Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #673: Banned & Restricted, Part 4

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

This is part four of a four-part series on all the banned or restricted cards I had a hand in designing.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so the last bunch of podcasts, I've been talking all about the many banned and restricted cards that I've had a hand in making. I hold the record for the most banned, not that this is a good record, but I hold the record for the most banned and restricted cards. So I'm talking about every one that I had a hand in. cards. So I'm talking about every one that I had a hand in. And so that gets us up to R&D Secret Lair, which is a legendary land

from Unhinged. And it says, play all cards as written, ignore all rata, tap, add a colorless mana to your mana pool. This was made one of the things we get to do in Silver Border this is banned

and it was banned in Commander uh all the uh on the cards were banned the reason they're on this list is they were banned when Commander allowed

Silver Border cards for like I don't know two or three months um they banned a bunch of cards this is one of the banned cards so this is one of those cards

that just causes chaos because it says whatever we've done to fix it yeah it's not there anymore um and playing cards as written can do a lot of goofy, fun things.

And we liked the idea that R&D had a secret lair. We thought that was funny. Anyway, it entertained me. We thought that was funny. Okay. Next. Recurring Nightmare. This is from Exodus. It's an enchantment that costs two and a black. So three mana Nightmare. This is from Exodus.

It's an enchantment that costs two and a black. So three mana total, one of which is black. So basically what it says is sacrifice an enchantment. Sorry, not an enchantment. It is an enchantment. Sacrifice a creature. Return Recurring Nightmare to its owner's hand. Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Acid is available only any time you can cast a sorcery. So basically what this card did was... There's a card called Hell's Caretaker that I loved. Hell's Caretaker is from Legends, I think. And I just loved Hell's Caretaker, so I decided to make a variant on Hell's Caretaker. And Hell's Caretaker basically is a creature that lets you sacrifice a creature to bring back another creature. This time, just to

change it up a little bit, I made an enchantment and then it bounces back to your hand so you have to recast the enchantment. But essentially what it does is for two and a black and a sacrifice creature, you get to give back any creature from the graveyard onto the battlefield. This proved to be really, really good.

I guess most of the cards I talk about in these podcasts are very, very good. That's why they're banned and restricted. But anyway, this just... I'm a big fan of reanimation. Before I came to Wizards, I used to make a lot of... I used to animate Dead

and Dance of the Dead and... And then, when I got to Wizards, I used to make a lot of, I used to animate Dead and Dance of the Dead. And anyway, I use also, and then when I got to Wizards, I made a bunch of fairly efficient reanimation cards. Since that time, we've sort of pulled back a little bit on reanimation. What we learned is if we make reanimation too cheap, then it keeps us from making big, expensive, fun cards. So we've really pulled back a bit on reanimation. so it's not as cheap to do anymore. But that allows us to make really fun, big cards. But anyway, Recurring Nightmare is definitely one of my... I don't know. It's a fun card, but it's powerful.

Okay, next we're going to talk about Replenish. So Replenish is from Urza's Destiny. So it costs three and a white. It's a sorcery. It says return all enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. So there was an enchantment theme in Urza's block. I often talk about how people didn't realize it, but it's there. And so I was just trying to think of a fun way to interact with enchantments. And I'm like, oh, well, what if whatever went away, they all come back?

And so we made Replenish and Replenish was quite good. There was, it's funny, back when I used to play in the FFL

which is the R&D league to sort of determine the future, like playing with future cards, when Urza's Destiny came out I was the sole designer of Urza's Destiny. And so I played in the FFL League, and I made this mono-white deck that had four Yawgmoth's Bargains, and I'll get to Yawgmoth's Bargain later today, and had Replenish in it.

And basically the idea of the deck was I gained a whole bunch of life and then I got out a bunch of enchantments and I was discarding the bargains and I would replenish all the... I didn't even have black mana. The only way to get bargains into play was for me to replenish them. Or, I'm sorry, there's a second way. Academy Rector, I think,

also got them into play. But anyway, I had no way to actually cast the enchantments. I had to get them to play on other means. Anyway, it was actually a pretty powerful deck. People teased me at the time, but it was a pretty powerful deck. Okay, next. Richard Garfield, PhD. Three blue blue, so five mana total, two which is blue, is from Unhinged. He's a 2-2 legendary creature, a human designer. You may play cards as though they were other cards of your choice with the same mana cost.

