Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #850: Faeries

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

In this podcast, I talk about the history of the Faerie creature type in Magic.

I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so today I'm going to look back at the history of the fairy creature type. Fairies actually go all the way back to Alpha, but they've been through some changes. So I'm going to talk a little bit about kind of the history of fairies and talk about some specific designs of fairy cards. Okay, so to start with for fairies, we have to go all the way back to Alpha. The very first fairy was called Scrib Sprites. It was a single green mana,

and it was a 1-1 flying creature. And back in the day, that was aggressive for creatures. Nowadays, 1 mana, 1-1 flyer is not that aggressive, but creatures were a bit weaker back in Alpha, and Scribd Spice actually saw some play.

I famously had a deck that Scribd Spice was a big part of, a blue-green deck, and just having a one-one-flyer for one mana was a big deal back then. But anyway, that was the first fairy. Scribd Spice was the only fairy in Alpha. Scribd Spice was the only fairy in Alpha. I think a lot of what Richard was doing when he made Alpha was trying to sample and say,

hey, look at all the different fantasy tropes here. It's interesting when you look back, there's not a lot of any one thing. I mean, in retrospect, there's a bunch of humans, but the human creature type didn't even exist at the time. So the creature types were spread over to lots of different abilities. So the humans had what they did rather than what they were. But anyway, there was one fairy. So, I mean, magic started, and it said, okay, hey, fairies exist. It's a fantasy trope, but there was only one. So, the next fairy didn't show up till the second expansion, Antiquities. So, Arabian Nights came. There are no fairies. I don't think there's a lot

of fairies in the Arabian Nights lore. But the next one shows up in Argotian Pixies. Shows up in Antiquities. So it's 1 in green for a 2-1. And the text is, cannot be blocked by artifact creatures. Any damage Argotian Pixies takes from artifact creatures is reduced to 0. Now, with modern

technology, that would have been protection from artifacts. I don't think that was something we had done just yet, and protection was still in its early phases. So, um, I don't think protection from outside of a color happened for a little while. Um, or maybe, actually it's funny, there were, there was

an artifact ward in, maybe, maybe there was protection from artifacts in the artifact ward. But anyway, our Gothian Pixies, um, so this card ended up being, actually saw a decent amount of play. Once again, this was also in my little weenie deck. And the reason was

that Mishra's Factories, which were also a card in Antiquities, which was a land that you could pay one mana to turn into a 2-2 creature, were everywhere. They were very powerful cards back in the day. And the Argothian Pixies couldn't be blocked by them. So they actually, metagame-wise, were an interesting choice.

Like I said, I played them for sure. But once again, so anyway, this is the first fairies that don't fly. It's interesting, in the art, you see these fairies sort of sitting on flowers. So they're not mid-fly. In Scripps, right, we're seeing flying. So it's the first time we introduce non-flying fairies. One of the ongoing things with fairies

is how much expectation is there that fairies are going to fly. As you will see, a decent amount. And we have to be very careful when we make non-flying fairies. It's clear that this isn't the kind of fairy that can fly. Next up, We have to be very careful when we make non-flying fairies. That it's clear that this isn't the kind of fairy that can fly. Okay, next up.

So the next fairy, we then get to Legends, which is the third expansion. There were three cards that were summon fairy. Back in the day, this was before it would say creature subtype. It would say summon and the creature. So two of them were what I would call legit fairy fairies um one was fire sprites one in the green for a one one flying green and tap add red to your mana pool this is played as an interrupt is what it said so back in the day interrupts were um there used to be a third card type and interrupts couldn't be uh you couldn't interact with them except with

other interrupts uh and so the idea is i can get my mana and you can't mess with me while I'm getting my mana, was the idea. The other one was Pixie Queen. Two green green for a 1-1 flying. Summon Pixie Queen. Green green green tap. Target creature gains flying until end of turn. So the fire sprites, at least,

are color-shifting mana, which is something green can and still does. The Pixie Queen aids in flying, I think there's so much green mana on that activated ability because flying wasn't really a green thing. And anyway, oh, so the third fairy in the set was aceling leprechaun.

Green for a 1-1. All creatures that block or are blocked by leprechaun become green creatures. Use counters to indicate changed creatures. Cost to tap, maintain, or use a special ability of target creature remains entirely unchanged. So it was Magic's first Leprechaun. I think they decided at the time that we weren't going to make Leprechaun its own thing. So this is the time we decided that Fairy was a little bit broader than just the traditional Fairy. Oh, by the way, a little note just because people ask me this all the time we decided that fairy was a little bit broader than just the traditional fairy.

