Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #663: Modern Horizons Cards, Part 4

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

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

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so I've been talking all about Modern Horizons, and I'm up to R. We're talking through all the cards, or some of the cards. So we're up to Ranger Captain of Eos. So one white white, so three mana total, two of which is white. It's a 3-3 human soldier, so it's a creature. When Ranger Captain of Eos enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a creature card

with Converted Mana cost one or less, reveal it, put it in your hand, and shuffle your library. Sacrifice Ranger Captain of Eos. Your opponent can't cast non-creature spells this turn. So this is a fun example of something we do in time spiral-like sets, where we take two old cards and we combine them together.

So this is a combination of Ranger of Eos from Shards of Alara and Knight Captain of Eos, also from Shards of Alara. So Ranger of Eos was the card made by Antoine Rouel when he won the very last Magic Invitational. so

the idea is you take Knight Captain of Eos and Ranger of Eos and sort of combine them together to make Ranger Captain of Eos. So Ranger of Eos did the first ability, which was enter the battlefield and win and got a small creature. And the sacrificing stuff on creature spells was Knight Captain of Eos. So anyway. I enjoy when we're able to sort of combine old things to make something cool that's new.

I will admit that I think Ranger of Eos is a little more known than Knight-Captain of Eos, although I guess I think both got played. But anyway, Ranger Knight-Captain of Eos. Okay, next. Recruit the Worthy.

Recruit the Worthy. So Recruit the Worthy costs a single white mana. So just one mana, which is white. It's an instant. Create a 1-1 white soldier creature token. And it's buyback three. So buyback is you may pay an additional cost of three as you cast the spell. If you do, put this card in your hand as it results. So buyback

is a mechanic from Tempest, created by Richard Garfield. And the idea is Richard was playing around with what if you could pay a mana to not give up the card. So the idea with buyback is if I pay one white, the spell happens and it goes to the graveyard. But if I pay three and a white, the spell resolves and instead of going to the graveyard, the card goes back to my hand and I get to keep the card.

So the idea is I can keep casting a buyback spell as long as I pay the extra buyback cost. But if I ever want to just get it cheaper and not pay that, then the spell can go away. Now, you might remember me talking about how I could only use mechanics that were already in Modern. And buyback is from Tempest. And we've never reprinted. We've never brought buyback back as mechanic.

But we did bring it back in Future Sight. So we did bring it back during Time Spiral Block. In Future Sight I did some mix and match cards where I took two different mechanics and put them together, and I believe one of them had buyback on it. So buyback sneaks in the door of being in Modern by being in Time Spiral Block, but it is not something that we have really

brought back in any major way. So it was cool to be able to do a buyback spell. Buyback spells are problematic in that if the spell is a little too aggressive, meaning if you're getting to do it again and again, certain effects can cause problems.

Making a creature isn't too daunting. So being able to make a creature is... Like, there's a spell called Capsize that unsummons something, and it became very powerful because being able to unsummon something every turn really keeps your opponents from being able to do much. And so we have to be careful in the kind of effects we put on buyback, but making a white, you know, making a one, one token, uh, is something we can do repeatedly that isn't really problematic.

So, um, but anyway, I was happy to get a buyback spell. Uh, I do have fondness for buyback from my, uh, my days, um, uh, back making, um, um, okay. Next rocks veteran three in a white. back making Tempest. Okay, next. Rocks Veteran. Three and a white. So it is a four mana total, one of which is white.

It's a 2-4 Rhino Soldier. Rocks is a Rhino. It's a creature, obviously. It's got Battle Cry. Whenever this creature attacks, each other attack creature gets plus one, plus oh until end of turn. And then it says,

when Rocks Veteran attacks, tap turn creature on opponent controls. So this is combining a couple things. So Battlecry is a mechanic from Mirrodin Besieged. When the Mirrodins fought the Phyrexians, it was the mechanic on the Mirrodin side. Living Weapon was the mechanic on the Phyrexian side that was introduced in Mirrodin Besieged. mechanic on the Frexian side that was introduced in Mirrodom Sieged. And White has an ability, it's not

a named ability, but this attack trigger that I get to tap a creature is something White does. And so the idea is, normally the problem with Battlecry is I have to put the creature at risk because it can only enhance things if it itself is in battle. Well, this card helps you in two ways. One, it's a 2-4,

so it's a little harder to kill it. And it gets to tap something, so if there's something that's a big threat to it, it can tap in battle. Well, this card helps you in two ways. One, it's a 2-4, so it's a little harder to kill it. And it gets to tap something, so if there's something that's a big threat to it, it can tap that thing. So Battlecry with this ability just is a cool ability. Okay, next. Rot Widow Pack. Two black green, so that's four mana total, one of which is black, one of which is green. It's a 2-4 spider creature obviously it's got reach because it's a spider three black green

exile a creature card from your graveyard create a 1-2 spider creature token with reach then each opponent loses one life for each spider you control so this is making a throwback to Innistrad actually I'm blanking on the name of the spell I didn't write down the name of the spell

there was a green card that was an uncommon in Innistrad that allowed you to make a certain number of spiders and you could flash it back and the spiders were all one, two spiders with reach so this is making a nod to that card also it is a black green card so I think black green seems like this might be the uncommon black green card

that's sort of saying that it's using creatures as a resource out of the graveyard. I'm actually not sure what black-green's... What the draft archetype for black-green was. My guess is this is the uncommon. So this is kind of teaching you of, oh, using creatures as a resource is something that you can take advantage of

because then you can turn the creature cards in your graveyard into more creatures. And so my guess is that Black Green has a creature-sacking theme. I'm not 100% sure. But, I mean, from this card, what this card's telling you to do, it wants you to have a lot of creatures and wants you to be able to sacrifice them. And then this allows you to turn every card you sacrificed back into another creature that you could sacrifice. And it's also gaining you life, which can

help keep you alive. So this is a handy little card. Okay. Next is Scrapyard Recombiner. Okay, so Scrapyard Recombiner. Okay, so Scrapyard Recombiner

costs three generic mana. It's an artifact creature, a construct. A 0-0 construct, but it's got modular. This creature enters the battlefield with two plus and plus encounters on it. When it dies, you put the plus and plus encounters on target artifact creature. And then tap Sacrifice an Artifact.

