Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #120 - Zendikar Part 3

Episode Date: May 9, 2014

Mark continues his discussion of Zendikar in Part 3.

Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so the last two podcasts, I've been talking about cards from Zendikar. And I think I got up through K, so I'm not yet done. So one of the things I decided, by the way, is people seem to really enjoy the card stories. Zendikar is a very popular set, so I picked a lot of cards to talk about. This won't be as long as Pharos, so I picked a lot of cards to talk about. This won't be as long as Pharaohs, but I'm

guessing this is going to be about four podcasts. Maybe five, but I'm going to try to get it done in four. So anyway, let's get on to L. Landbind Ritual. So Landbind Ritual is a sorcery. It costs three white and a white, and you gain two life per plane. So why did I bring this one up?

Well, I bring up stuff when I remember things I want to talk about. This was a cycle. There was a cycle of cards that were all in uncommon, and they all were spells that did something in count of the number of basic land you had. So let me talk about

why we made this. And I think this got added in during development. I don't think we had it in design. One of the things design did do was we wanted to push a monocolored agenda in that we had just followed Shards of Alara. Shards of Alara was very much about multicolor. And so we like to shift the pendulum, swing the pendulum, as you say. When I talk about a pendulum, by the way,

I'm always talking about like you ever see hanging on a rope over a sand pit makes a fun design that's the kind of pendulum I'm talking about and that magic metaphorically is a pendulum and that what we want to do is always push it in a different direction

and that the reason people play people play magic a long time the average player plays over nine years now why does someone play over nine years that's and that by the way for those that don't know games that's insane that's a long time. The average player plays over nine years now. Why does someone play over nine years? By the way, for those that don't know games, that's insane. That's a long time. And the reason is I think Magic keeps reinventing itself. That at some time you might get bored of a normal game

because you've done everything that you normally do and you just kind of get bored. But Magic just keeps changing. And so the reason you don't get bored is, well, on some level, each year it's like a different game from the year before, or every time a set comes out, it shifts. And so one of the things we're very conscious of when we're making blocks is saying, what did we do last block? Well, let's make sure we do something different. So last block was all about multicolor, you know, and this block was like, well, you know, not that we can't have some synergies

with last block and that you can't play more than one color, but you know what? We're going to give you some things that allow you to play mono color, and we allow you to even draft mono color. And so this Uncommon Cycle was something to kind of tempt you, that says, okay, if you're playing mono color, this is pretty strong, and it's probably going to float to you, because unless there's two people playing the same mono color deck, you'll get this card most likely, because you'll value it way more than anybody else at the table. So anyway, this cycle was done as a way to help encourage that. There's a lot of other things we did to encourage it, but there was clearly a mono-color agenda at hand in the set. Next,

Lava Ball Trap. Another trap. So it costs six red and a red. It's an instant trap. If opponent has two lands enter the battlefield in one turn, instead of paying six red red, you can play three red red. And then what it does is it destroys two lands and it does four damage to all creatures. So the idea was,

I've been talking about all these different ways you can get lands into play. All these different rampant growth things. And so one of the things that's neat is we gave you a lot of tools to get multiple lands in play at one turn. That's something that the set enables you to do. Well, if we're going to do traps, part of what traps

wanted to be... So I talked a little bit about the making of the traps last time, but I didn't talk philosophically about the making of traps. The goal for traps was we wanted it to be something where your opponent did something a little out of the ordinary. philosophically about the making of traps. The goal for traps was we wanted to be something where your opponent did something a little out of the ordinary. It didn't want to be like, oh, you played a creature trap. Well, you play creatures all the time, you know, and so we wanted

to say to people, as you learn the traps, you're like, well, there's certain things you can do in this environment that could come back to haunt you, and one was playing two lands on a turn. Now, there's plenty of reasons to play two lands on a turn, so people are encouraged to do so. This trap is a rare thing. It's not something that shows up much. But it was a nice little tension that occasionally, when your opponent goes,

Ha-ha, I get my second land, you go, Ha-ha, lovable trap. I also implied last time I talked about it that lovable traps, the traps were free. They're not free. There's a few ones that are free. What traps are is they're cheaper.