You can't choose the same card twice. There also is a rata on this card that says you can only turn it into cards in the format that you are playing, that are legal in the format you are playing. Okay, there's a bunch to unpack here. So first off, Richard Garfield obviously is a riff on Richard Garfield, the creator of the game. The reason he's Richard Garfield, Ph.D. is when Richard, when they were first selling the game for the first couple of years, our PR people insisted that every time they referred to Richard Garfield, that he was Richard Garfield, Ph.D. Because they really liked playing up how smart he was, and he was a math professor.

But Richard, I think, found it a little silly. And so when they made Feldegryph, which was another in-joke, which is a purple flying hippo, Feldegryph is an anagram of Garfield, PhD, because they were making fun of the fact they always had PhD on it. So when I made Richard Garfield,

we had to continue the joke. So it's Richard Garfield PhD. So basically, the idea is there's a game called Mental Magic. And what Mental Magic is, is you can cast any card as any other card with the same cost. So essentially, we had this idea

of having a Mental Magic card. And then, like, I wanted to make a Richard Garfield card. I thought it would be cool to make a legendary Richard Garfield card. So I'm like, oh, what goes well with Richard Garfield? And then I'm like, oh, what better than mental magic? That sounded pretty cool, that Richard could turn any card into any other card. That proved to be quite powerful.

In fact, I think, I think Richard Garfield Pierce is the most powerful un-card of all the un-cards. Now, given its power level varies on the knowledge base of the person using it. But in the hands of a knowledgeable person, it is insanely powerful. I did add in one thing, which is I said that you can't choose the same card twice. So the idea is you can't just keep doing the same thing. You have to use your cards in different means.

I will note that one of the clever designs that I enjoyed about it is we costed Richard Garfield to cost three blue blue. And one of the reasons we did that was so he shares a cost with force of will. so he shares a cost with force of will. So what that means is if you have Richard Garfield out and you have a second one in your hand that you can't play because you have a Richard Garfield out, you now have a force of will in your hand to protect him.

Now, given you need to have five men if you don't have a second blue card, but if you have a second blue card, then it's free to protect him. He is a mono blue creature, so assuming you're playing a lot of blue cards, the second Richard Garfield can be used to protect the first Richard Garfield. We thought that was pretty cute.

Okay, next, Rashad in port for Mercadian Masks. It's a land that you tap to add colorless or one and tap, tap target land. Okay, so when we were making Mercadian Masks, one of the notes that we got is we were trying to make a bunch of lands that just tap for colorless that had some utility.

So I was just trying to make a bunch of lands that did generic things. And I really thought tap target land was a little more innocent than it ended up being. I was just trying to make things I thought that might have some use. This card ended up being way more powerful than I intended and way more annoying than I intended. It turns out depriving your opponent of mana, especially of certain colors

because you can sort of color screw them if you pick the colors that they need, if you only have one of them. And this card ended up being really good. In a bad way. I don't mind making powerful cards that lead to fun gameplay. I don't like powerful cards that keep people from doing things. It's like, oh, this card's in play.

I guess we won't get to do as much fun things in this game. That's not the greatest of designs. So I'm kind of sorry that I made this card, especially at the power level it ended up being. Okay, next. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary from Urza's Destiny. Green, green for a 2-1 legendary elf druid. It's a creature.

Tap, add a green for each forest you control. Okay, so Rofellos, Michael, Ryan, and I made the Weatherlight saga, and we were crewing up the Weatherlight, and one of the things we kind of wanted in the story was a Llanowar elf. But when we made the crew, it didn't quite fit in. But then we realized that in order for our story to work, we needed some reason that Gerard had left the ship. And

we decided that we'd introduce a character that would become sort of one of Gerard's best friends. So it turns out that Gerard and Mirri and Rufellos all trained under Multani. They learned magic. And the idea was that three of them would become best buds. And that it was Rufellos' death at Morfin's hand. Morfin or Galbraith, one of the two.

When he died, that was what really caused Gerard to sort of have a, to need to leave. And Mary also left, by the way. In the beginning of the Bloodline saga, we'd go get Gerard and Mary. So I knew I wanted to make a cool Rofellos. When we were doing

Urza's Destiny, it was in the past, and we were looking for all of Urza's saga block, characters that we could do that were part of the story that would be alive because it took place numerous generations ago. And so one of the things we realized is elves have a long lifespan. So I'm like, okay, well, I can, like, we put, for example, I believe we put Karn in Urza's saga because, oh, well, Karn is a golem.

