Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #687: Throne of Eldraine Cards, Part 2

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

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

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. I dropped my kids off at school. Okay, so last time I started doing a Throne of Eldraine card-by-card podcast. Well, guess what? I wasn't done. So let's continue on. So we're up to Clackbridge Troll. So Clackbridge Troll costs three black black. So five mana total, two of which is black. It's an 8-8 Troll, so obviously it's a creature.

It's got trample. It's got haste. When Clackbridge Troll enters the battlefield, target opponent creates three 0-1 white goat creature tokens. At the beginning of combat on your turn, any opponent may sacrifice a creature. If a player does, tap Clackbridge Troll, you gain three life, and you draw a card.

Okay, so, obviously this is referencing the three billy goats gruff. So for those that aren't familiar with this story, there's a bridge, there's the goats, and they want to get across the bridge, and there is a troll that requires a payment to get across the bridge. So we wanted to do this. Now one of the tricky things, so one of the interesting things about fairy tales is there's just some repeating themes in fairy tales. One of

which is the number three. For some reason, having three of an animal, because a lot of times what happens is when you tell a story, you want to sort of tell it three times. It's a very common fairy tale thing where, you know, the first thing happens, and the second thing happens,

and the third thing happens. And the first two sort of set parameters of what's going on, the third one usually is where something different goes on. And anyway, because of that, there are a lot of stories in which things happen three times, and as a result, there's a lot of stories where there are three animals. There are three little pigs. There are three bears.

There are three billy goat scruff. So one of the challenges was we wanted to pay homage to all these stories and clearly they're tied to three. Like, you can't just make a bear. You gotta make three bears. You can't make one pig. You gotta make three pigs. You can't have one billy goat gruff. You need three billy goat gruffs. So we were trying to figure out how to differentiate between them.

So the bears, so Flax and Trude, which I will get to, the spell makes bears. It makes three tutu bears which I will get to, the spell makes bears. It makes three 2-2 bears. Bears are 2-2s. It makes three bears. The little pigs are a card I'll get to later on. They make little 1-1s, little 1-1 pigs.

Boars, technically, in Magic, but they're pigs. So we were trying to find a way to do the Billy Goats graph in a way that was a little bit different. I think the earliest version of this card I think was just the troll in sort of a vacuum, but people weren't getting

that it was the troll from the three billiards gruff, and so we were trying to connect them. And then we came up with this interesting idea of what if, not only do we make different tokens, so zero one in this case, but what if instead of you getting them, you gave them to your opponent? And then we thought, okay, if we give you the things

to your opponent, now we can make the troll demand a toll, if you will. And the idea was, well, we're giving you some stuff, so you can use that for a little while. And even then, when, you know, you sort of, essentially the way it works is they have to sacrifice a creature. So essentially, you're giving it to the troll. So the troll goes, and that's my troll eating noises.

And so the idea essentially is, no matter what, like you have a giant 8-8 trample haste creature, they can stall you for at least three turns because you've given them the three goats but even when they stall you you still gain life and draw cards even if they stop you obviously they need to stop

because it's an 8-8 trampling creature but they can stall and so there's a fun gameplay that comes into it I like this card I think it's pretty flavorful and flavorful. And flavorful in a way that sort of is evocative, in a way that you get the story,

and you're scared of the troll. Definitely we're doing a black troll here. Traditionally, we've more done trolls in green, but the flavor of this troll, it's a pretty evil troll. So, and you know, it's the sacrifice and stuff, just it worked in black. So it flavorfully and mechanically just worked better in black so we made it in black so anyway

that is the troll okay next claim the firstborn so this costs a single red mana it's a sorcery gain control of target creature with converted mana costs three or less until end of turn untap that creature it gains haste until end of turn so this is another one where I think the name came first.

The idea of, like, one of the things we're always looking for is there are effects we have to do in the set. For example, this is a Threatened effect. It's a tweaked Threatened effect, but Threatened effect is something we do in Common Red that I steal a creature for the turn. Usually it's a sorcery because I want to use it aggressively, not defensively.

