Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #957: Scarecrows

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

In this podcast, I talk about the history and design of all the Scarecrows in Magic.

I'm not pulling out the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work at home edition. Okay, so today we're going to talk all about scarecrows. So this is a creature type and there are, I think, 38 of them, 39 if you count Arena. And so I'm going to talk about the history of scarecrows, sort of where they came from. It is a creature type that has some popularity, but it's got interesting history. So let's get into it. Okay, so the very first Scarecrow showed up in the dark, called Scarecrow. It was not, at the time, artifact creatures did not have a creature type.

So it was only retroactively made a Scarecrow creature type. But obviously it's called scarecrow. It was a top-down scarecrow. So, scarecrow 5, 2-2, artifact creature, 6 and tap until end of turn, all damage done to you by flying creatures is reduced to 0. So the flavor was, it's a scarecrow,

right? It stops birds, and birds is defined as anything that's flying. So it just sort of protects you from flying things. Now, 5 mana for a 2-2, then you have to spend six mana and tap it. Not particularly strong, and it didn't see a lot of play. I mean, it's just a pretty weak card. But it did introduce the concept of Scarecrows.

The next Scarecrow that shows up again wasn't at the time it came out labeled a Scarecrow, but in Portal 3 Kingdoms, there's a card called Straw Soldiers, which is one and a blue for a 1-3 creature, and it shows a Scarecrow. So it was later retroactively made a Scarecrow. But again,

I think it was just a soldier when it first came out. Okay. Now, we finally get to where Scarecrows really sort of put their mark on magic, and that is in Shadowmoor Block. So it wasn't until Shadowmoor Block, which is well, well into Magic's existence, like up until then, the word Scarecrow, I mean, obviously in the dark,

the word Scarecrow appeared in the title, but as far as a creature type, it did not appear until Shadowmoor Block. And in Shadowmoor Block, there were 23 of them. We decided that it would be a—we thought that Scarecrow would be a cool artifact creature, like to be the artifact creature, basically, of Shadowmoor Block. And we thought it was kind of neat that there's this pastoral sort of thing going on in Lorwyn, and it gets dark, and the Scarecrows come to life. So let's walk through some of these Scarecrows.

So Bladethorne Scarecrow, 5 mana for a 3-3 artifact creature. Oh, other than Straw Soldiers, by the way, which is a blue card, every single other Scarecrow is an artifact creature. Anyway, Bladethorne Scarecrow, 5 mana, 3-3 artifact creature,

Scarecrow. Bladethorne Scarecrow has haste as long, 3, artifact creature, Scarecrow. Blaze Thorn Scarecrow has haste as long as you control a red creature, and it has wither as long as you control a green creature. So this is part of a cycle. Let's see, so there's Blaze Thorn Scarecrow, Rattle Bay

Scarecrow, 6 mana for 5, 3, it has persist as long as you control a black creature, and it has haste as long as you control a black creature, and it has Haste as long as you control a red creature. I think the way it worked was we did a cycle of allies here, and so Blazethorne is the red-green one. Rattlebays is the black-red one.

Let's see. Thornwatch is the green-white one. So it's 6 mana for a 4-4. Watchwing is the white-blue one. And Wind Gretel Scarecrow, so Watchwing Scarecrow was four mana for 2-4.

Wind Gretel was three mana for 2-2. So the way it works is, if you control the white creature, you had Vigilance. If you control the blue creature, you had Flying. If you control the black creature, you had Persist. If you control the red creature, you had Vigilance. If you control the blue creature, you had Flying. If you control the black creature, you had Persist. If you control the red creature, you had Haste. And if you control the green creature, you have Wither.

So Wither and Persist were both abilities only in... Persist says if you die and you don't have a minus one, minus one counter on you, you come back from the graveyard with a minus one, minus one counter. And Wither means you do damage in the form of minus one, minus one counters. you, you come back from the graveyard with a minus one, minus one counter, and wither means you do damage in the form of minus one, minus one counters. So this cycle was a common cycle

in Shadowmoor, and basically it was an ally combination, so each one of them looked at two colors that were ally colors and then granted the abilities. And the reason for these is we had a very strong color matters theme in Shadowmoor.

