biggest arc is Liliana, she is probably the main character in the Bolas arc story she's the one that goes through the greatest change she's the one that, you know secondarily I think Gideon is the second

all the characters had some arc during the course is the second, uh, I mean, all the characters had some arc during the course of the story. Jace has an arc, Liliana has an arc, Gideon has an arc, Chandra has an arc, you know, all the major characters have arcs. But Liliana really has the biggest arc, uh, and really is the character that goes through, has the biggest change during the course of what happens. Um, I mean, Gideon, uh, it would be number two. It's the reason Liliana and Gideon are

the mythic the gate watch that's mythic rare they have the biggest story, they play the largest role and so Liliana obviously plays a very very big role in the story okay next Living Twister red red green, so three mana total

two of which is red, one of which is green it's an elemental it's a two five elemental for one green, so three mana total, two of which is red, one of which is green. It's an elemental. It's a 2-5 elemental. For one and a red, you can discard a land card, and then it deals two damage to any target. For a green, you can return

a tapped land you control to the owner's hand. So essentially, there's a card called Land's Edge that allows you to throw from Legends way called Lands Edge that allows you to throw from Legends way back when, that allows you to throw lands at the opponent. And then we made a card

what's the card called? We made a card that allows you to discard random cards from your hand to do damage. And then we made another card that lets you discard lands to do damage. Anyway, it's a reoccurring thing we've done. We like the idea of an elemental that's kind of thrown pieces of itself in some way at you. And this card also allows you

to not only throw the land in your hand, but gives you access to the land in play. So if you want to, I mean, you need the green mana to do it, but it allows you to sort of play your land and then when you don't need it anymore, you can get it back to be able to throw it at your opponent.

Okay, makeshift battalion. Two and a white. Creature, human soldier. Three, two. Whenever a makeshift battalion and at least two other creatures attack, put a plus one, plus one counter on makeshift battalion. So this is, like I said, Dave Humphreys,

who is the lead set designer of the set, likes putting in one-offs of existing mechanics without actually naming them, putting in ability words. And anyway, this is Battalion. So Battalion is a mechanic designed by Sean Main for the second great designer search. It ended up being the Boros mechanic in Gatecrash. And here it is on a soldier. One of the things that we wanted to demonstrate in the set was not only are the planeswalkers fighting the Ravnikans are fighting too and so this is a little Boros soldier

that is giving his all and fighting with others and the more help he gets from other people the stronger he gets so this was a cute car that was definitely sort of making a nod toward the past and making a nod toward Ravnica's past in a way that I thought made a cute card. Okay, next. Massacre Girl. So three black black, five mana total, two of which is black, for four four legendary

human assassin. A creature, obviously. She has Menace. When Massacre Girl enters the battlefield, each other creature gets minus one, minus one until end of turn. Whenever a creature dies this turn, each creature other than Massacre Girl gets minus one, minus one until end of turn. Okay, for starters,

there's a character named Massacre Girl that I think was mentioned in the first novel. And people have been asking for Massacre Girl, just like Feather, for a long time. And she's one of these characters we kept trying to find a place to fit in. She's not a leader. She's not a major player in her guild. So it's just hard when we're making a guild set to include her. But we're in War of the Spark.

We're on a Ravnica set. We don't have to do guild things. Meaning this was the opportunity for us to make characters that we've been trying to make but are troublemaking. Massacre Girl falls in that category. I don't know a lot about Massacre Girl. I know she's in Rakdos. I know she killed a lot of people.

This was designed to kind of have this ripple effect where I come in, I do minus one, minus one to everything, but if even one thing dies, I shrink other things more. So the idea is she can come in and provided there's a nice sort of stepping stone of creatures, she can just wipe the board other than herself. So that I think is kind of neat and does a really good job of kind of capturing her flavor. I think Massacre Girl spreads disease, I think, or maybe she just

enjoys killing things. I'm not 100% sure why they call her Massacre Girl, but I do believe it involves killing things, because I don't think you get called Massacre Girl if you're a friendly person that doesn't harm people. Anyway, and that is how we got Massacre Girl. Okay, next, Merfolk Skydiver. Okay, so Merfolk Skydiver comes green and a blue. It's a two-mana total, one green, one blue. It's a one-one flying Merfolk mutant. It's a simic, obviously, because there's mutant on it. And it's a blue. It's a two mana total. One green, one blue. It's a 1-1 flying merfolk mutant. It's a simic, obviously, because there's mutant on it. And it's a creature. So it flies. When merfolk skydiver

