Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #790: Antiquities, Part 1

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

This is part one of a two-part series on the design of Antiquities, Magic's second-ever expansion, where I talk about how the set got made and then go through the design of every card.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work, Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about what was my favorite set before I came to work for Wizards. So I'm going to talk about Antiquities. Okay, so Antiquities came out on March 4th of 1994. So what happened was Wizard of the Coast makes enough product for Magic,

thinking it'll last for quite a while. It doesn't. They put Alpha out, it sells right away. They put Beta out, it sells right away. They put Unlimited out, it sells right away. So they knew they needed to get some other Magic sets out there. So Richard went off and made Arabian Nights, and they went

to the team that was making Ice Age, what we now know as the East Coast Playtefters, so Scaffolias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, and Chris Page, and said to them, hey, we need a set. And so, they quickly made a small set. So, the card, there's 85 unique

cards in Antiquities, but all the basic lands have multiple pieces of art. So, most people think of it as being a 100-card set, in that, if you want the basic lands have multiple pieces of art. So most people think of it as being a 100-card set in that if you want to collect all the different pieces of art. There were 28 commons, 37 uncommons, 20 rares. It has an expansion symbol of an anvil.

And the... So Arabian Knights was the first kind of top-down set. Richard said, oh, I'm going to make a theme set based on the Arabian Knights. Antiquities was the first kind of top-down set. Richard said, oh, I'm going to make a theme set based on the Arabian Nights. Antiquities was the first sort of mechanically themed set. What the East Coast Playtesters

did is they said, we're going to make a set about artifacts. And every single card in the set, minus the lands, so everything that's not a land, has the word artifact either on its type line or it talks

about artifacts in its rules text. So the word artifact appears somewhere on the card. There are the lands that all tap for colorless that obviously are meant to play artifacts, but not all of them, although some of them do reference artifacts, but not all of them reference artifacts. But those are the only cards in the whole set that

literally don't have the word artifact on the set. On the card. And that's just one or two of the lands. Anyway, what happened was this set came out, it came out in eight card boosters. If you bought a box, there were 68 card boosters in it.

And early Magic had a lot of printing problems the printing problem that went on with this set was that they had messed up the collation and it was possible to get reprints of the same card in the same booster pack and so they did a buyback

where you could send in stuff if you got duplication and they'd send you cards you didn't have the other really big thing about the set that was something new and different was this is the first set that had a story. I mean, Arabian Nights was based on a story, but it wasn't a magic story. It was just based on an existing collection of stories.

And Alpha definitely teased characters and things. There were proper names and stuff. But, so what they did is they said, okay, we're going to tell a story. But they did it in a very clever way, because they're like, okay, a trading card, you don't know the order you see things. So what if the story took place many years ago, and you are digging up antiquities of the past that are giving hints of things that happened. And so the idea was, it was an event called the Brothers War.

Brothers War. So Urza and Mishra, who are brothers, end up getting in a multi, a very, very long war that takes many years of fighting each other. They originally find Power Stones, and there's the Might Stone and the Weak Stone. And anyway, the Brothers War lasts for a long time, and there's a lot of artifact creatures that are fighting this war, and you, in the present, are digging up remnants of that war. So anyway, from the very beginning of the game, I always liked artifacts. I was a huge fan. The idea that there was a set focused on artifacts was really, really cool to me, so I was quite excited by it. And

the hint of the story I thought was fascinating. I really liked what it was doing, and it's the first set that really... This is the set that first mentions the Phyrexians for the first time. This is the set... I mean, Urza and Mishra had shown up in name in Alpha, as did Ashnod.

But really, this is the story that said, okay, we're going to take some of those proper names and really explain who these people are. So maybe you had owned Urza's glasses or something, but who was Urza? And all of a sudden, you're learning who Urza was, who Mishra was, and such. Okay, so what I'm going to do is go through the set.

