Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #854: Creature Tokens, Part 2

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

In this podcast, I continue to talk about the history of creature tokens in Magic.

I'm not pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay, so recently I did a podcast talking about the history of tokens, creature tokens. So I got all the way up through fallen empires. So today I'm going to continue on. So I pick up with Ice Age. So it's interesting that Ice Age had one card that made a creature token, which was Caribou Range.

Two white, white, enchant land. When Caribou Range comes into play, choose target land you control. Tap, tap, tap land Caribou Range enchant to put a Caribou token into play. Treat this token as a 0-1 white creature, and you can sacrifice a Caribou to gain a life. So that's a pretty weak card. It makes 0-1 white creature, and you can sacrifice a caribou to gain a life. So that's a pretty weak card. It makes 0-1. You'll notice there's a lot of 0-1s. I mentioned this last time. I think there's a little bit of worry early on about tokens sort of getting out of control.

We started getting a lot more aggressive with tokens. Okay, so next we get to Homeland. So Homeland actually had a number of cards let's see uh it had six cards that made creature tokens um i want to talk about a couple uh so first off broken visage um so this was uh instant four in a black i'll read you the text as it came in the card. Bury target non-artifact attacking creature and put a shadow token into play. Treat this token as a black creature

with power and toughness equal to the power and toughness of that attacking creature. Bury shadow token, end of turn. So bury, by the way, was a term we used to mean that you destroy it and it can't be regenerated. Just to give you a contrast, the current template is destroy target non-artifact attacking creature, it can't be regenerated, create a black spirit creature token,

its power is equal to the creature's power and toughness, and it's equal to the creature's power and its toughness equal to the creature's toughness, sacrifice the token and begin the next end step. So the reason I want to bring this one up is this is a card saying I'm trying to do something. How can I do it? Oh, the answer is I can use a token to do it. And not even a permanent token, but a temporary token.

So essentially the idea of this card is I want to make a shadow version. Your shadow attacks you. That's kind of the flavor of this card. Well, how do you represent the shadow? How does your shadow attack you? the flavor of this card. Well, how do you represent the shadow? How does your shadow attack you? Well, what if I made a creature, a black creature, that's power is equal to your power, and toughness equals your creature, and it attacks you? So it's kind of like

you. It doesn't have your other abilities, but it's kind of like you. And then the idea is, hey, we're just going to fight, and then I go away. That it's using a token as a way to address and create some ability that is meant to be temporary. And I think Broken Visage is the first card to do that.

One of the things you'll see as we start going along with tokens is how the designers get more and more inventive in sort of how to do that. Another card, for example, that's very popular is called Sanger Autocrat. So three and a black for two, two, Autocrat, summon Autocrat. When Sanger Autocrat. So three and a black for two, two Autocrat. So I'm an Autocrat. When Sanger Autocrat comes into play, so once again, I like reading the original cards. It would be Enter the Battlefield now, obviously. When Sanger Autocrat comes into play,

put three Surf Tokens into play, treat the tokens as zero, one black creatures. If Sanger Autocrat leaves play, bury all Surf Tokens. So the idea here is, the real value of this card was that it was four creatures for the cost of one card. And the ways that really take advantage of this card, this card actually saw some play, was, hey, what if I have cards that value creatures?

I'm sacrificing them, I'm counting them. And the idea that for one card I can get four creatures was the best at the time the game did. And that was something that was sort of interesting about that. Like, one of the things that, as we're moving along here, is that we get more and more inventive on what it means. That tokens allow the designers to stretch a little bit more. And the neat thing here is, the idea of one creature is one card is something that tokens let us stretch. And you'll see even modern day, stuff like

Raise the Alarm, or one card makes two creatures, that that, there isn't a one-for-one anymore because of tokens that allows us to sort of make creatures that don't evaluate one-for-one. Like, one of the things we've played around a lot with is the idea of what is a card, and what's the value of a card.

And the idea that you can make multiple creatures with tokens really lets us play around with that. Okay, the next set that makes use of the card, or the next set, which pretty much what you'll notice is every set, there might be one or two exceptions, but every set tends to use tokens. Some use a few, some use more. So the next set is alliances. There are ten cards here,. I want to talk about two cards and then one other card. Okay, so Varchar's

Varchild's Warrider. One and a red. Three, four. Summon Warriders. Trample Rampage One. Rampage One, by the way, says whenever I'm blocked, for each creature beyond the first I get plus one, plus one. That's what Rampage means. Cume of upkeep.

