Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #975: UNF Names & Flavor Text with Ari Zirulnik

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

I sit down with Ari Zirulnik to talk about overseeing the names and flavor text creation in Unfinity.

I'm not pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive at Work at Home Edition. So today I have Ari Zerolnik, who was in charge of names and flavor text for Infinity. So we're going to talk names and flavor text. Hello, Ari. Hey. Hello. Hi, Mark. How's it going? Okay, so first I want to explain a little bit to the audience two things. First up, you had an idea when you were put in charge of the names and flavor tags. You had an idea for what to do with the set. That is not the normal way we do names and flavor tags.

Let's talk a little bit about how did you come up and what was the idea and how did you execute on it? Oh, for sure. So, yeah, I was put in charge of this one because the standard creative text coordinator was pretty underwater at the time, and I'm known for being just a little bit funny. So I realized that what I need to do was stack the deck with people significantly funnier than I was. So I got permission from the creative director to hire some internet names, which I don't think we've ever have we stunt cast on uh creative text writers before mark we have not this is the first stunt casting i mean we we have been people who've been on teams that people might recognize like there are you know uh community people that have worked on named flavor text team but this is the first time we kind of did this. That's true, yeah. So, the very first name on my list was

Sean Baby, who was probably one of the most formative comedians to me. I don't know if any of you had a subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine back in the day, but he had a column at the back that was always very absurd and really fun,

and he's still active. He has a great column right now called 1-900-HOT-DOG, which is really silly. And then I believe you, Mark, came to me and said, you got to get the Loading Ready Run people on board, right? I did. That was my suggestion. Yeah. And we took it. So we got a grand Kathleen and Cameron from LRR on board who are really funny. And then you have Mark, myself, and a really good, like kind of consistent flavor text submitter in Austin Bridges who now works for us full time.

express so a full time okay so i want to find to the audience okay so we get this team how exactly does it work how does how do people write flavor text and names oh with their hands and a keyboard usually so basically it was as the creative text leaders my responsibility to pick like 20 to 30 cards a week to wave and uh they all pop up in this program we use and everyone submits a handful of options for name and text for the card when appropriate uh and then we there's kind of a period of back and forth between everyone where i was kind of riffing on each other's ideas trying to make each other laugh you know the the fun stuff of writing comedy and then at, at the way, the end of everything, many weeks later... So, I want to find... So, Lore Seeker is the name of the program, and I want to sort of walk through how it

actually works for the audience... I mean, for the... For us. So, when you said... What you do is you say, okay, this is week one. It lists whatever 20 cards... How many cards you put in. And then, it says whether it needs a name and whether it needs a flavor text.

The reason it might not need a name is there were some names that sort of were baked into the card. And it was kind of hard not to call it that name. And then some sets don't need flavor text because there's not room for flavor text. And then what happens is whenever you post something, everybody on the team can see it. It's a public posting. So if I thought of a funny idea for Katarina of My Rose Marvels, that didn't have flavor text, of Ballerina or whatever, I would write it in and then other people could A, see it,

and B, they could thumbs it up. I don't think they could thumbs it down, but they could thumbs it up. And you did have a good... You knocked ballerina out of the pot. I did. Ballerina is mine. If you see a pun... The name ballerina was mine, but the button was yours. Teamwork. See, the dream working. It's happening.

Yeah, one of my goals in this set was to get as many puns in as possible, and you told me one of your goals was to make sure there weren't as many puns in as possible. And you told me one of your goals was to make sure there weren't too many puns in it. One of my biggest goals for the set was to get a big variety of humor. And there's a lot of different things that people find funny, and there's a lot of different things that we can't normally put

in regular magic sets. So it's cool to try to jam along to one wacky thing. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, I agree with you. I like the fact that we really try to do a lot of different kinds of humor, and that it's not all one type. There's, you know, like, just like we make magic cards from a design standpoint, like,

hey, not everybody likes the same thing, so how do you make people happy? Well, make sure you make lots of different things, so no matter how you play, there's something that speaks to you. should we come up with humor archetypes like the yeah the spike and timmy of jokes um so anyway the thing i was trying to explain was that the process is very open-ended and visual like meaning everybody who's participating would see other people's submissions and often what would happen is somebody would do something, and you're like, ooh, I like the angle you're at it.

I'm going to try another joke using that same sort of, you know, I like the premise, or I like the structure, or there's something that someone else did that I didn't try to improve upon. Yeah, and that was a lot of times, just because everyone's generating so many ideas for so many cards, people get like 50% of the way there. And so that's why we say that it's a very collaborative process. We mean it.

