Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #836: Unglued, Part 2

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

This podcast is part two of a three-part series where I discuss the design of every card in Unglued.

I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay, so this is part two of my card-by-card stories from Unglued. So I did white and blue in part one, so I'm going to start with black in part two. So this next card is, in fact, two cards. So it's BFM, Big Furry Monster, and it is, I think it's 15 black mana. It's black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black. I think that's 15 mana.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Yeah, it's 15 mana. So it's 15 black mana. It is summon the biggest, baddest, nastiest, scariest creature you'll ever see. You must play both BFM cards to put BFM into play. If either BFM card leaves play, sacrifice the other. BFM can be blocked by only three

or more creatures. It was big. Really, really big. No bigger than that. Even bigger. Keep going. More. No more. Look, we're talking Krakens and Dreadnoughts for jewelry. It was big. Arnaken or Red Skynate. Okay, so this card came about. So the idea is it's a 99-99 creature.

The card is so big that it takes two cards, and you can only cast this card if you have both cards in your hand. But if you do, for 15 black mana, you can cast a 99-99. But if you do, for 15 black mana, you can cast a 99 99. This card came about because I was brainstorming with production people about cool things we could do in production. And one of the ideas they had was you could bleed art over two cards. That if the cards were together on the sheet, we could bleed over the art and then just cut them like normal,

but the picture would bleed over. So last time I talked about how in Free For All the elf gets knocked out of one card of a leprechaun onto I'm Rubber, You're Glue. We did that joke. But also, I realized that we could make a giant card. And then once I realized we could make a giant card, I'm like,

oh, what do we do? And I'm like, okay, well, what if it's a card so big you have to have, you know, it doesn't fit on one card. And then I liked the idea of it being a giant monster. Interestingly, I was going to make it 100-100, and Bill Rowe said, let's save, let's not jump to

three mana power and toughness yet. So, I made it a 99-99. Also, the other really funny thing about this card is, the reason it can only be blocked by three or more creatures is we, I was told not to use trample in the set

because the set was for more casual players. One of the things that we've learned over time is that enfranchisement and how well you understand magic... Like, you can be casual

and be very informed and understanding of how magic is played. And so the idea of... Early on, this idea that, like, well, the player that is casual doesn't know magic, that's proven not to be true. That there is enfranchisement,

and you can be very casual and very enfranchised, meaning I like more casual fun play, but I know how to play, I know all the rules, you know. Anyway, it's fun. That's why this card came back with three more creatures, because I couldn't put Trample on it. Anyway, in the guidebook, in the market research that we did,

BFM was the most popular card in the set. And BFM was the inspiration for split cards, because in Unglue 2, the set didn't come out, I was trying to recreate the success of BFM and I said, okay, well people like one card so

big it shows up in two cards, what about cards so little that two of them show up on one card? And that's where split cards came from. And BFM also, I believe, was the inspiration for Meld, the Meld mechanic that was in Eldritch Moon. The idea

of two cards coming together. The idea there was, how could you do that in another way? And we realized that you could do the back of double-faced cards. So, anyway, BFM, and BFM also influenced some cards in Duel Master. So, anyway, BFM, very influential card. So, once again, one of my

themes as I go through Unglued, and for those out there that say, why should I care? I never played Silver-Bordered, and I'm saying Silver-Bordered very much impacts you. Like I said, BFM's responsible for meld.

BFM's responsible for split cards. There are things in normal magic that us making BFM, having not made BFM, I don't know if we would've got there. And so, these Silver-Bordered cards do lead to things in Black Border.

Okay, next. Deadhead. Three and a black. Summon zombie. Three, three. I'll stress it again. I'm reading the original text, by the way, of all these cards as they were printed, not as the Oracle text is. Back then, it was not creature zombie. It was summon. Creatures were summoned.

Put Deadhead into play. Use his ability only if any opponent loses contact with his or her hands of cards and only if Deadhead is in your graveyard. I'm back from the dead. The zombie moaned and they were far out, man. We're making a little Grateful Dead reference here.

Anyway, the idea was if my opponent ever doesn't touch their cards and Deadhead's in the graveyard, I get to bring him back. So when Deadhead's in the graveyard, my opponent has to remember to not let go of his cards. His or her cards. Their cards.

