Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #156 - Vanguard

Episode Date: September 12, 2014

Mark talks one of the first supplemental Magic products, Vanguard.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. You all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about a design I did, but not of a set. Today I'm going to talk about Vanguard. Okay, some of you out there go, oh Vanguard, I love Vanguard. And others are going, what is Vanguard? I never heard of that. So let me explain what it is, and then I'll talk about the design. So Vanguard was, we had this thing called Arena way back when, which was a play system where you played through the stores.

I mean, we do similar stuff now, it just has a different name. But anyway, we were trying to come up with something that you could sort of add on to Magic, some way to play Magic that was, you know, something we could give out that you would then apply to Magic and have some fun. And we came up with this idea of what we called Vanguard. And what Vanguard were was they represented characters. And the characters, they were cards that granted you an ability, characters, and the characters, they were cards that granted you an ability, and then they gave you a specific starting hand size and specific starting life total. So, instead of starting with

seven card hand total and 20 life, we could shift it. And so, that would allow us to give you abilities, and if the abilities were really strong, maybe you start with less cards or less life. But if the ability was a little weaker, maybe you start with less cards or less life. But if the building was a little weaker, maybe you start with more cards or more life. And the idea was we sort of tried to mix it up. Originally, I think when we first did it,

I don't know if we, the idea was they were characters at first. I think at first they were going to be like, these are just things that affect you, you know,

you the planeswalker who are playing them. But at some point we decided that we wanted, that we wanted to play up characters because we were, oh, here's what it was. We were doing the Weatherlight Saga. You guys remember the Weatherlight Saga? It was Tempest.

And we wanted to play up the characters that we were doing. We said, you know what? This is a good opportunity. We will use this Vanguard as a means to show off characters. And so what we did is, there ended up being eight, not eight, there ended up being four sets of Vanguard cards that were done over two years, and there were eight in each set. So today, I'm going to go over the cards and sort of talk about how they got designed and the thought process behind them. So a little, let me

fill you in a little bit. So what happened was we came up with this idea, and then I got assigned the task of overseeing the making of the Vanguard cards. Partly I think it was because I was also the person that was the liaison to the story, because at the time we were doing the Weatherlight Saga, and Mike Ryan and I had come up with the story, and I was the R&D liaison to the creative team with the story. And since these cards were going to be tied to the story, it was thought that I would be the best person to do it.

And as you'll see, I mean, I really try to make sure that we pick the characters from the story. Okay, so the first set was, in fact, the first three were all from the Weatherlight Saga, and then the fourth set, you'll see, was from the Urza Saga time period, so the characters from, from earlier in Urza, Urza's story. Okay, so let's start with the first eight. Um, okay, first we have Urtai. So Urtai was, um,ai was... Let me give the abilities, then I'll walk through the card.

So it says, your creatures can't beat the target of your opponent's spells or abilities. So essentially, it gave all your creatures hexproof. It wasn't called that at the time. So you're starting... Hand size is minus one.

You're starting life totals plus four. So what that meant is, instead of having a seven-card hand size, you have a six-card hand size. But instead of starting with 20 life, you're starting life totals plus four. So what that meant is, instead of having a seven-card hand size, you have a six-card hand size, but instead of starting with 20 life, you start with 24 life. And then all your creatures had hexproof. So Ertai, for those who remember the story, Ertai was a young wizard.

The Weatherlight crew was going to go rescue Sisay, and they needed a wizard, and so they went to Teleria. So I'll explain today. So Hannah is from Teleria, and Hannah's dad is Baron of Urza Saga fame, and so they go to get help,

and, oh, I think they, actually, the reason they go to Teleria in the story is they need to get some help getting to where they're going, and Baron helps them, but he says get some help getting to where they're going, and Baron helps them, but he says that he wants them to take Ertai along, that he's his apprentice, and he feels like Ertai really could use sort of a mission, a quest, if you will. And Ertai is really, really cocky. He is a young wizard, and he's really full of himself, and he believes that he can do no wrong.

In the original version of the story, by the way, Ertai gets left behind in both versions. In the original version of the story, when they get, the crew gets back to Dominaria, it's many years later, because there's time travel and stuff, and Ertai's an old man.

