Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #691: Throne of Eldraine Cards, Part 3

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

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

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so we've been doing a Throne of Eldraine card by card series, where I'm talking about the design of different Throne of Eldraine cards. And we are up to G. So we're going to talk about Gadwick the Wisened. So Gadwick the Wisened costs X, blue, blue, blue. So three mana of which is blue, the rest is X. It's a 3-3 legendary creature, human wizard.

When Gadwick the Wizen enters the battlefield, draw X cards. Whenever you cast a blue spell, tap target non-land permanent in opponent controls. Okay, so this is part of the court leader cycle. So obviously, we were doing Arthurian legend.

You had to do Merlin. That's definitely one of the probably best known things of Arthurian. And we liked the idea that one of the courts, and the blue court made the most sense, was led by Merlin. I mean, our version of Merlin. But was led by a wizard.

So I think the other four all are nobles, where we just put human wizard. So I think the other four all are nobles, where we didn't we just put human wizard. Because he's not a king or a queen. He's not royalty. I mean, he does lead the blue court, but he leads the blue court because he's the most awesome wizard. But anyway,

we had talked, there was a lot of interesting conversations about what to do with Merlin. I think at one point, there was a planeswalker interesting conversations about what to do with Merlin. I think at one point, there was a planeswalker that was kind of filling in for Merlin, and we did a bunch of different things. But in the end, we decided

just to make him the leader of the blue court that allowed him to make a legendary creature, and mono-blue made a lot of sense for a Merlin-type character. Once again, because he's part of this cycle, he has triple blue in his mana cost. I think last time I said that they're not... I think I implied with the white one

that they're all triple mana, and that's all they are. They're at least triple mana. They can have other... Torvald and others have other mana other than just the triple, but they all have at least triple mana in it. And they all reward you for playing creatures of

their color. This one, for example, lets you tap things when you play blue. So, anyway, that is Gazwik the Wisened. Okay, so next is Garrison Griffin.

So two and a white for a 2-2 Griffin. It's a creature. It's got flying. Whenever Garrison Griffin. So two and a white for a 2-2 Griffin. It's a creature. It's got flying. Whenever Garrison Griffin attacks, target knight you control gains flying until end of turn. So one of the things when you're doing a tribal component is trying to find places where you can make tribal work. And so this is a good example of,

here's a card that we do from time to time. Normally we'll make like a pegasus or something. And the idea is that when it attacks, one creature gains flying, so it'll carry the person. We sort of concentrated this, because we concentrated just knights, it makes it, you know, we can get a little more power out of it because it's a little narrower, but then it becomes a focused knight card. And the idea is, I guess, some of the knights ride griffins. And if you ride a griffin, then you can fly.

So anyway, I thought that was... It's interesting, if you look at the set, that the tribal component, the knight tribal for example, is there. You definitely can build a knight deck, and we put it, like I said, in white, red, and black. But it is something, while it's there and something you can play, and you definitely can make a deck out of it, and you we put it, like I said, in white, red, and black. But it is something, while it's there

and something you can play and you definitely can make a deck out of it and you can draft it, it's there if you want it. It's not kind of forcing your hand. It really is designed to be something that you can opt into if you want to, but doesn't really require you, you know, it's something that you can do if you want, but it's sort of a choice that you play. Okay, next, Garruk, Cursed Huntsman. Four black, green, so six mana total, one of which is black, one of which is green. He's a loyal, I'm sorry, he's a legendary planeswalker,

a Garruk, obviously. Loyalty, five, and he has three abilities. Zero, create a 2-2 black and green wolf creature token with, when this creature dies, put a loyalty counter on each Garruk you control. Note it says each Garruk, so if you have multiple different Garruks out, he would put it on all the Garruks. Minus three, destroy target creature, draw a card. Minus six, you get an emblem. Creatures you control get plus two, plus three, and have trample. So the interesting thing about Garruk has been, when we first made Garruk, Garruk was a mono green card and the shtick was he interacted with animals, especially bigger

animals. And so he would make animals and he gained black. And so black allowed us to give extra abilities to him that he did not have before. You know, because now that he's a black-green thing. So, like, for example, killing a creature is something that black-green Garruk makes sense in, but mono-green Garruk wouldn't make sense. And so this thing sort of has a nice flavor in that it's getting wolves,

it's pumping the wolves, it can kill things. But then also that the wolves themselves give you another way to, like, there's no positive, there's no plus-ability on Garruk. If you want to make Garruk go up in loyalty, you need to make wolves and have the wolves die. Notice you get two wolves. So you get to make two 2-2 wolves. That's pretty potent. Every turn you get two 2-2 wolves.

And that their death actually does something that can be rewarded. So it allows you to sort of play black-green. Anyway, this is our last chance to do black-green Garruk because, spoilers real quickly, at the end of the story, he gets healed. He gets uncursed. So he goes back to being Mono Green Garruk.

So if people are like, Mono Green Garruk, he's back. But this was our last chance to make a Black Green Garruk, and so I kind of like what they were playing with to do something that was really playing into the Black Green. Also, oh, the other thing we were playing into, by the way, is the reason that Garruk's in the set is when we were doing fairy tales, he's the perfect huntsman. And that is just a trope from fairy tales.

I mean, he even has an axe. So it just made a lot of sense for Garruk to fill that role. And since we wanted him to fill the huntsman role, because people were asking, why didn't we make Mono Green? Why don't we show him after he was healed as well? We wanted to really get the huntsman. And the huntsman's a little dark. You know, there's definitely a little bit of darkness to the huntsman archetype. So we thought a black-green huntsman made a little bit more sense.

