Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #167 - Onslaught, Part 4

Episode Date: October 17, 2014

Mark continues with part 4 of his 6 part series on the design of Onslaught. ...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm pulling out my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last couple times I've been talking about Onslaught. And I'm not done yet, so I will continue to do that. Last I left, I think we were on D. So we're like, this is two podcasts in on card stories, and I only got to D. So we're going to try to pick up the pace a little bit today. I just have lots of stories to tell. Hopefully, I'm never quite sure it's the right number.
Starting point is 00:00:31 I know in Theros I did eight, and that felt too much. But I've done like fours and fives. Anyway, we'll see. Okay, let's jump in here. Dream Chisel. So Dream Chisel is an artifact for two that says that face-down creatures cost one less to play. So it turns all your morphed creatures into two-twos for two rather than two-twos for three. One of the things that we were hoping was, whenever we make mechanics,
Starting point is 00:00:57 one of the things that we'd like to do is, so real quickly for those that might not know this terminology, we talk about linear and modular. They're two design terms we use. What linear means, it's the card that kind of begets you playing other cards. For example, Goblin King makes all Goblin Kings plus one plus one. Well, that really says, hey, you better put some Goblins in your deck
Starting point is 00:01:18 otherwise the card doesn't have any value. It's a very linear card. Where something like Naturalize or Destroy Target Artifact or Enchantment, it doesn't make you want to put anything else in your deck. It's just, you know, a card that Where something like Naturalize or Destroy Target Artifact or Enchantment doesn't make you want to put anything else in your deck. It's just, you know, a card that does something that maybe you need the function of. That's modular. It doesn't sort of beget any other card.
Starting point is 00:01:35 So one of the things we like to do is, we like to have a mix between mechanics that are linear, mechanics that are modular. But even on mechanics that are modular, we'd like to give you some cards that make you play them linearly, if you will. This is a good example. There's nothing about morph necessarily that makes you have to play lots of morph. Any one morph card unto itself works
Starting point is 00:01:56 just fine. But something like Dream Chisel says, hey, hey, hey, maybe you want to make a deck of morph cards. And this card's only good if you commit to morph. So what it does is it's a linear card that takes advantage of something that's normally modular and turns it into a linear strategy. And the reason we do cards like this is there are a lot of people that really, really like linear strategies. Why? Some people, like, some players are like, don't tell me what to do. I want to come up with my own thing.
Starting point is 00:02:22 And other players are like, give me hints. What should I do? Give me something cool to do. And they really like having cards that say, okay, here's the plan. Let's do it. You know? And even, I mean, Dream Trigger just says, make a deck full of morph. It doesn't say which morph or what colors or anything, really.
Starting point is 00:02:35 It gives you lots of options. But it does say, hey, this is really going to go in a deck filled with morph creatures. Okay, next. Elvish Vanguard. I got to E. finally off the E. Okay, Elvish Vanguard is a one and a green for a 1-1 elf. And then whenever another elf enters the battlefield,
Starting point is 00:02:54 you get a plus one, plus one counter on this. So what this is meant to be is something in which it says, okay, hey, every time you get to play an elf, I get to get bigger. And so it's just a different way. I mean, we, every time you get to play an elf, I get to get bigger. And so it's just a different way. I mean, we, for example, the one cycle,
Starting point is 00:03:12 where they're all, like, heedless one I talked about last time. Or not heedless one, I talked about, I don't know, one of them. Where they get bigger based on how many you have. This is doing that in a slightly different manner. Those cards are star, star equal to the number you currently have. Where this one, it just keeps getting bigger. So it doesn't start big, but once again, as creatures die or things happen to them, it doesn't shrink. It only gets bigger.
Starting point is 00:03:33 And one of the fun things about this is that green definitely has ways we made some elf tokens in the set. So there's a bunch of different ways to sort of enable this, and that green is the color of growth, so green is the color that tends to get bigger over time. So this was kind of a different ways to sort of enable this. And that green is the color of growth. So green is the color that tends to get bigger over time. So this was kind of a neat way to sort of make you play elves
Starting point is 00:03:50 and then give you sort of a big, a card that can become a big threat down the road. Next, Enchantress's Presence. So it's an enchantment that says whenever you play an enchantment, draw a card. So we had made a card in, or Richard had made a card in Alpha called not Agobian Enchantress, he made Verdun Enchantress, which allowed you, whenever you played an enchantment, to draw a card. Very linear.