A few of them are so cheap that they're free. But this one, for example, you saved three mana. So instead of being eight mana, it's five mana. And there's a pretty big difference between five and eight mana. Because one of the things that happens is you don't acquire land at the same rate later in the game. Like, you draw seven cards opening up and you have some number of land there

and you'll mulligan it to make sure you get some land. But then the later lands come at a rate much slower than that. So while you might play your first, second, third lands on your first, second, third turn, your eighth land is not happening on your eighth turn. And so there is a big gap between five and eight, more so than it would seem. In some ways, it's more than just three mana

because it's many, many turns. And so if you catch your opponent unawares, you get to cast a spell much faster. Okay, next. Lorthos, the Tidemaker. I'm very proud. This is my design. I'm very proud of Lorthos.

So what happened was, I think we decided, I'm trying to remember how this happened, is I think we decided, I'm trying to remember how this happened, is I think we get notes from Creative about what legendary creatures there are. And so, in the notes, they said, oh, there's a legendary octopus.

Legendary octopus. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I was very excited. So, in fact, I don't even know, it might have said, in fact, it might have said something like, legendary sea monster. It could be a leviathan, a whale, or an octopus. Something like that.

And all I said is, octopus. Ding, ding, ding, ding. So I said, legendary octopus. How often do you get a chance to make a legendary octopus? This was my chance. So, okay. Of course he had to be an 8-8. He's an octopus. That was clear.

And then I wanted him to have some octopus-themed ability. So the original ability I had was he came into play, and he just locked down eight things, and as long as he was in play, they were locked down. Absolutely a little too brutal. And so it changed into the attack trigger, which is now if he attacks, you can spend eight. And if you do, you lock down eight things for the turn,

and they don't untap next turn. So essentially, you can lock... If you use the eight mana... Obviously, he costs eight mana. Of course, he costs eight mana. He costs... Actually, I didn't say his stats. He's five, blue, blue, blue,

for an eight, eight legendary octopus. Of course, he costs eight, and of course, he's an eight, eight. There's some aesthetics at hand here. And then he costs eight when and of course he's an 8-8. There's some aesthetics at hand here. And then he costs eight when you attack, so you can lock things down. So essentially, the cost of getting him out every turn, you can permanently lock down eight things. And I will say,

usually locking out eight things will swing the game in your direction. But anyway, I was very happy with him, and he got received really well. I'm all for magic being very him, and he got received really well. I'm all for magic being very serious, and I think that most of the time we treat the game with utmost

seriousness, but it is fine to be a little goofy from time to time, so I had fun making a legendary octopus. I mean, I guess with a straight face he's an octopus, but anyway. Of my designs of the set, Lothar's is one of my favorites that I did. Next, Lotus Cobra, another card I did.

Although, the interesting thing about this card is, it's what we call parallel design, where I designed this card going from one direction, and Graham Hopkins, who was on the design team, who came in third in the first grade design at Search, and now works at Wizards. Graham came in third, by the way, didn't actually get a design internship, but ended up getting

an R&D internship because we liked him. And he ended up working in digital for a while, doing a lot of programming, and now he's back in R&D, still doing programming,

but he's working in R&D. And he's one of my favorites. I love having him on design teams. He's really good. It is interesting to note, by the way, the great designer search.

So Alexis Jansen, Ken Nagel, Graham Hopkins, and Mark Globus all were in the very first Great Designer Search, as was Scott Van Essen, by the way, but we'll get him in a second. All four of them still work at Wizards. Three of them work in R&D. Alexis does not. She works in digital digital but she occasionally works on design teams and she led the design for Dragon's Maze and then in GDS2 we had Ethan Fleischer

Sean Main, Scott Van Essen and John Lux, all of which work now in R&D and so out of the two great designer searches there are seven people who work in R&D and eight who work in the company who came from a great designer search,

all of which are still there, all of which do an amazing work. So anyway, I'm very, very happy with the great designer search. We actually won an eternal award called the INI for innovation that Hasbro gives away. So anyway, there will be a third great designer search, not right away. I don't have openings.

