Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #129 - Worldwake, Part 3

Episode Date: June 6, 2014

Mark completes his series about the design of Worldwake.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so the last two podcasts, I have talked about WorldWake, and I have not done yet. So, I think today is going to be my last WorldWake podcast. We'll see. Last we left, I was at K, but I'm actually, yeah, I was at K, so I was at Core Firewalker. So I think my plan today is to try to get through the rest of these. I have about a page left, so I think I can do it. Okay, Core Firewalker

is white, white for a 2-2 Core Soldier. It's got protection from red and whenever a player casts a red spell, gain one life. Okay, so this card, see if you can identify. It's funny, because when I look at cards,

I can tell what I call a development card, which is, from time to time, development has issues with the metagame, and they want to stick a card in that can help deal with it. So this card, for me, screams from

his lungs, Red decks are a problem! I need to help against red decks! That's what this card says to me. And here's what you can tell us. A, the pro-red just makes it really hard for red to deal with, because red tends to do direct damage to deal with creatures, so protection from red stops direct damage, so it makes it hard to kill. Then, notice that you gain life not just off red stops direct damage, so it makes it hard to kill. Then,

notice that you gain life not just off red spells you cast, but red spells anybody casts, which says to me that the card is made to be a hoser, a very strong anti-red hoser. Another big issue is when you're playing against red, red is trying to beat you quickly, and so gaining life really offsets the main thing

red is trying to do. So, I'm pretty sure that this card was made to deal with a metagame issue. It's funny. Some of the times, if we know ahead of time, most of the times these cards get made in development, because they don't realize until development

that the environment needs something. Usually, if they can talk to us while we're still in design, I try to make an answer that's a little subtler so that you don't it doesn't stick out quite as obviously as a hoser card. But usually by the time you get development, they're like, we're going to make sure this card

does what it needs to do. And so that's how you end up with a card. Now, it's a core soldier. It's made to sort of flavorfully fit in the world. But design-wise, there's nothing about it that says, hey, It's a core soldier. It's made to sort of flavorfully fit in the world. But design-wise, there's nothing about it that says, hey, I really want to be in this set, per se. Now, every set has cards that are generically good cards that do random things, and so it doesn't not fit.

But it's very funny how I can tell when a card was made for developmental reasons most of the time. The best ones, by the way, are the ones in which you can take the tools of the set and answer the problem in the metagame. That usually requires a little advanced knowledge on development, talking to a design.

Okay, the next. Omnath, Locus of Mana. So it costs two and a green, and it is a 1-1 elemental. It's a legendary creature, by the way. Your green mana does not empty from your mana pool, and he gets plus one, plus one for each green mana in your mana pool. Okay, so he is inspired.

So I had to make a card in Mirrodin. What was the name of the card? The main character in the Mirrodin story was a female character. Okay, this is where I'm doomed because it requires me remembering a name. But anyway, I was trying to give her

she was I think she was an elf and she hated artifacts. And so I had to come up with something that felt very mana-y, but hated artifacts. And so we ended up doing this thing where she destroyed artifacts if the converted mana cost was equal to or less than the amount of mana in your mana pool. And to the best of my knowledge, that's the first mana in mana pool card matters. And I believe this card.

I didn't design this card. Omnath was made, I'm pretty sure, by Ken Nagel, who was the lead designer of the set. And Omnath has gone on to be a very popular commander, just because he does quirky stuff. And you can build fun stuff around him. I mean, he's mono-green, obviously, so you have to play a mono-green commander deck. But there's a lot of cool things you can do with him. And I think Ken made him with the idea of him being a commander in mind, I think. That's the best of my memory.

But anyway, the thing I like about him is that it is fun when you sort of go different directions. I like about him is that it is fun when you sort of go different directions. And one of the things that's been interesting about doing magic design in general is magic is over 20 years old. You know, design, we've gone through lots of nooks and crannies of what magic can care about. And so it's neat sort of exploring saying, okay, what more can we care about? And this card clearly, I think, was influenced by the Mirrodin card because that was one card that said, hey, we've never really cared about this thing. What if we care about this thing?, I think, was influenced by the Mirrodin card, because that was one card that said, hey, we've never really cared about this thing. What if we cared about this thing? And I think that, you know, I think that

