Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #205 - Arabian Nights, Part 2

Episode Date: February 27, 2015

Mark continues his 3-part series on the design of Arabian Nights.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time I started talking about the design of the very first expansion, Arabian Nights. But I only got through B in my cards, through Bird Maiden, so I'm going to continue. There's 78 cards. I'm going to try to talk about all 78 cards because there's not that many cards. Also, by the way, every day I record my podcast on the way to work and the way home I listen to it. And I liked last podcast but I made one mistake

and so I didn't, it wasn't a big enough mistake to re-record it but I do want to correct myself. I said last time that the first set I worked on was Antiquities. What I meant was the first set I worked on was Alliances. Alliances. That's the first set I worked on. I did not work on Antiquities. Antiquities was before my time.

One of my favorite sets, in fact, my favorite set before I got to Wizards. And one of these days I'll talk all about Antiquities because that's an awesome set. But today, we're talking about Arabian Nights. So I left off in B after Bird Maiden, which is Bottle of Suleiman. So Bottle of Suleiman is

one of the things that they love in A Thousand and One Raven Knights is gins. In fact, gins and frites were a theme in the set. We'll get to some of those soon. But the first gin actually shows up as an artifact creature. So, what happens is

this artifact costs four and then I think it's five. You spend five mana and you flip a coin. And then I, no, it's ten, hold on a second. What do you do, how much mana do you spend? I'm not sure how much you spend on this. But the point is, you spend some mana, you flip a coin, and then one of two things happens. If you win the coin, you get a 5-5 gin, artifact creature, a token.

And if you lose, it does 5 damage to you. So this set has the very first coin flipping in it. Coin flipping did not exist in Magic. And there's a few coin flipping cards in this set, but this is one of them. This card is interesting in that it was very exciting when it first came out, just because the upside potential is so good. The problem is the downside is so bad that it really is a super swinging card. Because having a 5-5 flyer will win you the game,

and taking 5 damage will make you most often lose the game. So, you know, and plus, spending all the mana and not getting a 5-5 flyer instead of getting damage, it just was very harsh. This is not the first card to make artifact creatures, or make token creatures. The Hive from Alpha actually did that. But this was one of the earlier ones. Artifact creatures... Hive was a very popular early

card, and this Foul Suit, this was also... For as swinging a card as it was, it was very popular. People definitely had fun with this card, and it was definitely a casual fan favorite. It never was a particularly strong card this card. And it was definitely a casual fan favorite. It never was a particularly strong card.

But anyway, it was much beloved just because it was super flavorful. Like, I had the bottle while I got the gin out of it. Okay, next, Brassman. So Brassman costs one man that's an artifact creature for a 1-3. And Brassman does not untap his normal unless you pay 1 to untap him, because he's resty. And the idea of the Brassman is that he has an upkeep to require you to untap him. So it turns out Brassman actually did see constructed play.

There was a period in time where what we call the Pump Knights from Fallen Empires, which were these 2-1 creatures that had activated First Strike. And it turns out that as a good early defense against stuff like that, the Brassman in certain decks ended up being a good early defense. And so it saw some tournament play. Anyway, Brassman is actually a story. All this stuff ties to different stories. I don't know the story of the Brassman, but I do know it's connected. There's a story about it. A lot of these come directly from stories.

I don't know a thousand more Raven Knights well enough to know all the stories, but I do know it comes from a story. Next is Camel. A 0-1 for one white. It has bands. And all creatures attacking in a band with Camel are immune to damage done by Deserts. So we haven't got to Desert yet. We'll get to that soon. But Desert was a land that's capable of doing damage.

So Camel first let you band, and it protected you from Deserts. A little narrow. The flavor was good. The set has lots and lots and lots of awesome flavor. Sometimes mechanically it's relevant, sometimes it's less so. Having a 0-1 Bander is very good on defense, but not particularly strong on attacking. And Deserts only work

when you're attacking. The funny thing is, I saw Campbell's play, and they were used defensively. They weren't used nearly as much offensively. Partly because Deserts weren't as big a play, and partly because just a 0-1 bander on offense is not particularly that good.

