Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #688: Subtypes

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

In this podcast, I talk about all the noncreature subtypes in Magic.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's podcast is inspired by a head-to-head. So head-to-head is the thing I do on my Twitter where every day I have a poll and I ask people to vote on two things. There are always 16 things. Over the course of three weeks we vote. We eliminate everything until there's a winner. R&D has fun guessing how people will vote. Anyway, I'm always looking for things to do on Head to Head. And so I realized one of the ones I've done, which you guys will have played in Head to Head before this comes out, is doing subtypes. So every card type has a subtype. Creature types are the subtype of creatures. I'm not going to talk about that today. And planeswalker, the names are the subtypes of planeswalkers. I'm

not going to talk about that today. So avoiding planeswalkers and creature types, which there's a lot of those, especially creatures. I'm going to talk about the subtypes of the other cards. So artifacts, equipments, lands, instants, and sorceries. I'm going to talk about that today. And so the idea here is that I'm going to go through, there's 22, I think. There's a whole bunch. I had to narrow it down for the head-to-head, by the way, down to 16. So I took the 16 that were used and or referenced the most. That's how I picked the 16 for those that care. Okay, so we start with artifacts. So first up is Clue.

So Clue is something, it's an artifact token. It was made by Investigate. There's a mechanic called Investigate in Shadows Over Innistrad. There was a mystery going on as we wanted a mechanic that represented the mystery of the world. Because Jace was solving a mystery.

And so we created an investigate. An investigate created a clue token, which is an artifact token. And it has the clue subtype, which is why it's on this list. And the clue, you can spend two mana and sacrifice to draw a card. And so the idea is, it is giving you something that you can use, but you still have to spend mana and use it. It's not something, you don't just automatically get to draw a card, but you get something that can be turned into a card.

Contraptions. So contraptions first got referenced in Future Sight. We had made a card, Steamflugger Boss, where we were having fun using words that didn't exist. And we thought that was very funny. And then Aaron outed us for just making jokes. And Aaron said, we had no intent of ever making contraptions. Because the card said, you know, when you assemble contraptions.

The card itself wasn't a contraption. All it said is, when you do something, and it affected it. But there were no contraptions. There was no assembling a contraption. All it said is when you do something and it affected it, but there were no contraptions. There was no assembling of contraptions. Um, but because Aaron said we'd never do it, that meant the audience, Oh, you must now do it. So over the years, there was a lot of, uh, pressure in the audience for us to do contraptions. Um, I attempted to do them a couple of different places. Finally in, uh, unstable, I did contraptions. They're artifacts, so it's an artifact subtype. I'm not going to go into here, but basically

you're using it as a secondary deck, a contraption deck, and when you assemble a contraption, you take a card off the top of the deck and there is an area you're making on your battlefield that is sort of a contraption and essentially it's three different sort of sections, and each each turn one of the sections happens

and all the cars in that section have effects that happen. And so you're combining and making something that sort of over time generates effects and does things. I was very happy with contraptions. It was definitely a tricky thing to solve. So I was happy with how they ended up. And anyway, those are contraptions. Equipment.

So equipment first showed up in Mirrodin, original Mirrodin. Before that, magic had done stuff like swords and things, flying carpet, and we always sort of try to find a way to imply that your creatures were using it rather than you using it. And so when Mirrodin came, Mirrodin was our

first sort of artifact block. Antiquities had existed as an artifact set, but it was our you using it. And so when Mirrodin came, Mirrodin was our first sort of artifact block. Antiquities had existed as an artifact set. But it was our first artifact block. And we decided we'd finally make equipment. And so we tried a lot of different things, but we ended up with, basically they're similar to auras, except they're

reusable. That you put it on the battlefield and you equip it to something and the creature has whatever ability it grants it. And then when the creature dies the equipment falls off and stays on the battlefield and then you could equip it again. You also could re-equip it. The creature doesn't have to die. You could spend mana

to equip it to something else. But the idea is it is sort of an artifact version of an aura. It's a little bit different. Anyway, we did Mirrodin block. It was popular, so popular, that the very next block, Champs-Élysées-Mont-Galois block, we just made it an evergreen thing.

And so I guess technically it's probably deciduous in that we don't use it every set, but it's evergreen deciduous. It's pretty close to being evergreen. Next is food. Well, hopefully you guys know food. That's from Throne of Eldraine. So food is, once again, like clues, it's on a token.