Starting point is 00:04:14 So one of the things that players had always asked for was it's a creature that makes you want to play enchantments. And they're like, how about an enchantment that makes you want to play enchantments? Obviously, Constellation will hit this harder later on. So anyway, this card was made for people who
Starting point is 00:04:29 wanted to play that deck but didn't want to bother to have to stick creatures in their enchantment deck. This obviously was before enchantment creatures. So anyway, I'm not sure why it's in this set. I mean, it's one of those cards that people want.
Starting point is 00:04:45 I mean, we make sure to just put cool cards in every set. And this is the kind of sense where it wasn't particularly on theme, but it's a rare. And, you know, here's just a fun card to stick in. My best sense is that this is the kind of card that someone like Mike Gallagher, the lead designer, just really liked. And, like, it was his set. He's like, you know what? We need some cool stuff. This is a cool thing.
Starting point is 00:05:03 I know people have been asking for it. Let's just make it. Okay, next. Endemic Plague. So three and a black for a sorcery. You sack a creature, and then destroy all creatures. As an additional cost to play the spell, you sacrifice a creature, and destroy
Starting point is 00:05:18 all creatures that share the type. So this was, we definitely, we wanted you to play tribal decks, but we wanted a few answers. This one's kind of interesting in that in order for you to use this correctly, you have to have the creature type that you're trying to stop. Now remember, there are creatures in the set that can change their own creature type. So A, you can use it with that.
Starting point is 00:05:41 Those are in blue, and this is black. So a black-blue deck could do that strategy. you can use it with that. Those are in blue, and this is black. So a black-blue deck could do that strategy. Years later, with Lorwyn, we would have changelings, which would work well with this.
Starting point is 00:05:53 But at the time, it was definitely sort of like, how do I do this? And it was good in mirror matches where I'm black and I'm playing something where I'm playing people that are playing things I might have. But it was tricky to use. I liked the flavor of it, though. The idea that I needed a creature of the type to be able to destroy that type I thought was kind of cool. Next, Erratic Explosion. 2R sorcery. So you reveal the top card of your library until you reveal
Starting point is 00:06:14 a non-land card. And then you do damage to target creature or player equal to, I mean you have to choose a creature or player first. So you choose a creature or player, then flip until you get to a non-creature, and then you do damage to that creature or player equal to... I mean, you have to choose a creature or player first. So you choose a creature or player, then flip until you get to a non-creature, and then you do damage to that creature or player equal to the converted mana cost of that spell. So for those that don't know, converted mana cost means if you add up all the mana, what's the total
Starting point is 00:06:37 number of mana required to play this? So if you had a card that was one green green, that is a converted mana cost of three, because it's three mana. If it was four and a red, that's a converted mana cost of five. If it's one black, black, black, that's a converted mana cost of four. Anyway, this card was fun. It definitely, one of the things I talk a lot about in Ranimus, Ranimus is important.
Starting point is 00:07:04 I wrote a whole article about this, I did a podcast on it, you want some randomness in your game I mean, your game could be chess but, and even then that's a whole separate discussion, you do want, I think you do want some randomness in your game, it makes it fun it allows your players not to necessarily be able to
Starting point is 00:07:20 know everything, it lets them rest a little bit because since they know they don't know everything they don't feel an obligation to figure everything out ahead of time. And anyway, this was definitely a fun card. The way the card got used, you had to pick the target
Starting point is 00:07:31 before you saw what you did. And so, for example, it was tricky to kill creatures with it because, you know, now, there are people who built their decks so they didn't have
Starting point is 00:07:39 a lot of small things and there are people who can manipulate their decks so they knew what the next card was going to be. Usually in Limited, What you tended to do is you tended to go after smaller creatures,
Starting point is 00:07:50 except if you were desperate, you'd go after a bigger creature going, well, I'm going to lose anyway. I might as well, you know, try to use this. And the cards you reveal, by the way, go in the bottom of the library. I didn't mention that. Next, Exalted Angel. 4-WW for 4-5 Angel. Flying and basically Lifelink.