But anyway, we wanted a young upstart, because we were contrasting with the wise old man that Ertai would become, that no one ever met because that story didn't happen. Anyway, so that was Ertai. Next is Gerard. Gerard was during a draw phase drawing additional cards, so he's

a personal hauling mine. Your starting hand size is minus four. Starting life total is plus zero. So you start with a hand size of three. It's the smallest decreasing hand size, but because It's the smallest, it's the smallest decreasing hand size. But because you draw two a turn, you make up the four cards you don't have. So starting from the fifth turn onward, you have like, you start with less cards, but quickly catch

up and then you get ahead. So Gerard is the main character. He, um, basically the premise in the story was that Gerard was the chosen one, and that there was a great evil and Gerard was supposed to stop it. Uh, and his parents, um, uh, were, because of the omen, they were worried that something was going to happen to him, so they hid him away, um, with a man named Siddhar Kondo, which we'll get to in a little bit. But anyway, Gerard is the reluctant hero of our story.

He was on the Weatherlight and something bad happened and he really didn't want to have anything to do with the Weatherlight. He didn't want to be an adventurer, you know, and he walked away from it. But when the story begins, Sisay gets kidnapped, his mentor, the captain of the ship,

and he kind of gets pulled into this, that he feels an obligation to go rescue Sisay. Next was Karn. So Karn says, each of your non-creature artifacts is also an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to its casting cost. So it animates all your artifacts. And it has a hand size of plus one, and starting life size of plus six. So this is, what was that card?

Titania Song. A card from Legends, I think? So it's a card that turns all your artifacts into creatures, and animates all your non-creature artifacts. Turns out, by the way, the card carn, which came after this, the legendary creature Karn showed up in Urza's Saiga, I think, and because of this Vanguard card, we ended up giving him the same ability, which is kind of funny, because, I don't know, just people

associated with, like, what happened, oh, by the way, here's how the Vanguard cards got their abilities. We actually came up with cool Vanguard abilities that we thought would be good, and those were made before we ever had characters. And then when we got characters, at least this was true for the first set, we mixed and matched them. And we really wanted a Titanium Song,

and we're like, who could that be? And they're like, well, Karn oversaw the weather light. He had infinity for artifacts. Like, okay, I guess it'll be Karn. And then later when we made the card, we're like, well, people really like this and associate it with Karn. So the Vanguard card actually influenced the magic card. So Karn, by the way, for those who don't know the story, Karn is a silver golem. He was originally made by Urza because Urza was experimenting with time travel

and the only object that is unaffected by time travel is silver. So he made a golem out of silver. And then Urza ended up assigning Karn to watch out for Gerard. He housed all the items of the legacy. Urza has this master plan. Gerard was going to use the legacy and save the day, which he did.

And Karn was the overseer of both watching out for Gerard and watching the legacy. Now, it turns out in Karn's past, he accidentally killed somebody and he became a pacifist. Karn has this thing where his memory only goes back, even though he's really, really old, his memory only goes back so far, and so the most recent thing he remembers is accidentally killing somebody.

So, in the Weatherlight story, he's a pacifist and refuses to fight. He's the archetype called the Gentle Giant, where he's the biggest, strongest one they have, but for his own personal reasons, he won't fight. Next is Meraxis. Meraxis is your creatures get plus one, plus oh. Your starting hand size is plus one. Starting life is plus two. So all your creatures get a power boost.

So Meraxis is the bad guy that, in the Weatherlight story, when they're trying to... I'm not sure if the guys remember this. They need to get Stark. Oh, because they're trying to figure out how to get to Tempest to save Sisay, but they don't know how to get there. It's in another plane.

And they get information that Stark knows. And so they have to go find Stark but Stark is at the time being he's raised the ire of a man named Meraxus which is this muscle bound sort of crazy man and Meraxus

is about, I believe is about to kill Stark when they show up and they save him next is Mirri. So Mirri says, eat your basic lands. Basically, you can tap for any color. Starting hand size is plus zero.