Ken found a neat sort of take on it, something a little bit different. And the thing that's cool about this card is definitely that you can kind of, essentially, it's like a shade, because you can spend mana to make it bigger. But now, the quirky thing is it only gets bigger until the mana goes away. So it definitely has some tricky things

you have to deal with. But it's a pretty cool card. Anyway, I like the card. It also does something where in the land set, there's something neat about sort of caring about mana. Um,

and that's just a thematic thing where mana and land are different, but they're, because they're thematically tied together, that like,

the previous card I talked about, how it, nothing particularly fit this, this world. I mean, it creatively fits stuff,

but this card, I think, has more of a mechanical tie to what's going on, only because the connection between land and mana is a little tighter. But this card, I think, has more of a mechanical tie to what's going on, only because the connection between land and mana is a little tighter. Anyway, I enjoy Domnath. I even like his name. Okay, next is Ruin Ghost.

So for one and a white, it's a 1-1 spirit with W and tap, and you can flicker a land you control. And by flicker, I'm using a little slang here. What that means is could flicker a land you control. And by flicker, I'm using a little slang here. What that means is, you can take a land you control, remove it from the battlefield, and instantly return it.

So, why would you want to do that? Well, that's one of the fun things. One of the challenges of making magic is, we've got to keep reinventing the wheel. We have to make new cards. I talk about magic being a hungry beast. We make over 600 cards a year. Well, that's a lot of cards.

Now, some of them are obviously reprints or tweaks or things going in space we've been before, but we have to also find new things. And so, one of the tricks to finding new things, and this is the reason that themes are so important for blocks, is this set was about land. Because of about land, we had mechanics that cared

about lands coming to play. That's not normal. That's not something you care about a lot in magic, but in this set you cared quite a bit. So normally, insta-flickering a land, meaning make it disappear and come right back, there's not a lot of value there. For example, in most sets, lands don't have enter the battlefield effects. In this set, they do. In most sets, things don't trigger off lands coming in play. But in this set, they do. And so we were able to make a card that you probably couldn't make in most sets. It's not that the mechanics don't exist. I mean, flickering is something we do in a lot of sets, and you always could flicker a land. The issue sets, and you always could flicker a land. The issue was you didn't want to flicker a land. There was no reason to flicker a land.

But by making a set in which we focused on land, all of a sudden there's ways to care about land you don't normally care about, and you can make cards you could never make. And that's the big thing. One of the things that I always stress with my designers is I want them to mine the unique space whenever they're working on a block or a set. Meaning, if you can find cards that we can't just make somewhere else, I'm more excited about those going here. Because one of my jobs as head designer is, design is a resource. There are so many designs. Now, it's not that there aren't, I mean, at some level there's an infinite number of designs, but there's a complexity level.

That at some point, you fill up all the simple designs, you're making more complex designs. And we want as much as we can simple designs. Not to say we don't do complex designs, but I mean, the whole set can't be complex designs. You have to be careful how many complex designs you have. Now, the way to keep it simple, number one is reprints. And that's why we bring cards back, why we bring mechanics back. On some level, revising world allows a little bit of it's okay now to do things you've seen before. So part of it is making sure that we can repeat some things, but in context it makes it feel different. And by having focus, by putting in certain places, we can do some simple effects that matter here and not anywhere else.

So like I said, I always want to maximize making cards that can't exist somewhere else. And RuneGhost is a perfect example. This card just can't go in most sets. It doesn't do anything. But in this set, it actually does quite a bit. And so it's pretty cool. And so the lesson of RuneGhost is you really want to prioritize making sure that if you want to make magic last forever, we need to really be careful in looking for new mechanics and

making sure that when we go to new places, one of the values of going to new places is maximizing what new design space we can find. And that's why we, for example, one of the things I always want to do when I start out on a design is I want to have a goal that is different than any other goal I've had. You know, as a lead designer, if I go, oh, this is the exact same goal I had once before, I get a little nervous. Because even when we revisit a world,

we want to do something different. We want to have a slightly different take on it. And so when we went back to Mirrodin, well, Mirrodin was being invaded by outsiders, by the Phyrexians. That was very different. We'd never done that before. When we went back to Return to Ravnica, we changed up the block structure. We made it, and we made how they interacted different. And that, if each time you're going,

okay, I'm doing something a little different, I have a little different goal, that vantage point, that goal will push you in a different direction. It's one of the reasons, for example, both Innistrad and Pharos, it was interesting to go do top-down and say, okay, I'm prioritizing making horror work. I'm prioritizing making Greek mythology work. It just made me make choices that I didn't make before. And that allows me to explore and find cards and areas of design that I hadn't found before. Okay.