I do not want to have a great designer search until the person who wins the internship has the right to turn it into a full-time job if they work out. So it's not going to happen this year. I know the second one was four years after the first one, and it's four years later. So if I was following that pattern, it would be this year. But it is not going to be this year.

But we will do one eventually. I've got to forget how much work it is. Back to Lotus Cobra. So Lotus Cobra is one in the green it's a 2-1 snake and for landfall it adds one mana of any color to your mana pool. So what happened was Graham and I

both came at this from a very different direction. I think Graham... We had both made different landfall creatures. Anyway, it's an interesting story where sometimes people turn things in, and Graham had turned a card, and I had had a card, and they were really close, and so I morphed them into one card.

But it's the kind of thing where people say, who designed what card? It's tricky. Because I could clearly with a straight face say, I designed this card, and Graham with a straight face could say he designed this card, and the reality is we both did, and it kind of morphed into what was Lotus Cobra. Okay, so

the controversy of Lotus Cobra, which I will talk about, so Lotus Cobra was a mythic rare, and there was a lot of controversy about mythic rare, because most of the time our mythic rares are very grandiose. You know, they're legendary.

They're planeswalkers. They're legendary creatures or, you know, giant Timmy monsters. And this card was very efficient but not big. And so there was a big question about what exactly should be Mythic Rare. And to be fair, this card, we spent more time debating on whether this card was supposed to be rare or Mythic Rare. And to be fair, this card, we spent more time debating on whether this card was supposed to be rare or Mythic Rare

than I care to probably admit because we argued about it a long time. And finally, what we decided was, and this is the thing that I've explained about Mythic Rare is,

Mythic Rare has to have the potential for awesomeness. That you have to be able to see the card and just amazing things could happen. And the fact is, Lotus Cobra did the card and just amazing things could happen. And the fact is Lotus Cobra did allow some crazy shenanigans to happen.

We decided to let it go into Mythic. It was very much on the border because it was a card that just really did enable very neat, cool things to happen. And we thought players would be excited and we thought they would be excited as a Mythic Rare. We were, I don't know, part wrong in that. I mean, people did like it because the card ended to be very good, but we got a lot of

grumbling about being Mythic Rare, and it's something we're constantly arguing about, about what exactly feels Mythic Rare. We want Mythic Rare to have a certain sense to it that when you see it, you go, ooh, that's a Mythic Rare. And Lotus Cobra definitely was on the cusp, and so I want you to know that it wasn't like without thought that it ended up being mythic rare. We did spend a lot of time on it, and there was a lot of arguing, and a lot of R&D members thought it should be rare.

I might have been among those. But anyway, okay, Mark of Mutiny. So Mark of Mutiny is a sorcery for two and a red. You get to steal a creature, untap and steal a creature. You get it until end of turn and you put a plus one plus one counter on it.

So this is basically a Threaden variant. Threaden is a red spell that you steal opponents creature, untap and attack. Threaden, and this ability long ago used to be in blue, and blue does it occasionally. But we decided when we were trying to

have blue give some stuff up and give some stuff for Red, that the idea of temporary stealing felt very Red. That like, you know, I... One of the things that Red does is not only does it make emotional decisions, but it has magic that can inspire emotions in others. And so Red is really good at making other creatures temporarily kind of act out. That, you know, it inflames their emotions. They do something in a moment of

emotional overdrive, and they come to their senses, but for a moment, you manage to get them to do what you want. Now, this card is interesting because the plus one plus one counter means I get to steal your card, I get to hit you for a little bit more than I normally would, but then I give it back to you

and your creature is better. It's an interesting tension. One of the things we worry about in design in general is how much tension do we want on cards? How much do we want to go, hmm, do I want to cast that? And this was interesting, because the card was kind of neat. It did some cool stuff.

Anyway, I like the card. Like I said, I think you want some tension. You just got to be careful how much tension. Next, another, in fact, the most controversial card in the set. What was it? What did it do? Mindless Null. 2B zombie 2-2.