Starting point is 00:08:09 This is pre-Lifelink being spelled out. But essentially it's a Flying Lifelink 4-5 Angel. And it's a morph cost of 2 white-white. So this card became pretty important because it was one of the most powerful morph cards. Essentially, for 2 white-white, you could play... Sorry. For 3 mana, you could play, for, sorry,
Starting point is 00:08:25 for three mana, you could play this face down as a 2-2, and then on the fourth turn, assuming you got your mana, you could play 2-W-W and flip it face up for a 4-5 Flying Life Flicker. Which is really, really good, really efficient. One of the things about Morph is, you can cost it, and this is a card where we did that,
Starting point is 00:08:41 where you can, if you go through the curve, meaning turn three, turn four, bam, something I couldn't get out normally to turn six, I can get out in turn four, assuming I get the land. And the problem with this card was it was so good and saw tournament play, but there were so few tournament-level morph cards that when you saw someone play a face-down card, a lot of the time, especially if you're playing against a white deck, you knew it was Exalted Angel, so there wasn't a lot of surprise. The problem with Morph and Construct the first time through was we didn't have enough Morph
Starting point is 00:09:09 cards that really people were playing, and so the few that got played, it wasn't really a surprise, which is kind of the fun of Morphin, not knowing what it is. Next, Fefterin Goblin. It's a one, for black, one single black, a 1-1 Zombie Goblin. I believe this might be the very first black goblin. I'm not sure. I mean, there might be a gold black goblin, but this might be the first mono black goblin.
Starting point is 00:09:34 And, of course, it's a zombie goblin. For some reason, I don't quite know why, if you are of a race that isn't human, then when you're a zombie, you're a zombie and you're race. But for some reason, humans just are zombies. They don't get their race. They don't get zombie-human. I don't know why that is. I sort of... I call it human bias.
Starting point is 00:09:53 Anyway, so the Fetcher and Goblin has a little ability that when it dies as a death trigger, a target creature gets minus one, minus one. It's full of plague. When you kill it, another creature might be infected by the plague and could die from it. This proved to be a very fun card. We've reprinted
Starting point is 00:10:10 this card a lot because it's pretty cool. It just does a lot of neat things. It's a pretty nice one drop, too. One of the things is it's tricky to make one drop so that both are worth one so you can play them on the first turn, but later in the game can mean something. This is one of those cards where you have to be careful how you block, because this
Starting point is 00:10:28 thing can attack and block one thing, and then also use a shrink, a different thing to help you win, either save your creature or kill another creature. Okay, next, Fever Charm. Our instant, you could choose one of three effects. Target creature gains haste, target creature gets plus two, plus zero to end of turn, or do three damage to target wizard. So we did another set of charms in Onslaught. The first charms were done in Vision. In fact, there were two set of charms.
Starting point is 00:10:52 There was one in Mirage and one in Visions. Onslaught did the next set of charms, next set of one-color charms. The shtick to these was it did two abilities like a normal charm would do, and then the third ability was always creature-type related. For example, I'm not sure if it was always, what are their hit cards?
Starting point is 00:11:14 This one is. This is like, oh, I'm really good at killing wizards, but I don't damage anything but wizards. But, you know, that's a narrow effect, but hey, the other effects, you know, gaining haste or plus equals O, is valuable enough that, okay, a lot of times I'll do that, but, you know, that's a narrow effect. But, hey, the other effects, you know, gaining haste or plus or plus O is valuable enough that, okay, you know, a lot of times I'll do that. But if I happen to run into a wizard, I can kill a wizard. Okay, next, Flamestick Courier. Two and a red for a 2-1 Goblin.