Okay, next. Double cross. Three black, black. Sorcery. Choose another player. Look at that player's hand and choose one of those cards other than a basic land. He or she discards that card. At the beginning of the next game with that player, look at the player's hand and choose one of those cards other than a basic land. He or she discards that card. At the beginning of the next game with that player, look at the player's hand and choose one of those cards other than a basic land. He or she

discards that card. And you're in for a nasty butt-kicking. So once again, there is a limerick between the five double cards. And I think this is the last one. I think it's the final. If I have time, at some point I will read the limerick.. I think it's the final. If I have time,

I will read, at some point, I will read the limerick. This is interesting, by the way. So it's part of the double cycle. We did a coercion effect, although, interestingly, we didn't say not land.

We said not basic land, which is not normally how we do it. So this is, I don't 100% know whether, I guess coercion must have predated this card, but I think coercion, you could pick any land. And I said, oh, no, noated this card. But I think Coercion, you could pick any land. And I said, oh, no, no, we don't want you to pick... You can pick any card.

Coercion, just go pick any card. I think they'd go, no, we don't... So I think this is the first time, I think, that we said, well, you can't pick a land. Except I said basic land. And I think now we would just say land and not basic land. But anyway. Next up, Handcuffs.

Three black black. Enchantment. Target player keeps both hands in contact with each other. If he or she does not sacrifice Handcuffs, then that player sacrifices three cards in play. That was fun. Now me, Gwendolyn DeCoursey. Okay.

I think the idea was I wanted to do some physical stuff. Blue was sort of verbal stuff to do some physical stuff. And black... Blue was sort of verbal stuff and black was physical things. And so once again, like, Deadhead makes my opponent

have to touch their cards. Handcuff makes them... The idea is you have to keep your hands in contact with each other. So you have to sort of touch them together. And it just becomes harder to manipulate magic when you have to do that.

So it's not that you can. It just becomes more complicated. And especially, like, if your opponent has Deadhead in the graveyard and you have handcuffs that. So, it's not that you can, it just becomes more complicated. And especially, like, if your opponent is dead in the graveyard and you have handcuffs on, it becomes harder to manipulate all that. Okay, next up, Infernal Spawn of Evil. Six black, black, black for a

7-7. Summon demon. Demons crossed off, and it says beast. The reason for that, by the way, is magic for a while, when magic started, there were demons in magic, and then we kind of got scared of just there was a lot of fuss, and so for a while we stopped making demons,

we started calling them beasts, but then we went back to make them demons. But anyway, the time we did that, we didn't do demons anymore, so this was a little bit risky for me to actually put demon on the cover and cross it off and write beast. I was making a little commentary there. Anyway, it is Flying First Strike,

one and a black, reveal Eternal Spawn of Evil from your hand, say it's coming, Infernal Spawn of Evil deals one damage to target opponent, uses its ability

only once during upkeep and only once each upkeep. So there's a lot of stories. So one interesting thing about this card is, well, let me tell you where it came from and then I'll talk about

its influence in future magic. So Ron Spencer was doing some card. Ron Spencer's been doing art since Alpha, and he, somebody asked him to do something. So Ron Spencer's background, actually, is he used to do greening cards, and he used to do a lot of very cutesy stuff. But one of the fun things for magic was he got to tap into his little darker side as an illustrator. But anyway, he was told to do some scary creature, and so his sketch he sent in was this mouse drinking cocoa.

And it was just a gag. The idea was it was never meant to be the real picture. It just was a joke for him and the art director. And the art director thought it was funny, so he posted it, and it was a running joke. We had it up on the wall. And anyway, I liked the image, so I said, hey, I like the joke there. I love

the idea of some evil creature, but it looks like this cute little mouse drinking cocoa. So I went to, when we did this, we went to Ron Spencer and said, we want that picture. The picture you drew, that sketch, draw it. And so he did. And then the whole idea was, the flavor was just

make it the meanest, nastiest creature you could. And so we actually topped down this card from this image, the idea of what is the nastiest thing. And so we named it Infernal Spawn of Evil, obviously. And then the idea was, well, what's the next? And I said, oh, well, what if you could reveal it from your hand? And it's so scary that just knowing that one day you can cast it makes people out of fright lose life.