So normally it's a sorcery. So one of the things Rumpelstiltskin, and this is not just Rumpelstiltskin, I think Rumpelstiltskin is the most famous one, but the idea of I make you promise me something that I get your firstborn son. It's a reoccurring thing in fairy tales. Like I said, I think Rumpelstiltskin might be the most famous one. So we like the idea of we have to do a threading, and okay, well, this concept of claiming the firstborn song we thought was neat, and so I'm not sure whether or not this started as we had a name

and tried to figure out how to use the name, or whether we need a threading. What's a fairy tale thing about I'm taking something from you? And the idea of taking your firstborn. I think they ended up doing mana cost three or less to imply it's a, you know, you take a baby normally is what happens in the fairy tales. The baby is born, you show up and go,

aha, because of some problem she made to me, I get to take your baby. And so I think that's why it is small. Clockwork Servant, three. Artifact creature, gnome. It's a two, three. It's got adamant. So when Clockwork Servant 3, Artifact Creature Gnome. It's a 2-3. It's got Adamant. So when Clockwork Servant enters the battlefield,

if at least three mana of the same color was spent to cast it, draw a card. So there are... Mostly the Adamant cards are in single colors or colored cards. There are two artifacts that have Adamant. And it's interesting. Adamant, in most cases on a monocolor card, the adamant is wanting you to spend three color of that color. So if it's a red card, it wants you to spend red, red, red.

The artifact, the colorless artifact ones are interesting in that they don't dictate what color. All they say is, you need to play a color. And the reason we do stuff like this is whenever we have themes, and monocolor is clearly a theme in this set, we like to give you some, a few cards that any deck can play to help push the theme. So the idea is, if I'm playing a monocolor deck, no matter what monocolor deck I'm playing, oh, well, Clockwork Servant is pretty good. You know what I'm saying? Because essentially, if I'm putting it in a monocolor deck, meaning casting it is pretty easy

to do, I'm playing a monocolor deck, I just get a 2-3 cantric creature for 3, which is pretty good. So the idea is, it's kind of this enabler. Now, if you're playing a 2-color deck or something, you can think about playing it. It's still an artifact creature, and if you can't add him in it, maybe you want to play it. But yeah,

you really want this in something that you're at least have the goal of trying to cast it with adamant. Okay, next. Crystal Slipper. One in a red. Artifact equipment. Equipped creature gets plus one, plus one has haste, and equip one. So you can pay one to attach it to the creature. I mean, you guys know equipment. So one of the things we did early on is we said, okay, well, what do you expect to see? So the glass slipper, we called it the Crescent Slipper,

but the glass slipper from Cinderella, pretty iconic, right? You know, as far as objects of fairy tales go, super iconic. The tricky thing was, what does it do? Like, in the course of the story I mean it looks pretty and it being left behind is important but there's no magical qualities to it within the context of the story

it's not like Cinderella having the glass slippers I mean she looks nice but I mean it doesn't enable her with any magical abilities or anything so the question is what do we do? we wanted to do the glass slipper because that is pretty iconic. Finally, what we decided to do was, let's just do footwear. Magic doesn't do a lot of footwear,

but when we do footwear, what does footwear tend to do for your magic? It tends to make you faster. So the idea is, well, maybe in our version of the story, she's a little bit faster than normal because she has magic shoes that make her faster. And maybe in her speed of leaving, that's why it got left behind because she was moving so fast. I don't know. That's my little... I've made up my little story. But anyway, we thought, you know, look, magic, footwear and magic means something. Let's just play into the themes of footwear. to, you know, look, magic, footwear and magic means something. Let's just play into the themes of footwear. Um, and so anyway, I, it is, I admit this is one of those ones where

I wanted to have, you know, we wanted to have the object. The object didn't necessarily beget itself anything. So we just kind of played in the space where magic is, which is okay. Well, if it's footwear, we'll act like magic footwear. Um, and that's how we got there. Okay, next. Curious Pear. So Curious Pear costs one and a green. It is a 1-3 creature, a human peasant. Well, it's two creatures.

I mean, it's technically one creature from a game standpoint. But in flavor, it's two little kids. Treats to share. So it has an adventure. Treats to share for one green sorcery adventure. Create a food token. So the idea here was we were doing Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are very much driven by the fact that they're hungry, for those that know the story.

They're starving, basically. In the story, they have a father. Sometimes they have a mother. Usually it's a stepmother, I believe, because stepmothers are a big part of fairy tales. And the father is having trouble, and there's not food. It's not like they're trying not to feed their kids. There just isn't food. Some versions of the stepmother is not letting the kids have the food. And so the kids venture

out because they're hungry. That's why they go to the woods in the first place. And the idea, the reason they eat the gingerbread house, I mean, not just like, oh, it's gingerbread, but also like they're starving. And so the idea we like a lot is you can make food and the food lures out the kids. We thought that was kind of cute. And the fact

that we wanted to do an adventure that was a one-drop spell followed by a two-drop creature. And so the nice thing about the two, you know, Hansel and Gretel, they're two little kids. They don't need to cost a lot. They're not that big. So one-three made some sense. And then the idea of making a food was kind of cool.

