Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #655: War of the Spark Cards, Part 5

Episode Date: July 19, 2019

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

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I will continue talking about War of the Spark. Okay, so when last we left, we were up to O, which gets us to Oath of Kaia, which is a legendary enchantment. So when Oath of Kaia enters the battlefield, it deals three damage to any target, and you gain three life. When an opponent attacks a Planeswalker, you control with one or more creatures. Oath of Kaia deals two damage to that player, and you gain two life. So the oaths are what we do whenever a character, a Planeswalker, joins the Oath of the Gatewatch. They get a card.

So Kaia is the one that joins the Gatewatch this time. And so she gets an Oath. So the way that Oaths work when we first made them back in Oath of the Gatewatch is you have two abilities. The first is an Enter the Battlefield effect. And the idea is... Oh, sorry. Did I say what

Oath of Kaya cost? Oath of Kaya... I don't think I said that actually. Hold on a second. So I think Oath ofakaya cost? Othakaya... I don't think I said that actually. Hold on a second. So I think Othakaya cost... One white black. Costs one white black. So it costs three mana. The idea is the enter the battlefield effect usually is a decent...

So this drains a target for three. Okay, one way beat. That's not a bad cost to drain a target for three. And then its way beat. That's not a bad cost to drain a target for three. And then its second ability is usually a static or triggered ability that interacts with planeswalkers in some way.

So this one says, whenever an opponent attacks a planeswalker you control with one or more creatures, you get to drain that player for two. So it protects your planeswalkers, meaning anytime someone tries to attack your planeswalkers, it comes at a cost. So it makes it harder for them to kill your planeswalkers, meaning anytime someone tries to attack your planeswalkers, it comes at a cost. So it makes it harder for them to kill your planeswalkers. And the idea of the Oath is that you play them because they're just general value, but, you know, they're helpful with planeswalkers.

Now, the interesting thing is normally in the Oath, they have two abilities. And the first ability is why you'll play it in limited. And the second ability is more like a once in a while matters in a constructed thing. But this is the one set where, oh, the second ability comes up all the time in limited because you've got planeswalkers in play because it's a planeswalker set and there's lots of planeswalkers. So it's funny that this is definitely an ability that often might not matter. In fact, matter is probably more limited than it matters in Constructed.

Normally the Planeswalker ability is a Constructed thing that almost never happens in Limited, where this is the reverse here. I mean, it might happen in Constructed, but it happens all the time in Limited. So that's kind of cool. Okay, next.

Ob Nixilis, the Hate Twisted. Three black black, legendary Planeswalker, Nixilus, the Hate Twisted. Three black black, legendary planeswalker, Nixilus, loyalty five. Whenever an opponent draws a card, Obnixilus, the Hate Twisted, deals one damage to that player. Minus two, destroy target creature. Its controller draws two cards.

Okay, so this is one of our uncommon mono black cards. So we have, once again, there's one hybrid cycle of 10 at Uncommon and two Monocard cycles. Obnixilus is a character that's always appeared in Monoblack. As a character, he's pretty black-red, meaning just from a motivational standpoint. So when we were considering doing Obnixilus,

we talked about black-red. Like I said, we talked about Obnixilus and Tybalt and Angrath all being Black Red. We ended up with Gung's Angrath, because he's never not been Black Red, although he's only appeared once. But Omnixilus has been Mono Black before, so I felt like, okay, there could be a time, like, at some point

you'll see Omnixilus, I think we'll do him Black Red at some point, but right now, every time you've seen him, he's been Mono Black, so it felt fine making him mono-black here. So it started, I think he started as the static ability. Remember when we turned over, all the uncommons only had one ability. Either the static triggered ability or the minus ability. I think he started so that's the static ability, or sorry, the triggered ability is

underworld dreams. It's an enchantment from legends So that's the static ability, or sorry, the triggered ability is Underworld Dreams. It's an enchantment from Legends that does damage whenever somebody draws a card. This is, yeah, I think it says whenever an opponent draws a card. Anyway, we gave him that ability, which obviously matters because your opponent's going to draw a card, at least one card every turn. So bare minimum, this does one a turn. Now, obviously, if they have cantrips or other card drawing you can do more. And then

to try to tie it together, because we like to have, is the idea of can we give him a creature destruction spell that comes at a cost? Because one of the things about Onyxilus is that he's very black. This is a very black ability. It's like, well, you can kill him, but

it comes at a cost to you. And the cost is that it gives the person you destroy two cards. So the neat thing about it is there's two uses in this card. One is you can use it on the opponent's creatures, and he has a loyalty of five, so he can kill two creatures, but they get a direct card. So while you get to kill something, the idea behind this ability when using it against somebody else, is hopefully what you're killing is so important, it's big enough of a danger

that you're willing to let them have two cards in exchange. The other thing you can do is you also can effectively use this as sac a creature, draw two cards. So if you want to use the ability to draw two cards, you can. And so it's very flexible in how you can use it. Note, if your opponent's the one drawing cards, if you kill your opponent's creatures and they draw two cards, it does trigger the trigger ability.

So essentially, if you're destroying their opponent's creatures, it's destroy creature, they draw two cards, and lose two life. So that's nice how the static ability ties into the activated ability. So I thought that was kind of cool. I'm sorry, it's a trigger. I keep saying static. It's technically a triggered ability. Okay, up next.