Put a survivor token into play under target opponent's control. Treat this as a 1-1 red creature. So the idea is, for two mana, you get a 3-4 creature, but every upkeep, I've got to give my opponent more creatures. So on the first, they get one 1-1 red creature. Then they get two 1-1 red creatures. Then they get three 1-1 red creatures. And the Then they get three 1-1-1 red creatures. And the other card I want to talk about here is Feldgriff.

One white, blue, green. 4-4, it's a legend. Summon legend, back when legends were creature type. White, flying to end of turn. Target opponent gains two life. Blue, return Feldgriff to his owner's hand. Target opponent may draw a card. Green, trample until

end of turn. Put a hippo token into play under target opponent's control. Treat this token as a one-run green creature. So, Vortra's War Riders and Feldergrift both do something that we hadn't done to this point, which is I'm giving tokens to my opponent. I'm using tokens as a

costing mechanism. So, for example, Vortra's War Rider says, okay, hey, I get a 3-4 creature for 2 mana. That's really, really good. Oh, for example, Virtua's War Rider says, okay, hey, I get a 3-4 creature for 2 mana. That's really, really good. Oh, but there's a downside, and the downside is I'm giving my opponent more and more creatures. How long do I want

to keep this around, knowing that I'm giving them creatures? In Feldegrift, the idea is each activation of the Feldegrift, Feldegrift, by the way, for those that don't know, is what we call a vanity card. We don't make these really anymore. Feldergriff is an anagram of Garfield, Ph.D.

Richard Garfield, obviously the creator of magic. This was made by the Alliance, the East Coast Playchauffeurs, as a joke. They had always joked that as magic went along that, you know, things would get wilder and wilder. And they had joked about one day there'd be a flying purple hippo. And so they decided it'd be fun to make the flying purple hippo.

The reason it's Garfield PhD is whenever, in the early days, whenever the PR did any sort of PR with Richard, they would always mention that he had a PhD. Just because they thought it made him sound smarter and they wanted him to sound smarter when they were doing Not That Richard Isn't Super Smart.

But anyway, so they were sort of mocking Richard a little bit. I mean, in a fun, light way. But each of the activations, the idea is you get something, but the opponent gets something. Feldergift gets to fly, but the opponent gains life. Feldergift gets bounced to protect it from stuff. Oh, but the opponent gains life. Feldergrift gets bounced to protect it from stuff.

Oh, but the opponent gets to draw a card. Feldergrift gets trampled. Oh, but the opponent gets a creature. And so both Varchar's War Riders and Feldergrift was us, once again, expanding on what creature tokens could do. And here, it's the idea of it could be a cost because I can give them to my opponent. The other card that I'll just

point out because I ended up being a powerhouse, a very popular tournament card, was called Keldoran Outpost. So it's a land. When Keldoran Outpost comes into play, Sacrifice of Plains or Bury Keldoran Outpost, so you had to Sacrifice of Plains when it entered, and then tap, add a white mana to your mana pool,

1 and tap, put a Soldier token into play, treat this token as a 1-1 white creature. In the modern day, by the way, if Calderon Outposts would enter the battlefield, sacrifice the plains instead. If you do, put Calderon Outposts onto the battlefield. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard. Tap, add white.

One white tap, create a 1-1 white creature soldier token. Anyway, this was super powerful. The idea of making a token every turn... Now, this had some cost to it. I mean, you had to basically sacrifice a land, and it was two mana turn. But it turns out that two mana turn to make a 1-1 creature was very powerful.

This was a tournament-level card. And the experiment sort of here was... Early on, like, theive is not a good card. The Hive was the first card that had creature tokens. But what they're kind of showing is, hey, creatures can be valuable, even a 1-1 creature. The ability to generate overturn really let you sort of swarm the opponent with small creatures. Um, and so, this is a really good example of how, um, you know, tokens early on seemed like a casual thing, but they clearly, clearly can be a tournament thing.

