Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #100 - Torment, Part 2

Episode Date: February 28, 2014

Mark continues his series on the design of Torment.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time I started talking about the design of Torment, the black set. So it was the second set in the Odyssey block. It had a weighted design toward black. And last time I talked about the design team and walked through the major mechanics. So today I'm going to start talking card by card. I feel that one of the things that helps me sort of talk about the set is that I just kind of give individual stories of cards. I kind of hit a lot of the different things we were doing.

And so I looked through the set and picked a whole bunch of cards that sort of both either are famous standouts from the set that I could talk about or just did something very typical so I could talk about how we designed the set. Okay, since I go in alphabet how we designed the set. Okay. Since I go in alphabetical order, the first card is going to be Ambassador Laquatus. So he was a 1UU, 1, 3, that for 3 mana you could mill 3.

Mill means you take the cards from the top of the library and put them directly into the graveyard. Okay. So the interesting thing about him was he was a merfolk. Well, why is that interesting? Because there were no merfolk. So when I first made Odyssey, I came up with the idea that we would replace most of the traditional creature types with new ones just to shake things up a bit. Instead of goblins, we had dwarves.

Instead of elves, we had centaurs. And, you know, I was just trying to shake things up a bit. Instead of goblins, we had dwarves. Instead of elves, we had centaurs. And, you know, I was just trying to change things up. So instead of merfolk, we had cephalids. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound like... In retrospect, with 2020 vision, maybe it doesn't sound like the greatest idea. But we decided to shift away from merfolk. Now, obviously, Onslaught would follow Odyssey.

It was a horrible mistake. But we didn't know we were doing tribal when we did this. But anyway, there were no merfolk. So the people who were writing the story had this awesome idea for this merfolk. The main enemy was a merfolk. He was the antagonist of the story. And I said, oh, but there's no merfolk.

And so he ended up being like this big plot point, like he was the only merfolk that he had moved there from somewhere else, and he was a lone and malone merfolk, but became a big deal that they really wanted to only merfolk that he had moved there from somewhere else. He was a lone and malone merfolk. But it became a big deal that they really wanted to be merfolk. Okay, well, his defining quality is he's the only merfolk. I guess he could be the merfolk in the set. But in the entire block, there is one merfolk,

and it is Ambassador Laquatus. Next, Aqua Miba. 1U, 1, 3, discard a card to change his power toughness i love power toughness swapping there's a whole bunch of things i like to be fair um something about it always tickled my funny bone i i just enjoy it but it is a problem child and if you notice we really stopped doing it all that much uh and the reason is that like you swap power and toughness, originally when you would swap power and toughness, it would say on it, well, for the rest of the turn

whatever affects power affects toughness and such. And anyway, that got really confusing and sort of like what would happen and you do effects and anyway. We do it occasionally. We tend not to do it common or if we do it, we do it in such a way where it doesn't allow other effects.

You'll notice now it's very common for us to put hexproof on things that can swap their power toughness so that no one else can interact with it. So that you know, you just know. Although Shroud was better than hexproof because hexproof you can interact with it. Shroud was like no one can interact with it. So back when Shroud was being supported, we would do Shroud with power tuck and swapping. Anyway, one of the reasons, this card

is a good example of, we had Madness in the set, we had Threshold in the set, we had Flashback in the set, but there was a lot of enabling going on. And so, if you look through the set, it is, in fact, the whole block is, this whole block is dripping with things that discard cards for effect.

And one of the problems with the block was that most players don't really want to discard cards for effect. Now, if they believe that they are... Like, the reason, for example, in Mercadian Masks, we had the Spellshapers. The Spellshapers people took a little better because it feels like I'm turning the spell in my hand into another spell.

I'm not losing the card, I'm just changing it from what it is into a different spell. But a lot of these cards, like, you know, oh, I can discard a card and change my 1-3 into a 3-1, didn't feel substantial enough. I mean, it could really matter, and often it allows you to kill things. So, I mean, the correct play a lot of the times was to discard cards when it mattered. But players didn't like doing it, or not enough of the players liked doing it. So I think one of the problems with this block was cards like this that sort of had an incremental advantage of discarding a card. I mean, you could get extra damage and you could kill something.

I mean, it was by no means meaningless, and I think the good players understood when to do it. But we found a lot of the lower-level players just didn't want to discard a card to swap the power toughness of Aqua Miba and stuff like that. I also like the name Aqua Miba. So if you remember correctly, in Odyssey, I was in charge of all the names. Come for this set, I had hired somebody.

His name was Ray, Ray Nakasawa. And I think Ray did the names and flavor text for this set. He was around for Odyssey, I was sort of training him, and then he sort of took the reign for this set. A bunch of the names in this set were carryovers. I come up with a lot of names for Odyssey that didn't get used. I'll talk about a few of those, or at least one of those coming up. But anyway, I like Aquamita.

It goes with my funny bone. Arrogant worm. I bring this up only because I, off the top of my head yesterday, got it wrong. And so I felt obligated. So arrogant worm is a 3GG, 3 green green. It's funny, by the way, that when I'm saying this, I have them written down. And in my head, I actually am so used to reading the letters that I don't even say green. Like I'll say 3GG and not 3 green green, even though green and G are not much harder to say.