Starting life size is plus five. So seven cards, 25 life. Mirri turned out to be really, really good. We actually did an invitational in Rio where one of the things was to bring a... You could use any Vanguard card you wanted. At the time, I think the first two sets were out. And Mirri and Hannah, I think, were the two.

And Sisay. Apparently the female crew members were stronger. But Mirri was very good, because Mirri allows you to play anything you want. It calls us no restriction. And that turned out... Probably we... The thing about vendor cards was it's a matter of balance,

which is you can do anything you want ability-wise. It's just a matter of what does that cost? And the costing of them had to do with starting hand size and life total. And if the cards were a little powerful, it's just like we misjudged them and didn't charge you the right amount for them.

So Mirri, Mirri was Gerard's best friend. So Gerard actually studied magic under Multani, Maro Sorcerer. And Multani had three students. The three students were Gerard, Mirri, and Raphelos. Raphelos was a Llanowar elf. Mirri's a cat warrior, a cat person. So Mirri and Gerard are very, very good friends, and Raffaellos. Raffaellos's death is what caused Gerard and Mirri to leave the Weatherlight.

And when the story starts up, the crew finds Gerard, and Gerard insists that they get Mirri. And so they go to Llanowar and get Mirri. Mirri's living in Llanowar because that's where Rufellus was from. And Mirri and Gerard both felt very guilty for Rufellus' death. And each in their own way were trying to atone for it. And Mirri was doing it by living in Llanowar and helping out the Llanowar people, or Llanowar elves, I guess, specifically. Okay, next is Sisay.

So Sisay is whenever you tap a land for mana... Oh, she's Manaflare. And her hand size is minus two. Her starting life is minus three. She's also pretty good. Manaflare is a pretty good ability. Sisay is the captain of the Weatherlight. She's mentor to Gerard.

And it's her kidnapping at the beginning of the story that makes everything happen, that Gerard is going to rescue Sissay. Next is Squee. So Squee, your opponent plays with their hands face up. You get a plus three starting hand size, minus four life. So Gerard has the smallest starting hand size. You only start with three cards. Squee has one of the weakest abilities, but you start has the smallest starting hand size. You only start with three cards.

Squee has one of the weakest abilities, but you start with a lot of hand size. You start at ten. And remember, not only the starting hand size, it's max hand size. So you don't have to... It's not like Squee starts with ten cards and immediately has to go down to seven.

The whole time, he gets up to ten. Squee was the comic relief. It was the cabin boy aboard the Weatherlight. He really was made to be comical. We ended up naming him after... There was a piece of flavor text I wrote for Visions, which... It's type of like Squee.

Flog and Squee up a tree. And anyway, we liked the name Squee, so we ended up using that. So the final card from the first set was Timegarth. So your creatures all have haste, and you start with a minus one hand size and plus seven life. He was meant for a weenie deck. So Timegarth was kind of the, I don't know,

the muscle aboard the ship. I mean, he was sort of the equivalent of, like, Worf on Star Trek Next Generation. He was kind of the proud warrior, a little bullheaded and a minotaur. But he was definitely, he was a great fighter. And he's the one in the story, when the Predator takes out, you know, kidnaps, they take the legacy and take Karn,

that he jumps on their ship and climbs inside, which is not a particularly well thought out strategy, but he's kind of, he very much, he's very boros, he's very red-white. And he sort of like, he's always trying to do what's right, but he's a little impetuous at times, and very proud. Okay, the next set, the first one was Baron. So Baron was, you may sacrifice a permanent, return any creature to its owner's hand, and you play this ability as an instant. So at any time, you can sacrifice a permanent to bounce a creature.

And he was plus zero hand size, plus six starting life total. Baron was, or is, or was, I guess, Hannah's father. He was Urza's right-hand man and lived in Teleria. And he shows up in the story because when they go to Teleria, he's the one they deal with. Next is Crovax. Crovax is whenever your creature deals damage to

one of your creature's damages, a creature or a player, you gain a life. Kind of a little mini lifelink. Starting hand size plus two, starting life zero. Crovax, I'm trying to remember how Crovax plays in the story. They need information, and Crovax's angel was Selenia, Dark Angel, and she left.

