Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #660: Modern Horizons Cards, Part 2

Episode Date: August 2, 2019

This is part two of a four-part series on card-by-card design stories from Modern Horizons.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. And I'm in the middle of talking about Modern Horizons. So I think I'm up to F. So we're talking all about card-by-card stories from Modern Horizons. Okay, so we're starting with Fairy Seer. Harder to say it than I thought. So that's for a single blue mana. It's a 1-1 Fairy Wizard. It's a creature. It's got flying. And when Fairy Seer enters the battlefield, scry two.

It's the only fairy, by the way, in the, I mean, not counting Chainslings, obviously. It's the only natural fairy in the set.

There's been a lot of, one of the things when people commented on the set, one thing they wanted more of was more fairies. So, they also wanted more merfolk.

We only had so many slots, so obviously we spent, for example, a lot of our blue slots on ninjas. So one of the comments I got on this card was, could this have been a ninja? And in retrospect, I wish we had made this a ninja. I mean, I don't know if it fits

the ninja deck and this and that, but I feel like we could have flavored it like a ninja, like it's, you know, scrying and seeking information out or something. Although I guess it's getting your information. But still, I think this could have been a fun card if flavored as... I mean, we don't have a lot of one-drop ninjas,

so this could have been... I think this could have been cool as a ninja. I don't think we ever thought about it being a ninja, so I don't think that discussion ever came up. But I believe if we had thought about it early enough so that it could be concepted as such, I don't know. I believe this could have been a ninja. That I don't think that discussion ever came up, but I believe if we had thought about it early enough so that it would be concepted as such, I don't know. I believe this could have been a ninja. That's my belief. Okay, speaking of ninjas,

Fallen Shinobi. So, three blue-black, so five mana total, one of which is blue, one of which is black. It's a 5-4 zombie ninja, so it is both zombie and ninja. It's got ninjutsu, two blue-black, which means if you spend two blue-black and return an unblocked attacker,

you control the hand. Put this card on the battlefield from your hand, tapped, and attacking. Ninjutsu is all the way back from Betrayers of Kamigawa. This was the ninja mechanic. When Fallen the Shobi deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top two cards of their library. Until end of turn, you may play those cards without paying their mana cost.

So this card is kind of cool in that, I mean, most ninjutsu have some reason that when you surprise and it turns out to be a ninja, it does something. So often they have saboteur abilities. So this saboteur ability is, A, it mills them. It takes cards from off their library and removes them. Although, instead of going to the graveyard, it exiles them.

And then it lets you cast them. And cast them without paying its mana cost. So, pretty exciting. So, I'm kind of like stealing your spells, which feels super ninja-y. So, that one, luckily, is a ninja. But anyway, black and blue are the ninja colors. My guess is this is the black-blue build build around for ninjas, the gold card. We normally have a gold card for each of our themes.

Um, I don't know rarity here, so maybe this is a rare, but I mean, it could have, it sounds like it's the build around. Um, my only thing is that it's a, it's a little bit sexy for uncommon. So maybe this is the rare, not the uncommon build around because being able to cast spells off your opponent is not something we normally do at uncommon, although Modern Horizons has a lot of things where we push things a little bit rarity-wise,

so I'm not 100% sure. But anyway, I think it's a cool card. Next, Farmstead Gleaner. Costs three generic mana. It's a 2-2 Scarecrow. It's an artifact creature. Farmstead Gleaner doesn't untap during your untap step. Two, untap symbol, put a plus one, plus one counter on Farmstead Gleaner.

Okay, so the untap symbol, for those that read my blog, I talked about how the set had between 40 and 50 mechanics, depending how you classified mechanics. I mean, non-everybody mechanics. untapped falls in that gray area. It's not a keyword mechanic, but it's sort of a mechanic and definitely a thing we don't normally do. We did the untapping. The untapped symbol showed up in Shadowmoor. And it caused some problems, two things. One is, even though it was an inverted version of the tap symbol, meaning the arrow goes the opposite way of normal and it's inverted, meaning instead of a black line on a silver square,

it's a white line on a black. It's inverted. But even so, people are so imprinted on what the tap symbol looks like that without sort of being aware that, oh, there's an untapped symbol, people just read it as the tap symbol. And I know when you compare them side by side, they're different, but

just in a vacuum, it just seems like the tap symbol. So A, people were playing it wrong. And B, what we learned is, for some reason, certain effects are just hard to wrap your brain around that just, even though when you know what it's supposed to be like, okay, I understand it's the untapped symbol, not the tap symbol. Um, it's just something that people really, it's just, I don't know, it's just whatever

the opposite of intuitive is. It just really flies in the face of how people think it works. And so it was just very, very hard for people to play. They just, they sort of cramped up. Now, I know there's people that love the untapped cymbal. I actually enjoy the untapped cymbal. But I think my brain wraps around new concepts. And part of my job is to do that.