Keldon Oppo said, hey, if I want to generate creatures, that can be a very valuable thing, and it was done at a cost that it really made it something that you could do. Okay, next up, we get to Mirage. So Mirage had a bunch of cards. It looks like it had about 11, I think. Okay. Once again, I'm just going to hit the highlights of things I want to talk about. So Afterlife.

Tuna White, instant. Bury target creature and put an Essence token into play under that creature's controller. Treat this token as a one-wind-white creature with flying. So this is the first time we've done, I guess what I'll call, reparations with the creature. I mean, Feldergriff does this a little bit, but the idea here is that I'm trying to get the flavor of I'm killing your creature, and in its place is a little spirit. In fact, I bet you, let me see the modern-day version.

Yeah, so the modern- day template is destroy target creature, it can't be regenerated, its controller creates a 1-1 white spirit creature token flying. So the flavor is, I'm killing your creature, or I'm killing a creature, and its controller gets a spirit. So I'm sort of killing it, and a spirit comes out

of it. So once again, sort of expanding on our uses, the idea of using tokens to represent transition. We will see blue do that in the future. White does it some. White will also do some stuff where it's sort of

giving you compensation. But here, the flavor really is that I'm killing your creature, and then it becomes a spirit. So I'm sort of turning your creature into a spirit, essentially. Okay, Sacred Mesa. Two and a white enchantment. During your upkeep, sacrifice a pegasus or bury Sacred Mesa.

One and white, put a wild pegasus token into play. Treat this token as a one-one white creature with flying that counts as a pegasus. Once again, I'm reading the original text just because it entertains me. So this idea here is it was an enchantment that made tokens, much like Keldon Outpost, but... And these are flying 1-1s, but it's a little more of an upkeep

because you have to sacrifice a Pegasus each turn. So the idea to this is, if I'm just generating one token a turn, I'm just barely keeping alive. I've got to be generating multiple tokens a turn, but it costs two mana, so it does allow you to do that. And once again, you can start seeing that we're using tokens

like, I mean, you can sacrifice any Pegasus, not necessarily a Pegasus token, but this really is using the tokens as a cost, as a means to sort of balance the card. Next up, Tidal Wave. Two to white instant. Put a wave token into play. Treat this token as a 5-5 blue creature

that counts as a wall. Bury the token to end your turn. So here's another example, kind of like Broken Visage from Homelands, that sort of uses a temporary token to replicate a spell. Mostly what's happening is, I kind of want

to kill your attacking creature, but do it in a blue way, so what's happening is I'm sort of making a temporary wall to block. So, Karin, one black black instant, sacrifice a creature. Put into play a number of maggot tokens

equal to the sacrilegious creature's power. Treat these tokens as 0-1 black creatures. Once again, this is us playing around the idea of, so this lets you sacrifice a creature, but it lets you turn one creature into multiple creatures defined by its toughness.

Now again, like Singer Autocrat, you need to have some resource that takes advantage of creatures being creatures. You're making them into 0-1s. So sacrificing a 4-4 creature to make 4 0-1s... By the way, I will note, there's no mana to this at all. So if your creature's about to die,

like someone's murdering your creature or something, you can just sack it. So the idea is, okay, my creature's going to die, but in its place I'll get something, and again, you can see us playing around a little bit more with what is the value of a creature? What does

a creature mean? Like, one of the cool things about a creature token is because it gets divorced from the cards, that you really can start experimenting. A, you can generate multiple creatures, and you can start sort of caring about things in different ways. And, you know, I think that's pretty cool. I will tell one,

since we're going through, I will tell one behind-the-scenes story. So Goblin Scouts, also from Mirage, three red red sorcery, put three Goblin Scout tokens into play, treat these tokens as 1-1 red creatures with Mountain Walk that count as goblins. Originally, this card actually made 1-2 dwarves. But when we got the art back,

the artist... What the artist had drawn, we didn't think red as dwarves. We thought red as goblins. And so we changed the card so that it would match what the art was. And so if you ever... I mean, it's one of the funny things where we have done a lot more

with goblins than we have with dwarves. So it's kind of weird that a dwarf card got turned into a goblin card, but that's the nature. Oh, the other... Speaking of art sort of things. Waiting in the weeds, one white white sorcery. For each untapped force he or she controls, each player puts a cat token into play under his or her control.