Also, since it's a huntsman, you could kill things. And we needed black in him to have an ability that lets him kill. So that felt a little more huntsman-y. Okay, next. Giant Killer. It costs one single white mana. It's a human peasant creature, one, two. And it has an adventure.

You can chop down. For two and a white, instant adventure. Destroy target creature with power four or greater. So one of the things that we get to do with adventure cards is take effects that we normally put in and we could staple them onto creatures. So for example, killing large creatures. That's something white normally gets to do. But when you're trying to make an adventure card, we're trying to sort of make something larger.

And so the idea is we want to do Jack of Jack and the Beanstalk fame. Well, what is Jack known for? Killing the giant. So the idea that we thought was kind of fun is what if we make something, Jack is sort of, in an archetypal standpoint, a tricky one that sort of, you know, he's good at sort of tricking you. So we like the idea of making him the tapper and then connecting him with

something that kills larger creatures. So that way, it both gives you the sense of jack and gives you a sense of giant killing, and then you combine them into one, which definitely was sort of cool. Okay, next, giant opportunity. So two and a green, so three mana total,

one which is green, sorcery. You may sacrifice two foods. If you do, create a 7-7 green giant creature token. Otherwise, create three food tokens. Okay, so the idea here is that one of the things we said is that green and black were the food colors. So the idea is for two and a green, if I already have food tokens, I can trade two of them in to make a 7-7 giant. Because the idea is that the...

I'm not sure if the food represents the beanstalk. I'm not sure. But anyway, you have the opportunity to get the giant. But if you either don't have it or just want more food, you can essentially have three food. So what the card is, is two and a green, get three food, but it allows you to trade in previous gotten food for a giant instead. And so I like, once again, black and green giving you utility with your food that does something other than just be food. Okay, Gilded Goose costs a single green mana for a 0-2 bird.

It has flying. When Gilded Goose enters the battlefield, create a food token. And it has one green tap, create a food token. Tap, sacrifice a food, add one mana of any color. So once again, this is what I was explaining before. Green and black have the archetype of food mattering. So it has the cards which lets you do different stuff with food. In this case, it allows you to get mana out of food.

So the golden goose is from Jack and the Beanstalk. There also was a separate story, by the way, called the golden goose. One of the things you find in fairy tales a lot of time is there's a story about the goose that lays the golden eggs. And then it got warped, it got swallowed into the Jack and the Beanstalk story. So most people now think of the golden goose from the Jack and the Beanstalk story, but it actually does have its own story,

its own fairy tale. Anyway, so this card lets you make eggs, and the idea is the eggs are food, because they're eggs, or you can get golden eggs in which you get the equivalent of money in magic, which is mana. So you can get money or mana out of it. I'm sorry, you can get life or mana out of it.

The original version of this card created gold tokens. This is before food existed as a thing. Created gold tokens. This is before food existed as a thing. The original version you got to make gold tokens and then gold tokens you could spend for man of any color. So, but when we ended up making food tokens we put the few gold tokens we had in the set we took out. Spinning Wheel originally made gold tokens and and Gilded Goose made gold tokens. Okay. Spinning Wheel originally made gold tokens, and Gilded Goose made gold tokens. Okay. Okay, next.

Gingerbread Cabin. So this is a land. It's a forest. So it taps to add green. Gingerbread Cabin enters the battlefield tapped unless you control three or more other forests. When gingerbread cabin enters the battlefield untapped

create a food token. Okay, so we did this common cycle Dwarven Mine I talked about earlier within the cycle. So it's a common land cycle they come in tapped unless you control

three of the appropriate land type but they do have a land type, meaning that if you are able to search out for a forest, for example, if a card lets you search for a forest, I can search for this. And this card, in addition to giving me mana, also has an effect when you enter the battlefield, which gives me food. So it allows me to get food.

These... I think the idea was we had a bunch of places that we wanted to do, like Gingerbread Cabin, obviously, straight out of Hansel and Gretel. So we wanted an opportunity. There were just a lot of fun places. We wanted to do a monocolored land cycle, and we liked the idea of we tied them to an enter-the-battlefield effect, something we had done in Zendikar that we haven't really done a lot with on lands.

And then we added the rider about how it's untapped if you have enough of that land type so that in a mono-color deck, it's really easy to use. And in a multi-color deck, it gets a little bit harder. It's still possible, but it's a bit harder. Okay, next

Ginger Brute. One mana for a 1-1 food golem. So it's an artifact creature uh it's got haste it's got one act an activation of one ginger brute can't be blocked this turn except by creatures with haste and two and tap sacrifice ginger brute you gain three life okay so peter lee who was my strong second on the sat who um he designed this card super early like first week or two i think um so the original version of ginger brew just said ginger brew can't it has haste ginger brew can't be blocked uh except by creatures of haste that was the original ginger brew um what we found was

um i mean i i really really enjoyed um the idea, this card uses haste in a way we've never done before. Normally, like, if I have haste, it matters the turn I play the card, and then it just doesn't matter. Having haste isn't a thing that really matters. But now, it's like, oh, well, it could be later in the game. And having a haste creature means something. I think it's kind of cool. I think this was, So, the gingerbread man

is, you know, catch me, catch me if you can. What's the thing? You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. Oh, chase me, chase me as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. So the idea was the gingerbread man is hard to catch. So the idea of haste meant that he was

fast, and then can't be blocked by creatures with haste is, well, you've got to be as fast as him it's hard to catch. So the idea of haste meant that he was fast and then can't be blocked by creatures with haste is you've got to be as fast as him to be able to catch him. I do understand the actual story of fast creature

doesn't catch him. He gets outsmarted by the fox. Anyway, I liked the design quite a bit. We fought the entire time

that the set was in both vision design and set design there was a lot of ongoing question of, is a gingerbread man okay? Now, we have, you know, we have artifact creatures in Magic, and we have things that are brought to life.