I'm going to talk about different cards. I'm going to go in what would be collector number order, although I don't think there were collector numbers at the time, but how we now order them. So we're going to start with Argivian Archaeologist. So one white white for one one, white white

and tap. And you bring an artifact from your graveyard to your hand. Now I love Argivian Archaeologist. This, I believe, was the first card. There was, in Alpha, there was Regrowth, which lets you get back anything. But this was

a creature. This wasn't a spell that got back stuff. This was a creature, and a reusable creature. And so I loved, I made a lot of artifact decks based on this set. And the archaeologists showed up in a lot of them because it allowed me to get back things, and I thought it was quite cool.

Next, we've our Givian Archaeologist. One white white, two two. You tap it to prevent two damage to target artifact creature. So, a lot of what Scaf and company did in this set was they took things that Alpha had done

and found ways to sort of connect them to artifacts. For example, there was a card called Samite Healer in Alpha that you could tap it to prevent one damage to any target. And our given Blacksmith was like, well, I'm like that, except I can't tap for anything. I can only tap to prevent damage to artifact creatures,

but I can do more than semi-healer prevented one damage, this prevented two damage. Ended up being kind of narrow. I don't think this card saw lots of play. Okay, next up we have Artifact Ward and Circular Protection Artifacts. So Artifact Ward costs one white mana. It's an enchant creature.

And then the creature has basically protection from artifacts. Technically, when it was printed, it sort of wrote things out. Let's see, is it... Okay, so it doesn't technically have protection. Enchanted creature

can't be blocked by artifact creatures, prevent all damage that would be dealt to enchanted creatures by artifact sources, and enchanted creature can't be a target of abilities from artifact sources. This card should have been protected from artifacts. The ward that it is copying gives protection. Maybe they thought they couldn't do protection from artifacts

at the time? But anyway, you'll notice this Enchanted Protection is they took cycles that were five card cycles from Alpha, although CLP Black didn't show up to Beta, but they took cycles from Alpha, Beta, and then they made the artifact versionact version. So it's a protection artifact, one and a white, you

spend two mana rather than one, you prevent all damage from an artifact source. So this is them sort of like taking cycles and then saying, okay, well this protects you from colors, well this protects you from artifacts. Okay, next up.

Dampening Field.. Dampening Field. So Dampening Field is two and a white. Players can't untap more than one artifact during their untap step. I'm reading the Oracle text, by the way. When I find fun text that's the original text, I'll read it. So anyway, this card,

there was a card in Alpha. There was two cards. One was called Smoke, and one a card in Alpha. There was two cards. One was called Smoke, and one was called Winter Orb. So Winter Orb only lets you untap one land per turn, and Smoke only lets you untap one creature per turn. Well, Dampening Field was the artifact version of that.

Martyrs of Corlys. Three white white. One six. As long as Martyrs of Corlys is untapped, all damage dealt to you by artifacts is dealt to Martyrs of Corliss instead. Yeah, there's a card in Alpha. A lot of these, you can see a lot of this early on. This set was made pretty quickly,

so there's a lot of riffs going on. Like, oh, here's something magic did, but now we're going to do the artifact version of this. And what was it called? Avatar, what's it called? Personal avatar? Personal incarnation, sorry. Personal incarnation.

This is kind of an artifact version of personal incarnation, which was an alpha. Reverse polarity. White, white. You gain X life where X is twice the damage dealt to you so far by this turn by artifacts. So this is another thing. The set had a lot of helping artifacts

and then protecting you from artifacts. I think this set was a little bit too strong in protecting you from artifacts. This set kind of... Nowadays when we make sets, we definitely put answers to the set in the set, but this set is a little stronger than that in trying to find the answers.

Now, that's all the white cards, by the way. There's only seven of each of the colors in the set. Most of the set is actually artifacts, because it's an artifact-themed set. So now we get on to blue. So Drafna's Restoration put any number of target artifact cards from target player's graveyard

on top of their library in any order. So this allowed you to sort of get back your artifacts, but you didn't draw them. You put it on top of your library. There were some decks that used it, but it was a little clunky. Energy Flux. Enchantment.