Oh, by the way, a little note, just because people ask me this all the time. Why do we spell fairy F-A-E-R-I-E as opposed to F-A-I-R-Y, which is more traditionally how it's spelled? I think it was Richard just trying to be a little fancier, a little more, you know, fantasy flavors. It felt a little more mystical. I think that's why he did it that way. Anyway, so Ace and Leprechaun was us sort of saying, okay, well, fairies can go a little bit broader. It's not just like fairies with wings that grant wishes.

But anyway, so you can see early on, very green. Oh, the one other thing I should mention in Legends is Rubinia Soulsinger, back in the day it was a legend. I mean, Legends was a creature type in Legends, and we only had one creature type for creatures, mostly. So Rabinia was just a summon legend. She later would be in the Great Creature Type Update. So when it was printed, she wasn't a fairy.

She wasn't flavor fairy. She wasn't Flavor Fairy. In fact, Rabinia Soulsinger's model, the art is modeled after a woman named Carol, who used to run sales way back in the day. And she has the ability to tap, gain control of target creature. Rabinia does not tap or untap this creature. If Rabinia becomes untapped,

you lose control of this creature. You may choose not to untap Rabinia as normal during your untapped phase. You also lose control of target creature if either Rabinia leaves play, or you lose control of this creature. You may choose not to untap Rabinia as normal during your untap phase. You also lose control of target creature if either Rabinia leaves play or you lose control of Rabinia. So she could, the idea was she was a fairy that was sort of luring people away was the idea. And she was blue, white, green.

So Rabinia's the first, I mean, she wasn't a fairy, she was a fairy in flavor, not in creature type until much later, but she was a fairy in flavor, and this is the first time you see us going outside of green. Okay, so next we get to Homelands. So Homelands has a couple fairies. It actually has four fairies.

Three of which are green and one of which is blue. So let's get to the green fairies first. So there's Fairy Noble. Two in a green for a one-two, flying. Summon Noble was its creature type originally. So it wasn't, actually, so I guess when it was printed, it wasn't a fairy. But the reason for that was, flying, all fairies you control get plus 1, plus 0, plus 0, plus 1. Tap, all fairies you control get plus 1, plus 0 until end of turn.

So at the time, I think all lords weren't what they were lord of. Like, Goblin King wasn't a goblin. That's why he was Sum noble and not summoned fairy. Noble, interestingly, would go away as a creature type and then come back later. So that's also interesting. And so fairy noble was the first time

we were trying to sort of say, hey, maybe you could play fairies as a deck. It's the first time we made a lord for fairies. Then there was willow fairy, one and a green for a one-two with flying, which is a bit weaker in Scripps Rites. And then Willow Priestess, two green-green for a two-two. Tap, take a fairy from your hand

and put it directly into play as though it were just summoned. Two green, target green creature gains protection from black until end of turn. Okay, so these three green fairies are all sort of playing in the idea of, I mean, Willow Priestess and Fairy Noble are, for the first time ever, doing some

fairy tribalness. None of these are particularly strong. It's funny how Scripps Price was actually decently strong, and then you'll notice, like, ever since then, we're 1G for a 1-1 flyer, 2GG for a 1-1 flyer, 2G for a 1-2, 1G for a 1-2, 2GG for a 2...

So fairies, we weren't getting particularly strong stuff. The one important thing in this is Seasprite. So Seasprite is the first mono-blue fairy we made. And that is 1 in the blue for a 1-1 flying protection from red. You'll notice that Seasprite is protection from red, and Will-O-Priestess does protection from black. Protection was more of a thing in early Magic, and especially protection from my enemy.

One of the things that we played up a lot more in early Magic was the concept of ally versus enemy colors, and we really did more hosing of enemy colors, especially through stuff like protection. So you see that show up quite a bit. It's funny, I think the C sprite had protection from red actually became relevant for a very brief moment in magic. Okay, so now we get to Mirage.

So Mirage introduces Uktabi Fairy, one in green for a 1-1, it's got flying, and three green sacrilege Uktabi Fairy destroy target artifact. Okay, so the idea is fairies mess with things. That's always been sort of a flavor. And, okay, now we have something

that has some extra utility. Well, it's a creature. Hey, but later in the game if you need to deal with something, you can. And then in Portal we had Moonsprite, one green, one one flying,

which just was a weaker version of Scrippsprites. Portal was introductory. Early on you couldn't even play. I mean it was only for introductory. You couldn't play it in tournaments and stuff. Later we let you play it in internal formats. Okay, so now we're going to get to Tempest.