I just, in my head, somehow, because I'm reading it. But 3 green green, 4-4 trample, madness 2G, 2 and a green. So, by the way, real quickly, the way R&D talks about mana costs, I'll bring this up just because it's a topic, is we pronounce them as you read them from left to right. So, for example, if Arrogant Worm is three colorless and a green mana and a green mana, we say three green green or often three GG. So, for example, his madness cost is two G or two green.

If it was green and a green, we would say green green, or GG. The counterspell is UU, not 2U, because 2U is two colors and blue. Anyway. Arrogant Worm was one of the best of the Madness cards. In fact,

Basking Rootwool and Arrogant Worm were two of the really good ones, and they went in the same deck. And so they're definitely... One of the things we tend to do is we like pushing mechanics in certain colors, just so there's an emphasis. Whether we made a conscious effort to make green the madness color...

I mean, blue had a bunch of good madness cards, too. We'll get to that. But green definitely had a creature madness. It was kind of green's thing. Next, Bolshan Collaborator. 3U, 2-2 flying. For black, you can give it plus one, plus one. So, Bolshan Collaborator. 3U, 2-2 flying. For black, you can give it plus one, plus one. So, one of the things we did,

some of the cards I'm bringing up, not because they were particularly famous cards, but because they demonstrate something important. By the way, it is raining today, and I can tell that you guys might get a little extra content. What I call the Seattle Rain Bonus. Because people in Seattle, let's just say drive slowly in the rain.

Maybe correctly. Okay, so what the Abulsion Collaborator is showing is that we were trying very hard to show that black was the enemy of white and green, as it always is, and black is the ally of blue and red. And that in this set, blue and red aren't helping. Like, blue's ally is black, and red's ally is black. Blue's not helping white. Red's not helping green. Those white and green are enemies of the state in this set. And so, blue and red are only helping black.

So this card's a good example where we do an off-color, but the off-color is in black. If you notice, blue and red cards are either helping black or hurting their enemy. I have an example of that coming up. So anyway, one of the things that we worked really hard to do is this set really makes you want to play black. Not only are there more black cards, but the red and blue cards, many of them are played well when you play them with black. As a perfect example,

we'll get to that in a second. Next is Ballfell of the Stout. Actually, I'm going to jump ahead. I'm going out of order. To Barbarian Outcast, which is the next one I'm going to talk about. Then I'll go back to Ballfell of the Stout. Barbarian Outcast is a 1R22 that you have to sac the creature if there's no swamps. Now, it's funny, by the way,

the idea that a 1R22 is so awesome that, you know, I by the way, the idea that, like, a 1R 2-2 is so awesome that, you know, I can't run it without black. I mean, not that we today do a 1R 2-2, but we've been more aggressive. But anyway, that's an example of, look, it's a red card that you really need black. Like, the blue card,

you might play that in Limited. 3U for 2-2 Flyer, I mean, it's not a great card, but if you really need it, maybe you'll play it. But with black, it's a very good card, right? If you have black in your hand, if you're playing blue-black, you for sure want to play that card. And the Barbarian Outcast, I mean, you're not even going to play that unless you're playing red-black.

You're not, mono-red's not going to play that. You can't play that card. So there are definitely a lot of cards that, while not in black, heavily encourage the play of black. Okay, now let's get to Balthar the Stout. So in the story, the main character was Kamal,

who was a pit fighter. So I won't get major in the story, but on Ataria, which is a continent of Dominaria, there were these pit fight... Kamal was a pit fighter, so he

fought in the pits. And I think the pits were run by the Cabal. Anyway, the story of Torment is the story of Chainer, who we'll get to his card in a sec, but he's one of the members of the Cabal. He ends up

getting his hands on the Mirari, which is a super powerful thing, and everyone's chasing of the members of the Cabal. He ends up getting his hands on the Mirari, which is a super powerful thing, and everyone's chasing him in the set. And Kamal and Chaynor become friends for a while. Anyway, but Kamal's sort of mentor, if you will, is a dwarf, a dwarf named Balthor, Balthor the Stout. And so we wanted to sort of play up the idea

that he was helpful. And so what we did is we made him a Barbarian Lord because Kamal was a Barbarian. And so we were trying to play into, you know, trying to make... The interesting thing when you do character cards is you want to sort of make a card that's fun and interesting. And we had never, I believe, had never done a card that's fun and interesting and we had never

I believe had never done a Barbarian Lord before so we were making a Barbarian Lord so that was new we knew people you know there were enough Barbarians in Magic

that you could piece together a Barbarian deck also Odyssey Block had a decent number of Barbarians in it but anyway you could make a Barbarian deck but also it was kind of flavorful

he was you know he he trained I think he trained Warriors is what he did, Balthavar Stout. So he, by the way, was a 1RR.