Next, Seer's Sundial. It's an artifact for four, and whenever it's landfall, whenever a land comes into play, you may pay two to draw a card. So this hints at some place that... I do believe that landfall will once again return. It was very popular.

It was the number one mechanic of Zendikar, and Zendikar was a very popular block. So the most popular mechanic of a very popular. It was the number one mechanic of Zendikar. And Zendikar was a very popular block. So the most popular mechanic of a very popular block has good chances. This is us doing something different that we didn't do a lot of in this block, which was landfall requiring mana

costs. So what happened was, I'm sure that when we first made this card, it just was straight up landfall. Play a land, draw a card. And what we found, and I don't know whether this happened in design or development, it might have happened in design just because drawing cards is dangerous. We realized, oh,

it's just a little too easy to draw a card every time you play a land. And so we added on mana costs, which now says, hey, with landfall, you can do mana costs and there's a different space.

The nice thing about that is the first time through with landfall, with a few exceptions like this card, we had to match our ability to kind of, about how much is a land worth. And that space is narrow. But, by paying mana, you expand the space available to you.

For example, a draw card was worth more than just playing a land. Oh, but land plus some mana, now we have access to a different space of design. So anyway, this card, I mean, it's the kind of thing I look at whenever, for example, we return to a place or whenever we reuse a mechanic. One of the things you always want to do is go look and see how the previous block

or the previous set that used the mechanic used it. So you can understand what we did before. Because part of returning either to a place or to a mechanic is finding some new space. And a lot of that is looking, did we hint at things before that were interesting that we might want to do again?

And Seer Sundial definitely to me says, oh, there's something interesting here. We might want to look into this. Okay, next. Stone Idol. Stone Idol Trap, sorry. Costs five and a red. It's an instant and it's a trap.

Costs one less for each attacking creature. Put a 612 artifact creature token with Trample onto the battlefield. Exile at end of turn. Okay. What is going on? So, for starters, can you identify the inspiration for this card? And the answer is the opening scene, or one of the opening scenes, to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Loft Ark. Which most people just believe is Raiders of the Loft Ark.

They changed the name back to the fact. Anyway, um, so Raiders has a great scene where Indiana Jones is sneaking into a, I don't know, a cave to recover a treasure, and he releases a giant boulder that he runs away from. So this, in design, was called Giant Boulder Trap. And the flavor it was going for is, literally, the trap is a giant boulder. So it got changed a little bit into a giant rolling stone idol, which I don't think... It's one of those things

where you're trying to add a little in-world flavor and it kind of loses a little bit from the original source. I'm not sure a lot of people got this as rolling boulder. But the idea was it makes this giant thing

and if you don't get out of the way, it will trample you. Which is why it has trample, even though it never attacks. That was for flavor. People are like, why would you make a token that goes by end of turn that can only block the trample? That makes no sense. But it was trying to get a sort of evoking thing. And the idea was, you release it, the creatures attack,

and then, oh look, here comes the boulder, and it could smush them. Anyway, that's what it was going for. I mean, it ended up being a fine card. I just think some of the top-down flavor got missed a little bit. Most of you didn't say, oh, I get it. Indiana Jones rolling boulder. Got it. That's what it was.

Okay, next. Stoneforge Mystic. So Stoneforge Mystic costs one and a white. It's a 1-2 core artificer. When it enters the battlefield, you search and get an equipment out of your library. And then for one W tap, put equipment from your hand onto the battlefield. So this card is a Cautionary Tale. So we were in Zendikar.

We knew that the following year we were returning to Mirrodin. Mirrodin was all, well, one of Mirrodin's major themes was it introduced equipment to the world and it had a strong equipment theme. We knew we were going back there. So we made a card that said, oh, this card will play nice with the next block. But here's the problem. We made it too powerful. Maybe people realizing that we had to ban the card is a sign that it was too powerful. And what it did was,

it kind of pinned us in when we got to Mirrodin, which was, when you had a card already in the environment that was kind of broken with artifacts or with equipment, it makes it hard to make equipment, especially if you want to push equipment. And so this card really tied our hands. And so one of the lessons is you've got to be careful

when you put what we call seeder cards, S-E-E-D-E-R as opposed to the wood. The cards that you're seeding into, you do want cards that play nicely with upcoming themes. But what we learned is you've got to be careful how strong those cards are. is you've got to be careful how strong those cards, and you also want to be careful

what they do to the environment in general. And the problem was this was so good, it was getting played during... I mean, now given that it was an equipment theme in Zendikar, the Coralite equipment, there was a little bit of equipment theme. This card...