Was it a vanilla? No, no, it was not a vanilla. It had the following ability. Cannot block unless you control a vampire. So in Alpha, there's a card called... What was the card called in Alpha? Scathed Zombies, which was a 2B, 2-2 vanilla creature. This card is strictly worse.

And when I say strictly worse, I, in fact, mean strictly worse. There is nothing about... I mean, excluding unsets that care about letters and name. There is no difference between Scathed Zombies and this card. They're both zombies. They're even the same creature type.

So Skade Zombies, essentially this is a Skade Zombie with downside. And people got really upset. They're like, because Skade Zombie is not particularly a good card. That's why people got upset. They're like, really? You took a card that's not a good card and made it worse? Now the funny thing was, in this environment, this card

wasn't that bad. Especially if you were playing vampires, which was a very common thing to be doing in black. So, this card got drafted and got played. And so, one of my beliefs, because what often happens is we will make a card. In fact, there's a very famous story. In Mirrodin, I made a card. I think it was called Malfunction, and it was you counter-target artifact.

And so there exists a card called a null. In fact, if you actually see this at Mirrodin, a null got printed and not Malfunction. And a null is you counter-target artifact or enchantment. And so Malfunction was just strictly, strictly worse than a null. A null could counter an artifact or enchantment and this card could only counter an artifact but the thing was

it was an artifact set it was good you played it not only did you play it if you were playing blue you main decked it unlimited of course you played it and so my point is

here's a card that for sure for sure for sure you play it's okay to make it it does not matter that it's worse than other cards we've printed in fact and this is an important, magic has a range of power level. We are going to make cards better and worse than other cards we've made. If we limit ourselves to only being better or worse than certain cards, then we start limiting what we can do. Especially if you make a card that will see play. For example, Mindless Null and Malfunction would have. It's all play. People played it in Limited.

It was actually good enough to see play. People grumbled about it, but, you know, that it is okay to make slightly worse cards, especially if they see play, especially if they're actually playable. And that, I know people get a little grumbly about it, but, you know, that is okay and acceptable, and that not every magic card has to be... In fact, here's one of the things that's important to understand, which is it is not a bad thing to have cards that kind of are universally hated.

You don't want tons of them, but it is kind of fun. One of the ways to sort of bond players is to give them shared experiences and it's okay every once in a while the shared experiences they get mad

over the same card like I said especially a card like this where it's actually a playable card like one of the things you've got to learn with this card

is to overcome your hate for it and go oh maybe I should draft it because people would say I'm not playing that card that's a horrible card and then slowly

they learn like oh it's actually not that bad in a mono black deck you know in limited so anyway like I said controversial

next is Nisa Ravain so 2 GG 2 green and green she's a planeswalker she started with 2 loyalty she had 2 plus 1s plus 1

search your library for Nisa's Chosen which I'll explain in a second. Number two, plus one, gain two life for each elf you have on your battlefield, your elves. And minus seven, go get any number of elves out of your library and put them in play. Okay, Nissa's Chosen, by the way,

since she's relevant to this card, is called Green and Green for a two, three. And when it died, instead of going to the graveyard, it goes to the bottom of your library. And that was made to play with this card. So this card, there's a lot of stuff about Nissa. So Nissa started where we were making duels of the planeswalkers, and we wanted to have a cool image for the cover of the box.

And so she ended up being, she was an elf, and she was a cute elf. And, you know, it seemed like a nice image. And so we said, oh, one day we've got to make her. People seem to like her. We've got to make Nissa. And so when we were at Zendikar, we're like, oh, this seems like a good place. And so we made Nissa. Now, the thought of it, so this card is interesting as a planeswalker

in that our planeswalkers are powerful, and this card is interesting as a Planeswalker in that our Planeswalkers are powerful, and this card is powerful, but it is niche-y. It's very, like... It is good in an elf deck. It is not good in any other deck. If your deck doesn't have a lot of elves, it is not good.

We also did this thing where it tied in with a card, where in order to play this card, you had to play this one particular... In order to play Nissa, you really needed to play this card in your deck. And the problem, for example, in Limited is imagine getting Nissa in your pool. You get a Mythic Rare or...