Search your library for a contract card. Reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. Okay, so the modular mechanic is from from Fifth Dawn, which was the third set in the original Mirrodin. Oh, actually, modular, sorry, modular was in Dark, was in Dark... Was it Darksteel?

I think it was. I think it... Yes, I think Modular first showed up in Darksteel, which was the middle set. And then it also... There also was a Modular card in Fypdon. I think we combined Modular with... Fypdon had a mechanic called...

What was it called? The one where you got plus and plus counters based on how much mana you spent to cast Sunburst. And we had a Sunburst in Modular. But Modular showed up in the middle set of what was called Darksteel. So I think Modular was from Darksteel. Anyway, the idea was it was an artifact set.

Oh, so Modular itself was a riff on there's a bunch of creatures in Visions that were called Chimeras. And the way Chimeras worked is they were artifact creatures that when you sacked them, they had some amount of power and toughness and ability. So let's say it was a 2-2

flyer. When you sacked the 2-2 flyers, you put 2 plus 1 plus 1 counters on a creature and it gained flying. So the idea was you could, but it only worked on other, I'm not sure whether it worked on chimeras or worked on artifact creatures, but the idea is you could click them together, your chimeras could sort of come together to make a weird giant chimera was sort of the idea. So modular was us revisiting the chimera concept, but making it a little more modular

maybe the chimeras only worked on chimeras but making it a little bit more modular as is it only works on other artifact creatures I think if I had modular to do again I might not necessarily restrict it to artifact creatures the one thing that was interesting is if you put modular on other modular creatures there's extra value because when that modular creature died, all its counters moved.

So the idea here was if I had two modular creatures, when the first one died, I'm incentivized to put it on the second modular creature because that way all those counters would move when the second one dies. Anyway, I'm not sure. I think we said artifact creature because it was an artifact set and we were playing into the artifact theme. In retrospect, modular probably could have just said any creature. Like, if modular just went on anything and didn't refer to artifact creatures,

I think there's a higher chance we would have brought it back. The fact that it's a little more restricted to artifact creatures makes it a little bit trickier to use. Anyway, so this card is using... It's combining modular with the ability to stack artifacts to search out constructs. Construct is a subtype of artifact creatures. And I think the idea is you could go get other copies of this, because modular works with itself. Or there are other construct creatures you can go get.

So it's just kind of mixing and matching and doing something kind of fun. But anyway, this is a neat card next seasoned pyromancer one red red for a human shaman it's a 2-2 so it's a creature

when seasoned pyromancer enters the battlefield discard two cards then draw two cards for each non-land card discarded this way create a 1-1 red elemental creature token

and then for three red red exile seasoned pyromancer from your graveyard For each non-land card discarded this way, create a 1-1 red elemental creature token. And then for 3 red red, exile season pyromancer favorite graveyard, create 2 1-1 elemental creature tokens. So the idea is, when it enters the battlefield, I can rummage for 2. And then, assuming I discard non-lands, I can generate creatures. And then when it dies, I can generate more creatures. So this is just something, I'm not sure what deck specifically this is made for. I do know if you're trying to make an elemental tribal deck, this is very good,

because it generates four elementals over the course of the game. But it's just something that's... The idea I like is that the pyromancers... One of the things we play up with pyromancers is that they also can summon fire elementals. Chandra does this. It's like, not only can we play with fire, but we can make creatures made of fire.

It says there's some flavor there that's kind of cute. Okay, next. Oh, sorry. One second. Oh, sorry. I apologize. Always be safe. That's my rule here on...

Okay, next. Segovian Angel. White for a 1-1 flying vigilance future. It's an angel. Okay, so this has a fun story. So when we were in the hackathon to try to prove that this was a product we should make, one of the problems I realized early on was it was hard to make common creatures that felt sort of time spirally, but were also common.

They were just simple creatures. I mean, obviously, we could make commons by having mechanics and this and that, but I just wanted to make some simple creatures. So I came up with the idea of what I called the Wii cycle. So what I did is I took five iconic magic creatures that were just French vanilla creatures, but bigger. Usually they were uncommon. And then I shrunk them down, and I called, so like, this was originally called

the Wee Sarah Angel, and it was 2W for a 2-2 flying vigilance creature. And I think I had like a Wee Shivan Dragon and a Wee, I don't remember all the Wee I had a bunch of, I don't remember what all of them were, but they were, Iconic Magic Cards shrunk. And the idea is they were miniature versions, and the idea there was, it's just hard to make, like, kind of French vanilla cards in a set like this, and this is why, my way to make something that was flavorful, but fits thematically. Then when it got, that cycle got moved over to vision design when we started doing vision.

And I think it was Kelly Diggs who came up with the idea of changing the name to Segovian Angel. Changing all the Wii creatures to Segovian creatures. So Segovian, for those who don't know, we made a card in Legends called Segovian Leviathan. It was a 3-3 creature. And in the art, it was this giant, giant Leviathan. Like there were little whales swimming next to it that looked like they were like, you know, like trout or something, little tiny creatures.