And so these sort of played in that. They were colorless to play. But obviously, you know, if you're playing Blazethorn, well, you don't want to play it unless you have red or green. And it's the best if it's red and green. And so it's kind of neat that you could play it in either a red or green deck. You didn't really play it if you didn't have red or green, for example. Okay, next up, Chainbreaker. So Chainbreaker was a two-mana

artifact creature, Scarecrow, 3-3. Chainbreaker comes into play with two minus one, minus one counters, three tap, remove a minus one counter from target creature. So the idea is we played around with minus one, minus one creatures. That was the theme of Shadowmoor. So this is a good creature that entered with him.

So for two mana, essentially it was a 1-1 because it was a 3-3 that entered with two minus 1, minus 1 counters. But for three and tap, you can remove counters. Now it also, to make it generally useful, we let you remove counters from any of your creatures or actually any, I think, target creatures. Any creature with minus 1, minus 1. Usually it would be yours

because you don't want to make your opponent's creatures bigger, but you're allowed to. Next up, Grim Poppet. Seven mana, scarecrow, artifact creature, 4-4. It comes into play with three minus one, minus one counters, and you remove a minus one, minus one counter from Grim Poppet to put a minus one counter on another target creature. So the idea essentially is it is a seven mana creature. It functions a lot like Triskelion,

except that it uses minus one minus one counters instead of plus one plus one counters. So in fact this card is kind of a negative version of Triskelion. Triskelion is I think a seven mana four four that when you're done shooting things it's a one one and Grim Poppet is a one one

I think Triskelion might be six rather than seven. But anyway, instead of going from four to one every time you use Triskelion might be 6 rather than 7. But anyway, instead of going from 4 to 1, like, every time you use Triskelion, it goes down in size. This gets bigger every time you use it. So it definitely was us doing sort of a Scarecrow version. You'll notice, by the way, both Chainbreaker and Grimpoppet make use of minus 1, minus 1 counters.

That theme will pop up a bunch in Scarecrows. Next, Heapdahl costs 1 mana for a 1-1, obviously an Artifact Creature Scarecrow. I'm not going to say Artifact Creature Scarecrows. Next, Heapdahl costs one mana for a 1-1, obviously an Artifact Creature Scarecrow. I'm not going to say Artifact Creature Scarecrow. They are all Artifact Creature Scarecrows, except for Straw Soldier that I already talked about. As a given, when I say that, that's what's true. Sacrifice Heapdahl, remove target card and a graveyard from the game.

There was a graveyard theme that happened, and not a big one, but a smaller one, and so the idea is we wanted to make a graveyard answer. This is an uncommon. we wanted to make a graveyard answer. This is an uncommon. Like, Grim Poppet was a rare. Heap Doll was an uncommon. And it was mostly meant to be an answer.

For all intents and purposes, it was a 1-1 for one that you then could use to remove someone from a graveyard if you needed it. Okay. Next up, Lockjaw Snapper. 4 mana for a 2-2 with Wither. Again, it deals damage in the form of minus 1, minus 1 counters. When Lockjaw Snapper is put mana for a 2-2 with Wither. Again, it deals damage in the form of minus 1, minus 1 counters. When Lockjaw Snapper is put into a graveyard from play,

put a minus 1, minus 1 counter on each creature with a minus 1, minus 1 counter. So, um, we had not yet done... Proliferate wouldn't show up until Scars of Mirrodin. But you can see a little precursor here. Basically, when this thing dies, everything that has a minus 1, minus 1 gets another minus 1, minus 1. So this is kind of a little precursor here. Basically, when this thing dies, everything that has a minus one or a minus one

gets another minus one or a minus one. So this is kind of a little precursor idea to to what I just said, it. Proliferate. Okay. Next up, Painter's Servant. This is a rare a rare Scarecrow.

Two mana for a one three. As Painter's Servant comes into play, choose a color. All cards that aren't in play, spells and permanents are the chosen color in addition to their other colors. So it allows you to make everything a certain color. And there's a lot of combos with this. Once again,

one of the things you'll see in these Scarecrows is the two main themes of Scarecrows is color and minus one, minus one counter. Because those are the two big themes of Shadowmourne. Like I said, this is Shadowmourne block, a lot of these. Okay, next. Pilly Palla. So this is a two mana one one.

Has flying. For two and untap, add one mana of any color to your mana pool. So the thing that's kind of cool about this, it was a flying creature, one one flying creature. So it's not that hard to get it tapped. You can attack with it, assuming they don't have a flyer. And then for two mana, if you've attacked with it, you can convert that two mana to any one color. But you only can do that as an untapped thing, so you really were encouraged to attack with this so you could then use that ability.