Parhelion II. Six white white legendary artifact vehicle, 5-5. When Parhelion II attacks, create two 4-4 white angel creature tokens with flying and vigilance that are attacking. Crew 4. So we knew, remember when I started making this set, I said, okay, now is the time to make the things that people have always wanted, that it's hard to make in a normal guild set. Well, one of these things was the Parnillion 2. The Parnillion 1

I think existed in the earlier story. It got referenced before. But anyway, this is the giant Boro ship. And we knew it was going to play a role in the story and we wanted, well, I think we wanted to see it. I think Doug had it playing a role in the story. But it's one of those things that people have been asking about. We had never done vehicles in Ravnica, and so, okay, once we're going to, like, once we knew we were doing vehicles in Ravnica, it's kind of like, wow, you got to do that Parnellian, too. Like, that's the big Boro ship. So we did. The trick on this one is trying to make it sort of grandiose enough, so we ended up choosing to make it

expensive and large. So, I mean, it's eight mana. We made it white. I think we made it white because we made Mizzium Tanks red. We decided that all the vehicles we were making colored, but we weren't going to make multicolored. We had to make a single color. And Mizzium Tanks we made red, so we made this one white. And as it's a big flying thing,

I mean, I guess Red has dragons. It made sense in white. So, anyway, we gave it a bunch of abilities, because it's definitely a scary ship. So it's 5'5", it flies, it has first strike, it has vigilance. And then, because it's manned by angels, when it attacks, you make two angels. So we just made this... The idea is sometimes we like to make cars that are just big and expensive, but they just do grandiose, giant things.

So the idea is, yeah, it's expensive. It's not easy to get the Pernillion, too. But once you do, you know, like, once you crew it up and attack, like, okay, not only are you attacking with a 5-5 ship, but it comes with two 4-4 angels, so it's pretty grandiose and splashy. And that's what we want on this card, is just something sort of fun and splashy. Like, people have been waiting for this card for a long time, so we wanted to pay it off for them. Next, Plainwide Celebration.

Five green-green sorcery. Choose four. You may choose the same mode more than once. Create a 2-2 citizen creature token that's all colors. Return target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand. Proliferate or you gain 4 life. So this was inspired by, one of the things that we in the past have not done a great job of is really reinforce the end of the story. A lot of times we kind of like, sort of things happen but we don't like, there was a victory. And this I think was inspired by Star Wars. You know in Star Wars when when they win, there's a planet-wide celebration,

or sometimes there's multiple planet-wide celebrations. We kind of wanted that feel. We wanted to really say, hey, let's communicate the good guys won. It was a long arc. Bulls had a lot of victories, but finally, finally, the good guys won. And so we wanted to have a card that sort of referenced that. And so this was a fun kind of idea. The idea here was to do sort of a command, but better than a command.

Command, you have four choices. You can choose two. This is you have four choices. You can choose four. And we sort of doubled up, saying, well, you can choose anything as many times as you like. So if you want to do the same thing four times, you can. And the idea was just what are green things that represent celebration? O, making creatures. Oh, the people gather together. That sounds cool.

Regrowth a card to get a permanent back. That's pretty cool. Proliferate. That makes sense in this episode. Proliferate. And you gain four life. That's awesome. So all these seem like things that are positive. And this is definitely a fun card. I mean, like I said, this is another splashy card that you're not going to play early, but when you play it, a lot can happen. This is the kind of card that when you get to play it, you get to do something.

Because you have so many choices, you're pretty guaranteed that something you're going to do is going to be pretty splashy. So that's cool. Next, Pollen Bright Druid. One and a green for a 1-1 Elf Druid. It's obviously a creature. When Pollenite Druid enters the and a green for a 1-1 Elf Druid. It's obviously a creature. When Pollenite Druid enters the battlefield, choose one.

Put a plus one counter on target creature or proliferate. So this is a good example of a proliferate card that has nice function to it. So the idea essentially is it's a 1-1 creature. If I... The reason it's not just 1-1 creature that enters and proliferate is it's a two drop. Well, there's plenty of times on turn two I just don't have anything to proliferate. And so if one G, one one enters the battlefield proliferate, you might feel bad. Because you might be just opportunities where you don't have, you can't do anything.

And, you know, playing a card where you, the ETP effect just doesn't do anything that doesn't feel good. So what we did is we gave it two options. And the other option is something that, like, let's say you have two of these in your hand. Well, the first one I can cast, and I can put a plus one, plus one counter on my creature. The second one, if I want to, I can choose what I want to do, but I, you know, any future ones will at least be affected

by the first one being out there. And so we felt like this was a cool thing. I think we might have talked about whether or not to put a counter on itself or on any target, and we felt like, well, any target just makes the card a little bit more useful. Like, one of the nice things about this card is two drops a lot of the time are very useful early in the game, but later in the game aren't quite as useful. Like, oh, two mana, two, two. Like, okay, yeah, turn two, that's great, but turn five, turn six,

turn seven, like, eh, probably can't get through. Maybe you can block or something. But putting a Puzzle Counter on a target creature, you know, you can put it on your evasive creature or, you know, the biggest creature you have if you need to make it bigger. And you also have proliferating, meaning you already have a bunch of counters. You know, instead of putting

one counter on, you can do a bunch of counters. Obviously, you know, it plays with a mass. You know, it just does a lot of different things. And so, I like how this card's a nice, simple card, but it just thematically plays in with all the themes we're doing. And so, I don't know. Stuff like that's important,

having just nice, simple designs that sort of help connect everything together. Okay, next. Rall, Storm Conduit. So two blue-red for Legendary Planeswalker Rall, loyalty four. Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell,

Rall Storm Conduit deals one damage to target opponent or planeswalker, plus two, scry one, minus two. When you cast your next next instant sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets. Okay, well, Raul is our is-it guy. We made him rare just because we ended up doing Saheliot of the Uncommon

and then did Raul at the rare for Blue-Red. Yeah, Blue-Red was the one where there was a bunch of choices. Like I said, Dak, because we didn't know about the story, we didn't know he was going to die in the story yet. Um, he, uh, we had a bunch of options with Blue-Red. We knew we wanted Ral. Ral was the slam dunk because he plays a big part of the story. He plays a big part of the, in fact, he was the main character in the Guilds of Ravnica,

Ravnica Allegiance part of the story. Um, so we knew we needed him. He kills a Ravnica. Ravnica Allegiance, part of the story. So we knew we needed him. And anyway, so his trigger ability is something that just says, okay, I want you to play Instinct Sorceries. Like his card is designed really to say,

hey, I'm an Izzet guy. I'm going to try to help you. I'm going to try to be very Izzety. And the Izzety thing you want is like instant sorceries. That's usually their theme. And so this card says, okay, let me do three things that will help you. Number one, anytime you play an instant sorcery, I'll deal damage to the opponent. So it just rewards you for instant sorceries.