Interestingly, the idea of having an effect from your hand that you reveal to generate an effect but it stays in your hand, Forecast, which was the first Azorius mechanic in Descension, was literally inspired by this card. My ongoing theme of how Black-Bordered Magic

was very much inspired by the work done on Silver-Bordered Magic. And much inspired by the work done on Silver-Bordered Magic. And this card, as people would know, we later made Infernal Spawn of... Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil, and Infernal Spawning... Spawning... Spawnivus? Spawnicus? The third?

Which, the second card was in Unhinged, and the third card was in Unstinction. And you can see the sun's in the second one and the grandson. So you keep seeing more generations. Anyway, and Ron Spencer did all the art. It's super cute.

Next, Jumbo Imp. Two and a black. Summon Imp, zero, zero. Flying. When you play Jumbo Imp, roll a six-sided die. Jumbo Imp comes into play with a number of plus one, plus one counters

on an equal to that die roll. During your upkeep, roll a six-sided die and put on Jumbo Imp one plus one counters on an equal to that die roll. During your upkeep, roll a six-sided die and put on Jumbo Imp a number of plus one counters equal to that die roll. At the end of turn, roll a six-sided die and remove from Jumbo Imp a number of plus one counters equal to that die roll. So the idea was, I play the card, I roll a die.

He's that big. But at the end of every turn, I roll a die and he shrinks by that much. So this card ended up being not that good because he'll die half the time. So you roll the die, and he shrinks by that much. So this card ended up being not that good, because he'll die half the time. So you roll the die, and then half the time you will roll something equal

to or greater than what you roll, statistically speaking. So this card, this card is super swingy. It can get very, very big. It also dies a lot. So, I wish I designed it a little bit so it didn't

die quite so often out of the gate. But if it doesn't, if you have some way to help, you've got a bookie or something that helps you re-roll dice, it can get pretty big and do lots of really cool stuff. Next, Organ Harvest. Cause black, it's a sorcery. You and your teammates may

sacrifice any number of creatures. For each creature sacrificed in this way, add black black to your mana pool. Lucy, you've got some spleenin' to do. That is a reference to I Love Lucy, by the way. So anyway, this was another in our, we had a cycle of teammate

cards. Note that all of them reference multiplayer play, but all of them help your teammates. Is that true? No, no, the blue one doesn't. It's okay. They're all cards that interact with multiplayer. Not all of them just help your teammates. The white one and black one I guess do. We'll get to the other ones.

But anyway, we wanted to reference multiplayer play again. This was us showing for the very first time in a Magic product that was created that multiplayer play is a thing. And so we did it. So Oregon Harvest, I think, is good. So

it's funny. I don't know whether or not the cost is right or anything, but the idea of letting people sacrifice creatures for mana, letting your teammates do it, it's kind of cool. Okay, next is Owl. Owl costs a single black mana enchantment. Whenever any creature damages a player for each Owl card in play, that

player says Owl once, or Owl deals one damage to him or her. Have you ever noticed how some flavor text has no relevance whatsoever to the card it's on? There's some meta flavor text in the set. That's one of them, where we're just making fun. I think we liked that piece of flavor text, didn't know where to put it, and then just

waited for a card that we didn't find flavor text we liked, and put it there, which is how I think it ended up on this card. Anyway, the way Owl works that most people don't realize is it grows exponentially. So if I have one Owl out, every time I hit them, they have to say Owl once or take one damage. If I have two Owls out, they have to say Owl

four times because the first Owl makes them say it twice and the second Owl makes them say it twice. So if you have four Owls out, every time you hit them, they have to say Ao 16 times. I have built an Ao deck. It is very funny. Usually in an Ao deck, you play Censorship and name Ao.

So if you hit them, they take one damage, but if they say Ao for each time they say Ao, it takes one damage. And sort of, they can't win, and then they die to death saying Ao, basically, or not saying Ao. Next, Poltergeist. Two and a black.

Summon chicken, one, one, flying. When a creature is put into any graveyard from play, you may roll a six-sided die. On a one, sacrifice Poltergeist. Otherwise, put a plus one, plus three, counter Poltergeist. Farmer Brown never ate eggs again. So by the way, this should have been,

at the time we made this, creatures only had one creature type. This should have been a chicken spirit. In fact, let me check the oracle. I'll bet you it is a chicken spirit in oracle. It is a bird... Oh, it's a bird spirit. The chickens became birds.