Was she a Mythic Rare? Yeah, it was a Mythic Rare because, obviously, I just have a Luskobra. You get a Mythic Rare and then you didn't get the common you need to play the card. That's annoying. I like experimentation.

I'm glad we played around with it. I don't ever regret, regret just trying things. I think we learned that tying it to a card has some problems, especially in limited. Um, and I don't mind niche planeswalkers. Although it's interesting, um, we do market research both on the card and on the character. And that, um, the character did better than the card. The card, because it only fit in a very specific deck, it wasn't as well thought of as a card

that goes in lots of different decks. And so one of the things, I mean, obviously, I've hinted at this. When we recently released Funko as making a series of dolls, and there's six of them in the little, I forget what they're called, the little mini ones

with the big heads and one of them is Nyssa Ravine and people are like, Nyssa Ravine? and I said on my blog, yeah we've got some plans for Nyssa Ravine I cannot tell you what those plans are but we're going to see more of Nyssa and we're going to do some changes I don't want to ruin anything

there's some fun stuff coming with Nyssa and for fans of Nyssa, Nyssa's coming back. You'll have a chance to see Nyssa. And she's going to feature into the story. So, anyway, I like Nyssa. I think she's a cool character.

And, anyway, I should not say any more other than Nyssa fans, stay tuned. There is Nyssa goodness coming. Okay, next. Ob Nixilis. Ooh, talking about characters. So, Ob Nyssa fans, stay tuned. There is Nyssa goodness coming. Okay, next. Obnixilus. Ooh, talking about characters.

So Obnixilus the Fallen. So trivia question. Why is Obnixilus the Fallen? The Fallen what? Okay, we look at a picture of him or look at his creature type. He is a legendary demon. He's 3-3. So Obnixilus did not start as, I believe he did not start as a

demon. I believe he started as a human, uh, who made a deal with the devil or with a demon and ended up becoming a demon. Uh, and then why is he fallen? Because he was once a planeswalker back in the day. Uh, and he, during the mending, I believe he lost his spark. And so that's why he's the fallen. He's Omnixilus the day. And he, during the mending, I believe he lost his spark. And so that's why he's the fallen. He's Omnixelus the fallen.

And so he was another popular character. So his ability was, he had a landfall ability. When a land came into play, target player lost three life, and Omnixelus got three plus one, plus one counters. So he started on the small side,

but he quickly got bigger, and he was quite potent. He was no joke. He was a pretty cool character. And a cool card. But anyway, and Nixilus, by the way, has gotten quite the following. He's one of those characters that people

seem to really like. Go up Nixilus. Okay, next. Obsidian Fireheart. So it costs one red, red, red. Four mana total. It's an elemental that's a four, four. And then for one red and red, you may put a Blaze Counter on target land that does not

have a Blaze Counter. And then what a Blaze Counter does is, during upkeep, it deals one damage to its controller. So during its controller's upkeep, it deals one damage. So what is the flavor exactly of this card? Well, the reminder text makes it crystal clear. The land continues

to burn after Obsidian Fireheart has left the battlefield. So you are lighting their land on fire. And this flavor, this reminder text has become very popular. Two reasons. One is, I think it I like the fact that it did flavor work. Like, it's not often

Reminder Text gets to do flavor work. Usually Flavor Text does flavor work, but we didn't have Flavor Text. It was too much space. And I like, personally, I mean, if you've seen me in the end sets, I like us being a little more fast and loose with the Reminder Text and having some fun. I think this card does a good job of actually

explaining what the card does in a way that's flavorful, that helps you understand why it works the way it does. It's like, well, the Fireheart lights things on fire. If he leaves, well, guess what? They're still on fire. So, next. Oracle of Moldiah. 3G, 3 to green for an Elf Shaman

2-2. It has three abilities. A, you can play an additional land. 2, you can play the top card of your library revealed. 3, you may pay lands off the top of your library. Okay, so this card is actually three different magic cards squished together. So first, it is Fast Bond. That's a card from Alpha that lets you play an additional land each turn. That was an enchantment for G that was mighty broken. Second is play top card of library revealed. I think the first card that did that was called Field of Dreams. It was an enchant world

from Legends that made all players play the top card of the library revealed. Although this one, just you play it revealed. And third, there's a card called Future Sight that allowed you to play, you played with the top card of your library revealed and let you play cards off the top of your library. So all three cards in

the time spiral block were named after sets because it was a nostalgia library. So all three cards in the Time Spiral block were named after sets because it was a Nostalgia block. So Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, and Future Sight were all Magic cards.