enters the battlefield, put a plus one plus one counter on target creature you control. And then for three green and a blue you can proliferate. So this is a card that lets you do repeatable proliferation. I think this is designed as a draft around. My guess is this is an uncommon draft around. The idea

is, oh, green-blue is one of the color combinations that uses proliferate. If I pick this up early, it says, hey, I really want to have a proliferate deck. Look for things that are proliferatable and allows you to sort of pick up plus one, plus one counter cards or maybe in blue some amass cards or, you know, just things that are going

to care and grow. Or planeswalking, obviously a big one. So that is the green-blue deck. And this sort of encourages you to do that. Once again, as I've been saying, I've been going through, I really, really enjoy the number of stuff we've been doing to really make proliferate something that not only in constructed can do something, but in limited can really do something.

And as proliferates Papa, it is fun to see it come back and just use it a little more aggressively than we did last time when we were kind of afraid of it. Next, Mizzium Tank. Mizzium Tank costs one red red, so three mana total, one of which is red.

It's a vehicle. It's an artifact vehicle. Three, two. It has trample. It's an artifact vehicle. 3-2. It has trample. It has whenever you cast a non-creature spell, Mizzium Tank becomes an artifact creature. It gets plus one, plus one until end of turn. And crew one. So the idea is you need to crew this,

but if you cast non-creature spells, it naturally becomes... You don't have to crew it. It becomes an artifact creature without you having to crew it. And it gets bigger. So it kind of has this prowess-y kind of ability built in that turns it,

not only gives it plus plus one, but also turns it on, makes it into a vehicle, makes it into a creature. So one of the things that we did in this set was we talked about doing vehicles in Guilds of Ravnica and

Ravnica Allegiance. The problem is guild sets really want cycles, and if you're going to make oh, this is an artifact for the Izzet. I believe this is an Izzet artifact. You then feel inclined to make an artifact vehicle for everybody, and

not everybody really made sense to have a vehicle so instead this set like there's a demir vehicle and an isn't vehicle and a boros vehicle because those made sense but not everybody needs a vehicle so a set that's not a guild set but is unwrapped once again freezes up to do some stuff we wouldn't normally do and vehicles is one of those things uh they're all in colors all three of the vehicles that are in colors, because after Kaladesh we realized that using generic mana, having colorless artifacts

really keeps us from being able to push them. If something's good, it just goes in every deck because it uses generic mana. So you're going to see more and more of us using colored artifacts as just an evergreen thing, something set to do. That doesn't mean every artifact will be colored. There'll still be colored artifacts with generic mana, but those

will be more all-purpose things, and the things we're trying to more push the stronger artifacts that aren't super niche-y. You can still be generic if you're very niche-y, but if you're generally useful, you'll see more of us pushing into color and have color themes and have colored mana, which is a good example of a Miseum tank. A Miseum tank makes sense. You might want to put it in a green-blue deck that is spell-based or even artifact or enchantment-based. But this is something that might be useful and might be powerful,

but because we have red mana, it's just not going in every single red deck. This one also has a little bit of a niche to it, but I think it's kind of cool. Okay, next. Mawu, Loyal Companion. Three in the green, so four mana total, one of which is green. 3-3 Legendary Hound.

It's a creature, obviously. It's got Trample and Vigilance. And if one or more plus one plus one counters will be put on Mawu, Loyal Companion puts that many plus one on instead. Now note, Mawu's pal, Yingu, puts plus one, plus one counters on things. So the cool thing here is, if you have Mawu out, well, every time Yingu uses his ability,

Mawu gets not one counter, but two counters. And so it just makes it better. They work well together. Also, he's got trample and vigilance, meaning just as he gets bigger, he becomes more and more powerful. And Mawu's shtick in the story with Yangu is that Yangu helps make him bigger, and then he becomes really big.

And that is kind of the... Yangu has the ability to enhance any creature, but he particularly likes to make Mawu bigger. So like, on Giant Growth, you'll see that Mawu is a thing being Giant Growth by Ying. So that's kind of cute. Okay, next, Nahiri, Storm of Stone.

