Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #137 - Rise of the Eldrazi, Part 3

Episode Date: July 3, 2014

Mark continues with part 3 of his five-part series on the design of Rise of the Eldrazi.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, the last two podcasts I've been talking about Rise of the Eldrazi. And as I've only gotten up to E, I'm not yet done. So let's jump right in because we have plenty to talk about. Okay, so next up is Eldrazi Conscription. Next up is Eldrazi Conscription. So it's an enchant creature that costs eight. The enchanted creature gets plus ten, plus ten, trample, and annihilator two. Okay, so one of the things we tried to do with the Eldrazi was,

for the first time, we were doing colorless. Now, obviously, there's artifacts and there's land, but this is the first time we were doing colorless spells. And so one of the things you want to do when you're doing something for the first time is hit all the bases. So we made sure to have an instant to have a sorcery. And we wanted to make sure to have at least one aura. So this is our aura. And it is... Brian and his team wanted to go big!

So it's not just any aura. It's an Eldrazi aura! Blum, blum, blum. Plus ten, plus ten. Trple and annihilator two. It costs eight, but this is the kind of thing that you can actually end the game with, if you can manage to get it on your creature and attack with it. So, yeah, like I said, this is just... I know that Brian was trying hard to make sure that the Eldrazi was big,

and you had a sense of it just being big, and that was very important to him. Okay, next, Eldrazi Temple. So this was a land that tapped to add one, or you could tap to add two, but only for Eldrazi spells and abilities. So one of the things we had done for this set was we made use of the tribal keyword. For those that are unaware, the tribal keyword is something they introduced in Lorwyn,

and it allowed us to put creature types onto non-creature cards. And the reason it's a card type, everyone gets confused. It seems like it's a super type, but for the rule purposes, I guess it needs to be a card type. But it needs to be there, that In order to put a creature subtype onto a non-creature spell, you need tribal there. R&D considers tribal to be kind of a failed experiment.

It caused a bunch of problems. The biggest problem with tribal was that you kind of had to be consistent. As soon as you say this goblin-related thing is a tribe, how do you not say... as you say this goblin related thing is a tribe how do you not say you know um like once you say this is goblin themed okay it's tribal goblin well why aren't you consistently doing that why is you know one goblin card a tribal goblin and another goblin card not

and what we realized was we kind of had to either do it or not do it because it was bad to say, well, this goblin-themed enchantment is a goblin, but this other goblin-themed enchantment is not a goblin. And it caused lots of problems. And so we're like, well, either we're all in or we're all out. So we considered going all in. And the problem was what we realized was we're adding a lot of words for cards that wouldn't matter the vast majority of the time. Most tribal things that care tend to care about creatures. And so there's a limited number of things that actually apply to non-creatures. You know, most of our tribal

effects are creature based. So in the end, we decided it wasn't worth it. I mean, obviously, we did hear this was our last kind of flourish using the tribal type. But it's... Anyway. The one thing about the tribal type is that this is one of the few examples of a card where it did help. This allowed you to have spells other than your creatures be able to play the mana for them. So, anyway. Not, like I said, this is a card where

it's one of the few examples where it made a lot of sense, but unfortunately there weren't enough cards like Eldrazi Temple Land. Next, Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn. Okay. He costs 15 mana, and he is a

15-15 legendary creature Eldrazi. He is one of the three titans. So for those that are unaware in the story, there are three... The Eldrazi basically are three titans, and then they make a lot of spawn. They have drones and things that are all extensions of them. But there's three main titans, and they're the big bad guys. And they all show up in the set as giant color creatures.

And of all of them, the biggest, the baddest, is Emrakul at 1515. And he costs 15 mana. So he is big and bad. So he has a couple abilities. First of all, all the titans have a when you cast me ability.

His is time walk. You get an extra turn when you cast him. He also has a can't be countered. One of the reasons we did the cast triggers in general and why the can't be countered is on the biggest one was we were really afraid of counter spells just, like, you finally get there. You build it up.

