Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #818: From the Vault

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

In this podcast, I talk about the From the Vault product line.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so today I'm going to go back and look at a product that we made for 10 years. The product is called From the Vault. So I'm going to talk about how the product came to be and walk through all the different versions of it and just share some stories about it. Okay, so we'll start with From the Vault Dragons. That was the very first one. Okay, so this product was the brainchild

of a man named Mark Purvis. I've had Purvis on my show before. He is currently a magic architect, I believe is his name. In the past, he's been a brand manager. Mark is a longtime magic fan who got hired on the business side of magic. And Mark is a collector.

He's always been a collector. He loves collecting things. He loves collecting Magic cards. And so he came up with this idea for a product that was just for people who loved collecting. And the idea was, I think the product was originally made, the idea of the product was it was something we would give just to the stores

that would be sold through our game stores. And I think mostly through the ones that... There's a whole hierarchy of stores we work with. And so this was for, like, our best stores. Something we could give them, they have access to, that would be special for them, that they could sell to their players. And anyway, Mark had this idea for something

that could show off the coolness of Magic and would have lots of different styles and would be something that could show off the coolness of magic and would have lots of different styles and would be something that would just really be cool and fun to collect. And I think From the Vault was his name. I think he called it From the Vault. And so Mark's vision was that every year we'd make one of these and it would just have a different theme and that the themes would jump around and that not every set was necessary for every style of player, but that they would just show off the breadth of kinds

of things that you could collect. So this first theme had a bunch of people on it. I was one of them. And the idea was Mark had the premise for what it wanted to be, but there was a lot of discussion for its first theme. So the idea,

by the way, from the vaults was they would have 15 cards. There's one exception, which we'll get to when we get there. But they would have 15 cards and they would, all the cards would be cards that fit into the theme of the set, some of which could have new art, and then they could have a holographic foil treatment. and that they could have a holographic foil treatment. Also, these cards were in the area after the new 8th edition frames, but before they changed in 2015. So the idea was some of these cards would be older cards that didn't exist in the newer frame,

so you would get a black border post-edition 8th edition frame, you'd have a holographic foil treatment, some of the cards would get new art, and all the sets would come with a spin-down life counter that had the expansion symbol from this, because each from the vault would have its own expansion symbol. Other things would come with the product.

I'll get to them as we talk through, as we talk about individual ones, but all of them had 15 cards, black border, whatever the latest frame was. It changes with time. And I have a holographic foil treatment. Okay, so why did we start with dragons? Why was dragons the first one? I think

Mark liked the idea of kind of starting with a very Timmy, Tammy set. Like something that's just, ooh, people like this because it's an exciting thing. So we do a lot of market research and one of the things we ask people is what's your favorite creature type? And almost always, dragons win.

Dragons is the number one favorite creature type of players. I'll talk about some other ones as we get to them, but dragons almost always ranks the highest. Obviously, we built a couple different sets around dragons. You know, there was dragons of Tarkir, and Fate Reforged both had dragon themes. Scourge had a little bit

of a dragon theme. It's the one thing we've done a lot of different cycles of. There's been dragon cycles in all sorts of different products. Players really like dragons,

and so we said, okay, we want to start big and bold. We know players like dragons. It's a very Timmy Tammy kind of card. We'll start with dragons. It's a very Timmy Tammy kind of card. We'll start with dragons. Okay, so

the 15 cards that were in the very first From the Vaults was Bladewing the Risen, Bogartin Hellkite, Draco, Dragon Whelp, Dragonstorm, Ebon Dragon, Form of the Dragon, Hellkite Overlord, Kakusha the Evening Star, Nicol Bolas, Niv-Mizzet the Fire

Mind, Writh the Awakener, Shivan Dragonol Bolas, Niv-Mizzet the Fire Mind, Writh the Awakener, Shivan Dragon, Thunder Dragon, and Two-Headed Dragon. And Dragon Whelp, Form of the Dragon, Nicol Bolas, Writh, Shivan Dragon, and Thunder Dragon had brand new art. One of the things that was challenging about this first set was

it's red's iconic. Most dragons are red, so we really went out of our way to make sure that not all the dragons were just mono-red. You know, Bladewing is black-red. Draco is an artifact. Ebon Dragon is mono-black. Kakusho is mono-black. Hellcat Overlord is black-red-green.