It's a food token. And it is something that you found. It's something that you can get generated. There's no... There's no... What's the word I'm looking for? There's no... Specific... Well, I'll say it in the back. Ginger Brute is a card, and it is a food. What's the word I'm looking for? There's no specific...

Well, I'll take it back. Ginger Brute is a card, and it is a food. So there are cards that are foods, unlike clues. There are cards that are food. Most of the food is on artifact tokens. Next is Fortifications. So Fortifications was from Future Sight. In fact, there's only one card.

Darksteel Garrison. So the idea of a fortification is if equipment is an enchant creature, a fortification is an enchant land. So basically it's equipment that you put onto a land. People keep asking us about fortifications. Here's the real problem with fortifications is A, there's just not that many effects we do as Enchant Lands.

It's not like we have all this excess of abilities we want to put on lands. And the second thing is that, I don't know, I mean, it's just very limited in its scope. I mean, maybe we'll find a world in which they make sense, but we really haven't got to a place where we're like, oh, we really need this, and we want to equip our lands. Anyway, so, maybe

one day we'll find it. We haven't really found the world yet that made sense to have it. And like I said, the biggest problem is just the design space. There's not a lot we want to do there. Next is treasure. So, treasure first showed up I think in Ixalan. I know Ixalan had treasure.

For a while, we had gold counters that worked similar to treasure. Gold, though, was just the name of a token where treasure and clues and food, we made artifact tokens that are that and then have a subtype. So a gold token, for example, I don't think is an artifact. So it didn't need a subtype, if I remember correctly. But treasures is you make an artifact token that is a treasure token. And then we have things that reference treasure. I think the other thing about the difference between being a subtype

and having a name is a subtype can be referenced. One of the rules we have in R&D is we do not make subtypes of non-creatures, non-creatures, non-planeswalkers, unless there's some mechanical reason for having that. So, for example, when we do something, if we want

to have the subtype, we have to make sure mechanically it matters in some way. Some card has to care that that's the subtype in order for us to use the subtype. That is our rules on how we do subtypes. And the final artifact subtype is vehicle. So this was from Kaladesh. We'd wanted to do vehicles for a long time. We never quite found the right design.

When we got to Kaladesh, it felt like, oh, this is a very advanced technological world, the most we had done. And like, if ever there were going to be vehicles, this felt like the place to do it. So we ended up making them in Kaladesh. They are artifacts that, by crewing them, a.k.a. tapping some amount of power of creatures, there'll be a number crew N. N means you have to tap up to that many power of creatures. there'll be a number crew N. N means you have to tap up to that many power creatures. And then when it's crewed,

it goes from being a non-creature artifact to being a creature artifact. Essentially, it becomes a creature. And then it has the ability to attack or block, respectively. And then if you crew it to the end of the turn, it becomes a creature. Vehicles, once again, once we use them, became deciduous. We don't use them every set,

but it's a tool that any set can have access to. So we do do vehicles. For example, right now I'm talking Thorn Eldraine's out, and Thorn Eldraine has the Enchanted Carriage, for example. So we do use vehicles where we think they make sense. Okay, those are the artifact subtypes. Now we get to the enchantment subtypes. Aura. So Aura showed up in Alpha, but the artifact subtypes. Now we get to the enchantment subtypes. Aura. So Aura showed up in Alpha, but the subtype did not.

The subtype didn't show up until 9th edition. So when Richard first made the game, he had in it enchant creatures. Well, not just enchant creatures. There were enchant creatures, there were enchant artifacts, there was enchant enchantment, there was enchant land. He enchanted every permanent type that existed at the time he had made enchantments in Alpha. And the idea of enchantments,

there were global enchantments that just sort of sat there, and there were local enchantments, meaning it enchanted something. Eventually, we decided in Alpha, the card type didn't even say enchantment. It said enchant whatever was enchanting. So if it was a creature enchantment, instead of saying enchantment, it would say enchantment. It said enchant whatever it was enchanting. So if it was a creature enchantment, instead of saying enchantment, it would say enchant creature. We thought it was kind of

confusing, and so we changed it up, I guess, in 9th edition. So instead of saying enchant creature, it said enchantment. And then we gave it a subtype, which is now aura, and then on the card itself, it'll say what it enchants.