So I think when Gingerbroot got made originally, he was red. I think he was, once again, remember early on, we had the alternate costs. I think he started as red, or maybe he started as an artifact, then he turned red, and then he ended up going back to artifacts. The other thing that happened during set design, well, two things happened.

One is we decided, and I think this happened during Vision, that he needed an activation to get his unblockability. It was a little too efficient. So instead of just naturally having it, we made an activate ability that you can activate it to use it. So his unblockability requires a little bit of mana investment. The other thing, probably the cooler thing, is during set design, food got made. And they made food tokens. And then someone said, the gingerbread man, he's food, isn't he?

And so they went and talked to Eli and said, can we make a creature food? And Eli said, yes, it's an artifact subtype. As long as it's an artifact creature, yes, it could have an artifact subtype. So technically, by the way, food is an artifact subtype. Golem is a creature subtype. That is why, for example, there are certain things that we can't make into food because if it's not an artifact, it can't be food. So, you know, if you want to make chicken egg or rook egg

or something that isn't an artifact into food, you can't because it is not an artifact. And then we added on the two taps, sacrifice a ginger brute, gain three lives. So we gave it the food ability so that, in fact, it was food. So it does what it does, but also you can trade them in. If you want to eat them and get some life, you can. And so the finished package of the card, probably my favorite card in the set. It's so cute and so different.

And one of the things I'm always looking for is a card that you just can't make in any set, and a card that's endemic to the set that it's in. This card is like, you're just not making this card anywhere but here. And it is just a darling little card. It really is a cute card.

Okay, next. Glass Casket. One and a white for an artifact. When Glass Casket. One and a white for an artifact. When Glass Casket enters the battlefield, exile target creature and opponent controls with converted mana cost three or less until Glass Casket leaves the battlefield. So,

the earliest version of this was back when we had alternate mana. So this was a white... This was always a white artifact. We knew we were doing more artifacts, we knew we wanted to color. The earlier version of this gave you alternate costs, so you'd like, it was, you know, 1W or 4 or something like that, back when we had alternative costs. I know when I, this was my social media preview, when I previewed this card, some people were

dismayed that this ability is something that people normally associate more with enchantments than artifacts. And my answer to that is abilities are not tied to, or for the most part, if a color can do something, any card type of that color can do it. So, for example, if I'm allowed to flicker something, well, in white, I can make a sorcery, an instant, a creature, a planeswalker, an enchantment, or an artifact now, that can do that thing.

So the idea is the fact that this ability, the banisher priest effect is what we call it, or oblivion ring sometimes. I guess we call it banisher priest when it's not a creature. This is more oblivion ring because it's not a creature. But anyway, this ability, yes, we do it all the time on enchantments. We also do it all the time on creatures.

And so a lot of people are like, oh, but now red can get rid of it. Well, when we put it on creatures, red can get rid of it. When we put it on enchantments, red can't. It's not that red can't deal with this effect. It's red can't deal with enchantments. So things that enchantments do, red is a problem. But the idea of one of the things about the color is, and the reason we have access to a lot of different things is,

we want to make a lot of different cards. I mean, the reason, by the way, the reason this is what it is, is Glass Casket is, well, there actually is a Grimm's Fairytale called the Glass Casket, which has nothing to do with anything you know the Glass Casket. It's about a tailor that goes on an adventure and finds this, I don't know if she's a princess or not, but some woman that's trapped, and she's not asleep, but trapped inside a glass casket, and he frees her from it. When Walt Disney was making Snow White, I think he liked the imagery of it and decided to use the Glass Casket just because it looked cool and it was very fairytale-ish, and he borrowed it.

And because of that, most people associate the glass casket with Snow White rather than it being its own grim fairytale. So when people ask us sometimes, do we do any deep cuts, this is actually based on a fairytale that you don't know, but it is part of a fairytale that pop culture is associated with. So a lot of people go, oh. So originally the card, you could do any creature. I think they ended up making a little bit smaller just for balance purposes.

And then the flavor was, well, not everything fits inside the glass casket. I like this card. I have no problems with being an artifact. There was a lot of discussions on my blog about this. And the point that I just made many, many times is one of the things is we're going to keep remaking magic cards. We're going to do a lot of the same effects again and again and again.

And one of the things that makes magic really fun is that we can change up how we do basic effects. Look, if you want this on an enchantment, we've done it a million times on enchantment. You want it on a creature, we've done it on a creature. Well, here's an artifact now. So if you have a white artifact-focused deck, now you have access to this where you didn't have it before. And I think that is upside, not downside.

Okay, next. Grumgully the Generous. One red-green for a 3-3 legendary creature, Goblin Shaman. Each other non-human creature you control enters a battlefield with an additional plus one, plus one counter on it. Okay, so let me talk a little bit about the non-human creature you control enters a battlefield with an additional plus one plus one counter on it. Okay, so let me talk a little bit about the non-human. So, one of the things that we, for a while in the file, we were messing around with trying to capture the idea of something being magical.