Treat this as one-one green creatures. Waiting in the weeds was supposed to be the first squirrel card. What happened was, the art description was like, you just see the eyes in the distance, you can't see who they are. And I think what happened was,

the artist felt that it didn't read well as a picture, and so they ended up putting a cat in the picture. Susan Van Camp was the artist. And the artist had cleared it with the art director, but the art director didn't realize that it sort of changed the essence of what the card did, and so we ended up having to change it from making squirrels to making cats.

Okay. Next up, we get to visions. Okay, so my story here is another fun behind-the-scenes story. So Avena Mancer, two and a blue, summon sorcerer, zero, one. When Avenomancer comes into play, return three basic lands you control to Owner's Hand, or bury Avenomancer. So, it costs a lot. You have to bounce three lands.

But its ability is tap, return Avenomancer to Owner's Hand, bury target creature, and put a sheep token into play, under control of that creature's controller. Treat this token as a zero, one green creature. So, back in the early days, for a while, Wizards of the Coast got into making game stores. And so we wanted to understand how game stores worked. So we opened up a tournament center at Wizards,

and there was a LAN, a connected network of computers. And one of the games that we had on it was the original World of Warcraft. And so R&D at the time, which wasn't a lot of people, I mean, there was maybe, I don't know, 8, 9 people maybe, and a bunch of them didn't, like, only 4 of us worked, or 5 of us worked all the time on Magic. The rest did other things. Maybe it was a little bit, maybe it was like 10, 12 people.

But anyway, and that's all of R&D. Magic R&D was five people. Um, but anyway, they, a bunch of people would go down, a bunch of R&D would go down and play World of Warcraft late at night. I would go down, I wouldn't play World of Warcraft. I would, uh, flirt with, uh, the person who was the, um, person at the desk. Uh, a woman named Laura, who I would later marry. So my time well spent.

But anyway, in World of Warcraft, one of the spells is, I think it's called Polymorph. But anyway, you turn things into sheep. And Bill loved turning people into sheep. So he decided he was going to make a card that was a wizard that turned things into sheep. He was worried that it'd be too strong. So this card is on the weaker side, just because Bill was worried that, you know, turning things into sheep. He was worried that it'd be too strong, so this card is on the weaker side,

just because Bill was worried that, you know, turning things into sheep would be a little too good. So, like, you have to bounce three lands, and it bounces itself, and anyway. But that is where it came from. It came from Bill wanting to bring to life the world of Warcraft. The other...

I want to talk about envisions, was Giant Caterpillar, which interestingly, so summon Caterpillar three, three and a green for a three, three, uh, green, sacrifice Giant Caterpillar, put a butterfly token into play at the end of turn, treat this token as a one, one Greek creature with flying. Um, so now, by the way, it's an, it's a insect token named Butterfly. So I believe that is the only butterfly creature in all of Magic, by the way. We need to fix that. But, uh, anyway, the idea here, just to point out, once again, is some transformation stuff.

You see us playing with transformation a little bit more. Um, what is going on is, uh, okay, you have a giant caterpillar, and then it's going to go in a cocoon and become a butterfly, and so they represent that. I'm not sure why the 3-3 caterpillar has become a 1-1 butterfly, but it does. I mean, it wants to be smaller because obviously, um,

uh, flying is better than not flying, but. Okay, uh, the one final thing in Visions is Snake Basket. Um, uh, four the one final thing in Visions is Snake Basket. Four for an artifact. X Sacrifice Snake Basket. Put X Cobra Tokens into play.

Treat these tokens as one-one green creatures. Play this ability as a sorcery. A couple things. One is, you start to see, like, this might be the first X Token Maker. I'm not sure whether I had one before. I don't think I did. So it's an X token maker.

It also is not a green card that makes green creature tokens. We start getting into the idea that things can be other colors. For a while, whatever color you were, that's the color of what you made. But we started realizing the flavor might be fun.

Like, oh, these are snakes. And, okay, it's a snake basket, so it's a generic artifact. But, well, the snakes can be green. Snakes are green. So, you see I started messing around with that. Okay. Next,

we get to Weatherlight. So, Weatherlight has one card. Liege of Hollows. Two green, green. Summon Spirit. Three, four. If Liege of Hollows is put into any graveyard from play, each player may pay an amount of mana to put that many Squirtle tokens into the play under your control. Treat these tokens as one-winged green creatures.