So it's clear from the art that this was a humongous creature. But it was a 3-3. People were like, okay, what's going on? Why is this Leviathan a 3-3? And the creative team at the time said, oh, well Segovia, that means it's from Segovia. And on Segovia, everything is tiny. So the giant Leviathan is merely a 3-3. So the whole plane of Segovia

was made solely as this excuse to explain this little mishap with a card in Legends. And it's become a running joke of it's just the plane of little tiny things. So by making it Segovia Angel, it was kind of like an in-flavor joke of why this angel is so small. Ethan loved the joke, and he went further. He says, well, okay, if we're going to make a Segovia, we've got to make it as small as I can. So he shrinked it from a 2W22 to a W11.

The other ones kind of fell out along the way. None of them were quite as cute as the angel. Sometimes we make a cycle, and the answer is, oh, we don't need a whole cycle. One of these kind of does the job. So the other wee creatures didn't make it, but Segovia and Angel did. Anyway, I think it's a darling little creature. Speaking of angels, not that she is an angel, but she makes angels. Sarah the Benevolent. Two white white, so it's four mana total. Two of which is is white Legendary Planeswalker

Sarah loyalty 4 for plus 2 creatures you control will fly and get plus 1 plus 1 until end of turn minus 3

create a 4 4 white angel creature token with flying and vigilance and minus 6 you get an emblem with if you control a creature damage that reduced your life total

to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead so these are all all her abilities okay so this is Sarah Angel creature, damage that reduced your life total to less than one reduces it to one instead. So these are all her abilities. Okay, so this is Sarah Angel. I'm sorry, this is not Sarah Angel. This is Sarah, the planeswalker, the creator of the Sarah Angels, who Sarah Angels are named after. And she was part of the Homeland story.

Anyway, she is a famous character of old. Once, when we started making Planeswalker cards, we started getting requests for old Planeswalkers to get them made into cards. One of them was Sarah, a very popular, one of the most popular requests. So we were making a set doing throwbacks and old stuff, and it only felt right. We decided to make one brand new Planeswalker, which I will get to, and one old Planeswalker, which is Sarah. Interestingly, by the way, in the creation of the Planeswalkers, for the longest time, we had no blonde Planeswalkers. longest time we had no blonde planeswalkers. In fact, it's not until Battle Bond created or introduced

Rowan and Will that we even got blonde planeswalkers. Then now Sarah is a blonde planeswalker. So now we have three blonde planeswalkers. But a year ago for this time, we had no, we had zero blondes. We had a bunch of white haired planeswalkers, but no blonde planeswalkers. Anyway, Sarah is someone who

people have been asking for forever. So we had a lot of fun with her cards. So all three of her abilities are referencing cards that reference Sarah on them. I'm blanking on the first one. The second one, obviously Sarah Angel. The last one is, I think, Worship. And Worship, she appeared on Worship and there was a quote by her on Worship. Or at least there was a quote by her on Worship Or at least there was a quote by her on worship. Maybe it wasn't her that appeared on it. But anyway, this is making

a lot of references to things that reference Sarah. And so, anyway, we thought it was sort of fun. A lot of people misbelieve that Sarah is an angel, but she's not. She merely made the Sarah angels. But anyway,

we finally made Sarah, so it took a while to get there, but we finally made it. Okay, next. Shenanigans! That's a great name. One and a red. So two mana total, one of which is red, is a sorcery. Destroy target artifact. And then it's got dredge. Dredge one.

So if you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly one card from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return this card from the top of your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card. So Dredge was the original Gagari mechanic

back in the first Ravnica. I had made it as... We tried... I always say this. People think I exaggerate. We tried 40 different mechanics for Gungar. We tried all sorts of mechanics and just none of them were working. So finally, the idea I had was a mechanic that said, instead of drawing a card, you can instead draw this card. That's

what the original design was. And they were over-costed cards. And then eventually, in development, Brian Schneider came up with the idea of what if, well, they'll, they have a milling cost and then that helps you sort of be able to get them to the graveyard. And then it also restricts how many times, you know, if something has a high dredge cost, there's only so many times you could dredge it back. Um, anyway, this card is taking a basic card from, from Alpha, Shatter, Destroy Shatter Artifact. Uh, we've obsoleted Shatter eight times. Uh, eight times. We've obsoleted Shatter all sorts of times. And this is just saying, okay, well what if we take Shatter and put a mechanic on it? Why not Dredge? Dredge is a dangerous mechanic because

repeatedly doing something can be very powerful. This is a very narrow card. So the idea is, I'm not going to want to shatter every single turn. It's an answer to things. I might want to get it back, so later in the game, the fact that I can dredge it back is nice, but it's not something that every turn I'm just going to dredge it back. So it kind of makes a good dredge effect on a dredge card. And it was fun to get dredge in the set.

We tried to get a lot of mechanics into the set. Okay, next. Silangar Scavenger. Four and a black for a zombie bird. A 2-3 zombie bird, this creature. It has exploit. When this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice the creature. Whenever another creature you control

dies, put a plus or minus on Silangar Scavenger. It gains haste on the end of turn if exploited a creature. Whenever another creature you control dies, put a plus or minus counter on Silumgar Scavenger. It gains haste until the end of turn if exploited that creature. So the idea is, whenever something dies, it gets bigger, and it gets haste. Exploit means you have the ability to sacrifice something when it comes into play. So exploit was a mechanic in, I think, Dragons of Tarkir, in Blue Black. And it allowed you, when you played a card, that you could exploit a creature, meaning you could sacrifice a creature, and if you do, it generates an effect.