Next, City in a Bottle costs two mana, and while it's in play, all cards from Arabian Nights are destroyed, except for City in a Bottle, and no cards can be played. So what Richard... This is the first of its kind, what we call a set hoser, where Richard said, well, I'm going to make some cards, but just in case you don't like this set, or you can't, I don't know,

for whatever reason, this card trumps the set. If you play this card, you can't play any cards from this set. You can't play any cards from this set. This card, by the way, I talked about how the entire expansion was inspired by a comic, a Sandman 50. This card in particular was specifically... Because in the story,

there's a city and a bottle. Anyway, this card was specifically inspired by that comic. So the idea of a set hoser, early sets would have one. There was one in Arabian Nights, there was one in Antiquities, there was one in Homelands.

Quickly decided that just really wasn't play-wise wasn't the best thing. This card also did some quirky things. One of the funniest things was it destroyed anything for a while that had the expansion symbol on it. So if you played a normal mountain, you were fine, but if you played a mountain that had the expansion symbol on it, you weren't. We later changed the rules to say that all cards with the same name are treated equally, so there's certain aspects like expansion symbol that no longer are tracked in Black

Border Magic. Silver Border Magic will track it. In Silver Border Magic, each card cares about what it itself does. So you can go after individual things. You can care about the artist or the expansion symbol or the name or all sorts of things that Black Border has trouble with. This card was errata relatively recently. The way they finally solved the card, since it can't look like an expansion symbol, is it named every card uniquely

in the set. So it didn't name Mountain, so if you have an Arabian Nights Mountain and you play City of Brass, it does not destroy an Arabian Nights Mountain. But in the errata, it names every card in the set, and so it does effectively do what it did before, minus the sense that it doesn't affect the...

it does not affect the Mountain. Next, City of Brass. So City of Brass is a land. You can tap to add one mana of any color to your mana pool, and then you suffer one damage whenever it becomes tapped. So City of Brass turned into a staple for a long time. It was a very popular card. It's just very powerful.

It allowed you access to other colors. I mean, it did it at a cost, but it was very efficient. This was one of those cards that saw a lot of reprints and play after it came out. In fact, and in Unhinged, in the Donkey-themed set, there was a parody of this card

called City of Ass, for as in donkey. And there was a fun parody of it. I think I'll say City of Ass, as in donkey. And there was a fun parody of it. Anything else about City of Brass? It's definitely one of those cards, I think if you're talking about the cards from Arabian Nights that have had the most influence as far as just showing off and meaning something,

City of Brass has seen a lot of play. Kumbaj Witches. So Kumbaj Witches is a 1-3 Witch for black-black. So you can tap it to do one damage to any target, but opponent may also do one damage to any target. And you choose your target first. So this, we're in early Magic.

We're definitely trying to figure out where mechanics go exactly. This is something that nowadays would be more red. Black does do a little bit of damage, but usually when it's related to drain, when it's on players, loss of life, it will do like minus one, minus one, and stuff like that. It has a lot of similar areas, but just to try to clean up and make it crystal clear what's

black and what's red. Most direct damage barring draining is in red. Next, Cyclone. Two green green. It's an enchantment. You put a Cyclone counter, or it says on the card you put a chip on it. I think it's been retroactively changed

to a wind counter, I think. And then you have to pay one green for each counter on it or discard it. So this is the first card with cumulative upkeep. So cumulative upkeep by name doesn't actually show up until Ice Age. But this card, for all intents and purposes, functions a lot like cumulative upkeep. One could argue that Stasis from Alpha also is cumulative up- like in that it grows over time. It's a little bit different because as you tap mana

it doesn't unlock, so it's not quite the same. But if you play a stasis and do nothing but pay for the stasis, it's similar. But Cyclone is directly you pay green, then you pay green green, then you pay green green. So it essentially has a cumulative upkeep of one green mana. Oh, by the way,

so what does it do? Cyclone does one damage per chip or per counter to each player and each creature. So Cyclone is another example of a card that's not really in green anymore. Green, early magic, green did a lot more damage to

things, and we realized that we liked green doing a little bit of damage to players and stuff, but that we wanted green... Green would deal with creatures with its own creatures. So this is a little more destructive than we... The current green pie does not just do damage to creatures like this. Okay, next. Dancing Scimitar. So for four mana, you get a 1-5 Flying Artifact Creature.