I'll scry to help you find instant sorceries. And I can copy your things so that, you know, and once again, the copying will tie into the trigger ability in that if I copy it, again, I get a due damage. So it just sort of all ties together and lets him sort of be an instant sorcery package. You know, Raul can vary a little bit. We talked about whether he's supposed to have a coin flip. His last card, or not his last, one of his most famous cards had a time walk, but you

had a coin flip for it. And we've already talked about how much coin flipping Raoul should do. We like having some, but decided here we'd rather give him a more straightforward instant sorcery card. But, anyway, I think we'll probably both enjoy that. Next, Ravnica and War. 3 in White, Sorcery.

Exile all multicolored permanents. So one of the things we were trying to do because there's a war, we wanted to have a number of sweepers. Normally we don't have that many sweepers, so the fact that we were doing extra sweepers because it's a war meant we had to sort of make them a little nichier to make sure that each of them had a role. So this one's like, okay, well, I'm

on Ravnica, and I think this is trying to show all the devastation to Ravnica. It's like, well, I'm gonna not just destroy on Exile, because white sometimes exiles, but on Exile, multicolored permanent. So there's a lot of multicolored permanents on Ravnica, so it really has the sense like I'm harming Ravnica, because

specifically to Ravnica, there's a lot. I mean, this card is a little more narrow. Obviously, Unlimited Duplex has a lot of gold cards. But in Constructed, it's the kind of thing that, depending on your metagame, might be very valuable or might not be valuable. So it is, like I said, a little more niche-y, but in the right circumstance, can be very valuable. So it really comes down to what is the right environment.

Nesk. Next. Rolalesk. Apex Hybrid. That's hard to say. Rolalesk Apex Hybrid. Two green, green, blue. So five mana, two green, one five mana total. Two of which is green, one of which is blue. It's a

legendary 4-5 human mutant. So it's a creature. Flying in Tr trample. When Rololesque Apex Hybrid enters the battlefield, put two plus one plus one counters on another target creature you control. When Rololesque dies, proliferate, then proliferate again. Okay, so this was made to play into... So we wanted it to both be Simic-y and to sort of tie into the themes of the set.

So counter-granting is a big part of the Simic, and proliferating is a big part of the set. And it ties a lot, like I said, the Simic seemed like the right place to proliferate if it was a guild mechanic. So the idea here, which is kind of cute, is come on, do something twice, which is put a plus and plus counter on a creature.

When it dies, do something twice, which is proliferate. So we give it Flying and Trample, which is proliferate. So, we give it flying and trample, because it's a blue-green card. So, the blue is the flying, the green is the trample. We do that a lot on gold cards. And then, it just has two abilities. The first ability,

well, the first ability leans toward green, because plus and plus one counters. Blue proliferates a little more than green, although they're both proliferate. So this is definitely one of those cards that's sort of the combination. If not for the flying, I guess green could do this, but green wouldn't have the flying creature. And the whole package is Pacific-y, so I kind of like it as a green-blue card. Okay, next, roll reversal.

Blue, blue, red. So three mana total. Two which is blue, one is red. Sorcery. Exchange control of two targeted permanents that share a permanent type. So those that know me know I love swapping things. I like exchanging control.

Ledger Domain was my card way back in Tempest because I used to have a deck I played back in the days, in my Johnny days, where the whole point of my deck was I would play the things that I wanted used to have a deck I played back in the days, in my Johnny days, where the whole point of my deck was I would play the things that I wanted you to have that you didn't want to have. And then I would trade you creatures that had crazy upkeep costs

that I could pay that you couldn't pay. And I used to use Gauntlets of Chaos and Juxtapose, which were the first two spells that did this. And then I made Legend of Maine to make it a little easier to do that. And Roll Reversal is playing in the same space. The key thing about Roll Reversal is you can exchange whatever you want, whatever permit you want, but

you've got to exchange it for the same thing. So, if I want to exchange an enchantment, for example, they have to have an enchantment. Or I want to exchange an artifact, they have to have an artifact. But anyway, not that I made this particular card, but it definitely plays into my sensibilities of the type of spells that I enjoy. Okay, next, Saheeli.

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. One hybrid hybrid, so three mana total, and the hybrid is blue or red. So one blue or red, blue or red. She is a Legendary Plwalker, Saheeli. Loyalty, five. Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, create a one-one color servo artifact creature token. Minus two, target artifact you control becomes a copy of another target artifact

or creature you control until end of turn, except it's an artifact in addition to its other types. Okay, so Saheeli is the inventor. Like I said, we had to make a choice at the blue red hybrid what we wanted we knew we wanted a roll at rare and the choice was really between Dak or Saheeli at the uncommon slot

once again we did not know that Dak dying happened later when the novel got written the set was done by that point so had we known yes had we known that Dak was going to die in the book, this would have been Dak. We didn't, so that's why it's not. I think the option

is, in general, Saheeli just, we had a cool design idea, and she's, you know, I don't know. I just think that we opted towards Saheeli. So, her static...

Sorry, her trigger ability makes Servo tokens. Servo tokens are native to Kaladesh. So it's sort of tied there. Once again, it's blue and red. So it's playing a little bit into the space. It says non-creature. So if you're playing artifacts or enchantments, not just instance of sorceries, it triggers this.