Two and a blue. All artifacts have, at the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this artifact unless you pay two mana. This was... Was this the first? There were some other cards that made you tax things. So this might be the first thing. There's a card in Legends that's a land that taxes creatures,

but this is before Legends. So this might be the first taxing card that made you tax to keep things. I don't think this is copying. I think this was doing something that had been done before. Okay, Hercule's Recall. Return all artifacts target player owns to their hand.

This card saw a lot of play, because early magic, with the Moxes and Lotus, and there were a lot of artifacts out there, and there's a lot of Mana, Soul Rings, and Hercules Recall became, saw a lot of play in early magic. Power Artifact.

Blue, Blue, Enchantment Aura. Enchanted Artifact's abilities cost two less to activate. The effect can't reduce the mana in that cost to less than one mana. So there's a bunch of stuff like this where you can put it on a singular thing to make mana cheaper. We don't do a lot. We do

that a little bit, but not as much anymore. Oh, Reconstruction. So the next one's Reconstruction. It's a sorcery. It costs a blue mana. Return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand. So this was kind of in Alpha, there was Raise Dead, which was a single black mana to get an artifact back.

I'm sorry, get a creature back. So this was just mirroring that in blue, though, because blue was... You'll notice here that a lot of blue cards are getting back artifacts from your graveyard. They're bouncing them back to your hand, returning from graveyard to top of library. This one gets them back to your hand. Reconstruction is interesting because there was a little typo, or not typo, misprint here. Reconstruction

forgot to put on the expansion symbol. So this is the first card that was from an expansion that didn't have an expansion symbol. And a little funny story is 1994 U.S. Nationals at the last minute they announced that you weren't allowed to play any card

that had an expansion symbol on it. Which meant basically you could only play cards from the core set and not cards from expansions. But Reconstruction was playable because it didn't have an expansion symbol. So in U.S. National in 1994, the only card from an expansion that was playable in the format was Reconstruction.

Next, Sage of Latnam. So this card actually just got reprinted in Dominaria. So Sage of Latnam is one and a blue. It's a one-two creature, human artificer. Although it was a sage at the time it was printed. Tap, sacrifice an artifact, draw a card. So it allows you to turn artifacts into card drawing. And it's actually kind of balanced.

Like I said, we've reprinted it. We've reprinted it in Dominaria because it was safe to reprint. Okay, and the final, this was one of my favorite cards in the whole set. Transmute Artifact. Blue, blue, sorcery. Sacrifice an artifact. If you do, search your library for an artifact card. If that card's converted

mana cost is less than or equal to the sacrificed artifact's converted mana cost, put it onto the battlefield. If it's greater, you may pay X for X at the difference. If you do, put it on the battlefield. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard and shuffle your library. So what this lets you do is turn an artifact on the battlefield into an artifact from your library. You had to pay extra mana if the thing you're getting was bigger. Interestingly, I had so many... I loved, loved, loved this card.

I made the card Tinker in Urza's Saga because I was trying to make a cleaned up version of Transmute Artifact and ended up making what R&D has claimed to me the most broken card I ever designed, which was Tinker. But anyway, Tinker was me trying to do a cleaned-up version of Transmute Artifact. I kind of took away the things that kept it in balance, like the paying extra mana.

But anyway, this was one of my favorite cards. My favorite white card was Argivian Archaeologist. My favorite blue card was by far Transmute Artifact. Okay, now we get into black. Artifact Possession. So, two and a black, Enchant Artifact. Whenever Enchanted Artifact becomes tapped or a player activates an ability of

Enchanted Artifact without tapping its activation cost, Artifact Possession deals two damage to that Artifact's control art. So, there was a card called Wanderlust in Alpha. There's a bunch of cards that kind of punish you for having a creature or a land or particular things. This was kind of the equivalent for

Artifacts. It also does damage when you activate it, so it becomes tapped or becomes activated. It's just a little different. Wanderlust just punishes you every turn no matter what. Okay, Gate of Phyrexia. One of the big breaks of all time. Black, Black, Enchantment. Sacrifice a creature.