So notice, by the way, back in the day, up until, I think, 6th edition, creatures said summon blank. If you were an artifact, though, you would just be an artifact creature. That was enough to limit what you are. Because under artifacts, you could be a Mino Artifact, a Poly Artifact, a poly-artifact, a continuous artifact, or an artifact creature. So the artifact creatures are the only creatures in the game when the game first started that said creature on its type line. A little trivia there.

Or as it went on, creatures would say enchant creatures. Actually there were other card type lights that said creature on them and they weren't even creatures. But what I was going to say is, because of that, there was no creature types on artifact creatures originally. So, Dancing Scimitar

at the time was just an artifact creature. It wasn't, there was no, so we went back in the great creature type update and gave some of the ones that were obvious creature types, but there are definitely some artifact creatures that even now in Oracle, I think maybe we gave that were obvious creature types. But there are definitely some artifact creatures that even now in Oracle, maybe we gave them all artifact creature types.

But it's something we didn't do in early days. Okay. Oh, and what can I say? So Dancing Simjerk is another card that proved to be... I know it's a little bit of play in tournaments because 1-5 is a pretty good body, and there were decks that needed to play stuff like that because an artifact was able to play it.

It wasn't nearly as good as Brassman, which saw more play, but I do know I remember seeing a little tiny bit of play with Dancing Scimitar. Also, another thing to remember is right now in Magic, Limited play is a huge part of Magic. When Magic first began, limited really wasn't play.

I mean, there was some sealed deck play, but there wasn't a lot of limited play. Especially, there wasn't draft yet. Draft was something that Wizards was aware of. I mean, I know Bill Rose and some of the other playtesters were drafting before the set even came out. But it wasn't something we introduced really, really until the Pro Tour happened and we really started being aggressive about introducing it.

And I think it was the Pro Tour that really started bringing draft as a mainstay for people to start thinking about. Okay, so let's get on to Dan Dan. So Dan Dan, it's blue in a blue. It is, what is this creature? One of my problems is I, I, uh, I sometimes cannot read my own writing. Okay, Dan Dan is a four one, uh. And it can't attack or block,

sorry, it can't attack unless the opponent has islands in play, has what we call island home, or half island home. Oh no, it has island home. So what island home is, it just says that you must have islands or it is destroyed,

and you can't attack unless the opponent has islands. So the flavor of this card, or of island home is, it lives in the ocean. So if you don't have water, well, it'll die. And if your opponent doesn't have water, it can't get to them. But Blue, Blue for 4-1 is pretty aggressive.

So if you're playing Blue and they're playing Blue... Now, the sneaky thing for Blue is Blue has the ability to change, especially early on, to change the land type of the opponent from whatever they had into an island. So one of the tricks with some of the island home creatures is you're playing blue, and then you turn one of your opponent's things into blue, and then you can attack. So Dandan, by the way, so the picture of Dandan shows two boats, and then underneath the water is this giant fish. But one of the things about the picture is the focus of the picture, Drew Tucker drew

it, the boats just really grab your attention just because the water is dark and the fish is kind of dark. So a lot of people, and I'm not kidding about this, thought Dan Dan was a boat. And I'm like, no, but Dan Dan is the thing under the water, not the boat. But I know people who for years thought like Dan Dan was a boat. I attack you with my boat, but it is not. And if you didn't know that now, see, people listen to my podcast, you can learn things. Okay, next we get to desert.