So I wrap around new concepts quicker than most. But anyway, we were coming back. It's the expert set. You know, we're doing all sorts of mechanics and so we thought we'd do an on-top symbol. Also, this is on a scarecrow.

Scarecrows, there are a bunch of players who are very fond of scarecrows. A lot of scarecrow fans. They get a lot of requests for scarecrows. So I'm happy we could get a new scarecrow in.

And definitely one that, the interesting thing about it is if you have two mana and it's tapped, you can untap it. So it doesn't untap normal, but basically you can pay to untap it. And when you pay to untap it, it gets bigger,

because the activation puts a counter on it. So the cool thing is if I have this thing tapped and I have two mana open, you have to treat it as if it's an untapped 3-3. Which is, I mean, there's a lot of threat there if the opponent's understanding what's going on. Okay, next. Feaster of Fools. Four black black.

So six mana total, two of which is black. It's a 3-3 demon, so kind of small for a demon. But you'll see in a second why. It's got Convoke. So Convoke is your creatures can help cast a demon. But you'll see in a second why. It's got Convoke. So Convoke is your creatures can help cast a spell. Each creature you tap while casting the spell pays for one of the mana of the creature's color. So Convoke allows you to pay... It's got Flying,

and it's got Devour, too. As this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. The creature enters the battlefield with twice that many plus one plus one counters on it. So the reason it's got Devour 2. As this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. The creature enters the battlefield with twice that many plus one plus one counters on it. So the reason it's kind of small is you can devour things and make it pretty big. And so the idea is, this is the cuteness, this is one of the mix and match, where it has two different mechanics. The idea here is having a lot of creatures is beneficial on Convoke, because it helps

you cast a creature cheaper, and having a lot of creatures helps with Devour, because you can eat them. So the idea is, if I have four creatures, for example, out, I can cast this for black-black, and then eat them all, and it will come into play with eight. So for basically black-black, I can cast an 11-11 creature.

I'm eating four creatures, so there's a cost there. Anyway, so the synergy there is pretty nice. Like I said, I'm a fan of mix and match. As I explained in the podcast about Modern Horizons, I made a lot of mix and match, not all of mix and match. I was very eager to do a whole bunch of mix and match. We ended up doing some, but not nearly the volume that I had intended or hoped. Maybe one day we'll do a mix-and-match set.

A supplemental set. Okay, next. First Slivers Chosen. So this costs four and a white. It's a 3-3 Sliver. Sliver creatures you control have Exalted. So Exalted means whenever a creature you control attacks alone, it gets plus one, plus one until end of turn for each instance of Exalted among permanents you control have exalted. So exalted means whenever a creature you control attacks alone, it gets plus one, plus one

until end of turn for each instance of exalted among permanents you control. So exalted was the Bant mechanic in Shards of Alara, Bant being white-centered, so white, green, and blue. Interestingly, it was created by Brian Tinsman, and it's one of the few mechanics that when it was first pitched to me, I really thought it was not a good mechanic. I thought it was too big a hoop or too tiny a hoop to jump through. I guess in hoops you want tiny is the problem. But we played with it, you know, and it ended up playing really well.

Way, way better than I thought it would. I really was pleasantly surprised how well it played. Anyway, when we were doing our brainstorming for Slivers, we had one day where we were like, okay, let's name every ability, every keyword ability that is acceptable. So, Modern Legal, Up to Dragons of Tarkir, that we

thought would just be cool on Slivers. And we were really trying to come up with crazy stuff. And one of the things I pitched was Exalted. Because if Exalted is good, but Exalted is better if all your creatures have Exalted. So when I stick down this card, all my slivers get Exalted. So all of a sudden, if I attack with one of them, it gets huge. And anyway, when I first pitched it, I didn't know if we'd actually make it, but I thought it was cool.