Nicol Bolas, this was the original one from Legends, was blue-black-red. Niv-Mizzet is blue-red. Riff is red-green-white. So we tried to make sure that all the colors showed up. Obviously, red shows up a lot more. And other than the two black dragons and Draco, they all have some sort of red in them because red's iconic. But we made a big, bold splashy.

The other thing about From the Vaults was we only put so many out, meaning it was locked how many existed. So it was meant to be a collectible. So, I mean, as we went along, I think the how many we made at each From the Vault might change a little bit. But it was always, we had a set number, that's what we were selling. We gave them to the stores. They were what we call allocated, meaning the stores got

a certain number of them, and that's what they got. The first one came out, people liked From the Dragons. But one of the feedbacks we got was there were not as many solo cards that were kind of exciting in a vacuum. Oh, the one other thing we did by the way, the first one is, we had an insert

with the rules for a new format called Elder Dragon Highlander, which you might know now as Commander, but this is very, so early we hadn't yet dubbed it Commander, we hadn't made a Commander product yet. This predates all that. But one of the feedbacks we got from this set was definitely...

Players liked it, and there were definitely players that collected it, and it sold out, but it wasn't as exciting as we thought. So, I got... I was on the team for Dragons. I was put in charge of From the Vault Exiled, which is the next one. So, From the Vault Exiled, which is the next one. So From the Vault Exiled came out in 2009.

So dragons, I guess that means came out in 2008. Yes, so 2008. So it came out in the summer, in August usually. Okay, so I was put in charge of Exiled. And I said, okay, I need two things I wanted to do. One was I wanted it to be a little bit more exciting than Dragons had been, and I wanted to sort of keep alive Mark's vision of this. I wanted to just do a completely different vantage point.

I wanted to care about a different kind of thing. So this set would be for a different kind of player, was the idea. Okay. So the idea I came up with was cards that had been banned or restricted. The thing I liked about that was, one, it got to show off a little bit of history. Two, it leaned a little more towards Spike, because obviously if cards are banned or restricted, most of them are good.

Not all of them were necessarily amazing, but we did have some fun with cards that got banned, but in modern day, like, really? Did those need to be banned or restricted? But anyway, so, okay, so From the Vault had the following cards. Balance, Berserk, Channel, Gifts Ungiven, Goblin Lackey, Curd Ape, Lotus Petal, Mystical Tutor, Necropotence, Sensei's Dividing Top, Serendipity, Skullclamp,

Stripmine, Tinker, and Trendosphere. Uh, and Balance, Berserk, Goblin Lackey, Necropotence, Serendipity, Stripmine, and Tinker all had new art. The other thing, I think this was the first set that was available on Magic Online. And this set went over, I mean, the first set sold out, Dragons sold out.

It wasn't like it didn't do well. But this set, even more so, like we found like putting in a little bit more exciting cards, cards that individually, like Dragons were exciting in the loose sense that people like dragons, but these were, like, really powerful cards that people wanted to have access to and have, you know, special, you know, holofoil, you know, have special nice treatments of them,

like I said, and some of them with brand new art. So this one definitely did a little bit better and really sort of demonstrated an important thing to us as, hey, one of the things that really makes From the Vault kind of sizzle is just having really exciting cards. And that the theme should be exciting, but that it just had to be individual cards that really people wanted. And that

really sort of redefined a little bit how we wanted to think of making From the Vault. Okay, so next up in 2010 was From the Vault Relics. Okay, so next up in 2010 was From the Vault Relics. Okay, so this... Relics meant artifacts. I know we spent a lot of time.

We figured out we wanted to do artifacts. This was another set that I worked on. I worked on the early ones and the later ones I did not work on. I worked on the first four or five. Artifacts seem like something where there's a lot of history there. We could talk about things. Oh, speaking of which, From the Vault Relics was the first one that included a collector's guide. And the

collector's guide sort of walked you through I think the earlier ones had done a little like a little thing. This was a little more exacting and sort of walked you through the historical, like what each card meant to history. And it allowed us to give a little more context to what the cards were.