And we did a bunch of different things, and then we finally decided that we split it up. So there's two themes in the set that sort of play in the space. One is caring about enchantments or artifacts, since almost all the artifacts and enchantments in the set are magical in some way. And then we also decided that the way to care about magical creatures is, well, the non-magical creatures tend to be the humans and everything else is more, you know, the fae

folk and stuff. And so we liked the idea of rewarding you for not being human. And so we haven't done a lot of what I would call negative tribal before. But I thought it was a neat idea. It was very simple to say. It was pretty flavorful. Humans already are a mighty strong tribe, so sort of discounting them I thought was kind of neat. And this card just sort of says, hey, this is meant to be... The red and green, I think,

is where we put most of the non-human... That's the archetype that plays with non-human mostly. So the idea is this is a build-around. I assume this is uncommon since it's a build-around. This is a build-around card to get you to consider playing non-human as a theme in draft. And the idea is it just gives you a big reward which is

oh, all your creatures are bigger if you're playing non-human creatures. And so it sort of encourages you to go oh, well maybe I shouldn't be playing humans. Maybe I should play more non-humans. Next, Happily Ever After. Two and a White. Enchantment. When Happily Ever After enters the battlefield, each player gains five life and draws a card.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are five colors among permanents you control, there are six or more card types among permanents you control, and are cards in your graveyard, and your life total is greater than or equal to your starting life total, you win game okay so this card card started as the name happily ever after we want to do happily ever after i think we liked the idea of it being an alternate being the alternate win condition so the idea essentially is then you win the game that felt like a very

happily ever after um this went through all sorts of different designs. In the end, it ended up being sort of a new version of the five-color card from Invasion, whose name I'm blanking on. But there's a five-color card from Invasion that's an all-twin that is similar to this. Like, oh, you need all the colors. But the idea is, we like the idea of this being a white card, but yes, it goes in a multicolored deck because you need all five cards.

Now, there's ways to get all five colors without actually having mana of all five colors. There's hybrid, there's a bunch of different shenanigans you can do. But anyway, the idea was, give you a win condition. We like the idea of sort of, hey, if you have everything, then you're happily ever after.

You have all the colors. You have most of the card types. I think they said six, um, because there's six main ones now. There's land, planeswalker, enchantment, artifact, instant, and sorcery. Yes, there's tribal, but we don't make tribal anymore. And, um, um, and there's... Did I say planeswalker? I did not say planeswalker. So there's land,

creature, planeswalker, enchantment, artifact. Oh, there's seven. So we only make you get six. There's seven major ones, so okay, we'll give you a break on one of them. We also had to care about what's in play on the graveyard because of instants and Sorceries. And then the life total

was something a little bit different, but it's sitting in white. So the idea is, not only do you have to get all the things in play and use all the different card types, but you also got to gain some life. So the challenge here is a little bit of a challenge, but to help put you in the deck, Eric really wanted to add some, just

something to just make it worthwhile playing it. And so the idea was, because it was Happily Ever After, Eric liked the idea of some universal reward. He goes, well what if, when it enters the battlefield, all players gain life, and then he wanted to have all players draw a card. And so he came to us to talk about that, of how did the console colors feel about universal card draw. We spent a lot of time talking about it,

and eventually the idea was one of the reasons we're careful about white-given card draw is that white is the color for all the answers, but it doesn't have the greatest card flow. But the idea is, well, if everybody's drawing, yeah, you're drawing more answers, but other people are drawing more threats. And so we decided that it was something we want to play around with, is trying some universal card draw. We don't know how many something we want to play around with, is trying some universal card draw. We don't know how many cards we want to let you draw. Obviously, if you draw too many cards, it undercuts the idea that, you know,

there's not enough for us to even can use them. And so we have to be careful how many cards you can draw. The goal is not to do this as a repeatable thing. So it's space we're messing around in. I teased that we were doing something. I shouldn't have, I guess, because people just got super excited and assumed it a repeatable thing. So it's space we're messing around in. I teased that we were doing something. I shouldn't have, I guess, because people just got super excited and assumed it was some big thing,

even though every time I talked about it, I stressed it was a small thing. But anyway, that is Happily Ever After. So we will see where Happily Ever After takes us. Note that when we do stuff, we go very slow because we try things and try to get some audience response. So change can take a while to happen.

So just a heads up that we're messing around with this, but it is not something that's going to change everything overnight. Okay, next is Hushbringer. So Hushbringer costs one and a white. It's a one-two fairy. It's a creature, obviously. Flying and lifelink, and it has creatures entering the battlefield or dying, don't cause abilities to trigger. So essentially what it does is it shuts down what we call enter the battlefield triggers and death triggers. White is the rule setting color, so one of the things we like to do in white, especially stapled on creatures, is things that just change the nature of the game. And the idea is, often this is maybe

a sideboard card or a metagame choice where I'm really worried about something. Now, playing this in your deck means that you can't take advantage, or it's harder for you to take advantage, because if this is out, you can't take advantage of it. But it's the kind of thing that we like. The interesting thing about this card, actually, was the response to the art. So the art is definitely a little bit more, um, less realistic, I guess, more symbolic. Um, and some people really, really liked it. Some people really, really didn't. So it was a very polarizing piece of art, which I, which I think is interesting.

I mean, I like the idea that, um, you know, I like the idea that there is something for people to, like, I don't know. I, I like where we do things that make people sort of think about stuff, and I kind of like the art. I like us... In general, I've talked about how polarizing things aren't too bad, that if some people really love it and other people don't, that the people that really love it can gravitate toward it.

Okay, next. Inquisitive Puppet. Costs one. It's an artifact creature, a construct. Zero two. When Inquisitive Puppet enters the battlefield, scry one. And then an exile inquisitive puppet create a one one white human creature token. So the idea here is, this is Pinocchio.

So Pinocchio's an inquisitive puppet, so he scrys because he's inquisitive, he wants to learn things. And then at some point you can turn him from a zero two artifact creature into a one one human. It's cute to know. So the reason he exiles is because it's transformational.

So we didn't want you sacrificing him and then later bringing it back. Like, there's Pinocchio and the human Pinocchio. Why are they together? The other thing is, and this is a cute little design, is the idea that he's a 0-2 creature. Meaning, he can't do as much damage, but he's hardier. But he turned into a human. Okay, he now, you know, it's a 1-1, so he's not quite as sturdy. Like, he was a little sturdier when he was an artifact creature.