So desert was the land, so desert was the most commonly opened card because it was a C11, meaning it was 11 times on the common sheet versus most of them were like five. So it was almost twice as common as a lot of the other comments. So you could tap to add a Coalesce, or you could tap to do one damage to an attacking creature after it deals damage. So it doesn't kill the creature. It deals damage to a creature,

but not before it deals the damage. So it doesn't kill the creature. It doesn't stop the damage. So if you attack with a Dandan, let's say, a 4-1, you would take four damage, but then you'd use the desert to kill. Now I'm not sure why the sandstorm kills the creature that must be in the water, but it does.

So desert, you can have up to 4 deserts, obviously, and so desert proved to be pretty potent in that if you have 4 deserts in play, the ability to do 4 damage to every attacking creature really would make it hard to get through. I mean, obviously you've got your Camel and things like that, but

it turned out to be the only reason that I think deserts weren't as powerful as maybe they could be was it was so horrible early in Magic to play creatures that a lot of the early Magic decks didn't have a lot of creatures in competitive play. It would get worse.

It wasn't quite as bad. During Arabian Nights, there were... You did see Juzem Jins and Ifbififreets and things, or Serendipifreets. I mean, there were... There were cards creatures played. It would get worse during Legends. Legends actually had some cards that

Abyss and things that just made it so brutal to play creatures that for a while creatures went away. Okay, next. Desert Nomads. Speaking of, so they have Desert Walk and they're immune to damage done by deserts. So Desert Nomads are two and a red for a 2-2

and the idea essentially was if your opponent had a desert, they both couldn't be harmed by the desert and couldn't be stopped by the desert. Yeah, there were a couple. The desert, I think there were three cards that cared about deserts. There's the Camel, there's the Desert Nomad, and there's one more coming. Okay, speaking of deserts, Desert Twifter. So for four green and green, for six mana, destroy any card in play.

This was the bane. For a long time, this was my least favorite card in play. This was the bane. For a long time, this was my least favorite card in the game. So what happened was, when I first got there, we were working on making 5th edition. And at the time, early green,

and you go to stuff like Arabian Nights, green is just killing creatures left and right. It's got cyclones, it's got drabahani, it's got desert twifter, and eventually we sort of said, look, we need to have, the colors have vulnerabilities, and look, green, green is creatures,

it's the creature color, but let green deal with the other creatures with its creatures. You know, the reason that green, green shouldn't just be killing things from afar, green should be attacking with its creatures, and, you know, The green got the most... One of the things that green gets over

the other colors is it gets more... Its creatures are bigger for less. Part of the reason for that is it has a creature advantage, but it has a disadvantage. The disadvantage is, well, it needs to use its creatures to deal with other creatures. Anyway, we were doing a fifth edition and we had a real trouble coming up

with green cards that made sense. And so they wanted to put Desert Twister in. And I said, okay, no, guys, green doesn't do that anymore. That's out of flavor. We should not be making this card. And they're like, no, we don't have a lot of other good choices. Here's what. We'll make the following promise to you.

We'll put it in, but it won't be a precedent. So we won't use this card to dictate doing other things. We understand that green's not supposed to do this, but just for this one set, we'll put it in, but it won't be a precedent. So we won't use this card to dictate doing other things. We understand that green's not supposed to do this, but just for this one set, we'll put it in. I naively said, okay. And then it was a precedent from then on. Then I was fighting for years and years and years. They're like, but we put it in Desert Twister.

I'm like, you said it wouldn't be a precedent. Anyway, the lesson I learned from Desert Twister is it's a slippery slope. That when you let one card, when you just make one exception once, that it just becomes, wow, we did it this one time, we can do it again. And then you're fighting a lesson of magic development. It's a slippery slope. Okay, next is Diamond Valley.