One of the things we were trying to do is just make up, you know, put abilities on slivers that we heard it for the first time and was like, wow! So anyway, I was happy that we actually made this card. That same meeting, by the way, is when we pitched slivers with what does the

First Chosen have? Flip cards to reveal it. What is that called? Cascade. It's the same meeting that we pitched Exalted, we pitched Cascade. I think we also pitched Unearthed in that meeting too. So it's kind of funny,

the first chosen and first sliver and first sliver chosen are two of those. Okay, next. Is... Oops. Sorry. It's going the wrong way. Okay, next is the forces. So there's four forces. So the white force

is force of virtue. So they all have different costs. They all have two-colored mana in their costs, and they either cost 1 mm or 2 mm. So let me go in color order here. Okay, so Force of Negation is two white white.

They're all enchantments. Oh, I'm sorry. This one's an enchantment. The other ones are non-enchantments. If it's not your turn, you may exile a white card from your hand. Rather than pay the spell's mana cost, flash creatures you control get plus one plus one. So it's an anthem, but a flash anthem. Force of Negation, one blue, blue instant.

If it's not your turn, you may exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay the spell's mana cost. Counter target non-creature spell. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it to its owner's graveyard. Black is Force of Despair. One black, black instant. If it's not your turn, you may exile a black card from your hand rather than pay the spell's mana cost. Destroy all creatures

that enter the battlefield this turn. Red. Force of Rage, one RR, instant. If it's not your turn, you may exile a red card from your hand rather than pay the spell's mana cost. Create two 3-1 red elemental creature tokens with Trample and Haste. Sacrifice those tokens at the beginning of your next upkeep.

And Force of Vigor is the green one to green-green instant. If it's not your turn, you may exile a green card from your hand rather than pay the spell's mana cost. Destroy up to two target artifacts and or enchantments. Okay, so the fourth cycle was, I think, created by Eric Lauer rather late in set design. I think created by Eric Lauer rather late in set design. He felt the set needed a splashy new cycle

and he decided to make some new pitch cards. So pitch cards first showed up in Alliances and the idea was so the East Coast designers designed Alliances.

Skaff Life, Jim Lynn, Dave Pettit, Chris Page, and one of the things they were playing around with is they liked kind of breaking norms, kind of like taking given magic knowns and messing with them. And one of the things that at the time was true was if you're tapped out, you can't do anything. And so the idea here was,

what if we had spells that you could cast even if you didn tapped out, you can't do anything. And so the idea here was, what if we had spells that you could cast even if you didn't have mana? And so the way they worked was that you could discard a card of the same color. Of the cycle, I think two of them also... I forget whether you paid a life or took a damage, but like Force of Will, for example, you also had a...

There's additional life cost beyond just discarding a card. I think the blue and black are the ones that have the life. I know for sure that Force of Will is. Anyway, we introduced them in Alliances, and they were quite the thing. In fact, if you ever heard my story about alliances, our customer service people wrote a letter saying how they didn't think we should put out... They were very against alliances,

and in particular, they were against the force belt. They thought it broke a rule that should not be broken, something I hear quite often when I try to break rules. No, no, you can't break that rule. Anyway, we made them. They were really popular. I mean, Force of Will has gone on to be one of the most iconic cards in Magic.

I mean, a card that just plays in every format that it's legal in. The reason Force of Will is not in Modern is the reason that this is not... Force of Will is a little bit too strong. But Force of Negation is nice in that it kind of... It's kind of Force of Will,

but for a more targeted thing. So obviously it does non-creature spells. So it doesn't stop creature spells, but it can stop non-creature spells. And it doesn't even cost you the life, so... And also, it's also dismissed. Not only does it counter them, but it exiles it.

So it's a dismiss for non-creature spells that's combined with Force of Will. So the blue one's a combination of things. The white one is quirky. The white one's the only permanent. All the other ones are instants. The white one is a flash enchantment. I think the idea was that not knowing... Like, the nice thing about a flash anthem is it can boost your creatures and save your creatures. So all of a sudden

whether someone's trying to kill them with direct damage or you're in combat or there's a lot of times you can surprise people, especially being tapped out and surprise people so you can save your stuff. It also allows you if you're attacking with like a horde of creatures to surprise, to do a lot of extra damage that's

not anticipated. The black one was meant to be a kill spell but I think they wanted to limit it a little bit but the nice thing here is it allows you to kill multiple things

because it can kill everything that enters the battlefield so it can be an answer to like large token generation or just some shenanigans