Starting point is 00:11:37 You can choose not to untap it. And for 2-R untap, target creature gets plus 2, plus 2 and haste, or has haste, until this untaps. So these guys, what they did was, and there's a cycle of them, that you locked them down, meaning you tapped them and could choose not to untap them, to permanently kind of grant an ability to another creature. Now,
Starting point is 00:11:58 the interesting thing, there's some aesthetics to this that I'm a little off. Like, notice how bestow when we granted things. The thing we granted matched the power and the toughness and the abilities of the creature that granted it. This doesn't do that. So, like, it's a 2-1 goblin, but grants plus 2 plus 2. It doesn't have haste, but it grants haste.
Starting point is 00:12:14 So it's a little... In some ways, you can see this is some of the precursors to equipment. Equipment would show up in the very next block. The idea that I have something that I can make something stronger, but that if you kill the creature, it doesn't lose the enhancement. The enhancement can be used on something else. Okay, next. Future Sight.
Starting point is 00:12:37 Two, blue, blue, blue. It's a five mana. It's an enchantment. You play with the top card of your library revealed, and then you can play that card as if it's in your hand. Which is a very, very fun card. There's a set named after this card. Not a lot of cards can claim. I mean, it literally was named after this card. When we were doing Time Spiral Block, we liked the idea that because it was a nostalgia set
Starting point is 00:12:59 that all three sets were named after existing magic cards. And so each set had a theme it needed, and we knew that the last set was about the future. We're like, well, it's about the future. How about we use the word future, since there's a card called Future Sight. This is a very fun card. One of the neat things about this card,
Starting point is 00:13:19 and why it's kind of fun to build around, is it lets you draw cards in the sense that every time you cast the card off the top of your library, you have access to a new card. So the more cards you can play off the top of the library, the more cards you have access to. And blue is a card drawing color. So this is, I mean, it ended up being a decently strong card, especially in the right decks, but it was a pretty fun card.
Starting point is 00:13:39 By the way, in the picture, in the art, you see a man walking through, and there's like a blue screen with a picture on it, a yellow screen with a picture on it, a red screen with a picture on it. So that's Ixodor. He is seeing alternate versions of his future. I'm trying to remember what, I don't remember exactly how that happens, but it's Ixodor glancing at his own future.
Starting point is 00:13:57 So Ixodor is having a future sight. Next, Genghis Goliath. Three black black for four four is zombie giant and you can tap five untapped clerics to return it from your graveyard to your hand so this is another fun thing we did with clerics like the idea of black clerics
Starting point is 00:14:15 they do sort of dark and creepy things like raising things from the dead so this was a fun card it was a giant that, you know, particularly you could use your clerics on. So it went in your cleric deck. It wasn't a cleric, but it went in your cleric deck and allowed you to have a 4-4
Starting point is 00:14:33 that was really hard to get rid of. Your opponent had to eventually kill the clerics to keep it from coming back because killing the goliath didn't stop it. Okay. Goblin Piledriver. 1-R for a 1-2 Goblin. Had protection from blue. Whenever it attacks,
Starting point is 00:14:50 it gets plus 2 plus 0 for every attack, for each other attacking Goblin. So this card is bonkers! So it turns out when Onslaught came out, Goblins, we were a bit aggressive with Goblins. Goblins had never really been a tournament tier deck, and Onslaught fixed Goblins. Goblins had never really been a tournament tier deck,
Starting point is 00:15:05 and Onslaught fixed that problem. Goblins were really strong. Really, really strong. And one of the reasons was this card. People always talk about how Red doesn't have its broken 2-drop, and some people argue this is Red's broken 2-drop, and then others say it only goes in a goblin deck, which is true. Also, this card is protection from blue.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Note that for a while, we used to play up the enemy relationships a lot stronger in the set, and so you were allowed to have protection from your enemies. That was just something you were allowed to do. So, I'm not sure why this is a protection from blue.
Starting point is 00:15:46 I mean, I think we were trying to make a strong goblin card, and we didn't want blue to bounce it or mess with it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure why we get pro blue. Next, Goblin Pyromancer. So Goblin Pyromancer for 3R is a 2-2 Goblin Wizard. When it enters the battlefield, all
Starting point is 00:16:02 goblins get plus 3, plus 0 to end of turn. At end of turn, destroy all goblins get plus three, plus zero to end of turn. At end of turn, destroy all goblins. So this is kind of a goblin finisher card. The idea was, you got a huge boost, but uh, you know, goblins are a little on the destructive side, so it'll help you win.