He had fire breathing, he's a 2-2, he had fire breathing, so R plus 1 plus 0 to end a turn, and he gave all barbarians plus 1 plus 1. So, I mean,

he was meant for build-a-run. You could build sort of a deck with him with barbarians. The interesting thing about him is he later gets killed in the story, and when we get to Judgment, we haven't seen the last

of Balthar Verstout. Well, he's not Stout anymore, but he hasn't seen the last of Balthar. He gets killed, I think, by the Cabal, I believe. But anyway, in Judgment, when I get to Judgment, the idea is after I'm done doing Torment, I will do some other stuff.

The next set I plan on doing after I'm done doing Torment, I will do some other stuff. But the next set I plan on doing after Torment is Judgment. I want to do a little more talking hole blocks and stuff, so I'm trying to get a little more meta in my podcasting. Next is Basking Rootwalla. So Rootwalla was a card in Tempest. And it's a green creature that allows you to one time per turn pump itself up. So we like that ability. In fact, R&D calls it the Rootwalla ability.

And the idea is green kind of has a giant growth, a built-in giant growth. But the difference between green and black, or green and red, red is fire-breathing. It can pump up its power. Black has the shade ability. It can pump up power and toughness. Green, it has burst. So when it doesn't tend to pump plus one, plus one, it pumps up more. Plus two, plus two, or plus three, plus three.

So Basking with Wall is 1G for plus two, plus two. It's a 1-1 creature for G. What makes Basking with Wall extra good is it is madness zero. So one of the things we try to do from time to time is there is great power madness zero. So one of the things we try to do from time to time is there is great power in zero. Zero is sexy. Because when people look at a card and are like, I can do this for free,

they get excited. Free is exciting. Zero means free. And people like free. Now, we have to be careful with free. Free is dangerous. Free has burned R&D on many an occasion. But one of the things that was awesome about Basking with Walla was

that if I needed to discard something, literally, it's like it was a free discard. Like, more than free. Free meant that I get the card back. This, I get the card in play. Like, I discard the card, and not only do I get the benefit of whatever I discarded the card for, but I also just get my guy in play cheaper than if I cast him.

So it's like an extra bonus. Like, you know, not only did I get benefit for discarding something, but I get it in play. Anyway, he proved to be pretty good. Too good? Probably not, although maybe. Like I said, power level's not my thing. Speaking of too good, we get to Cabal Coffers. So Cabal Coffers is a land

that you tap to and tap and add black men equal to the number of swamps you have. So one of the themes of the set, and I have a bunch of cards I'll talk about, is counting up your swamps. So not only was there a black theme,

but one of the things that black has always done is black encourages you to play more black. Black is a color that we most often put more colored mana in than mana costs. It's the color that just most often counts its swamps. Black has this quality that says, hey, maybe you want to play more black. And this set, because we knew that more people would be playing black than any other color, we encouraged some mono black play just to soak up as much black as we could so that we could permeate, that a lot of people could play black.

And we had some people that could play mono black and some people that could splash black, play a lot of people could play black. We had some people that could play mono-black, and some people that could splash black, play a lot of blue and red cards and stuff. Cabal coffers. So one of the rules we have is be careful whenever you produce more than one mana with a land. We do occasionally do it,

but every time we do it, not every time, most of the times we do it, it's very powerful. In fact, it's funny. We hadn't done it in a while, and then we did Nyctos in Theros, and oh, look, it's really good. That's why. Producing multiple mana out of one land is very good.

So, by the way, for those that like long podcasts, I am sitting in traffic because it is raining. So, it is pretty clear to me. Let me check my time. It's pretty clear to me. We're at 15 already, and I'm not even, man, I'm not halfway to work, and we are halfway in the podcast, which means I'm going to be late to a meeting. Duh! Which means if I get to work, I will have to do a quick sign-off.

It's funny, by the way, that most of the time I get to work early enough that if I need to finish something, I'll sit in the car, and I'll talk for a couple minutes and finish up whatever point I'm trying to make. But there's some days where I'm like, I got a meeting, I'm rushing, you know, and then it's like, quick sign off. I'm here, bye, see ya. So if I sign off abruptly, that is why,

because I have a meeting. Not that I have a meeting, it's my first design meeting. It's not my team. I'm on the team, but I'm not leading it. But I still don't want to be late in the first meeting, so I feel bad. team, but I'm not leading it. But I still don't want to be late in the first meeting, so I feel bad. Okay, so next. Chainer. Oh, Chainer Dementium After.

So Chainer... Oh, I did not write down his cost. He's a 3-3. He gives all nightmares plus one plus one. And for black, black, black, pay three life, you can use the activation to reanimate a creature for the turn. And then it exiles at end of turn. I did not write down his cost. My guess is he's, I don't know, six man or something.

So, here's another story card. He was the main character of the novel. In fact, interesting, usually the novel has the same name as the set. So, you know, if the set is called Torment, usually the novel is called Torment. But the novel for this time is called Chainer's Torment. So it's one of the few ones where the novel isn't exactly the name of the set that it's coming from. So Chainer was, as his name tells you, his dimension after. So one of the things that I remember correctly, the way the cabal worked is that they harnessed their own nightmares, and they could, or some of them could bring them to life.