where people get a lot of creatures on the battlefield at once. Force of Rage is the one we got the most comments on. Yes, it is the weakest of them. I think they were trying to make sort of a ball lightning. So ball lightning is a 6-1 trample. So the idea was they're making two little mini ball lightnings that you could do as a surprise in your turn

or on their turn to be defensive. Probably, I'm not sure whether they necessarily had to go away. Maybe it's a little too strong that they don't go away. I admit, I mean, anytime you make a cycle, there always is the weakest of the cycle. In Magic, you know, if you look at, like, the boons, in, like, one end you have draw three cards, in the other end you have,

like, gain three life or prevent three damage. Eh, not so equal, you know, and for every Oath of Druids you got Oath of Mages and stuff like that. So there's every cycle. Maybe we're hitting the nostalgia of cycles by having a discrepancy between the power level.

Yeah, the red one's a little weak. The green one, I think they liked the idea of having some utility for removal. In general, naturalize is something that is better as you get into older formats just because there's more and more powerful artifacts and enchantments. And so the idea of doing something that

can be a little more, that you might want to play but can answer more things, or not more things, but answer multiple things. It was behind the green one. Anyway, yeah, that was created as a means to just make something exciting that worked a little bit differently. And because they're pitch cards, it ties you to the past. We did pitch cards in alliances, and then we did them again in Arcadian Mask block. And then we did them

one other time. It's something we don't do all that often, so having them here is kind of cool. It's not something we do on irregularity. Okay, next. Frost Walla. Two and a green. It's a 2-2 snow creature. It's a lizard.

For activated snow mana, it gets plus 2, plus 2 until end of turn. Activate this ability only once each turn. Okay, so Frost Willow is a riff on Root Walla, which was from original Tempest. Oh, the real quick story on that is, originally Root Walla was going to be Chuck Walla,

which is an actual kind of lizard, but the artist who drew it thought we had made up a lizard and didn't realize that it was a real lizard. So we didn't draw a chuckwalla. So we changed the name

to Rootwalla. Anyway, this is a riff on Rootwalla. It basically is Rootwalla except instead of spending green mana, you're spending snow mana.

So, green and blue, the snow theme is played up in green and blue. It's the green-blue draft archetype. So, just having a green card that sort of... I mean, obviously, a 2G 2G is nothing great. I mean, you want to have snow in order to make this work. So, this definitely is going to go to the snow player. nothing great. I mean, you want to have snow in order to make this work. So this definitely is going to go to the snow player. Or at least no one's going to take it super early, but the snow player is going to be much more happy in taking it. It's also the kind of thing that if you take

this in the draft, you know, you don't need a lot of snow land to play this. The one thing I got comments on that's funny is I got a comment on it from a herpetologist. Uh, so one of the things that's interesting is, uh, lizards are, um, cold-blooded, uh, which means that they're very sluggish in cold environments. And so the idea that, uh, you'd have a, a lizard that is, uh, of the snow. And now it's magic and fantasy. And clearly if it lives in the snow, then it's adapted to snow and whatever, adapted to cold.

Okay, next, generous gift. So generous gift was two and a white. fantasy and clearly if it lives in the snow then it's adapted to snow or whatever, adapted to cold. Okay, next. Generous Gift. So Generous Gift was two and a white instant, destroy target permanent, its controller creates a 3-3 green elephant creature token. So this is a... So we talked about how this was like Time Spiral 2

and it's a lot more like Time Spiral than it is like Planar Chaos or Future Sight. There are some mixes and matches and stuff. There's a little bit of Future Sight there. This is the one of the few cards that's very Planar Chaos-y. This is a green card. I did not write that.

The green card is... What's the green card called? This is a green card. It's a break in green. We shouldn't have made it in green. It actually gets used quite a bit in some larger formats because it lets green answer stuff,

but green's not so good at answering. But anyway, green's the wrong color for it, so we did it in white. It's a little bit of bend in white in that white does not have pinpoint land destruction, although unless you're destroying a very potent land, destroying a land to give them the 3-3 creature is

usually not a great trade-off. I mean, they have to have a very, very powerful land for you to do this. There's an interesting question why this ended up staying a 3-3 green. I think that the idea they liked that it was exactly the card but shifted to white and I think the green one makes it

an elephant. I think. I'm not 100% on that. But anyway, also, the other idea is cute, is that it's a white elephant spell. In fact, I think the playtest name for this was white elephant, which is a slang

term for a gift. A white elephant is a gift that you're not quite expecting to get that's for a gift. A white elephant is a gift that you're not quite expecting to get. It's a quirky gift. So anyway, the idea that this was a white elephant we thought was funny. Okay, next.