He's lived a long, long time. So Rufellos made sense in Urza's destiny because, oh, well, Karn is a golem. He's lived a long, long time. So Rufellos made sense in Urza's destiny. He's a little bit closer. But still, okay, he's old enough that he could be around for a while. When they meet Rufellos, Rufellos could be well, he might be on the younger side for an elf that's still pretty old

for an elf because elves live a long time. And then the idea was he was a Llanowar elf. So we're like, well, okay, let's just give him an ability that's Llanowar elf on steroids, right? Let's just make him, like, a super Llanowar elf. So we ended up with this idea of tapping for green mana equal to forest. So the idea

is that a mono-green deck, that he would just be really powerful. And he was! And he's on the list now. He's banned, or restricted. I'm not, I think he's on the list now. He's banned or restricted. I think he's actually banned in Legacy. And I'm pretty sure he's restricted in Vintage. But anyway, he ended up being a cool thing.

I like the fact that we had one of our characters from the story. Just a very powerful guy. I wish more of the Wendland Saga characters were a little bit... Like some of them ended up... Like Gerard's a great example. Some of them just ended up quite weak. And I'm glad Rafaela's, for example. Like I said, I wish more of the legendary crew members had, I mean, some of them did. I just squeed it.

But more of them could have stand out. Okay, next is Seat of the Sinod. That's from Mirrodin. That is the blue artifact land. So, taps are blue. It's an artifact land. I've talked for much points about these. I liked

the cycle. I wish it didn't lead to all the brokenness that it did. I kind of feel like it's one of those things that when used innocently for like, you know, when you're not abusing it, it's a fine fun card. And when you're abusing it, it's problematic. So, yeah. Okay, next. Seetusing it, it's problematic. So, yeah. Okay, next. Seething Song from Mirrodin.

So Seething Song costs two and a red. It's an instant and reduces five red mana. So red is long ago when the game began, rituals were a black thing. Dark ritual. We realized at one point that really that didn't make sense for black to be it. So we decided

that one-shot rituals, that red's all about the instant gain, short-term gain didn't make sense for black to be it. So we decided that one-shot rituals, that red's all about the instant gain, short-term gain, that made sense for red to do that. So we moved the rituals into red. We don't do a ton of rituals in red, just because rituals are dangerous. Whenever you circumvent

the color pie, problems can happen. This is a good example where you would think three get five mana wouldn't be that bad. Just going up two mana. Well, it's on a ban restricted list, so obviously it's quite good. But anyway, we made this because we were like, oh,

come on, Red does, you know, Red does rituals. We haven't really done a ritual in a while. Let's do a ritual. And we made one, and it was too good. Or it was good. I don't know if it was too good, in a while. Let's do a ritual. And we made one, and it was too good. Or it was good. I don't know if too good. But good enough that it's on this list. Okay, next. Skull Clamp from Darksteel. Costs

one. It's an artifact equipment. Equipped creature gets plus one, minus one. Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards. Equip one. Okay, so where this started was I made a card called Vekwithal. I don't know what's that I put Vekwithal in. It was an aura that said,

Enchanted creature gets plus one, plus one, and when Enchanted creature dies, draw two cards. So the idea behind it was that it was an aura, but when the creature that was on died, you netted back the card advantage you lost for having played the aura. And I was very proud of Vekwithal, and then really nobody played Bequithal.

So Skullclamp was me just making an equipment version of Bequithal. So when I made the card, it was equipped creature gets plus one, plus one. And the idea being that this might be a little better because you don't lose the equipment. You can re-equip the equipment. In development,

this was not done by me, in development they said, oh, well, plus one, plus one, oh, it might be cuter if it was plus one, minus one. Like, you know, we'll make it worse by making it plus one, minus one. And that made it infinitely better, because now you can kill the creatures so that you can get

the card. So it kind of turned into spend one, sack a creature with toughness one or less, draw two cards, which was quite powerful. The fact that the Skullclump itself could help you kill the creatures that didn't need another card to get the creatures to be killed

really made it powerful. So this is a great example of a card that I get credit for making, but I don't think I should get credit for breaking it. I don't know. Maybe the plus one plus one also would be broken, but it's not nearly as broken as plus one minus one. Okay, next. Smuggler's Copter from Kaladesh. It's two for an artifact vehicle, so it's a three three when it's a creature. It is flying. Whenever Smuggler's Copter attacks your blocks, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card. Crew 1. Crew 1 means tap any number of creatures you

control with total power 1 or more. This vehicle becomes an artifact creature until end of turn. So, vehicles have been something we have spent a lot of time talking about over the years. It was something that kept popping up. And then when we were in the exploratory vision for Kaladesh, we're like,

we're in inventor world. Okay, if ever there was a place that would have vehicles, this seemed like the place that would have vehicles. It was definitely the most advanced technology world we were planning to do. And it just seemed like the place to do it, if we're going to do it. So we spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to make vehicles work. how to make vehicles work. We eventually settled on the idea that it was an artifact that when a creature sort of got in it to drive it, it would turn into an artifact creature.