And like I said, we were very careful as we started picking these to really pick cards that meant something. And this particular one, because of the artifacts, there's a lot of history of artifacts and magic. So the cards in this product were Aether Vial, Black Vice, Isochron Scepter, Ivory Tower, Jester's Gap,

Karn Silver Golem, Masticore, Mirari, Mox Diamond, Memory Jar, Neverworld Disk, Sol Ring, Sundering Titan, Sword of Body and Mind, and Xernorb. And the cards that had new art were Aether Vial, Black Vice, Isochron Scepter, Ivory Tower, Masticore, Mox Diamond, Neverworld Disk, and Xernorb. Oh, and the other thing we did we did this one time is I think there were four of the cards so Karn Silver Golem, Master Core Mox Diamond and Memory Jar

were all on the reserve list and there was at the time a loophole in the reserve list that said that it didn't count toward foils, premium versions of cards and so we made it here. We also did that same thing in a...

in a dual deck, I think? And anyway, the response was negative. We ended up rewriting the rules and saying, okay, we will not put foil versions of Reserveless cards in new products. But this is the one time, this and the dual deck, the one time we did it. So there are, this is the one from the Vault and the dual deck were the one time we did it. So there are, this is the one from the vaults

that does have some reserve list cards on them. And one of them, Mox Diamond, and Mastercard, two of them, are both reserve list and brand new art,

which is something that's very hard to do on cards that you're never supposed to print again. So a rarity here. Artifacts proved to be a good theme. I think artifacts were, I mean,

one of the things that was a challenge as the product went along is, early on, we got to pick themes. Like, artifacts is a pretty meaty theme. There's lots of really exciting artifacts from Magic's past. As we went along, it got a little trickier, as you see, it got a little trickier to do it.

But that was from the Vault Relics. Okay, next up, our fourth one, in 2011, from the Vault Legends. Okay, next up, our fourth one. In 2011, From the Vault Legends. Okay, so obviously in the very first one we had done an EDH, Elder Dragon Highlander insert. By now, we had put out a Commander deck. I think we had put it out... Actually, this is the first one. This is around the time we started doing Commander.

But anyway, the Commander format had become very popular. And so this from the vault was all legendary creatures. And a lot of the ones we chose were ones we knew were popular in this newish Commander format. I mean, at this point, it was a few years old. But it was newer as compared to now. So anyway, this product had Teferi, Mage of Zelfir, Crush the Blood-Braid, at this point, it wasn't. It was a few years old. But it was newer as compared to now. So anyway, this project had Teferi, Mage of Zelfir, Kresh, the Bloodbraided, Progenitus,

Kikijiki, Mirrorbreaker, Sunquan, Lord of Wu, Duran, the Siege Tower, Kaukau, Lord of Wei, Captain Sisse, Amneth, Locus, the Mana, Una, Queen of the Fey, Rafiq, of the Mini, Sharuma, of the Hegemon, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Visara, the Dreadful, and Macaeus, the Lunark. New art for this was Teferi, Kresh, Progenitus, Kikijiki, Rafiq,

Sharum, and Vizara. You'll notice, by the way, as I name these, a bunch of these cards were specifically cards that were very popular in Commander. And so we definitely went out of our way to try to, you know, take cards that we knew players liked, some of them we gave new art to, but bring them in. Once again,

these are updated, post-8th edition frames, you know, holographic treatment, kind of exciting versions. We know people like to play this stuff in Commander. And we knew that this audience, there was an audience for this, and this was a very popular From the Vault. Also, Kakao Lord of Ways from Portal for Kingdoms. We also realized

that one of the things that this product could let us do is take cards that are kind of hard to get, mostly because of where they initially came out. Portal 3 Kingdoms was a product we made, mostly only came out in the Asian market, a little bit in Australia. There wasn't much outside of that market, so

it is not something, for example, that a lot of the markets in the world were able to get, and so those cards are very hard to get. So one of the things we use for products like this is sometimes get the world were able to get. And so those cards are very hard to get. So one of the things we'd use for products like this is sometimes get cards that were harder to get because of where they came from originally. Anyway, this card was definitely pretty exciting.