It's a bird spirit. Oh, by the way, if you did not realize that, in Unsanctioned, we oracleized chicken a la king so that it references birds rather than chickens because all the chickens became birds. Because Unstaged is the first time we didn't update on silver board sets. We had done this big update,

but we didn't do silver board sets. And all the birds turned into birds. So anyway, if you play silver board stuff, Chicken-Eye-Lot-King in a bird deck actually is really good. Okay. Anyway, we love the...

This came from the name Poultry Geist. The idea of a... The name was an awesome game. So it was a chicken ghost, obviously. And then we tied it to the... I think we tied it to die rolling. This is another one of those cards where it dies a little more than it should.

Like, dying on a one. It should have just, like, not gotten bigger on a 1 instead of dying on a 1. But anyway, there's a little bit too much roll a 1 and bad things happen in the set, more so than it should be. I've since learned that, like, nothing is bad because rolling other things and getting a positive,

not getting anything is the bad. You don't have to lose the card. You can just not get something. Okay, next, Temp of the Damned. You can just not get something. Okay, next. Temp of the Damned. Two and a black. Three, three. Summon zombie.

When you play Temp of the Damned, roll the six-sided die. Temp of the Damned comes into play with a number of funk counters on it, equal to the die roll. During your upkeep, remove a funk counter from Temp of the Damned or sacrifice Temp of the Damned. So this is a card that basically has vanishing or fading, I don't know how everyone would think of it, that you get the creature for a set amount of time based on the die roll.

Once again, three mana for a 3-3. At the time we made this was decent. It is no longer particularly a good stat. So this card's not very good in a modern way. This is one of two cards, I believe, where we slushes what we call art when we have an artist and they design art, but then the card gets

killed for some reason, or something happens so we don't use the art, but we've, we have the art, we paid for the art, the artist made the art. Um, and so I was asked to look through the slush pile and see if I could use any of it. Tempo the Damned and Gus were the two that I remember using. So this was slush art that I used.

Next, Volras Motion I used. Next, Volrath's Motion Sensor. Plus one black, Enchant Player. When Volrath's Motion Sensor comes into play, choose target hand, controlled by an opponent. Enchant Player balances Volrath's Motion Sensor on the back of that hand. If Volrath's Motion Sensor falls off that hand,

sacrifice Volrath's Motion Sensor, and that player loses three life. So this is another Enchant Player. Like I said, this and Charm School were the first Enchant Players in Magic. And the idea of their Enchant Players is you literally enchanted the player. That's why they say Enchant Player. You're balancing the card in Charm School. They're balancing the card

on their hand. Charm School is your head. This is their hand. The interesting thing is three life ended up probably not being enough. The most common thing that happened when you put both much better than somebody is if they wanted to play the game, they played the game because it's fun to play the game.

If they didn't want to play the game, they'd just throw it off or whatever. I'll take three. We kind of knew that. It was kind of built so that if you didn't want to play the game, just take three life. But three life, the people who didn't want to play it really, really just didn't matter than three life. So I don't know if we should have a smidgen more life to make people think about it more.

Okay, next. Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire, three and a red enchantment. Whenever any player taps a card, that player gives control of that card to an opponent at end of turn. If a player does not tap any non-land cards during his or her

turn, Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire deals 3 damage to that player at end of turn. So this was meant to be a crazy chaos card. The idea is just everybody's changing cards all the time was the idea. And then if you don't change cards, if you don't tap anything, it just hurts you to make you do it.

I wanted to do a sideways card in the set where it was oriented sideways. I knew it had to be enchantment because enchantments don't tap. And then once we knew that, we liked, once this card became that, we gave it a long name on purpose

because it was sideways. The card is oriented sideways. It could have a really long name. This is a very hard name for people to remember. We made it by just taking the most common words that we used in red cards.

