Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #807: Angels, Part 2

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

In this podcast, I continue to share design stories about various Angel cards.

I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay, so last time I started talking about Angels, and I decided, as soon as I stopped, I'm like, you know what, I should just do the next one. So I decided to do another one on Angels. I think when I wrote it up, I said part one, part two. So you guys always knew I was doing another part one. I didn't know that till I finished. But anyway, we finished last time with Magic 2010. We're up to Zendikar. So I'll begin with a Meria Angel. Two white, white for a 3-3 Angel.

Flying. Landfall. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a 1-1 white bird creature token with flying into the battlefield. I think the earliest version of this card actually made 1-1 ground creatures. But I think we got the idea of, well, what if we put it on an angel

and instead of ground creatures, it made flying creatures? And I think, I kind of think we went back and forth whether it made birds or spirits. But anyway, I like this card. One of the things that's fun about Landfall is

on smaller cards, you tend to do little effects, and then as you get a little more expensive, bigger cards, you get to do bigger effects. So I like making little 1-1 birds. It's cool. I also like the idea... I'm a big bird fan, so I just like Landfall. It makes birds. Okay, next. Iona, Shield of Myria. Six white, white, white, legendary creature

angel, 7-7, flying. As Iona, Shield of Myria, enters the battlefield, choose a color. Your opponents can't cast spells of the chosen color. So, one of the interesting things is one of the things that we always try to do is try to sort of, in the color pie,

figure out how different people do stuff such that they have their own identity. So, one of the things that we always try to do is try to sort of, in the color pie, figure out how different people do stuff such that they have their own identity. So one of the things that we definitely do a lot of is making white more of the proactive color and blue more the reactive color. And what that means is white can shut you down, but it more does it proactively. I'm going to make a rule or do something and ahead of time keep you from doing something. Where blue is more like a reactive. You do it and then I react to it. So Iona is a really good example of a very

proactive white card, right? You get to pick a color. You're not countering the spells. You're just keeping them from ever getting cast in the first place. And I know Iona is a very popular commander just because it's pretty powerful. So anyway, next, let's see.

Admission, Admonition Angel? This is from Worldwake. Uh, three white, white, white, so six men in total, three witches white, six, six, flying, it's an angel. They're all angels, I don't know if I need to say it every time. Landfall. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may exile target non-land permanent other than Admission Angel. When Admission Angel leaves the battlefield, return all cards exiled with it to the battlefield under the owner's control.

So remember we were trying to... So we had done Landfall for the first time in Zendikar. Now we're in Worldwake, so the first expansion to original Zendikar. And we were trying to just come up with clever ways to use landfall a little differently than we had before. And we stumbled upon the idea of sort of making an Oblivion Ring, right? Of one of White's abilities

is removing things from the battlefield while it's on the battlefield. And we'd definitely done creatures that do that. So the idea here was we had to do two things. So one is we had to say other than admonition angel, right, because we didn't want it to exile itself. And the second thing is we said

non-land because we didn't want to do land shenanigans. Well, two things. We didn't want to erase land because we don't like to do a lot of land destruction. And there are some shenanigans you could do with having lands be taken away by the Admonition Angel and then bring them back, and then it makes a lot of land triggers and stuff. So anyway, I like this card. I think this card is kind of a fun card, so it's pretty cool.

Next, Lightkeeper of Emeria. Three white, two four. This is from Worldwake as well. Multikicker white. So Multikicker, you may pay an additional white any number of times that you cast a spell. It's flying, and when Lightkeeper of Myriad enters the battlefield, you gain two life for each time it was kicked.

So, essentially, for three white, it's a 2-4 flyer. For three white, white, it's a 2-4 flyer, you gain two life. For three white, white, white, it's a 2-4 flyer, you gain four life, except you can keep kicking as many times as you want. Interesting, Multikicker actually originally started in

Zendikar. We were trying to find, because we were bringing Kicker back, I mean, Kicker had been in numerous sets before, and we came up with Multikicker as being the new variant for Kicker. But what we found was that there was plenty of use of General Kicker,

and we decided to push it off into Worldwake, so we would save the upgrade until the second set, so the second set had something new to it. And so, this card... I think this card was... I believe this actual card

was originally in Worldwake Design. We liked the idea... There's a bunch of different things we do with angels. Angels can be protective. Angels... And life gain is one of the ways, because in some ways,

the angel's being protective of you, the player, if it gains you life. So I think this card, in its... In its... This form, I believe, was in Original Tempest. Okay. Next. Deathless Angel.