Starting point is 00:16:17 It's a pyromancer, it'll, it'll, it'll, uh, but, probably all the goblins are gonna, the flavor I got is he lights them all on fire. And then, uh, well flavor I got is he lights them all on fire. And then, well, they're dangerous when they're lit on fire, but at some point, you lit them on fire, they're not going to last very long. This also, remember, this affected all goblins.
Starting point is 00:16:37 So this also was something that occasionally would get splashed in decks that could cast it to destroy goblins if they're playing goblins. Okay, next, Goblin Sharpshooter. 2-R-11, goblin. It doesn't untap as normal. Whenever a creature dies, untap it, and you tap and deal 1 damage to our creature or player. So it's a red tim.
Starting point is 00:16:55 It's funny, because originally when the game started, Prodigal Sorcerer was a blue card, tap, do 1 damage to creature or player. Really wasn't a blue effect. It's kind of weird. I think Richard just liked the flavor that the little tiny cantrip stuff was done in the wizards where it's centered in blue. But we ended up shifting it over to red.
Starting point is 00:17:12 But this is one that, early on, it wasn't really established in red yet, but it made sense. I mean, no one argued that red couldn't tap to do damage. So this card was kind of interesting because it did a lot of... you could do some neat things. For example, if your opponent had a bunch of 1-1s in play,
Starting point is 00:17:32 you could just mow them down. You know, shoot a 1-1, it dies. Untap the creature. Shoot a 1-1, it dies. Tap a creature. And you also could, like, let's say they had a bunch of 1-1s and then a 2-2. You could do some fun shenanigans where you could shoot something and then have something die and then be able to untap and shoot it again
Starting point is 00:17:51 to kill a 2-power thing, or 2-toughness thing. So the card actually came about, this funny story with the card. The card was made by Richard Garfield during Odyssey, and it was called Goblin Gatling Gun. The problem was there was no goblins in Odyssey.
Starting point is 00:18:09 I talked about this before. I took all the goblins out. Not the strongest idea in retrospect, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. Trying to get some dwarf love. But anyway, Richard really liked this card. He loved the name Goblin Gatling Gun, so it turned out it couldn't be a Gatling Gun, a little too modern.
Starting point is 00:18:28 Although, if you look at the picture, it's pretty Gatling Gun-ish in the picture. So anyway, it became Goblin Sharpshooter and ended up going to set. He had made the card, and I knew he wanted it to be a Goblin. So when the next set was doing a Goblin-themed thing, I knew there was Goblins. I handed this one off. So anyway, Goblin Gamut Gun. Next, Gratuitous Violence. 2 RRR Enchantment.
Starting point is 00:18:51 So 5 mana total. Double all creature damage. So there's a card I made in Tempest called Furnace of Wrath, which doubles all damage. And that card was a little overpowered, but this card is a tweak on that. And this just damages all creature damage. And that card was a little overpowered, but this card is a tweak on that. And this just
Starting point is 00:19:08 damages all creature damage. Once again, this doesn't just damage your creature damage, it doubles all creature damage. Next, Grinning Demon. Two black black for a 6-6 demon. It's a demon, so of course it's a 6-6. We love making 6-6 demons. Beginning of upkeep,
Starting point is 00:19:24 you lose two life. Morph, two BB. Two black black. So the idea here is, it's a 6-6 Demon you can get out pretty quick, but if you get it out, then it starts doing damage to you, and so you have to sort of make a choice. The other thing that's neat about this card sometimes is, sometimes it's just doing good work as a 2-2, and I don't need to turn into the 6-6 until it's valuable. But it's kind of fun.