He has some tie to the angel, so he has some means by which to I guess they need him to get through the portal. They need either information from him or somehow he's important. I think once they get Stark, I think maybe Stark makes them go get Krovac because they need Krovac because

his link between Selina is a thing that they can get them through the portal or something. So Krovac starts as a nobleman. But during the Cursed Story, he's been cursed. And he ends up in Stronghold. His curse gets fulfilled, and he turns into a vampire. So Croback eventually becomes a vampire. Grevin Ilvec.

So Grevin Ilvec has the No Mercy ability, which is any creature that deals damage to you just dies. Starting hand size is minus one, starting life total is plus two. So Grevin was Volrath's right-hand man. He was... I talk about the brain and the brawn.

Well, if your main bad guy has brain, then his psychic has brawn. If the main bad guy has brawn, the sidekick has brain. Well, in this one, the main bad guy has brain, so his sidekick has brawn. Vorath tortures Grevinilvek, but Grevinilvek is just a badass. And the first fight that he has with Gerard, I mean, Gerard gets knocked overboard before Grevinilvek can finish the fight. But Gerard ain't winning it. Next, Hanna is another one of the really good cards.

Hanna spells cost one left to play. Starting hand size plus one. Starting life total minus five. So Hanna makes all your spells one cheaper. And that proved to be really good, especially with the plus one starting hand size. Hanna is the engineer of the Weatherlight. Kind of a love interest for Gerard

what happened was they became a couple in the past and then when Gerard left the ship Hannah felt very betrayed because Gerard left and when they got back together there was definitely some tension between them because Hannah was really mad at him for leaving next is Orim. Orim is your creatures can block

until they're flying. So your creatures all had reach. Plus zero cards, but plus 12 starting life. So you're very defensive and you start with a lot of life. This is the highest life gain. Orim is the healer aboard the ship. When we made the Weatherlight Crew, we definitely were thinking

in terms of kind of like Star Trek, and so we had an engineer and we had a captain and we had a security officer and she was the doctor. Orm was actually not meant to be a really big character. She was meant to be a smaller character. She ended up getting a much bigger role in Acadian Masks. Also, Orm was originally O-R-A-M,

not O-R-I-M, because it was Morrow backwards, but it was hard to pronounce, so we changed it to an I. Selenia. Dark angel. Selenia, your creatures have vigilance although it just says

they don't tap when they attack because vigilance didn't have a name yet. Starting hand size plus one starting life size plus seven. We gave that ability to her because she was an angel and angels were tied to vigilance

although she as a creature did not have vigilance I don't believe. Selenia was Krovac's family. She belonged to an, she was part of an item that belonged to Krovac's

family and she was bonded to Krovac's. But Krovac's loved her and so he freed her. But when he freed her, it allowed Vorath to take her. And, I mean, she ended up serving Volrath. And then Crovax came because he was trying to rescue her, and he wasn't able to stop her.

She attacks him in the castle in the stronghold, and she's the one that curses him because he's unable to stop her because he loves her. She attacks him in the castle in the stronghold, and she's the one that curses him because he's unable to stop her because he loves her. He loves his angel. Next is Stark. So Stark is every turn you draw a card, but you put a card from your hand on the bottom of your library, so

you get a sort of loot every turn. Plus zero on the hand size, plus minus two on the starting life. Like I said, Stark was the person that they have to get help to figure out how to get to the new... Stark had previously worked for Volrath, but he had escaped.

But Volrath had his daughter, Takara, and so Stark makes a deal with Gerard that he will help him, guide him, to get to the stronghold. But if he does, he has to rescue Takara. So Gerard, that he will help him, guide him to get to the stronghold. But if he does, he has to rescue Takara. So Gerard says, okay, so beside rescuing Sisay, he has to rescue Takara. He also has to rescue Karn, he has to rescue Tangar. A lot of rescuing going on. And he does rescue, or he thinks he rescues Takara. Turns out that it's not Takara. It's a shapeshifted Volrath. And in Markadia, the shapeshifted Volrath murders Stark.

Sorry, shapeshifted Takara, which is Volrath. Murder Stark. Okay. Oh, and the final is one more of set two. The last one of set two was Volrath. So Volrath was the main bad guy. He was the adopted brother of Gerard. His name is Vul. He's Vul of Wrath, or Volrath.