So you'll notice that up to this point, other than C Sprite and I guess Robinus, Silsinger multiple colors, all the fairies are green. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 10, there's 12 fairies in existence, 10 of them are green, one is blue-white-green,

so it's green, but also blue in addition, and one is blue. Okay, but come Tempest, things start to change. So Tempest has Wind Dancer, which is 1 and a blue for a one-one flyer, and tap target creature against flying until end of turn. So really what it is is a cleaner version of Pixie Queen,

except it's a bit cheaper. Pixie Queen was four mana and two green-green. This is one and a blue. And it costs green-green-green tap to make something fly. Wind Dancer just does it cleaner. So what happened was, so I was, Tempest was my set. The pitch that I made was, why are we doing fairies in green? Like, the fact that green, flying really wasn't a thing in green, right?

You know, green had anti-flying. It had reach. It could destroy your plumbing and reach. It could destroy your plumbing and things that could destroy flyers. But green really was the anti-flying color, not the flying color. And while we could make the occasional non-flying fairy, I'm like, look, at the core,

fairies want to fly. So why are we sticking fairies in a color that really like we just, if we want to make it, like, green is not good at small flyers. Well, it's not good at big flies. Green's not good at flying. But if we made fairies in green, we were just making suboptimal flyers. I mean, and fairies are very tricky.

You know, they're creatures of the air. They're creatures of magic. They're tricky. I'm like, why not make them blue? There's a lot of reasons they make a lot of sense in blue. And so we decided, you know, I made the big push. And, like, in Tempest I specifically said, okay, I'm going to take Pixie Queen

and make just a way better Pixie Queen, and the fact that it's in blue, that I don't have to tap green, green, green to get something flying, I can just tap it to get something flying. So Wind Dancer comes and really sort of sets the standard of what can be. So then the next stop shows up in Urza's Legacy.

So interestingly, I was in up in Urza's Legacy. Um, so interestingly, uh, I was in charge in Urza's Legacy of doing creature I was in charge of doing card concepting, which meant I was in charge of doing a lot of creature typing for things that weren't, like, mechanically relevant. So, hey, look! There's some

there's some fairies that show up in Urza's Legacy. Three, in fact. Uh, Cloud of Fairies, one in a blue, summon fairies, one. Three, in fact. Cloud of Fairies, one and a blue. Summon fairies, one, one, flying. When Cloud of Fairies comes into play, untap onto two lands. And it has cycling, too. You can discard it, draw a card.

Thornwind fairies, one blue, blue, one, one, flying. Tap, Thornwind fairies deal one damage to a creature or player. This is back when the Tim ability, Prodigal Sorcerer from Alpha, was still a blue thing. That would not last too much after this, but it was. And the final one was Weather Thief Fairies, two and a blue for two and one, Flying Protection from Red. So like, okay,

you know, let's start making, once we put it in blue, we can start getting more aggressive. Like Cloud of Fairies, for example, there was an untap mechanic in the Urza Saga block where you play something, and then you untap a number of lands equal to the number, the mana value of the card. So this costs two and untaps two lands.

So Clouded Fairies, I think, is the first really, I mean, well, okay, Scribd Sprites and, um, our Goethean Pixies definitely showed up in Constructed Magic. There's a few other fairies. I think Uktabi Fairy showed up a little bit, and I think Sea Sprite showed up a little bit, but, um, it wasn't really...

Cloud of Fairies was the first time that, like, a staple... I mean, well, fine. Scripps Writes and A Growth of Pixies saw plenty of play. Cloud of Fairies really was the next time that we really sort of made a constructed fairy. Cloud of Fairies saw a lot of play. Turns out the untapped mechanic was quite powerful.

Thornman Fairies, Weatherseed Fairies didn't see quite as much, but Cloud of Fairies definitely sort of, like we started seeing more fairies out there and started introducing them. The next one to show up was Cloud Sprite and Mercadian Masks. It was a single blue

mana, 1-1 flyer, and it could only block creatures with flying. So, it's funny, in Arabian Nights we had made Flying Man, which wasn't a fairy, but it was a 1-1 flyer for blue. We, ironically, ended up weakening things, thinking that was a little too strong.