So anyway, a little trivia there. And so this card lets you do Future Sight only for lands. Future Sight lets you do any card. This just does land.

So it was a land-based set. This is actually a pretty good card. It got played. It saw lots of play. I was happy with it. It did neat things. The other cool thing about it was any time, if you remember

to not play your land, so you would draw your card and then got to see the top card, it allowed you a lot of time to help manipulate and, you know, when you could, you played the land off the top of your library so you got the extra card. So, you got the extra card, you know, whatever, the land off the top of your library so you got the extra card. You got the extra card 40% of the time. Whenever the land was there,

you have a 40% ratio of any top of your library being land. Anyway. Anyway. Okay. Next, we have Orn Reef Survivalist. One and a green, human warrior ally. He was a 1-1, and when it or any ally

came into play, he got a plus one, plus one counter. So I talked about this last time. This is one of the fighters I talked about the allies in the last podcast, that what he did is

every time an ally came into play, himself or another ally, he got a plus one, plus one counter. Because we wanted to tie the, make them all work the same,

they all said whenever I or another ally come into play, so the plus one, plus one counter was a little weird because that meant that we had to put a number in the lower right-hand corner that really didn't reflect what they were. This guy's a grizzly bear. He's 1G for a 2-2. But it looks like he's a 1G for a 1-1. And so while the experience players got that he was a 2-2, it was a little hard on beginners. It made the card look worse.

And one of the things that we spent a lot of time on, more than you probably want to know, is how much the impact visually the card has. Meaning, when you see it, a lot of times, like the gods, for example, in Theros, we worded them in such a way that they got to be creatures, so you thought that they were creatures. Because when we worded them that they weren't creatures,

it was much, much less clear that they were creatures also you couldn't play them as commanders they wanted to play them as commanders but we tried very hard to make sure that we do such in such a way

that it maximizes how they look and this card if it was made by itself would come into play with a plus one plus one counter

I'm sorry would not come into play with a plus one counter it would just have an added stat it would be a 2-2 and then only grant to other creatures. The only reason

we didn't do that was whenever we're trying to make cards work the same, sometimes there's some cost to doing that. And one was, well, individually this card doesn't look as cool, but for ease of play, it works like every other card would like it. And so that was important. Next, Pillarfield Ox.

3-W, 2-4. Done. I bring this card up. It's a vanilla. I think this is the first time we ever did Pillarfield Ox. This card has shown up in more things you could possibly imagine. It's the Ox that keeps on going. It's a nice, simple card,

and one of the things that we've realized is, and part of New World Order is you need to have simple cards that, you know, if every card is just doing lots of things, it gets overwhelming and that there's

a nice mental breather. Whether people are aware or not, that sometimes you draw a card and it's just vanilla deep inside. Maybe you're not even aware you do this.

You let out a little sigh like, okay, for one turn I can just, I don't have to process so hard this one turn. And I know people like to think that they just, you know, load it up. More complexity, more complexity, more complexity. But what I found was, and R&D found this, that when we implied New World Order,

that the experienced players, the R&D, these are hardcore, most of them from the Pro Tour, were like, it's nice having to breatheher every once in a while. Having to think constantly is hard work. And every once in a while, it's like, I know what this thing does. I play it, I attack with it, or block with it, I know what this thing does. Next, plated GeoPede.