So Vul and Gerard were raised by Sid Arcanda, which we'll get to in a second. Anyway, Volrath says, whenever a creature dies, you can instead put it on top of your library. Starting hand size plus two, starting life minus three. Yeah, Volrath was the big bad of the Wedlight story, or he was originally.

When the story got taken over, they killed him off relatively quickly. But in our version of the story, he was the main big bad guy, and we had a three-act thing. One day maybe I'll tell the story, but he had a lot more to play in the story we had to tell. So Volrath, by the way, is very smart. He's a shapeshifter.

He's also kind of a scientist. He very much, he likes studying things. He's the one that brought the slivers to Wrath, and he made the metallic sliver, which is not a real sliver, that he made it so he could

spy on the slivers for him. Okay, next, Eladomri. So Eladomri, this is set three we're getting now. Eladomri lets you redirect any damage... Oh, you can redirect to yourself any damage dealt to your creatures. And his starting hand size is minus one, starting life total is plus 15. Oh, so he actually has a higher life total than Squee does. The idea is you can redirect damage to your creatures

and then we give you enough starting life that you can make use of some of that. El Adomri was a lord of leaves. He was the king of the root water elves. Root water? The elves. Yeah, I guess the elves of root water. Oh, the elves. Root water was the water.

Skyshroud. The Skyshroud elves. He was the leader of the Skyshroud elves. And he and Gerard definitely interact with each other. He also plays a role later in the story, too. But he's the one... The plan he and Gerard work out is he's going to attack the stronghold

at the same time Gerard sneaks in. Doesn't actually go too well for Aldarmi. Next is Lena, a Sultari emissary. So all your creatures gain shadow, because Lina had shadow. And then your max hand size is plus two. Your starting life total is minus four.

So Lina was the one that guarded. She was one of the Sultari, and all the Sultari had shadow. She was trapped in between worlds. Oh, except, I'm sorry, Lina herself actually wasn't trapped in worlds. She was the one... I'm not, Lena wasn't Lena herself actually wasn't trapped in worlds she was the one I'm not saying she was, she was trapped, she was shadow but she was the guardian

there was a portal and she was the guardian of the portal they were trying to get out they were trying to get her people off and so she was there, Ertai deals with her at the portal and she helps Ertai open up the portal

so that the Weatherlight crew can get through. Because they're delayed, they end up having to use the Windshaper which shoots them through. They're not able to stop for Ertai. He gets stranded behind and then Ertai gets stuck in Wrath. Bad things happen to him in the story as it plays out.

Lena, by the way, was named after my mother, named Lynn. So that's my one little nod to my mom. Next is Multani. All creatures you control get plus X plus O, where X is the number of cards in your hand. So Multani gives your creatures an adapted Morrow ability, although it only works on power and not on toughness. He's a minus three starting hand size, minus two starting life.

Moltani was the teacher of Gerard and Hannah, not Hannah, Gerard and Mirri and Rofellos. And he is a Maro sorcerer. Yes, when I had a hand in making

the story, I decided to make one of the characters a Maro, and since he was supposed to be the wise mentor character, we thought that was kind of cool. Next is Oracle and Vec. Just known as the Oracle on the card, I believe. You can untap attacking creatures. Oh, you can choose to remove attacking creatures from combat. So you can attack, and if a creature blocks you,

you go, oh, never mind, they're not attacking. Starting hand size plus one, starting life plus nine. She was one of the Skyshroud elves, I believe, and she's the one that realizes, reads of his, that he's the one that's coming to fulfill the prophecy.

Next is Rofellos. He has, I think, fecundity. Whenever a creature dies, you may draw a card. It's minus two hand size plus four life. So Raphelos is a land of war elf that trained with Mirri and Gerard that dies during the time in the past on the Weatherlight.

It's funny because his card is all about producing mana, so it's a little bit different. So Darkundo, he has an ability. about producing mana, so it's a little bit different. Siddharak Kondo. He has an ability. For three mana, target creature gets giant growth, plus three, plus three to end your turn. Starting max hand size, minus one.