Yeah, and a lot of what happens, like here's a real common thing that would happen. Somebody makes a joke, and I'm like, well, that joke's not quite landing, but man, their premise is great. You know, they have a very good idea for the joke, because a lot, when you're writing comedy, like, a lot of it is like, well, here's the card, but what exactly, like, what's the angle on the joke? And half the battle sometimes is, oh, here's the angle, now what's the best way to play the the joke in this regard and so a lot of times somebody else coming up with the premise allowed you to really go all in on okay let's maximize that premise yeah and other times uh sometimes nothing worked because it's really so something

we left out of the process is that when we were writing flavor, the rules mechanics and the art is completely done. So I keep describing this as like, we're basically trying to ace 250 different New Yorker captioned contests. Yes. And sometimes we don't get it. And that means at the end of the day, it was basically me, you and Tavac banging our heads against the table, hoping to clear it, which got us some good stuff like Black Hole. That was you at the last minute.

Oh, yes. Code Dark Donut. Yeah. By the way, my favorite. So for those who don't know, let me read it to you real quickly. And I'll explain a little bit. So it's Black Hole is a card three and a black, sorcery, destroy target creature, and up to X other target creatures where X is the number of attractions you visited this turn. And the flavor text is

Code Dark Donut, Code Dark Donut, all available fun specialists, please report to the Royal Coaster immediately. Trust, Chief Engineer. Trust is our... There's a lot of flavor text. We'll talk about trust in a second. So the thing that's funny is, if you know anything about amusement parks,

they don't like saying bad things over the loudspeakers. So they have codes that they use, like Code B or whatever. They have codes they use. And so I loved the idea that Rex Nebula,

who's the captain, has a bad habit of parking where he shouldn't. So the idea that they so often get too close to black holes that they have special terminology that they have learned to use to sort of communicate that there's a black hole and they need to deal with it um and so this was there's a lot of us making fun of sort of amusement parks and this was thought was very funny. Okay. So,

let's jump in and talk a little bit about the characters, because I brought that up. Oh, for sure. Okay, go ahead. So explain the job as far as characters related. Well, I was going to say, there isn't going to be a Legends of Infinity article. So, this is your Legends of Infinity article. Everything we say

from here on out is completely canon. Update that wiki. It's all true and it's all real. Right, Mark? All real. This is canon on content right here, people. That's why you came to this podcast. For canon Infinity content.

Yeah, you paid for that whole seat. You're only using the edge it's just how it works um yeah so we did we we have the legends coming into like we have the legendary cards and the art and uh since it's an onset there's not really a story behind it so we kind of ended up fleshing out everyone's personalities as we were working on them as we work on the flavor text as the card names as they popped up on the flavor text of other cards. So some characters, like Truss, who have a bunch of flavor text,

have more of a personality for them than others, like the marbles, who are just kind of like their cycle. But we have canon lore for all of them. Let's talk about Truss, because Truss is one of my favorite characters. Oh, sure. Truss. So, Truss, Chief Engineer. I'll just read her card real quick as we talk about the characters. Oh, sure. Okay, so, Trust Chief Engineer. I'll just read

a card real quick as we talk about the characters. So, blue-black, legendary creature of a Vulcan rogue employee, 1-3. Whenever Trust Chief Engineer enters the battlefield or another creature dies, put a hack counter on Trust. 2 and tap, remove X hack counters from Trust. Add or subtract X from a number or number word or target spell or permanent

until end of turn. This effect can't reduce a number below 1 or a number word below one. So, okay, I'll tell my belief on Tristan. You can jump in here. I think that she's a Vidalcan hacker that originally hacked the park for fun. And when Myra discovered it, she hired her because she's like, hey, you're way better than anybody I got.

And one of the things about the park is it's kind of held together like spit and duct tape. Like it's one of the things, one of the comedy things that we were playing into is the idea that like you know, this park from the outside looks amazing but on the inside, like it's

chaos galore. Yeah, I agree 100% with that description of Truss' character. Yeah, she definitely was hired after doing some questionable work and was hired to continue questionable work. She also has a long-suffering assistant named Glaxar who pops up in the flavor text sometimes. Glaxar will definitely have a card in Infinity 2 if that ever happens but uh yeah it trusts a bit of a a Taskmaster boss not because like she's mean but she's a

little neglectful like she just kind of gets lost in her task and she's like all right Glaxar put on the space suit clean off the all the space bugs we just hit not really thinking about it but uh she's very good at what she does yeah Yeah, I didn't have a chance to write this short story, but the short story I wanted to write was Truss's day of just all the people calling her on the, you know, Truss, this is going wrong, Truss, that is going wrong. And the sense of her character that's fun

from a comedy standpoint is she's trying her best to just fix things, but there's so much going wrong that she's never really solving things. She's just coming up with a hack solution in the moment, and that's all she ever does every day. Yeah, I think we could definitely say that she has all four hands full.