Next up, Oh the Reaper King! So this is the most popular Scarecrow. I think of all Scarecrows. This is the most popular Scarecrow. So Reaper King has a very unique mana cost. I think the only mana cost in Magic that is this thing. It has five mana symbols.

Each one is what we call two-brid. So the first one is two or white. The second one is two or blue. The third one is two or black. The fourth one is two or red. And the fifth one is two or white. The second one is two or blue. The third one is two or black. The fourth one is two or red. And the fifth one is two or green. It's a 6-6 creature. So other scarecrow creatures you control get plus one, plus one.

Whenever another scarecrow comes into play under your control, destroy target permanent. So this is a scarecrow lord. It boosts your scarecrows and turns your scarecrows and allows you to destroy things with your scarecrows. So what had happened was we had made a cycle of two-bred spells. So a mono-white one, a mono-blue one, a mono-black one, a mono-red, a mono-green, and those were two-bred mana. I think they had two two-bred mana in them.

So the idea was you could you didn't have to play that color to play the effects, but you could. So once we realized we had two-b bread, and we kind of knew that we wanted to make, we wanted, we decided we wanted to do a five-color tuber card, and we knew we wanted

to do a Scarecrow Lord, and I think these started actually not as the same card, and they kind of slowly came together, and that it just was, like, all of our Scarecrows save Reaper King in, sorry, all of our Scarecrows save Reaper King in— and, sorry, all 23 in the Shadowmoor block.

And I think all the Scarecrows, except for Straw Soldiers, are colorless artifact creatures. So Reaper King, I mean, he's actually a five-color card. I know he gets played as a commander because he's a five-color commander. And the neat thing about him is if you don't have all your colors, you can still play him. He's at his cheapest if you have—you know, he's white, blue, black, red, green. So he's five-man if you have all your colors. But if not, you can still play him. Reaper King has become quite popular for many reasons.

It's very unique. It's a very unique card. It's the only five two-bird card. And it's the only, well, I think it's the only Scarecrow Lord. We'll get through these. I remember another Scarecrow Lord, but I'll get through these and we'll see.

But anyway, it was a creepy card and we had a lot of fun with it. And it is the only, other than Straw Soldiers, is the only Scarecrow that is not colorless. So that's a fine trivia question if you want to ask your friends. Name the two Scarecrows that aren't colorless. And the answer is Straw Soldiers from Portal Three Kingdoms

and Reaper King from Scarecrow. Okay, next up, Scrap Basket. So four mana for a 3-2, and it has one Scrap Gasket becomes all colors until end of turn. So one of for a three two and it has one. Scrap gasket becomes all colors till end of turn. So one of the things you could see here, because our colorless artifacts were the scarecrows, we did a lot of

things to help you with color. Like I already talked about painter's servant. Well, scrap basket is something similar where, oh, I can grant abilities to different things. As example with the blade thorn like scarecrows where, oh, I can grant abilities to different things. As example, with the Bladethorn-like Scarecrows, where, oh, it grants things. So, like, oh, if this, for example, let's say I Bladethorn Scarecrow out, it gives Haste to red creatures and Wither to green creatures,

and Scrap Basket becomes all colors. If those two cards are together, all of a sudden, now it's a Haste, you know, 3-2 Haste to Wither creature. So that was a fun card, and remember, this is back in the day where artifacts were all colorless. Eventually we would start making colored artifacts. In fact,

Reaper King was kind of interesting in that there weren't a lot of colored artifacts, and not none, but there weren't a lot of colored artifacts we made Reaper King. He was pretty unique in his day. Since then, because of problems with Kaladesh and other reasons, we've started putting a lot more colored artifacts into Magic. But at the time, they were colorless, and so what we wanted to do was make them generally useful stuff

that all decks could play. And because color was a major theme, we did a lot of stuff to interact with colors. Speaking of which, we get to Scuttlebutt. So Scuttlebutt's another common. Three mana for a 2-2. You can tap to add one mana of any color to your mana pool. And tap, target creature becomes a color or colors of your choice until end of turn.