I think this card was made to play up into that theme, kind of knowing that Mirrodin was following it would play nicely with that. So it ended up just being too good. For those who don't know, this card, along with Jason Mindsculptor, got banned. We do not like to ban cards. Although, let me talk about this real quickly, philosophy. We do not like to ban cards. We are sad whenever we ban cards.

But we also believe if we never banned cards, if, you know, we never had to ban things, that would be a sign that we were playing it too safe and never taking risks. And so kind of what we want is every once in a blue moon we have to ban something. Not too often, just enough that shows that we are trying to push the envelope and that we're not too safe. But this set had two cards that got banned. Anyway, this card proved to be a little good. It was very popular.

It's still very popular. It's played in formats where it's allowed to be played. And this is one of those cards where people really like the art. I mean, not that people don't normally like the art, but something about the female core in this, people really like this art. Something about the card,

it all came together in a beautiful form. Next, Stata Adele Acquisitor. It's one blue blue, legendary creature, merfolk rogue, 2-2. It has island walk, and when it deals combat damage, you can gesture's cap, which means you can go into your

opponent's library and take out an artifact and exile it. And then you are allowed to play the artifact this turn. So she's a thief, basically, the idea. You can tell she's a thief because her creature the idea. You can tell she's a thief because her creature type

is rogue. That's magic speak for thief. Well, thief in other low lives. So we were just trying to make a thief get a character.

The thing we liked a lot, so Jester's Cap was a card in Ice Age which allowed you to go through your opponent's deck and remove cards from it. First time we ever

let you do that. And since then, we've definitely done a lot of fun things. One of the things we enjoy is this thing where we will exile something, either from your own deck or from your opponent's deck, and then you have the ability to play that card. It's a nice way to essentially put it in your hand without actually putting it in your hand. So I exile it, it's kind of like in my hand, I mean, not technically, it can't be discarded, but now I can play it as if it were in your hand. So I exile it. It's kind of like in my hand. I mean, not technically. It can't be discarded. But now I can play it

as if it were in my hand. And the neat thing about this thing is a lot of times we let you play your spells. We have to do something that will give you access to mana. But because you're stealing artifacts and most of the time,

barring a few things like Shards of Lara Black, like Esper, you can cast it. So it's kind of nice that I steal things and then they're colorless, so I'll be able to cast them. And this card was fun. I definitely liked the flavor.

It was a neat, flavorful card. And we definitely, because we were doing Adventure World, we definitely, we were trying to hit all the tropes, the adventure party tropes, and so a thief that steals, it was pretty cool. Next, Treasure Hunt.

One in a U, one in blue. Sorcery. Reveal until you get a non-land. Put all the cards in your hand. So this is a card I made. So the idea on this card was, I like the idea of, you,

because a lot of times when you draw a card, you, when you get a land, I mean, now, in this particular game, getting a land is not a bad thing. But in normal Magic, when you want to draw a card, other than early when you really need the land, later in the game you kind of don't want a land. And so I said, what if you had a card that guaranteed you always drew a non-land? And then, because we were on a set that cared about land, I'm like, oh, here's a neat little dynamic. What if you keep drawing until you get a non-land,

but you get to keep the land? And this set cares about the land. And so this was a neat spell that could go anywhere, but it kind of had extra utility in this set because getting the extra land was kind of cool. And then the neat thing about it also was it guaranteed you got a non-land, and, hey, if it played out correctly, you got extra cards.

And the neat thing about this set is, this is the set where you want to see a land, so what this card does is you kind of want to go land, land, land, land, spell. You know, something with lots of lands and then a spell. And normally in Magic, if you think of a time like, come on deck, I hope you have a whole bunch of lands on top. So anyway, I

kind of like what this played. I thought it was a neat... This was another one of those things where we had made a million draw cards you know and that it just was a slightly different

take on it like I said we were constantly trying to find new design space and whenever you can find something that's pretty much

a basic concept something we haven't done that is a jewel for a designer you are so happy like have we made this I love when I make