Yes, she does. Yeah, so she also has an advantage playing the aerial hands full card that we do not unfortunately so yeah so trust is one of the characters we reference probably the most in flavor text just because it's funny to keep going back to the joke of okay this is going wrong hey trust this is going wrong or trusting hey we have a problem you know we're talking to galaxia or whatever um yeah like one of the things by the way just for uh behind the scenes of writing flavor text is

it's kind of fun if you can build up some of your characters so that you can sort of, through the flavor text, create some environment. And having character voices that you can repeat and use multiple times is a lot of fun. Oh, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to go to the next one that we used a lot. Oh, sure. Was Pietra, crafter of clowns. Of course. One red, white,

legendary creature, human clown artificer, three, two, haste, robots you control get plus one, plus one, red, white, tap, tell a joke you haven't told this game

to someone outside the game, create a one, one, white, clown, robot, artifact, creature token. If that person laughed, the token gains haste until end of turn. Okay, Pietra is the only clown in the park that's not a robot, because

she is the creator and builder of the robot. So, talk about Pietro. Yeah, she created the Murthing Pod, which is the technical piece of machinery that spits out more robot clowns, as you can see on the card. Clown extruder.

Going through our notes here, her full name is Pietro Honk honk mcgiggles which that didn't fit on the card it definitely didn't fit on the card but it's that's it's canon everything here is canon yeah um yeah so she's she's she's serious about comedy she's very good so i hope you can't hear that police car coming by um but uh yeah she's she's a highly talented robot engineer and a total goofball who has managed to combine both of her passions into something good for the universe, question mark. Yeah, the one thing that is very funny is, so back in the day, I used to do stand-up. And one of the things that's really interesting about stand-up is you spend your off time, like, talking about comedy, right?

Like, talking really seriously about the structure of comedy. And the thing I love about Petra is the idea that, like, she's really, really invested in making the best clowns ever. Like, that is her life's passion. And so a lot of her flavor text is very funny because she's very serious about it. Like, the stuff she's talking about is never serious, but she's very serious about it. Like, for stuff she's talking about is never serious, but she's very serious about it.

Like, for example, here, we can read some flavor text. A good day to pie, which is a card that says, one in white, instant, tap up to two target creatures. Whenever you put a name sticker on a creature, you may return a good day to pie from your grave at your hand. Flavor text is, what could be funnier than one big pie to the face? Unless, no. Could it be that simple

pietra crafter plans that's that's one of my favorite texts in the set yeah it's just like you know she's like trying to innovate and like oh my goodness we could do multiple pies two pies unheard of um oh yeah we should probably talk about Myra herself Oh yeah, yes, yes Myra the Magnificent Let's talk about Myra The founder of Myra the Magnificent's intergalactic Astratorium of Fun

Yes Let me read Myra Myra the Magnificent, 2 blue red She's a legend creature, human performer, 2-4 Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell from your hand, open an attraction. X and tap. Exile target instant or sorcery card with mana value X from your graveyard and choose an attraction

you control that doesn't have a midway counter. Put a midway counter on it. Whenever you visit that attraction, copy the exiled card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. So Myra, once again, whenever we're trying,

we're trying to make interesting characters, but we're also trying to make comical characters, right? That you want to, and every character, we want to figure out what's the funny thing about the character because we've got to write comedy with her. So Myra,

the thing about Myra that I find super funny is she wants to make this spectacular park. She wants to make something that people really want to come and visit. And she actually really cares about all our people. She's very good this spectacular park. She wants to make some of the people really want to come and visit. And she actually really cares about all our people. She's very good to her employees. But she'll take whatever she needs to do to get it done in the sense that she's,

you know, like excitement is very important to her. Safety, eh, a little less important to her. Safety 12th, I believe. Yeah, safety 12th is what we've said. I think Myra always had, like, really big dreams from a young age. And she inherited this big kind of falling apart space station at some point. And she saw her chance to create something that could really leave a mark on the universe. and she saw her chance to create something that could really leave a mark on the universe.

But, you know, it's sort of like with Trust, where it's just constantly patching all the holes but in, like, a larger sense, right? She's just trying to hire the right people, trying to get these new rides going, trying to rotate out the broken ones with new ones that work. So she's got a lot on her plate, but she's got a lot of ambition to match.