So it'll say enchantment. Instead of saying on the type line, now it says it in the rules text. So it'll say enchantment aura. So anyway, an aura is any one of these local enchantments that can be put on something. You have to target it when you cast it. And then it is on that thing. And if that thing dies, it also goes to the graveyard. So if I have an enchant creature spell that's enchanted to a creature,

when the creature dies, the enchantment along with the creature will go to the graveyard, unlike equipment, for example, that would fall off. Okay, next, cartouche. So this was in Amonkhet, our Egyptian-inspired world. So we had these five enchantments. So they were also auras. And what happened was that they represented the five trials. And the idea was there were five other cards that when you did them, fetched you the cartouches. That's why they had to have a subtype, because these other five cards would get them back. And so basically

each trial had a combination of one card. The idea was when you passed the trial, you were given the cartouche. The cartouche represented the thing you got that represented you past the trial. So the cartouche was an aura, and then there were the cards representing the trials that when you cast them would get you the cartouche. So the idea was you could play the cartouche, and then you could get it back with the cards representing the trials. Next, Curse.

So this first showed up in Innistrad. So I'd messed around in some of the unsets with having enchant player, where you take something, instead of chanting a thing in the game, you enchant the player itself. And other than the unsets, I don't think we had done that up to that

point. And the idea of Innistrad was it was a gothic horror set. We really liked the idea that you were capturing the essence of it. And so one of the ideas that we really liked the idea that you were um capturing the essence of it and so one of the ideas that came up is the idea of being cursed that's a very uh horror thing to be cursed and so i liked the idea that it was an enchant player um using technology that the unsets had paved uh and the idea was it's a curse i put it on a player. The player is cursed. And there's a lot of talk at the time whether or not it was supposed to be a subtype.

I really wanted it to be a subtype. But the idea was, well, they all could say curse in their name and we don't really need a subtype. So I made one card which went and got you a curse out of the deck. I think it was a witch. Was that the first one? There definitely was a witch, was that the first one? There definitely was a witch that I think we did one in Innistrad and we did one, we did a different one in Shadows. Anyway, we made a card specifically that got you a curse out of your deck.

And so in order to get a curse, we had to put a curse on the, so sometimes we do that, where I really wanted to have the subtype. So I made a card saying, well, in order for this card to work, they have to have the subtype. So that is something that we do that where I really wanted to have the subtype. So I made a card saying, well, in order for this card to work, they have to have the subtype. So that is something that we do. I just really like the idea of curts being a subtype. And I thought it was cool that I could imagine us caring about curses. We have a card where there's a witch.

When it dies, it curses you. Stuff like that that's super flavorful. So I like curses. Okay, next. Saga. Saga. So Saga is from Dominaria. They are stories.

They represent stories. They're enchantments. And the way a saga works is when you play a saga, there are chapters, and you have a counter to mark it. And as you go through chapters, each turn, well, I guess when you play it, chapter one goes off.

And then at the beginning of each turn, chapter two, then chapter three, each chapter goes off. And the idea is it's a sequence of events that are happening and it's trying to tell a story. So sagas were inspired by the original version of Planeswalkers. Before we got the final version of Planeswalkers,

we had a version where the Planeswalkers, for three turns, something would happen each turn. And so in turn one, it would do turn one, then turn two, then turn three. Then on turn four, it would go back to turn one. The idea was it just had this little plan. And the idea originally was it had a little story that it would do, and it was kind back to turn one. The idea was it just had this little plan. And the idea originally was it had a little story

that it would do, and it was kind of working towards something. The problem was when you broke up that, sometimes it would just be dumb. So the classic example is the original Garruk. You made a wolf. You doubled the number of wolf tokens, and then all the wolves got plus two, plus two, or something like that, plus three, plus three.

But the problem was, if I made a wolf token, and then my opponent blew it up on the next turn I doubled my wolf tokens well that doesn't do anything there's no wolf tokens and in my third turn all the wolves got

plus two plus two or plus three plus three whatever the effect was but there were no wolf tokens so that didn't do anything so it's kind of like if they dealt with it on the first turn

Garak would spend two turns doing nothing essentially and that made him feel dumb like come on Garak don't you realize there's no wolves around and so we changed it over to the system by which oh you the player and that made him feel dumb. Like, come on, Garak, don't you realize there's no wolves around? And so we changed it over to the system by which,

oh, you, the player, had some impetus in that, oh, well, you can choose what you want to do. There was an ultimate, usually that was more loyalty than you had, so if you wanted to get to the ultimate, you had to build up to the ultimate, so there was some sequential stuff we built into it, but it made the Planeswalker feel a little bit smarter. When we were trying to make sagas, the goal made the planeswalker feel a little bit smarter. When we were trying to make sagas, the goal at the time was we're going back to Dominaria. Dominaria was a world obsessed with its past. We really wanted stories to play a role in it.