So the idea behind exploit is, A, you could just play the creature, not use exploit, just you have a creature. B, you could play exploit and sacrifice the creature you're playing, so you generate an effect, but not a creature. Or C, you could play the creature, sacrifice another creature, and then you could both get the effect and the creature. Now this says

another creature, so this one doesn't let it exploit itself. In Dragons, I think we did let it exploit itself. This one does not. Anyway, and the reason we do that here is the bonus doesn't mean anything if it's gone, so there's no great reason to exploit itself. That's why we say another. But anyway, this is just

taking advantage of this. And one of the things we often do is we do effects where when a creature dies, you get a bonus. It wasn't the keyword in Grixis and Shards of Alara, we do effects where when a creature dies, you get a bonus. It wasn't the key word in Grixis in Shards of Alara, but it was something we cycled. And it's something we've done a bunch of different times, and it's just a black ability we like. So combining that

with Exploit felt like it was kind of fun. Okay, next. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. Two and a white, so three mana total, one of which is white. She's a legendary creature, human soldier, 2-2. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain gets Two and a white, so three mana total, one of which is white. She's a legendary creature, human soldier, 2-2. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain, gets plus one plus one for each color among legendary impermanence you control. And for

white, blue, black, red, green, search your library for a legendary permanent card with current mana cost less than Sisay's power. Put that card onto the battlefield and shuffle your library. So Sisay was the Captain of the Weatherlight from the Weatherlight Saga. She was kidnapped by Volrath, which is what started the whole Weatherlight saga. You originally had met her. She actually had a small role

in the Mirage story. She and the Weatherlight played a role. And then she gets kidnapped in Weatherlight, and that starts the whole Weatherlight saga. Anyway, Sisay has a green-white card, which is a very white card, which is a very good card. It's a very popular card. People play it in Commander all the time, but it is green and white. Oh, it goes and gets legendary things. Um, cause, uh, as a captain of the Weatherlight, her role was to recollect the pieces of the

legacy, uh, as part of the destiny of Gerard, a big part of the Weatherlight Saga. Anyway, she tended to gather people and things, so she goes and gets legendary stuff is the idea. I think Ethan made this card. The idea was let's redo Sisay, sort of let her do what she does, but open it up so that she can play a five-color deck. Because one of the problems with Sisay right now is if you want to make a Weatherlight deck, and she's the captain, you can

only go get white and green things, and while there are some white and green members, you can go get Mirri, you can go get Hannah, actually you can't even get Hannah, she's white-blue. But now, you can go get all the Weatherlight crew with her, because she has a, because her

activation is all five-color mana, in her rule text, all five-color mana shows up, she has a, because her activation is all five color mana, in her rule text, all five color mana shows up, she has a five color color identity, meaning that in Commander, she counts as five color, and then your deck can be all five colors. So anyway, we had redone Mirri a while back, I think in a Commander deck, and so I think one of the things that we're looking at is, it's fun to go back and look at some characters of old and redo them. So as somebody who oversaw the Weatherlight Zyga, at least the early part, it is fun to see the crew come back.

So I do like that we have a new sissay. So I hope people enjoy playing with her. Okay, Smiting Helix. Three and a black for a sorcery. Smiting Helix deals three damage to any target and you gain three life. And it has a flashback of red-white. So flashback means you can cast this from your graveyard for its flashback cost and you can exile it. Okay, so the cutesy thing about this is we made a card called Lightning Helix in what was Lightning Helix? Lightning Helix was in

Ravnica? I think it was in Ravnica. Anyway, it turns out that Lightning Helix is deal three damage, gain three life. It's a red-white card. Red does damage, white gains life. It turns out that black does that naturally by draining. So, black

can do, can drain. So, black can drain for three by itself. So, draining is a mono-black effect or a red-white effect. So the cutesiness of this card says, oh, well, you can play it for its black cost or you can flash it back for its red-white cost. And it's playing to the idea that this effect is both a mono-black effect and a red-white effect. So it's a very cutesy card. effect. So it's a very cutesy card. Somebody did ask why we can't make cards like this in a, um,

in a normal set. Like why, why is this in a, in a modern horizons? So the answer is that when we make off color activations like this, we tend to do them in cycles. So this is a very clever card, but in order to make it a normal set it'd be part of a cycle and so that means we'd have to have a monochord cycle that has two colors that share a wedge with it so it'd have to be in a wedge set

it'd have to be in a wedge set that has flashback and we would have to be able to create a whole cycle of this. So, okay, it's clever that there happens to be a mono black effect that's in red white but are there four other effects that show up both in a mono color and in the two colors

that share its wedge when combined? And the answer is almost definitely there is not. I have not tried to do it, but there's not a lot of effects that overlap between one monocolor and one color pair that don't include that color. That is a very rare thing to happen. So that's the reason it's here.

It'd be hard to actually put that in a normal set. That is why. It is something that is clever and this allows us to do a lot more one-offs, but the standards tend to have more structure to them. Okay. Okay, next is Spell Snuff. So Spell Snuff is one blue blue. It's an instant.

You counter-target spell, and then for Fateful Hour, which is an ability where if you have five or less life, draw a card. So the idea here, Fateful Hour was an ability word in Dark Ascension. In Dark Ascension, the story was that humans are the brink of extinction, and so we wanted a mechanic that showed how desperate they were.

We made Fateful Hour, the way Fateful Hour worked is, if you were at five or less life, it gave you a bonus that helped you catch up. It ended up not being the greatest of all mechanics. It was not super well received. I mean, flavorfully I liked it, but it was just very narrow where how often when I'm at five life.

And so the idea here is normally Blue gets a counter spell. We don't traditionally give Blue a, I think we, when Counterspell was Counterspell blue blue, we made Dismiss, which was two blue blue draw a card. So if we had done a modern day Counterspell, it'd probably be three UU to draw a card, but we know that cancel is... has a little bit room for a little bit extra, especially in Modern.