Yeah, so I'll just pick my favorite piece of flavor text on Myra. There's a bunch of good ones. It's a card called Quick Fixer. Two and a block, two, three, menace. Whenever Quick Fixer deals combat damage to a player, open an attraction. And then the flavor text is,

Myra doesn't believe in stopping rides for minor inconveniences like they need to be repaired. You know, this idea of like, ah, you can, you know, there's three minutes where that part's open. You can fix it in those three minutes. Yeah, back fast. That card's sweet, too, actually. Yeah, it is. Anyway, Myra was a lot of fun to write, I think,

because it was just, like, here's another great piece of flavor text, from Leading Performance, one in white, sorcery, choose two letters,

put a pulse on the pulse counter on each creature you control whose name begins with either of the chosen letters. The flavor text is, if people are always on the edge of their seats, we can save money

on sharebacks. Myro the Magnificent. It's, it's, it's really logical as long as you don't think about it too hard. Okay, and there's another... What's the...

Hold on a second. There's a card called Petting Zookeeper. This is... Myra is not quoted specifically on this, but it oozes Myra. Two and a green, elf employee 0-4 reach when petting zoo enters that battlefield open attraction. Calling it

a petting zoo really saved on cages. We go back to that one too. This is a good example of I came up with the idea that the reason it's a petting zoo was that then she like it was just easier to like make it function and i remember i did an early version of this joke

and i think it was graham that like loved the joke but i just didn't execute it on a well and he this is actually graham's execution of my joke which i think is a much better execution of it um but like it also sorry well you did you said the joke kind of the first time on the card blank This is actually Graham's execution of my joke, which I think is a much better execution of it. But like it also. Sorry. Well, you did. You said the joke kind of the first time on the card Blankasaurus, which is your flavor text, which says petting in the petting zoo is not advised. Oh, right, right. Yes, yes, yes.

One of the weird running. One of the things you do in flavor text is you just get running jokes. Right. So I love the idea that they have a petting zoo, which is wildly dangerous. And maybe it's very exciting, but be very careful in the petting zoo. It's not really made to be things you pet. They pet back with their teeth. Okay, another... Who else we got?

Captain Rex Nebula. Oh, the greatest captain in the universe, according to him? Yes. Okay. Captain Rex Nebula, one red-white, 2-2, legend creature, human pilot employee. At the beginning of combat in your turn, target non-land permanent you control becomes a vehicle artifact until end of turn. Its base power and toughness are each equal to its mana value.

It is crew 2 in crash land. Whenever this vehicle deals damage, roll 6 out of die. If the result's equal to this vehicle's mana value, it has crew 2 and crash land. Whenever this vehicle deals damage, roll 6 out of die. If the result's equal to this vehicle's mana value, it deals that much damage to any target, then sacrifice the vehicle. Okay, so... What? Yeah. By the way, I'm responsible for his name. I'm

really, really proud of his name. This might be my favorite named character in the whole set. Because we needed to have a name that sounded like this bombastic captain, but also told you that he destroys everything. Or wrecks it, if he would. He wrecks the nebula.

I was very proud of that name. He's one of the characters that got made during the world push. Like, Truss, we sort of made as we were making cards. And Pietro, we made as we were making cards. Myra and the captain were in the world push. They were actually designed, like, as,

like, we knew they were characters that were going to be in the world, and then we made cards for them. And the idea behind Captain Rex Nebula was always, like, who knows where Myra found him, maybe he's just cheap, and she could afford him or something, but he's, uh, He's just cheap, and she could afford him or something. But he's not the most thoughtful of captains. He's bombastic, and he thinks very highly of himself,

but he's actually a horrible driver. For example, one of the stories that is on one of the cards, he accidentally backed over, what was it, Blorbian 12 or something? We'll talk about the Blorbians separately. Yeah, we'll talk about the Blorbians, but he backed over a planet, and then Myra, like, because she felt so bad that that happened, gave lifetime passes to the Blorbians,

and to the little green aliens you see all over the place, they're the Blorbians. They now live on the park. We've talked about it now, yes. That's pretty much how it goes. Well, I mean, we'll get into Blorbians in a now live on the park all right we've talked about it now yes that's pretty much how it goes well i mean we'll get in more minutes in a second so captain the way i see it that rex was in fact a really talented pilot but he is used to flying like small fighter craft and now he's been put behind the wheel of this giant space station and he still drives it like it's a little fighter so just smashing into everything he uh we have we have some stuff right we have uh the concept of pulling a nebula