We liked the idea that there was a spell that made food. So anyway, it was a nice little package. One of the things we liked about adventure cards is when you can tell a story, we learned the same thing in double-faced cards, is that anything that has two beats to it lets you sort of tell a story, we learned this, the same thing in double-faced cards, is that anything that has two beats to it lets you sort of tell a story. And mechanically, it's like, oh, one thing happens

and another thing happens. Like, oh, well, the kids go out and they find some food, you know, and like I'm saying, that told the little story and reinforced really kind of Hansel and Gretel. So I thought that was kind of cool. So. Next. and reinforce really kind of Hensel and Gretel. So I thought that was kind of cool. So, next.

Okay, next we got Deathless Knight. So Deathless Knight costs four hybrid mana. So hybrid, hybrid, hybrid, hybrid, four hybrid mana. It's black or green hybrid. It is a 4-2 creature, a skeleton knight. It has haste. And when you gain life for the first time each turn, return Deathless Knight from your graveyard to your hand. So there's a bunch of things going on here. One is that we were trying to because we were doing a lot of different knights

we wanted to play into different sort of knight tropes, if you will. And one of the cool, one of the knight tropes is the idea of the skeleton knight that keeps returning. You know, the idea that you, it's a knight that dies, but it just reforms and it'll keep on fighting. Clearly, that made a lot of sense in Black. But what we realized is the essence of what it was doing, which is it kept bringing itself back. Well, it turns out that two colors have creatures

that can bring themselves back from the graveyard. Well, technically, red can bring back phoenixes. But other than phoenixes, black and green are the two colors that can do that. Okay, so we can make a skeleton knight. We like the flavor of that. You can bring it back. So the real question the flavor of that. You can bring it back. So, the real question was, what is the trigger to bring it back? Well, we can give it haste, because black and green are both secondary in haste.

Recently, red was primary, black was secondary, green was tertiary. We sort of brought back down to secondary. I guess, I'm sorry, we brought green down to secondary. Black is somewhere between secondary and tertiary. We're still kind of figuring out what we want. I think we left it at secondary just because we're like, oh, haste is so interesting and good. Okay, maybe we'll just have three colors that can do haste.

So we gave it haste. Haste is important because if it comes back from the graveyard, you want to be able to attack that turn without haste. It couldn't do that. And so it would slow it down. So it having haste worked, and green and black can have haste, so that worked out. So the final thing was, what was the trigger? How are we going to bring it back?

Now remember, this was designed as a hybrid card. We want mono black to play it, we want mono green to play it. But one of the themes that black-green overlap in is food. That black and green are the, that black-green is the archetype that cares about food, and that it's the colors that use food in creative ways, where everybody else, like, you get a food and you can eat it to gain life, but in Black and Green, you can use it to do different things.

I already talked about a card where you can sort of throw the food to do minus three, minus three to creatures. I will be talking about other stuff coming up, but there's a lot of different ways to use food. Anyway, because food was the Black and Green thing, the idea of life games seemed interesting. Green already has spells that gain life.

Black has lifelink, and black has drain effects. So black and green both have ways to gain life. And it was the food color in this set. So it just was kind of an interesting way to sort of tie it all together. Okay, next is Didn't Say Please. So Didn't Say Please costs one blue blue. So three mana total, two of which are blue. It's an instant.

You counter target spell. Its controller puts the top three cards of the library into their graveyard. So you mill three, as we say. So this is another card. We've made this card before. I forget the name of the card. We've done this card before.

I think the idea was, it thematically sort of made some card before. I forget the name of the card. We've done this card before. I think the idea was it thematically sort of made some sense here. There's some cool stuff we could do. And really all we wanted was, I forget the name of the other card, but the other card didn't have a fairy tale name. So it's sort of like let's have a little more of a playful name.

You know, trying to play a little bit into the fairies messing with you. And so, didn't say please was kind of like, oh, you didn't do the right way. And anyway, once again, this is kind of cutesy. Put a little fairy flavor on this and take something that we had done before and just dress it up a little bit.