Destroy a target artifact. Activate this ability only during your upkeep and only once per turn. I think this is the only black card that destroys artifacts. Early Magic definitely had the philosophy of, well, yeah, black's not supposed to be good at this, so we'll just make it really weak.

And this card is weak, but it's... Now our belief is, look, don't let cards do things they're not supposed to do. Even doing it weak, if the deck really needs it, like this card sees play in Commander, I know, because if you're playing a black deck and you really need to get rid of artifacts, this is your only choice. Which is the problem with making weak versions of things, is if the goal is you're playing a black deck and you really need to get rid of artifacts, this is your only choice. Which is the problem with making weak versions of things, is if the goal

is you're not supposed to do it, even weak things are doable. I think this is the, there's a few other cards that do it, but this is Introducing Phyrexia. This is one of the few cards that makes mention of Phyrexia. There's flavor text about Phyrexia. So this is the introduction of the Phyrexians for the very first time, which in fact is Magic's

oldest villain. In Legends, we meet Nicole Bola. So a set later, you meet Nicole Bola. So they both are from the first year of Magic, basically. I mean, it came out in 94. Both of them came out before a year of Magic had gone by. Okay, next. Haunting Wind.

So Enchantment, three and a black. Whenever an artifact becomes tapped or a player activates an artifact's ability without tapping's activation cost, Haunting Wind deals one damage to that artifact's controller. So, it's sort of weird. Haunting Wind and Artifact Possession are kind of the same thing, except Artifact Possession goes on a particular artifact and only punishes that artifact,

where Haunting Wind affects all artifacts. Now, I think it affects everybody, not just yours, but everybody's. So, this is meant a little bit more as a sideboard card. Ah, Phyrexian Gremlins. Okay, so Phyrexian Gremlins. I think this card was a gremlin when it first came out, then became, I think, an oofy for a while, and then when gremlins came back in Kaladesh,

it went back to being a gremlin. So two and a black. It's a gremlin creature. One, one. You may choose not to untap Phyrexian Gremlins during your untap step. So, two and a black, it's a gremlin creature, one, one, you may choose not to untap Ferexian Gremlins during an untap step, tap, tap, tag an artifact, it doesn't untap during its control or its untap step for as long as Ferexian Gremlins remain

tapped. So there's a series of cards we did for a while early on, where you would sort of lock things down, and then as long as this creature stayed tapped, that stayed tapped. Why this isn't artifacts, I mean, why this isn't black, black kind of locking down artifacts isn't really black. Um, as you can see, there's a lot of, the color pie at the time was, like, a lot of it hadn't been figured out yet.

So, I mean, it's not really a knock against, um, the East Coast Playtesters. Like, the color pie hadn't really resolved some of this, so they sort of did some things. And after the fact, like, oh, okay, let's, let's clean this up a little bit. Okay, next, Priest of Yawgmoth. So, one and a black for a one-two, Human Cleric. Tap Sacrifice and Artifact. Add an amount of black mana equal to the Sacrifice Artifact's converted mana cost.

There's a card in Alpha called Sacrifice, where you sacrifice creatures to get black mana. This was that put on a creature, and for Artifacts. Xenic Poltergeist. This is my favorite of the black mana. This was that put on a creature and four artifacts. Xenic Poltergeist. This is my favorite of the black cards. Xenic Poltergeist. One black black. It's a 1-1 spirit. It was summoned Poltergeist

originally, but later becoming a spirit. Tap. Until your next turn, target non-creature artifact. Becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness, each equal to converted mana cost. So it animated your artifacts. Your non-creature artifacts, which was really cool. I had a lot of fun decks with this card.