You know, he can block a 1-1 as an artifact creature and survive, but he can't do that as a human. He's a little more fragile as a human. But he's 1-1 instead of 0-2. So there's a reason you might want the human. There's a reason you might want the puppet. So from a mechanical standpoint, both choices are interesting. And it doesn't...

We went through a whole bunch of Pinocchio designs, by the way. For a while, well, the Pinocchio that Vision handed off, this was not the card

we handed off, the card that Vision handed off was a blue artifact creature. I'm trying to think what we were... I mean, we had the same sort of thing of that eventually it could turn into a human. Ours was just... It was built a little bit differently.

Okay, next. Insatiable Appetite. One and a green. Instant. You may sacrifice a food. If you do, target creature gets plus plus plus five until end of turn.

Otherwise, that creature gets plus three plus three until end of turn. So the idea here is it's our giant growth. You can give creature plus three plus three. But if you have food, remember black green is the food archetype, you can sort of feed the creature first. It'll buff up the creature. And so it lets you turn food into an extra plus two plus two.

Into the story. Five blue blue instant. So seven mana total, two of which is blue. This spell costs three less to cast if an opponent has seven more cards in the graveyard and it's draw four cards. So the idea here is that it's a card that gets cheaper the later the game goes. Because the later the game goes, the more chance there are to get cards in the graveyard. of the game goes, because the later the game goes, the more chances there are to get cards in the graveyard.

Note, by the way, essentially what this is doing is you get a bonus if your opponent is at threshold. Threshold's a mechanic from way back in Odyssey that you got rewarded. Cards got better if you had seven or more cards in your graveyard. This is kind of opponent threshold. You

have some control of opponent threshold in the sense that you can kill their things and stuff you have less control of their threshold than your threshold and anyway this was just a means by which to sort of let you late game have a little what could be cheaper drawing

if you have this in your hand maybe if they have five cards in the graveyard if you can kill a couple things or do some attacks that make them trade then you can sort of push it over the line and get a little bit cheaper card draw. I also really like the art of this card. It is a very pretty piece of art. So I think that is cool. Okay, next. Joust. So Joust is a sorcery. It costs one and a red. So two mana total, one of which is red. Choose target creature you control and target creature you don't control.

The creature you control gets plus one, plus two until end of turn. If it's a knight, then those creatures fight each other. So this card was originally a green card. We thought it was a great place to do knight tribal. We knew we wanted a card called Joust. Fighting felt like the perfect opportunity to do Joust. And, oh, and you can boost a knight, so a knight is better at Jousting. And we put this in green, because in a vacuum, that's where this card would go. But then we found out

that when they made the five courts, they sort of divvied up who's at what court. And red, because they were trying to get an essence of red, is the court that has the feasts and plays the games. And they're kind of the fun court. And so jousting just made a lot of sense. They're kind of courage. And so the idea that you would joust at the red court made a lot of sense.

And so the creative team said to us, it goes, oh, you know, can we not do this in green? Green's not where the jousting is happening. So we said, okay. Luckily, luckily, red is the secondary color for fighting. So we could fight in red. In order to make this feel a smidgen more red, we did plus two, plus one, rather than, I think the green card was, you know, plus N, plus whatever it was,

plus two, plus two, whatever. So we were able to move this over to red, and so Jousting is now in red. Keneth's Transformation. One and a green, so two mana total. One of which is green. It's an aura. Enchantment aura. Enchant creature. When Keneth's Transition enters the battlefield,

draw a card. Enchant your creature to lose all abilities and as a green elk creature with base power, top to 3-3. Oh! this card. This was another card because this card in Half-Life or After probably caused the most discussions in console colors. We really wanted

this card to be blue because this ability is a blue ability. And, oh, so in the story, spoilers, Oko turns King Kenrith into an elk. That's why the king disappears. Is he gets turned into an elk. And

we wanted to capture that on a card. I don't remember why. There was some reason why this couldn't be on a blue card. It had to be on a green card. I don't know whether the I don't know whether the art had been done. Something had happened in which

by the time the council caller said, oh this is a blue card hey, Oko's green blue, just put this on a blue card we were told, oh, we can't and so we went through a lot of discussion there's a card that destroys a creature and then

gives its controller a 3-3 that's a breaking green this is close to that card the one thing where we ended up It destroys a creature and then gives its controller a 3-3. That's a breaking green. This is close to that card. The one thing where we ended up letting it go, and it's a pretty major bend, is that it's undoable, that you can turn something, but it can be turned back. So we begrudgingly said, okay, it's a pretty hefty bend. The fact that you can undo it, we said, maybe that's enough to make it not a break.

But in retrospect, I just wish this was a blue card. I don't, I mean, we sort of somehow got painted in a corner and like, begrudgingly said, okay, it's green. But I don't like when we do that. I understand we need to get the story point. The story point could have gotten across in blue. I don't know what, There was a breakdown in the process because we should have been able to say

it needed to be blue and then go, okay, we'll make it blue. And that happened. And some weird thing happened where that couldn't be the case. So, anyway. Not super happy about that. Okay, Kenrith, the Returned King.

So it costs four and a white for a 5-5 creature. It's a legendary creature, human noble, because he's the king. So he has five abilities. For red, for single red, all creatures gain trample and hasten until end of turn. For one and a green, put a plus or minus counter on target creature. For two and a white, target player gains five life. For three and a blue, target player draws a card.

And for four and a black, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under its owner's control. Okay, so this is the buy a box card. So we like the idea that King Kenrith, because he was missing, was missing from the set. That's why he's the buy a box card. I'm not sure how many people got that, but we thought that was cute.