So Aaron, from time to time, in organized play, we make these giant cards. We do this thing called Mass massive magic at events where people, usually like Richard Garfield and I did this at the Worlds in Japan where we were playing with Skarsgård and Mirrodin. I was Frexians and he was Mirrodins. We'll do this thing where we play with these giant magic cards and usually two celebrities, pros or somebody, are playing,

and then we get the audience to help, and each card is represented by a different audience member. Anyway, we can make these giant cards. We use them for organized play. So Aaron was making some to sort of decorate the pit, and it was around Zendikar, right after Zendikar. So he wanted to make a card to give to me, so he gave me Plated Geopede.

And the reason he gave me Plated Geopede. And the reason he gave me Plated Geopede is I had done Zen cards with my set, and obviously the biggest part of it was Landfall. And he said, well, let me just give Mark an awesome Landfall card. So he gave me Plated Geopede, which is pretty cool.

The funny thing about this card was that when I originally turned this card in, Henry Stern... So what happened was, the first part of development was done by Henry Stern, and the second part was led by Devin Lowe. And when I first turned this in,

Henry was in charge of the set. I turned this in as a cycle that all got plus one, plus one. And Henry felt that we could push it a little more, and he changed it to plus one, plus one. And Henry felt that we could push it a little more, and he changed them to plus two, plus two. And that did push them. They were very, very good. Played a GP, especially,

was probably the most constructed, although the white one, the cat saw it constructed. Most of them probably saw something constructed, but I think the red and white one were the strongest. Or the one in the decks that most likely wanted to have the weenie strategies. So, anyway, this card, I mean, the one thing about Landfall that's interesting is

Landfall ended up making a more aggressive environment than I had intended. When we made Landfall, our intent wasn't to make things fast. But cards like Play the GP really did push toward a very fast environment. And probably if you ask me my one regret about Zendikar,

I don't have a lot of regrets about Zendikar because I'm really happy with how it came out, was I wish the limited environment had been a touch slower. I think we pushed things a little too much. And like I said, it was a combination not just of the design. I mean, I think Landfall pushed it in that direction, but I think that we also were aggressive with it, and so

I wish that the crowd hadn't been quite as fast. It was a little too fast for my taste. Next, Punishing Fire. So Punishing Fire is an instant for one and a red. It's basically a shock. It does two damage to every creature or player. But it's a little rider.

Whenever the opponent gains life, you can pay two life to get it back. So this is a rare card. This is a build around me card. This says, okay, well, actually, it's both a build around me and a sideboard card. It's a sideboard card in that if I go up against a deck that has life gain, well, this is a nice sideboard card against that because it allows me to continually do damage to them and maybe I can offset a lot of life gain. If I'm building

around it, I can go, oh, well how can I make my opponent gain life in a way for me to get this back? And there are different ways, depending on the format you're playing, where sometimes you give your opponent life because you get a benefit for you giving them life. Sometimes you're giving everybody life.

Anyway, there's different ways to build around. So it's a neat card in that it both is a sideboard card and it's a build around me card, but I think it's cool. And I like individual cards like this. I mean, this is a good example of a card that doesn't have a lot to do with the environment. I mean, there were things like the lands that gave you

life when they came into play and this interacted with them, but more often than not, really what I liked about this card... What I like in general is, I like stuff making sense for the set it's in. I definitely want to make sure that all the cards that only make sense in this set get made. But it is fun to have fun, cool, random cards that do neat things that aren't super tied. I think sometimes you can be careful about not making everything so tied that you don't have a chance for just fun things to happen.

And I think punishing fire is one of those things. So, okay. I'm going to do one last card. I'm actually parked, but I'm going to do one last card, because I'm going to finish off the peas. I'm in the peas. Although, actually, I'm over. Okay, maybe I'll have to save it for next time.

So next time, I'm going to start with Pyromancer's Ascension. The reason I'm not going to do it now is actually there's a lot to say about it. So I talked a little bit about the quest last time. So next time, I'm going to talk about some quests. So anyway, thank you for joining me for part three of Zendikar Cards, or Zendikards, if you will. So as always, I very much love talking about magic and especially talking about Zendikar. But even more,

I like making magic. So I gotta go. So I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye-bye.