And so this is what's going on with the nightmares, is that the nightmares were a weapon used by the cabal, that they would, they'd do something to give themselves crazy bad nightmares, and then they could bring their nightmares to life. Anyway. So one of the things we did that they would, they'd do something and give themselves crazy bad nightmares and then they could bring their nightmares to life and, anyway. So one of the things we did in the set, and I talked about this last time with the mechanics, is the nightmares are all creatures that when they come in, at least the black ones, when they come into play, you take something from your opponent and then they get it back once the creature is dead, or at least fly.

And like I said, that ability has not moved into white, but at the time it was black, there were nightmares, oh, they, you know, they're so scary that they restrict you while they're in play. Next we get to Circular Logic. So, 2U, instant counter-target spell,

unless its control pays 1 for every card in your graveyard. So one of the themes of Odyssey Black was graveyard as a resource. There's a bunch of cards to make use of it. In fact, today I'll talk about a few of them. But there's a lot of eating cards out of your graveyard in the set. Also, there's flashback. Threshold cared about cards in the graveyard.

One of the reasons, by the way, that eating cards out of your graveyard was something that we did in the set was we were trying to create some tension with threshold. What we found was it wasn't that hard to get to threshold. And so we're like, well, what if we tempt you? And then, like, you know, there's this tension of, I want to use Cards in my Graveyard, but, oh, I want to

get to threshold and try to balance that. Like I said, that's super spiky. This is a spiky, spiky block. But there's a lot of interesting tensions. I mean, spikes tend to like tensions where the average players are like, spiky block. But there's a lot of interesting tensions. I mean, spikes tend to like tensions, where the average players are like, eh, don't, too hard, too, too many tensions. We got to be careful. I mean, you want to make sure that players have an idea of what they want to do, and they have too many forces going too many different directions,

it sends mixed signals and they get confused. And a little, that's okay. I like some tension. But you want to be careful. This set really very much amps up the tension. There's some very strong threshold cards and some very strong cards that eat cards out of the graveyard. Those kind of want to go on the same deck just because the colors match up, but they fight each other. Anyway, Circular Logic, the idea behind Circular Logic was we wanted some graveyard matter cards.

And so one of the things we were looking for is cards that cared about how many cards in your graveyard. What's neat is you start with zero and you get to a lot. So it would be neat to say, here's something that sort of grows over time. So Circular Logic was kind of neat that early on it only, you know, it only, you know, fourspiked for a couple. Or maybe force-spiked is the wrong word, but that does it for one. But, you know, it's like I'm trying to stop you from doing your spell, and you know, later in the game, the more powerful

this thing is. But early on, well, sometimes I only need one or two to be able to stop a spell. You'll notice, by the way, as I go through, that while this is the black set, and we try to give black a lot of good things, blue really, really shined in this set.

For reasons blue often shines. We'll get to the next card, and I'll show you. Compulsion was an enchantment for one you, for one in blue, and for one blue, you could sac a card in your hand to draw a card, or for one blue, you could stack a card in your hand to draw a card, or for one you, you could stack this enchantment

to draw a card. So one thing that's clever about this is that this was a whole cycle. I forgot what I called them yesterday, but they're all neurotic sort of things. They're all, what did I call them yesterday? I can look it up. They were called

the Disorder Enchantments. Because they're all disorders. Anyway, the idea here was that in each one of them you could discard a card to have an effect or sac the enchantment to have an effect. Well, draw a card is pretty clever because if you do it as an activation it becomes looting

and blue gets to loot. So for one you, you've got to loot. Okay, blue loots. That's fine. But also for one you, you could trade the permanent. Okay, blue loots. That's fine. But also for one U, you could trade the permanent for the cards instead of looting, you were drawing. And so the idea was

I could loot until the time I really needed to have a card and then I sacked it to get the card. Depaulsh ended up working pretty well.

I mean, there's a lot of good blue cards in the set and that's another one. One of the reasons I think blue, especially in the past, was so strong was a lot of the default things in the set, and that's another one. One of the reasons I think blue, especially in the past, was so strong was a lot of the default things we did in blue were just good.

It's just like, oh, we'll let blue draw cards. Oh, okay, well, drawing cards is really good. And if you push it even a little, or a lot of times it's not that we push it, it's just we say, well, if you do this thing, then there's a reward. Oh, well, if I do this thing, then it's cheaper, and okay, now, you know, card drawing's really good. Okay, next we'll talk about Crazed Firecat. Five, red, red.

Four, four. When it enters the battlefield, you keep flipping coins until you lose, and then you get a plus or minus for each coin you flip. Now, luckily the thing costs seven mana,

so it was not a limited staple. This is the kind of card that I get complaints about. We try to make coin flipping cards for the people that like coin flipping, and we try to keep them out of the hands of people that don't like coin flipping. And what we found was there's a subset of Timmy's that love coin flipping. Why? It's just dramatic, it's unknown, it's exciting. Because when I play this card, there's a tension and dramamy's that love coin flipping. Why? It's just dramatic. It's unknown. It's exciting. You know, because, like, when I play this card, there's a tension and drama.

What is going to happen? Am I getting a 4-4, a 5-5, a 6-6, a 7-7, an 8-8? How big could it be, you know? I actually watched someone get a 10-10 off this card, which is mathematically unlikely, but it happened. And so it makes a lot of drama. It's for an exciting card. Timmy, you know, some Timmies really enjoy that.