And so the idea of giving this extra bonus is, well, I get to counter spells, but if I'm desperate, you know, I'm kind of low in life, then I can draw cards. Drawing cards is very good for helping to catch up, especially when you're about to lose. Next, Spinehorn Minotaur. So it costs

two and a red. So it's three mana total, one of which is red. It is a 2-3 Minotaur B So it costs two and a red. So it's three mana total, one of which is red. It is a 2-3 Minotaur Berserker, so a creature. As long as you've drawn two or more cards this turn, Spinehorn Minotaur has double strength. So I'm not sure whether this is an ongoing theme in the set, but the idea, I think there might be more than one card to do this, where it just rewards you for drawing extra cards. The reason this is in the set, but the idea, I think there might be more than one card to do this, where it just rewards you for drawing extra cards.

The reason this is in the set, I assume, is that there's a bunch of cycling in the set. Well, there are a bunch of mechanics that net you cards. Cycling is the one that jumps to mind. But the idea is, this takes advantage of the fact that because we're in Modern Horizons, and there's a bunch of different cards that sort of can net you card advantage. This allows you to have an extra bonus and gives you extra reason why you might want to cycle a card, for example. Because a 2-3 becoming a double striker gets extra damage, especially if you enhance this in some way.

Okay, next, Splicer's Skill. Two and a white, so three mana total, one of which is white. It's a sorcery. You create a 3-3 Culleth Golem Artifact Preacher token, and it's got splice onto instant or sorcery. So for three and a white, as you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may reveal

this card from your hand and pay a splice cost. If you do, add this effect to that card. Okay, so this is a very cutesy card. So first off, Splice onto Arcane was an ability we made in Champions of Kamigawa block.

The idea was, these are effects that you can use to enhance other spells. And when you do that, when you Splice it, it stays in your hand. It's kind of like a buyback variant. But you can only use it when casting a particular spell. And Arcane was a creature subtype that we used.

Late in Champion's design, it dawned on me because I had made Splice. Originally, my idea for Splice was I was trying to make something that gave you extra utility out of the graveyard that was kind of flashback-y, where

you could use this card out or the graveyard to add on to things. We later moved it from the graveyard to hand as an extra rider onto spells. And then, for safety purposes, I guess we made it arcane spells. I later realized late in the process that maybe it could just be instant sorcery spells that maybe making it a subset that only

exists in the set was a problem. But by the time I brought it up to Brian Schneider, who was the head developer, it was just too late in the process to make that change. Anyway, we tried with Izzet in Guilds of Ravnica to do Splice on Instant Sorcery. It didn't quite work out there because of the nature of the need to overlap mechanics between guilds, and so it just didn't work out being a good guild mechanic. Maybe one day it's the kind of thing we can bring back.

Here's a chance here to make a nod at it. We'd never done Splice on Instant Sorcery, so this is the one, I mean, while this is not a new mechanic, because Splice is an old mechanic, it is the one time, I think of this set, where we made a pseudo new mechanic, because before you hadn't been able to Splice on Instant Sorcery, so while it is technically an old mechanic, it breath you haven't been able to splice on instant sorcery, so while it is technically an old mechanic, it breathes new life in that it's a new way to make use of splice.

Now, also, in ... What set was it? There was a set that had these splicers that made 3-3 goblin artifact creature tokens, and then usually it would grant some ability to golems, I believe.

And there were different splicers that did this. Was it Fifth Dawn? Aaron Forsythe made them. So it was a set that Aaron was in. Aaron was on Fifth Dawn. Aaron was also on Dissension. It's one of Aaron's sets. Anyway, so the idea of making a splice onto card that is

in combination with the effect of a splicer was too good to pass up. So it's a very... It's the kind of stuff that like I said, the code name for this in the hackathon was Decadent. This is a decadent card. It's like, aha! I'm taking a mechanic that we did and changing up how we did it that we've talked about doing it and putting it on a card that doesn't affect that, has a similar overlaps in the word. Anyway, there's a lot of decadence in that card.

It's a very fun card, though, so I'm glad we were able to make it. Okay, next. Sorry, somebody is... I'm going to change lanes here. Somebody is being very aggressive on my tail, so I'm going to move over here. Okay, next. Okay, next. Stirring Address. One and a white.

So two mana total, one of which is white. It's an instant. Target creature you control gets plus two plus two until end of turn with overload five and a white. You may cast a spell for its overload cost. If you do, change its text, replacing all instances of target with each. So the idea is, if I cast it for two mana, target creature gets plus two, plus two. If I cast it for

six mana, all my creatures get plus two, plus two. So this is Overload. Overload was the Ism mechanic in Return to Ravnica. In fact, it was a mechanic I believe that Ken Nagel made during the first great designer search. He was the lead designer for

Return to Ravnica. He thought it made it interesting. Is it mechanic? And when he was there, he brought it to Is It? So that was... Okay, now, as I've mentioned this before, one of the fun things that we've been doing in this set is

taking mechanics that previously went in certain colors and changing out the colors those mechanics appeared in. So in this case, it was a white card. Doing a white effect is a mechanic, right? Overload was blue and red. So we've done a lot of blue and red effects, but we haven't done white effects. And so this was our chance to sort of do a white effect with a mechanic that had only before ever been in blue and red. Okay. Next, Sword of Sinu and Steel and Sword of Truth and Justice. So they both cost three. They're both artifact equipment that equip for two. They both say

equip creature gets plus two plus two sinew and steel has protection from black and red truth and justice has protection from white and blue sword of sinew and steel, whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player destroy up to one target planeswalker and up to one target artifact and then with truth and justice when equipped creature deals combat damage to a player put a plus one plus one counter

on a creature you control and proliferate so in original Mirrodin we had made sort of, what were they, Fire and Ice was it Fire and Ice? and we made the

white black one and we made the blue-red one. Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice. Anyway, we had made two swords that basically did what these swords did. And that's all we made. That's the only two swords we made in Mirrodin blocks. We went back in Scars of Mirrodin. In each set, we finished out the cycle of the enemy colored swords. We made one in Scars of Mirrodin, we made

one in Mirrodin of Siege, and we made one in Nufrexia. Anyway, ever since we finished out the enemy sword cycle, there's been, we want the ally sword cycle! Where is the ally sword cycle, there's been, we want the ally sword cycle! Where is the ally sword cycle? And so we knew at some point we wanted to make them. The problem was the swords were a bit strong for standard, so it's a hard thing to put in

standard because we wanted them to be of a power level similar to the original swords. And so we didn't know quite what to do with them. We joked for a while of turning them into shields and then we thought maybe if shields, we can make them a little different.