Players liked it. So let's move on. Okay, next up was From the Vault Realms. Okay, so Realms means lands. These were all cards that had lands. Okay, so the cards in this. Ancient Tomb, Basaju Who Shelters All, Cephalic Coliseum, Desert, Dried Arbor,

Forbidden Orchard, Glacial Chasm, Grove of the Burned Willows, High Market, Maze of Ith, Murmuring Bosque, Chiffon Gorge, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Vesuva, and Windbrisk Heights. The new art of these was Cephalic Coliseum, Dried Arbor, Forbidden Orchard, Glacial Chasm, Grove of the Burnwillows,

Maze of Ith, Chiffon Gorge. Okay, so the funny thing about this one was we spent a little time trying to get the theme. This is the first one I didn't work on, by the funny thing about this one was we spent a little time trying to get the theme. This is the first one I didn't work on, by the way. Mark Gottlieb, I think, ran this one. I'd worked on the first four, but by the fifth one, I was no longer working on it. I was busy doing other stuff.

It is common sometimes, by the way, that I'll work on things early on, sort of get established with what they are, help define them as products, and then move on to other things. Anyway, this, the idea of lands came, lands, you know, there's a lot

of exciting lands out there, and I think that in choosing the lands here, they were trying to pick things they thought people would enjoy getting their hands on. There was one controversial card, I'll talk about the controversial card. This set had dried arbor that had brand new art. And it was...

It didn't do a really good job of making it clear it wasn't just a basic land card. Everything about the card, the way the card was done, was it just literally had a green mana symbol on it like a basic land would. Now, it said land, creature, forest, dryad. If you looked at the card, but even in the art, the dryad is there, but she looks like a tree. And if you look closely, you can see she's there. But if you're not

really paying attention, it just looks a lot like a basic land. And so one of the problems was there were people who were, and this is unsportsmanlike conduct, you're not supposed to do this, but they were playing the land, they were playing Dried Arbor not with their creatures, but with their lands. And if you're not really paying attention,

it's very hard to tell that this land is also a creature. And so people, and they shouldn't be doing this, it's unsportsmanlike conduct, but were playing the land so people wouldn't notice where it was, because they were playing with their lands, and then when it mattered, they'd surprise them with the creature.

Anyway, this card, I think, was problematic in that way, that Dread Arbor already has some issues with it. We shouldn't make it so easy to disguise as a force. That's considered a problem. I think I actually had a blogger talk post about it. Anyway, I consider

that a mistake of this product. But other than that, this product was pretty popular. I mean, lands are another kind of thing where lands just matter. A lot of decks have lands in them, and so there are a lot of cards here. And then we were able to find some cool different things to get new art. But all in all, I think this one went pretty well. Okay, next up was From the Vault 20. Okay, so it was 2013.

So Magic had come out in 1993. So it was the 20th anniversary of Magic. Now, for those people that remember the 25th anniversary of Magic, we made a big deal of it being the 25th anniversary of Magic. We really did not make a big deal of the 20th anniversary. We downplayed it. I don't know why. I wanted to make a big deal, but I was outvoted. We really did not make a big deal of the 20th anniversary. We downplayed, I don't know why. I wanted to make a big deal, but I was outvoted.

We really did not make a big deal of it. I think at the time, they were worried, like, it ages us or something? I don't know. I think it's cool that we, you know, we're 20 years old or 25 years old or soon be 30 years old.

Like, I think that's a great thing. I think our history is a plus. But anyway, at the time, this was, I believe, the only product that really acknowledged it as their 20th anniversary. We might have done an article or two online, but there was not much fanfare.

This was kind of the one product that had some fanfare. So the idea, I think Gavin Verhey did this set. So the idea that Gavin came up with is it's the 20th anniversary. What if there was a card from every year? And the idea they came up with is just a card that came out that year that meant something.

And anyway, so here's how it came out. So representing 1993 was Dark Ritual. 1994 was Swords of Plowshares. 1995 was Hymn to Turok. 1996 was Fyndhorn Elves. 1997 was Impulse. 1998 was Wall of Blossom. 1999 was Thrand Dynamo.