That's how we sort of, like, well, it's not naturally an artifact creature. You need somebody to crew it. And originally the way crew worked is the crew number was the number of creatures you had to tap. So, like, crew two didn't mean power two. It meant you needed two creatures. But it ended up being a little bit too, like vehicles only worked in like decks that went wide because like crew three meant you needed three creatures

and that just was hard to come by. But meanwhile, in Ixalan, we were experimenting with this mechanic where you had lands that you had to kind of conquer. And because we were trying to stay off of vehicles, we tried this thing where instead of tapping some number of creatures, you need some amount of power of creatures.

And as we were playing with that, we realized it was playing really well. And I went back to the Kaladesh design team, or that's right, development team, and said, you know, we've been trying this variant for Ixalan, but I think it might help solve some of the problems you're having with vehicles. And so they tried it and it worked out. And so anyway, Smugglescopters, most of the vehicles we made, we made in meetings.

We did a lot of the, I like doing a lot of group design. Like, I enjoy in my teams of sort of building things together. And most of the vehicles were actually done in meetings. So Smuggler's Copter, I'm pretty sure, was done in a meeting with the whole group working together. Just because when we were doing vehicles, we wanted to kind of map out. We wanted to see all the vehicles at once. And we made them, we could make sure that we were differentiating different kind of vehicles from each other and making sure that we weren't sort of repeating ourselves and so we designed them all at once

so that's why that's why we did that. Okay, next. Squandered resources from visions. So this is enchantment it's black and green. Sacrifice the land. Add one man of any type that sacrifice sacrificed land could produce.

So the idea behind this enchantment was, oh, well, you can get an extra mana out of any land you have, but at the cost of losing the land. That was the idea. Like, oh, it's not quite like mana flare that just makes every land produce extra mana. It's a little cheaper than that. But it comes at a cost, which you have to lose the

land. So sort of like any land can tap for one extra mana at the cost of losing it. So this card ended up being part of a very famous combo deck called Prosperous Bloom. So we had a tournament which used Mirage

and Visions cards. And it's at Pro Tour Paris. And Mike Long, of Infamy, brought a Prosperous Bloom deck. He had made it. And it was a potent power. It was the first combo deck to win a Pro Tour. He won Pro Tour Paris.

And it's funny. Mike was convinced that we had made the deck and then divvied up the cards in Mirage and Visions. It worked so well. It was so efficient that Mike could not fathom that we just randomly made a bunch of cards that happened to work together.

He was convinced we made the deck and then scattered them out because the format was Mirage, Visions, Constructed. So the fact that he was able to make it and just everything he needed was exactly there, Mike just thought that couldn't be coincidence. It was. It was coincidence. Like, I had made Squandered Resources,

and I had made Cadaverous Bloom, but, like, Prosperity was Bill, and Natural, whatever, Natural, I don't like the name on it, but that was Mike. So, anyway, the cards weren't all made by the same people, and we didn't know the deck existed. Anyway, we squandered resources.

Staff of Domination. So this is from Fifth Dawn. It's an artifact that costs three generic mana. So it's five activations. One, untap Staff of Domination. Two, untap, you gain one life. Three, untap, untap target creature. Four, untap, tap target creature. Five, untap, draw a domination. Two and tap, you gain one life. Three and tap, untap target creature. Four and tap, tap target creature.

Five and tap, draw a card. So the idea was, I think we called this Ginsu Knife in design. Either that or Swiss Army Knife. Maybe we'll call it Swiss Army Knife. Either Ginsu Knife or Swiss Army Knife. The idea was it had so many functions.

And the thing we really liked is we loved the idea of one untap and then did something for two, something for three, something for four, and something for five. And we spent a lot of time playing around with it and trying different things. What we found out was it was a little bit better than normal. Like, I think originally the four tap was draw a card. But what we realized was, oh, the fact that you can kind of redo it because you can untap things if you have extra mana

meant we had to make each individual thing a little bit weaker than we normally. So each of these abilities, if it was the only thing on an artifact, would be a little on the weak side. But the fact that you have the options between them and when you have extra mana that you can use it multiple times because you can untap it.

Anyway, as I said, I mean, as true for all the cards today, O is very efficient and it's on a list of banned restricted cards. So, but anyway, I was very proud of the design. It's a very Mel design. It's very Mel design. So we often talk about all the Vorthos designs out there. That's a Mel design. That's someone who goes, Mwah! That's a design.