And that's why, I mean, I've talked about this with Charm Sleep, is one of the important things of trying to capture a sense is not necessarily reinventing the wheel, it's not necessarily making all brand new things, sometimes it's like, oh here's a card that just would work, and if the name doesn't quite fit, that's fine we get to reskin it, we get to rename it

we can put new art on it it's kind of fun when the name works because usually we get to put new art on things so if we can reframe it with the same name and different art, that's kind of fun when the name works, because usually we get to put new art on things, so if we can reframe it with the same name and different art, that's kind of fun to do. Sometimes you need to rename it, that the name itself's not really reinforcing it, but with the right name, you know,

mechanically it made a lot of sense in the set. It fit in well, but it needed a little bit of tweaking so that it fit the set in. You know, I thought it was kind of fun. I like the idea of, there's a lot of, I like the fact that, I's a lot of, I like the fact that, I don't think people take into account how much naming really can help sell things.

And a lot of names is just getting, not just things, but expression. You know, like, the fact that we had Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After, you know, that's important. Like, you want to get the language, blow your house down, you want to get the language. Blow your house down. You want to get the language of

the fairy tales. And so I think that's really important. Okay, next. Dwarven Mine. It's a land which is a mountain. Tap Edred, because that's what mountains do. Dwarven Mine enters the battlefield tapped unless you control three or more other mountains. When Dwarven Mine enters the

battlefield untapped, create a 1-1 red dwarf creature token. Okay, so one of the things, we made a cycle. This was a common cycle. The idea was that they had basic land types so you could search them out in larger formats that have searching fetch lines and stuff. And it did something that was flavorful. And we named them all after sort of different

fairy tale slash Arthurian, um, places. So this one is the Dwarven Mine, where the seven dwarves work. So the idea is, it's a Dwarven Mine, and you can get a dwarf, because what else are you going to find in a Dwarven Mine but a dwarf? Um, so, uh, I like, I like the fact we did basic land types. We have to be careful how often and where we do basic land types. It actually adds a bunch of power to the card. I mean, in formats where you can search for it.

Anyway, this cycle is a fun cycle, and I think it does a lot of job of making the set feel flavorful. And just, once again, we wanted a common Cycle lands that rewarded you for mono color play. The good example here is, yeah, you can play this in a non-mono red deck, but man, it's a lot better. In a mono red deck, it comes in play untapped, basically, and, you know, does everything that it does. Yeah, you can play in your black whatever, I'm saying your red whatever deck, and hey, getting a 1-1 creature's not bad, but your lands tapped for the turn, and so it's not quite as efficient for you.

Okay, next. Edgewall Innkeeper. So it costs a single green mana. It's a 1-1 human peasant, so it's a creature. And whenever you cast a creature spell that has an adventure, draw a card. And then it has reminder text saying

it does not have to have gone on the adventure first. A bunch of things are going on here. First off, one of the things you do when you make a new mechanic is you want to make cards that interact with that mechanic. So one of the things about adventure is there's nothing about adventures that necessarily say play a lot of adventures together. That's not a bad thing about the design. They very much are, each one does its thing, and there's

not a lot of gain to be had of having multiples. And so one of the things that's fun, my guess is this isn't uncommon because it's a build around, and that's where we put build arounds, is this is the kind of card where if you draft this early on in a draft, then you go, oh, I care about adventures.

Okay, I get to draw cards when I play adventure cards or play the creature part of it. Okay, you know what? I'm going to draft adventures. And then this card sort of sends you down the path. Usually when we make a build around, there has to be a reward that's strong enough that goes, hey, it's worth my time and energy to do that. And draw a card, for example, is a pretty powerful way.

We let green have card draw on creatures. And this also rewards, I mean, not only is it on a creature, but it lets you draw cards for playing creatures. I mean, you have to play adventure creatures, but all the adventure cards are creatures. So it sort of rewards you for playing creatures. A subset of creatures, but still creatures nonetheless. And the other thing is, this is a human peasant. A long time ago when magic started, or in the early days of magic, we had townsfolk as a creature type, and eventually we got rid of townsfolk. We later realized that what it was

filling was kind of important. Like, I live here, there's not much else to say about me. It's not like I have a job specifically that you know of. But we like having classes where we can. And so the idea is I want to represent that you live there. Peasant's a little better than town folk in that town folk implies a town. And so it's really weird to go, oh, well, we're in the middle of some random village but there's a townsfolk. And like, well, are there townsfolk in the village? Or even less than that. Just people who live out in the woods or something, you know.