So this was one of our color fixings. One of the role of artifacts is to help you provide colors. So we wanted a color fixing card. But, well, you know, three mana tap for any color is something we would make, but it's on a creature, so it has a little bit of vulnerability, so we could give it an extra ability. So the idea that it can change the color of

things allows you to have a lot of fun moments. Note, by the way, it doesn't just change it can change it not just into a color, but colors. So if you, for example, again, let's say you have out your Blaze Thorn Scarecrow, your Scuttle Mutt can turn a creature red and green, so it takes

both abilities. Okay, next up. Tatterkite. Tatterkite's uncommon, 3 mana, 2-1, flying, and Tatterkite can't have counters placed on it. I think that was us messing around because of Wither. It can block Wither

creatures and not take any damage, because Wither creatures do their damage in the form of minus 1, minus 1 counters, and it can't have counters placed on it. In this set, in this limited environment, that's mostly a positive, because the main counters were minus 1, minus 1. So avoiding minus 1, minus 1 is good. Now, if you get other

formats, like the inability to put other counters, especially plus one, plus one counters, is a negative, but in the limited where this existed, it just wasn't. It was a positive. Okay, next up, Wicker Warcrawler. Five mana for six, six.

It's an uncommon. Whenever Wicker Warcrawler attacks or blocks, put a minus one, minus one counter on it at end of combat. So what we're messing around with here is, this is a drawback. So the idea is, every time that it blocks, it gets smaller. So it's not really, I mean, it is a 6-6, but I mean, the second you block with it,

or, you know, attack or block with it, it becomes a 5-5, then a 4-4, then a 3-3. So it's kind of similar. There were some clockwork creatures that showed up in early magic that sort of woned down over time. The only thing is you could pay to sort of rewind those creatures. And this thing, it's just, you know, essentially you get a creature that's just going to shrink over time. But you're paying five mana, and for that five mana, you're getting a 5-5 first time you attack, stuff like that. Okay, next up, Antler Skulkin. So this is a 5 mana 3, 3 of common.

Oh, so by the way, we've now gotten out of Shadowmoor, now we're getting into Eventide. Eventide was the companion to Shadowmoor. Shadowmoor was hybrid-focused, cared about color, cared about minus 1, minus 1

counters, and cared about ally colors. And then Eventide cared about the same stuff, but cared about enemy colors. Okay. So Antler Skulkin, 2 colon, target white creature gains, persist until end of turn. Okay, so this is part of a cycle.

So, let's see. So the white one is Antler Skulkin, 5 mana, 3, 3. So for 2 mana, it gives a white creature Persist. Then Shell Skulkin was 4 mana for a 3, 2. For 3 mana, it can give target blue creature Shroud. So Shroud was a precursor to Hexproof. Shroud said that it can't be the target of anybody, but that included

you. And then people were just playing it wrong. They assumed that they could target it, so we made Hexproof, which is, my opponent can't target it, but I can target it. The next one in the cycle was Fang Skulkin. Two mana for two one. The whole cycle is common, by the way. Two mana, target black creature

gains Wither until end of turn. You can notice, by the way, as we're messing around with our cycles here, that we're using both wither and persist. When we make cycles, we like to make reference of keyword artifacts in the set, but when there are keyword artifacts that are part of what is unique to the set, we can make use of those, and absolutely we did that right here. Okay, next is Jawbone Skulkin. One mana for a 1-1.

For two mana, target red creature gains haste until end of turn. And then the green one was Hoof Skulkin. So you'll notice, by the way, they're all parts of the body. So they were... White was Antler, blue was Shell, black was Fang, red was Jawbone, and green was hoof. You'll see us do something similar when we get Khan to Tarkir. We cared

about the parts of the dragon when we did that. Anyway, a similar flavor. Okay, hoofkin skulkin is a 3-mana 2-2 with 3-mana target green creature gets plus 1-plus 1 until end of turn. The thing that is interesting, that I think if we made these nowadays,

we would have made them the color that they care about. Because one of the weird things is, in a vacuum, if you don't have that color, these are kind of weak artifact creatures. I think nowadays, because we would make them colored artifacts, we probably would have them affect themselves, my belief. Maybe that tweaks the numbers a little bit, but... Okay, next up, Scarecrow.