Two hybrid-hybrid, hybrid being red or white, so two red or white, red or white, so four mana total, two witches, red or white. Legendary Planeswalker Nahiri, Loyalty 6. As long as it's your turn, creatures you control have first strike, and equip abilities you activate cost one less to activate.

And minus action, Nahiri's Storm of Stone deals X damage to target tapped creature. Okay, a couple things going on here. First off, her shtick is that she's very good, she uses stone, and that she's very good with equipment. So she grants first strike

to your creatures when you attack. That's something you'll notice we're doing a lot more here. Play design, it started putting first strike more often as on your turn, so it's an aggressive thing and not a defensive thing. So she references being equipped. There are no equipment in the set. It's not something we do all the time,

but it really was flavorful to her. She really is tied to equipment, so we decided we'd grant her an ability that helped you with equipping things. Yeah, it wouldn't matter in Limited, but it would matter in Standard and Casual Constructed and Commander and whatever, Legacy and stuff, and Modern.

So we definitely made reference to something that wasn't in the set. We don't do that a lot, but we felt the flavor made sense here. And then she has the ability to damage things. She damages tapped things to sort of make it feel a little more white. And it's a minus X ability, so you can use as much loyalty as you need. But this is a neat thing.

It's a minus X ability where you can use as many times as you want, just it adds up to doing six damage. So you can do six damage all at once. You can do five and one, four and two, three and three. However you want to mix and match it. I kind of like it's kind of neat to have a mind accessibility on an only mindless planeswalker. Also, obviously, it means as you use proliferate, it just makes her stronger as how many things, you know, how much damage she can do. just makes her stronger as how many things, you know, how much damage she can do. Okay, next, Narset, Parter of Veils.

One blue, blue, legendary planeswalker Narset, loyalty five. Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn. Minus two, look at the top four cards in your library. You may reveal a non-creature, non-land card from among them and put it into your hand for the rest of the cards on the bottom in random order. Okay, a couple things here. A, Narset is smart and a knowledge-based

planeswalker. And so we wanted to do things that were related to that. We wanted to separate Keeper from Jace. So we made Jace more of a milling thing. So she kind of, A, gets knowledge. So her minus ability is kind of impulsing for non-creature, non-land. Impulsing is, there's a card called Impulse way back in Magic, which you look at the top four cards and pick one of them.

Whenever you look at the top end cards of your library, Arndt refers to that as impulsing. So this is impulsing, but for non-creature, you know, more for spell cards, non-creature, not land cards. She does a mixture of mana, she doesn't get creatures, but she comes with other things. Also, her static ability, which is one of those things, by the way, it is useful, but narrow,

and one of the complaints we've gotten is your opponent's casting a cantrip and you're like, hey, wait a minute, you don't get your cantrip. It's something that doesn't come up often, but can come up and can be important when it does come up. I've been told that she's going to probably be pretty good and constructed because the searching for things part is good and the stop in the car drawing can be very powerful, especially as a sideboard car. The reason she ended up in blue was the Planeswalker is white-blue.

The character is white-red-blue. First time we met her, she was white-red-blue. Then the timeline changed and she became white-blue and she became a Planeswalker. So our thought on her is she's a white-blue character with some potential for red, although she doesn't currently have red, but she could in theory grow to get red.

We know that she has the potential within her to have red. And the right story beat, clearly she could get red. But anyway, white-blue, Dovin was white-blue, and Teferi was white-blue. Dovin was the leader of the Azorians in part of the story, and Teferi is part of the Gatewatch. So we knew that we wanted Teferi to be rare white-blue. We knew we wanted Dovin to be uncommon white-blue. That meant that if we wanted Nurse in the story, she couldn't be white-blue. She's a knowledge-based character,

so just based kind of thematically on what she does, and then being the right color to do the card effects that we need her to do, meant that she needed to be blue. And we said, okay, she is a little bit more, as a knowledge-based character, she's a little more base blue. And we have a bunch of blue-white characters. So we decided that we'd put her in mono-blue. That doesn't mean if you see her again, she won't be blue-white.

She could even potentially be blue-white-red, depending on the story. But anyway, that's what we did there to set her up. Okay, next. Neoform. So Neoform is a sorcery. It costs green and a blue. So two mana total, one green, one blue.