It is a land. You tap and sacrifice one of your creatures, and you get life equal to the toughness of that creature this does not tap for any mana so it breaks the current rules of lands but it was a powerful land it could get you a lot of life

I have a lot of diamond valleys in my deck I like diamond valley it was actually a very good means to stay alive in a creature based deck that you could sort of do your thing and then as things were dying, you would just

get life out of them, essentially. So, like, if you ever chump-locked, or a lot of times you could generate tokens and things. But anyway, Diamond Valley definitely was one of the interesting ways to sort of help stay alive in a very cheap and it was, because it was a land, your opponent couldn't even counter it. I stay alive in a very cheap and it was

because it was a land your opponent couldn't even counter it I mean other than destroying it it was very hard to deal with and other than decks that were about land destruction

people didn't tend to run a lot of land destruction unless they were about land destruction okay drop of honey enchantment costs one green mana during your upkeep

the creature in play with the lowest power is destroyed and cannot be regenerated. And then if there's a tie, you get to choose. So I joke that for some reason throughout the history of Magic, there are a lot of Wasp, Hornet, Bee-flavored cards

that are out of flavor for green. I like to say, this is the granddaddy. This is the beginning. This is the first Bee-flavored theme card that did something green is not supposed to do. Now, I admit, at the time it was made, the color pie was a little looser in this one area. I think green was much more destructive,

and it was later as we sort of were refining things, we realized that green needed to have an offset to the fact that its creatures were just better, that it just got more, got better creatures for the value. Next, Ebony Horse costs three, and then for, I think it's two,

you remove one of your attacking creatures, and then it never attacks. So what it lets you do is, I get on my Ebony Horse and I attack, and then I go, oh, that's a bad attack. Yeah, yeah, this didn't attack. This card was a precursor of a mechanic that would show up in Tempest Block. What was it called? It was on white cards that could pull themselves out of, what's the name of that mechanic? It was a mechanic where you could attack. It was this mechanic, but on individual cards. Like, I attack the creature. No, I don't. And this allows you to do that with whatever creature you wanted.

Next is Elephant Graveyard. So you can tap to add one color to your mana pool, or you can regenerate an elephant or a mammoth. And the reason it said mammoth, by the way, basically was because War Mammoth was a card in

early magic in Alpha. And I think it was a Mammoth and not an Elephant. It might even be I think it might even be eroded now to be an Elephant. But anyway, Elephant Graveyard, I think Rachel, this is a top-down card, which was like, oh, let's make

an Elephant Graveyard, because that's flavorful, and what would an Elephant Graveyard do? Well, apparently, help Elephants. Although, the thing I find funny about Elephant Graveyard is, it keeps Elephants and what would an elephant graveyard do? Well, apparently, help elephants. So, uh... Oh, the thing I find funny about elephant graveyard is it keeps elephants out of the graveyard. Is that what an elephant graveyard does? Is it...

Next, El Hajaj. So, it is one black black for a 1-1 creature and you gain one life for every point of damage. El Hajaj inflicts, it says. I like that, inflicts. There's some flavorful wording early on. So this is

the very first, essentially, lifelink creature. So I know when we lifelink, the lifelink became most popular, there's a card in

Legends called Spirit Link, and it was essentially granted your creature something lifelink, it was your creature, although if you put it on your opponent's creature something life-life-linked it was your creature, although if you put it on your opponent's creature you still gained life regardless of whose creature it was so it wasn't exactly lifelink but for a long time that got people thinking

of lifelink as being more of a white thing but it started in black, obviously lifelink is in white and black it makes a lot of sense in black because it definitely feels like kind of a walking drain life that you're doing damage and sucking damage out of them. So this card was a little on the weak side, but it definitely introduced lifelink to the game.

Urg Raiders. Urg Raiders cost one and a black for a 2-3 creature. And if you don't attack with them, they do two damage to you at end of turn. But they don't damage you the turn of your summons so when you can't, basically any turn you can attack with them and you don't they do 2 damage to you later on

once again as we were refining things we made for a little in the early game both black and red kind of had this thing about how you kind of have to attack with these things and eventually to make a little differentiation between them Black and red kind of have this thing about how you kind of have to attack with these things. And eventually they make a little differentiation between them. We made red the must-attack color and black the can't-block color. But anyway, this is definitely like they like attacking,