Four white, white, four, five, seven. So, Deathless Angel is in Rise of the Eldrazi. Flying. White, white. So, by the way, all angels with really no exception fly. There's this anticipation. I mean, first of all,

you don't really think it's an angel if it doesn't have wings. And if it has wings, like, that's what visually defines an angel, is it has wings, and if you see someone with wings, you expect it to fly. So, pretty much one for one, all of our angels fly, uh, kind of like our dragons. I mean, there's a few exceptions on dragons, but, um, there's certain creature types that we really don't, like, we, like, it's assumer they fly, so we make them all fly. Angels is one of those. Anyway, Deathless Angel, 5-7 Flyer, white, white, target creatures, indestructible this turn. So one of the things the angels do, one of the big things they do is they're protective. And so this was a clear way to sort of protect things,

making them indestructible. I think this was before, for a long time, we had regeneration in the set. Sorry, in Magic. And then we took it away. And to replace regeneration, we started doing target creature gets indestructible. Usually, it's things that affect themselves. But it's interesting,

because White never granted regeneration to things, but White did protect things. So as we sort of collapse a little bit, there's a little bit of a fuzziness of who does what, but this very much is an angel protecting things. Okay, next, also from Rise of the Odrazi, Linvala,

Keeper of the Silence. Two white, white, legendary creature, an angel, of course. Three, four, flying. Activated abilities of creatures your opponent controls can't be activated So a lot of times we do this kind of thing on small creatures What we call hate bears, right? So it's usually a 2 mana 2-2

And then it keeps your opponent from doing something This is like a hate angel So occasionally we'll put them on bigger creatures The idea being that it kind of messes up your opponent's plans because you're not letting them do something, and usually, you know, people are prepared for their deck to do the thing they need it to do,

so you really can mess people up when you do stuff like that. Okay. Next up, Sunblast Angel. So Sunblast Angel. So Sunblast Angel is from Scars of Mirrodin. Four white, white, four, five, flying. When Sunblast Angels enters the battlefield, destroy all tapped creatures. So one of the interesting things about white is white sort of needs some justification to kill things.

It can pacify or arrest whatever it wants. It can O-ring whatever it wants, because those are all undoable. But when it comes to killing, white usually is like, okay, well, A, did you attack me or try to hurt me? Okay, I'm defending myself. Are you inherently evil? Sometimes it can mess with red and black things, because it believes they're inherently evil.

One of the ways we've done one of the shortcuts to sort of talk about have you messed with me is instead of caring about blocked or blocking or attacking is you do tap creatures. The idea of, well, if you tap you probably were doing something to me. You were

activating to hurt me or you were attacking me. And so we do get let white destroy tap creatures from time to time. Interestingly, Alpha originally did it in black on Royal Assassin, but it is something we sort of... Black kind of can just destroy anything, so we let white

have destroyed tapped creatures. It's not something we do a lot. So Sunblast Angel is a good example where while angels are often protective, there's some vengeful angels. And so sometimes, uh, we do have some destructive angels. So this is a good example of kind of a, a destructive angel. Okay. Um, next up. Um, okay. Angel of Strife. So Angel of Strife, where's this card from? Uh, or sorry, Arch, Arch, Archangel of Strife. So Angel of Strife. Where's this card from?

Sorry, Archangel of Strife. It's from Commander 2011. Five white, white, six, six, flying angel. As Archangel of Strife enters the battlefield, each player chooses war or peace. Creatures controlled by players who chose war get plus three, plus oh. Creatures controlled by players who chose peace get plus three or plus three.

So we often refer to this as anchor words, get plus 3 plus 0. Creatures controlled by players who chose peace get plus 3 or plus 3. So we often refer to this as anchor words although technically these aren't anchor words and there's not words associated with them. I mean, I guess you choose war or peace. The way we template this now, I guess this would be an anchor word. So anchor words is choose war or peace and then war

this happens. Peace, this happens. Like, Fate Reforged is kind of king of the anchor words. It is something we do more of nowadays. There's a lot of flavor. Like, you must choose A or B, and A does this and B does that. So it is pretty cool.