Once again, why is this black? It's kind of weird and black, but because there was not a lot of definition of what did artifacts, a lot of stuff in Tick when he's looking back, I mean, now it's more cleaned and figured out. It does a lot of stuff that we don't let it do anymore. But anyway,

this was a pretty cool card. It's my favorite of the black cards. And finally, Yawgmoth Demon, in black, that is. Four black, black, demon. It's a creature. Six, six. It's got Flying, First Strike. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice an artifact. If you don't, tap Yawgmoth Demon and it deals two damage

to you. So Yawgmoth Demon, there's a card called Lord of the Pit in Alpha, where you sacrifice creatures in order to attack you. This Yawgmoth Demon, there's a card called Lord of the Pit in Alpha where you sacrifice creatures or it attacks you. This was them doing their version of Lord of the Pit, except this thing likes to eat artifacts. Because Yawgmoth Demon, this is one of the Phyrexians. Or, I mean, Yawgmoth was of the Phyrexians,

so this is one of the Phyrexians. Okay, now we get into red. Artifact Blast. Red, instant, counter-target artifact spell. Again, there's a lot of color pipe violations and antiquities. Red is not... Red is allowed to destroy artifacts.

It is not allowed to counter artifacts. Now, obviously, this card does do it, but it is not something that red is supposed to do. Red is supposed to be good at destroying them once they're there. But there's a lot of... Because they made a set all about artifacts, they really stretched things.

And, once again, it wasn't like it was established what could or couldn't do something. Next, Aetog! This is clearly, clearly my favorite red card. And one of my favorite cards in the set. The funny thing at the time was Aetog... So, Aetog is one and a red, one, two, eight, creature Aetog.

Sacrifice an artifact. Aetog gets plus two, plus two until end of turn. There was a lot of belief when this first set first came out that Aetog was a bad, bad card. And I made a lot of decks to demonstrate to my friends that Aetog was not a bad card, but in fact a pretty good card.

And I made a lot of Aetog decks. Aetog was my favorite creature up until Morrow became my favorite. Aetog was my favorite creature for a long time in Magic. Not a long time, but in early Magic. So Aetog, by the way, is an anagram of goat

and the idea is because it eats anything. And I would go on later my love of Aetogs, I would make a mega mega cycle of A-Togs, meaning I made an A-Tog in every color because on Mirage we were working on like four A-Togs and I realized

it was an A-Tog in green and then after four A-Togs we made Necrotog and then we made Chrono-Tog and then we made Aura-Tog and then in Odyssey I made multicolor versions of the A-Togs, I made allied colors of the A-Tog. And then in Odyssey, I made multicolor versions of the A-Tog. I made allied colors of the A-Togs. Anyway, I love A-Togs. So, big A-Tog fan.

Next, Deadnate. X and Red. Sorcery. Destroy target artifact with Chronomanticost X. It can't be regenerated. Deadnate deals X damage to that artifact's controller. So the idea is not only do you blow something up, but it also deals damage to them. But it has X in it.

Now, Red is supposed to destroy artifacts, so that was a pretty good Red thing. So the idea is not only do you blow something up, but it also deals damage to them. But it has X in it. Now, red is supposed to destroy artifacts, so that was a pretty good red thing. Dwarven Weaponsmith. One in red. Originally it was just summon dwarves, even though only one dwarf was pictured. It's now a dwarf artificer.

1-1. Tap. Sacrifice an artifact. Put a plus one, plus one counter on target creature. Activate this ability only during your upkeep. It's interesting. There's a lot more restrictions of when you can do things. There's a lot more worry that if you just do it any time, it'll cause problems. Nowadays, we're a little more willing to, like, this probably wouldn't be during

your upkeep anymore. Goblin Artisans. Red. 1-1 Goblin Artisans. Goblin Artificer. Originally, we just summoned goblins. Tap, flip a coin. If you win the flip, draw a card If you lose the flip, counter-target artifact spell you control that isn't the target of an ability from another creature named Goblin Artificer

Let me read that again. If you lose the flip counter-target artifact spell you control that isn't the target of an ability from another creature named Goblin Artificer Okay, that is a confusing sentence So basically creature named Goblin Artifact. Okay, that is a confusing sentence. So basically,

counter-target artifact spell, you control the... I'm not even sure I understand what this card is doing. This is a confusing card. Oh, I see, I see. You are only able to cast this spell as you cast an I see. Um, you are only able to cast this spell as you cast an artifact. And then you can flip a coin,

and if you win, you get to draw a card, but if you lose, the artifact gets countered. It's a weird card in red. Um, the flavor of the goblins sometimes destroy things. Orcish mechanics. 2-R-1-1, uh, orc. Tap, sacrifice an artifact. It deals 2 damage to any target.