on the uh the bumper cars yeah yeah there's a bunch of bumper car references uh let's see um yeah the bumper car the the flavor text for the attractions, for all but one of the attractions, there's more than one of them. So we got to do, assuming there's space for it, we got to do multiple pieces of flavor text. So bumper cars, which is an attraction, visit target creature must be blocked this turn of Fable, pull the Captain Nebula, crew expression meaning

an out-of-control car has caused great damage to the surrounding area. I think my favorite Rex Nebula quote is on the card step right up which is a sorcery three in a black mana it just is open to attractions and very uh very powerful and uh his quote there is ah the midway beating heart of the well maybe the big top is the heart. If there were two hearts, then the Midway. Or lungs. Lungs or stomach. Captain Nebula. He's a great thinker, as you can tell. Yeah, we... There's definitely...

He's a character we have a lot of fun making fun of, and he definitely shows up a bunch of times in Planet of the Texans things. Oh, okay, so... Do you want to go to the Blorbians or should we save the Blorbians and do more characters? Let's talk about Ambassador Blorpity Blorpoop. Oh, Blorpity Blorpoop.

Okay, so... I think that's the best thing you've ever written in your entire life, Mark. And I say this as a lifelong fan of the Weatherlight Saga. I just... Blorpity Blorpoop. Yeah, I don't know where it came from but once i once i put it in the file i was like oh we have to have to do this oh yeah no i i really once

so once the card got uh once it was decided the card to be eternal it was very important for me to push through the most difficult to say name possible just in case someone on coverage ever had to say it someday so i have said let me read ambassador blurpy blurpoop three green blue legendary creature alien advisor gas three three when ambassador blurpy blurpoop enters the battlefield you get three tickets then you may put a sticker on a non-limit permit you own at the beginning of each combat you may have ambassador blurpy blurpoopslimit permit you own. At the beginning of each combat, you may have Ambassador Blorpity Blorpups' base power and

toughness become equal to the total power and toughness of all stickers on permits you control. So, as we said earlier, Rex did run over the Blorbian homeworld, saw the Blorbians were brought onto the Astratorium and given

lifetime passes, and they're set up in the hotels forever. A side effect of their full-time residency is that they have become absolute monsters at all of the arcade games. Like, if you are competing against a Blorbian at any of the, like, you know, a dart toss or whatever, just give up already. They are unbeatable. And if you look at the art of Ambassador Blorbby Bl any of the, like, you know, a dart toss or whatever, just give up already. They are unbeatable.

And if you look at the art of Ambassador Blorp-B-Blorp-Boop, he has, like, all his winnings are behind him. That's because he's so good that he's won all this stuff, and that's all his prizes he's won. He's like the de facto leader of the Blorbians. If they had a king or

something, they probably didn't make it through the crash. So, he represents them, but... Oh, he's not really over it, is he? Oh, also, by the way, I believe that ambassador is something he calls himself. Like, I don't think anybody... I don't think there's, like, an official thing where he's the ambassador. I just think, like, he's chosen to be sort of a leader of his people, and he gave himself this name, and people

finally said, fine, we'll call you ambassador, because it'll shut you up. It's canon now. What is the, I don't have it pulled up. Can you grab Kitty Coaster and read his line on that one? Oh, yeah, I can.

I can. This is the darkest of his current headspace. I can. Thank you. This is the darkest of the Ambassador. Yeah. Okay, so, the calming motion of this grubling's ride

reminds me of my world's beauty before this mobile afterpark obliterated it. Ambassador Blorby Blorboo. So, by the way, by the way, real quickly, this didn't fit, but originally this was

a Yelp review. Oh, and Sean Baby wrote this it's Yelp we don't want to get sued sorry it was a Yelp review it's Space Yelp Space Yelp yeah one of the things that's funny is the idea

like there's some it's fun playing against the idea of here's a silly thing that happened but there there's, like, dark undertones. Like, yeah, he did kind of back over the planet, like, you know. So, I think that's funny. I do think that, like, Rex and Bloop-Bloop-Bloop-Bloop have kind of, like, a sort of friendship. Like, you know, they get dinner sometimes and kind of, like, trash talk each other a bit. I think so. Huh? I said I agree, and kind of, like, trash talk each other a bit. I think so.

They hang. Huh? I said I agree, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's canon. Now that it's canon, absolutely. Now that it's canon. Seriously, put it on the wiki. All right, what else?