You have all your spawn. Okay, finally, my giant thing. And it goes counter, you know. And so we decided on the big one, we'd make Campy counter, and then the other two, on all three of them, there is a cast trigger, which says that no matter what, even if you get countered, you still get the cast thing. It's not

ETB. It's not enter the battlefield. It's when you cast it, you get the ability. So, in addition, Emrakul has flying, protection from colored spells, Annihilator VI. And then he has the ability that all the Titans have. If he ever gets to your graveyard from anywhere, anyhow, he gets shuffled into your library. And it's funny, that card, that's caused a little bit of frustration with people who like to mill.

Because if you have a single one of these in your deck, it's very, very hard to mill somebody out, because whenever it gets into the graveyard, it goes back, and so I know there's people that got frustrated. So one of the things we do when we have giant creatures is we have to be careful that when we make giant things that we don't enable some crazy, like I reanimate it, and then, you know, I'm not paying the full amount, because we have reanimation spells. And so we have to be extra careful that really really big things are not easily put in the graveyard. And so we do different things. The shuffle in was

the take for the Eldrazi. So also his abilities, obviously he's flying, he's big. And he Annihilator 6, which is the biggest Annihilator. The other ability is protection from colored spells. So one of the things we played up is part of their ancientness is that they predate

color, and so they are colorless. Some of their drones and things are colored, but they themselves, and most of the major, the large ones, are all colorless. And so there definitely is a little bit of a flavor of dislike of colored things, that it's not the old way.

You know, so he's hard to affect. And the idea, by the way, for 15 mana, if you spend 15 mana and get out your 15-15, they can't counter it, they can't easily tear it. You know, it should be a problem. Because you spend 15 mana. When you spend 15 mana, you can have something that is not an easy problem to deal with.

Okay, next. Emerald Cool's Hatcher. 4R for 3-3. And it's a 3-3 Eldrazi drone. And when it enters the battlefield, you make 3 spawn. This was a very popular card. Like I said, one of the things you'll notice is the spawn took on a life of their own in that

they had so much interesting interaction. I want to stress again, like, from last time, I talked about how the original were mana crystals, or two times ago, they were mana crystals, and by necessity they ended up getting changed to 0-1 creatures that could sac for mana. And it's funny how much better than being creatures was. How much just, the number of different ways

you get to interact with the spawn. It's just, it's almost mind-boggling how cool the spawn were and the amount of different ways you can use them. And this is a good example of a card where... In Alpha, there's a card called Hill Giant. Three and a red for three, three. Vanilla. And the Hill Giant is definitely one of those creatures

that we keep coming back to where we are allowed to make slightly better than the Hill Giant. And this is a good example of slightly better than the Hill Giant. Well, it's not technically better. It's four R, not three R. But you do get 3 mana. So for your extra mana, you get 3 permanent mana you can trade in.

Or 3 mana to spend later. Okay, next. Forked Bolt. It's a sorcery for R, and you get to deal 2 damage divided any way you want. So some people might recognize this spell. You might know it as Fire from Fire and ice, the split card from Apocalypse.

So there's been a big discussion about whether or not we could take a card from a split card and just print that card. Could this card just have been fire? And there was a lot of discussion about that. We haven't officially gotten to a decision, although the fact that we did not make this card fire says to me that we're leaning toward not doing that, although technically I think it might be possible. That really hasn't

been ever figured out. But anyway, the reason this was a good spell was that we were trying hard to give a lot of answers to cheap, small things so you could build up to a later game. And so there are a lot of answers to cheap, small things so you could build up to a later game. And so there are a lot of answers to small, early problems. In addition, like I said, there are a bunch of things that start small and get bigger,

and this is also an answer to those things. One of the things, for example, about level-up creatures is sometimes if you got them a little later, you would wait such that you could play them and upgrade them in the same turn. Notice that Fork Bolt is a sorcery, meaning that it... Well, actually, was Fire a sorcery? Fire might not have been a sorcery. Maybe this technically couldn't be Fire.