There are definitely some spikes, though, that, like, you know, their opponent plays this, or they play it, and they're like, well, I should win once or twice. And no, or, you know, or their opponent plays against them and, right, win six times in a row. And they're like, it's a 10-10. Like, you've got to be kidding me, you know. It's a high-variance card, and spikes tend not to enjoy the super-high-variance cards.

So this card, I mean, like I said, it's 7-mana. We priced it kind of high. Usually the complaint I get is when... We never cost these for Constructed, but sometimes we cost them so that they're playable and limited, and that's when I get the complaints, because it's like, you know, I remember an approach to it. What's in this card?

What set was it? There's a card where there's a creature, like a 5-5 creature, that when it comes into play, you flip a coin, and if you lose, it bounces back to your hand. So you've got to flip correctly, and there was a player who, like, I don't know, like five turns in a row lost a coin flip and, like, lost the game. He just needed to get the creature out. He had, like, five turns to get the creature out a row lost a coin flip and like lost the game. He just needed to get the creature out. He had like five turns to get the creature out and he couldn't. And he lost the game.

And he was, like, there was a lot on the line. Like, really? That's why I'm losing? I'm losing for freaking coin flips? I'm losing for coin flips? Anyway, that's why we have to be careful with the coin flipping. Okay, next. Dawn of the Dead. So it's an enchantment for two black, black, black, where you pay a one life upkeep, and then you get to reanimate

a creature for the turn, and at the end of the turn it gets exiled. So one of the things I, I'm a big fan of zombies if you did not know, and so one of the things I'm a big fan of zombies if you did not know and so one of the things about zombies that I have great enjoyment for is is I like the idea

of zombies overrunning people I mean obviously Innistrad played this up to a certain extent so from time to time I always make kind of the overrun you with zombies card

and this is my attempt it's an early attempt I got better at it with time but it's just the idea that like, okay, every turn I gotta keep sending my graveyard after you.

And anyway, I enjoy these kind of cards. I also named it after a famous movie. Which is fun. I have fun naming when the name's appropriate and doesn't stand out. I have fun sort of

using movies as names when they're appropriate. Next we come to deep analysis, a.k.a. a lot of what I've been saying wrapped up. For starters, so there's a cycle of cards, they're flashback cards, that allowed you, they had a cost, so deep analysis was three you, and then all the costs for one and a color, so 1 blue in this case, 1 and a blue, and 3 life, you've got to flash it back.

Well, you've got to draw 2 cards. Well, 2 cards for mana is okay. It was an instant, you know. It's okay, sure. Not a bad card. Maybe you play that card. You play Unlimited probably for sure. Maybe you constructed and I constructed.

Maybe you play that card. You play Unlimited probably for sure. And maybe you Constructed and then I Constructed. But, when you draw two cards, pay three life is really good. And, put them together, it's extra good. So, this card was a very, very good card. And, like, once again, it's just like, well, what does Blue do? Blue will do card drawing.

Well, card drawing is really good. Especially when you get to do it twice. And, one of the times, you get to do it for not a lot of mana. So this is another card where blue just kind of shined, because it played neatly into what we were doing, and it fit the themes very well. I mean, blue has a lot of library and hand graveyard stuff, so it just had a lot of synergy with what was going on. So, I mean, Deep Analysis is one of the best cards in the set.

It was very, very good, played by a lot of people. And, oh, the other interesting thing about this is the flavor text, which I did not write down, but it's very important. It's a very, the flavor text is making reference

to Masticore, which was a very powerful card from Earth's Destiny. I don't know if I said I did. And Deep Analysis has Flavor Text that is, in the art, you see someone who's analyzed, like doing an autopsy, I guess, on a Masticore, and the Flavor Text is sort of riffing on that.

Anyway, it was a very popular piece of Flavor Text. It is one of the first, it's not the first piece of Flavor Text that Doug Byer ever did. And this is long before he was in his current position. This is when he was, you know,

doing computer programming down on the second floor. In fact, this is not even, this is back when we were in the old building, so not even the second floor. But anyway,

this is, Doug was, actually, I take that back. He might have been on the second floor at the time. But anyway, Doug was... Actually, I take that back. He might have been second floor at the time. But anyway, Doug was definitely doing flavor text at the time

while he was doing other jobs at Wizards. He used to work for the web team and did programming. In fact, Doug is a guy, by the way, who made the original Gatherer. He did it in his spare time. A little side note. Okay, so... Deep analysis.

Next we have to Faceless Butcher. 2BB, 2, 3. When it comes into play, you exile a creature. When it leaves play, the creature comes back. Traditionally, you exile your opponent's creature,

although there are shenanigans with ETB effects and stuff. You could exile your own creature. So first off, I told part of the story in the last thing. I'll tell the end of it. So what happened was I was put in charge of names

because the creative team kind of disappeared right before Odyssey began, and there wasn't a creative team. And so I was tasked with being in charge of names and flavor text and helping find new creative team members. We found Ray, I talked about. And I was training Ray.