Um, there were orcs. There were orcish, this is sort. It deals two damage to any target. There were Orcs. There were Orcish Artilleries. Orcish Artilleries didn't sacrifice things, but they did do damage. And then Shatterstorm. Two red red. Destroy all artifacts that can't be regenerated. For some reason, early on in Magic,

we were scared to death of regeneration. Everything stopped regeneration. And so you see it here. Now it just destroys it. For a while, by the way, we had not when the tip just came up, but destroy can't be regenerated started to be called bury for a while because we did it so much. The reason we don't do bury anymore is we don't have regeneration. We don't

hose regeneration. Okay, those are the red cards. Now we get into the green cards. Okay, our Gothian Pixies. I love the Gothian Pixies. So our Gothian Pixies are 1 and a green 2, 1, creature fairy. They can't be blacked by artifact creatures. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to our Gothian Pixies by

artifact creatures. Once again, for some reason, they didn't get the idea they could do protection from artifacts, which is what this card wants. I mean, it doesn't have all of it, but it was trying to mimic protection from artifacts. Same with our Gothian Treefolk. Three green, green, three, five. Prevent all

damage that would be dealt to our Gothian Treefolk for artifact sources. So, both of those kind of want to be protected from artifacts. Pixies are my favorite of the ones that are here. I had a deck, a little weenie deck, and because the Mishra's Factories were so much of a problem, our Gothian Pixies were

key to my deck digging through the Mishra. I'll get to Mishra's Factories were so much of a problem. I think Pixies were key to my deck digging through the Mishra. I'll get to Mishra's Factories. This is probably a two-podcast thing, just because I can see from my clock. I'm going to get through half the set, but I'm not going to get through all the set. Okay, Sentinel Druid. One and a green. One, one. Human Druid. Originally was just a Summoned Druid.

When an opponent casts an artifact spell, put a plus one counter on Sentinel Druid. So, Richard had made a creature that whenever a creature died spell, put a plus one counter on Sentinel Druid. So, Richard had made a creature that whenever a creature died, you got a plus one, plus one counter. And so, I think they were riffing off of that. Alpha did have things with plus one, plus one counters, but, like, Fungusaur got a plus one, plus one counter

when you were damaged. So, Alpha and Arabian Nights had sort of made a few cards that, like, when thing X happens, get a plus one counter. Because this was an artifact spell. Now note that it's not when anyone casts an artifact, it's only when the opponent casts an artifact. Nowadays, we tend to do things

more of when you do it, so you can build around it. Crumble. Crumble is an instant for green. Destroy target artifact. It can't be regenerated. That artifact 's control regains life equal to its confirmed mana cost. This was basically a source for plowshares, but for artifacts. In which I'm destroying it

for one mana and giving you life. Obviously it has to be regenerated, because we did that everywhere. And Crumble was very, very good. It was a one-mana answer. It was actually stronger than Shatter, which was a two-mana answer. And artifacts were all over the place in early Magic, so

Crumble saw a whole bunch of play. Gaea's Avenger, one green green, Treefolk, one plus star, one plus star, although in the original card it was star plus one, star plus one. It was a Treefolk. Originally it was Summon Gaea's Avenger, but now it's a Treefolk. Gaea's Avenger's power and toughness each equal to one plus

the number of artifacts your opponent controls. So once again, it's a star star star plus one, star plus one, plus one, star, plus one, equal to, but based on the opponent, not yours. You can't build around this. You can sideboard it against your opponent's deck or if your metagame has a lot of artifacts. Power leech, green, green enchantment.