Gludnus Slug. So Gludnus Slug is one in a black for a 0-3 Slug Whore. It's a creature. It's got Menace and Evolve. So this is another one of the... Oh, I'm sorry. This is not a mix and match because Menace isn't evergreen. So Evolve is a mechanic created by Ethan Fleischer in the second Great Designer Search.

I liked it so much that the very first set I was able to put it in, which was Gatecrash, I did. It was a perfect Simic mechanic. Oh, basically Evolve is whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has a greater power or toughness than this creature, put a plus or minus counter on this creature. So the fact that it has a low power in 0, 0, 3, means as soon as you play another creature, I mean, given if you play a 0, 1 or 0, 2 or 0, 3, that won't happen.

But odds are you're playing something with at least one power. This will get bigger. I mean, given if you play a 0-1 or 0-2 or 0-3, that won't happen. But odds are you're playing something with at least one power, this will get bigger. And the idea with Evolve is as you play bigger creatures, the Evolve creatures get bigger. So it definitely encourages you to play, kind of ramp into bigger and bigger creatures. And then your smaller creatures kind of grow along with your bigger creatures. Oh, so one of the things that we tried to do in the set was take mechanics that were limited in their original use. Guild mechanics are a perfect example. Because guild mechanics, by the very nature of being a guild mechanic, is only usable in the colors of the guild.

So Evolve only appeared in green and blue because it was a Simic mechanic. Well, part of making and finding new spaces to go was going to other colors. So we went into black and we made a slug. And the slug made sense that it'd be not super powerful. You don't really think of a slug as attacking you per se, so that felt good. Okay, so next we have Goat Nap. Two in a red.

It's a sorcery. Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. If that creature is a goat, it also gets plus three, plus O until end of turn. So the idea was, this is a threatened variant. There's a card in Onslaught.

No, no, sorry. In Lorwyn called Goat Napper that did this, I think it's an enter the battlefield effect. The joke at the time was there's no goats in Lorwyn. The reason we could make this card and the reason it works here is Changeling. So obviously this card cares about Changeling. Changeling's the only goats.

As in Lorwyn, I wanted a goat in Lorwyn. I really, really wanted a goat and I fought so hard to have a goat. Just a single goat. It could be rare. I didn'twyn. I really, really wanted a goat. And I fought so hard to have a goat. Just a single goat. It can be rare. I didn't care. I lost that fight. Here, I think this got made after...

I think this got made in set design. So I don't know if I had the chance to argue that there should be a goat, but I feel the same way. The lack of a goat is a mistake. From a comedy's perspective, I think it is just funny that there's a goat in the set rather than no goat in the set. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get the changeling.

I just think it's a funnier joke when you have a single goat. Because I think if you have no goat, you go, but there's no goats. But if you have one goat, you're like, you put this card in for the one goat? I just think that's a funnier... Anyway, I think that's funnier. So this is a riff.

One of the things we like to do in time spiral-ish sets is take abilities that are enter the battlefield spells, enter them in spells, or take things that are spells, enter them in enter the battlefield effects. Anyway, it's just definitely kind of fun. Okay, Goblin Champion. It's red, single red, one red mana.

For a 0-1, it's a Goblin Warrior, so it's a creature. Haste and Exalted. So whenever a creature you control attacks alone, creature gets plus one, plus one until end of turn. So the cute thing about this thing, it's a one drop. And even though it's zero powered, if it attacks on the turn you play it, and it's the only thing that attacks,

probably because it's the first turn, it's a 1-2. And so it's a cute way, once again this is us taking a mechanic that wasn't I mean, we did, so Convoke first showed up in Selesnya in Ravnica. Interestingly, by the way, Richard

Garfield, the creator of the mechanic, originally made it for Boros, not for Selesnya. I moved it to Selesnya because I thought it played a little bit more, it just played a little bit better in Selesnya because Selesnya. I moved it to Selesnya because I thought it played a little bit more, it just played a little bit better in Selesnya because Selesnya was trying to build up and had the whole its whole theme was community. It does play fine.

Not that it played bad in Boros. It made a little more thematic sense in Selesnya than Boros. But anyway, this is in Boros colors. So I like sort of us experimenting and pushing. Now, we did bring Exalted back in a core set. I don't think we put it in red.