That's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9. I'm very proud of it. Okay, Staying Power is from Unhinged. Two and a white. It's an enchantment. So three mana total, one of which is white. Until end of turn, and this turn, effects don't end. So I had actually made this card originally for a Black-Bordered set.

I really like the idea that, you know, things that normally will stop at the end of the turn don't. It just becomes permanent. And the rules manager said, yeah, we're not going to do that. So I ended up putting it in the next silver-bordered set I had a chance to. You'll notice in the art it is, it says Mongo, I think. It's a dog. It's a giant dog. I think it says Mongo. So it's Wild Mongrel, which is a card

that you can make bigger. And so the idea was Wild Mongrel, but since he never shrinks, he just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So anyway, that was... If you ever wonder what... I was getting honked at, but not my fault. I was getting honked at because the card in front of me was not moving over. So anyway, I'm not sure if it was honking at at because the car in front of me was not moving over. So anyway,

I'm not sure if it was honking at me or the car in front of me, but I'm about to switch over to the more than you need to know. But when I drive, there's two freeways and I'm switching to the second freeway. And so anyway,

probably more than you need to know, but in case you're wondering, is Mark actually driving? Mark is actually driving. And for some reason, he's been talking about himself in the third person. I'm not sure why that's going on.

Okay, next. Survival of the fittest from Exodus. It costs one and a green. It's an enchantment. Green. Discard a creature card. Search your library for a creature card. Reveal that card and put it in your hand.

Then shuffle your library. I was a big fan of Transmute Artifact, that lets you turn artifacts into other artifacts. Oh, no, no, well, okay, is that what inspired this one? I like the idea here that it allowed you to turn one creature card into another creature card, but I guess it's not on the battlefield, you're discarding from your hand. So the idea here was, it ended up being this kind of repeatable tutor that turned creatures into other creatures. The fact that you could tutor for whatever creature you wanted, the fact that you're throwing away a creature,

essentially it's like for one green mana, you can turn, I think the flavor was, you could turn any creature card in your hand into the creature card you want it to be, which is mightily potent. This card is banned in numerous formats because it is just a really powerful card. The fact that I can just turn my creature into whatever creature I need. There is a certain kind of deck that gets played where you have a lot of one-ofs,

and then you use tutors like this to go get exactly the card you need. They call it a utility belt deck after, like, Batman's utility belt. Anyway, Survival of the Fittest was one of the most potent utility belts ever played, that deck. You just had all these answers with all these different creatures, and whenever you needed an answer, you just went and got the creature that was the answer. And the Survival of the Fittest deck was a lot of fun to play,

but it was... very powerful. But it was fun. Utility Belt decks are fun. This particular one, which is a little strong. Okay, Sword of the Meek from Future Sight. It's an artifact equipment, costs two, two generic mana. You equip for two, and equipped creature gets plus one, plus two.

And whenever a 1-1 creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may return Sword of the Meek from your graveyard to the battlefield, then attach it to that creature. So I love the card Pendelhaven from Legends. Pendelhaven was a land that could tap to give plus one, plus two to a 1-1 creature. But it had to be a 1-1 creature. And so this was me riffing off of Pendelhaven. This is just like a Pendelhaven-1 creature. But it had to be a 1-1 creature. And so this was me riffing off of Pendlehaven. This is just like a Pendlehaven-ish

mechanic. I'm not even sure what format this is banned in, but I guess turning all your 1-1s into 2-3, or constantly turning a 1-1 into a 2-3 could be pretty efficient, I guess. I'm not even sure. Of the cards that are banned, this one seems less powerful to me,

but somewhere it's banned. I'm not sure where. This list is everything that's been banned, so I don't always know why things have been banned. Okay, Test of Endurance from Judgment. Two white, white. So four mana total, two wish of white. It's an enchantment.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 50 or more life, you win the game. So this was a cycle from Odyssey block. So Battle of Wits is probably the most famous card from this block. Mortal Camp, Mortal Kombat, Chance Encounter, and the green one was a creature-based one. They all had words that had conflict in the name, like battle, test, encounter.