The reason it's all five colors is he leads over. He's not the leader of the white kingdom. He's the leader of all five kingdoms, all five courts. And so he likes the idea that he had access to all five colors because he leads them. Although he's originally from the White Court, so he's mono-white. We put the abilities in the order they are because they go from one mana, two mana, three mana, four mana, five mana. Notice that they still are in the order of the color wheel. They don't start with the white, which is a very traditional start. We had a big conversation of whether we're supposed to start with the white ability and go

white, blue, black, red, green, or start with the ability that costs 1 and go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We looked at both of them, and the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 just looked aesthetically better. But yes, that's why it's in the order it's in. It has to do with how much it costs to do. And it just looks a little better that way. When you did white, blue, black, it just sort of felt like it was building up and then dropped

down and just felt sort of weird. Anyway, that is King Kenrith. Okay, Knight's Charge. One white, black enchantment. Whenever a knight you control attacks, each opponent loses one life and you gain one life. So whenever they attack, you drain the opponent for one.

Six white-black. So eight men in total. One of which is white, one of which is black. Sacrifice Knight's Charge. Return all knight creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. So this is one of the build-around uncommon cards. It really says, like I said, knights run white, black, and red. This is the white black build around.

It says, hey, go play knights. Uh, I admit that both these abilities, I mean, this card is a pretty, from an effect card, is very mono black. Um, well, white does do life gain. Uh, black does drain. So, you know, I think they were playing around with the idea that black makes you lose life, because black can make you lose life, and white makes you gain life,

but black also makes you lose life and gain life. So that part feels more black than white. And then the reanimating creatures, white does get reanimation. White gets usually small reanimation. Knights on average tend to be a little bit smaller. So both of these are things in which white has its toe in it, but there are things that black can do without white.

So from a design standpoint, this is definitely one of those cards where it could have been mono black. I mean, I know why it's white black. It's trying to encourage you to do stuff. We're really trying to make you build around. It's a little more aggressive than we would have done in mono black. So making white black lettuce be a little bit more aggressive. But I do wish it had a little bit more whiteness to it from a design standpoint. I do.

I would like to see that. Okay. Next, Linden, the Steadfast Queen. White, white, white. So she's a 3-3 creature, a legendary creature, human noble, vigilance, and whenever a white creature you control attacks, you gain one life. So she is the queen of the white. She's the leader of the white court.

She's the wife to King Kenrith and the stepmother of Rowan and Will. This card costs a lot. So the interesting thing was this card was made to be a card very efficient in a mono-white deck. Mono-white decks tend to go wide and make a lot of token creatures. This is very good in that. One of the complaints about this is how good as a commander. I don't know how good it is as a commander. I think it's a...

In a mono-white deck, I think you'll play it in the 99. I think you might play it as the commander. But given, this is probably a card that's going to show more in the 99 in commander than in the commander slot. One of the things was it was part of our cycle. This is the leader cycle. It needed to have three colored mana in its cost. It needed to care about colored mana in its cost. It needed to care about

playing creatures of its color. I do think this card is a lot more powerful than people think it is. I think people pooh-poohed this card early on, and I think you'll see that you're going to see this card get played.

The other complaint about this card was in the novel, King Kenrith is able to do all five trials. He becomes leader of all the courts. Linden does four of them. They're like, hey, why does she have four activated abilities? And the answer is, we didn't know about... The story was written after the card file was done. The fact that Kate made a really cool book, and there's a lot of fun flavors there, but we just

we have to build the set first, and at the time we were building the set, the novel had not been done, so we built a Linden, and she, I think, is a fine queen, and definitely, hey, the white court wants to play her. You know, if you're playing Mono White, she's really good, but

couldn't reflect that aspect just because it didn't exist at the time we were making it. Okay, next! Lovestruck Beast. Okay, Lovestruck Beast costs two and a green. So three mana total,

one of which is green. It's a 5-5 Beast Noble. It's a creature because it's a prince. That's why it's a noble. Lovestruck Beast can't attack unless you control a 1-1 creature. So it's Lovestruck. He needs a little creature with him. Hopefully a beauty for the beast.

And it's an adventure card. So Heart's Desire green, Sorcery Adventure. Create a 1-1 human creature token. So the idea is he makes a little creature, a little human, that then allows him to attack. So obviously this is Beauty and the Beast, and so we have the Beast, which is a 5-5 Noble. It's a Beast Noble.

And then we have the little 1-1, which is supposed to represent the beauty for the Beast. But anyway, once is, once again, the adventure cards let us do fun little packages, and this is kind of neat in that its adventure makes the thing it needs to be able to attack, so it's tied together thematically, but then creatively, oh, it's the beauty and the beast,

which is beauty and the beast. Okay, next. Mad Ratter. Three and a rad. Creature. Goblin. Whenever you draw a second card each turn, create two 1-1 black rat creature tokens. And it's a 1-2.

Okay, so one of the things that we did in the set, another theme, which I think is a blue-red theme, is second spell cast matters. I think there's a lot of stuff going on. There was adventures, and they were trying to find a way to sort of reward Red-Blue.

Red-Blue's the spell colors. So the idea is, okay, in Red-Blue, we will make cards that say when you cast your second spell each turn, there's a reward. This particular one rewards you with little rats, two little 1-1 rats, so that's a reward. This particular one rewards you with little rats, little 1-1, or two little 1-1 rats, so that's pretty potent.