I think we put it in white and black in the core set. Playing into sort of a religious theme. Um, so I think, I think this is the first red card with Evolve. Not 100%, but I, and not Evolve, sorry, Exalted. I, I think this is the first one. I'm not, I'm not 100% on that, but I think so. Okay, next. Goblin War Party.

So three and a red. So four mana total, one which is red. It's a sorcery. Choose one. Create three 1-1 red goblin creature tokens, or creatures you control get plus or plus one and gain haste until end of turn. Entwine two

in a red. So entwine is choose both if you pay the entwine cost. So the idea is for three in a red, I make three 1-1 goblins. Or I boost my team by plus or plus one, give it haste. Or for five red red

I make three 2-2 goblins for the turn that can attack the turn you play them. So the key thing about this is it's doing it entwined in a fun way. It entwines a mechanic from original Mirrodin. So this is a mechanic that I literally dreamed up.

We had taken some stuff out of the set and we were missing something. We needed a mechanic and I've been like going over my brain like all the parameters of what we needed to solve

and I went to sleep and in my dream I dreamed this mechanic, woke up and I wrote it down like, that's the mechanic I need. That's my mechanic and I wrote it down.

So I dreamed up this mechanic. I literally dreamed it up. This is just playing a little different space. I like the idea of the way all entwines work is they're modal, and you can choose between one of two things, and then entwine means you get both. The only quirky thing about this is red doesn't normally do plus one, plus one. Red normally would do, like, plus one, plus oh, or plus two, plus one. It's a slight bend. Like I said, if you can do plus two, plus one. Red normally would do like plus one plus O or plus two plus one.

It's a slight bend. It's not, like I said, if you can do plus two plus one, which red can do, you can do plus one plus one. But it'd be a smidgen more red if it was plus one plus O. I don't know whether, I mean, my gut is this is something play design might have made a call on. Maybe this was an actual modern shot. Maybe.

And so they pushed it a little bit. Maybe it's meant for the goblin deck. I don't know. Anyway, it's a modern shot, maybe. And so they pushed it a little bit. Maybe it's meant for the Goblin deck. I don't know. Anyway, it's a fun card, though. Okay, Grave Shifter. Three and a black. It's a 2-2 Shapeshifter. So it's a creature.

It has changeling, so this card has every creature type. When Grave Shifter enters the battlefield, you may return a target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. It has changeling, so this card has every creature type. When Graveshifter enters the battlefield, you may return a target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. So, I made a card many years ago called Gravedigger. And Gravedigger was a creature that entered the battlefield, and it got a creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Here's an interesting story about how this card came about.

In Tempest Design, we had come up with a mechanic where if you draw it that turn... I'm sorry. No, it's a mechanic that when you drew it, it had an effect when you drew it. And the idea was the card cost a little bit more,

but had a draw trigger. And we messed around a lot in Tempest with this mechanic, and the idea was the card costs a little bit more, but had a draw trigger. And we messed around a lot in Tempest with this mechanic. And the idea was it had a different color back. This is before sleeves were a thing, or weren't a big thing. So the idea is if your opponent had that on the back, they're like, oh, they have one of these cards. Show me what it is. And you would show it when you revealed it.

And one of the cards we had made had raised dead. That was just a fact. it, and one of the cards we had made had Raise Dead. That was just a fact. And so I think it was a 2-2 for four mana that when you drew it, it raised dead a creature. And that mechanic didn't work out, but I really liked how the card played, so I stapled it onto the creature as an Enter the Battlefield effect, which, interestingly at the time, was not a thing that we had done. Now, Visions would end up doing it before Tempest came out. So, it turns out they had made some cards

in Visions that I had not seen yet at the time we were making this that also did something similar. So, some parallel design. But anyway, I made an Enter the Battlefield trigger before I'd seen anybody else do it. So, I'm always very proud of that. Anyway, one of the things we wanted to do with changelings in this set

is make some utility cards that were the kind of cards that a lot of decks would like to have, but make it a changeling. So a Gravedigger is a pretty universally useful card. A lot of decks could use a Gravedigger. Gravedigger's a zombie, so yeah, the zombie decks have been able to use it. But now other decks that are black, that have black in them, can use it. And so this definitely is one of those cards that is nice at making very general utility changelings. Okay, the next.

Hall of Heliod's Generosity. So it is a legendary land. You can tap to add colorless. Or, one in white, tap, put target enchantment from your graveyard on top of your library. So this is a... We did a card in black called Volroth... Was Volroth...