And anyway, they were spread out over the block. So the blue and red one were in Odyssey. The Torment was the black one, because it was the black set. And the green and white one were in Judgment, which was the green and white set. Anyway,

so this was in Judgment. I think this is banned in Commander because you start at 40 life. So, the fact that you win at 50 life, when you start at 20 life, that's a challenge. You get to 50 life. When you start at 40 life, not that much a challenge. So, I think this is banned in

Commander for that reason. I do like, I'm a big fan of alt-win cards, so I did like that cycle. Okay, next. Thirst for Knowledge from Mirrodin. Two and a blue for an instant. Draw three cards, then discard two cards

unless you discard an artifact card. We keep remaking this card except change artifacts for whatever the theme is that it cares about. I think this was the first one of its kind, though. And I was just looking for ways to make artifacts matter. So I like the idea of, oh, well, I just want to have artifacts in my hand

because if I do, it allows me to net card advantage and it lets me maybe discard an artifact that's not doing something for me in the moment. But like I said, this has become a template. We make a lot of cards like this now. So anyway, thirst cards. Thorn of Amethyst from Lorwyn. It's an artifact that costs two generic

mana. Non-creature spells cost one more to cast. Lorwyn was a tribal set. We liked the idea of doing some things that said... One of the ways to say, hey, play tribal is put in a few things that work well against non-tribal

decks. So the idea is, if your deck is all creatures, then the negative of this deck is none, and it can hurt your opponent while not hurting you. So that's where Thorn of Amnesty came. Time Machine, Unhinged, costs five generic mana. It's an artifact. Tap Exile Time Machine and target non-token creature you own. Return them to the battlefield at the beginning of your upkeep

on your turn X in the next game you play with one of your opponents in this game, where X is the current mana cost of the exiled creature. So the idea is if I get rid of a 4-drop on turn 4, the 4-drop

pops out. So the idea is you're sending it through time to a future game. This is really clever. It's a lot of fun. The reason this got banned in Commander is because it works on any game in which you're playing with the same person.

Let's say I play a game with six people and I play me and my friend Bob and four other people. The fact that I'm playing with Bob and a different group of people that this creature pops out because Bob and I once played a game together is a little weird also the card

can make things a little broken especially when no one knows for sure you know what I'm saying like oh Bob and I played a game before we started and all of a sudden all these creatures are popping out it seems a little weird so they had to ban it Time Spiral, Urza Saga, four blue blues, so six mana total, two witches blue.

Sorcery, Exile Time Spiral. Each player shuffles their hand and graver into the library, then draw seven cards. You can tap up to six lands. So this beauty was a combination of my and William Jockish's work. I made the free mechanic, and I think William was the one that said, what if we put it on Time Twifter?

And I was like, okay, sounds like a great idea. Wah, wah, wah. I mean, it was just a powerful card. The reason we liked it on Time Twifter is Time Twifter gets you a new hand of cards, but normally you don't have a lot of mana. Well, this says, hey, if you have six mana, you get to do it for free,

meaning you have all the mana back to then cast the cards you've drawn. That proves to make it very powerful. Okay, next, Tinker from Urza's Legacy. Two and a blue, it's a sorcery. As an additional cost to cast the spell, sacrifice an artifact. Search your library for an artifact card and put that onto the battlefield,

then shuffle your library. So there's a card called Transmute Artifact. Search your library for an artifact card and put that onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. So there's a card called Transmute Artifact in Antiquities. It was a sorcery where you had to sacrifice a creature, and then you could go get an artifact out of your deck that costs up to one more. I loved that card. I loved it. I loved it. And I was just trying to make a simpler version of it.

Like, it was very wordy. So I was trying to make a cleaner version of it. So I once asked R&D, of all the cards I made, what was the most broken card I ever designed? And they voted for this one. So me trying to clean things up and make it a little less wordy made it a lot more powerful. So Tinker is banned and restricted just about every format it's in. It is u more powerful. So Tinker is banned and restricted just about every format it's in. It is uber powerful.

And mostly because there's lots of powerful artifacts. In fact, you can turn one artifact into any other artifact. So like, I drop a zero cost for example, I can drop something that produces mana that costs a zero, and then drop a land, and then turn one, I can turn my mox,

or whatever it is that I'm producing the other mana with, into some giant, giant threat. Like, for example, a creature that, if it hits you, will kill you. You know, because, like, the Phyrexian Colossus, it's a 10-10 creature that has infect. So it's like, turn one, I have a Phyrexian Colossus. On the next turn, if you can't stop that, I kill you.

It's super potent. And there might be more dangerous things. My suggestion, you die next turn. I'm sure there's things you die this turn. Okay, next,

Tolarian Academy from Urza's Saga. It's a legendary land tapped for a blue mana for each artifact you control. So my kind of, I didn't actually make this card. Gaea's Cradle and

Telerian Academy and Serra's Sanctum, I think Mike Elliot made? But, I did say, why don't we I'm the one that suggested all of them have colored mana so that we can make a cycle out of them. Because at the time there were just three lands

and I'm like, well what if if the enchantment's tapped for white and the thing tapped for blue and the gayest cradle tapped for green? So anyway, I'm the one that made this tap for blue instead of colorless. Just like on Lion's Eye Diamond, I had a tap for color. I basically take things that are colorless, make them tap for colored, and then they break.