I think Fire was an instant. I'm pretty sure Ice was an instant. Yeah, okay, so this is not technically fire. But the reason this was a sorcery that's important is we wanted you to have the ability to be able to upgrade stuff without them responding to it. So if you wait later in the game, you could play your level up creature and level it up before they had the ability to get rid of it. And there's a little bit of instant kill, but not tons.

Next, Geladniss Genesis. XXG sorcery. Put XXX green ooze tokens on the battlefield. So those longtime listeners, readers, you know I'm a big fan of Oozes. I'm a big fan. I love Oozes. In fact, I believe it's my master plan to make the most awesome Ooze deck over the course of my career by constantly making really cool, weird Johnny Ooze cards. This is one of them.

And so this is using X to the... a lot of X's on this card. So it's XXG, which means that for every, you spend one green mana, and for every two you spend, you get to upgrade how many creatures you get and how big they are. So for example, if I spend three mana, so a one, a one, and a green, I would get one, one, one. For four G, I get two, two, twos. For six G, I get three, three, threes.

For eight G, I get four, four, fours. So, when you think about this, it grows exponentially. It's not the correct word, but it grows. It jumps up. Actually, is it exponentially? See, I'm not the math guy. But it does go greatly. For each two mana, you are getting one more creature,

and your creatures are all getting bigger. And so as you spend more mana, it starts getting more and more potent. And it plays really, really nicely. Like, this is the kind of card that you could play in a green deck using Spawn, in which maybe the answer is not necessarily, or maybe you're trying to get out Emrakul or one of the big Eldrazi, but this spell also,

hey, you know what, if I have, for example, if I have 15 mana, let's say I don't draw Emrakul, but I draw this, but I have my 15 mana, for 15 mana, you can make seven 7-7s. Now, not a 15-15 flyer, can't be countered, time walk,

production from color, you know, Annihilator 6, but 7-7-7s would do a lot of damage, so. Okay, next, Gideon Jura. So this is, I think, the introduction of Gideon, one of our regular planeswalkers. Gideon is 3 WW loyalty 6

and he has 3 abilities, as most planeswalkers. So for plus 2, creatures can't attack Gideon on his next turn. For minus 2, you destroy a target tapped creature. And for 0, Gideon becomes a 6-6 human soldier and you prevent all damage.

Okay, so let's walk through these one at a time. So the first ability, his plus ability, so the important thing about a plus ability is it's really helpful if the plus ability can in some way protect the planeswalker so that you can build up to try to get toward the ultimate. Now, Gideon is interesting in that Gideon does not have a normal ultimate. He only has, in fact, his ultimate is a zero, right? His ultimate you can do any time. So he's not a, in fact, I think both planeswalkers in the set are not your normal, both are quirky.

And not only is he quirky in that he doesn't have an ultimate, his zero is very quirky, that he turns into a creature. So we'll get there in a second. So first ability is a plus ability, protect you. That's a very good thing to have as a plus ability. Second is that he gets to destroy tap things. Is this something that White does from time to time? It's not something I'm a huge fan of White doing, but

here the idea essentially is that he can stop you from attacking. He can punish you if you have attacks, I mean you're not vigilant. And then, the big ability, the ability that really has come to define him, and you see this on other Gideon planeswalkers, is

that he comes to life. That he, well, I mean, he gets in the battle. He fights. That he is somebody who really gets in there and, you know, one of his schticks as a planeswalker is he's also a soldier,

that he doesn't just stand back and throw spells. He gets in and fights. He's a fighter. That's one of his identities as a planeswalker. In fact, that's his core identity as far as one of the things we try to do is we have a file where we're tracking the planeswalkers and say, oh, well, what do the planeswalkers do? What flavor-wise do they do? What mechanically do they do?