So Scarecrow was a rare from Eventide. Three mana for one, two. One, sacrifice a Scarecrow, draw a card, and four and tap, return target artifact creature from your graveyard to play. Okay, so the cool thing about this, so first off, I talked about this is another kind

of a Scarecrow Lord. I mean, it doesn't pump it, but it basically grants all Scarecrows for all intents and purposes, one sack me draw a card. I mean, technically this is the creature sacking it, but it sort of gives a utility to all Scarecrows, which can be pretty valuable. And so it definitely makes you want

to play a lot of Scarecrows. So while it doesn't boost Scarecrows specifically, it basically play a lot of Scarecrows. So while it doesn't boost Scarecrows specifically, it basically grants an ability to Scarecrows. And then the second ability, we wanted you to play it in the Scarecrow deck, so we wanted you to get Scarecrows back, but there are only so many Scarecrows. They mostly only existed in this block at the time we made this.

So instead of saying target Scarecrow, we said target Artifact Creat, just to give some more utility. Hey, maybe you want to play this not just with scarecrows, but with artifact creatures. And obviously, you want to play more scarecrows, because you can sac them to draw a card. But you definitely want to... The fact that

it says target artifact creature just lets you build the deck a little differently. You can throw a lot of other stuff in. One of the things we're making new themes that are kind of limited, we like sometimes to make cards that are a little differently. You can throw a lot of other stuff in. You know, one of the things we're making new themes that are kind of limited, we like sometimes to make cards that are a little broader so that you can mix the theme with larger themes. Okay. Okay, so

that is the end of Shadowmoor Blocks. So there were 23 Scarecrow. So, like I said, one in the dark, one in Portal 3 Kingdom, and then 23 in Shadowmoor Block. So they get introduced basically in force in Shadowmoor Block. And they were pretty popular.

I mean, I'm sure Reaper King has something to do with it, but they were pretty popular. But the interesting thing is we don't really go back to Scarecrows for a while. Well, I'm sorry. We do go back. It's not a long time chronologically. We are in Shadowmoor, and then we go to Skarsamirdan Block, and then we have Lorwyn Block,

and then the second half of Lorwyn Block, Shadowmoor. So it's about a year and a half. So the next time we find a place to do a Scarecrow is in Innistrad. We're like, you know what's kind of scary? Scarecrows. And Scarecrows get in Innistrad. We're like, you know what's kind of scary? Scarecrows. And Scarecrows get used a lot in Hoar. They definitely have a creepy

vibe to them, so we liked using them in Shadow more for that reason, and we liked putting them in Innistrad. We only put one in actual Innistrad. So it's called One-Eyed Scarecrow. It's a 2-3, 3 mana for 2-3, It's a common. Defender.

Creatures with flying... Creatures with flying in your opponent's control get minus 1, minus 0. So this is kind of going back to what the very first Scarecrow did, which is just be a top-down Scarecrow. What does it do? It scares flyers, which, you know... It scares birds, which in this case

are basically our flyers. Okay, the next time we see it is not until we return to Innistrad. So there's kind of a gap there. I don't know if it was a four-year gap or something. There's a gap between Innistrad and return to Innistrad, or Innistrad Shadows of

Innistrad. Okay, so first one was an uncommon. Harvest Hand, three mana for a 2-2. When it dies, return to the battlefield transformed under your control. And then in transformed is a scrounge scythe. It became an equipment, a scythe. Sorry, scrounge scythe.

Equipped creature gets plus 1, plus 1. As long as equipped creature is a human, it has menace. We had a little theme in the set. One of the things we did for humans is we made them better with tools because humans have to fight with tools. So there was a theme that ran through that equipment that got better if you use a human. But anyway, the idea is it's a

scarecrow. When the scarecrow dies, well, in its field, you'll find a scythe and you can use that scythe. Next up, Wicker Witch. So it's just a three mana, three one, vanilla. I think that once again, we decide, oh, I think what happened in Shadows of Innistrad is

we knew people liked Scarecrows, so we decided to have a little bit more. So there's three Scarecrows in Shadows of Innistrad, and there's two more in Eldritch Moon. So we definitely recognized that people liked the Scarecrows from Shadow, from, I'm sorry, from, yeah, from Shadowmore, and we upped them a little bit. When we had made One-Eyed Scarecrow in Innistrad,

it was close enough to Shadowmoor that we didn't realize that they were going to be popular. We had hoped, obviously. Okay, next up, Wildfield Scarecrow. So it's a three-man, it's an uncommon, three-man, one-four, defender to sacrifice Wildfield Scarecrow, search your library for up to two basic land cards,

reveal them, and put them in your hand and shuffle your library. So basically this one is just we needed mana fixing and so we put it in, we like having colorless mana fixing. So instead of being a spell, this time it's a non-creature artifact

we made it a creature. Next up, this is, we're now into Eldritch Moon, Field Creeper, two mana, two one. Just a little atmosphere as it's a vanilla creature.