And so the idea of sagas at the time was, how do we bring stories to life? How do we make something feel like a story? And what we realized is what was negative about the original Planeswalkers was actually positive, given the right context. The problem with the Planeswalkers is it made the Planeswalker feel stupid. Because why is he... You know, if something happened in turn one, why would you advance to turn two? But when it's a story,

it's like, well, that's the story. The story is this, then this, then this. Well, maybe your opponent dealt with it, but I mean, that's the story. Like, the story doesn't feel dumb. Like, the story is the story. That's what happened. And so the sequential thing just felt kind of cool. And we worked really hard to figure out how to make frames for it.

James did a great job making the frame. We came up with the idea of the vertical art. But anyway, so sagas are an enchantment subtype. Next, shrine. So the shrines was a cycle of cards from Champions of Kamigawa. And the idea was the shrine would do something every turn based on the number of shrines that were on the battlefield. And they were legendary.

So you could only have one of each color out. There was a legendary theme in Champions of Kamigawa. And so the shrines represented... I mean, it was inspired by Japanese mythology. So the shrines were very Japanese. And the idea was... We were trying to figure out how to make legend... Why would you want a legendary enchantment?

What's the value of a legendary enchantment? And so we liked the idea that because it had a subtype and you cared about it and they were spread across the five colors, oh, here's the challenge. How do I make a shrine deck? I can't play the same shrine more than once, so I need to figure out how to get multiple shrines in play.

And the way the shrines worked is their effect was a scalable effect based on the number of shrines. So if you got all five shrines up, they were really... You had five really powerful effects. They were costed, I think, to somewhere between one and two. Like, one, okay, you're overpaying a little bit. Once you got the second one out, okay, not a bad deal. Third, fourth, fifth were all, you just went from good to great.

And if you got all five out, it was gangbusters. Like, you were probably winning that game. The amount of things that were happening was pretty powerful. Okay. That is the enchantment subtypes. Now we get into lands. Okay, so the lands... I realized before when I said 22,

I did not cut the basic land types. So 27, you've cut the basic land types. So first off, you have the basic land types, which is, for those... somehow don't know this, plains, island, swamp, mountain, forest. It goes back to the very beginning of Magic. In fact, of all the subtypes, this might be the subtype that goes...

Well, I guess creature types existed, although the way they were written in alpha is it said summon something. But those were the... So, creature types existed, although the way they were written in alpha is it said summon something. But those were the... So creature types and basic land types, I guess, are the types that go all the way back to the very beginning. So each basic land... There's five basic land types. There's cards that care about them.

The basic land types do have some rules text built into them, meaning that a mountain will tap for red, for example, stuff like that. Obviously, the basic land types get used all the time. We always have the basic lands in every set. And sometimes we put basic land types on non-basic lands. So the basic land types can show up on non-basic lands, meaning, for example, the dual lands, the shock lands from Ravnica Bloks.

They have both basic land types. So if it taps for white and blue, it's both a plains and an island. And so if you have to go fetch a plains, for example, you can fetch that because it's a plains and an island. Having basic land types on non-basic lands is actually quite powerful. Okay, next. Let's get to the non-basic

land types. Okay, desert. So desert is another early one. It showed up in Arabian Nights, which is the very first expansion. So Richard... There was a common land in the set, which was a desert. And the desert could do damage to attacking creature.

All attacking creature was A. I think A attacking creature. And then there were some cards in the set that cared about desert. There was a camel that wasn't affected by the desert. And there were desert nomads. So, there wasn't a lot of tribal, a lot of caring, but just enough. I don't know if the rule existed early on that subtypes had to have mechanical baggage, but this one did, so it was okay.

When we came back in Amonkhet, we had more deserts, and then mostly in our devastation, we had a big desert matters theme. In our devastation, there is a major disaster, which involves the desert kind of coming in on the city.

The city of the story is surrounded by this barrier, and when the horrible event happens, the barrier goes down, and that means what's holding off the desert stops holding off the desert, and then the horrors of the desert, including the sand, start pouring in, and so we had

desert matters there. Next, gates! So gates are from Return to Ravnica block and they show up again in Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiances. We wanted to make a common dual end cycle but we wanted something

we know we wanted the shock lands in it. And the shock lands are dual ends that enter the battlefield tapped. And so we felt that if we had commons that just enter the battlefield tapped, they would feel like they're strictly worse than the rare lands. And so we wanted them to be different

some way. And then the creator team came up with the idea that what if each of the guilds has an area that's there that has their own gate? And so we ended up making the gates. And the idea of the gates was not all... So they're basic lands that come into Battlefield Tapped,

meant for limited and casual gameplay. And when... Because they have a gate subtype, we made a number of cards that cared about how many gates you have.