This is the first Squirtle card. I have a whole podcast on the design of Squirtles if you want to hear about it. But this is the first actual Squirtle-making card. One of the things you can see her start to do is have a little bit more fun with tokens. I think that we... One of the things that we start to do more with

is really have fun with what the tokens are and create more variety of tokens. That's another fun thing, as Magic started sort of getting some identity. Like, for example, in Fallen Empires, we made Sapling, which is a unique creature we made up that's sort of a plant creature. And we actually made Sapling a reoccurring token. We've never done a card that was creature-type Sapling.

It's only a token type. Okay, next up is Tempest. Okay, so I want to talk, a couple cards I want to talk about in Tempest. First is Spirit Mirror. So Spirit Mirror is two white white enchantment. During your upkeep, if there are no reflection tokens in play, put a reflection token into play. Treat this token as a

2-2 white creature. Zero. Destroy target reflection. Okay, so this is an interesting card. What I wanted to make was a 2-2 creature that could be destroyed by enchantment destruction, but not by creature destruction. That was my goal.

And it proved to be very hard. One of those things that you think would be kind of easy, and it was not remotely easy to do. So I ended up doing something, this is the first card that did this, is the idea of a recurring token. Meaning, you can only ever have one

card at a time. So you only got a reflection token if you didn't have a recurring token, meaning you can only ever have one at a time. So you only got a reflection token if you didn't have a reflection token. So the idea is it made a 2-2 token, but if for some reason something killed the token, it brought it back. It kept bringing back sort of the same token. I mean, technically it was a new token, but...

And interesting, by the way, the reason it has Destroy Target Reflection on it, 0 Destroy Target Reflection, is we didn't want it getting pacified and you getting shut down. So that way, if someone sort of locks up your creature, you can just get rid of it. Okay, next up, Sarcomancy. So it costs black mana, enchantment. When Sarcomancy comes into play, put a zombie token into play,

treat this token as a 2-2 black creature. During your upkeep, if there are no zombies in play, Circumancy deals one damage to you. So I was trying to make a one-drop 2-2. And I was... Originally, the idea was I wanted to make a zombie that said, you lose one damage if there are no zombies in play. The problem was,

it was a zombie, and so while it was on the battlefield, it would never trigger. And then we were worried about in the graveyard, would you understand it worked in the graveyard? So finally we said, okay, we can use token technology. It'll be an enchantment.

It'll make a token because it's just a vanilla tutu. But that way, if the creature dies, the enchantment sticks around to have the effect that we wanted. And in a way, I mean, we do do effects to sit in the graveyard, to remind you of stuff in the graveyard. It's easy to forget that.

So this is another example where we can use tokens to sort of shift around what we're doing. Instead of having to make this a creature, I can make an enchantment. And the reason I'm able to do that is because I'm able to use token technology to do that. Much like Spirit Mirror, I wanted to create something

using the technology of creature types really allowed me to make something that I normally couldn't make otherwise. Okay, next. Tooth and Claw. Three and a red enchantment. Sacrifice two creatures. Put a carnivore token into play. Treat this token as a 3-1 red creature.

And this is something else we do with creatures, with token creatures, is the idea of upgrading the token creatures. In this case, I can turn two creatures into a 3-1. Probably I'm going to turn 0-1s or 1-1s, but the idea essentially is I can upgrade. If I have two creatures that my value of having a 3-1 is better, I can upgrade them into that.

And tokens are nice for doing sort of creature exchanges. Tokens let us do that. For example, let's look at Mongrel Pack, also from Tempest. 3 in a green, 4-1, summon hounds, now dog. If Mongrel Pack is put into any graveyard from play during combat,

put 4 hound tokens into play, I'm sure now dog tokens, treat these as 1-1 green creature tokens. So the idea is, this creature has a penalty that if it dies in combat, it turns in, the 4-4, or sorry, the 4-1,

breaks apart into four 1-1 creatures. And the reason we can do that, once again, like, this is the thing, my theme of today, is how tokens really allow us just to expand what we can do with design. They are a very valuable tool, and they let us make and craft cards. Like, this is a neat card, the idea that a 4-1, that breaks into 4-1-1s if it dies in combat.