Am I mis-miss-miss-making Volroth's Laboratory? Or does Volroth's Laboratory make the creatures? Okay, there's a card in black that Legendary Land does this. Maybe I... Oh, I was going to say, Volroth's Stronghold. Volroth's Stronghold. Volroth's Laboratory does make creatures. Volrath Stronghold is this card from Tempest Block.

I think it was in... Actually, I think it was in Stronghold. But anyway, it's a card in which it's a legendary land, and you could put a creature card from your graveyard on top of your library. So this is the enchantment version. I think we also made the artifact version with blue mana at one point so I think this is the third I don't know if it's a cycle

people will see it as a cycle I'm sure that means we have to do a red and a green one at some point but anyway we thought it was a cool opportunity to do something and tied to Heliod, Heliod is the god of the sun and stuff in Theros, one of the main gods.

And so Enchantments was a major theme there. So the idea is tying it to Heliod and making it an Enchantment version. He seemed like the appropriate person to tie it to from a creative standpoint. And it's just a card that gives you some... In a deck that's heavy, Enchantments helps you. Okay, next, Hexdrinker.

Hexdrinker costs a single green mana for a 2-1 snake. It's a creature. So it just costs a single mana. It has level up, level up 1. So what that means is, 1, put a level counter on this. Level up only as a sorcery. So the idea is, at level 1 one or two it's a two one at level three through seven it's a four four protections from instance and the level eight

plus so eight and above it's a six six with protection from everything um so the idea is it starts as a little a wee little snake and it grows up with time um originally it gets protection just from a subset of things, which is incense, and eventually gets big enough that it gets protection from everything. This is the only level up. So level up was a mechanic made by Brian Tinsman

in, what was this? It was in, what was it? Oh, it was in Rise of the Odrazi. We had made a card, a red-white card, in a previous set that had kind of done that, where you activated it, and it got counters, it got bigger, and that kind of inspired Brian. Brian might have made that original card.

It was inspired by a card to make a whole mechanic, and the idea is that these are creatures that, with time, can get bigger. Rise of the Eldrazi was on Zendikar and the Eldrazi had escaped. And the idea was the champions of the world

had to step up to fight the Eldrazi. And so he thought that the level up has a very sort of adventure world feel. You know, like Dungeon Dragon and stuff has level up.

And anyway, so this was tied to sort of the idea of leveling is something that you see in adventure gaming. And so Zendikar is kind of adventure world. So anyway, it thematically made sense there, and it tied into the story. One of the issues we had with it is we needed to create its own frame. The frame we made,

well, once you understood it was functional, definitely confused some people. We also got a lot of complaints you could only level up as a sorcery. That one I'll stand by. I think level up cards can be way too complicated if you can level up. The math of trying to track all the level up creatures

when at any moment any one of them could be trying to track when they could get bigger and how much they could do. I don't think that's something you want. So I'm, I stand by that. But anyway, we made one level up. So if you like level up cards, Modern Horizons has your back.

Made a level up picture. Okay, next. Hogok, Arisen, Necropolis. Five hybrid mana, hybrid mana. Hybrid, in this case, it's black or green. So five generic mana, a black or green mana, and a second black or green mana. So seven total, two of which is hybrid mana,

is black or green. It's a legendary creature avatar, and it is an 8-8. So it's a creature, obviously. You can't spend mana to cast this spell. It's got both Convoke and Delve. So Convoke lets you cast spells by tapping creatures to pay for them, and Delve lets you remove cards from the graveyard.

So Convoke, by the way, I think earlier today I had a Convoke card. Convoke, and you can tap colored creatures to pay colored mana. Delve, I think you can just reduce by one. Also, by the way, the card says you may cast Hogark, a Risen Necropolis, from your graveyard, and it has Trample. So the idea is you can't cast this normally. You can't spend mana to cast it. You must tap creatures, and you can't cast this normally. You can't spend mana to cast it.

You must tap creatures, and you can remove cards from your graveyard. Now, because you need two colored mana to cast this, and I think only Convoke gets colored mana, you need at least two black and or green creatures to tap. The cool thing about this is because it has Delve, is later in the game when it dies, you can dig it out. Now, you can dig it out with just creatures with Convoke, or you can dig it out with a combination of Convoke and Delve, is later in the game when it dies, you can dig it out. Now, you can dig it out with just creatures with Convoke, or you can dig it out with a combination of Convoke and Delve.