So in both Return of Ravnica Block and in Guilds of Ravnica Ravnica Allegiance, there are a number of cards that care. And so one of the things you have to make decisions on is how many gates you want. I mean, gates in Limited especially, you have to draft them, and so you have to care about them as far as for your mana.

But also, the more gate matter stuff you have, the more gates you might want. And so, anyway, make some interesting decisions. So that is gates. Okay, next is Lair. So Lair showed up as a cycle of non-basic lands in Plane Shift. There are five legendary dragons that showed up in Invasion. And these five lands are the lairs of the five dragons. I'm not sure why we gave them subtypes.

This might predate our rule but subtypes mattering. I don't know if there's any cards that care about the lairs. Or maybe the rules text, if I remember. It's possible that the rules text references itself and needs a lair. Anyway.

Their lands attack for three different colors of mana and they're tied to the three colored dragons in Invasion. Next, Locust. So Locust first shows up in Mirrodin on a card called Cloud Post. So a Cloud Post taps for mana equal to the number of Locusts you have.

So I think the way it worked originally was we made a card. So I had made, in Odyssey, I'd made a card called, what was it called? It was called Kindle. The idea was they were spells that got better the more of them you had.

It was me riffing off Richard Dune Plague Rats in Alpha, where he had creatures that got better the more of the copy you have. And so I really liked, I liked how Plague Rats worked, I liked how Kindle worked, and so I was sort of expanding some more. And I said, okay, how do we do this with land?

And I said, oh, here's a cool idea. What if a land that tapped for more mana, the more of them you had? Richard Garfield had messed with this space a little bit, which I'll get to in a second, on the Urzatron. I'll get to the Urzatron next. Anyway, I think the original card said, like, tap for the number of cards named this. And then somebody came up with the idea that if we gave it a subtype,

it could care about that subtype. And the idea is maybe one day we'd print another card with that subtype. That was the idea. So it allowed it to work in a way that was a little cleaner to reference and less of a little bit open-ended. Now, we would follow up on that. In Scars of Mirrodin, so we went back to Mirrodin, we made Glimmer Void.

Now, it turns out that Cloud Post is actually quite powerful. So, it has shown up in many tournament decks and stuff. Surprise, surprise, the ability to produce a bunch of mana is good. Which brings us to our next thing. So, our next, there's, these are four subtypes.

But, it's three cards, essentially,, there's, these are four subtypes. But it's three cards, essentially, although there's a fourth card that uses it, are responsible for these four subtypes. So the subtypes are Urza's, mine, power plant, which I think is hyphenated, and tower. So in Antiquities, so Antiquities was made by the East Coast Platehafters, Scafalias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, Chris Page. This is funny. For some reason, on the early sets, I like to name who did them.

Lots of talented people did all the other sets I talked about today. Anyway, they made a set. There's a first set with a really, well, the Raven Knights had a top-down theme. Antiquities had a mechanical theme, which was artifacts. And so they really wanted the lands to enable playing artifacts. So they ended up... And the story revolves around the Brothers' War. And so Urza fighting Mishra.

So they made a cycle of three lands. There was Urza's factory. Not Urza's factory. Urza's mine, Urza's power plant, and Urza's tower. And it represented the aspects of Urza's stuff. And it represented the aspects of Urza's, I don't know, stuff. And the idea was that each one of them would tap for a colorless mana, but if you got all three together,

the mine and power plant would tap for two mana, and the tower would tap for three mana. So the idea is together they would be seven mana. Not quite sure why they wanted to make seven mana. But anyway, they did. And then, so they didn't originally have any subtypes. They just had names. And later on, when they were trying to make the cards mechanically work, they realized, because they needed to mechanically reference one another,

they ended up giving them subtypes. So Urza's Mind had a subtype of Urza's Mind, technically being two different subtypes. Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower is Urza's Tower. We would later make a card in Time Spiral called Urza's Factory, which its activation cost, it taps for colorless, but its activation cost is seven

to make an Assembly Worker, which is, oh, did it make Assembly Worker? It made, it made something. It made a token. Maybe not, because Assembly Worker is Mishra's,

Mishra made the Assembly Worker. Anyway, it made a token, and so the idea was if you had the Urza Trine going, you could tap that to be able to cast a token, was the idea. Anyway, that also had Urzas on it. Just Urzas. That's the only card that's just

Urzas. So anyway, that is Urza's Mine, Power Plant, and Tower. Okay, now we get to the final ones, the instant and sorcery subtypes. Okay, so first up is Adventure. So Adventure is from Eldraine, Thorn of Eldraine.