It's not a townsfolk, it's no town. Peasant we thought was a little more generic. So, anyway, for those that are fans of peasants, peasants are back! Okay. Next, we get to a card that a lot of people were talking about.

We're going to talk about Ember Cleave. Okay, so Ember Cleave costs four red red. It is a legendary artifact. It's an equipment. It has flash. The spell costs one less to cast for each attacking creature you control. When Ember Cleave enters the battlefield, attach it to a target creature you control. Equip creature gets plus one plus one,

and it's double strike and trample. And you equip for three. Okay, so we're doing Arthurian Legends. Well, one of the things you have to do is Excalibur! That is the sword. Okay, so here's the tricky thing about Arthurian Legends. So if you know anything about the, if you know a little bit about the way that Arthur First Sword becomes king, is he pulls a sword

out of a stone. So there's a stone that has a sword stuck in it, and it's said that whoever can pull the stone out of the stone is destined to become the king of England. Everybody tries, but obviously it won't. you know, it's magic. It won't come out. And then Arthur comes and he pulls it out. Later on in his life, the Lady of the Lake,

who, by the way, unlike our version of it, is not a merfolk. She's just, she's a sorceress or whatever. Anyway, she gives him Excalibur. Excalibur is not the sword that's the sword of the stone. It's a different sword. But for people that don't know the story very well, it's like, oh,

well, I know Arthur pulls the sword of the stone to become king, and I know as king he has Excalibur. Oh, okay, well, that must be Excalibur. It's not. But not a lot of people know that. So early on, we actually did have an Excalibur, It's not. But not a lot of people know that. So early on, we actually did have an Excalibur, and separately we had a sword and a stone.

But we ended up just morphing them into one. One of the things that we did earlier on that I thought was very fun Trinket text we ended up taking off just because it wasn't space was that equipped creature is a noble in addition to its other creature types. So having the sword makes you king.

I thought that was really cute. It just wasn't space. And it just, gameplay-wise, wasn't adding much. Like, there's not noble tribal in the set. So being a noble was flavorful, but it didn't mechanically mean anything. So it sadly, sadly, it didn't make it. But

anyway, the idea here is we wanted something that was very powerful. Something, the reason we put it in red is that each of the courts got a legendary artifact. And so we were trying to pick the most iconic things we could. So we had the round table and the magic mirror and the Holy Grail and stuff like that. and the magic mirror and the holy grail and stuff like that. And so the idea was the red court was all about courage and aggression and not being afraid to pick up the sword and fight. So, well, that made the most sense to put into Red Fence since they were the ones that were all about courage and fighting and stuff.

I think the idea was that we put this cost reduction where the more creatures attacking, the cheaper it got, because red is all about sort of courage. And so the more creatures that attack, the easier it is to bring this in. And the idea was that at flash,

red doesn't have a lot of flash, but in order to do this effect, it's like, oh, we'll attack with enough creatures, you can cast this very cheaply. So, for example, attack with four creatures. For red, red, you can attach this. And when it comes to play, it snaps onto something.

So, for red, red, you can give a creature a plus one, plus one, double strike and trample, which especially as a surprise, your opponent might not see it, because you can do this after blocking, to be clear. Out of nowhere, you can really have a surprise moment where da-da-da! You were not expecting this, and now I hit you for a lot! Or you can even do something that is block, like a trample, and then all of a sudden it's just destroying the thing that's blocking and just smashing through.

So, I thought that was pretty cool. Okay, speaking of the Lady of the Lake, it gets us to Emery, Lurker of the Lock. So two and a blue. So three mana total, one of which is blue. It's a 1-2 legendary creature, Merfolk Wizard. This spell costs one less to cast for each artifact you control.

When Emery, Lurker of the Lock, enters the battlefield, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard. Tap, choose to tuck an artifact card into your graveyard. You may cast this card this turn. You still pay its cost. Timing rules still apply. Okay, so we were doing top-down Lady of the Lake. So we thought it was fun.