Okay. Okay. Tariel, Reckoner of Souls. This is also from Commander 2011. Four white, black, red for four, seven legendary creatures. It's an angel. Flying and Vigilance. Tap.

Choose a creature card at random from target opponent's graveyard. Put the card onto the battlefield under your control. So this is kind of a cute card. So one of the things you're trying to do... So obviously we're doing a three-color card. It's an angel at its core, so it's going to be white. It's got Flying and Vigilance. So it we're doing a three-color card. It's an angel at its core, so it's going to be white. It's got flying and vigilance, so it very much feels like a white angel. And then

for its ability, it's like, okay, what do white and black and red, where do they overlap? And the idea is, well, white and black are the two colors that tend to reanimate creatures out of the graveyard. Red's about randomness, so what if we kind of mix it together and sort of like has sort of a chaotic feel to it, but you're getting

things back from the graveyard, so we've definitely, Angels have done a bunch of rebirth-type stuff where it's getting things back from the dead. That's a flavor we play with Angels. And so this sort of had a neat package. Now normally, white, by the way, tends to get back smaller things. It doesn't get back normal

size. It does a little bit, but black is more king of doing that. So, anyway, it's just a cool little package. Okay, Aegis Angel. Four white, white, five, five creature angel flying. When Aegis Angel enters the battlefield, another target of Pergman is indestructible for as long as you control Aegis Angel.

So, we like doing protecting angels. I mean, the interesting things I explained in the last podcast is Sarah Angel came about because Richard sort of was enamored by the idea of a warrior angel. And really, one of the things about magic is we sort of take things and kind of run with them. And over time, really this battle angel just became kind of the defining, especially female Battle Angel, sort of a magic thing.

And that is sort of our default for where we go. So you'll see a lot of Protective Angels and Battle Angels and stuff like this. This was made for Magic 2012, so it was probably done very top-down. The core sets we like to do, the new designs and core sets are usually super resonant. So the idea of, I am an angel that will protect you felt pretty good. Okay, next up. This is from Innistrad. Angel of Flight Alabaster.

Four white, four four. Flying angel. At the beginning of your upkeep, return target spirit card from your graveyard to your hand. So we're in Innistrad. Innistrad has a tribal component. White and blue have spirit tribal. So, and white has some ability to do generation. Normally, white tends to give back smaller things, although spirits tend to be smaller.

Especially in Innistrad, like small flying creatures were a lot of where spirits ended up. So, this was sort of meant as we wanted to make an angel that fit the world. And there are a bunch of angels, obviously, in... as we're going to get to in a second. There are a lot of angels on Endistrad. So it sort of fit as a natural thing. Okay. Angelic Overseer.

Three white, white, five, three flying angel. As long as you control a human, Angelic Overseer has hexproof and is indestructible. So, okay, so angel, Flight Alabaster, White and Blue were Spirit Tribal, while White and Green are Human Tribal. So this was a card helping with the Human Tribal. So the idea here is, I have an Angel. It's not that it helps the humans, really. It's just that it goes good in a human deck. This card is really hard to beat if you have a human out. So if you're playing a human deck, this goes well with your human deck is the idea.

Okay, next. There's a bunch of angels here. Requiem Angel. Five and white for 5-5. Flying Angel. Whenever another non-spirit creature you control dies, put a 1-1 white spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield.

Okay, so this is something that's not as much a spirit tribal card, although I mean it makes spirit, so it does have some synergy, like in Limited. Basically, the idea here is that when you die, you come back as a spirit. So, it says non-spirit for

two reasons. One, the flavor. Like, a non-spirit creature. A spirit can't die and become a spirit. And second, it avoids loops. Like, the idea. Like, a non-spirit creature. A spirit can't die and become a spirit. And second, it avoids loops. Like, the idea is once you make a little token, the token itself won't come back. There's a couple ways we do this. You'll notice normally when we make tokens

based off death. So, like, when a creature dies and make a token, we'll do one of two things. Either we'll say non-token, or we'll say non-the-creature-type-that-the-token, or we'll say non-the creature type that the token is. This chose to do that. But, uh... So it's interesting, by the way, that this card...

There's sort of some tension here. Because it only triggers off non-spirits, it doesn't really want to go into a deck full of spirits, but it does make spirits, so it has some synergy with spirits. So like I said, it works a little bit more unlimited than it does in Constructors. It's not really meant for a spirit deck.