Okay, next, Devil K. Neville. So two and a red, two, one. Yeah, our daredevil. Legendary creature, devil performer, haste. When Devil K. Neville enters the battlefield, jump it over any number of creatures. If it clears those creatures, put that many plus one plus one counters on it. And his flavor text is,

Danger's my middle name. Also, I don't know how to spell. That is one of my favorite flavor texts in the whole set. Yeah, we... So, Devil K. Neville, he was also one of the characters we made during the world push. I think I was the one that pushed for this character. I just love the idea of a daredevil that was the world push. I think I was the one that pushed for this character.

I just love the idea of a daredevil that was literally a devil. I thought that was funny to me. And we were doing carnivals. The vibe of a daredevil just felt great in a circus carnival environment. And the bike is great, too. That retro-futur futuristic design is super fun Yeah, the big thing of his, he shows up on a couple pieces of Flavor Tax

Yeah, so here's my favorite of his, it's on Well Done So two red red, sorcery Well Done deals five damage to target creature, if that creature is rare or mythic rare, Well Done does three damage to that creature's controller, and so the Flavor Tax says, what's the big deal? I've been on fire 81 to target creature. If that creature's rare or mythic rare, well done does three damage to that creature's controller. And so the Flame of Jax says,

what's the big deal? I've been on fire 81 times, twice just while sleeping. Devil K. Neville, daredevil extraordinaire. I just love the idea that like, and this is sort of that daredevil vibe of like, yeah, whatever,

he's broken every bone. He's been on fire. You know, he's like, whatever could have happened to him has happened to him. He's a daredevil. That's what happens, you know? Yeah. We could have happened to him has happened to him he's a daredevil that's what happens you know yeah we actually kind of go over what happened to him on the card rad rascal right he said which uh is three in a red for a creature devil employee when rad rascal enters the battlefield open an attraction and the text on that card says rent a

scooter and be just like devil k neville just don't go faster than the speed limit, or jump over anything, or catch on fire, or break every bone in your body multiple times. Other than that, just like him. I just like that, to me, the Devil K. Neville is that he has this bombast, not bombastity, I guess, he has this enthusiasm of,

he just loves being a daredevil, and okay, right, that means that all sorts of horrible things are going to happen to you. But, you know, he thrives. Like when he's leaping in the air, that's the most alive he is, you know. Dangerous middle name. Dangerous middle name. The game's silent. Okay, what character would you like to talk about next?

Let's talk about Minoxa. I think that she has quite a large role on the station. Okay, so Minoxa, Minoxa Midway Manager, 2 Black Red, Legendary Creature, Vampire Employ, 3-3. Whenever you roll 3 or higher, Minoxa Midway Manager gains 1st Reik until end of turn.

If the roll is 4 or higher, it gains Menace until end of turn. If the roll is 5 or higher, it gains Lifelink until end of turn. 6 activated, roll a six-sided die. And then her flavor text is, can we get this ghost 11% spookier? Okay, so who is

Minoxa? As it says on the tin, Minoxa is, in fact, the midway manager. And she's been hired by Myra to keep things going in her stead. So while Truss is fixing all the electrical and technological issues, Minoxa is dealing with all the people issues.

So she's making sure that all the staff are doing their jobs and they're in the right place at the right time. She's willing to help with any guest issues that may arise. She's very good at her job. She's a little cold-blooded, which comes with the territory of being a vampire. But she definitely cares about what she does, and she knows she's good at it. So one of the things about the park is

Myra is very specific on trying to hire the right kind of creatures to man different parts of the park. So the midway is mostly run by vampires. And so that's why Minoxa... My take on Minoxa is she started as an employee at the park and worked

her way up because she just was really good. And at one point she just ran one of the stores or something, but she worked her way up the ladder and now she's in charge. Look at that clipboard. That is the clipboard of a leader. That is the clipboard of a leader, yes. It's quite the clipboard.

And she shows up... So here's another piece of... Flimtex mentions her on Scooch. One and a black instant. Add or subtract one from target creature's power, target player's life total

or target die roll, draw a card. And the art shows, there's a character called Rat in the Hat that we meet on Rat in the Hat that doesn't have a name, but it's a rat

that wears this tin can on his head. And we see him messing with the, somebody's trying to hit something in the games and he's messing with it so they miss it.

And so she says, what? No, that's ridiculous. Of course in the games and he's messing with it so they miss it. And so she says, what? No, that's ridiculous. Of course the rat doesn't work for the park. I've never seen it before in my life, Minway Manager. And that's not true, is it, Mark? That is not true. In fact, she definitely has,

she will use whatever resources she needs. She's very... She wants to get the job done. She'll do what she needs to do to get the job done. If she needs to have rats, she'll work with the rats. She's not beyond that. Yeah, it's definitely... There's a reason Myra likes her.