It does let you play her in an artifact-focused deck, or it lets you play her in an instant sorcery-focused deck, so she's sort of flexible to do either of those. And then her minus ability, which is, um, well, I guess, when we originally made this slot, um, I don't think it was Saheeli.

So, I think when we made it in, interestingly, I think when we made this card in Vision, it was originally... We made it Dak and not Saheeli. And then it got switched in set design. Anyway, so this card got made in set design. They basically played into our build. Saheeli is an inventor.

So one of the things they tend to do is that she takes artifacts and she makes them into other things. That's kind of her inventor-ness, that she can sort of turn artifacts into things. Here they made it not just copy other artifacts but copy other creatures because it's an uncommon card. There weren't a lot of artifacts to copy so we wanted it to be a little more flexible. The card is a little bit narrow just because there's not a lot of artifacts but the trick for this card is because she makes

artifacts, she makes servo tokens, her second ability works in limited because, oh, well, just play nine creature spells, make servo tokens, then the servo tokens can be changed in other things. And it references creatures, so even though in limited there's not a lot of artifact cards, her triggered ability allows you to be able to do this. And the fact that she can copy creatures, there's plenty of creatures in play. Then the idea is in Constructed where you can build around her and put in artifacts. In Limited she's much more about taking her servos and turning them into creatures.

Where in Constructed, you're making artifacts and then she can stop copying artifacts and stuff. So she was designed so that she had a role to play in Limited and a role to play in Constructed. And I definitely think, from what I understand, she's getting played in Constructed. So I think mission accomplished on that task. Okay, next. Samut. Samut, Tyrant, Smasher. Two hybrid-hybrid.

Hybrid's red or green. So two red or green, red or green. Legendary Playing Walker, Samut. Loyalty, five. Creatures you control have haste. Minus one. Target creature gets plus two, plus one 1 And gains haste until end of turn, strike 1 Okay, so a couple things One is she's red green

We had a bunch of choices for the red green slot But we ended up choosing Samut We like the idea From a story standpoint That the Bolas got his army from Amonkhet, the Dreadhorde. And we liked the idea that there was someone on the

good guy side from Amonkhet. And it was a nice story point, for those that read the book, the fact that she really Samut knows these people. She takes great offense. Like, you know, she's killing Eternals. It's like she's putting them to rest. These people were supposed to already met their eternal rest.

And so, I mean, Samu's a really interesting character. There's a great injustice, more so than anybody else. What Boles has done, the army, is a great offense to her. And I think there's a really cool take on it. And she was a neat character to have in the story. And her schtick is super speed, by the way. She's also a little strong, I believe. But she's our speedster

by the way the funny thing is back when we first made Samut the way I wanted to design her this didn't win the day is I wanted all of her abilities to do the same thing twice so that the way we represent super speed is do one damage, do one damage and then the shtick of her character

would be every time you do something she just does it twice but anyway they didn't go with that but I really like that design Do one damage. And then the shtick of her character would be every time you do something, he just does it twice. But anyway, they didn't go with that. But I really like that design. Okay, so she's red-green. I think that the card originally... There was a mono-green card that originally granted,

like did a little boost. But when we ended up moving the plus and plus one counter to mono green, we decided to move this to red green. We made it plus two plus one since when red pumps stuff, it tends to pump power higher than toughness. So it makes the card feel a little bit more red.

The other thing was the card really wanted to grant haste as a static ability. At the time, green was tertiary in haste. It was a little weird, because being tertiary means you usually don't grant the ability. We were going to make a special exception for this card, and then we decided we wanted to move haste from tertiary in green to secondary in green, which now makes us completely on board.

This card went from being, like, something of a big discussion to being, oh, it's just fine. The other big question, again, this card is, why does the second ability, why does the minus ability grant haste when the static ability grants haste? And the answer is, if I'm using the last for loyalty, meaning

Samut's going to go away, if I didn't have that ability on the line, it wouldn't have the ability. So we didn't want you to go, oh, I play't have that ability on the line, it wouldn't have the ability. So we didn't want you to go, oh, I play a creature, I use up Samut to boost it, and then, oh, I can't attack because she went away and the static ability went away. Now they can't attack. That's why I granted

so that if you use up her loyalty, the creature still gets to attack. That is why it seems like, oh, aren't you repeating yourself? That functionality. Okay, Sarkhan the Masterless. Three red red. So five mana total, two witches red.

Legendary Planeswalker Sarkhan, loyalty five. Whenever a creature attacks you or a Planeswalker you control, each dragon you control deals one damage to that creature. Plus one until end of turn, each Planeswalker you control becomes a 4-4 red dragon creature and gains flying. Minus three, create a 4-4 dragon creature token with flying.

So I think we knew uh we had talked about whether Sark could just be a minus to make dragons but decided that just wasn't uncommon. Like just making dragons wasn't uncommon so he knew he needed to be rare, which meant that he needed an extra ability, um, so I think we knew the, the Miner's was making dragons, he's just, he's the dragon

planeswalker, um, and then I think they got the plus ability, uh, say, oh, well, what if now can he become, but he can, he can turn all the planeswalkers into dragons, um, we thought that was kind of cute. And then the static ability... Sorry, it's the trigger ability. The trigger ability was just like, well, why don't we just do something that sort of plays into his dragon-ness?

It's a little more narrow ability. But the idea essentially is the more dragons you have, the more defense he does. So if you want to play a Planeswalker dragon deck, he's your man. And, you know, the more defense he does. So if you want to play a Planeswalker dragon deck, he's your man. And, you know, once again, some of the static moves on the Planeswalkers, because we did so many static and triggered abilities,

are narrow. Like, in the right deck, they can matter. I think in the right deck, this can matter quite a bit. But, it's not something that's supposed to matter a lot of time. Look, he gets to make dragons. He gets to turn planeswalkers into dragons. In limited, he's plenty. Those two abilities are plenty good.