Starting life, plus 12. So he can giant growth. Siddharak Kondo, interestingly, he was Jiraja's adopted father. I tried to make a time spiral card for Siddharak Kondo, and the creative said he wasn't well-known enough. I go, he had a Vanguard card. He's like, doesn't matter.

Next is Sliver Queen. So it's three to put a Sliver token into play. It's a 1-1 creature. Starting hand size is plus zero. Starting life total is plus eight. So in the when Karn

meets the Sliver Queen in the Strongholds, when they capture the legacy items for safekeeping, they put them with the Sliver Queen, thinking that the Sliver Queen is so dangerous that no one would be able to get them away. But Karn talks to the Sliver Queen and relates to the Sliver Queen and makes the Sliver Queen understand that the legacy is to him what the slivers are to the Sliver Queen and relates to the Sliver Queen and makes the Sliver Queen understand that the legacy is to him what the slivers are to the Sliver Queen.

And the slivers have been taken from the Sliver Queen, so she sympathizes and gives him the legacy artifacts. Finally, Takara. You can sacrifice a creature to do one damage to a creature or player. So she has Goblin Bombardment. Plus three starting hand size, minus eight life. So Takara is Stark's daughter they have to rescue. She's a feisty fighter, although it turns out that the Takara we meet is actually secretly Volrath in disguise.

Okay, so for set four, at this point we were in Urza Saga. Well, actually, sorry. Set one and two was set during Tempest. Set three, we were in Urza's Saga, so we tried as much as possible to do characters that reference Urza's Saga. So some of the older characters were there. But when we got to set four, we had run out of all the Weatherlight characters. I mean, we had set Arcando and some more obscure Weatherlight characters, Lina.

So for set four, we dug back into Urza's background, and so these characters are characters that are from earlier in the Urza story. Most of these are actually Brothers War characters. So, Ashnod, um, oh, Ashnod actually, sorry, Ashnod has, um, whenever you oh, I'm sorry, so, um,

Grevin L. Vax was not um, whenever something damaged you, you destroyed it. It was whenever you, Oh, I'm sorry. So Karevonel Vax was not whenever something damaged you, you destroyed it. It was whenever you damaged something, it was destroyed. All your creatures all had death touch. So Ashtonite is the one which has no mercy, which is whenever a

creature damages you, it dies. Ashtonite in the story, in the Brothers' War, was an apprentice to Mishra and lover of Thanos. And she was a little on the sadistic side. But anyway, that's why we gave her the Death Touch. Not Death Touch, sorry. Whenever something damaged you, it died.

Next is Gix. Gix was tied to Yawgmoth. Gix, anyway, had the ability that for three, you could return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand, so you could regrow anything for three. You'll see, by the way, that we started to... Early on, they were all static abilities, and then we started running out of a lot of static abilities,

so we started adding some activated abilities. So Gix, minus two hand size, plus 18 life size, so Gix now some activated abilities. So, Gix, minus two hand size, plus 18 life size, so Gix now becomes the highest life total. Gix was part of Yawgmoth's story about the Phyrexians, and what happened was, when we went back in Urza

Saga, you learned that the Phyrexians were a giant threat. They were going to invade Dominaria, and this whole master thing was a plan by Urza to stop the Phyrex going to invade Dominaria. And this whole master thing was a plan by Urza to stop the Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria. Next, we have Mishra. Mishra doubles all damage

from creatures you control, plus zero hand size, minus leg total. So Mishra was brother to Urza. Now, Urza was a planeswalker, but Mishra was not. They both were artificers, though, and they had a mighty war, a brother's war, but Mishra was not. They both were Artificers, though, and they had a mighty war, a brother's war, and Mishra died. Next is Sarah.

All creatures you control get plus zero, plus two. Starting cast size, plus one. Starting life, plus one. So this is Sarah the Planeswalker, who made the Sarah Angels. We're definitely kind of going back. She doesn't have a big role in the brother story, but she was one of the characters from Magic's past.

Then we had Taunos. Taunos allows you to play artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. It says they had flash, although the word flash didn't exist at that time. Plus three on hand size, minus four on life total. So Taunos was the... Ashnod was the apprentice to Mishra. Taunos was the... Ashnod was the apprentice to Mishra. Taunos was the apprentice to Urza. And they fell in love.