Adventure came about because they were trying to find something that was more board-centric. Like, one of the problems with a lot of the themes that we had made in Vision is that they really affected how you built your deck, but they didn't affect play all that much. A good example is Adamant. Oh, well, Adamant,

like, if you can cast them for Adamant, you will, and you might build your deck to increase your chance of doing that, so it does affect how you build your deck, but, look, in-game, do I have the mana? Probably I'm casting it. If I can't, you know, if I have the colored mana I need, I'm probably going to use it.

They really wanted something that made you make decisions in play. And they tried a whole bunch of different things. And the thing they ended up on they liked the most was adventure. The idea of adventure was it's a permanent where you had a spell baked into it. When I say a permanent, it was a creature. In Throne of Valor, the mechanic can support non-creatures, I believe,

but all the cards in this set, because there was a creature that was going on adventure. And the way the cards work is you cast the adventure, which is instant or sorcery, and then that goes on the stack, so that instant sorcery goes on the stack, and the instant or sorcery, and then that goes on the stack, so that instant sorcery goes on the stack, and the card gets exiled, and then you may now play the creature

from exile. So the idea is you can play the creature if you want, or you can play the spell. If you play the spell, you exile, but then you still have access to the creature. So you have a choice between just playing the creature or playing the spell first, then playing the creature. And that is... Oh, and the thing they found out they really liked it for the set was because you had two beats, it let you tell stories.

And Eldraine, the source material of Eldraine is all about telling stories. So it allowed us to make a lot of fun cards that tapped into both the fairy tale and the Arthurian stuff that the set's all about. I'll note, just a little mechanical thing, the way adventures work, the card in any zone other than on the stack when you've cast the adventure is the creature. So if I'm searching my deck

I have to find a creature. I can't find instant or sorcery. I do think that you are allowed you can, any place that you could cast, I think whenever it says you get a cast stuff, you can cast it as instant or sorcery through anything that lets you cast it. So if there's something that lets you cast it out of the graveyard, I believe you are allowed to cast instant or sorcery.

Anyway, I'm excited. I think adventures are pretty cool and they're pretty open-ended, meaning from a design space, there's a bunch of different things you can do with them. So perhaps we'll see adventure again. The reason that they have a subtype is a mechanical one that needs to reference it, because, well, A, there are cards that care whether or not you have a card that has an adventure. In fact, there's cards that say, like, if you cast a card with an adventure, all that means is not that you cast the adventure necessarily,

but that you cast a card that has an adventure. So even if you cast the creature but not the spell, you still get rewarded for things that have an adventure because the creature essentially has the spell that has adventure. Okay, next, Arcane. So Arcane was an instance of sorceries. It was from Champions of Kamigawa. So in Champions,

I made a mechanic called Splice. And so the way Splice worked is if Splice is in your hand, you can spend a certain amount of mana is if splice is in your hand, you can spend a certain amount of mana and then essentially splice it onto a spell, and then that spell has its normal text plus the additional text of this card. And the idea is you can just cast the card

or you can pay this mana to splice it onto another spell effect that you're casting. For balance purposes, instead of letting you splice onto anything, I mean, well, we made a subtype which was Arcane, and there were a whole bunch of Arcane spells in the set. In fact, it's interesting, when I, for the head-to-head, I had to figure out, I looked up for all the cards, how many cards had the subtype, and then how many cards mechanically cared about the subtype, and I got many cards mechanically cared about the subtype.

And I got that number for each thing. And then I put them in order to figure out the seeding from head to head. And number one was Aura. Number two was Equipment. Those are both pretty evergreen-ish things that we use all the time. And number three was Arcane, which is impressive in the fact that Arcane has only showed up in Champions of Kamigawa block, right? So the fact that it's number three just meant how many there were in Champions of Kamigawa block. Mostly the way it worked is a large majority of the instants and sorcerers in Champions of Kamigawa block were Arcane.

In retrospect, if I had Mechanic Duel over again, I might have just spliced on instant and sorcery, or maybe instant or sorcery. In Modern Horizons, we messed around with the card that spliced on instant or sorcery. So, anyway. Oh, the other thing is, will we ever see Arcane in the spell subtype?