Early magic development was not our forte, and I think we really, we made overpowered spells and underpowered creatures, and it took us a little while to understand that. But anyway, Cloud Sprite was, I think, one of the early, what we call high-flying, meaning it can only block things that also fly. And that was our way to get a one-drop flyer,

even though now we give you a one-drop flyer in blue with more than that. Next up, what happened in Invasion was Fairy Squadron. So it's blue for a 1-1, and then Kicker, 3 and a blue, and if you paid that, the Fairy Squadron comes in play with two plus one plus one counters

on it, and that's flying. So the idea is, it's a one-one creature that doesn't fly, but for three blue-blue, you get a three-three flyer. It's funny, if we had this card to do again, it would just have flying naturally. Like, a card can just be blue-one-one flying, but back in the day, back in Urza Saga,

it is kind of funny that Urza Saga is known for us making really crazy powerful cards, but at the same time, we make some underpowered things by today's comparison. But that was making use of the kicker mechanic, because the idea is, hey, it's a small creature that you can use early that can become a larger thing later on.

Okay, so fairies really didn't show up again. So, like, once again, you can see, they show up from time to time, but there's a gap. So, like, once again, you can see, they show up from time to time, um, but there's a gap. So that is in Invasion. The next time fairies show up is not till Ravnica. Um, and that's, there's a decent gap between

Invasion and Ravnica. Um, you know, there was Invasion Block, and then there was, um, uh, oh, no, no, you're right, there was Invasion Block, and then we was... Oh, no, no, you're right. There's Invasion Block, and then we had... I'm blanking on things. We had Odyssey and Onslaught

and Mirrodin and Champions of Kamigawa, and then we get to Ravnica. So it's like a five-year gap there. Okay. So in Ravnica, we get Surveillance Sprite, one blue for a 1-1 flyer. When Surveillance Sprite is put into a graveyard from play, you may draw a card.

So something that draws your card when it dies. We get Wiz and Snitches. Three and a blue, one three, flying. Player played with the top of the card of the library revealed. Okay, anyway, I probably should speed up my Fairy Star here. I don't need to go on all the individual cards. So what happens is Fairy Stars start showing up a little bit. Later in the block, there's Wee Dragonos,

which actually is a pretty powerful card. And over the next couple of years, they show up from time to time. Silkwing Scout, Diamond Fairy, Spirit Noble, which is finally a blue... Spirit Noble's important because... Well, it is a lord for flyers, not fairies specifically,

but it's the first time blue kind of gives you something to help build a blue-based fairy deck. Although, because it helps flyers, it's more than just a fairy deck. We have Scribbranger, Cloudseer. Okay, so now we get to Lorwyn. So Lorwyn is the first time that we say, you know what?

We're going to have a tribal component to a set, and fairies are going to be part of that tribal component. We said, okay, fairies are going to be something that are key to it. The other thing we do is, for the first time, we give fairies a secondary color. And it's not green, it is black. The idea is, these are trickster fairies, they can be a little bit mean, and it's not green, it is black. The idea is these are trickster fairies, they can be a little bit mean, and blue, and plus we wanted them to fly, and white didn't feel right, so we put them in black, because white, blue, and black are the three colors that naturally have the flying,

and red and green really, I mean, red has some big flyers and dragons, but red and green really aren't the flying colors. So we, for the first time ever, start making, I mean, once again, fairy noble and stuff, there was a little bit of tribal ahead of time, but we make a deck in which fairies are a thing we're making. Fairies are something that we are pushing. And this is when fair, 4, 4, Flash Flying, Champion of Fairy. So when this comes into play, sacrifice it, and let's remove another fairy you control from the game. When it leaves play, you return it to play. When a fairy is championed with Missed by and Click, tap all land target player controls. So, here's a card that

is really powerful, but you really need a fairy out ahead of it to play it. Um, you know, Pestermite, 2 and a blue, 2, 1, Flash Flying. When Pestermite comes into play, you may tap or untap. Target permanent. There is... Bitter Blossom happens during this block. Bitter Blossom allows you to lose a life and make a fairy every turn.

Anyway, we start making some powerful fairies. Some fairies that really encourage you to play fairies. And for the first time, fairies become a thing. Become like a constructed deck. And there's lots of powerful things that push through. And so the other thing that we did in Lorwyn Block is... Lorwyn

Block then becomes Shadermore Block. And Shadermore Block, the colors shift on, like, you know, I think goblins are black-red, so they turn to red-green. There's a color shifting that goes on all the creatures.

All the creature types show up again in Shadowmoor Block because it's still the same world. But we decided that the one thing, we thought it would be fun that one creature type doesn't change when the world changes, and that we ended up making the fairies.