And so what I did was, because we were just low on people, is I got a friend of mine, in fact, Mike Ryan, who was the person who did the Weatherlight Saga with me. Michael no longer at the time worked at the company. So Mike freelanced and did a bunch of names. And then I used a whole bunch of the names,

and one of my favorite names he came up with was Faceless Butcher, which I thought was just an awesome name. And the problem was the card that we were going to put Faceless Butcher on came back and it had a face on it. So it's very hard to call a card Faceless Butcher that has a face because I would get lots of letters going, came back, and it had a face on it. So it's very hard to call a card faceless butcher that has a face. Because I would get lots of letters going, faceless butcher, but it has a face!

So we couldn't use it. So I knew I wanted to use it. So I said to Ray, because Ray was in charge of names for this set, but I told him I wanted to use faceless butcher, and Ray agreed with me. So in the art description we wrote for this set, for this card, literally the art description is, we named it Faceless Butcher, and it goes, important, this creature does not have a face. So finally we got a Faceless Butcher.

The card ended up being very good. It was one of the defining nightmare cards. The one shenanigan with it was there was a trick with all the nightmare cards where if you could remove the creature in response to the ability going on the stack, you could make it such that you could remove the creature, but have the creature gone, the Faceless Butcher or the Nightmare gone, before the ability that would bring it back would be there. Anyway, it's tricky rule stuff. Anyway, we're working

modern day we're trying to fix that problem with oblivion ring and such so that one of the things we want is

we like some cleverness to go on but the goal is usually when you can do something and your opponent like questions

whether you can do it and you have to explain that you can do it and we don't want too much where like your opponent like thinks you're trying to pull one off on them opponent, like, questions whether you can do it, and you have to explain that you can do it, and... We don't want too much where, like, your opponent, like, thinks you're trying to pull one off on them. So we've been trying to avoid stuff like that.

I like having clever stuff, and I like having stuff where you have to figure out how to use it. But it never really was the intent to make things go away forever. The intent was, look, it's supposed to come back. So, anyway, we've been changing that. Next is Flash of Defiance. 1R. Players can't

block with green or white creatures. And it has a flashback of 1R and 3 life. So this is part of the deep analysis cycle. Okay, so why did I run this card up? Let me repeat what it did once again. 1R. I believe it is a sorcery.

Players can't block with green or white creatures. What? Okay, well, red obviously has the ability to make things not block. That's a red ability. But let's look closely. Green and white creatures can't block. What's so odd about that?

Well, what card is casting this? Red. Who are red's enemies? White and blue. Wait a minute. Red is not going after its own enemies. It's going after black's enemies. And so red is actually doing something negative to its own ally.

That is very atypical. We do not normally do that. But because we are in a set in which it was about black, we decided we would let black and blue have a little bit of hate against their own. So what we did is we had it be two colors. So one of the colors it normally hated, and the other color for this set it hated. And so that's another way we sort of got a little bit

of the feel of the black on it. That was another important part. How are we doing on time? Okay, we are past... So we are past the half an hour mark, and I'm still not at work. I'm getting closer. Oh, rain. Oh, Seattle and rain. Okay, luckily for you guys, I got lots to talk about. Okay, so the next one I'm going to talk about is Grim Lava Mancer. So that was a 1-1 for red, a single red. And for red and tap,

you could exile two cards from your graveyard to deal two to target creature or player. I'm sorry, red and a tap and exile two cards. So this is one of the cards that used the graveyard as a resource. Like I said, we really pushed it here because we had a lot of enablers that got stuff in the graveyard, and we liked having tension with thresholds. I mean, looking back in retrospect, because we had a lot of enablers that got stuff in the graveyard, and we liked having the tension with thresholds. I mean, looking back in retrospect,

I'm not sure that's the kind of tension I'd want at this level. But one of the reasons I think the set is very popular for the spiky crowd is there's a lot of decisions to make, a lot of little fine-tuned things. And Grim Lava Mancer... Grim Lava Mancer, why is that so hard to say? Grim Lava Mancer went out to be a pretty good card. Very good in Limited. And I'm pretty sure it's also Constructed Play. But, like I said, it was pushing.

Red also, by the way, had trouble of all the discard was random. And so people tended to shy away from that. And so some of the Red Graveyard stuff ended up being decent. So that's where a lot of people in limited, especially where they tended to go, because they tended to shy away from the discard cards. Next is grotesque hybrid. Hold a second. I'm going to take a drink.

A lot of talking today because it's a long trip. Got to keep it lubricated if you're going to do a podcast. A little tip for people out there who want to do a podcast. You got to drink a lot of water. And by the way, don't drink sugary things. You want to, one of the things that happens when you talk for a long period of time, see, I actually taught classes in public speaking in my communication school. When you speak for a long time, you're actually inflaring your larynx.

You're using a muscle in your throat and that too much juice actually sort of can, I mean, you're using it and your throat is actually kind of a delicate little thing. It is a muscle though, but the more you use it, the sort of the stronger it'll get. That's why people who speak a lot, you know, get stronger sort of throat muscles and have an easier time, which means I should have a strong throat muscle. But anyway, one of the things you want to make sure is you want to make sure to keep it moist. That talking sort of pulls the moisture out of it, and that you need moisture to sort of keep it lubricated.