Okay, next. Also from... Oh, now we're getting into um... Avacyn Restored. Uh, there weren't... I don't think there actually were any angels. Or no, no, no. Was Requiem Angel? Oh, Requiem Angel might have been from Dark Ascension. Yeah.

Requiem Angel was the only angel from Dark Ascension. Yeah. Requiem Angel, sorry, was the only angel from Dark Ascension. So what's going on is we come to Innistrad. We kind of learn about the angels. Angels play a role. But a lot of the angels have been locked away. Things are going bad. Then we come to Dark Ascension. Things are getting worse. So there's one angel. And then

we get absinthe restored, where all the angels get freed. Part of the story is that Liliana needs to get to Crystal Band, because that's one of her demons that she has to kill, but it's trapped inside Crystal Band, and Avacyn got trapped inside

the Hell Vault, and Liliana uses Thalia, because Liliana herself can't break it open, but it gets Thalia, convinces Thalia to break it open, to free Avacyn, but then that frees Gristlebrand,

and then Liliana kills Gristlebrand. Okay. Angel of Glory's Rise, five white, white, flying, four, six, angel. When Angel of Glory's Rise enters the battlefield, exile all zombies, then return all human creature cards

from your graveyard to the battlefield. So this was a mirror image of a card. I'm blanking on the name of the battlefield, exile all zombies, then return all human creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. So this was a mirror image of a card. I'm blanking on the name of the card, but there was a card in Dark Ascension that destroyed all creatures and then returned all zombies to play. And so this is sort of

the mirror, like, this is like kills the zombies and then gets back the humans. So, it was sort of meant as a sort of mirror of the cartoon Dark Ascension. Part of the idea also was things were going really, really bad for the humans in Dark Ascension, and when the angels come back,

things get a little better for the humans. Okay, there's a bunch of angels here. I'm just going to jump to a few of them. Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Five, white, white, white, 8-8. Legendary creature, flying vigilance. Avalon, Angel of Hope, and other permanents you control are indestructible.

So this card, as written, although the cost I think might have changed, in Vision Design, we made her in a meeting. This was exactly what she did. She was 8-8. I think she was even eight mana it might not have been as many white mana when we made her but i believe it was eight mana

for an eight eight flying vigilance and she makes everything indestructible um because she is the ultimate protector right in the story avacyn avacyn's disappearance was what was causing sort of a lot of the problems um anyway um this was the first... We knew that Avacyn was going to be important. I mean, the set was called Avacyn Restored, right? It's like, you know you gotta deliver. She was the packaging image, so... We really wanted to make a cool thing,

and that's what we ended up making. Okay. Emancipation Angel. One white white, three three flying. When Emancipation Angel enters the white, white, 3-3 flying. When Emancipation Angel enters the battlefield, return a permit. You control its owner's hand. So this is a thing we do in white from time to time,

where as a cost for playing a card, you have to boomerang a thing. While blue boomerangs anything, white can only boomerang its own creatures. And so sometimes there's a cost we do that. So you get a three mana, 3-3 angel. It's kind of cheap. It's an uncommon, so this is more meant for limited,

but yeah, anyway, it's a good card. Okay, let's jump ahead to Restoration Angel. So three white for three four, flash flying. When Restoration Angel enters the battlefield, you may exile target non-angel creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under your control. So this flickers, although it says non-angel so it doesn't flicker itself, so it's got infinite flickering. And then the reason you don't want that is

notice that it returns right away, and there are cards that trigger every time a creature enters the battlefield, so if you can choose itself, that combo you can do infinite times with whatever triggered if something entered the battlefield. And Restoration Angel, I think, was a very popular card. Okay, next, we have Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Gisela, Blade of Goodnight, and Sigarda, Host of Herons. So, they're all... Well, they have different generics. So, Bruna is three, two white, and a blue.

Gisela is four, one red and two white. And Sagada, Host of Herons is two, one green and two white. So all of them are two colors. They all require two white mana and one of the other color. So there was a blue one, a red one and a green one.

The idea here is Avacyn Restored was our angel set. That's why there's so many angels in it. And Avacyn has kind of three supportive angels, one of each color. We didn't do black because black was kind of the bad guy in the set.