So, the whole block had a lot of blue-black fairies. Videlian Click, like I said, Bitter Blossom, there's just a lot of different fairies that show up during that block, and because we kept them in blue-black for both Shadamore mini-block and

Lorwyn mini-block, there's a whole year's worth of fairies. And so for the first time, like I said, we really put fairies on the map and start making a lot of really powerful, exciting fairies. The story of Bitterblossom, by the way, is interesting. I was inspired by Phyrexian Arena, which is a card. It's an enchantment where every turn you're forced to lose a life and draw a card. And I liked the idea of, okay, well, what if that was a creature rather than, and I wanted to do it in black.

And I think what happened was, okay, well, what were the creatures in Lorwyn, or actually, what was Bitter Blossom? Bitter Blossom is, Bitter Blossom was in Mourning Tide. So I was trying to figure out where to put it, and we were doing tribal at the time, so I thought it'd be cool to do a tribal enchantment that made a creature type. And I think in black, I think I can make a goblin, or I can make a fairy, I think were the two things we were putting back,

or a treefolk, but treefolk was a little weird. And I decided that a fairy would be fun because I could make it flying rather than make it a ground creature because you were paying a life. So I ended up making Bitter Blossom. Really! I didn't expect when I made a Bitter Blossom that I was going to make as powerful a card as I had made. I honestly thought I was making just a

like a cute, flavorful card. But it ended up being a powerhouse and just being one of the things that helped fuel the fairy deck the other one I should talk about real quickly Vidalian Click Vidalian Click is 1 blue blue 3 1 flash flying when Vidalian Click comes into play

look at target player's hand you may choose a non-land card from it if you do, that player reveals the chosen card puts it on the bottom of his or her library then draws a card this one's a little on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card. This one's a little... On the Color Fight Council, like, it's kind of doing discard, which really is a black thing. At the time, we said, well, what if blue does some sort of forced looting,

where it makes you loot, but it's looting. So you're not down a card, which is what black always does. This is a bit bendy. I think in retrospect, this probably wants to be blue-black and not just mono-blue. I don't mind saying target player discards a card and draws a card in blue. The fact that you pick what the card is

feels a little bit too much black to be mono-blue. That's my take on it. Okay. So we do them. It's very popular. People have a lot of fun with them. And they show up throughout the Lorwyn block and Shadowmoor block.

And then they show up in Shadowmoor and Eventide. And then fairies kind of go back to being this occasional thing. You know, they show up in various sets along the way. Like, Fairy Mechanist shows up in Conflux, and Zephyr Sprite shows up in Magic 2010,

and Fairy Impostor shows up in Return to Ravnica. So, like, you start seeing fairies. So, fairies are clearly not a thing. People like fairies. Some of the older fairments now have a fairy deck because of all the fairies from Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. But anyway, it definitely sort of retreats to being sort of an occasional thing we do from time to time.

I mean, they show up, they're there. But it isn't really until we get to Eldraine that we start sort of... Eldraine is the next time we go to a world and say, okay, this is a fairytale world. The word fairy is literally in the description of what the world is, right? It's a fairytale world. So how do you not have fairies in a fairytale world?

Now this time, we were trying to figure out... So one of the things we looked at is we said okay well what do fairies do in fairy tales and the one big difference in fairy tales is while there are mischievous fairies in fairy tales there are also some very helpful fairies and like the

fairy godmother is a good example of in fact we made fairy guidemother which was very much playing on that so it's white for a 1-1 flying. Obviously, we're not doing one-drop flyers without worrying about it. And then it's an adventure. So Gift of the Fey, one and a white. Target creature gets plus two, plus one,

and gains flying until end of turn. So the idea is it temporarily grants something flying, and then it's a flyer itself. But, like, the idea of a Fairy Guide Mother is very much like a fairy tale staple thing, right? And that's a pretty helpful fairy, you know? It seems pretty white. So we decided to do tribal fairy again.