So I think the static ability was trying to tie that all together. It's a bit narrow, but it does sort of tie them, so that's nice. Silent Submersible. Blue, blue. Artifact vehicle. When Silent Submersible deals combat damage to a player or planeswalker, draw a card. It's got Crew 2 and it's a 2-3. I think at one point, by the way, I think this did have some kind of evasion.

I think it ended up being too good because Curiosity, the Saboteur ability to draw a card when you do damage, is just very strong. So I do believe at one point, this is supposed to be a demure vehicle, I think. At one point, this was supposed to have some kind of evasion. I think that was too strong and they changed it. And a lot of people are like, oh, it's a sub. Shouldn't it have some evasion?

I think it did originally, but it was too strong. And so they changed it. originally, but it was too strong, and so they changed it. I do get the note that the flavor of this really wants to be something that gets some kind of evasion, so I don't know. Maybe it was supposed to be, if I hit, I could pay man

to draw a card. I'm not sure. I do admit that the... Where this ended up sometimes, not that the card is not usable or interesting, but the flavor sort of fights a little bit against itself, and as a general rule, when everybody intuitively asks the same question and there's no clean answer, that usually means you messed up a little. So that design did want some kind of evasion, even if it's a very conditional evasion.

Next, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord. Two white, black. So four mana total. One of which is white, one of which is black. Legendary Planeswalker Sorin. Loyalty four. As long as it's your turn, creatures and Planeswalkers you control have lifelink. Plus two, Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord, deals one damage to target player or Planeswalker. Minus X, return target creature card with converted cost

X from your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature is a vampire in addition to its other types. Okay, so this one, we knew the real question was whether Kaia or soren was going to be rare the other one was going to be uncommon um i think we decided that uh i think we had an ability we liked for the ability we made in a vacuum when we made the white black just by itself without knowing anybody who it was i think we liked it and it made sense as kaya so we decided to make

that kaya and just make, um, I know all the Gatewatch are rare or higher, I mean, Kaya becomes Gatewatch, but she's not Gatewatch for most of them, so all the existing Gatewatch was rare or above, it's true, Kaya becomes, but, uh, I think we liked, uh, having, we liked the card we had made, and that was uncommon, it made sense as Kaya, so anyway, Sorin, um, Sorin, we always like to do vampire-ish things. That's a sort of shtick as a thing. So the idea of lifelink, because, you know, you're sucking things off things, isn't that cool? I think they didn't want it to be too defensive, so they made it only on your turn. So it's an aggressive thing and encourages you to attack.

He also does damage to things, so the plus two is just... Because he gets Planeswalker's Lifelink, if you plus two in your turn and do damage, you are draining things. So while it doesn't say you drain things, the combination of his trigger ability and that ability makes him drain things. So once again, he's a vampire, he gets to drain things. And then his final ability is sort of raising things from the dead. You turn the dead into vampires

so that was kind of cute and then it's a minus X loyalty ability we don't do that all that often, we do it every once in a while where the idea is you have to build up more loyalty to get larger things so if you want to get a really big thing he's plus 2 on his ability so you can build them up relatively quickly

and then you can try to get some big thing which is kind of cool. Okay, next. Soul Diviner. Blue, black. 2-2 zombie wizard. It's a creature. Tap.

Remove a counter from an artifact, creature, or land, and planeswalker you control. Draw a card. So, this is meant for limited. It's a build around the unlimited. It's the uncommon, I think it's uncommon, blue-black build around. The idea here is that blue-black

can do this thing where it's sort of feeding off counters, and blue is access to proliferate, and there's just it's just sort of fun way to play where um you're using your counters more as a resource rather you know rather than using them for whatever they're normally used for you get them to be as a resource um i'm not sure why this doesn't say a permanent the fact that it's spelled out and literally doesn't say enchantment says to me it constructed there are some concerns with eating the tokens off enchantments.

I'm not sure what that is. I don't know if it played with sagas or something. I don't know what unlimited Cods problems. My guess is sagas. Maybe it lets you keep repeating the same saga or something. The chapter of the saga. I'm not sure. There's a reason it doesn't say enchantments, but I don't know what it is.

I know it's play design. Spark double, three and a blue, creature illusion. You may have spark double, enter the battlefield as a copy of a creature, planeswalker you control, except it enters with an additional plus one plus one counter on it if it's a creature. If it enters with an additional loyalty counter, and enters with an additional loyalty counter

if it's a planeswalker. If it isn't legendary, and it isn't legendary, if that permanent is legendary. So we've been asked forever to have Clone a Planeswalker. So this card was kind of satisfying that. I think they decided to make it a little more broad

just in case you didn't have a Planeswalker. So you can copy a creature or a Planeswalker. And then the idea of just having the extra counter just gave it a little, just to make it feel a little bit different. It's kind of cute. Like, oh, it's a creature against a possible counter if it's a planeswalker against a loyalty. But this is just something people have been

asking for forever. It's kind of hard to make a copy of planeswalker just because normally there's a mythic rare. So, like, it's hard to make something in which there's so few of them and there's such high rarity. So, we were making a planeswalker set. This really was the time and place to finally make it. So we were making a Planeswalker set. This really was the time and place to finally make it. Spark Harvest. Single black.

Sorcery. As an additional cost to cast the spell, sacrifice a creature or pay three and a black. Destroy target creature or Planeswalker. So the idea here was we wanted to sort of play into the story. We knew that the Eternals were harvesting sparks. So this card was trying to capture that sense. I think we said Creature or Planeswalker

just to make the card more generally useful, even though, obviously, in the story, they're Spark-harvesting Planeswalkers. And the idea is Sacrifice a Creature sort of plays in the idea of, oh, the Eternals are sacrificing themselves to do it. And then you can pay extra. You can pay three black black instead of

black and a creature. But we like the idea of black using its resources where it can. So it's like it's a cheap kill spell if you're willing to sacrifice a creature. If not, you know, it's not too bad. It's a five mana spell. So it really played into the story. It's one of those things where it mechanically plays well.