Kind of a little Romeo and Juliet thing going on. That their masters were at war, but they secretly were in love. And Taunos, among other things, made a coffin, I know. Made a candelabra. He also became... Both Ashnod and Taunos became artificers because they were apprentices to Urza andelabra. He also becomes... Both Ashtonitis and Tauntless became Artificer

because they were apprenticed to Urza and Mishra. Next is Titania. You can play an additional land each turn. You get to play an extra land. Plus two hand size, minus five life total. Titania, I like Titania's song. She was on the Planeswalker that's got reference a bunch. Then we get to Urza.

Urza was, for three mana, you can do one damage to a creature or player, minus one hand size, plus ten life. Urza obviously was one of the main characters. I mean, Gerard was the main character of the modern-day story, but Urza was the main character of the backstory. You learn all the stuff that's going on Urza had set up. Finally, Xansha. Zansha allows you to sacrifice a permanent

to regenerate a target creature. Plus one hand size, plus three life. So Zansha's an interesting character. So in the book, Zansha was a main character, if not the main character of the book.

And we, the way magic used to work was we made the sets before the books got finished. So we never knew the existence of Zantra. Zantra wasn't something we knew. So Zantra didn't actually show up in, on the card set, which was problematic to a lot of people because she was the main character of the book.

How did she not show up in the card set? And that's just because we didn't know she existed. Um, now we, we work together much closely, so we know who the main characters are, so we make sure they show up in the card sets but the Vanguard cards got made much much later than the cards from the set so we weren't able to make a Zansha card

but we were able to make a Zansha Vanguard card so that was an opportunity to do that a little nod toward her so she's the one by the way who originally gave Karn his spark. Karn, as an artificial creature, cannot generate a spark.

And both times he's gotten his spark, once pre-mending, once post-mending, was from a planeswalker who was dying and gave it to him. Xantcha gave him her heart originally, and then Venture gave him his spark in the most recent version, post-mending. Anyway, Vanguard would... I'm almost to work, so let me sum this up. Vanguard would later get a second life online.

We started adapting the avatars to have Vanguard abilities. So for a while in Magic Online, you could play Vanguard through the avatars. That isn't true anymore, but that existed for quite a while. And it was popular online. I mean, it was popular for a while, and then the novelty wore off, as will happen. People ask me, will we ever do Vanguard again? I don't know. I like Vanguard. I think Vanguard's a good system. If we find a good place to do it, I think we could.

I think there's a chance. Part of what I want to talk about today is just a sense of that there's a lot of things we do and that I talk about sets, but designing a set is just one thing. And this is a good example of, it's a project that was never for sale. In fact, let me explain. How did you get

these things? So, if you were in the Arena League, which was the system run through the stores, these cards were given away through four different seasons of the Arena League, which was the system run through the stores, these cards were given away through four different seasons of the Arena League. Also, the Vanguard gift box had the first set in them. That was one of our holiday special things. Also, the duelists, each set came bagged with a different duelist.

Set number one came bagged with duelist number 19. Set number two came bagged with duelist number 33. Set number two came bagged with duelist number 33. Set number three came bagged with duelist number 37. Set four came bagged with duelist number 47. So if you track down old duels, you can find them bagged. Those have Vanguard cards in them. I know they're a little hard to get these games.

They're definitely collectibles. For those that have never seen a Vanguard card, they're a little bit bigger than a Magic card. In fact, if you laid a Magic card side by side, I think it's possible that they're two Magic cards long. Or they might be slightly bigger than that. But they're very, very close to two Magic cards. Anyway, that, my friends, on the whole ride today.

How did we do? Well, we had a little longer ride, a little traffic today. It's everything you probably ever want to know about the Vanguard cards. And actually, it also turned out to be a little education

in some of the story of the Weatherlight Saga. So maybe one day when I tell the Weatherlight Saga story, at least you guys know the characters now. So thank you very much for joining me

and hopefully you enjoyed the chat on Vanguard. But I've now parked my car, which means it's time for me to be making magic. Talk to you guys next time.