And so Gideon has definitely become the guy who gets in the fight, that he's the planeswalker that doesn't sit back. And so, you know, it's sort of fun that he gets in, he can fight, which allows you to do some stuff you don't normally get to do with a planeswalker, which is sort of cool, and it gives him a strong identity. I definitely like Gideon. Okay, Gigantomancer. 7G, 1-1 Human Shaman. 1 colon, target creature you control becomes a 7-7 until end of turn. So, one of the things we were trying to do is, this set has a lot

of giant monsters. A lot of them you cast directly, but this one makes giant monsters. And, once again, it also plays well with spawn. It can turn your 0-1 spawn into a 7-7, or actually turn any creature into a 7-7. This creature's a lot of fun. This is definitely...

I mean, not that John Deers or Spike can't have some appreciation, but this is a Timmy card. Because you know what's awesome? Making your creature into a 7-7. You know what's more awesome? Making all your creatures into 7-7s. It's pretty cool. So this is a fun card.

It's definitely one of those kind of cards. So sometimes when we're making rare cards, we just make an overtop card and then go, okay, can we do this? And then I always have... This is one of the cards we made... I mean, not as a joke. We meant it. But it's sort of go, okay, can we do this? This is one of the cards we made, I mean, not as a joke, we meant it, but it's sort of like, okay, can we do this?

And then we talk to the development and they're like, okay, how about a 7-7? Because we're like, oh, does that have to be a 5-5? Sometimes we always go to development because we're not sure. We design sometimes a little hesitant going, okay, how, and development's like, oh, it could be like a 7-7. How know, how much does it cost? Eight mana?

Yeah, it can make 7.7. So. Okay, next, Glory Seeker 1W Human Soldier 2.2. I bring Glory Seeker up because we do this all the time. This is, I mean, Alpha had Grizzly Bear and had, well, Pearl Unicorn was 2W. But eventually we said, okay, white and green can just have 1C22. In fact, black now gets 1C22 as well from time to time. And so basically, it's just, it's a vanilla creature.

You know, we like having vanilla creatures. And in most sets, if you're playing white, eh, you could throw it in your deck. You know, it's not your first pick. It's not an early pick, But it usually can get in there. White's pretty aggressive. It wants cheap drops. You know, it's a two power, two drops.

It's nothing special, but it's playable. And in this environment, it is not playable. It is actually a bad card in this environment. And that's one of the things I talk about, how it really made a schism in the audience. If you are a not real experienced player, you've kind of learned over the years that, you know what? You can play this card.

Two mana, you know, 1w22, good enough. Especially on a white deck that tends to be small and aggressive. Like, okay, I mean, it's fair. And you got in this environment and it wasn't fair. It was bad. It was bad. And a lot of people would play these kind of cards, and we ended up calling them traps. And one of the things Rise of the Dragon Mid is very careful about is...

And when I say trap, I don't mean the Zendikar version of trap. What I mean is we have to be careful to make something that the less experienced player thinks is fine and then ends up, because it's bad, that they end up doing poorly because they're just playing the wrong card. And a little of that's okay. I'm not saying inexperienced players shouldn't ever play the wrong cards. They can, and they should, and they do. But we have to be careful not to lead them down this path where they think they're doing the right thing. In fact, they're doing the absolute wrong thing. And Rise of Dryzee had a lot of traps.

There are a lot of things... Now, this is not... The more perfect example of a trap, this is not exactly perfect, is a card that seems on its surface to a beginning player really good, and it's not. This card was just the kind of card that they had learned over the time that they should play in this environment.

It usually wasn't that good. Okay, we get to Goblin Tunneler. One of the MVPs for my mind in the limited in the set. So, one of the ideas of the Goblin Tunneler was that there's some strategies of making big guys. But,

you know, one of the problems is it's very easy in this environment to build part of making Battlecruiser magic was allowing people to solidify the ground. And so it's very easy in this environment to build... Part of making Battlecruiser magic was allowing people to solidify the ground. And so it was very, very easy to get in a stalemate where they got a lot of things in the ground and you're like, oh, I can't attack. And so Goblin Tunneler,

which, by the way, is just Dwarven Warrior, for those that don't know. Oh, it might be one cheaper. I think Dwarven Warrior was 2R, so yeah. So in Alpha, there's a card called Dwarven Warrior. The flavor was he's a dwarf, dwarves love to tunnel. He think Dwarven Warrior was two hours. So yeah. So in Alpha, there was a card called Dwarven Warrior. The flavor was, he's a dwarf, dwarves love to tunnel.