Like I said, remember there's a one of the things that the blue blackhead can do is use a mask as a creature resource. We're constantly sacrificing things, so we wanted to have a bunch of outlets for you to sacrifice creatures. For example, this is one of them in black. So blackhead's a bunch of creature sacrifice outlets.

Okay, next, store of Devkaren Lich. Store of Devkaren Lich. Storiv, Devkarin Lich. One black, black, green. So four mana total, two which is black, one which is green. It's a legendary 5-4 zombie elf wizard. So it's a creature, obviously. When Storiv, Devkarin Lich deals combat damage to a player or planeswalker,

return to your hand target creature or planeswalker card in your graveyard that wasn't put there this combat. So the idea is to get things back from the grave. Black doesn't normally get back planeswalkers. This is definitely us pushing a little bit. I mean, black gets back creatures, no problem. But I think in this set,

we were trying to make planeswalkers more relevant. So we did a lot of creature or planeswalker. Whenever we would affect a creature, we kind of asked ourselves, hey, could it say Creature or Planeswalker just to make it more relevant here in the Planeswalker set? And so we made a few bends. It's not a crazy bend, but like I said,

Black doesn't normally get back Planeswalkers from the graveyard, but we felt like in a Planeswalker set where a lot of the characters were Planeswalkers it felt right here like if we're going to make the bend this felt like the right place to make the bend and Black Rune is the Golgari so we like the idea of

Golgari had this life-death cycle so it just felt sort of like a good choice to do it here that felt kind of cool okay, Tamiyo Tamiyo, Collector of Tales. Two green, blue. So four mana total. One of which is green, one of which is blue. Legendary Planeswalker Tamiyo.

Loyalty, five. Spells and abilities your opponent control can't cause you to discard cards or sacrifice permanents. So she's protecting your stuff. Plus one, choose a non-land card name. Then reveal the top four cards in your library. Put all cards with the chosen name from among them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard

and then minus three, return target cards from your graveyard to your hand so the idea is Tamiyo is a story she's a scientist, she's a researcher so one of the things that's interesting is Narcid is very much about information and Tamiyo

is also about sort of studying so trying to keep them off each other is interesting I think so Tamiyo is base blue we did her as Bant, blue white green last time we saw her so we had some options here the only three color Planeswalker we did was Bolas

so we knew we wanted her to be two colors we knew she was base blue then she had to either be white-blue or green-blue. We had both Dovin, who's leading the Azorius, and Teferi, who's part of the Gatewatch, in white-blue. So we had no white-blue slots. In green-blue, we

had Kiora, but we had one of the slots, so we used Tamiyo in green-blue. There was a choice in doing her base-blue, but we ended up choosing to do Narset in base blue, and then we decided to do Tamiya with green blue. So the idea here was, we liked the idea

of having her be, name a card, look at the top four cards, and you get it if you name the right thing. That felt kind of cute and sort of, I don't know, it felt a little researchy. Like, if you have a good sense of what you need, you know, that she can sort of find the things she wants, but you don't get to search your whole deck.

But in the moment, you can name the thing you really need, and if it's there, then you get access to it. And then we gave her the regrowth ability, so look, you're going to spill some stuff into your graveyard. The plus ability puts things in the graveyard, so it's like, well, I can name what I want, and then I can sort of go back and get things

that I need that I missed. And then, I think her static ability is one of the ones that... There's a bunch of narrow static abilities that just came later on when they were trying to... Because everybody had a static or triggered ability. And this is an extra static ability, though. And so, I think that

they were just trying to find things. They like the idea that she has a little bit of a protectorist nature to her. She definitely has been watching out for people. So this ability said, okay, I just protect against certain effects. It's very anti-black. I'm not sure why we

did that. But both sacrificing creatures and discarding cards is very black. Interestingly, well, she's not a green-white character, but black is opposite of green. But we like the idea that she's there to protect you against danger. So that was kind of the shtick there.

Okay, next. The Fairy, Time Raveler. One white-blue, so three mana total, one of which is white, one of which is blue. Legendary Planeswalkerwalker to fairy loyalty four each opponent casts spells only at a time they can cast a sorcery so it keeps people from casting instance

plus one until your next turn you may cast sorcery spells as though they had flash and then minus three, return up to one target artifact, creature, or enchantment to its owner's hand. So it bounces permanence. But non-land permanence,

non-planeswalker permanence. So artifact, creature, enchantment to its owner's hand, draw a card. So the idea here is he messes with time, and so his static ability is sort of like, oh, well, I make all their instants into sorceries, then his plus one ability is I make your sorceries an instant,

so they sort of mirror each other. And then it's minus three is, and I can sort of undo things that you have done. So, you know, Teferi really plays in the I kind of mess with you space, which is kind of neat for white-blue, and as someone who messes with time, it's kind of a neat time-flavored thing.

So, I like... Anyway, I like how we played out with that, and I like how he actually has a static and a plus ability that kind of mirror each other. That's not easy to do, so that's kind of neat. Okay. Okay.

Teo, the Shield Mage. Two and a white, legendary planeswalker Teo. You have hexproof. Minus two, create a zero three white wall creature token with defender. Oh, he comes with loyalty five. So he was one of our holes, meaning we had an uncommon white hole that we didn't have a planeswalker to put into it.

We liked this idea of a defensive planeswalker. We've been talking for a while of making somebody that's MonoWeb is super defensive. And what happened was we made him. We just made him as a character. And then Greg Weissman, who wrote the book, really took a liking to him and ended up making him

the POV character. Because he wanted somebody that was kind of new to introduce the reader to all the things that are going on. And one of the ways to do that in the story is to have a POV character. And so it's kind of neat. We had made the character, and we really made him mechanically. It's like, oh, he's a defensive waker.