But in the end, we said, you know what the players want is swords that are very similar and then we realized that Modern Horizons would allow us to do that. As we like to do, we do what we call a throw forward is instead of making all five, we just made two of them much like the original Mirrodin block had just made two of them. And so

will the other three exist? Yes, we will eventually make the other three. We are playing a long game where we can take something, stretch it out a little bit. We stretched out the first sword cycle, so it felt only apropos to stretch out the second one a little bit. So we will make the other

three. The other thing, by the way, for some reason I got a lot of people yelling me about the sword of truth and justice, that it should be the sword of law and order. The only problem there is law and order are both white concepts. Neither is a blue concept. So

truth and justice is nice because truth is a blue concept and justice is a white concept. So anyway, that is why it's not a sort of law and order. But a lot of people bug me. That should be. Okay, next. The first sliver. So this costs white, blue, black, red, green.

So, Woburg, as we call it. So it's five mana, one of each color. It's a legendary creature, a 7-7 sliver. It has cascade. When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a non-land card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost.

Put the exile cards at the bottom of your library in a random order. Sliver spells you cast have Cascade. Okay, so this was, I talked about the meeting where we came up with the wacky sliver abilities. This was when we came up with what I didn't actually think we'd do. All slivers have cascades, seems a little nutty. But we ended up, we realized that we wanted to have a five-color sliver.

One of the kind of traditions of making slivers is every time we've done slivers, although one time this happened over the, I think the core set did them over two years, and the five-color one I think happened over the I think the core set did them over two years and the five-color one I think happened in the second one. But other than that, every time we've done slivers in the same set or the same block, I guess, we've done a five-color sliver, legendary sliver. And so I just felt, apropos to have one,

this ability felt over the top. Just wacky. And so we did it here. I'm not quite sure. I mean, obviously, this represents the first sliver. We don't know where the slivers come from. It is not something that we've seen before. Volrath found them somewhere and brought them to Wrath, but we don't know from where.

Perhaps one day we'll visit the sliver homeworld. We've yet to meet it. But anyway, this is definitely making a fun sliver card for those who enjoy their slippers. Also, this is categorized under the, which I disagree fundamentally, but the file I had put it under the, so that's why it's here. Next, Throws of Chaos. So Throws of Chaos costs three and a red, sorcery. It also has cascade, and it also has retrace.

You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs. So Retrace was an ability from, what was it, Eventide, and it allowed you to basically turn lands into your hand into copies of cards with Retrace in your graveyard. So it sort of said, hey, whenever you draw a land, if you want, instead of it being a land, it could be this spell, as long as it's in your graveyard with Retrace. This is one of our mix and match cards. So it takes Cascade and Retrace, and so it mixes them together. This is a really fun card.

If you've never played it, I've played this actually twice now, in two different drafts. And one time I won the game by cascading into the card that makes the stampeding hooves or whatever, the one that makes the two 4-4s, because it's got suspend, but it just plays it. It doesn't care about suspend, so if you cascade into it, I just got two 4-4. Two 4-4. What are they, elephants, I think? Next, Thundering Djinn.

3 blue, red. It's a 3, 4 Djinn, a creature, flying. Whenever Thundering Djinn attacks, it deals damage to any target equal to the number of cards you've drawn this turn. Oh, this is another... I talked about how there's a theme of carrying how many cards you draw. This plays into that as well.

The fact that this is blue, red tells me this is the uncommon card that's telling you what to do with blue-red. So blue-red must be play a lot of spells. That must be the theme. And so that other red card I talked about earlier plays into this as part of this deck. And so, there's a lot of effects. Because this has access to all these different

kinds of effects, there's a bunch of effects, a bunch of mechanics and effects that let you draw cards. And so the blue-red is just really playing to play a lot of cards and care about that. Next, Treefolk Umbra. So Treefolk Umbra, two in the green, so three mana, one of which is green. It's an enchantment. It's an aura. You enchant a creature. Enchant a creature gets plus two, and assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power. And it's got

Totem Armor, which says if an enchanted creature would be destroyed, So, okay. So, the first ability, the doing damage equal to your toughness, first showed up on Doran in original Lorwyn. And Doran was this treefolk that made you assign your damage equal to toughness rather than power. It was kind of a treefolk lord, because treefolks tend to have high toughness. Um, it's an ability we've really enjoyed, and so we've started putting in a lot more sets. Uh, we use it a lot in green. I think green, because green tends to have big creatures, so, um, so green is the color that we tend to do that.

Oh, sorry, one second. There's some traffic. As I say, safety first. So whenever I... One second, guys. I'm just dealing with some traffic thing here. So while I deal with that, I will... I apologize. But me...