He will tunnel, he'll make tunnels for you, but only your small creatures can fit through the tunnels. And we decided to, it was one too expensive, we decided to bring it back. We're like, well,

let's just make it a goblin. We have an odd history with dwarves over the years. Hopefully that will turn around soon. But the goblins became sort of our go-to red creatures, and dwarves we just used less. And so like, oh, making this a goblin, it's just there's more goblin interactions.

And not in this set particularly, but overall in Magic. There's just more people playing goblin tribal. And so anyway, we decided to make it a goblin. Plus, I'm not even sure there were dwarves in this world. And then we made it one cheaper, because we realized it could be one cheaper. Didn't it be two R? It could be one R.

And this card allows you to get through with stuff. And there's a bunch of... I'll talk about some other cards today it combos with, but there are a bunch of cards that combo. There are a bunch of... I talked about last time a few cards where you could get this, make it on black blood, then make it bigger.

Anyway, Goblin Thunder was part of the deck that I looked for. I talked about that last time. Next, Hand of Emrakul it's a 9 9 mana 7-7 Eldrazi and you can sac 4 spawn to play it

and he had Annihilator 1 so instead of spending 9 mana you could sac 4 spawn. So, it allowed you... This is definitely one of those cards that said, oh, I have enough spawn, oh, this is going in. Because it allowed you to get out a 7-7 for... essentially for 4 mana.

Because you would normally sac a spawn for 1. So, this allowed you to save a lot of mana to get this out. And so, this definitely was one of the... I mean, you didn't necessarily need to play spawn to play Eldrazi, but this was a particular one that said, okay, well, if you're playing spawn, if you're dedicated to the spawn strategy, here's an Eldrazi perfectly suited for

you. And this card was a lot of fun. I like hand of emerald gold. Next, Heat Ray. XR instant. Deal X to target creature. Ah, Heat rave. So one of the things is we have a customer service now called Game Support, and they get questions on the phone.

And so one of the things that we learn about what causes confusion is we ask them, well, when people are confused, what do they call in about? Well, one of the things that causes the most confusion is X spells. In fact, if you remember from Unglued, I made a card called the Ultimate Nightmare of Wizard Coast Customer Service. If you notice, that card was XYZR. Because the joke was X spells was causing the most calls. So I'm like, well, let me add a few more variables. That's why it was the Ultimate Nightmare of Wizard Coast Customer Service.

So I like X-Files. I believe X-Files have their time and their place. As far as I'm concerned, that place isn't common because it causes lots of confusion. There are a lot of fights about this card, because this card is the common card. It was the perfect, perfect fit for this set.

We were trying to have Burn, but not punish the giant Eldrazi, and this is the kind of card where it's like, to have Burn, but not punish the Giant Eldrazi. And this is the kind of card where it's like, well, in order to deal with the Giant Eldrazi, I need to have a lot of mana myself. And so, He-Ray did a good job of dealing with small things easily. And late game allowing you to deal with big things, but giving you time to let them build

it up. So anyway, sorry, anyway, it fit perfectly. I was outvoted. If you ever see an Expell comment, though, you'll perfectly. I was outvoted. If you ever see an XFELT common, though, you'll know that I got outvoted because I really, really do not like XFELT common. I like them uncommon. I'm even willing to have the occasional XX felt at rare.

I just talked about one. But variables confuse people. It literally is one of the number one things that confuse people. It literally is one of the number one things that confuse people. I like them, especially with New World Order. I would like them not in common. Okay, next. Hedron Matrix.

It's an artifact equipment for four. Equipped creature gets plus X plus X for X. It's a Scrimmage mana cost and equipped at four. This is more, I mean, once again, you'll see a lot of this team walking through the set. Sorry, I had hiccups. I'm going to drink some water to try to get rid of these hiccups because you don't have to hear me hiccup for the whole car ride.