So it is very important when you're public speaking to make sure that you have liquid, especially water. Water is usually what we recommend. I'm a giant fan of water, so I have my big, I have a giant cup that I use to travel with. I call it my Bubba because that's the name of the cup. Anyway, I've now told you probably more than you ever need to know about why I drink water. Okay, Grotesque Hybrid. So Grotesque Hybrid costs four and a black. It is a, I can't write down how big it is. I think it's a 3-3. It is... So it has kind of Death Touch.

This is before Death Touch existed. When it damaged a creature and killed it, it was Death Touch. Although it had in the no regen clause. So it's Death Touch that sort of buried things, if you will, to use old school magic language, which meant I destroy you and you can't be regenerated. So it also hosed regenerators.

There was a period in time where we were just hosing regenerators left and right. We finally said, why are we hosing regenerators? Are regenerators causing us all these problems? No. And so we stopped hosing regenerators as a sort of default. And then every once in a while we do, but it's no longer...

People often ask me why we don't bring the term Barry back. Barry meant to destroy and can't be regenerated. And I said, A, we had too many vocabulary words and it wasn't used enough. But also, we've kind of been shifting away from destroying and can't be regenerated. So there's not a lot of call for using Barry. For those that wonder. Anyway, Grotesque Hybrid is a

4B Death Touch creature that you can discard a card to give it pro green and white. And so, once again, we really were playing out that black was going after its enemies. That there is a very strong black hates white and green

thing. Now, normally black hates white and green. We make cards that do that all the time. But you'll see white and green individually fighting against black. Not against their... White normally... Black is an enemy and red is an enemy. But white doesn't go after red in this set.

It just goes after black. Likewise, green normally is enemies with black and blue. But green doesn't go after blue. Green only goes after black. But since white and green are black's enemies and they are the opposite in this set, to play up the conflict between black and green and white, black does go after

green and white, where white and green only go after black. A little trivia question. The creature gains protection from green and protection from white. Why is green first? Why isn't white first? The answer is the same reason that when you have a multicolor spell that's green and white,

the green comes first. There is an order for every color combination. There is an order. The way it works in two color, I think this works in three color too, but two color I know for sure, is that every color is first twice and every color is second twice. And the way you can tell what order to go is if you start at the top of the color wheel, which is white, if you go around the color wheel, clockwise around the color wheel, pick your color and then go clockwise. So, for example, if you pick white and go clockwise, you will hit blue and black.

But if you have to go more than two away, then you have to go more than two away, then you have to go to the other place. So white to red is go more than two, and to green is go more than two. So that way you start with them. You never have to go more than two away. So red and white starts with red, and green and white starts with green.

Anyway, if you look and balance it, it's equalized that you always come first for the color that goes directly after you. I'm sorry, not's equalized. You always come first for the color that goes directly after you clockwise. It's you, and then the color goes directly after you clockwise, and the color goes two after you clockwise. If you're more than two clockwise, then they come first to make sure that you're always within two. So more than you need to know. See, how informative, what to drink, how to write color things, all sorts of stuff you learn here. Okay, I'm getting close to work, so we'll fit in a few more. Hypnox. So Hypnox is eight black, black, black, blackity, blackity,

black. It is an 8-8, and it's a nightmare creature that nightmares your opponent's hand. So this is very typical. We didn't have Mythic Rares at the time. This would be a Mythic Rare if we had. It was a Rare. Where, for example, we had a card that went after just a card in your opponent's hand. But this is kind of up in the game. And one of the things we like to do with our Rare and Mythic Rares, especially Mythic Rares now,

is just, like, push it to the nth degree. What can I go after? Fine, nightmares, remove something. Well, what's something giant and big? How about your hand? Your entire hand. And it's an 8-8. And the idea is, for 8 and black, black, black, for 11 mana, you should have a creature that your partner has some trouble dealing with. And so it's like, I have an 8-8 and you have no spells. Please deal with me.

Anyway, I like Hypnox a lot. And it's the kind of card that I know, I have confidence that people will like. It's a Timmy card, you know. It's a little expensive for Spike to have any realism playing it, other than there might have been some reanimation with Hypnox. In fact, he's probably a decent, assuming you had some good reanimation, he's a decent target

for reanimation. Anyway, but Hypnox, I like Hypnox. He definitely, it is fun to do over the top. You know, it's like, it's expensive and just does crazy things. People enjoy that quite a bit, and so we tried to do it.

Next is Icarid. So you'll notice, by the way, I'm talking about a lot of black and apparently blue cards. Mostly because a lot of the major players

in the set were black. That was on purpose. Like I said last time, not only did black have more cards, you know, more as fan of cards, literally more cards.

Well, actually, it both had more cards, it had more as-fan of cards, we pushed it down rarity, and it had more high-power cards. When we develop sets, we can only push so many cards, but the team made sure to push more black cards than normal. Okay, Ikarid costs three and a black. It's, oh, I can't remember now, it's three one.