That would be really hard to do without tokens, and almost impossible. I mean, maybe, maybe you have cards sitting outside, you pull the cards in, I mean, but it becomes very complicated to do it. Okay, next, another very popular card, Verdant Force. Five, green, green, green.

It's a summon elemental, a creature-type elemental. Seven, seven. During each player's upkeep, not just yours, each player's upkeep, put a sapling token into play. Treat this as a one, one green creature. So the's upkeep, put a sapling token into play. Treat this as a 1-1 green creature. So the idea is, here's something that's just generating creature advantage over time. Like, every turn, I'm making another 1-1. And that's the kind of thing that tokens let us do, again,

is the divorcing of creatures from cards is very important, that there's a lot of design space that lets us do. And so, and here's a good example of sort of token generation, right? I want to sort of, with time, make... Really what this does is, it kind of says, I'm a creature that keeps making more creatures, but we wouldn't be able to do that without the technology of using tokens. Okay, the final one in Tempest is Echo Chamber. Four mana. It's a generic

artifact. Four and tap. Target opponent chooses target creature he or she controls. Put a token creature into play and treat it as a copy of that creature. The token creature is unaffected by seven to six at this turn. At the end of the turn, remove the token creature from the game. Play this ability as a sorcery. So the modern version of this.

That reads a little weird. So this is another one where we're playing around. The idea is, I get to temporarily clone one of your creatures. And you get to choose it, so there's some interesting thing there. But the idea is, once again, like, it's funny, you can see that Tempest was my first set. And you can see, with so many of these cards, or even, I didn't mention this one,

Field of Souls, two white-white enchantment. Whenever a non-token creature is put into your graveyard from play, put an Estus token into the play. Treat this as a 1-1 white creature with flying, which I assume now is a spirit. Yeah, it's a spirit creature now. So the idea is, every time a creature dies, or a non-token creature dies,

because we don't want these tokens making more tokens, you get a spirit. So every creature dies and becomes a spirit. Like I said, I mean, Tempest was my first set, both my first set and Mike Elliott's first set, and you can see Fields of Souls, Spirit Mirror, Sarcomancy, Tooth and Claw, Mongrel Pack, Verdant Forest,

Echo Chamber. I didn't even talk about Pegasus Refuge where you can discard cards to make Pegasus tokens. Like, you can see I'm doing my first set and I'm really experimenting and pushing what it means to have creature tokens. You know what I'm saying?

So, for example, we get into Stronghold. So, Lab R'm saying? So, for example, we get into Stronghold. So, Lab Rats, Black, Sorcery, buy back four. You may pay an additional four when you play this spell. If you do, put it in your hand instead of the graveyard as part of the spell effect. Put a Rat token in play. Treat this token

as a 1-1 Black creature. Hey, we had a mechanic. Buy back. Ooh, could we put buy back on creatures? No. Normally, buy back only goes in instances of sorceries. But, using the technology of creature types allows us to be able to do that. For example, Mog Infestation. Three red red, sorcery.

Destroy all creatures target player controls. For each creature put into graveyard this way, put two goblin tokens in play. So it sort of turns every creature into two goblins. all creatures target player controls. For each creature put into graveyard this way, put two goblin tokens into play. So it sort of turns every creature into two goblins. Sliver Queen, for example,

very popular card. So white, blue, black, red, green for a 7-7. It's a legendary creature. Sliver. It says Sliver Queen conscious of Sliver.

Now it would just be a Sliver. Two, put a Sliver token into play. Truth is token is a 1-1 colorless creature. So like,

it's a Sliver Queen, but what does a sliver queen do? It makes more slivers, because it's the king of the slivers. That proved very important. You know, as we get into Exodus, we get stuff like Thopter Squadron. So, five mana, flying. Thopter Squadron comes into play

with three plus one plus one counters on it. One, move plus one counter from Thopter Squadron, put a Thopter token into play, treat this as a one-one artifact creature with flying. One, sacrifice a Thopter, put a plus one. So, once again, I'm remaking from Antiquity, which I talked about last time. What was the card called?