There is a fourth sister that gets told in the story that we later printed that is white and black, but not in the set. So these three cards, which were blue, red, and green angels, I mean, they all were white as well, but we nicknamed these the Powerpuff Girls

in design. And they, just because one was blue, one was red, one was green. If you've ever seen Powerpuff Girls, it's an animated cartoon of little tiny little superheroes, little female superheroes. And they are blue, green, and they are blue, green, and red. They're blue, green, and red.

Okay, so Bruna is 5-5 Vigilance, flying. Whenever Bruna, Light of Alabaster, attacks your blocks, you may attach it to any number of auras on the battlefield, and you may put under the battlefield attached to it any number of aura cards that are consented from the graveyard of your hand.

So Bruna is, I want to be played with lots of auras. And so she's the aura. And the cool thing about her is that if anything, you put on something else and it dies, you can bring them back. Or you can bring anything that's on the battlefield. So you can sort of play out your auras

on the things you have at the time, and as soon as Bruna comes, you can suck up all the auras. Gisela. Okay, so she's 5-5, so they're all 5, but all three of the sifters are 5-5. And all of them are flying plus one ability.

So Bruna is Vigilance, Gisela is First Strike, and Sigarda is Hexproof. I know there's a little quirky thing here, looking back, like, why isn't Sagarda, who's green at Vigilance, since Bruna, which is white-blue, Vigilance so, anyway, the First

Strike and the hexproof line up with their colors, the Vigilance is not so that's a little quirky. Okay, anyway Flying First Strike. If a source would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls that source deals double that damage to that permanent instead. If a source would deal damage to opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, that source seals double that damage to that permanent instead. If a source will deal damage to you or

a permanent you control, prevent half of that damage rounded up. I made this card. Can you tell? It doubles damage. So the idea I really, really liked was that angels are both vengeance and protecting. So the idea is she doubles damage you're doing and she halves the damage against you.

This was another card that got made in Vision that I don't think changed. I mean, the numbers changed, but the basic design did not change. And finally, Sigarda was Flying Hexproof, 5-5. Spells and abilities you're prone to control can't cause you to sacrifice permanents. So the idea is it sort of protects your thing, so you can't have things sacrificed. Now note, by the way, so you can't have things sacrificed. Now note, by the way, that Sigarda costs 5 mana total, Bruna costs 6 mana total,

and Gisela costs 7 mana total. That had to do with what their abilities were, and so Gisela has kind of the strongest ability, so it's the most expensive. Okay, here comes a Mono Blue Angel! We don't get Mono Blue Angels all that often. So this Mono Blue Angel is from Plane Chaste 2012. So it's an illusionary angel. Two and a white for four, four angel illusion flying.

Cast illusionary angel only if you've cast another spell this turn. So it's funny. Later on in time, we made illusions things that when you target, they go away. But this is before we did that. So this is something where it's a cheap angel. It's an illusion, but you have to cast something first. There's not a lot of mono-blue angels. In fact, it might be the only mono...

Anyway, there's not a lot of mono-blue angels. So, okay, next. This is from Magic 2013. Sublime Archangel. So Sublime Archangel is two white, white for four, three, flying, exalted. And other creatures you control have exalted. So what happened was exalted originally was a mechanic on Bant in Alara. Brian Tinsman came up with it.

And the first time he pitched me exalted, I thought it was too... He had to jump through... The hoop was too hard to jump through, and I didn't like it. But then we played it, and it actually was very good. So I apologized to him after our first playtest. I said, okay, Brian, I apologize.

This is a really good mechanic. So we did it there, and then we brought it back. There's a period where all the core sets would bring back one mechanic, and Exalted was the mechanic brought back. So I don't think there was ever one mechanic. And Exalted was a mechanic brought back. So I don't think there was

ever an angel made with Exalted. So anyway, here was our chance to make an Exalted angel. Okay. Next. So this is Angel of Serenity from Return to Ravnica. Four white, white, white, five, six, flying angel. When Angel of Serenity from Return to Ravnica. Four white, white, white, five, six, flying angel.