As an additional cost to cast the spell, sacrifice a creature. Search your library for a creature card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card

with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card

with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card

with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card

with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card

with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card with a card in Antiquities, way, way back when, called... What was it called? Transmute Artifact. Which took an artifact and did exactly this, where you got a second artifact,

and then go get an artifact that was up to one bigger, and it's mana cost. That card has inspired many things. Now, I did not make... I don't think I made this one. I'm pretty sure I didn't. It's the kind of card I would make. I don't think I made this one. I'm pretty sure. I don't remember making it. Odds are I didn't, because I don't remember making it. It's the kind of card I would make, though.

And this is kind of doing Transmute Artifact for Creatures. We've played in the space before. There was a very famous card that did that. I'm blanking on the name, but you all know the card because it was very, very famous. Anyway, this adds the extra of putting the plus one, plus one counter

on it. There's a proliferate theme in green and blue, so this is how it helps play into the proliferate theme. I like when we redo effects, but just add a little something different so it plays a little bit different. I like how this displays a little bit different. So that is pretty much a cool card.

Okay, next. Nicole Bolas. Dragon God. Blue, black, black, black, red. So five mana total, three of which is black, one blue, one red. Legendary Planeswalker Bolas. Loyalty, four. Nicole Bolas, Dragon God, has all loyalty abilities of all other Planeswalkers on the battlefield.

Plus one, you draw a card. Each opponent exiles a card from their hand or a permanent they control. Minus three, destroy a target creature or Planeswalker. Minus eight, each opponent who doesn't control a legendary creature or Planeswalker loses the game. Okay, a lot going on here. First off, he is a four-ability Planeswalker. We decided that all four of the, or sorry, all three of the Mythic Rare's

would have four slots. He and Liliana have one static triggered ability and three loyalty abilities. Gideon has two static triggered abilities and two loyalty abilities. I don't know when we added we knew before we ever got here, we knew that he was going to have

a static ability. In fact, for a while, long before we got to vision design, he was going to be the one card that introduced the concept of static ability. There was a period in time where he was going to be a four-billion planeswalker, and the first one ever really to have a static ability. I guess there were some, Garrick and Arlen and stuff that sort of had a static ability in this computer commander type stuff. But anyway, the first guy introducing a natural trigger of static ability. And

I don't remember when we gave him the Get to Everybody's Loyalty. That's a pretty cool ability, though. And if it makes the card super fun. His plus one, we like giving card drawing to Planeswalkers just as it helps you get things to defend them.

And the idea that I draw a card and you lose a card or if you don't have a card you lose something else. I mean, I guess you can lose. But the idea, essentially, I go up, you go down. Seems very bolus.

Destroy target creature or planeswalker. Look, that's his little shtick right now. He's just, he's killing planeswalkers and why not let's just kill creatures for utility purposes. And then his ultimate is, you know, he is, he, we wanted to say that this is, this is the final endgame. So here's the ability that can win the game for you. Now, it might not always win the game for you, that can win the game for you. Now it might not always win the game for you,

but can win the game for you. And we've never before had a an ultimate. I think we haven't had an ultimate that said you win the game. We've had a lot of ultimates that, yeah, you're probably going to win the game, but this is one that literally says I win the game. I don't think we've done that before. Jayce is the first one that said

an all-to-win condition, and I think this is the first one that just says a target player loses, I mean, actually, it doesn't say you win the game, it says a player loses the game, but we are the first you win the game and the first they lose the game as ultimates on Planeswalkers. So that was kind of cool. Now, originally, by the way, this card,

it's red and blue mana were hybrid. When we first made the card, the idea was, we were trying, he's the only three-card card, the idea was, we were trying, he's the only three-card card in the set, and we were trying to make it a little bit easier

and make it so more decks might be able to play Nicole Bolas. And so originally we had, it was like, red or blue hybrid, red or blue hybrid, black, black, black,

I think was what it was originally. And at some point along the way, they decided that was confusing. And I mean, there were the hybrid Planeswalkers that had all the hybrid, but this was kind of like, oh, it was the only one that did that.