And so, anyway, I do enjoy this card. If you've never played with this card, it is mega chaotic, but it is a lot of fun. Next up, Chicken Egg. One and a red, summon egg, zero, one. During your upkeep, roll

six-sided die on a six, sacrifice chicken egg, and put a giant token into play. Treat this as a 4-4 red creature that counts as a chicken. That's a lot of nuggets. Jaya Bower, Task Mage. The flavor text that I wanted that ended up getting outvoted on my team

was the egg cracked, the colonel cackled, years of secret lab work had finally paid off with the flavor text I wanted. I still, in retrospect, I wish I had just said, ah, we're using that one. I actually like it better than Let's Like Nuggets. Although, I do like

Jolly Power having a quote here. Interestingly, the chicken does not fly. It's just a four-foot ground creature. I know chickens, I mean, technically they can fly, but most chickens sort of just stay on the ground. But, anyway, this is a parody of Rook Egg. And, in fact, we had Christopher Rush, who did Rook Egg, do the act. Oh, by the way, wherever we could,

whenever we were parodying a piece of art, when we could, we'd have the artist that did the original do the parody. It didn't always work out, but whenever we could, we did. Next, Double Deal, Form of Red. Sorcery, choose another player. Double Deal deals three damage to that player now and deals an additional three damage to that player at the beginning of the next game with that player.

And then I'm Facing Defeat. at the beginning of the next game with that player. And then I'm facing defeat. That's part of the limerick. I think it's the second... No, third. I think it's the third line. Anyway, this is part of the double cycle where I do something to you now at the beginning of the next game. So this does three damage.

Here's a little... If you don't know this, if someone does damage to you in the game here's a little if you don't know this if you are going if someone does damage to you in the game and you know that you're going to lose this game because you're so far lost you can concede in response to them doing damage to you

and then it doesn't resolve and so the spell never resolves and so the next game they don't do damage to you it requires you conceding the game so it is but if you know you're going to lose anyway you technically

can do that. Okay, next up. Goblin Bookie. Costs one red mana. 1-1. Summon Goblin. R-tap. Reflip any coin or re-roll any die. Galak love bets. He'd sit in the bar all night and laugh and laugh. Hey, he still owes me. Squeak Goblin Casino Hand.

A little squeak reference there. So, the... This was one of those cards that didn't actually work. The idea that I would flip a coin or roll a die and then before that effect happens, I think the

FAQ for this card was like, it just works. Magic doesn't really have... I mean, Silver Border sort of has its die rolling, and we just sort of say it works. Black Border would have to do a lot of

reworking, and there's no die rolling in Black Border, so there's coin flipping. What happened was, originally we were just going to roll a coin, like, well, you do coin flipping. Okay, we'll make you do flips, too, so we added coin flips to it so that it interacted with other cards outside of the set. Okay, next.

Goblin Bowling Team. Three and a red, one, one. Summon goblins. Whenever a Goblin Bowling Team damages any creature or player, roll six-sided die. Goblin Bowling Team deals that creature or player additional damage equal to the die roll. So, it's funny we didn't make it, like, star plus one,

which is kind of what this is, but anyway. Flog was out of his league. The game wasn't up his alley, but the team couldn't spare him if he split. I do like that bunch of bowling puns. So, the interesting thing is this card is illustrated by Pete Venters, and Pete Venters was part of the bowling team. Wizards had a bowling, R&D had a bowling team,

and so he drew the members of the bowling team as goblins. So it's Charlie Coutinho, it is Bill Rose, I think it is Pete, I don't remember, Mons, maybe? I don't remember the whole team. But anyway,

it's his drawing of the bowling team, of the Wizards bowling team. Okay, next up, Goblin Tutor. It's a red, costs a single red mana. It's an instant. Roll a six-sided die for Goblin Tutor. On a one, Goblin Tutor has no effect. Otherwise, search your library for the indicated card.

Reveal that card to all players and put it in your hand. If you roll a two, you get any Goblin Tutor, so you can get itself. Three is any enchantment. Four is any artifact. Five is any creature. Yes, interrupts were still in the game back then. What this card should have done is not make you lose on a 1. You should have got a Goblin Tutor on a 1, which is kind of losing. And then probably should have split up like Sorcerers and Instants. The reason this card got made was in Mirage, we made four tutors. One in black, which was Vampire Tutor. And we made White, Blue, and Green.