Maybe. We almost, almost in Innishrod, for a while, we had something that needed a subtype. Maybe. We almost, almost in Innistrad, for a while we had something that needed a subtype and we were planning to use arcane saying, well there's no reason we can't make new arcane spells and that way this new mechanic

would work with the current arcane but plus the old arcane spells. So I do believe if we find a place where arcane makes sense, we're aware that we have, like, there's this spell subtype that exists. And so on a couple occasions we've talked about using it. We've even put it on cards and tested it. If I was a gambling man, I would say someday Arcane will come back.

But I don't think Arcane will come back as this place in Arcane. But I do think it's a subtype. If we find a need for a subtype that we need mechanically care about, and Arcane, the word, makes sense in the world, it made sense in Innistrad, for example, we would consider that. Okay, my final one today. I've been knocking through today. I'm doing good.

I was a little worried I might not get through them all, so I'm happy that I did. Okay, my final one is Trap. So Trap, technically speaking, is only on Instants. Only Instants have the subtype Trap. So Trap is from original Zendikar. So in Zendikar, we had Traps, Maps, and Chaps was the way we talked about it. So we had Chaps was the allies. It was a creature subtype we cared about. Then Maps ended up being Quest. We talked about Quest having a subtype, by the way.

But there wasn't a card that mechanically cared about it. That's one of those things, in retrospect, I kind of wish I had made one and just threw Quest on there. Only because I like Quest as a subtype but anyway we did by the way in Eldraine look at quest as being a mechanic and it was going to be an enchantment subtype so anyway

quest once again so quest first showed up in Zendikar as a subtype and then showed up in I'm sorry, get off the track. But, okay, back to Traps. So Traps became allies, Maps became Quest, although Quest was in the name,

but we didn't make a subtype. And Traps, got to say Traps. So the idea was we were messing in an adventure world space. One of the big things, adventure world, is the idea of traps that the adventurers have to deal with. For a while, interestingly, the way the traps worked is you had a card that you played face down in exile, so your opponent knew that you had set a trap,

but they didn't know what trap that you had set. And so the idea was that your opponent could try to play around it by, if they saw what color mana you had, they go, okay, well, he's got red and green mana. What are all the red and green traps? Oh, I better play around the red and green traps. I did find that version fun, by the way, and maybe one day we'll do something like it. Anyway, but we found that there's a simpler way to do that.

And so the way we ended up with is how traps work is that they're instants that have a cost that you can just cast like normal. But if a certain condition is met, then there's a trap cost, which is cheaper. Some of the traps are actually free, but some of them are just, they still cost mana, but they're inexpensive, or cheaper than they normally are. And then, I guess we have a few cards that reference them, because the fact that it's a subtype means that that is what happened. We did not

bring traps back to Battle for Zendikar. We talked about it. One of the things in general when you do a world is we put a lot of different things in the world and so we come back to the world, we have to pick and choose what we want and Zendikar had a lot of real fun stuff in it and when you make a world you want to also do new stuff

and so you can't do all the old stuff because you need space for the new stuff and so Traps fell out. I do think Traps are the kind of thing that someday we'll do again, whether they're on Zendikar or whether they're on somewhere else that traps make sense. I did like the gameplay of traps

and I think they were flavorful and they were fun. But anyway, it is something that... Oh, since... Okay, so now I'm almost to work. Let's talk about the chance of these coming back. Uh, okay, Clue, I think there's a high percent chance Clues come back. Clues are very popular. Contraptions, uh, contraptions, I think, require a silver border. I mean, the contraptions themselves

have no border, but, uh, I don't think contraptions are going to make their way to black border anytime soon. Um, if they ever did, by the way, the contraptions themselves don't have a border on them that could be accessed. We did do that on purpose. But I'm skeptical, at least in Black Border, contraptions coming back. And we use Silver Border pretty infrequently, that if I get a chance to do another Silver Border unset, I'd probably do different mechanics just because I don't get a chance to do new stuff all that, you know, new unsets all that often. Equipment. Equipment is, I don't know whether you call it evergreen or whether you call it deciduous. It's pretty close to being evergreen.