2000 was Tanglewire. 2001 was Factor Fiction. 2002 was Chainer's Edict. 2003 was A Chroma's Vengeance. 2004 was Gilded Lotus. 2005 was Ink Eye, Servant of Oni. 2006 was Char. 2007 was Vessar, Shaper, Savant. 2008

was Chameleon Colossus. 2009 was Cruel Ultimatum. 2010 was Jason the Mind Sculptor. 2011 was Green Sun's Zenith. And 2012 was Kessig Wolf Run. So anyway,

that was, you know, I thought a really cool thing it's funny one of the challenges that he came up with so I'll talk about 1994 real quickly which is Swords of Plowshares

so Swords of Plowshares for those who know was an alpha so the very first version of Swords of Plowshares came out in 1993 the problem I think that he had was

94 is a very tricky year because all the new cards all the new sets are on the reserve list. So you can't use, for Arabian Nights and Antiquities, you can't use the Uncommons or the Rares. And for Legends and the Dark, you can't use the Rares. Anyway, for various reasons, there was a great choice. And so he ended up choosing in 94,

I guess Revised came out, and so there was a new version of Swords that came out, and like, okay, there wasn't a great answer. People really want Swords. We can make really cool Swords. So he ended up choosing Swords for that. Everything else, I think it's the first year it came out.

Swords is the one where there was a new version that came out. There was a product that came out with Swords, but it wasn't the first year it came out. Iords is the one where... There was a new version that came out. There was a product that came out with Swords, but it wasn't the first year it came out. I think he couldn't find a better answer than that. That's why he ended up with that. So I think they made a special new Lifedown Encounter designed for this set. Oh, the other thing they did... so a bunch of cards had new art.

So Finhorn Elves, Impulse, Tanglewire, Chainer's Edict, Akroma's Vengeance, Gilded Lotus, Venture Shaper Savant, Crew Ultimatum all got new art. And a couple cards, Hymn to Turok, uh, is it just Hymn to Turok? I think just Hymn to Turok. So Hymn to Turok had art that had been used online for digital that hadn't been used in paper. And so while it wasn't new to magic, I guess, it was new to paper magic. So that was kind of a big deal.

And in some later sets, we also would do that again, where we'd find things that there hadn't been a paper version of this art, so it was kind of cool to do. But anyway, this was... Oh, Jace had been the... Jace the Mind Sculpt it's kind of cool to do. But anyway, this was... Jace had been the... Jace the Mind Sculptor was kind of the face. One of the things we definitely did is we'd pick out a card to kind of be the face of the set. Jace was the face of the set.

And anyway, this was super popular, and like I said, I wish we had done more for our 20th anniversary than we did, but that was from the Vault 20. Okay, next up is From the Vault Annih, next up is from the vault Annihilation. So this is 2014. So these are

board sweepers. So you can see as we go along that the easy themes get taken. It gets a little trickier to do themes. Board sweepers is a little bit of an odd theme. So this had been normal. Spin down. I'm a collector's guide.

Okay, so the cards in this set were Armageddon, Burning of Zaini, Cataclysms, Child of Alara, Decree of Annihilation, Fire Spout, Fraction and Gust, Living Death, Martial Coup, Rolling Earthquake, Smokestack, Terminus, Upheaval, Virtue's Ruin, and Wrath of God. Armageddon,

Cataclysm, Fire Spout, Smokestack, and Wrath of God got brand new art, and Living Death had art used on a paper product for the first time. We'd made art specifically for digital, and this is the first time it appeared. So this is a good set

that started to show a little bit of wear and tear of the idea of the themes, and that one of the challenges of this product is, as we started making more other products that did more bringing back returning, you know, reprinted stuff. Like, when From the Vault started, there wasn't

a lot of sets doing a lot of reprints. There were some, but not a lot. And as time went on, more and more sets were doing that. And that is a limited resource. There's only so much for us to reprint. And we try really hard to keep things off one another when we can. And so it became trickier and trickier to make the From the Vaults work. And so From the Vault Annihilation is a good example where we were kind of stretching.

And it started to show a little bit of the wear and tear of the concept, of From the Vault concept. But anyway, so we came out. And like I said, some of the stuff like Burning of Zaini is a good example. That's another card from Portal Three Kingdoms. You'll notice most of the cards now in From the Vault, at this point moving forward, have a Three Kingdoms card just because those cards are kind of hard. So we find cards that people played in formats, a lot of times Commander,

and try to give them access to it. Okay, so next up was From the Vault Angels. Okay, so this one has a funny story. So Elaine Chase has worked for Magic for many, many years, over 20 years. She actually, if you've ever seen the video at the very first Pro Tour, I'm interviewing people in line, and I interview Elaine. Elaine would later come to work in our organized play

and then she ended up working in R&D and then she ended up going over to the brand team and she was the main Magic brand manager for quite a while for Magic. And anyway, then she went on and did a lot of stuff with organized play and running all the stuff online.