Well, I mean, we tried to do fairy in numbers again to make it a component of the set. And so we decided to put it in white and blue. component of the set. And so we decided to put it in white and blue. Our thought process is that the heart of fairies is in blue. Even putting them in black in in Lorwyn

was more like we needed a secondary color. So the idea is the heart of fairies are in blue. We did, by the way, actually, when I said white-blue, we put them in white-blue. We ended up doing a little bit of black fairies in Eldraine, because fairies are, there are some mischievous

fairies, like Wrinkle, Master of Pranks, Two Black Black, Three Three, Legendary Creature, Fairy Rogue, Flying Haste. Whenever Wrinkle, Master of Pranks deals comment damage to a player, choose any number. Each player discards a card, each player loses one life and draws a card, or each player sacrifices a creature. That was us playing off sort of

the Rumpelstiltskin. There are fairies that are mischievous and kind of mean in fairy tales. So, while we put the majority of the fairies in white and blue, actually most of them are in blue, second is in white, but there are some black. Although now that I look at them, I guess maybe there's

three white and there's three black monocolor fairies. I think if you start looking at multicolor, there's a white-blue. There's a little bit more white than there's black. But anyway, we definitely brought fairies back. It's something where we wanted to do something cool with them. We wanted

sort of to... And you'll notice, like, animating fairy, two blue, two two. It's a flyer. And then it's an adventure. Bring to life, 2 blue. Target 9 creature artifact control. Becomes a 0, 0 artifact creature. Put 4 plus 1 plus 1 counters on it. That's us doing the blue fairy from

Pinocchio. Fae of Wishes, 1 and a blue, 1, 4 flying, 1 and a blue, discard 2 cards. Return Fae of Wishes to its owner's hand. And granted, 3 and a blue. You may choose a 9 creatureae Wishes to its owner's hand, and granted, three in a blue, you may choose a non-creature card you own from outside the game, reveal, and put in your hand. That's us playing the idea of fairies granting wishes, and a wish,

the wish mechanic in Magic is going to get stuff outside the game. So, so we definitely, like, one of the things in Eldrin, we really had a lot of fun playing around in that space and doing things that were, um, that really sort of helped that. We did make

in Throne of Eldraine there is Alea. So I think this is was this in one of the this might have been one of the side decks. Artful Provocateur Provocateur. That is hard to say.

One white-blue block, two three, Legendary Creature, Fairy Warlock, Flying, Death Touch, Lifelink, other creatures control with Flying,

get plus one, plus oh. Whenever you cast an artifact or enchantment spell, create a one-one blue Fairy Creature token with Flying. So that, for example, is us making Commander with Flying.

I mean, it says Creatures with Flying because there's only so many Fairies. So, you know, when you try and make a commander deck, just fairies, it becomes a little bit hard. So, we made it a little bit broader. But you can definitely see us

trying to do that. So, I'm almost out of time here. What is the future of fairies? You'll notice that fairies have a lot of feast and famine in Magic, meaning that, hey, we do them every once in a while. There's something that, you know, we like fairy, they're a fantasy trope, so we like

having them, you know, every once in a while we'll do a fairy here or there. But there are worlds we come to where we sort of dive in and fairies become a thing. Obviously it happened in Lorwyn, it happened in Eldraine. So the question a lot of people ask me is,

will we see more fairies? It's a question I get a lot. Like, one of my biggest complaints from Modern Horizon 2 was the lack of fairies. People really wanted people want more fairies. The fairy fans are out there. I hear you guys. And what I will say is, we recognize

there are fans of fairies. I do think we will find places to do more fairies. I mean, fairies are the kind of thing that will show up in small doses continually in Magic. But I think from time to time, when we find the right worlds, where fairies really feel at home, we can do more fairies.

There will be more sets where fairies really play a larger role in the set. They're definitely one of those creature types that, like, when the right world comes around, they really set the tone for the world. And so I think we will find more...

I mean, A, if we ever go back to either Lorwyn or Eldraine, obviously there'll be more fairies because we've established lots of fairies there. And I do think we'll find more worlds where fairies make sense. Like, I recognize that fairies sort of hit something fun in that they're very, like,

one of the things I always talk about is the importance of resonance, is that you really want to find something that means something to players outside the game itself. And fairies are one of the things. There's a lot of fairies in pop culture, you know? There's a lot of fairies that permeate through. I think that they hit a sensibility that's

fun. Different creature types hit different players. I recognize fairies are something that really hit a certain audience. The people that like fairies really, really like fairies. That's one of the reasons when a new set comes out and there's not fairies,

the contingent always talks to me. And I do, I just want to say that I recognize you guys are out there. More fairies coming. I do understand that it's, there are certain creature types that's kind of just hit a chord and really, the audience that loves them loves them so dearly. So

I promise you, I promise you, there are more fairies in the future. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this little jaunt through the history of fairies. It was fun looking back, and it's always neat to me to see something that starts all the way back in Alpha, but then slowly evolves and goes along. And it took fairies

a little while to find their feet. Like I said, they change color of their core, and it's kind of neat looking at the history of fairies. Anyway, guys, I'm now at my desk, so we all know that means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time

for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.