but two, three for one and a black is pretty good. But, oh, we have to attack with them. The funny thing about them is it doesn't actually keep you from blocking with them. It just punishes you if they don't attack, which is a little bit different. Next, Urnum Djinn. So Urnum Djinn is one of the most famous cards from this set. So it's three and a green for a four or five creature. And during your upkeep, you have to choose one of your opponent's creatures. for a 4 or 5 creature,

and during your upkeep, you have to choose one of your opponent's creatures, and that creature has Forest Walk until the beginning of your next turn, I believe. And so the idea is, for 4 mana, I get a 4 or 5 creature, but I allow you to make one of your creatures unblockable. Now, the trick around this is, I have to have a Forest for you to have Forest Walk.

So if I have sources of mana that aren't forest, then I can play this card to get the benefit of it, and there's no real downside. Now, remember when this was made, there wasn't a lot of... In fact, when the card was made, there was no way. Both dual lands and basic lands had land types on it.

So the only way to get green mana when this card was first made was you had to accept the negative. But as time went on, as we started making other cards to produce green mana that weren't themselves forest, this card got a little bit better. This card was actually almost won a Pro Tour, almost won the very first Pro Tour. Bertrand Lestray was defeated by Michael Lacanto,

and Bertrand Lestray's deck was what we called Urnum Armageddon, which was a green-white deck where you played big creatures, Urnum Djinn being one of them, and then you get Armageddon out and destroy all the land, and then your opponent couldn't do anything because you overran them with big green creatures. But anyway, so like I said, there was a Djinn and a

Freight theme throughout. There's a cycle of Djins and a cycle of freets through all five colors. Okay, next. Eye for an eye. So it's white, white for an instant. And the way it worked is for every damage that was done to you... Let's see. is for every damage that was done to you... Let's see.

So whenever a creature or spell does damage to you, it does equal amount of damage to them. So the flavor of Eye for an Eye is you hurt me, I hurt you. This card... A lot of the Ravennape cards would later show up in the base of the core set. Eye for an Eye was in for a bunch of years.

And definitely one of the flavors here is that if white wanted to damage something, it had to be in response. That white sort of had to like, you know, you've damaged me then I damage you. Definitely one of the things that we played more into the idea of white being the color that says, you know,

you have to strike first, but once you strike, I will strike back. Okay, next, fish liver oil. Fish liver oil costs one and a blue. It's an aura enchant creature and target creature. Oh, sorry, it says target creature, but what it really means is enchanted creature gains island walk. So you put it on a creature, then they have island walk. There was a lot of island walking early on.

I think the flavor was a lot of the water-based creatures needed water to function, and so there just was a lot of island walk early on. Okay, flying carpet costs four mana. For two, you can give one of your creatures flying until end of turn, but if that creature is destroyed, so too is the flying carpet. So this is Richard trying to top down a flying carpet. So the idea is, I get a flying carpet, I can help a creature fly, oh, but if the creature is destroyed, then the carpet is destroyed.

So there are a bunch of cards that in, I think, 4th edition, got some errata that changed how they work. I think this card now works the way it worked in 4th edition, which is, I think it locks onto the creature. Like, I tap it, and the creature is flying as long as I leave this tap. I think that's how it works now. Not 100%. But I know this is one of those cards that's functionally changed.

We don't do that anymore, but we functionally changed it, then printed new cards, and there were more of the new cards than the old cards, so instead of changing it back, we just left it as it was, I believe. Flying Men. Flying Men. Flying Men cost one blue. They're a 1-1 flying creature. I had a deck... During the period

during Legends when nobody played creatures, I played a weenie blue-green deck, and Flying Men were my deck. It's funny. For a long time, this was considered too good. Then we made the card, and I'm like, what are we doing? That's way too good. And we backed away from it, and now it's like, meh. A blue 1-1, it can have some other bonus.