If you look at the card Rat in the Hat, you can see exactly what Monoxo is responsible for. Rat in the Hat's a creature. It costs one black. It's a rat rogue. It's a one-two. And you can tap and sacrifice it. And until end of turn,

you may cast a target creature card that has a hat on it from your graveyard. And the flavor text there says, while the gremlin, bebel, and squirrel infestations wreaked havoc on the park, Minoxidil was able to spin, oh, sorry, Roxy was able to spin the numerous rat colonies

as a robust recycling program. Yeah, Roxy's a different character. Roxy's our PR person. We'll get to Roxy in a second. They're working together. They're working together. Well, I guess we can get to Roxy. So Roxy is the PR person for the park. Publicist to the stars, as we call it.

Too Blue Red. Well, she named herself. Publicist to the stars 100%. Roxy made that title. No doubt. Which stars is it, huh? Two blue-red, legendary creature, human employee, star four, flying. Roxy, published to the stars, powers equal to the number of permanents you control with art stickers,

plus the number of cars in your graveyard with an art sticker. When Roxy enters the battlefield, distribute up to two art stickers among one or two non-lent permanents you own. Roxy is just, they needed a PR person because the park is full of things that could be seen very badly and it's her job to spin it and make it sound

exciting. She's here to give a generous interpretation of the goings-on. I also think she's responsible for the massive amount of flyers that they airdrop on planets, like we talk about on nearby planets. And yeah, she turns the bad into good, right? She's the queen of spin, that's what I like to think of it.

Yeah, there's a lot of spinning here on the AstroTaurium. Okay, so we've talked a lot about employees, but we haven't got too much. Let's talk a little bit about the performers. Oh, sure. So do you have a favorite of the performers? I mean, I do. I am partial to Tusken Whiskers.

Yes, okay, let's talk Tusken Whiskers. So Tusken Whiskers, three, so let's talk Tusk and Whiskers. So Tusk and Whiskers, three green-white, legendary creature, elephant-mouse performer. Whenever you put an ability sticker on a creature, put a plus one plus one counter on that creature, two green-white tap, you get a ticket. You may put a sticker on a non-lent permanent you own. They're a four-four.

Weighing in at a combined 13,000 pounds and two ounces. It's cute. Let's get some canon going for these guys. Tusk doesn't actually like peanuts very much. He thinks it is a little bit of a stereotype, and he prefers cashews. Your turn. So Tusk and Whiskers,

they actually originally were separate performers. They hired independently. They weren't hired together. But one show, sometimes what Myra does is when they're tight on time or space or something, she'll just throw multiple acts together. And they just found this affinity. And they sort of crafted their show. And they right now are, I think, the number one hit in the park.

I think they are the most popular of all the things. Although Devil K. Devil probably is pretty up there. Oh yeah, and like Harold too. But yeah, that all sounds canon to me. Of course. Nothing but canon. That's the thing. It's all canon.

Whiskers has a regular sized dog. A little mouse walking a full-sized dog. That's it. That's all I can. That's it. Okay. I now want to talk about Spinneret.

Oh, great. Oh, yeah. Do that one. I'd love to read the original third text of that card. Okay. Okay. It's my fave. So Spinneret Arachnobat, three black green, legendary creature, spider reformer, 2-4,

reach. When Spinneret Arachnobat enters the battlefield, open an attraction. three black green legendary creature spider reformer two four reach when spinner arachnobat enters the battlefield open an attraction as long as you control three or more attractions

spinner rate gets plus two plus oh and has menace um high wear injuries are down 95 spider related injuries are up three thousand percent

um so we had to yeah oh go ahead go ahead so we had to cut down that flavor text a little bit to fit on the card the original is pretty much the the same but I like to outflow it a little more, which was, since she started making the safety nets, acrobatics injuries have fallen by 95%.

Spider-related injuries, however, are up by 3,000%. Yeah, right. We hint at the fact that her web is the safety net for all the people doing acrobatics and high wire work. It's also the reason she doesn't have to pack lunch. Oh, that's true. Yeah, she gets delivery.

I just... One of the things that it was... We decided very early on in the making of the park that we were doing Circus Vi, but we didn't want... All the making of the park that we were doing circus vibe, but we didn't want like all the animals in the park have total agency. Like they're there cause they're, they're working there and they're part of things and no one's making new

things they're not trying to do. And I somehow loved the idea of this giant spider that just worked for the park. Cause you know, why not? Yeah, no, it's a, it's really fun. The design she has is great, too, with all the future hoops. And, yeah, she works for food,

if you would. Okay, so we're almost out of time. We're actually running a little bit long here, but this is fun talk. I'm going to do one last character, and we're going to give some canon to this character. Oh, sure. Which one are we doing canon? Comet, Stellar Pup.