And now she's off on her own project, working on making a children's game. So Elaine has been with Magic and done all sorts of stuff. And Elaine, when the product first came up, this was back when Elaine was the main brand manager of Magic, she had suggested Angels

for the very first From the Vault. Instead of Dragons, she had suggested Angels. We ended up doing Dragons, because even though Angels is like number two or number three in popularity, depending on the Vault. Instead of dragons, she suggested angels. We ended up doing dragons because even though angels is like number two or number three in popularity depending on the poll. So angels are very popular. Not quite as popular as dragons. We went with dragons. But every time we did a From the Vault, Elaine would always pop her head and go,

how about From the Vault angels? And we went a bunch of different directions. But finally, seven years in, I think seven, eight years in, we finally did From the Vault Angels. So this card, this included A Chroma Angel of Fury, A Chroma Angel of Wrath, Archangel of Strife,

Aurelia the War Leader, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Baneslaver Angel, Entreat the Angels, Exalted Angel, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Iridescent Angel, Jinara, Asura of War, Lightning Angel, Platinum Angel, Serra Angel, Tareel, Reckoner of Souls. Once again, Angel is

a white psychonic, so a lot of these have white in it, but we found places like A Chroma Angel of Wrath, which is mono-red. Or not mono-red, Angel of Fury, which is mono-red. Wrath is the white one. You know, we have Platinum Angel, which is an artifact. We had a bunch of multi-color ones. So, like dragons, we did

a lot of trying to sort of get as much as we could. Oh, the alternate art in this one was a Chroma Angel of Fury, a Chroma Angel of Wrath, Exalted Angel, Iona Shield of Amira, and Iridescent Angel. And Tariel, Reckoner of Souls, it was an art we had used in an oversized card, but

it never used on a small, normal card, and we used that there. And, anyway, they definitely were cards that were exciting for a number of reasons. We definitely made sure a bunch of popular commanders that happened to be angels were in the set. But anyway, the, oh, and this was 2015.

So we had changed over in this core set to the new frames. And this was the first set that had the what we call the core 2015 frames, which I guess had come out the year before, but before this product maybe. Anyway,

so this was the first one to use the frame that has the black part of the bottom, that frame. But anyway, that was Angels. Okay, so next up was From the Vault Lore. Once again, this is another one that kind of shows the wear and tear of trying to get themes. The idea of this one was every card in it was something that had to do with Magic's history, and it was tied to story in some way.

So the cards were Beseech the Queen, Cabal Ritual, Conflux, Dark Depths, and it also came with a Merit Lodge token to go with the Dark Depths, Glist of the Traitor, Hellvault, Memnarch, Mind's Desire, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, Near-Death Experience, Obliterate, Friction Processor, Tolarian West, Umazav's Jitte, Unmask, and Merit Lage. Cabal Ritual, Mind's Desire, and Momir Vig had the alternate art. And so,

I mean, this, we, once again, the collector's guide sort of explained not just historically the cards, but also what role they played in the story. There's definitely cards here that really, I mean, like I said, it was becoming harder and harder basically what's going on is we're making more

and more products that are making use of the resource of returning cards and it's just becoming trickier and trickier to A, not do a theme we've done before in From the Vault and not step on the, like you need to get 15 cards and when other sets around you are using some cards, so sometimes you'd have a

theme but oh, I can't use something from that theme because it's being printed there, it became very hard to do, and it was definitely becoming challenging. In fact, which leads us to the final From the Vault, From the Vault Transform, that came out in 2017. It was the tenth

and final From the Vault set. So this set had thirteen of the fifteen cards were double-faced cards, and two of the cards set. So this set had 13 of the 15 cards were double-faced cards, and two of the cards were a meld pair. So, I mean, they did transform into the meld, but anyway, the idea is these are all double-faced cards.