Something bad happened to me during my podcast because I wasn't paying attention to traffic would be... Would not lead to more podcasts. So, anyway, okay, I've no doubt with that, and I'm safe, and I can continue. So, the totem armor was an ability,

I forget which set it was in, it was in some third set. Basically, the idea was we're always looking for ways to make auras better. The idea here is it says not only do I grant the ability I grant, but if the creature's ever going to die, I sort of save the creature. You lose the aura, but I have this backup of not only am I granting the creature an ability, but I save it the first time it's going to die. And yes, you lose

the ability when that happens, but hey, if the creature was going to die, you were going to lose the ability anyway because you were going to lose the creature. So overall, it seems to be a decent deal. Next, treetop ambusher. So one and a green for an elf berserker. It's a 2-1. It's got dash. So for one and a green, you may cast a spell

for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste and returns to the battlefield and its return from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step. And then whenever Tree of Amateur attacks, Tarkish Yukitoka gets plus one, plus one to end of turn. So Dash was

the Mardu ability, the red, black, white ability in Khans of Tarkir. It's a very fun ability. I like Dash. But notice that green is none of those three colors. So it's kind of fun to put the ability in something that was in a different space. Hold on a second. How are we doing here?

Okay. I am... What are we doing? I just got to work, but I'm realizing that I'm close enough to the end of this. I'm going to quickly finish this up. So, um... Anyway, that's Street Top Ambushers. So, Tribute Mage.

Two and a blue. Uh, it is a, um... Two, two... Oh, it's a cost. Two and a blue. So, three mana, one of which is blue. It's a human wizard.

Two, two. When Tribute Mage enters the battlefield, you may search your library for an artifact card with a converted mask... Meh. You may search your library for an artifact card with Converted Mask. You may search your library for an artifact card with Converted Mask cost 2,

reveal that card, put it in your hand, and then shuffle your library. So back in 5th Dawn, we had a theme, what we call COGS, Artifacts that cost 1 or less. We made a card called Trinket Mage that went and got a little tiny

cheap artifact out of your library and put it in your hand. Since that time, we've made other mages that always enter the battlefield and go get an artifact of a certain size because we're very mad at cost. And then it always starts with TR, I believe.

So like Treasure Mage and Trinket Mage and Tribute Mage and hopefully we... So we're slowly filling in the gaps. I think we have two left. I don't remember exactly. We've made one or less. We've made six or more. We've made... This is two. I think we've done

maybe three or four. Anyway, we're slowly filling them all in. I think we have two left to go. So as long as we don't run out of TR words, hopefully we'll be able to do that. But anyway, just as us finishing another cycle that we're trying to finish out. Okay, Twisted Reflection.

One and a blue. It's an instant. Choose one. Target creature gets minus six, minus zero to end of turn, or switch target creature's power and toughness to end of turn Entwine black. Entwine means you do both effects if you choose, if you pay the Entwine cost. The cutesy thing about this card

is it's two blue effects. Blue can shrink things. Blue can switch power or toughness. But blue can't kill creatures. And by combining these two things, you're killing a creature with toughness six or less. We really wouldn't on one blue card let you do that. Obviously, if you have two different effects, yeah, blue 6 or less. We really wouldn't on one blue card let you do that. Obviously, if you have two different effects,

yeah, blue could do that, but we wouldn't put it all on one card. So the cutesy thing here is if you entwine it, if you do both together, oh, it's a kill spell, now you pay black. So this is another very cutesy Mel sort of design. And once again, why wouldn't we do this in a normal set? It would require us to have a set that has Entwine

in it, that's an enemy color set where we're doing off-color activations, and then we would have to find an effect in each color where there's an effect in the color that when you combine them is something the ally would do. That's very hard to make a clean cycle where

all those are really cool. Next, Umazawa's charm, one and a black, instant. Choose one. Tiger creature goes plus two, plus two until end of turn. Tiger creature goes minus one, minus one until end of turn.

You gain two life. Charms are effects where you have three things to choose from. Umazawa made a thing called Umazawa's Jitte. These are the three abilities that happen on Umazawa's Jitte. So are the three abilities that happen on Umazawa's Jitte. So Jitte took the effects, turned it into a charm.

So very, very darling. Universal Automaton. One. Artifact, Creature, Shapeshifter. One, one. Changeling. This was just the grease, the grease, the wheels of the set. The idea here is people need, people will have tribal things they want to make work.

This is every tribe. It's simple. It's cheap. Any deck can play it. And so it's just made to be something that every deck can make use of. Anyway, something we thought would be fun and cool. Okay.

Urza, Lorehide, Artificer. I'm just going to try and get through these. I don't have enough that I do in anotherer. So I'm just going to get through these. I don't have enough to do another podcast, so I'm just trying to finish up. So this will be a slightly longer podcast so I can finish. Urza, Lore High Artificer, 2 blue blue. Legendary creature, human artificer, 1 4. When Urza, Lore High Artificer enters the battlefield,

create a 0-0 colorless construct artifact token with this creature gets plus 1 plus 1 for each artifact you control. Tap an untapped artifact you control. Add blue. Five. Shuffle your library, then exile the top card. Until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost. So, Urza is the character that shows up earliest, or one of the characters that shows up earliest. He's mentioned in Alpha on Urza's

glasses and Urza's sunglasses. He's played a major role in the story over many years, although he's long dead. People have been asking for Urza forever. I made an Urza planeswalker in Unstable, but he's played a major role in the story over many years, although he's long dead. Uh, people have been asking for Urza forever. I made an Urza Planeswalker in Unstable, but he's a Silver Border. People wanted a Black Border Urza. So we decided to make a Black Border Urza. We decided to start with very, very early in his life.

So this is, um, around the time of the Brothers' War. I think he's been married at this point. Anyway, uh, there's a very narrow point where he's Urza, High Lord, and Arifis Ur. This is pre-him getting a spark, so it's pre-him being a planeswalker, allowed him to make a legendary creature so people can make a commander out of him. At this point, he's very blue-centric. He later will get white, then he gets black, then he gets red, and then he gets green, I think, in that order.