Okay. Let's hope I got rid of my hiccups. We'll see. So this is another spell that definitely played into the idea of I want to scale based on size. And so this card is okay on a smaller thing. It can make a 2-2, plus 2, plus 2. It can make a 4-4, plus 4, plus 4.

Oh, but it makes a 15, plus 15, plus 15. Okay, I don't know if Emrakul needs to be 30-30, but there's the dream. And we were just trying to definitely... We were trying to make things that would allow you to sort of thematically build up your things. And not just build up Eldrazi, but you can build up your allies

as well. Hell Carver Demon. Three, black, black, black, six, six, demon. I've talked like a demon. Flying. And when you deal combat damage, you have to sac all your permanents and discard your hand and then exile the top six cards of your library

and you can play them for free. Hell Carver Demon is quite the card. For starters, it matches our little ongoing 666 Demon theme. It has a 6 mana cost. Mana cost is a converted mana cost of 6. It's a 6-6 Demon. It reveals 6 cards up top of your library. It's the sign of the beast, 666.

So we love having sixes in our demons. So it has a lot of black. So this is a dangerous card in that it is high risk, high reward. Because all sorts of things can happen. You know, crazy powerful things can happen, but I can get hosed too. Because I lose everything. I play it, and then when I attack, I'm losing everything. I'm getting new things,

but I don't know what my new things are. But it's definitely the kind of card that once you commit, you commit. And it's like, okay, what's going to happen now? And it is a fun card. One of the things I talk a lot about is how variance creates fun. And a lot of people, when you

talk about any kind of variance, people get, especially if you're a more serious gameplayer, you And a lot of people, when you talk about any kind of variance, people get, especially if you're a more serious gameplayer, you get a little word like, no, no, no, I like having control. I don't want things out of my control. But there is just an excitement of not knowing what's going to happen. Like, this is one of those cards that makes stories. Like, one of the things I love is we love making cards where you're like, I have to tell you about what just happened to me

and in order for it to be a story in order for it to be something interesting well, for starters you don't always need variants but variants really helps because when you play this card, who knows what's going to happen all sorts of crazy things could happen and you don't know when you play it

and I definitely, it's the kind of card where it's good enough that even in high level tournaments there are people playing this card where it's good enough that even in, you know, high-level tournaments, there are people playing this card because it is a 6-6 flying creature. Like, if nothing else, I just get to hit you in the air for 6 every turn. And all sorts of crazy things can happen. So, um, you know, it's risky because it can turn out badly for you, but there's a lot of upside and a lot of cool things that can happen.

So, I'm a big fan of the Hell card of Redeeming. Hellion Eruption. Sorcery for five red. Sacrifice all your creatures and make that many four four Hellions. This is another card

that you upgrade. I mean, once again, another spawn card. You'll notice we have lots of cards playing nicely with spawn. Spawn really, in some way, was the heart of the set.

There's just so much stuff that interacted with them. And this card was just fun to just sort of upgrade everything to a 4-4. Obviously, you don't play this in a deck where you have giant things. You play this in a deck where you get out your little things and can upgrade them. And it was fun. This was definitely a fun card.

It was fun to sort of get out some things. Like I said, there's a bunch of different decks which can build in different ways. And this was a deck that went in something that was doing some smaller stuff, but had a means to help you explode. Induce Despair to be instant. You get an additional cost by this card. Or not an additional cost, but when you play this card,

reveal a creature card from your hand. Target creature gets minus X, minus X, where X is the converted amount of cost of the revealed card. So one of the problems we had is we gave you some giant cards. Well, these giant cards are hard to get out. And so one of the things that I know Brian and his team tried to do was make some utility of having giant cards in your hand, even if you never get the giant card out.

Just so that, oh, look, I have Emrakul. I drew Emrakul. What if I never get to 15 mana? Well, for B, I get to give Granger minus 15, minus 15. So this is one of those cards that sort of said, okay, there's some functionality beyond just playing them. Inquisition of Koselek. Sorcery for B. Opponent reveals their hand

and you get rid of any non-land that costs three or less. Converted mana costs three or less. Yeah, it's funny. There's a lot of converted mana cost matters in the set because when you're talking about size... Brian, by the way, also made Saviors of Kamigawa. So you might know that Brian likes large, expensive things and likes messing with converted mana cost, which kind of goes hand-in-hand with messing with large, expensive things.