The reason is we were running into trouble finding themes that other sets weren't printing, but it turns out it's very hard to do double-faced cards in a set hard to do double-faced cards in a set not focused on double-faced cards. So we tended not to reprint double-faced cards. So we saw an opportunity.

So the last From the Vault was, we were kind of running out of trouble, but this was the last final idea of, well, here's something we can do nobody else can do, and we'll do that. One of the clever things, by the way, a little note that I think was really cool was, every From the Vault had an expansion symbol.

The expansion symbol for this set, on the front it had the normal expansion symbol, and then when we went on the back, it was mirrored. It was the mirrored version of the expansion symbol. So it was like orange and black, and then it was black and orange. It swapped the colors for what was on the expansion symbol. Anyway, in this one, the cards were Archangel Avacyn, Archangel Avacyn on the front, Avacyn the Purifier on the back,

Argil's Bloodfast on the front, Temple of Acolytes on the back, Arlencord on the front, Arlen Embraced by the Moon on the back, Bloodline Keeper on the front, Lord of Lineage on the back, Bruton the Fading Light, Half of Bruxelles, Voice of Nightmares, Chandra the Fire of Kaladesh, Chandra Roaring Flame, Delver Secrets,

Insectile Aberration, Elbis, the Blinding Blade, Hwethgar, Unborn, I'm back, Garak, Relentless, Garak, the Veil, Cursed, I'm back, Giselle, the Broken Bait, the other part of Bruzella, Voice of Nightmares, I'm back, Huntmaster, the Fell Zone, I'm front, Ravager, the Fell Zone, I'm back, Jace's Vryn, Prodigy, I'm front, Jace, Telbeth, Unbound, I'm back, Kithin, Hero of Akaros, I'm front, Gideon, Battleforged, I'm back,

Liliane, Heretic Healer, I'm front, Liliane, Defining Ne the Planeswalkers that were in Magic Origins that were a legendary creature on front and a Planeswalker on back, all five of them are in this set. and a Planeswalker on back. All five of them are in this set. The rarest of the meld cards from Eldritch Moon, the Bruna and Gisela that make Brazella, that meld card.

And then there was just stuff from various places, from Shadowmoor, from Ixalan, from Innistrad, from Dark Ascension. So mostly these are from Innistrad sets because Innistrad sets were the sets that had the So, mostly these are from Innistrad sets, because Innistrad sets were the sets that had the double-faced cards, and from Magic Origins. But anyway, the new art

for these is Delver's Secrets, Garak Relentless, and Hunt Me After the Felts had new art. But anyway, yeah, this was just a cool idea, and in some ways it was a nice grand finish for the From the Vaults. The one final From the Vault I want to talk about before we

wrap up for the day, I can see my desk, is we did do an April Fool's joke in 2009. From the Vault Vaults. And so, From the Vault Vaults had the following vaults in it. Bottomless Vault, Disciple of the Vault, Face Vaulter, Hyper Vault, Grasp, Knowledge Vault, Limb Duel's Vault, Mana Vault, Misfirm Ultimates, Mless Vault, Disciple of the Vault, Face Vaulter, Hyper Vault, Grasp, Knowledge Vault, Limbaul's Vault, Mana Vault,

Misfirm Ultimates, Mute Vault, Frixion Vault, Spoils of the Vault, Time Vault, Vaults of the Whisperers, Mana Crypt, and Voltaic Key. I remember when they were making this, the idea of From the Vault Vaults was just very funny. There weren't an exact 15 vaults, so they had to get creative. Like the Voltaic Key,

and the idea of Misfirm Ultimates, because it's all creature types, although Vault is actually not a creature type. But anyway, they worked hard to try to get it out. But that was just as a fun little... I mean, it didn't actually exist. It just was made as a funny thing, but I thought that was cute.

Anyway, guys, I like to use this podcast as a means to do a little bit of history. And this was a product history. This was a product, like I said, we made for 10 years. I know a lot of players had fun buying it. And, you know, anyway, it was fun talking about it. And so it's neat looking back.

And this is a good example of something we made for a while that people really liked. But, you know, we ended up phasing it out for various reasons because other things were working better. But anyway, it's fun talking back and looking back at some history of magic. But anyway, I'm now at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I hope you guys enjoyed my little stroll through the history of From the Vault. And I'll see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.