I'm not sure whether... Well, me making them tap for colored did not hurt them, so probably it helped make them break. Next, Trade Secrets from Onslaught. One blue, blue, sorcery. Target opponent draws two cards, then you draw up to four cards. That opponent may repeat this process as many times as they choose. So the cuteness of this card was, oh, well, okay,

you can have two cards and I get four cards. Would you like to do this again? And the idea being that at some point, drawing more cards for you, you're going to have to discard, so your opponent might go, well, yeah, he gets more cards, but I get more cards. And it turns out that it is just, I don't know, I guess it caused problems because it's on the ban list. I don't know. I guess it caused problems because it's on the ban list. I don't actually know why. I mean, I'm sure there's some combos here

where you just get to draw all the cards you want to draw. That's probably what happened. Okay, next. Treachery from Urza's Destiny. Three blue blue. It's an enchantment, an aura. Enchant creature. When treachery enters the battlefield,

untap up to five lands, you control enchanted creature. So Urza's Destiny, we knew the free mechanic was very, very powerful, but it had been in the first two sets, so I said, okay, I'll just make one more. What harm could that cause? And so I ended up putting it on

a control magic, something that stole creatures. It turns out that is a, basically the way that free mechanic worked out is, the free that Free Mechanic worked out is the Free Mechanic is super powerful. If it remotely is on a spell that people might want to play, you'll generate mana with it,

and then you'll get to do a powerful effect. Stealing creatures is a powerful effect. So this ended up being pretty potent. Treasure Cruise, seven and a blues from Conjure Tarkir. It's a sorcery. It has delve. Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting the spell pays for one, so it makes it one cheaper. It's a sorcery. It has delve. Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting the spell

pays for one, so it makes it one cheaper. And you draw three cards. So this was Ancestral Recall. Get it? Ancestral Recall. If you remove seven cards from your graveyard, it's Ancestral Recall. That should be fine, because you have to remove seven cards from your graveyard. Well, it turns

out in larger formats, older formats with lots of cards, not so hard. So Delve, I'd done Delve originally in Future Sight. This was us trying to riff it up and make it the Sultai mechanic in Constant Archeer. We thought this was cutesy because it was Geddit, it's in Social Recall,

which, you know, under the right circumstances, it literally can be in Social Recall because for one blue mana, you can draw three cards. It ended up being a little bit too much like in social recall and we had to ban it slash restricted

Tree of Tales from Mirrodin Artifact Land this is the green Artifact Land so I mean not much more to say other than

all of them were broken Upheaval Four Blue Blue Odyssey Sorcery Return all permanents to their owner's hands. I was just trying to make

a powerful blue card, and I just like the idea of, like, okay, red could blow everything up. What could blue do? And I'm like, well, blue unsummons things. Oh, what if it unsummoned everything? It turns out in control decks. That's uber powerful. One of the things that's most powerful about it is it lets you

reset a lot of stuff, and if you get out of control late game, it really... You have more things you can do to sort of deal with it than your opponent, and so it ends up being a pretty good reset button for blue, which is how I got here. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle from Zendikar. It's a land.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, enters the battlefield tapped. You can tap it for red. Whenever a mountain enters the battlefield under your control, if you control at least five other mountains, you may have Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, deal three damage to any target. So we made a cycle of cards. The idea was, once

you've reached a certain threshold, it might have all been five, of mountains, plus this land, everyone that enters the battlefield beyond that point starts to do an effect. We liked the idea of lands that did an effect. We wanted to do a rare cycle that did big effects. So our compromise was,

well, you don't get to do it right away. You have to build up to it. So late game, once you have five other of whatever the basic land in play, you get to start doing something really impressive. So for red, we're like, what's impressive? How about Lightning Bolt? Three damage to any target. Ended up being

very efficient, late game. You're super happy to have Lightning Bolt, and so Valakut ended up being the breakout of that cycle. There are others that got some play, but not, Valakut is the best one. Vault of Whispers, Mirrodin, that is the black artifact land.

So, tap for black, it's an artifact land. So I've talked plenty about those. Voltaic Key from Urza Saga. It costs one generic mana. It's an artifact. One tap, untap, target artifact. I made this card just because I thought it was kind of cute

that you could use it to sort of untap other things. Once again, it circumvents costs. It allows you to take things that activate for... I'm sorry, not that activate. It takes things that don't activate for much but usually are expensive to get into play and allows you to reuse them easily.