So in the actual original story, she is, the reason she's of the lake is she lives near the lake. She doesn't live in the lake. But we thought it would be fun if our Lady of the Lake was actually from the lake. So we made her a merfolk. We thought that was kind of fun. So merfolk wizard. So wizard. And the idea is she's the one that gives Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake to give Excalibur. So we're trying to get... So okay, she's the one who is giving you equipment. Giving you artifacts

that you can use. giving you magical artifacts. And so the idea is she's tied to an artifact theme. You want to put her in a deck with a lot of artifacts, so she gets cheaper based on how many artifacts you have. And she mills when you play her. She puts cars from your library into your graveyard because her ability is letting you cast stuff out of your graveyard. So the idea is any artifacts that you mill, for all intents and purposes,

I mean, they're not technically in your hand, but they're kind of in your pseudo-hand because she can let you cast them. Anyway, and that is, oh, the one other thing about this card is I really wanted her, what we call Lady of the Lock, instead of Worker of the Lock, but I could not convince the powers of me.

I thought that was very cute. Since Lady of the Lake is expression, and we had a lock, I thought that was funny, but I did not convince the powers to be. I thought that was very cute. Since Lady of the Lake is expression, and we had a lot, I thought that was funny, but I did not win that fight. Next, Enchanted Carriage. Costs five. It's an artifact that's a vehicle. Four, four. When Enchanted Carriage enters

the battlefield, create two one-one white mouse creature tokens. Crew, two. So you can tap any number of creatures you control with power two or greater, and the vehicle becomes an erect creature at 200 turns. Okay, so one of the things you want to do when you're doing a set is say, okay, what are the things we can do? We can do

vehicles. Okay, we're in fairy tale slash Arthurian world. What would you expect? And the vehicle that we had to do was the enchanted carriage, right? Cinderella is going to go to the ball. Her fairy godmother comes along and says, okay, I will make you a pretty dress and I will make you a carriage to take you to the ball. I will turn a pumpkin into a carriage and I will turn white mice into footmen. So the idea of this was we really were trying to capture that. We knew the art could show the

pumpkin. I mean, we knew the art could help sell it. But we really wanted to get some way to convey the idea that the little mouse were in charge. Oh, I'm sorry. The mouse become the horses, I think, that pull it. I don't know correctly. Anyway. Anyway. So the idea was, originally I think it was a crew that could crew two, but could only be crewed by a creature's power one or less.

And we thought that implied the mice. But it turned out to be really hard to play. It turned out to be really hard to kind of equip it. So we decided, well, what if we make crew two and we give you the mice? And originally the problem is that mice aren't a creature type that we had previously supported. So we talked about, should they be rats? Oh, man, the flavor of being rats was just so wrong. Could it be squirrel? Like, we went through, like, what are the other rodents we could do?

In the end, we're like, you know, if we make it mice, we just make them white creature types. And then we can literally have them be white mice. And that felt so cute and flavorful and cool that we said, okay, fine, we're just making another token type. Most of the time when we're making tokens, we think about how many tokens we're making and we always say, oh, can we condense this and use the token we already have, but sometimes you're like, nope,

we're making a new creature type or a new token type and or a creature type. And this is one of those cases where it just was so flavorful that we could not do it. Okay, next. Is Fae of Wishes. So Fae of Wishes costs one and a blue. So two mana total.

One of which is blue. It's a 1-4 flying fairy wizard. So it's a creature. One and blue discard two cards. Return F, return 3 wishes to its owner's hand. Now, it's an adventure, so adventure is granted, 3 in the blue, so 4 mana total. Sorcery, adventure. You may choose a non-creature card you own from outside the game, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Okay, so the thing, basically, starting in Judgment, we made a thing called the Wishes. And the Wishes let you go get a card from

outside the game. Now, in a casual game, you can go get any card you own, just that you own. In a tournament game, you can go to your sideboard. Anyway, Wishes have become a thing in Magic. We called them Wishes when we first did them, and whenever we brought them back, we referred to them as Wishes. It just becomes a vernacular in Magic. So, we fairies in fairy tales, fairy grants, wishes. So it just made a nice connection to connect the fairies to the wishes. Then the fun thing we did here is the fairy itself allows you a

means to get it back into your hand. So for one and a blue and discarding two cards you can get it back. So what that means is that I can play this creature, and anytime I want to, if I'm willing to spend the cost, I can get it back to my hand, which means that I can then cast granted. I can then cast the wish. And because it's an adventure, I can then recast the thing it wishes. So this is one of the adventures that cycles. That I can get the creature back to my hand, so I can recast the Fae of Wishes. So this is one of the adventures that cycles, that I can get the creature back in my hand so I can recast the spell,

and the spell lets me recast the creature so I can keep doing this. Now, every iteration of it, I have to discard two cards, so there's a real cost to doing it. It's not something done easily. But it does allow me to sort of recur my fairy and get more wishes. The fact that the fairy can grant a number of wishes.