Worldly Tutor, Mystical Tutor. I forget what the white one was called, but God Enchantments. Anyway, we didn't make a red one. And people were like, where's the red tutor? Where's the red tutor? So I made the red tutor. Interestingly, I think Urza Saiga also made a red tutor. So two different people solved the problem of where's the red tutor.

This is not that good a card, especially because of the one. Anyway, the worst part about the card is I roll a one, nothing happens. I roll a two, basically nothing happens. I've wasted mana, and I get the card back, so I don't lose the card. But, anyway, not the best of designs. Next up, Herloon Wrangler,

Tuna Red, 2-2, Summon Minotaur. It's got Denim Lock. If a defending player is wearing any clothing made of denim, this creature's unblockable. Nothing comes between me and my didgeridoos. That is making reference of a Kelvin Klein commercial with book shields, if you want some weird, obscure references we're making.

So the idea was, I liked the idea of doing a weird take on Landwalk. It did not dawn on me, I swear, I swear, it did not dawn on me that people would take off their pants. I was head judging at the pre-release, and I heard, in response to your declaration of attack, I removed my pants. And I said, oh, what have I done?

Anyway, it taught me an important lesson. We now no longer do things that encourage you to remove your clothing, because Herloom Wrangler has probably done more pants removing than I want to think about. Okay, next. Jalen Grifter. Three red red, three five, summon legend.

One and a red. Put Jalen Grifter in two lands you control face down in front of the target opponent. After revealing each card to him or her, then rearrange the order of the three cards as often as you wish. Keep them on the table at all times. The opponent then chooses one of those cards. If a land is chosen, destroy target card and play. Otherwise, sacrifice Jalen Grifter.

So Jalen Tome, which was in Antiquities, is named after Joel L. Mick, much like J.M.D. Tome is named after James M. Davis. James Michael Davis. Anyway, the person in the picture

used Joel as a reference. So Joel Mick is the person in the picture, Joel is, used Joel as a reference. So Joel Mick is, this is the reference in the card because Joel is Jalen. This card makes you play three card Monty, basically. The funny story is at the Gen Con that the pre-release happened, I did some gunslinging on the days that there weren't the pre-releases

and one of my decks had Jalen Grifter in it. I used to do magic, for those that don't know, like prestidigitation magic, like magic shows and stuff. And anyway, I know how to do three-card Monty in a way that's very hard to follow what's going on, just using some of my flat-hand tricks

I learned from magic. And anyway, I use this to great effect in the playtesting. Next, Crazy Cow. Three and a red, three, three. Summon Cow. During your upkeep, roll a six-sided die on a one. Sacrifice Crazy Cow and it deals three damage to each creature

and player. I got your milk right here. So this card, by the way, was supposed to be Mad Cow. It was designed to be Mad Cow. And then at the last minute it got changed because they were afraid that people might be offended because Mad Cow was a thing in England that had killed a lot of people. We actually had asked our English

office at the time we had an English office, and they thought it was hilarious. But we ended up changing. Crazy Cow is now making reference to Crazy Cat, which was a comic from, like, the 20s. So it's a weird reference. I mean, you don't need to know that to get it. So once again, it's one of those weird things. I guess at least when you lose a creature you roll a 1,

it gets to do 3 damage to everything, so... But the idea is you never know when the cow is going to explode. So it's kind of fun. Okay, next up, Landfill. Form a red sorcery. Choose a land type. Remove from play all lands of that type that you control. Drop those cards one at a time onto the playing area from the height of at least one foot. Destroy each card in play that's completely covered by those cards.

Then return to play tapped all lands dropped in this way. So this was playing a little mini game where you're trying to cover up things. There's a game at the fair called Cover the Spot where you have to drop and cover the spot. I was basically doing cover the spot with magic. Anyway, interestingly, this card can somehow kill enchantments, which it shouldn't. That seemed to be a mistake, but although, to be fair, it's not that easy to destroy things

with this. And I wish I had just had you draw, like, take so many cards from outside the game, rather than care about a certain kind of land, just because this card really only works in, like, a minor red deck where you're just playing mountains, where you have enough mountains to cover things. Okay, next up.