When Angel of Serenity enters the battlefield, you may exile up to three other target creatures from the battlefield and draw creature cards from graveyards. When Angel of Serenity leaves the battlefield, return the exiled cards to their owner's hands. So this one's a little quirky. So basically what it does is it lets you get rid of creatures. So you can either use it

as a means to get rid of your opponent's creatures, and it's kind of like an Oblivion Ring, which, like I said, we've done in Angels before. Or you can use it on cards in Graveyard, probably your Graveyard, and then when it dies, you get those back to your hand. So White can reanimate creatures to a certain extent,

especially Angels. This lets you get any creature. And White can also do get those back to your hand. So, white can reanimate creatures to a certain extent, especially angels. Um, well, this, this doesn't, this lets you get any creature. Uh, and white can also

do Oblivion Ring style effects. So, this is an interesting sort of, um, we do these designs sometimes where we crisscross space where, like,

it has one function with two things, so it can do two different things that color does. So, I think that's kind of cool. Um, okay, next is Angelic Skirmishers. So, Angelic's kind of cool. Okay, next is

Angelic Skirmishers. So Angelic Skirmishers is from Gatecrash. Oh, this was my set. I co-led the set with Mark Gottlieb. Angelic Skirmishers, 4 white, white, 4, 4 flying. At the beginning of each combat, choose First Strike, Vigilance, or Lifelink. Creatures you control

gain that ability until end of turn. Oh, oh, oh! I now realize what was going on with the Powerpuff Girls. That each of the abilities were things that were in white. They were trying to do shared abilities. Because First Strike's in white and red, and Hexproof can be done in white and green. Although the Vigilance still doesn't work.

Man, Blue's not a Vigilance color. Well, I think we tried to set something up and then it changed after the fact. Anyway, sorry. Angelic Skirmishers. So you can give it First Strike, Vigilance, or Lifelink. These are all white abilities. But now they did get it, but you can give it to all your creatures. And so this is...

Sometimes we make angels that are kind of leaders. And that's kind of cool. Okay, next. Also in Jumpstart. Aurelia, the War Leader. Two red-red-white-white, 3-4 Legendary Creature Angel, flying Vigilance Haste. Whenever Aurelia, the Warlander, attacks

for the first time each turn, untap all creatures you control. After this phase, there's an additional combat phase. Okay, so, this is a Legendary Creature. So, one of the things we did is we decided that, like I said, two guilds, the Boros and the Orzhov, would have angels. Boros has angels that are, some of their leaders are angels. They're often led by an angel.

It made a lot of sense because they're warriors, and the Boros are kind of our warriors of Ravnica. They're kind of like a combination of the police and the army. So it makes sense that angels lead them. We've had a couple different angels that have led them. So anyway, so flying, vigilance, and haste. What we're doing there is flying is because it's an angel. Vigilance is for the white part of the card, and haste is for the red part of the card.

So we're giving an ability for each of the colors. And then it gets to do Relentless Assault, which is an ability that you get to attack. After you attack once, you get to attack again. Relentless Assault abilities are primary red. They're kind of loosely secondary white. We don't tend to do them in mono-white, but we do them on red-white cards,

and we've done them on hybrid red-white cards because Boros is very much about building an army and attacking, mono-white, but we do them on red-white cards, and we've done them on hybrid red-white cards, because Boros is very much about building an army and attacking, so it seems pretty cool. Okay, like I said, though, let's get to Deathpack Angel. So the Auras, sorry, the Boros aren't the only ones that get angels.

The Auras show up as well. So Deathpack Angel is three white, black, black for a 5-5 angel flying. When Deathpack Angel dies, put a 1-1 white and black Cleric creature token on the battlefield. It has three white, black, black, so same cost, same activation cost as Deathpact's

mana cost. Sacrifice this creature, return a card named Deathpact Angel from your graveyard to the battlefield. So the idea is the Deathpact Angel has to deal with this Cleric, that whenever she dies, the Cleric will bring her back. And so essentially this Angel has to deal with this Cleric, that whenever she dies, the Cleric will bring her back. And so, essentially, this Angel has, you know, you can keep bringing the Angel back, assuming

you can keep the Cleric alive. But anyway, that's kind of cool. Next, Firemane Angel. So, two red white, so four mana total, one red, one white. Three, three Flying Angel. Battalion. When Firemane Angel and at least two other creatures attack, Fire red, one white, three three flying angel, battalion, when fireman angel

and at least two other creatures attack, fireman avenger deals three damage to target creature or player, and you gain three life. So what happened here is during this second great designer search, Sean Main, while designing his world, came up with a battalion, which triggers if you have

three or more creatures attack. I don't know if I've talked about this before. I think I have. I do think if we had this all to do over again, battalion would be two creatures, not three creatures. So we were doing Boros. I decided it was the first time I'd worked on a set since Great Design Research 2.