Starting point is 00:19:47 It definitely had a sort of a demon-y feel where it's not strictly upside, but it played nice with Morph. Next, Gus Cloak Sentinel, which was 3-W for a 3-3 soldier. And when blocked, you can choose to remove from combat. So there's a whole bunch of Gus Cloak. This is something that the white soldiers did,
Starting point is 00:20:08 which was, it had a mechanic based on a card called Reconnaissance? I forget what set that was in. But the idea basically is, if you get into combat, and things are like, you go, oh, I didn't expect you to block that way, you can go, oh, never mind,
Starting point is 00:20:24 I'm not going to fight. And so the flavor is that the soldiers sort of plan ahead, and if they see that there's going to be a problem, they don't attack. And so this allows you to, the way you're strategizing is you get a sort of, your opponent tells you what they're going to do, and then you go, oh,
Starting point is 00:20:38 now that I know that's what's going to happen, let me rethink how I want to do this attack. Okay. Harsh Mercy. 2W Sorcery. Each player chooses a creature type and then you destroy all other creature types. So this is how you get a wrath effect in a
Starting point is 00:20:56 tribal set. Where it's like, well we want to have wrath effects but, you know, there's so much about creatures we don't want to have it too harsh. So we did this neat thing where it says if you're playing in theme if you have one creature type you're immune to this effect
Starting point is 00:21:11 but if you're spread out then you're more vulnerable now notice the card only costs 3 because everybody gets to save at least one thing and often can save multiple things it's not particularly the strongest of wrath effects so it only costs three. Next, Insurrection. Five red, red, red sorcery.
Starting point is 00:21:35 So you get to untap all creatures and gain control of them until end of turn, and they gain haste. So this is basically mass-threaded. So basically, originally there was a Ray of Command showed up in called Legends, I think, which allowed you to steal a creature from your opponent.
Starting point is 00:21:51 It was an instant. So at some point we decided that we wanted red to do more shenanigans and we moved temporary stealing over red. Changed it to sorcery from an instant
Starting point is 00:22:01 because we didn't like red stealing for blocking, which is something blue often did, that you would attack a whole bunch of creatures, you'd take one of the creatures you attack with and block another creature that you attacked with. It's pretty brutal. But anyway,
Starting point is 00:22:12 this was just us taking an effect, and the effect normally threatens in common, but if you take an effect that affects one thing and affects everything, well, you can make it rare. And this card is, I mean, it's eight mana, three of which are red. So it requires a lot. But it's a really
Starting point is 00:22:28 good finisher card. It's kind of like at some point it's like, okay, you've built up defense. Well, your entire defense is now attacking you! And unfortunately, you have no creatures to block. Because I just, I mean, other than wall defenders.
Starting point is 00:22:44 And I'm attacking you. So, yeah, Insurrection was pretty brutal. Maybe a little too brutal, I don't know. Like I said, it does cost a lot of mana. But it's fine. It's a fun finisher. I mean, one of the things that I also like about Insurrection is it can do some neat things in multiplayer. One of the things people often talk about is
Starting point is 00:23:04 Red doesn't have a lot of great finishers in multiplayer. And this happens to be actually a good neat things in multiplayer. One of the things people often talk about is red doesn't have a lot of great finishers in multiplayer. And this happens to be actually a good finisher in multiplayer because I have all the creatures to steal but I get to assign them wherever I want to assign them. So in two player you just attack your opponent with everything that you have. Where in multiplayer you can be more careful
Starting point is 00:23:21 about where you send things. Also you can use this to wipe out one player or multiple players without wiping out the whole, without everybody. Okay, next. Ixador, reality sculptor. So it's three blue
Starting point is 00:23:35 blue for a three four, once again, wizard legend, as I mentioned last time, time before that. Legendary as a super type was not there yet. In creatures, there was still a creature type called Legend, and it came with rules baggage, just like walls had Defender built into it and came with the Defender.
Starting point is 00:23:53 It wasn't called Defender yet because you couldn't attack. Okay, so what does he do? He does two things. One is all face-down creatures get plus one, plus one, so he boosts all your morph creatures. All your morph creatures with him in play are three, three. And for two you, you can turn target face down creature face up.