But it's an 8-8 Trampler, so if you can get it out, it's pretty scary, but it's a quirky card. So this is one of our mix-and-match. I think the set is, depending on how you count it, I think three where there's two different named keywords that are not evergreen. This is one of them. This is the kind of thing I love in Mix and Match.

Just kind of make something you can't normally make. And if it just had been Convoke or just had been Delve, it would have been a little bit harder to cast. And the fact that you take two different cost reduction mechanics and mix them together just gives the card a little extra utility. And then giving it that sort of graveyard utility just helps it fit into some black-green decks and do some cool stuff. I mean, it is hybrid, so in theory you don't have to play it in a black and green deck.

You could play it in a black deck or a green deck. It's kind of cool in that the reason you can do hybrid is everything that's on this card is doable in both colors. Black doesn't get a lot of trample. Ironically, the one thing. But black does have trample. A tertiary is big enough. And it's an 8-8, so I would argue it is big enough. Okay.

Next, we have... One second. Okay, next we have Icehide Golem. It costs a single snow mana. It's a 2-2 creature, a snow artifact golem. A snow artifact creature golem, so it's an artifact creature, and it's a golem. And in order to pay its cost, which is a snow mana, you must tap a permanent that produces mana that itself is of the snow super type. And this is a 2-2.

So the idea is it's a 2-2 for one mana, which is pretty good. You don't get a lot of those. But you must tap snow. So you need snow mana. Now, in a snow deck, like, for example, you can, especially in constructed, you can engineer that all your mana is snow. So, if you dedicate yourself to playing a snow deck,

you get a 2-2 that you can play. So, that's kind of cool. But, anyway, this is the first time, I believe, we've put snow mana in the mana cost. I think we've done snow mana in the activation cost before, but I think this is the first time we've done it in the mana cost.

I think that's new to here. Impostor of the Sixth Pride. So one and a white for a 3-1 changeling. It's a shapeshifter. It's a creature. So interestingly, in Future Sight, we did this thing where we had a cycle of vanilla creatures in future shifted frames that were full art frames. We'd never done a creature in a full art frame before.

And this was teasing that future. Now, interestingly, of all the things in Future Sight that we clearly could have done that we haven't really done, is we haven't really done all the full art creatures. We've done some promo. We've done some promo for our creatures. But one day. Anyway, this is one of those cards where we like riffing off of, doing changes off of doing changeling

off of known things and so the the idea of making a riff on the future set card was kind of cute

and anyway I like this creature I like the utility of changeling changeling allows us to make very functional

useful creatures that have a lot of flexibility the fact that this is a 1w3 one which is a good creature and you play that in limited for sure Changelings allows us to make very functional, useful creatures that have a lot of flexibility. The fact that this is a 1w3 one, which is a good creature, and you play that in Limited for sure. But the idea that it's whatever you need it to be. And remember, the white-black deck is a sort of a lord deck where you play lots of different lords together with Changelings. And then the white-red deck is a sliver deck,

and you can play this in the sliver deck. It doesn't grant any sliver rewards, but it does receive the sliver rewards. Okay, next, Ingenious Infiltrator. Two blue-black for a 2-3 of a Dalkin Ninja. So it's a creature, obviously. It's got Ninjutsu Blue-Black, which is return an unblocked attacker you control to your hand, put this card on the battlefield, free your hand, tapped and attacking.

So the idea is if you have an unblocked attacked attacker, you could surprise and go, ha-ha, surprisingly, it was secretly this. Ninjas are good in disguise. Whenever a ninja you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card. Whenever a ninja you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card. So not only is this card itself draw you a card, but it grants all of your ninjas what we call Curiosity, which is a saboteur ability that damage draws a card.

So this I'm pretty sure before, that other card that was not the uncommon draft, build-around draft card. This, I'm pretty sure, is the uncommon draft build-around. That card felt very rare. This card feels, uh, well, strong. Definitely like a, a build-around. I'm pretty sure this is the uncommon, um, ninja build-around. Ninjas are in blue and black. Uh, and so not only is this card, this card is sort of cool where you can ninjitsu it in, and then if, assuming you're playing a ninja deck, you have other ninjas that are around so that allows you to get multiple cards with multiple ninjas. Okay, guys. I made it up through

I. So I am now at work. Had a little bit of traffic, so you got a little bit of extra content today. But I'm at work. 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 next time with more Modern Horizon.