So you want to sort of market things that Brian as a designer really loves. Brian likes to go large. Anyway, this card was another card that was sort of meant to stop early answers but not stop the big answers. It's sort of like, I can take your small thing, but I can't take your Titan. And this card went on to be a pretty good card. Kargan Dragonlord.

RR for Human Warrior. He's a 2-2 with level up R. He levels up 4R. At 4-7th level, he's a flying-2 with level up R. He levels up 4R. At 4 to 7th level, he's a flying 4-4. At A-plus level, he's a flying trample 8-8. So I said something last time. Each time I'm going to correct something. So this is how complex level up is.

Each time I talk about level up, and each time I get something wrong, in the next show I have to say, oh, I got it wrong. So last time I was thinking that whatever you had of a lower thing, you had of a next level up. But the flying that this is, flying the flying trample, reminds me that must not be true, because if you got it, or it's possible that you do get

it, but we thought you'd be confused. I'm trying to remember. I know you only have level up the first one, so maybe you do have it the whole time, but there is confusion about when I go up levels, do I keep the things before? I guess you only have level up the first one, so maybe you do have it the whole time. But there is confusion about when I go up level, do I keep the things before? I guess you must, because you have the level up. But I think the reason we put flying and flying trample was so in case you were not sure whether you got flying, you did. Okay, so this card, the problem with this card is Brian really wanted a level up dragon.

But it makes no sense to have a tiny dragon. So Brian decided what he would do is he'd make a dragon rider and at the beginning he doesn't have his dragon but as he levels up he gets his dragon. And once he gets to level 4 he gets his dragon and at level 8 his dragon grows out.

He gets a bigger dragon. There's a lot of fights over this card. Creative is not real fond of cards that sometimes fly and sometimes don't. And the idea is we wanted to show a big dragon. You're not going to make a dragon card and not show the dragon. But it's a little

weirder than that at the lowest level he doesn't fly. Because normally when we show you things fly, they fly. Well, clearly it's a giant dragon that flies. Oh, but he doesn't dry hair. And then, the other thing that was weird is, well, what's representing here? Like, well, it's the guy, so the guy, I mean, obviously when he gets bigger

you have to be counting the dragon, but the card is not a dragon. Anyway, creatively, Brian really, really, really wanted a level up dragon, and he fought hard for it, and he got it. Which, by the way, one of the lessons of this series of podcasts is, uh, I miss Brian. miss Brian Brian would fight

for things like nobody I've ever seen Brian was a very Brian was passionate and if Brian wanted something he would fight hard

for it and there's a lot of things like the dragon where he managed to get it so Brian wanted to level up dragon

and he fought hard and creatively it has all sorts of issues it is a messy card creatively. I mean, it looks pretty, but does it fly? And, you know, what does it represent? And it is definitely a little on the wonky side.

But, on the plus side, if you like Dragons and you like leveling up, well, you get your level up Dragon. Okay, next, Keening Stone. Okay, if level up Dragon is Brian written all over it,, keening stone I think this so seems like my card I'm pretty sure I made this card so keening stone is an artifact for 6 where 5 and tap you mill X where X is the size of your opponent's graveyard and so the idea is

I mill a few cards well now your graveyard is bigger well now I mill even more cards so essentially what it is it's a millstone that kind of doubles every turn. So I love milling. I love doubling. So I'm pretty sure this is my card.