In fact, the expensive stuff is not too bad because you have to pay for them again. It's the big expensive spells that do powerful things but inexpensively that you get to reuse them. And I think one of the major reasons this ended up getting broke was when you can use an untap mana, it allows you, like if I tap something that taps for three mana and I can use this for one to untap something that taps for three, this just becomes another thing that nets me mana.

And later on in the game, I can use it to untap other things. So it's not just mana, but early game it's mana, and then it becomes a lot of other potent, powerful things. Windfall from Urza's Saga, two and a blue sorcery. Each player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards any player discarded. So the idea here is that if I have a more empty hand than you, but you have a larger hand, I can do this, and then we all get a drop of a larger amount. I think this card saw a lot of play in multiplayer play, because usually somebody in multiplayer play has a full hand of cards.

So if you sort of empty your hand, the chance of you refilling your hand is super high in multiplayer play. This card might also be banned in other formats, but my guess is in multiplayer it's quite good. Okay, next. Yawgmoth's Bargain from Urza's Destiny. Four black blacks enchantment. Skip your draw step.

Pay one life, draw a card. So originally when I made this card, it was pay two life. I was trying to take... My goal of this card was to take Necropotence and try to redo Necropotence. So my thought was that I would do it as Greed. Greed is a card that,

from early Magic, there was not a problem where you could pay two life to draw a card so the idea was oh I'll make this a greed variant and I think I cost it originally at black black black it's the exact card but you had to pay two life to draw a card and then in development they're like oh but come on it's necropones make a necropone

so they raised the cost from three to six, and then just had you pay one life draw card. Well, turns out, paying one life draw card is super... The way Eric explained this to me is, the card I made is also broken, but not nearly as broken as the card that it got turned into.

Urza's Destiny is famous in that there's a lot of cards I made that the development team ended up making them more powerful this is probably the most egregious one where I turned a card that was probably also broken but it got turned from kind of broken into uber broken

but anyway it's a very powerful card Yawgmoth's Will this is my last, oh no I have one more card for this I've just got to work but I'm doing time I have one more card for this. Yawgmoth's Will. I've just got to work, but I'm doing time. I have two more cards, and we'll finish up this podcast. Yawgmoth's Will, two black, Merge of Saga, Sorcery. Until end of turn, you may play cards from your graveyard.

If a card will be put into the graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead. So the story about this card is I made the card in green. Mike Elliott made the card in black. But I think my version was slightly closer to this version and I think what happened was Mike liked the effect in black

I did it in green because I'm like oh it's like regrowth so I did the effect in green but Mike I think Mike liked my execution but in black so so anyway this car I mean like I said, Mike and I both sort of mutually designed it

and turned it in the same time. Anyway, this card is uber, uber broken. One of the, in fact, when we were talking about what most broken card I've had a hand in, if it wasn't Tinker, it was Yawgmoth's Will, is what the R&D said.

Okay, the final card is a card that got banned in between me starting this podcast and me ending this podcast. How's that for a timely, at least for me, timely? So the card in question is Bridge from Below from Future Sight. Black, black, black enchantment. Whenever a non-token creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, create a 2-2 black zombie.

Then when a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below. So the idea behind this card was I had a last-minute hole to fill. And when a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below. So the idea behind this card was I had a last-minute hole to fill. Actually, I had two last-minute holes to fill for future shifted cards. One of them was Narcomiba. The idea was I thought it might be neat to have an enchantment that only works in the graveyard. And then that's the premise I started with.

Like, okay, what if we had an enchantment that only worked in the graveyard? And then I go, what would it do? And I'm like, oh, well, it interacts with the dead. And I came up with the idea of that. And then I liked the idea that as your things dies, it makes some zombies. But if the opponent thing ever dies, it stops. It goes away. And so it made this little challenge for you.

Anyway, I did not expect this to be nearly as broken as it ended up being. It turns out with dredge decks and there's ways to get a lot of stuff in your graveyard very fast and this card lets you do some shenanigans that end up being kind of powerful another one of my very goofy cards I made that ended up being very powerful

anyway guys I hope you enjoyed my four podcast jaunt through all the cards that I had a hand in that are banned or restricted. Like I said, not really an honor I'm particularly proud of. I mean, I've been at this game

a long time and made a lot of cards. So that's also part. Part of it, I've just made more cards than probably anybody else in the world. So that might be why

I've made more broken. Also, I made more cards early in Magic before we had quite as good a development team. So nowadays, not that we never make broken cards, but we make less broken cards than we used to.

So anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It's time to end my drive to work. So instead of talking Magic, it's time for me to be making Magic. I'll see you guys next time.