a card I go okay we had to have made this we had to have made this and you look so happy. You're like, have we made this? Like, I love when I make a card, I go, okay, we had to have made this. We had to have made this. And you look through your files. You're like, we haven't made this. How have we not made this? How have we not made this? And then you have a smile on your face and you put it in the file. The answer, by the way, sometimes also is we did try to make it,

and for different reasons it got cut. A lot of times cards not making it have nothing to do with the quality of the card. A very, very common thing is you have space issues, and what you find is, oh, well, this card's nice, but it could go anywhere where other cards have to go here until it gets cut. Earlier I talked about how you prioritize stuff that's in the design space that only can be done here. That means sometimes things that are universally interesting

just sometimes lose out on the cut and like, well, it can go anywhere which means I can save it for another set. And eventually, like I said, magic's a hungry monster. You will find space for those things. Although this one, I believe, is the first time I came up with this idea. I don't think I'd come up with it before.

Okay, next. Urge to feed. Black, black instant. Target creature gets minus three, minus three, and then tap any number of vampires to get a plus one, plus one counter. Tap any number of vampires in addition, each vampire you tap gets a plus one, plus one counter. So the idea that's pretty clever

here, I think it's a very cute card, is that you are feeding and that every vampire you let in on your feed gets stronger for Brinkman Bly. And once again, this is another example where we had a vampire theme, you know, I mean, not that the average set is known as a vampire theme,

so this card could go in more than just here, but it was nice in that we had a set where we cared about vampires. And this card very much goes in a vampire deck, because the more vampires you have, the better. And so I talked about last time that Worldwake was really trying to build a mono-black vampire deck, because the more vampires have, the better. And so I talked about last time that Worldwake was really trying to build a mono-black vampire deck.

And we were trying to give you enough variety that it wasn't obvious how you built it. I explained in a different podcast how a lot of times now with Tribal, we'll push to two colors. And we didn't do that here. Vampires were just mono-black because we were trying to play them up as a characteristic race. So we were definitely

trying to give you a little more variety in how to build your deck, so you had different options on how to build your Vampire deck. And this is one of those cards that just, like, it's not a lord, but it definitely is a card that has a tribal component without Neon Light saying it has a tribal component. Sorry, hiccups.

Okay, next. Vapor Snare. So for you, for Enchantment Aura, you get a Control Enchanted Creature, and Upkeep, you get a Bounce of Land you control. So on the surface, there's another fun thing we like to do, where we make a card where we have a drawback on it,

and go, oh, this is a drawback. But in practice, it's not so much a drawback, meaning it's a drawback that you can figure out how to make it not a drawback. And when you make it not a drawback, you know, the card is kind of costed. Well, actually, the card is costed

kind of knowing that you're going to use this as not a drawback. But the neat thing about this card is it makes you feel close. Whenever people take cards and they take what feels like the drawback and dust and positive with it, they feel like they beat the system.

And so it's fun to make those kind of cards so the players have that fun of, oh, I see, it's supposed to be an upkeep cost, but I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I'm bouncing a land each turn. I have landfall, or I have a land with an ETB effect, or whatever.

There's a bunch of ways why bouncing your land makes a lot of value in Zendikar block. And like I said, it's always fun to... I mean, one of the things that you try to do when designing cards is you want to think about the emotional impact and the emotional feel. And so one of the things here is we like Magic players having the ability to feel clever about things. And even if, look, we put this in understanding that this can be used positively, but that doesn't

make it any less than when someone finds the right way to do it, it still feels good. Now, there are some players, so the way I call it, Uber Johnnies, where you want to give them a card that you have no idea what to do with, and they have to solve how to do it. That's fine, we make those cards. But most players, if they can find a way to use a card that they came up with,

that's their idea, even if clearly the designers had some intent of what you do with it, they still found the interaction that they wanted to find. It still makes them happy. Sometimes a designer can out-clever yourself, where you make something so clever that everybody but the most die hard uber johnnies

don't see what's going on and that sometimes you just want to make cards where it's pretty obvious what you want to do and this is a set that's all about land hey

launching a land probably there's a way to find some way to make it useful and that you leave that to the audience to do but they have fun even though it's kind of

on the surface what you're supposed to do with it that is fine people still get great joy and excitement you leave that to the audience to do, but they have fun. Even though it's kind of on the surface what you're supposed to do with it, that is fine. People still get great joy and excitement out of that. Okay, next, Walking Atlas. So this was an artifact creature that's a 1-1 construct, and tap, you put a land from your hand on the battlefield. So this card is probably most famous for being something super rare in Magic, which is a mistake. So our editing team is really, really good. But every once in a blue moon, they make a mistake.