There are a few other cards in the set that make or care about rats. I know there's the Pied Piper, for example. But anyway, this just allows you to play in the space of caring about... This is meant for the blue-red deck when you draft. I mean, you can play it in mono-red or other colors. You will sometimes cast a second spell,

but it can be optimized in blue-red. Okay. It's raining. I don't know if you can hear the rain, but it's raining today. So you guys get extra podcast... You get extra content because everybody slows down in the rain

and drives very slow, which is good. Merchant of the Veil, Tuna Red, Creature, Human Peasant. It's a 2-3. For Tuna Red, Discard a card, draw a card. And then it is Haggle. It's a gun adventure. Haggle, Red, a single red, instant adventure.

You may discard a card if you do draw a card. So the idea is this is the merchant who Jack trades the cow for the magic beans is I think the flavor. And the idea is we're using rummaging as a flavor for trading. I can trade this card for that card. So the spell lets you rummage and then the creature lets you rummage. So this is one of the ones where they just kind of get tied together. The idea is I can rummage, and then the creature lets you rummage. So this is one of the ones where they just kind of get tied together. The idea is I can rummage early on for one mana,

and then once I have enough mana, I can play this card that lets me continually rummage. So the merchant's all about trading. Trading one card in for another. Okay, next, Midnight Clock. So this is an artifact, two and a blue, so three mana total, one of which is blue,

so it's a blue artifact. Tap, add blue. Two and blue, put an hour counter on Midnight Clock. At the beginning of each upkeep, put an hour counter on Midnight Clock. When the 12th hour counter is put on Midnight Clock, shuffle your hand and graveyard into your library, then draw seven cards.

Exile, Midnight Clock. Okay, so Original Magic had a card called Time Twifter, which did this effect. Although it did this effect for everybody, not just for you. This card just does it for you. So obviously we're playing in Cinderella space. Oh, well, she could enjoy the ball until the last strike of midnight.

And so we wanted to capture that. So the idea here is we made sort of the clock, if you will. I think we called it midnight clock to really hammer home the Cinderella connection. And the idea is in 12 turns you will get to, well, it

costs 3 mana. It produces mana. So you might want to play it just because it produces mana. It's something that you might want in your deck. And you might put it in your deck just for that but as a side effect it's like okay in 12 turns I'll get a refresh from my hand and I have some ability to speed

that up because I can spend mana to add counters so without doing any mana it'll happen in 12 turns but with some mana so whenever I have extra mana it allows me to sort of chip in and speed up the clock. And then, bing, bing, bing, midnight happens. And I guess in Eldraine,

the clock striking midnight is more good for you than bad for you. Okay, next, Mirror Maid, one blue blue. So three mana total, two of which is blue. It's an enchantment. You may have Mirror Maid enter the battlefield as a copy of an artifact or enchantment on the battlefield. So, it's interesting. I guess they made an enchantment from a flavor standpoint. Once it hits the battlefield, whatever it's copying, if it's enchantment becomes enchantment,

if it's an artifact, it becomes an artifact. So really, I mean, I guess in other zones it's an enchantment, but in play, it'll be whatever it's copying. We have done things that copy artifacts before. We've done things that copy enchantments before. I think this is the first one that copies either. As I said earlier, we had a little mini theme that shows

up in, I think, white-blue, that is caring about artifacts or enchantments. That's playing that, caring about magical things. Like I said, we had a thing called Mystical for a while that was Artifact, Enchantment, or Fairy. And we ended up just condensing it down to Artifact or Enchantment

and didn't batch it or keyword it or anything. This is playing in that space. Not that it's not universally useful. There's more Artifacts than normal in this set. So being able to copy Artifacts is good. There's plenty of Enchantments as well. So this just gives you the ability to do something that blue has done before, but in a little more efficient way than it has been done.

Okay, next, Mystic Sanctuary. So Mystic Sanctuary is an island, it's land. Taps for blue, obviously, because it's an island. Mystic Sanctuary enters the battlefield tapped, unless you control three or more other islands and when mystic sanctuary enters the battlefield untapped you may put target instant or sorcery cards from your graveyard on top

of your library okay so this card I think represents Merlin's hangout I think is what this is he had his own little tower that he hung out in I think this is what this is. He had his own little tower that he hung out in. I think this is what this is representing. Anyway, the idea is it plays in Blue's desire

to get you, get back an instant or sorcery. It puts it on top of your library, so it's not card advantage. You don't get to draw a card, but it does let you take effective things and put them back so you can use them again. And so that can be quite powerful. Of the lands of this cycle, this is the one that I've heard the most buzz around.

We'll see how good it is, but it definitely is a fun spell. A fun and flavorful spell. Okay, next. Sorry. Checking the ring. Okay, next is Oathsworn Knight. So Oathsworn Knight costs one black black. It's a 0-0 human knight creature.

It's a human knight. It's a creature. Oathsworn Knight enters the battlefield with four plus one plus one counters on it. Oathsworn Knight attacks each combat if able. battlefield with four plus one plus one counters on it. Oathsworn Knight attacks each combat if able. If damage would be dealt to Oathsworn Knight while it has a plus one plus one counter on it, prevent that

damage and remove a plus one plus one counter from it. So, one of the tropes of Arthurian legend is the Black Knight, which is a knight that just is very hard to stop. No matter what you do, he keeps on advancing. He's probably better known from

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So when we were making a Black Knight, we thought, let's play into that and make a creature that just, no matter how much you damage it, it keeps not stopping. It's just unaware. I mean, the idea, by the way, is the mixture of the Black Knight was something that just you would damage it and keep on fighting. I think Monty Python had fun with that trope. I mean, they didn't invent the trope. The idea of the Black Knight that you can't stop that keeps advancing is from Arthurian legend.

But they really had fun with it. And so since players obviously knew of the trope and probably the most famous place they knew the trope of was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We definitely played into that and the idea of, you know, it takes four strikes to strike it down. So you've got to chop off both of its arms and both of its legs. So I thought that

was pretty funny. Okay. Next. Oko, Thief of Crowns. Okay. So this is one green-blue. So it is a Planeswalker, obviously. It costs three mana, one green, one blue. Legendary Planeswalker Oko. He comes into play with a loyalty of four.