Okay, next. Fairy Guide Mother. Costs one white mana. It's a 1-1 fairy, so it's a creature. And it's got an adventure. Gift of the Fae. One and a white. Sorcery. Adventure. Target creature goes plus two, plus one. And again, it's flying until end of turn.

So, I made a very different Fairy Godmother when we first made the set I put it in blue and the thing I was playing around with is the idea that it granted an ability but the ability was temporary and I think the way I did it was

I think in my article I posted it but it was I tried to do something where it was like oh I make you better but there's a duration to it was... I tried to do something where it's like, oh, I make you better, but there's a duration to it, and then you're going to go back to your old self with the flavor. I think what happened was when they ended up doing Adventures, that that version didn't stay, and they really wanted to do a Fairy Godmother. They called it Fairy Godmother.

But the idea was... I think this was one of those cards where they made the card first, and it played really well, and they were looking for flavor, and they knew they wanted it to be a fairy, and they ended up killing the other fairy godmother. So I think they said, oh, okay. Well, you know, the idea that it, maybe we can make this the thing where it gets to pump things, and then it's a fairy.

I admit, in a vacuum, I think this card's a really good card. I don't mind it flavored as the Fairy Godmother, but I do think that there are more top-down-y ways to make the Fairy Godmother. But I do think what happened was they just had a really good card that played really well, and they wanted a flavor for it, and they didn't have a top-down Fairy Godmother that they liked so much, so they made it into this. Which, I mean, it is a good card.

The designer in me is like, oh, maybe there's more we could do with the Fairy Godmother, but who knows? We could return to, one day return to, could return to Eldraine, and maybe make a different one.

Okay. Next. Feasting Troll King. There's trolls in fairy tales. Usually they're not very nice. Okay, so Feasting Troll King costs two green, green, green, green. So it costs six mana total, four of which is green. It's a troll noble. green, green. So it costs six mana total, four of which is green.

It's a troll noble. Seven, six. So it's a big troll noble. It's got vigilance and trample. And when Feasting Troll King enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand, you create three food tokens. So it makes food,

playing into one of the themes of green. And you can sacrifice three food tokens to return Feasting King Troll from your graveyard to the battlefield. So the idea essentially is it'll make you food. If you save the food, you can use it to get it back,

and then obviously it'll make more food. But the also thing is I can get food from elsewhere and I also can use it on this so I talked about black green being the food theme well this just lets you use food in a different way that you can use food as a means to get back the troll king and either

I mean if you just want to use it as a creature that generates food for you, use food to gain life hey hey, you got a 7-6 Trampling creature. Vigilant and Trampling creature. But if you want to make a food deck and have access to more food, then you can use the food you get from other places also to bring back the Feasting Troll King. I think that's kind of cool. Okay, next, Fervent Champion. So Fervent Champion costs a single red mana.

It's a 1-1 human knight. It's a creature. It's got First Strike and Haste. Whenever Fervent Champion attacks, another target attacking knight you control gets plus blood and a letter of turn.

Equip ability to activate the target Fervent Champion costs 3 less to activate. So the idea is it's a First Strike and Haste 1-1 creature. It's much, much easier to equip it because it costs 3 less to activate. So the idea is it's a first striking haste 1-1 creature. It's much, much easier to equip it because it's got three less to equip it. And it boosts another knight when it attacks.

So this is a pretty good card. So many years ago I made the Magic Invitational. And because I didn't have a lot of money, the prize of the Magic Invitational, instead of being money, was you got to make a card and then you got to appear on the card. And when the Invitational went away, that whole sort of players showing up on cards went away. So they decided last year that, while the players making the card had its issues, the idea of a player of renown appearing on a card felt pretty cool. So Javier won the World Championship last year.

We've worked with him to make a card that's something he liked. I mean, he didn't design it, but something that he liked. And then we got his image on it. So it's the return. So the idea moving forward is the World Champion will get a card every year.

Something we'll work with him on choosing it. And then they will appear in the art of the card. And this is something that was a lot of fun for many years with the Invitational. And so we brought it back. So the world champion will start having the opportunity to appear on the card. Once again, they're not making the card. We'll work with them to pick something they're happy with, but they're not designing the card like when on the Invitational. Just for those that are wondering. Okay, that works. Let me see.