And the reason, by the way, this stuff stands out, like so strongly stands out, is they're so good, and it so rarely happens, that when you actually have a mistake, people are like taken aback. Because it just doesn't happen. really happens that when you actually have a mistake, people are taken aback. Because it just doesn't happen. I mean, the reality is if you look through Magic's history, especially the last ten years, it's very, very rare we have a mistake on

a card. Especially of this magnitude. So this was supposed to be an artifact creature. It is an artifact creature, but it doesn't actually say artifact on it. It just says creature. It's in an artifact frame, but it just says creature. And it is an artifact creature, by the way. It was officially eroded, just to point out what everybody believes to be true,

is that it's an artifact creature. But anyway, this was another way to just get lands in play. You'll notice, by the way, because playing lands are so important, you'll just notice all the different ways. You can flicker a land. You can bounce a land. You can put a land from your hand into play. Just a lot of that is put in the set.

And a lot of it was in Zendikar. Remember me going through Zendikar? A bunch more was in Worldwake. It's just a theme of the set. And we really wanted to make lands different. And one of the ways to make lands different was care that you were playing lands. That is something that...

I mean, you care that they give you mana, but normally beyond caring about the mana itself, you don't care that much about the land. And so, we're just trying, I mean, one of the things that is important is we want to make sure that whatever the fun is,

Sid Meier, the guy who made I think Civilization and other games, he had a saying, which is find the fun, which is an awesome saying. A great game designer maxim. And the one thing you want to do when you're designing a set is understand

what is the fun in this set. Now, there's the fun in magic, and we make sure to do the things that are fun in magic. Every set should do that. But also, in this set, where's the fun in this set? And one of the great moments in Zendikar, and it falls into World's Wake, is

the players have a relationship with land. What I call a love-hate relationship, which is, they so desperately need the land, but sometimes they are not happy to see the land. And that land is this neat thing where sometimes it's the most important thing. You want it so badly

and you're like, please, please, land, land, land. Other times, you don't want it at all and you're like, please, anything but land. Anything but a land. And so what happens is, late game, there's just this feeling that you have in default magic where you see a land and you're unhappy.

You're like, oh, I didn't want a land. And what Landfall and Zendikar in general, the land matters thing, is it just takes that and puts it on its ear. It says, you know what? Sometimes late in the game, you want the land, you know? And that's not normally the case.

And so what's neat is when you experience something and it counter to what you normally know, there's a neat feeling to that. Like, I know the first time I was playing Zendikar Playtest and I was like, come on land, come on land, come on land. And, like, it was a late game. Like, I'm trying to win the game by drawing a land.

I'm like, wow, I've never experienced that. I've never been so excited to see a land. That was a neat experience. That was really cool. And I think one of the reasons in the end that the land matters worked. Because remember, remember, when I first pitched this,

it was not, I mean, Mike Turner, I believe, was the one exception. Everybody else was like, what else you got? People were like, that doesn't sound like fun. And what I realized is, an audience, the players, have a relationship with land. That if we could figure out how to make use of that

and make the land matter in ways that it normally doesn't, that therein lied awesomeness. And I think the reasons that Zendikar really did manage to hit, I mean, there's a bunch of things. I think Adventure World was great. I think that the creative was awesome. I think the mechanics were fun. But one of the things that I think, like, in the emotional part is

it just made you look at land in a different way that was exciting and fun. We found the fun. And anyway, I think that's a lot of what made it work. Okay. One final card. I'm almost to work. Rexiel, the Risen Deep.

So he got three blue, blue, black. He's a legendary creature. He's a 5'8 Kraken. He has Island Walk and Swamp Walk. And when he does combat damage, you can cast an instant or a sorcery from your opponent's graveyard for free. Then you exile it.

And then that player exiles it. So basically the idea here is we wanted to make I'm not sure where it started from. I don't know whether I don't know whether we made this card and then it was made into a legendary creature or whether they wanted to have a legendary kraken.

I think they were trying to make Adventure World and they liked the idea. I think when we did Zendikar we had always wanted to do Greek mythology, and we knew at some point we'd get there. And I think where this card came from was the idea of we were looking for heroic things, and the idea of slaying the Kraken,

you know, release the Kraken, was something that just felt like a fun moment. And so I think they stuck a legendary Kraken for a hero to kill. I think that's where it came from. I'm making a hypothesis here, but that's my best guess. Anyway, so the card is a gold card. So it did a few cutesy things.