And Geist-Fueled Scarecrow. This is an uncommon. 4-mana, 4-4. And Creature Spells you cast cost 1 more to cast. So the idea is I get a better stat of creatures. 4-mana for 4-4 in colors is pretty good. Or, you know, generic mana is pretty good. So it gives me a little bit of a negative.

Okay. so it gives me a little bit of a negative okay the next time we would see there is one in Modern Horizons called Farmstead Gleaner so this is making a throwback to to Shadowmoor so it's a 3 mana 2-2 uncommon Farmstead Gleaner doesn't untap during your unstap

and then to untap put a plus one plus one counter on Farmstead Gleaner doesn't untap during your unstap. And then to untap, put a plus one, plus one counter on Farmstead Gleaner. So the idea is if you attack with Farmstead Gleaner, you then have the ability to put a plus one, plus one counter on something. Note that you could put a plus one counter on himself, by the way. If I attack with him and then my opponent blocks, I can spend two mana and untap him to put a plus one, plus one counter on him, which also makes him untapped.

So that's another thing, by the way, because I can use the untap symbol, let's say my opponent attacks with a two, two, all of a sudden I can pay two mana and put a plus one, plus one counter on him and untap it and have a three, three to block. Okay. So at this point, by the way, Scarecrows show up en masse

in Shadowmoor. They show up a little bit. When we went back to Innistrad, they show up a little bit more than they had. But most of the ones that are going to be here are just ones and two ofs. Okay, so next up is Scaretiller from Commander 2019.

Four mana for a 1-4. Whenever Scaretiller becomes tapped, choose one. You may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped, or return target land card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. You can see that one of the other themes that starts weaving its way into Scarecrow is caring about land a little bit. It fetches land. Now it can let you play land from your hands or get land to the graveyard.

But anyway, I think... I'm not sure why that one ended up becoming a Scarecrow. Maybe because they were just looking for something fun and people like Scarecrows. Okay, next up we get to Eldraine. So Eldraine had two commons. One was Jousting

Dummy. So it's a two mana for 2-1. With three, Jousting Dummy gets plus one plus one until end of turn. So it's a little vanilla. It's almost vanilla, but it has a little pump spell that you can pump it. So a good generic card. And then signpost scarecrow. This was four mana for

2-4. It has vigilance, and for two mana, you can add one mana of any color. So playing again of letting scarecrows kind of fill some of the mana fixing role that artifact creatures tend to do. Okay, next up, Scorn Effigy. So Scorn Effigy was from Kaldheim.

It's three mana for a two, three. Fortel zero. So what that means is if I fortel it, so if I pay two and put it face down, normally there's a fortel cost. It costs mana. But Scorn Effigy, you can play for nothing. I know we wanted to do a foretell cost. It costs mana. But Scorn Effigy, you can play for nothing. I know we'd wanted to do a foretell zero card. We decided it made sense as a creature.

We decided it made sense as a colorless creature. Or, you know, a creature that was generic mana. And then just decided it'd be fun to make it a Scarecrow. At this point we realized that there's a fanbase that really enjoys Scarecrows. So we want to sort of throw them a Scarecrow bone, if you will. Okay, next up is Crossroads Candle Guide. This is from Innistrad Midnight Hunt.

Once again, we're back on Innistrad. Innistrad is one of the two worlds known to have Scarecrows in a little larger number. So it's four mana for a 3-4 common. When Crossroads Candle Guide when Crossroads Candle Guide hard to say for some reason, enters the battlefield

exiles up to one target card from a graveyard to add one mana of any color. So this just takes two abilities we've used before on Scarecrows. One about exiling cards from graveyards, one about filtering mana. So I think they just needed it and it felt like a Scarecrow because Scarecrows had done that

before. Okay, the next one. So this is Wickerwing Ethogy. So this is, um, from Alchemy Innistrad. So this is Innistrad, but Alchemy Innistrad. Three mana for one force, got Defender. You may look at the top card of your library any time. You may cast creature spells from the top of your library. Whenever you cast a creature spell from your library, it becomes a black bird,

in addition to its other colors and types, has flying, and its base power and toughness. So the idea here is it's a scarecrow, it's making you into a bird. This is a card that was made just for alchemy. And the reason this is an alchemy is it allows you

to sort of change the nature of something in a way that the computer can just track easily. I think that's why it ended up being an alchemy. Okay, the last card. I just previewed this card. The last card was the Wicker Picker. So the Wicker Picker is from Infinity. I just previewed it in San Diego Comic-Con.