Plus two, he creates a food token. Plus one, target artifact or creature that loses all abilities and becomes a giant green elk creature with base power 3-3. Base power toughness 3-3. Minus five, exchange control of target artifact or creature that loses all abilities and becomes a giant green elk creature with base power at 3-3. Base power toughness 3-3. Minus five, exchange control of target artifact or creature you control and target creature and opponent controls

with power 3 or less. Okay, so he's a trickster. So they wanted to sort of play into his trickster nature. The idea was to give him food up front so that later on you could exchange the food for things. He also can turn things into an elk because that later on you can exchange the food for things. He also can turn things into an elk

because that's what he does with the king. So he can transform things and change them. Or he also can make people exchange stuff. And the idea that he can make a food is later when you're exchanging things, you can exchange a creature or an artifact. So the idea is, well, I can give you my food and I can take your best smaller creature.

It's got to be three or less, a power three or less. So I can take your smaller creature, but I can trade you food for your smaller creature. It also allows you, by the way, if you really want to trade something for Jack's cow, there's not a lot of ability to trade for cows in this game. But Oko's ability does let you trade. You can trade food, which you can think of being as magical beans, for the cow. I'm not saying that's a great gameplay thing to do, but it is an awesome fairytale thing to do. So if you are just dying

to have that moment where you trade magic beans for a cow, Oko can let you trade food for the cow. I thought that was cool. Okay, next. I thought that was cool. Okay, next. I'm almost to work. We've been, thanks to the traffic, you get extra today. Okay, Once Upon a Time. Okay, Once Upon a Time

costs one and a green. It's an instant. If this spell is the first spell you've cast this game, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. It's free. Look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a creature or land card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

So this card started we knew we wanted to do Once Upon a Time. We knew we wanted to do something that you did at the beginning of the game, thematically. I think the earliest version was like a what's it called?

Like a ley line, where just if you had an opening hand, you just got to play it for free. It was an enchantment originally, I think. And then I think set design came up with the idea of, well, what if it's free? We could make it a spell, but it's free if it's the first spell you cast. And the idea is green

has this thing that it digs in the library looking for things. Well, okay, what if we gave you that? What if we let you, you know, sort of what Arnie calls impulse. You know, impulse for a creature or land. It's something green can do. And the idea is, well, you can put it in any deck if you want, but if you don't,

if it's not the first thing you cast, then it's dead in your deck if you're not playing green. So, yeah, it's free, but it's dangerous to put it in a non-green deck. So that is why we let you cast it for free if you are the first person, if it's your first spell. Okay, Opportunistic Dragon. Two red red. It's a 4-3 dragon. It's got flying.

When Opportunistic Dragon enters the battlefield, choose target human or artifact an opponent controls. For as long as Opportunistic Dragon remains on the battlefield, gain control of that permanent. It loses all abilities and it can't attack or block. Okay, this is probably number three discussion in Console of Colors.

This is another card where red is allowed to steal things. Normally it steals creatures, and normally it steals them temporarily. It has stolen artifacts temporarily. So this is, I mean, one could argue it's temporary, and that when you get rid of the dragon, you get it back. But it's a little more permanent stealing than red gets. The flavor is of the dragon that hoards things.

And in fairy tales, both are... Well, in Arthurian legend, I think there are dragons that hoard treasure. And then in fairy tales, there are dragons that kidnap, usually princesses, but kidnap people. And then hold them hostage. And so we were trying to play in that trope. We thought we could do both the horde-stealing dragon and the princess-kidnapping dragon all in one. It did require doing a little bit of a bend. Once again, it's not that Red can't steal things.

It normally just doesn't do it as long. The other thing that was a little bit different was it doesn't let Red use the creature. Normally, when you steal it, you can then use it. So here it said, okay, the tradeoff is you can take it for longer than normal, but we're not going to let you use it. You can't attack or block with it. So the idea is, okay, the trade-off for getting, and the flavor is I've kidnapped the thing.

Well, either I'm hoarding artifacts or I've kidnapped a person. And so in that case, I don't want them running around. They're not working for me. I've just kidnapped them. And so we decided to make that trade-off. Once again,

this is one of the bends where we're not really undermining, not really undermining Red per se. It's not like Red has huge problems dealing with creatures. It can blow creatures off

and stuff. And it does get a temporarily steal thing. So this is kind of playing in a little different space for Red. It's not something that Red's going to do a lot.

But after talking it over and talking through the flavor, you know, and sort of looking at what it's doing, it was a really flavorful card. It was a lot of fun. It made sense here. It sort of crisscrossed in our Thurian thing with the fairytale thing, which was kind of cute. More so than anything, it wasn't undercutting red. One of the things we look at for bends is, are you undercutting, are you playing into the

weakness or something? Like, Kenna's transformation is much more of a problem, because it's specifically playing into a green weakness. Where, look, red can deal with creatures. It's not like, oh, how do I deal with creatures? I have no way to deal with creatures. Yeah, I blow creatures up. Red is way less dealable with creatures. It's not a major problem for red. So, this we decided was flavorful,

but doable and acceptable. Okay, is that the last? Oh, I think it is. No, there's not. But I had a lot today. I'm going to stop here just because I want to make sure I have enough cards for...

I think I have one more podcast to do. I'm hoping I can get done one podcast. Anyway, thanks to the rain today. You guys got your extra content. So I hope you enjoyed it. A little longer podcast than normal today. But I have a lot of cards to get through. So probably that was all for the best.

But anyway, I'm now here at work. So we all know what this means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.