It was Tetravis. Sort of remaking Tetravis using some modern technology. And, you know, like I said, I mean, one of the things as I look at the whole

Tempest block is just, we keep, we're, oh, for Volar's Laboratory, this was from Stronghold, five mana artifact,

five generic mana artifact. When you play Volar's Laboratory, choose a color and a creature type. Five and tap, put a token in play, treat this token as a tutor creature

of the chosen creature and type. So once again, we're making customization. Oh, you can make anything you want. What are you, are you tribal caring about something? Well, you can just make that. You know, that before we didn't have the way to just make any token, but all of a sudden, okay, choose a creature type.

Now you can make anything you want. You can really see that we're starting to get around and play in the space. Okay, so I'm going to finish up today with Unglued and wrap up this podcast with Unglued. So, Unglued definitely played around in some space.

Chicken egg, one and a red. It's a summon egg, zero, one. During upkeep, roll six, set a die. On a six, sacrifice chicken egg and put a giant chicken token into play. Treat this token as a four for a red creature that counts as a chicken. Okay, well I can make a little egg that hatches into a chicken. Flock of rabid sheep, X green green.

Flip X coins. An opponent calls heads or tails. For each flip you win, put a rabid sheep token into play. Treat these as 2-2 creatures. So the idea that I can flip coins to see, you know, and whenever I win, I get a token. Or squirrel farm, 2 in green, enchantment. 1 in green, choose a card in your hand,

cover in the artist's name, reveal the card to target player. If that player cannot name the artist, reveal the artist's name and put a squirrel token in play. So it makes squirrels, but it makes squirrels off caring about whether the opponent

knows artists, you know. And it lets us make a fun reward. Also, squirrels are something that... I did a lot of squirrels in Unsets because at some point I wasn't allowed to make as many squirrels are something that... I did a lot of squirrels in Unsets because at some point I wasn't allowed to make as many squirrels. And so we're not quite at that point, actually. Odyssey block makes a lot of squirrels. I had some control over the creature types in Odyssey block.

But after that, squirrels started going away. So for a long time, the Unsets were sort of the bastion of the squirrels. Probably the most important thing, though, about Unglued was I made, I think it was six token cards. See if I can remember what they were. I made a sheep that went along with the sheep. We made, we probably made a chicken to go along with the chicken egg. We had a goblin. We had a zombie. We had a soldier. I feel like there's one more. We had a...

I'm missing one, but... But anyway, what happened was I was making the unglued. I was making weird and wacky things. I was inspired by some stuff, some play aids I'd seen in China. Not China, in Japan. And so I just made some token creature cards.

They... It was just a full art, it was just a goblin or a zombie. Just things that I know, I didn't label them at the time, I didn't give them power toughness, I didn't give them a name. The idea was, hey, maybe it's a citizen, maybe it's a soldier, maybe it's a human.

You know, you could use the tokens for multiple things, ideally. But anyway, I put them in just because I thought it was a fun play. They became really popular. And then when we started putting add cards into booster packs a few years later, on the

back we started making token cards that we put into packs. And so this was the premiere of the token creature card that has now become a staple. Now every magic Pack has token creature cards in it. That was not always the case. In fact, it wasn't the case in Magic until Unglued came along.

I know a lot of people sort of papoo the Unsets who are... I mean, it's fine that there's people that don't like the Unsets in the sense that it's not your style of play. No problem. Hey, play what you enjoy. I have no problem with people not playing things they don't enjoy.

Don't play them. But for people that don't like the Uns people that don't enjoy playing the unsets, I do want to point out that the unsets really are a place where we can experiment and push boundaries. And like I said, Unglue had both full art land and creature tokens. And those both became staples of normal magic. And that was because we could try to replace it a little safer, and then when we realized people liked them,

we could bring them over to Black Border Magic. Anyway, guys, that is... I'm sure I'll do another podcast at some point. I'm fascinated by creature tokens, but the lesson today, the thing I really want to sort of stretch is how it's a very valuable design tool, and we really have a lot of fun stretching boundaries

and seeing what we can do with them, and it really is something that, like I said, Richer started in Alpha right away. And I don't think there's a set that's gone by that hasn't had at least one token in it. There might be one. But very few have no tokens in them. And some have a lot of tokens in them.

And it really opens up space and lets us do a lot of cool design. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed listening to today's podcast. But I finished for today. So I see 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. See you guys next time. Bye-bye.