I mean, if it's not, I apologize. It's the kind of card I've made, and I kind of vaguely... I was on the development team, not the design team, but I believe I made this in a hole, I think. The card is me written all over it, so I'm pretty sure I did this card. So one of the people asked me, by the way, is

like, how do you not know the cards you made? And I'm like, okay, people. I've made thousands, thousands of printed cards. Thousands of printed cards. And I've made probably tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand plus cards that just haven't necessarily

made it to print. And sometimes I'll make a card and it later gets to print, but I didn't make the card. Like, um, Beastiol Menace was the first card where I made Cone of Creatures, and then Kelly Diggs, many years later, makes it. But it wasn't me that made it. Kelly Diggs made it. But I made a card many years earlier that was that card, you know?

And so, uh, it is hard for me to remember. My memory, and by the way, you listen to my podcast, I can't remember the name of Dark Confidant. By the way, last time it was Dark Confidant. That's another one I walk out of the car and I'm like, ah, Dark Confidant! How did I forget Dark Confidant? Somehow I need to try and remember. I'd be bad on a game show. Although, a little trivia,

I was once on a game show, Trivial Pursuit of the Game Show with Martin Dale. Okay, people are going to have to go try to find that on YouTube, which I don't think it is. Okay, next. Colony Hydra. Colony Hydra costs

green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green. That's eight green mana for a 8-8 Hydra. And it costs one green less for every green creature you had. So this is a card that just went a slightly different direction. I mean, it was a giant creature that was made for the set.

It really was made for a casual constructor where you can have a lot of green creatures. But anyway, this card was fun, and who doesn't love an 8-8 for 8 mana, even if they're all green? And I love hydras. So this is one of our early hydras. So we had not yet really adopted Hydra

as being the green iconic. I think this was here just because we came up with something cool. Maybe this was one of the early notches of maybe green could be Hydra. I'm not sure. Hydra originally was in red and eventually, creative realized that Hydra kind of got stuck in the wrong place.

It had been in it was a rock Hydra, and rocks were red, so it got put in red and alpha for a couple of different reasons. But when you're talking about a creature that's all about growing, and green is about wildness and growth, that Hydras were just a perfect fit. So we made that. Okay.

I'm almost to work, but I'm not there yet! Kill and Fiend! 1R, 1,R12 Elemental Beast. When you cast an instant resourcer, it gets plus 3 plus 0 until end of turn. Remember I said there were cards that comboed with Goblin Tunneler? Here's one of those cards. In fact, one of my favorite things to do in that deck

is you get Kill and Fiend out, you get the rebound that gives plus 1 plus 0, and... plus 1 plus 0 and plus one plus O and can't be blocked. And you can use that on this guy. So that makes him a five power creature that can't be blocked. And it goes for two

turns. Or you can put Goblin Thunder on him and then you make him small and then cast some other kind of instant to make him bigger. But there's all sorts of fun ways to do it. This definitely was part of the deck I talked about that really made you sort of sneak things through and do things

a little differently I like this card okay final card for the day is Core Spirit Dancer so 1w02 at the Core Wizard

so you got plus oh plus two plus two for each aura that yeah I almost I'm trying to park my card the card just went right behind me the ooh was about Core Wizard. So you got plus two, plus two for each aura that I almost tried to park my car and the car

just went right behind me. So it was a zero two, got plus two, plus two for each aura on it, and you got to draw a card whenever you cast an aura. So this card was kind of a cross between an Enchantress and a

Rabid Wombat. And definitely the core, normally the core care all about they cared about equipment. But in this set, Brian made them care about auras. Well, they like beating themselves up. This is more aura based than equipment based.

So the Cursed Spirit Dancer was just there to go, okay, go to town, here's some auras and there's totemors, and all sorts of fun stuff. And Deathly was made sort of a build-around-me aura card to do fun stuff with auras. Okay. I stop. Next time, I can see my list. Next time, I'll talk about Kosilek,

Butcher of Truth. But anyway, I'm now at work, and oh, I got a little extra time today. I had some traffic. But anyway, it was fun talking about Raizo Drazi. But as much as I love talking about Raizo Drazi and making magic, I messed up my thing. As much as I like talking about magic even more, I like making magic.

So it's time for me to go. I'll be back next time. I only got up to K. So we got a bit more to talk about. But I hope you're enjoying the Raizo Drazi, and I'll talk to you soon.