Anyway, we decided that we're going to show, like, instead of just making one Urza, this allows us to later make another Urza, or maybe, in that order. Anyway, we decided that we're going to show, like, instead of just making one Urza, this allows us to later make another Urza or maybe multiple other Urzas. So we picked a very narrow point in time. He's known for making artifact creatures, so we gave him that ability. He taught, in fact, he founded the Tolarian Academy.

So we have a thing that sort of references Tolarian Academy. And then also, he's just, we wanted a thing that references Tolarian Academy. And then also, he's just, we wanted to make a powerful, cool card. And so we love the idea that he can randomly cast things. You don't know what he's going to do, but he's a powerful artificer

and he can do cool stuff like that. Okay, what do we want here? Wall of a thousand cuts three white white creature wall three five defender flying uh for white activate wall of a thousand cuts

can attack this turn as though it didn't have a defender uh originally this was called um what was it called it was wall of swords um

anime it's called animated wall of swords because there's in alpha there's a card called wall of Swords. It's called Animated Wall of Swords. Because in Alpha there's a card called Wall of Swords, there's a card called Animate Wall, and Animate Swords was a favorite target for Animate Wall. They both were in white. And a 3-5 Flyer is a pretty good card. So originally this just was a 3-5

flying creature called Animated Wall of Swords. That was its real name. They decided that it was weird to be a wall but not have defender, and so they gave it a defender and they gave it a way to activate it, so it got tweaked. But this card was another card from the hackathon. Ethan made it, I believe.

Okay, Watcher for Tomorrow. One and a blue. Creature, Human Wizard. 2-1. This says Hideaway. This creature enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library when watcher for tomorrow leaves the battlefield put the exile card into its owner's hand

hideaway was a mechanic in Lorwyn it showed up on only a rare cycle of lands created by Aaron Forsythe it was originally called treasure it was going to be a major mechanic in the set ended up being more complicated than we thought, so we ended up

moving it to high rarity. This is kind of fun to do hideaway on not a land. So another way we can make new cards in Modern Horizons is just do things in places we hadn't done them before. Hideaway only showed up on land. Here's a creature with hideaway. Weather the storm. 100 green instant. You gain three life. Storm. We want to

do a storm spell. The problem with Storm spells is if you can win with the effect, they get degenerate. So we made an effect that you can't win with. I mean, you could combo it maybe, but this just gets you life. So infinite life is not going to win you the game. It helps you not lose, I guess, but it doesn't win you the game. So we were able to make that.

Okay. Okay, my final two cards. Wren N6, Red and Green, Legendary Planeswalker, Wren 3, plus one, return to one target land card from your graveyard to your hand, minus one, Wren 6 deals one damage to any target, minus seven, you get an emblem with instant sorcery cards

from your graveyard to have retrace. So there's a lot of cool stuff here. So Wren is a dryad who links together with a treefolk. She does not name her treefolk, and this is the sixth one she's had, so it's called Six. That's why Legendary Planeswalker is Wren. Wren is the planeswalker, but she's bonded to Six, so Six travels with her because they're connected. Anyway, so return a land card from Graveyard Hand.

So one of the things, there's a theme in the set of getting, uh, lands back from your graveyard or having lands in your graveyard. This allows you to return them. Um, she does damage. Uh, and then the emblem is retraced at the building I talked about earlier where

you can, um, cast cards with retrace. You can use, you can turn lands in your hand into copies of, uh, cards with retrace. You can turn lands in your hand into copies of cards with retrace in your graveyard. This turns all your instant sorcerers into retrace. So this lets you do kind of cool things.

So anyway, this is a different kind of red-green card. Also, because we were Modern Horizons, we could use a keyword that's not an evergreen keyword. That's something that's tricky for us to do with Planeswalkers. So we were able to do it here. But anyway, people have been asking for us to do a little weirder of Planeswalkers,

a little less humanoid of Planeswalkers. Hopefully the people have been asking for that. Enjoy a random six. Final card. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. Two black, black. Legendary creature. Human cleric.

Two, four. Protection from humans. Pay one life. Sacrifice another creature. Put a minus one, minus one counter on up to one target creature and draw a card. Black black, discard a card, proliferate. So Yawgmoth, like Urza, is a character people

have been asking for forever. But also like Urza we decided to start from the beginning and make him with the early version of the card, allow us to make other stuff later. Yawgmoth goes through a lot of changes. There's a lot of versions. He well he does not I guess he is not the maker of There's a lot of versions. He, well, he does not, I guess he is not the maker of the Phyrexians.

He is the leader. He becomes the leader of the Phyrexians, or at least a group of Phyrexians. And he is a person who, the plane existed, I guess, but he essentially sort of took this dead plane and turned it into Phyrexia. So he is somebody who experimented on things.

We were trying to play into that. He really was not very nice to fellow humans. That's why I suggested humans. And Poliferate sort of plays into his experimentation. I also like that Poliferate was a mechanic connected originally to the Phyrexians. Yawgmoth's connected to the Phyrexians. So there's a lot of fun stuff you can do with him. And we thought that we wanted to. Yawgmoth's connected to the Phyrexians. So there's a lot of fun stuff you can do with him.

And we thought that we wanted to give Yawgmoth his due. So we finally made a Yawgmoth. We finally made Urza card, other than the Silver Border one, and finally made a Yawgmoth. So anyway, whew, so that is all the cards there is to talk about. So anyway, thanks for this extra long

episode of Drive to Work. So I just, I didn't have time to do a whole other episode I did enough cards to do another episode so you got an extra 10 minutes of me in the parking lot quickly going through them so anyway, I'm now here and I've been here for a little while

but you know what that means? it means it's the end of my Drive to Work so instead of talking about magic it's time for me to be making magic hope you guys enjoyed all the discussions on Modern Horizons and I'll see you next time bye bye