It's a three one haste creature, and at the end of turn you sack it. But, beginning of your upkeep, you can exile a black creature card in your graveyard to bring it back. And so the idea is, it's a creature that can just keep coming back. And that, you know, your opponent can kill it, but there's no reason to kill it. It's going to die at the end of turn anyway. So, there's not a that, you know, your opponent can kill it, but there's no reason to kill it. It's going to die in the turn anyway. So there's not a lot of good answers for your opponent. Like, killing it doesn't solve the problem. It just keeps coming back.

And Icarus was a very good card. It definitely saw a lot of play. Now, Icarus is interesting in that Icarus is what I call a Spike Johnny card. I'm not... Yeah, Spike Johnny. Spike in that, look, it's just a very powerful card. It's very useful against creature destruction. So the spikes are just like, okay, I'll use it effectively

and I'll beat them down with my Ichorid. The Johnnies say, oh, I have a creature that I know is going to go away every turn, but I get it. So every turn, or I can get it. What do I want to do with that? What are interesting things I can do with the creature that I know is going to die every turn? And there's some fun stuff you can do with it. I mean, the first level has to do with the stack effects, but there's a lot more stuff. You can have more fun than that

if you get creative. So, Icarus, by the way, a lot of people talk about, when we gave Black Haste around the time of Future Sight, we shifted around the abilities, and we started putting some of the keywords in secondary colors that hadn't really been used in secondary colors.

One of the things about it which is funny is when I originally put haste in black, a lot of people were like, haste in black? That doesn't make any sense. And then I would bring up cards like Icarid. There was a bunch of Return from Graveyard black cards that had haste on them. Alpha had one, and this card has one. And that, you know, it was used in a very particular circumstance, but I felt like black has fast, creepy, crawly things, and I thought black did a good job of doing some stuff with haste that red would not do, flyers being most obvious. Next, Major Tarot.

3-W for a... How do you write it down? Is he 4-4? I think he's a 4-4 creature. He's a flyer. Or no, is he a 3-3 creature? I did not... Sometimes I don't write it down.

He must be a 3... For 3-W, he must be a 3-3. I think 4-4 might be slightly too good. So 3-W, I think he's a 3-3 creature. He flies. For 3, white and white, you can sac him

and exile all black cards, all black creatures. So that's definitely a case of... I mean, he was a major play on the story, or he was a character on the story. One of the things we tried to do is there's a lot of black in the set, a lot of, you know, pro-black. So white and green have a bunch of black hate.

We knew a lot of people would be playing black and limited, so we wanted to have some answers to that. Black was very powerful, so we wanted to give some answers to black. So this set both has powerful black threats and some white weapons. White and green answers

to black. Okay. The final one of today, because I'm getting close to work. Once again, because I am late for my meeting, in fact, I'm like five minutes

late for my meeting, which I do not like to be. And because I'm doing my podcast, well, normally if I was late and in my car, I could call

the team lead and tell them I'm going to be late. But I can't do that because I'm on my podcast with you guys. So they don't even know. They're like,

Mark is late. Where is he? They don't know. And I just missed my light. Anyway. Well, I with you guys. They don't even know. They're like, Mark is late. Where is he? They don't know. And I just missed my light. Anyway, I guess you guys get another card. But when this ends abruptly, I'm not done yet. I'm obviously in the M's. So

when I get to work, I'm just going to park. I will abruptly say goodbye. And we have at least one more podcast because I have not finished yet. Although I've made a good chunk of the way through. I knew this was going to be two podcasts, although I did not anticipate to get as far as I have, all the way through M's.

So next time I'll have to elaborate on some of the stuff. So I'm going to do one last card to save stuff for next time because I need to have a podcast full of stuff next time. Hopefully tomorrow it won't rain. If it rains, I do this consecutively when I'm, for you guys it'll be well, it'll be later today or it'll be next week. I do

this consecutively so I don't forget what I said. But I have one more card. I will finish up with one card and then I'm going to quickly run in for my meeting. So the last card is Mind Sludge. Four and a black. It's a sorcery and your opponent has to discard a card for each swamp you have.

This is like a ball of coffers. It's another one in the blackity-black theme where it just wants you to play lots of black. This set, actually, one of our goals of the set was to make a mono-black viable in Constructed. That we're like, we're going to have a black set. Well, then we need to have a viable mono-black deck.

And we did. It was quite good. And Mindfludge was one of the major players in that deck. Because 4B, often, it's often just your opponent loses their hand.

Because, you know, in a mono-black deck, if I can play 4B, odds are I have five swamps, so they're going to lose five cards by fifth turn. Odds are they don't have much more than five cards.

Usually wipes their hand. So Mindfledge turned out to be a very good card. Cabal Coffers was a really good card. Card off five point next time called Mutilate was a very good card. So Monoblock had a lot of tools to really be effective. So, but anyway,

I am coming close to way through. This is part one. I believe I have one more podcast talking about cards I'm in the M's so I believe it would just be one more anyway Torment like I said was an interesting experiment because

of all the stuff it did with Black I will talk more about that tomorrow but as much as I enjoy talking to all you guys, I'm late, and it's time for me to hurry and go be making magic. Talk to you guys next time.