Whenever an artifact an opponent controls becomes tapped or an opponent activates an ability, without tapping it activates, you gain one life. So this is the mirror to Haunting Wind. So whenever they use an artifact, you gain a life rather than they lose a life. So it's the mirror. It's not creatively mirrored, but it's the mirror to that.

And finally, Titania Song. Which I think... Is Titania Song my favorite green card? Titania Song or Argoththy and Pixies. We'll call it a tie. I did love this card a lot. Titania Song, 300 green enchantment. Each non-creature artifact loses all abilities and becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness

each equal to its converted mana cost. If titanium song leaves the battle, its effect continues until end of play. So it animates all your artifacts. So Zenith Poltergeist animated it temporarily and this could do one creature. This did all of them. I made a whole bunch of animating artifact decks, so I did

love Titanium Song, and I did love Xenic Poltergeist, and I grew up in Pixies. It was a key part of my deck, so I really enjoyed that. Okay, so now we get to the artifacts. So let me, um, I only needed a few, then I'll be halfway through, and then probably we'll wrap up for today, but I'll come back next time with my next

podcast to talk about the rest of the cards. Amulet of Krug! I believe that this is referencing Urza's wife. Krug is where she is. She is from Krug. And anyway, 2 and tap. Prevent the next 1 damage that we dealt to any target this turn. So it was kind of like a semi-healer, but semi-healer was just tap.

This was two and tap. And man, man, man, just tap is so much better. This card was a pretty weak card. Armageddon Clock! Armageddon Clock costs six. It's an artifact. At the beginning of your upkeep, put a Doom Counter on Armageddon Clock. At the beginning of your draw step, Armageddon Clock deals

damage equal to the number of Doom Counters on it to each player. So basically, it just... And then, four, colon, remove a Doom step, Armageddon Clock deals damage equal to the number of Doom Counters on it to each player. So basically, it just... And then, 4, remove a Doom Counter from Armageddon Clock. Any player may activate this ability, but only during any upkeep step. So, I think Richard had done a card in Arabian Nights that anybody could activate. This was also a card that anybody could activate. The idea, essentially, is it just does more and more damage over time, except players have the ability to slow it down.

So if you put it out and you want damage to happen, then maybe you're making your opponent waste mana to try to slow it down. Anyway, the very first t-shirts that Magic made were Vesuvian Doppelganger, Vesuvian Doppelganger, Vesuvian Doppelganger, Nightmare, and Armageddon Clock. There was a Herlu Minotaur made just for employees. But those were the first three shirts

ever made with magic. Armageddon Clock was one of them. It was a very odd choice. This wasn't a particularly popular card. The art by Amy Weber is a very cool piece of art, which is, I'm sure, why they chose it.

But it was an odd choice just because, like, Vesuvian Doppelganger, Nightmare, a lot of people played. They were very popular cards. Armageddon Clock was not a very popular card.

So it was definitely an odd choice. Okay, next. Ashnod's Altar. So Ashnod is, was Mishra's right-handed person. She was sort of

his apprentice, I guess, is probably a better term. So Ashnod's also three artifact sacrifice a creature, add two colorless mana. This card did see a bunch of play just because it converted creatures into mana. Colorless mana, but still. There's definitely

some decks that played this, especially early on in Magic. Next, Ashnod's Battle Gear. Ashnod's Battle Gear, two artifact. You may choose not to untap Ashnod's Battle Gear during your untap step. To untap, target creature you control gets plus 2, minus 2 for as long as Ashnod's Battle Gear remains tapped.

So this is the early versions of equipment. This is kind of proto-equipment. Equipment didn't happen until Mirrodin. You'll notice it's flavored as equipment. You can only use it on your creatures, and it has this kind of, I can keep it tapped so I can put it on my creature and keep it on my creature but I then can take it off and put it on another

creature. So this is definitely early on. Ash Nod's a little bit of a masochist, so the idea that her armor makes you more powerful, but it also hurts you to wear it, so plus two minus, so I thought that was pretty flavorful. Okay, next. Ash Nod's Transmogrin.