And anyway, they ended up putting it back to three color. But we tried for those red, blue, and red, black bolus players. We tried to help you. Okay, Nissa, who shakes the world. Three green, green, legendary Planeswalker Nissa, loyalty five. Whenever you tap a forest for mana, add an additional green mana. Plus one, put three plus one plus one counters on up to one

target non-creature land you control. Untap it. It becomes a zero zero elemental creature with vigilance and haste that's still a land. So the idea essentially is um you can turn your creatures into three threes, but it's designed such that you can turn your creatures into 3-3's but it's designed such that

you can't turn a 3-3 into a 6-6 because it's now a creature and then her ultimate is minus 8 you get an emblem with lands you control indestructible, search your library for another for any number of forest cards put them on the battlefield, tap, then shuffle your library

so the idea here is she wakes up land. Her little shtick is she bonds with land, has land base abilities, so she's getting you mana, and she's turning your lands into elementals. And then she's the only of all 36 Planeswalkers that you find in packs.

And I don't think this is true of Tezzeret as well. Of all the Planeswalkers in War of the Sparks, she's the only emblem. She's the only one that makes an emblem. Because of all the static abilities and stuff, we didn't really need emblems, but to make this one card work, we did need an emblem.

And we love the idea that her ultimate is that her army just can't be killed now, and so she's constantly turning things. One of the ways that she... She starts with loyalty five, so to get it up to eight, she had to at least turn three lands into elementals. And then if she uses her ultimate, then at bare minimum, there's now three, you know,

unkillable three threes out there. And maybe she even used more. Maybe she made four of them so she'd survive. Who knows? So anyway, that is Nissa. So Nissa, I guess in the book, she rejoins the Gatewatch. I didn't know that in my article. I would have mentioned that. I hadn't read the book yet when I wrote my article about why I was doing my card-by-card stuff. Anyway, Nyssa is back and kicking some butt. So we like having some, we like butt-kicking Nyssa.

She's pretty cool. So anyway, that is Nyssa, who shakes the world. Next, Niv-Mizzet Reborn. White, blue, black, red, green. Legendary dragon avatar, 6'6". Obviously a creature. Flying. When Niv-Mizzet Reborn enters the battlefield, reveal the top ten cards of your library.

For each color pair, choose a card that's exactly those colors from among them. Put the chosen into your hand, and the rest on the bottom of your library in random order. So essentially the idea here is, this is a guild card where you look at the top 10 cards and for every, for once for each guild, each two color combination, you can cast a card for free. So the idea is in a five-color deck, assuming you're playing with lots of two-color cards, he can cast a whole bunch of two-color cards. The dream, obviously, is he casts ten cards that requires you have not only no land,

but one of each of the ten guilds, color combinations, each of the ally color combinations. But he is exciting, and he was made to be a real fun commander. He's five colors, so you can play whatever cards you want. He's a commander that wants you to play lots and lots and lots of two-color cards. And then all sorts of fun things can happen when you use him. The one big problem with this card was Niv-Misset had died in the Ravnica Elysian story,

but it wasn't due to all bunch of factors, including the card that was supposed to tell that somehow not getting into the stat. People didn't know he died, so this didn't quite play out quite as much as we hoped. Hey, he's reborn! Everyone goes, but when did he die? And so that's one of the stories that kind of fell through the cracks.

I know we're putting, hopefully by now, the Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica, the stuff Jango wrote, you guys will get to see. It explains all that story. I apologize, it didn't. The card that showed him dying, I don't know what happened to that. I need to find out that story. I apologize, it didn't. The card that showed him dying, I don't know what happened to that. I need to find out that story.

But you were supposed to know in Rounding Allegiance on a card that he had died. But that didn't happen. So him being reborn, I guess could have been a little bit more exciting if you were first aware that he had died.

This is a real fun card. It's the only five-color card on the set. Bullets is the only three-color card. This is the only five-color card. It was designed specifically to be a real fun card it's the only five color card in the set Bullets is the only three color card this is the only five color card it was designed specifically to be a really fun commander

and to just visit do something cool and splashy okay guys so how we doing on time today oh pretty good a little extra traffic

so a little more for you so I'm not done yet I'm up to O so next time I will start with O but anyway I hope you guys are enjoying my walk

through War of the Spark I'm enjoying it on my end. But as I'm now at work, we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.