What does he do? Well, he makes walls. His minus ability is what we did. It's like, he makes walls. And then when we had to put a static ability, it's like, oh, well, how about you with hexproof? He protects you, puts a shield around you, and he puts a shield, you know, he makes a wall to sort of shield your creature. So he really, especially protecting you, puts a shield around you, and he puts a shield, you know, he makes a wall to sort of shield your creature. So he really, especially protecting you,

the planeswalker, in that he protects you from spells, protects you from creatures. So we thought that was cool. And then, like I said, he really came to like Greg. I mean, we had outlined who he was, and it's not that Greg made the character, he didn't, but he really fleshed out the character and just really brought Teo to life.

Next, Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. Four blue-black, legendary planeswalker Tezzeret. He has loyalty of five. Creature and planeswalker spells you cast have affinity for artifacts, which is they cost one last to cast for each artifact you control. Plus two, Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, deals X damage to each opponent where X is the number of artifacts you control. You gain X life. Minus three, return target artifact cards from your graveyard to your hand.

Minus eight, exile a top-10 card to your library. Put all artifact cards among them on the battlefield. So Tezzeret was the Biobox. The reason he was the Biobox is he's not actually on Ravnica. He is the bridge that's getting the army there. So he's not. I think he's on Amonkhet. He's not actually there.

He's not on Ravnica. So it's kind of cool to be like, he's in the story, but he's not. I think he's on Amonkhet. He's not actually there. He's not on Ravnica. So it's kind of cool to be like, he's in the story, but he's not technically on Ravnica, so he's not technically in the booster. We thought that was kind of cute. And we ended up giving him four abilities, which is something that the Mythic Rares all have.

He, because he's not in the box, we didn't need to worry about him from Limited, we really played off his normal strategy, which is he's an artifact playing swap. You want to play him an artifact deck. He's of no use. You need artifacts. That's what he does. So all his abilities. Okay, so he has affinity for artifacts. We talked about whether we should write it out or not.

When it wasn't in the box, we decided just to make the biobox splashier looking. Like, if we had written it out, he would have the same ability. We called the affinity for artifacts. Obviously, affinity was quite broken when we first did it back in original Mirrodin so we knew it would be kind of splashy he gets to damage the opponent equal number artifacts

he gets to get artifacts back from the graveyard and he gets to get artifacts from your library onto the battlefield we do top of library rather than search just so you don't quite know what you're going to get, makes better gameplay rather than you always tutor for the same thing. But it's a pretty splashy ability in that if you're playing an artifact

deck, well, your top 10 cards, some of them should be artifacts. And so, anyway, we thought that was pretty splashy. The Elder Spell, which I take offense to. It's not alphabetized at E, but it's black black sorcery. Destroy any number of target planeswalkers, choose a

planeswalker you control, put two loyalty counters on it for each planeswalker destroyed this way well the elder spell was the spell that Bolas used to become a god, the idea was he killed planeswalkers and then he got stronger, so this just felt perfect, like you destroy any number of planeswalkers and then you get, suck up their loyalty

so this is like, sometimes when you're trying to represent a story point it gets hard, you know, like you know, suck up their loyalty. So this is like, sometimes when you're trying to represent a story point, it gets hard. You know, like, you know, when we trapped Emrakul in the moon, like we had to really bend over backwards to make that work. That's just a hard ability to put on a card. This just, like, what did it do?

Kills planeswalkers, make another planeswalker stronger. Very easy to do. So it was a nice, fun, straightforward, you know, it definitely could be splashy and flavorful at once. So I'm very happy with how that turned out. The Wanderer. Not the one with the T. I mean, it just should be a W, but...

3 and a W. Legendary Playswalker 5. Prevent all non-combat damage to be dealt to you and other permanents you control. Minus 2. Exile a target creature with power 4 or greater. So this is another hole we filled. We made the card before we made the character. We like the idea that it killed larger things,

that we, an ability we do in white. The static ability, I think, was... Oh, protection from non-combat damage. So it sort of makes it protective. I'm not sure why those two abilities got tied together. It might have been they were looking for cool abilities that they thought made sense, and I'm not sure why that ended up being on this particular one

the Wanderer they made a very cool character for the Wanderer they decided they wanted the sense of mystery that no one knows who she is so they didn't give her she's the only Planeswalker that doesn't have she's not legendary Planeswalker somebody and so who knows

we don't know who the Wanderer is I thought that was cool. Tybalt, Rakish Instigator, 2 and a red. Legendary Planeswalker Tybalt. Your opponent can't gain life. Minus 2, create a 1-1 red devil creature token with, when this creature dies, it deals 1 damage to any target.

Oh, and he has a loyalty of 5. So he's 3 mana, 1 of which is red. We knew we wanted to do another Tybalt. We talked about whether he should be black red. We made Angren black red, so we made him mono red. We knew we wanted to do another Tibalt. We talked about whether it should be black-red. We made Angrenth black-red, so we made him mono-red. That's what he was before. We like the idea of tying planeswalkers with their home plane. Devils are a thing from Innistrad. He's from Innistrad,

and he's a devil, or part-devil. So we like the idea that he made devils. That seemed pretty cool. And then, we like the idea that it damages players, because he plays in pain. And then, like, oh, what if you can't heal? So, then he like the idea that it damages players because he plays in pain. And then like, oh, what if you can't heal? So then he has ability, you know, it made a nice simple uncommon.

But he's a sideboard card. You might want to play in the right deck. So like in a mono red deck, his static ability was made to be something that you might want to sideboard him in. Or in a certain constructed that might matter. It doesn't matter a lot in limited, although it can, but it matters quite a bit, or it can matter quite a bit in constructed. I mean, that might be the reason you play him. Time Wipe. Two white, white, blue.