It's three mana for two, three. By the way, it's an artifact creature, a scarecrow guest. It is a guest of the park. They do not discriminate at the Estritorium. Anyway, it says creature spells you cast have sticker kicker. You may pay an additional one as you cast a creature spell. If you do, you get a ticket and then you may put a sticker on it. And the flavor text for the wicker picker with sticker kicker is, unless you're quicker, I wouldn't snicker.

I will say, by the way, for the flavor text real quickly on this, because I worked on this, the one guideline we said to the writers is we want to get more words that rhyme with wicker, picker, sticker, and kicker. And we made a long list. There's like 14 words or something that rhyme.

And so I made a lot of long... In fact, I... Today, although it'll be in the past for you guys, I made a comic, um, that, uh, was playing around that space, right, just did a real long, uh, a long sentence that had a lot of ichor words in it. Uh, there was only one line based on, uh, how much text there was. There was room for one line. So we ended up going with this because it fit on one line. So the wicker picker, by the way, this has come up on my blog, so I guess we'll bring this up. There is a built-in rule to stickers

that say you can only sticker a card you own. You can't sticker other people's cards. Most of the cards verbatim say, you know, sticker a non-land permanent you own. Because wicker Picker was referencing cards you were casting, you own the cards you're casting

the vast, vast majority of the time. I'm not saying it's impossible to cast something you don't own, but it's very hard to do. And so the idea here is we felt like, well, you really only tend to cast your own spells. Instead of putting a lot of extra words, we'll just put it in the FAQ. Like, built into stickering is you only sticker things you own.

So even though it doesn't verbatim say it on the card, it is still true. One of the things in general, one of our beliefs is we don't want to add a lot of extra text to cards to go, well, here's this thing that could happen. You know, like it's built into the sticker rules. In the FAQ, we'll explain it. It's not going to matter most of the time. We don't want to add a bunch of words just for this corner case that won't happen much. And so that's why this one in particular

doesn't stress you own, even though, like I said, that's built into the rules. The funny thing about this card, by the way, is I think this card, I forget who made this card. Maybe it was Chris Mooney. Anyway, this card got made during design, but it was pretty early in design,

once we knew we had stickers. And they thought it was very funny that it granted Sticker Kicker. So I think Chris named it Wicker Picker because it was funny that Wicker Picker had Sticker Kicker and that name got so much enjoyment out of so many people and so many playtests that were like

how can we change this name? This name is off it. And once we knew we wanted that name, like this card wasn't originally going to be a Scarecrow, but once we said Wicker Picker, well what does that mean? I'm like okay well if it's made of wicker, let's just make a Scarecrow made of wicker and so we ended up making the? I'm like, okay, well if it's made of wicker, let's just make a scarecrow made of wicker. And so we ended up making the scarecrow. So,

the fact that it's a scarecrow stems from the fact that we wanted it to have the name. And we wanted the name because it was funny. So, that is how wicker picker came to be. Anyway, guys, that is the story of all the scarecrows. Will there be more scarecrows?

Yes, there will be more scarecrows. We Scarecrows. Will there be more Scarecrows? Yes, there will be more Scarecrows. We like Scarecrows. You like Scarecrows. They're fun to do. It's an artifact creature that has a lot of meaning and in certain places it can actually evoke nice emotion and stuff. So yes,

there will be more Scarecrows. We know players like Scarecrows. I like Scarecrows. Most of our indie like Scarecrows. So there will be more Scarecrows. We know players like Scarecrows. I like Scarecrows. Most of our indie like Scarecrows. So there will be more Scarecrows. With that said, I hope you guys enjoyed my outstanding in a field. No. My look at Scarecrows. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that today. But anyway, I'm at my desk.

So we all know what that means. That means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I want to thank you guys for joining me on my scarecrow journey. But I got to say bye-bye, and I'll talk to you next time.