I played this card a lot. One artifact, tap, sacrilege Ash Nod's Transmogrin. I played this card a lot. One artifact. Tap Sacrifice, Ashnod's Transmogrin. Put a plus one, plus one counter on target non-artifact creature. That creature becomes an artifact in addition to its other types. So the cool thing with this card is not only did it make a plus one, plus one counter, but it turned things into artifacts. And because there were a lot of artifact shenanigans that the set made,

the ability to turn something into an artifact was pretty cool. And so I had a lot of decks that used this card as a means to include some non-artifacts so I could turn them into artifacts to care about them being artifacts. So this was definitely something I got a lot of use out of. Okay, I got three more cards, and then I think I'm halfway through, and then we will wrap up for today. Battering Ram. Battering Ram costs two. It's an artifact creature or construct. Originally, artifact creatures didn't have creature types at this time,

so it didn't have creature type originally. 1-1. At the beginning of combat in your turn, Battering Ram gains banding until end of combat. Whenever Battering Ram becomes blocked by a wall, destroy that wall at end of combat. So the idea was it had banding but only on attack and it destroyed walls, so kind of

don't block it with walls, because it was a battering ram. A very top-down design. Next, bronze tablet. Costs six artifacts. Remove bronze tablet from your deck if you're not playing for ante. Bronze tablet enters the battlefield tapped. Four in tap, exile bronze tablet

and target non-token permanent an opponent owns. That player may pay ten life. If they do, Okay, so... So the idea here was, if your opponent puts something up... So, Ante, when Magic first came out, the way you would play, this was the default rules, although very, very few people played with anti early on, but the default rules was, you drew seven cards, your eighth card went aside,

and the winner of the game got the loser's card, was how anti worked. This card lets you, if you get this card, you can trade your bronze tablet for your opponent's anti card, basically. And your bronze tablet for your opponent's anti-card, basically. And so even if you lost the game, you still could get their

anti-card. Anti did not last very long, and so this is early enough, there's still anti-cards in the set. The anti-cards would anti-left. Anti was officially the way to play when Magic first came out. Almost nobody did it. It was very...

I mean, I used to go to some Anti Nights where there was a... I had a friend that ran a shop, and they would do once a month Anti Nights, and we'd make special decks where you knew you were Anting. But early Magic, you would sit down and go, we're not playing for Anti, right? That was just kind of how you would start games when you would play against strangers.

Okay, the last and final card, and then I'm halfway through the set, is Candelabra of Taunos. A very powerful card. One artifact, uh, costs one. It's an artifact. X-tap, untap X-target lands. Um, there are lands in the set that I will

get to in the next podcast, the Urza Tron, that can tap for more than one mana. So, uh, this card allowed you to basically go up way in mana. The real, I mean, there were other reasons to untap lands. I'm not saying that the only reason to untap lands was mana. So, uh, this card allowed you to basically go up way in mana. The real, I mean, there were other reasons to untap lands. I'm not saying that the only reason to untap lands was mana. But one of the strengths of this card was

there were some cards that tapped for a lot of mana, and this lets you untap from the cost of one mana. Uh, and so for one mana, you can get more than one mana. So it allowed you to really get huge amounts of mana. Um, but anyway, this card was a very powerful card.

It was restricted long, long ago. But anyway, it was pretty cool. Taunos, by the way, is the... Ashnod was the apprentice to Mishra. Taunos was the apprentice to Urza. And for those who don't know the story,

Taunos and Ashnod had a thing for a while. Star-crossed lovers sort of thing. But anyway, guys, I can see my desk, and I realize I've passed my halfway point, or I've passed the 30-minute mark. So I've made it halfway through. So anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. But since I can see my desk, we all know what that means.

It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So guys, I hope you enjoyed my walk through antiquities, but I'm not done. So come back next time and I will do the second half. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoy revisiting antiquities. One of my favorite, like I said,

one of my first ever favorite sets. Probably my first favorite set of magic. Anyway, guys, I will see you next time. Bye-bye.