I mean, every once in a while we do set without equipment, but not that many. Food. I do think we'll see food come back. I think food, I mean, we've got to see how it plays out. I know one of the complaints I got about food in Throne of Eldraine is it does make limited play out a little bit longer. Um, on some level that's good, but, um, anyway. The one thing to check on is how food plays in the overall gameplay of things. Uh, I don't really know. Uh, the set, as I'm recording this, the pre-release has happened,

but the set isn't out yet. So, like, I have no idea really how it's going to play and construct it. Maybe food would annoy the hell out of people. I don't know. Food is super flavorful, and it is generally useful. So I have a high percent chance food will come back. Fortification.

I'm not super optimistic on fortification. Like I said, we just don't make that many auras, like enchant lands. Like, we were doing a lot of enchant lands. Like, oh, one day we'll collect them all and just make fortifications. But we really don't, like, we do so few enchant lands these days. The idea of making a whole thing. Oh, and the other thing, the reason that equipment makes a lot more sense,

the reusability of it is because when you're talking about creatures, creatures die. And so the idea that it falls off and you can reuse it matters more than on a land where lands don't get destroyed all that often. So if I put it on land, you know, there's a lot more reasons to move around an equipment on a creature. Plus it can die. Lands don't tend to die all that often. And there's not tons of reason to move around, so. Okay, next. Treasure. Yes, I do believe we'll see treasure again. Treasure is pretty, it's flavorful, it's very universal, and it's the kind of set that a lot of sets would make sense in and could make use of it. Vehicles. Vehicles are deciduous, so we do them, not every set, but we do them quite often. Ores are evergreen. We do them, not every set, but we do them quite often. Or as our evergreen, we do them all the time.

Cartouches. Cartouches are very tied to Amonkhet. And they're very tied to the rewards of the trials. And we blew up the city where the trials took place. So if somewhere we find a place where cartouches made sense, but I'm dubious about that just because it's very narrow. Curses. Curses I would call deciduous. We have done curses in many different places now.

A set actually could have one curse, so we've really established what curses are and I think curses can stand on their own so I consider them deciduous. Shrines. I mean, maybe, maybe. I mean, we would need the right place and the right flavor. I mean, maybe, maybe I mean, we need the right place and the right flavor

I mean, shrines are one of those things that I mechanically like them, they're interesting, but it requires a set that both flavorfully can handle them and mechanically can handle them but I like how they play, so I'll say a hopeful maybe, maybe with a little smiley face like I do on my blog. Next, basic land types. Yeah, I think we'll do those again. We do those all the time.

Desert. Yes, desert needs the right world, but I believe there are worlds beyond Rabaya and Amonkhet that would have them. I mean, deserts, many... Yeah, I think we could see desert again. Gate? I think gates are very tied to Ravnica.

Luckily, Ravnica is a world that we revisit with some frequency. I combined the word regularity with frequency. Some regularity slash frequency. And so I don't think we'll see gates. I don't think we'll see gates outside of Ravnica. I mean, I guess if there's a world where somehow it made sense. I mean, the word gate is pretty generally useful.

But yeah, you will definitely see them. I think we'll be back in Ravnica and we'll see them in Ravnica. Lairs. I'm dubious about us seeing lair. I mean, maybe if there's some place where there are new creatures and they have Lairs and it makes sense? I mean, sometimes things will come back because there's just a flavor win that we go, oh, good enough, that's a flavor win.

Okay, let's do it. But we would need the flavor win to see Lairs back. I'm a little skeptical we'll see Lairs without the flavor win. Locusts? I don't know. That card, Cloudbusting Clippers are so powerful. I'm not sure we can make. Locust. I don't know. That card. Cloud Posting Clippers is so powerful. I'm not sure we can make another Locust. I mean,

if we can, if it's not too powerful, I assume one day we'll make another Locust. If we don't make it, it's for play design concerns. Urza's Mine, Power Plant, Tower. That is super narrow. I mean, if we somehow have something that is a... I mean, this we somehow have something that is a...

I mean, this is one of the ones that I'm skeptical without some laser-focused thing, which I can't even come up with right now, but so skeptical. Although we made the one in Time Spiral. I don't know. If we do another Time Spiral type set, maybe. Adventure.

I do think we'll see more Adventure. I think Adventure plays really well. It has a lot of design space, and we named it to be pretty open-ended, so many worlds could have adventures beyond just Eldraine. Arcane. Like I said before, we keep it in mind. If we ever need a spell subtype and the word Arcane makes sense in the world, I think we might use it.

So I think Arcane might come back one day. And Trap. I hope Trap comes back. I like mechanically how Traps work works so I am optimistic one day maybe we'll see Traps again so anyway I hope you guys enjoyed my subtype podcast but I am now at work

so we all know what that means this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic see you guys next time