Ricochet. Red enchantment. Whenever any spell targets a single player, each player rolls a six-sided die. That spell is redirected to the player or players with the lowest die roll. If two or more players tie for the lowest die roll, they re-roll until there's no tie. I'm

surprised that I didn't make it hit both of them, but I didn't. So the idea here is whenever you cast a spell, you never know who the spell is going to hit. Probably the other thing I would do with the spell is make it not hit you. Although I guess the spell is just trying to make chaos. Maybe if you have the spell out,

you're sort of prepared for things to hit you, but you can tell as I go through these cards that I definitely am trying to make cards that just make a very high variance, chaotic, fun sort of environment. I was very consciously doing that. Okay, next up, Spark Fiend.

Four in a red. Summon Beast. Five, six. When Spark Fiend comes into play, roll two six-sided die. On a total of two, three, that have never been in a casino. During any of your following upkeep phases, on any other roll, there's no effect. So what you're playing is the game of craps for those that have never been in a casino. Spark backwards, by the way, you'll notice, is the word craps, although spelled with a K. We loved the idea of having a card

where the art was teeny tiny, and so I needed to come up with something that just filled the text box. And then we came up with the idea of basically... I think we called this card Craps Fiend and ended up making it Spark Fiend and flopped it. But anyway,

if you've never played the game of craps, it's the game of craps. It's the beginning part of craps. And anyway, we were doing dice rolling. Craps is kind of a fun game that we know is an interesting thing. So anyway, we made you play that. And we did the art gag where it's a little teeny tiny... You just kind of a fun game that we know, you know, is an interesting thing. So anyway, we made you play that. And we did the art gag where it's a little teeny tiny.

You just kind of see the eyes and the beginning of his teeth. So, it's cool. Next up, Strategy Smatagy. One and a red, sorcery. Roll six-sided die for Strategy Smatagy. On a one, Strategy Smatagy has no effect. Otherwise, it has one of the following effects. Two, destroy all artifacts. Three, destroy all lands.

Four, Strategy Smatagy deals three damage to each creature and player. Five, each player discards his or her hand and draws seven new cards. Six, roll the die two more times. Okay. Once again, one should have been nothing. We should have made another effect. The fact you don't control it already makes this not the greatest spell in the world. I will point out that Daniel Jelen did this art.

He was my art director for the set. And he did a lot of, he helped with a lot of the graphics. And he did most of the laying out of cards, I believe. Like I said, all the cards were individually laid out in the last podcast. Anyway, you'll notice in the frame there are... He's parroting Wheel of Fortune. And I think... Did Dan Jones do Wheel of Fortune?

He might have. He might have done the original Wheel of Fortune. Anyway, it's a parody of Wheel of Fortune. Notice that... Or not notice, but the things on it were all the expansion symbols we considered for the set.

So there's a goblin. There's, like, noses with a mustache. There's a chicken. There's a chicken head. There's, like, a jester's thing. And then there's a cracked egg. Obviously, the cracked egg is what we used. But he's making reference that there are six things there.

There are six, the six things we considered, the six expansion symbols we considered. Okay, the final card for today, or for this podcast, at least. The ultimate nightmare of Wizard of the Coast Customer Service. XYZ Red Red. Sorcery. The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizard of the Coast Customer Service

deals X damage to each of Y target creatures and Z players. Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm Pacific Coast. And then there's a phone number which isn't even the phone number. They've since changed the phone number. Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to do a card that was just confusing, and then I

literally gave you the phone number for customer service so if you got confused. Customer service loved this card, because it just made people aware that they existed, and put their number in front of them. I did ask for permission, by the way. Whenever I reference a part of the company, I went to that part of the company to make sure it was okay.

And I love the idea of just making a really complicated card. So we put X, Y, and Z in it, so it's three variables that are different. Even though the card is red, it's mistakenly, mistakenly, put in a blue border, which is confusing. So we made a card that's actually confusing to confuse people. But then we put the customer service

number on it so people could call them. They did get a lot of calls about this card. They did enjoy it. Like I said, I did ask for permission and they did

think it was funny. Okay, guys. Well, we've now made it through block and red. So I guess we'll have one more podcast. On that podcast, I will do green and artifacts, and

then talk about the tokens and the lands. Anyway, I'm 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 y'all next time. Bye-bye.