Two red, white, legendary planeswalker, Comet. For zero, roll a six-sided die. On a one or two, plus two loyalty, then create two 1-1 green squirrel creature tokens. They gain haste until end of turn. If you roll a three, you lose one loyalty. Then return a card with mana value two or less from your graveyard to your hand. Four or five, Comet, Stellar Pup deals damage Okay, I've talked a little bit about why I made a dog planeswalker because of desire from outside, from the players.

But who is Comet Stellar Pup? Why is there a dog here? And how is he a planeswalker? I think the most important piece of canon about Comet Stellar Pup is that Comet is a good dog. Very much so. He's a good dog.

I think that's the key thing to understand. I think Comet's motivations are, if you look at the card, pretty instinctual, right? Yeah, yes. He wants to eat and chase squirrels and have a good time, like the rest of us. So here's my belief. So Comet had a traumatic incident. We're not 100% sure what that traumatic incident was, but it made his spark happen, and he jumped for the first time. But I think he's got really into

being a planeswalker. I think he likes digging up bones on Innistrad and burying them on Zendikar. And so what happened was I think he sort of stumbled into the park. He wasn't necessarily planning to go to the park, but he sort of found his way there, and

it's kind of his new home. I mean, he likes to go off and, you know, roam the multiverse. But this is where he comes back. This is, Myra really took to him, made him a little house. You can see in the background of the art, you can see his little dog house. And this is where he calls home when he's not out, you know, running around

the multiverse. Yeah, and there's a lot of things for him to chase on the station. Like, he's never bored. Oh, can we talk about the infestations real quickly? Oh yeah, yeah, of course. So, one of the things that we decided as we started going along

was, it just, there's all these things that made fun to have infestations. So, the park has a bebel infestation, it has a squirrel infestation, it has a rat infestation, and it has a gremlin infestation. And they all have created this infestation stasis, where they're all just kind of predating upon each other. Yes. These are space squirrels. They'll take a Bebel down faster than you can blink.

I think that's why Comet loves this place so much, is he loves chasing squirrels. Especially space squirrels. But I think he loves... And so, there's just so many squirrels here that it's just endless fun. So, Ivo, canonically, do you think that Comet looks down on Mowu?

Um, I don't think he thinks much about Mowu, to be honest. You don't think so? I mean, if he saw Mowu, he would bark at him, 100%. For sure. For sure, for sure. But I don't think Comet thinks about any one thing for very long at all. I think that, like, for example, you know, he's definitely, like, he sees something and that's what he's thinking about. Like, I don't think he keeps any thought in his mind for longer than, like, ten seconds.

That's really he's thinking about. Like, he... I don't think he keeps any thought in his mind for longer than, like, 10 seconds. That's really relatable, Mark. Yeah, I mean, the important thing to me, by the way, about Comet was he's a dog. He's not a dog person. He's not a, like, intelligent dog. He's, like, he's a dog. And that was very important to me,

that he acts like a dog. And so he has lots and lots of dog-like qualities because he's a dog. Yep, that's the most canon thing about him. Anyway, I realize, I wasn't even watching the time. Normally these are 30 minutes long. Although the funny thing is when I drive to work,

if there's like traffic, it's a little bit longer. So I like to think that the traffic, the metaphorical traffic, was the awesomeness of the creative. So that slowed us down. But I do, I do have to, we do have to wrap this up. So Ari, any last thoughts about the making

of the names and flavor text and creative of Unfinity? It's some of the most fun I've ever had and I would love to do it again. Yeah, I also say that I, you know, my background before being a game designer was writing comedy. So it was so much fun to just get around with lots of other comedy writers and riff off each other.

I had a blast. I really, really enjoyed working on the names and flavor checks on this set. The team was so good. Everyone brought their A game. Oh yeah, There was... I think... I mean, I am proud of previous unsets and their names and flavor tags.

But I believe we raised the bar that this is the pinnacle of awesome names and flavor tags. So, next unset, I have to call you back. Because we have a high bar to clear for the next one. I'll be there. Just say the words. So, anyway. Thank you, Ari. Thanks so much for being with us today the next one. I'll be there. Just say the words. So anyway, thank you, Ari. Thanks so much for being with us today. Thank you.

It was a pleasure. And to everybody else, I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.