So like the island walk and swamp walk are just like, oh, I'm blue and I'm black. Thus, I'm at home in the water. I'm at home in the swamp. And then it did this neat thing where basically the idea is so the graveyard represents different things. I mean, the library is a little cleaner. These are the spells that I hold within my head and I know in my hand is my conscious memory, what I'm thinking about right now.

So the grave is a little bit weird in that some of the time it represents dead things, little creatures are in the graveyard, it's called the graveyard, but spells are more like, well, I've lost the memory of that spell. Like, I've cast it, but why can't I cast it again? Oh, well, I, you know,

I've used up the memory of that spell, that it can't be accessed right now. And so the idea is, I like to think, is that this thing is going into the recesses of the mind of, you know, the victim, and it's pulling out sort of repressed things, and it has a way, this Kraken, to some magical means, has a way of sort of taking the little spark of what that is and casting things. Anyway, that's my own, I guess we didn't need to go that deep.

That was my own little interpretation of what was going on here. The thing that's kind of cool about the card is casting stuff out of my opponent's graveyard is cool. I mean, we've done it a little bit before. It's just,

one of the things we were trying to do, I think, is just come up with, to give a flavor, to make the Kraken feel a little different. And the idea of a Kraken

that kind of chews on the memories of its victims, I don't know, it was interesting. I thought it was kind of chews on the memories of its victims, I don't know, it was interesting. I thought it was kind of cool and a little different. You'll notice, by the way, it's interesting that it has more blue than black in it. Although if you ask me what ability the place that I already pointed out in the graveyard is, I would say that's more black than blue.

So I am not sure why it's double blue, one black. Because the island walk is blue, the swamp walk is black, and then the ability is really more black than it's blue. I guess maybe they were designing it, they were thinking of stealing spells as a blue thing. But if you're going to steal more of a graveyard,

that's more of a black thing. Black's the one that's going to do that more than blue. Although, to be fair, blue and black are both done it's probably um space they both get to play around and anyway i'm not sure why it's more blue than black that is a fine question so anyway i am moments from work so i just want to do a wrap up um world's wake was a lot of fun um like i said it was whenever we do a design which i'm working with a designer for the first time, the first lead, it is something in which they are always way more nervous than I am. Mostly because I don't let someone lead something until I think they're capable of doing it.

So I tend to have more confidence than they do, usually. Because the first time you do a set, it is nerve-wracking. I mean, I remember the first time Tempest was my first set. And I was trying to prove something. And I think every lead designer, for the first time I, and Tempest was my first set, and I was trying to prove something. And I think every lead designer, for the first time, is definitely trying to prove something. You know, when you become a designer, that one of the big brass rings is getting to lead your own set. And so the first time you ever get to do it, you're nervous. You're like, I want to prove this.

I want to prove that they weren't wrong to give me the honor to do this. And so you spend a lot of time, you know, it's funny now that I'm on my, I don't know, 20-something design, that I'm always thinking about magic, and I definitely percolate, it's the way I work, but I know that when you first do your first design, you are just going over the file again and again and again, just looking at every nook and cranny,

do they maximize this, do they maximize that, and there's just sort of a, I don't know, You always remember your first. It's a set in which you're just trying to make everything so perfect. And if you can do that, it definitely makes things... You want your first set to shine. And I think Ken did.

I think Ken made a set that did shine the first time out. So, hats off to Ken. And I think Worldwake ended up being a pretty fun set. At its time, by the way... Oh, wow. I'm looking at my time. I have a little extra commute today. The one thing I will point out about the set was, when it first came out, people didn't quite

realize the power level of the set. And it ended up, because the Rise of Odrazi was played by itself, so you only drafted this for one set, one pack of one set, this didn't get bought as much as a lot of other things. And so it's definitely a set that kind of got a little under-discovered, I believe. It took much, much later for people to realize some of the powerhouses.

And like I said, there were two banned cards in the set, so it had some powerhouses in it. But anyway, so I bid adieu to Worldwake. You were a fun set. So next time, not my immediate next podcast, but the next time I do a design podcast, I will be coming to Rise of the Odrazi, so I will finish up the Sender Card block. So anyway, thank you very much for listening in today.

As you know, I love talking about magic, but even more, I like making magic. So it's time for me to go. Thanks for joining me today, guys.