Let's see how many Fs I have left. What do I got left at? Okay, Flax and Intruder. And I think, is that the last one? Well, let's talk Flax and Intruder. So Flax and Intruder costs green, so single green mana. It's a 1-2 human berserker. It's a creature.

Whenever Flax Intruder deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice it. When you do, destroy target artifact or equipment. And then, Welcome Home, 5 green green, so it costs 7 mana. Sorcery Adventure, create 3 2-2 green bear creature tokens. Okay, so the interesting thing is, early, early in design, we made a spell called Three Bears that

made the three bears. That I think at the time was, we first made it with six, it was four green green rather than five green green. Although it didn't have Goldilocks on it. And then separately, I think we made a Goldilocks card that destroyed things because we liked the flavor have Goldilocks on it. And then separately, I think we made a Goldilocks card that destroyed things, because we like the flavor that Goldilocks,

you know, in the story, she's good for breaking things. So we like the idea that we had Goldilocks, she broke things, then we had Make the Bears. So when they started doing adventures, they realized they could sort of marry these two cards together, and like, okay, let's make a little wrecking ball that is

Goldilocks, and then we'll make the three bearers. It's a quirky adventure card in that normally the adventure is cheaper than the creature, so that you can do the adventure first then get the creature. This one, we liked the flavor so much this one's a little of a weird one in that if you draw it early, you're probably playing it as Flaxen Intruder. It's really the only late

game that you can play as the bear. Although once you play the bear, then easily you can play Flaxen Intruder. The other thing we did with this card is one of the things the creative team had a lot of fun with is finding ways to kind of twist and tweak things. So the idea that in this world, Goldilocks is a bear hunter, I thought was pretty funny. The other thing, the tricky thing we had in general was we didn't have talking animals and stuff.

And so a lot of the normal part of Goldilocks, you know, we didn't want her interacting with the bears or didn't want the bears talking or stuff like that, so the idea that she sort of went out and got the bears and now here's her home with the three bears we thought was a different take that sort of let us tell the story and riff on the story without necessarily contradicting

some of the general rules we'd set up for the world. So I thought that was cool. Let me see, how are we coming up here? Um, let's just see how close we are to finishing F I think we have a bunch of F's left

oh no no I have one more F so I will do the last F and then I will pick up G next time so Frogify one and a blue enchantment aura

enchant creature enchant creature loses all abilities and is a blue frog creature with base power 1-1. So, this was another one where the frog prince, where the prince that gets turned into a frog.

So we liked a lot the idea. The reason we made an aura was because true love's kiss, the way you turn it from a frog back into a prince, is true love's kiss did that. Like, oh, we have True Love's Kiss. It destroys enchantments.

If we make this an enchantment, then this is another thing that True Love's Kiss can free you from. So, like, a lot of making all the things click together is being very conscious of it. Like, oh, we have a sleep spell. We want True Love's Kiss

to wake you from sleep spell. Oh, but True Love's Kiss is the thing that wakes you from being a frog. Okay, let's build the frog thing so it can be that. Also, by making an aura, it allows you to make something into a frog and that thing to turn back

from a frog, which is a big part of the story. So, um, once again this is not a I think it's a new, it's not a new card. We've made this card before, but I don't think it was called Frogify. We had to be a frog to fit the fairy tale. Um, I think once again, this

could be a reprint that I forgot that we originally made a card that turns you into a frog. I think this once again, this could be a reprint that I forgot that we originally made a card that turns you into a frog. I think this is a new name for an old card. I think. The other thing, by the way,

is the reason it's blue frog is I think frog's more based on blue creature type. And whenever we turn you into something, well, I guess this is a blue card. Blue, when it transforms, you can turn you

into different colors if the main thing that is that thing is a different color. But frogs can be blue, so I obviously left them blue. Frogs can be green or blue, but since it was a blue spell, Blue, when it transforms, you can turn you to different colors if the main thing that is that thing is a different color. But frogs can be blue, so obviously we left them blue. Frogs can be green or blue, but since it was a blue spell, I think it was fine to keep frogs in blue since it was a blue spell.

Anyway, that is up through F, so obviously I have more to go. Next time I'll pick up with G. Hope you guys are enjoying the walkthrough, Throne of Eldraine. It's fun to talk about, but I'm now at work, so we all know what that means. It's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.