Starting point is 00:24:11 So the idea of Ixador, once again, I talked about it last time, or I talked about it multiple times ago, that Ixador is the antagonist of the story. That he, through grief, he his lover got killed in the pit fights, and so, N'Vi, I think is her name,
Starting point is 00:24:29 and so he creates a chroma. He wanders in the desert and realizes that he has the ability to sculpt reality. And so the morph ability comes from Ixdor. Ixdor is the one that's able to... So the flavor of morph last time, and this time it's a little different, but last time or from
Starting point is 00:24:45 the original Unflat was that he was making these things but and they look like clay spiders but secretly that he could turn them
Starting point is 00:24:53 into other things so he didn't quite know what it was and inside it could be something else so you might think it's something but you know
Starting point is 00:25:00 he created a different thing he had an army of morph creatures and so the problem with fighting them is you didn't quite know what they were. They appeared all to be the clay spider on the outside, but inside they could be different things.
Starting point is 00:25:12 Anyway, so the tricky part about this is we wanted to make a card that really brought Ixador to life. Obviously, we wanted to mess with Morph. And then we liked the idea that because he's the reality sculptor, he could bring anything, you know, he could, without having to spend the straight up morph cost, that he could un-morph things. So that he boost morph creatures
Starting point is 00:25:32 and he could un-morph them. So Ixodor, by the way, proved to be a real headache during Innistrad, because his ability says, turn target face down, creature face up. What do you do with double face cards? And finally, the ruling we made is that there's two faces on it,
Starting point is 00:25:48 that there's no face down, that a double face card's always face up. And so you can't turn a face down card face up, or you can't turn a face... There is no such thing as a face down double face card because it's always face up. There's always a face that is up. And so Ixodor does not work
Starting point is 00:26:05 on... on... well... As of Innistrad, it could not work. I do not want to speak... there's a lot of discussion talked about when Morph came back, and I don't know that off the top of my head, so...
Starting point is 00:26:22 Well, no, they're face-down. Anyway, I believe... I believe Ixodor works just fine of my head, so... No, no, they're face down. Anyway, I believe... I believe Exeter works just fine. In fact, you can dig it out to play with your new morph creatures who are no longer flavored as being clay spiders. They're now shrouded by draconic magic. But anyway, Exeter still plays nicely. Finally, my final card of the day.
Starting point is 00:26:41 I got to J today. I'm working my way through this. I hope this won't be any 18th card of the day. I got to J today. I'm working my way through this. I hope this will be an 18th card. Okay. Jareth, Leonine Titan.
Starting point is 00:26:52 So he is three white, white, white, six mana for a cat giant legend. Four, seven. He's plus seven, plus seven when he blocks.
Starting point is 00:27:02 And he, for one white mana, gets protection from the color of your choice. So Jareth was another pit fighter. Most of the legends in the set were pit fighters. He's a white pit fighter, and his shtick is he's very, very good in defense.
Starting point is 00:27:14 That he's not super strong when he fights, but he's very, very strong when he defends. That's why he gets a big bonus when he blocks. That's why he can get protection to protect himself from. And Jareth did two things, by the way. One is, I think that he was indirectly responsible for the idea of us doing the
Starting point is 00:27:29 Leonin. Notice he's not technically a Leonin. He's Leonine. He's Jareth Leonine Titan. And later we make the Leonin. So I think he's a lot to do with it. I also think the popularity of Jareth is one of the things, I think Brady Downermith, our old creative director, I think really liked
Starting point is 00:27:46 Jareth, and I think when he was making New Planeswalkers, I don't know this for sure, I'm just making a guess, but I believe there's some chance that Ajani stemmed from him sort of liking what he had done with Jareth. Or actually, he didn't do with Jareth. He wasn't the creative director at the time, but anyway. In my mind,
Starting point is 00:28:02 I feel like Jareth was interesting and definitely sort of put in our minds the idea of this cat warrior that would lead to the Leonin and eventually would lead to Ajani. Okay guys, I've gotten up to Jay. Obviously we will continue this next time. But
Starting point is 00:28:17 I have parked my car, which means that this is the end to Drive to Work. So thanks for joining me today, guys.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.