And I liked the idea. I really liked battalion. And it seemed cool to be a good fit for the Boros. The Boros seemed a good fit for Battalion. They were definitely a group that was all about attacking in number, right? And so we made an angel. And this angel does...

What's the name of the spell? It's an iconic spell from original Ravnica. I'm playing with the name of the spell. You guys know the name of the spell. But anyway, not only did we do a battalion effect, but we did a classic Boros effect from the first time we were on that. Because Gatecrash was our first return to...

I mean, the return to Ravnica Block was our first return, and Gatecrash was the Boros coming back. Okay. Next we get to M14. Archangel of Thun. 3 white white, 3 4, flying lifelink. Whenever you gain life, put a plus one counter on each creature you control.

We had done some plus one plus one counters for life gain before. And the idea was, let's go bigger. I think before it was creatures that made themselves bigger. I'm like, okay, we're going big, it's a mythic rare, we'll have an angel that protects all your people and busts all your people. That felt pretty cool. Okay, let's hop a little bit.

Okay, Magister of Worth. Okay, so this was from Conspiracy, the first Conspiracy. So four white, black, four, four, angel, flying. Will of the Council. When Magister of Worth enters the battlefield, starting with you, each player votes for grace or condemnation. If grace gets more votes, each player returns each creature card

from his or her graveyard to the battlefield. If condemnation gets more votes, or the vote is tied, destroy all creatures other than Magister of Worth. So the idea of Will of the Council was a mechanic from Conspiracy, where everybody playing gets to vote, and depending on how the vote goes, it impacts what the card does. So this card is kind of cool. It's a white-black angel, so it's like,

shall I save everybody and bring them back from the dead, or shall I kill everybody and put them in the graveyard? And this is a neat card. So Will the Counsel, my one contribution to Conspiracy was when I talked, Sean Main was the one who made Conspiracy, came up with the idea and led the design. I talked with him about how I really felt that we hadn't done enough with voting in multiplayer play, and I really thought there's a lot of cool areas where voting could be used. And that, I think, helped inspire Sean to make World of the Council,

but Conspiracy had a lot of voting going on, which is pretty cool. Okay, next up. It's Avastin Guardian Angel from Match of 2015. Okay. And then, oh, I'm almost to my desk, so I will clean up here, and then I will finish off. So, Avacyn, Guardian

Angel, two white, white, white, so five mana total, three witches white, five, four, flying vigilance, one and a white, prevent all damage that will be dealt to another target creature this turn by sources of the color of your choice. Five white, white, prevent all damage that will be dealt to target player this turn by sources of the color of your choice. Five white white, prevent all damage that will be dealt to target player this turn by sources of the color of your choice. So, Avacyn

once again, super protect, like, Avacyn's whole shtick is she protects Innistrad. And so, this is the second time we've done an Avacyn. We did the first one, we were in Zendikar. We were, what was this? This was another core set. I forget. I think we started doing cycles of legends in core sets.

And so I forget why we did Avacyn, but I think we were just doing famous creatures, and she made a lot of sense as a mono-white. It might have even been iconic legends. Like, we might have done, like, a dragon and an angel and demon stuff. I don't 100% remember. But anyway, this was the second time we did Avacyn. And once again,

like I said, we went... Avacyn really, really is about protecting things. So we went whole heart in trying to do the protecting things. Anyway, guys,

I've now realized I'm at my desk. So I hope you guys have... I've been having fun sort of going through angels. I think, by the way, probably in the future

I will do some more angels. Maybe I'll... One of the things when I do an interview the way, probably in the future I will do some more Angels. Maybe I'll... One of the things when I do an interview every week, it's hard for me to do a series that are much more than two things just because I don't want

to take up too many weeks on a topic that maybe people don't want. So I'm going to wrap up Angels for now. I will probably come back to Angels. Like I said,

I got through M15. There's many Angels left. So I'll probably, in the future, come back and do more with Angels. I do like talking about it. But anyway, I'd love to hear feedback on what you think.

It's kind of fun picking a topic and going through cards. So hopefully, guys, you enjoyed that. But anyway, I'm now at my desk. So 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. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.