Five mana. Two witches white, one witches blue. Return a creature to control its owner's hand, then destroy all creatures. Like I said, there was a war, so we decided to do more sweeping effects. We thought this was kind of cool. What would blue-white do? Well, how about a wrath? But instead of a normal wrath, we get to do more sweeping effects. We thought this was kind of cool. What would blue-white do? Well, how about a wrath? But instead of a normal wrath, we get to bounce something first.

So we thought that was... Like, you get to save one of your creatures before the wrath. We thought that was cool. Okay, Tulsamir. Friend of wolves. Two green-green-white. It is a 3-3 legendary elf scout creature. When Tulsamir, friend of wolves, enters the battlefield,

create Voya, friend of elves, a legendary 3-3 green and white wolf creature token. Whenever a wolf enters the battlefield under your control, you gain three life, and that creature fights up to one target creature you don't control. So the idea is, Tulsamere makes a wolf,

so that wolf triggers his ability, but, oh, it's kind of cute, you can play him in a wolf-themed deck, and so, once again, this was made as a rare in Limited, for example. There's not a lot of wolves. There's a few wolves, but not a lot of wolves. But him making Voya the 3-3 and then Voya doing the fighting. If he just did that fight, it's a 3-3 with a 3-3 and fighting, the card is fine. And in Build Around, you can make wolf stuff.

Tomek, Distinguished Advocates, white, white. 2-3, Legendary Human Advisor. Tomek is Ral's bow. So he is flying, lands on the battlefield, land cards in graveyards, can't beat the targets, dispels their abilities, your opponent can control. Your opponents can't play, land cards from graveyards.

So he's, I think he's in... I forget whether... I think he's in... Orjab, I think. But anyway, he protects your lands, and he just has a land-based ability. So they can't be targets, and then you can't play lands from the graveyard.

So he's sort of... I think he's narrow. I think he's meant to be something where you can sort of build around him. Like, he doesn't have a lot of role in Limited,

but he's rare. I'm trying to zoom through these because I'm at work, but I'm almost to the end, so I'm going to finish here. Ugin the Ineffable, 6. Legendary Planeswalker Ugin, Loyalty, 4.

Colorless Spells you cast cost 2 less to cast. Plus what? Exile the top card of your library face down and look at it. Create a 2-2 colorless spirit creature token. When that token leaves the battlefield, put the exiled card into your hand. So it's kind of a manifest-ish ability. Minus 3, destroy a target permanent that's one or more colors. So Ugin, we made him expensive.

He plays in kind of his colorless matter sort of thing. He makes your colorless spells cheaper. He destroys colored things. And then he does a manifest ability. So we're definitely playing in kind of Tarkir space that we know of him. And like I said, it's tricky to do monocolored planeswalkers.

You want to make them kind of narrow. The idea here, which is nice, is that his static ability is something that really makes sense in a deck with lots of colorless abilities, but in limited, okay, he can destroy something at least once, and then he has his plus ability where you can sort of make, you know,

two twos out of your library, so he has relative, he does something in limited, but really to build around him, you want to have him in a colorless deck. Okay, next. Vivian, Champion of the Wild. Two and a green. Legendary Planeswalker Vivian. You may cast creature spells as though they had

flash. Plus one until your next turn. Loyalty four for Vivian. Plus one until your next turn. Up to one target creature gains vigilance and reach. Minus two. Look at the top three cards of your library. Exile one face down. Put the rest on the bottom of your library. For as long as it remains exiled, you may look at that card,

you may cast it if it's a creature. So Vivian, she has the bow that shoots out and gets creatures. So she's creature-based. She can cast your creatures as they give them flash. You can cast them any time you can cast an instant. She can boost your creatures, giving them vigilance and reach, which are both green things. And also it says until your next turn, because reach is defensive.

So when she grants it, not just for this turn, but up until your next turn. And then she looks at it. The reason it excels anything is it's just cleaner to exile anything. Really, she wants to have a creature, but in order to show the opponent you have a creature, you'd have to reveal the card. But by doing it this way, you can do it face down, and your opponent, it's a surprise, they don't know what it is. And then just says, well, you can only cast it if it's a creature, to mean, hey,

go get a creature, but this is the way we can do it so your opponent doesn't get to see it. Otherwise, if it's said creature, you have to show them it's a creature to prove that you're not getting something you're not allowed to get. And then Vivian's Arcbow, one and a green, legendary artifact, X-Tap, discard a card, look at the top X cards of your library. You may put a creature card

with three or four extra less from among them onto the battlefield, put the rest of them in the bottom of your library. You may put a creature card with 3rd and mana cards, extra less from among them, onto the battlefield. Put the rest of them in the bottom of your library in random order. Her bow, if you don't know, her world was destroyed, I think my bow was. And she has all the creatures, or many of the creatures of her world tied to the spirit animal, tied to her bow. When she fires an arrow, it releases the spirit animal. We were trying to capture

that here, so this is her bow. It's a legendary artifact. It's colored, though, because it's tied to her, and she's green. And. It's colored, though, because it's tied to her and she's green. And then we did X, so the idea is to sort of rein in how good of things she can get. You have to spend more mana to get bigger creatures. But we thought that was pretty cool.

Okay. Is that it? I think that is it. I think that was the last thing. Oh, whew. Okay. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed these five podcasts. I think that is it. I think that was the last thing. Okay. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed these five podcasts. I think we did five podcasts. It was fun going through all the spark.

A lot of neat memories and cool things. I gave you a little extra tape today so I could finish. I didn't want to have like three things and have another podcast and go, oh, I'm done, three things. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this jaunt through it.

But anyway, I'm at work and I've been at work for a little bit. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.