Okay, Gazban Ogre. Gazban Ogre costs one green mana. And then during its controller's upkeep, the player with the highest life total takes control of it. So it goes whoever's ahead. So this card actually saw some turn in play. There was a period of time where there was a deck called Stompy, which was a mono green deck. It was very blisteringly fast mono green deck. And a Gossaman Ogre played really well in that deck,

because as long as I'm doing damage to you quick, this negative is never going to apply. But every once in a while it did, and it was actually pretty cool. Okay, Giant Tortoise. Giant Tortoise costs one in the blue. It is a 1-1 creature, but when untapped, it gets plus zero plus three. So essentially it's a 1-4 when untapped and a 1-1. So it's a very good defensive creature, but not so good an attacking creature.

Not much else to say about the giant tortoise other than it is a tortoise. At some point, we try to figure out the difference between turtles and tortoises and stuff. I think nowadays we just use turtle. In fact, this card probably is a rodent to a turtle, is my guess. Okay, next, Guardian Beast. Three and a black for a 2-4 creature.

And as long as it's in play... I'm trying to remember how Guardian Beast works. This is one of those cards that has a lot of text on it, so it's particularly hard to... Ah! Hold on one second. So Guardian Beast... Let's see if I can remember how this works.

You pick an artifact when it comes into play, and I believe the way it works is as long as this is in play, you can't destroy the artifact. It protects the artifact. The idea is it protects... Let's see. As long as it's on tap, your non-creature artifact or non-creature cannot be... Oh, I see.

It lists a whole bunch of things that can't be done to it. It can't be enchanted or destroyed or taken by someone else. It lists a whole bunch of things that can't be done to it. It can't be enchanted or destroyed or taken by someone else. And so the idea is as long as this thing is in play and names that, it protects it. And you can't hurt it while it's in play. This card actually was played some because there's some very powerful artifacts. And it was a good answer to people who are trying to destroy artifacts.

And so sometimes people would play this to protect things. It didn't get played tons, but it definitely was, it was a popular card back in the day. Next, Hasbun Ogris is two black, black. You can tell today my, sometimes it's hard to read some stuff. I write notes so I can see them. This card costs... It's a 3-2.

I think it's one black black. But you have to pay two each time it attacks or it does three damage to you. So she doesn't like attacking. You've got to bribe her to attack. And if you bribe her to attack, then she will attack. And she's a 3-2 for three mana,

which is pretty good. And... Is it three mana? Two mana? Maybe it's just black black. she will attack. And she's a 3-2 for 3 mana, which is pretty good. And, is she 3 mana? 2 mana? Maybe she's just black-black. Maybe she's just black-black for a 3-2.

So maybe, now that I think about the card, it must be black-black for a 3-2. So it's black-black for a 3-2, but when you attack whether you have to spend 2

or else she does 3 damage to you. Note, by the way, what Richard did a lot of those, it's not that the Urg Raiders couldn't block, it's not that

Hassan Ogres couldn't attack, it was just, there was did a lot, it's not that the Urg Raiders couldn't block, it's not that the Hassan Ogres couldn't attack, it was just, there was a cost to do it. If you wanted her to attack, you had to pay them. You wanted the Urg Raiders to block, essentially you had to pay them. And there's a cost to be paid. Her Jackal. So Her Jackal's a 1-1 for red,

and you could tap it to prevent target creature from regenerating. Our first regeneration hoser. Well, take that back, Disintegrate probably was from regenerating. Our first regeneration hoser. Well, take that back. Disintegrate probably was a regeneration hoser. Another regeneration hoser. So this card is interesting in that one of the things that happened was this was a common card when it was printed. And then we made the reserve list and said we would not print any of the uncommon or rare cards from this set. And so what happened was there were cards that later got reprinted, but because some of the

common cards were so infrequent, we would print them at higher rarities. So Her Jackal is one of the few cards, not the only card though, that has been printed at both common and rare. It was common originally and it was rare in, I don't know, the course that we brought it back in. Okay, next, If Biff of Freet. So two green green for a 3-3 flying creature, and it had the ability that anybody could pay green mana to have it do one damage to each player in each flying creature. It made a little hurricane. So the idea is, it was a creature,

a 3-3 flying creature for 4 mana that allowed anybody to hurricane, yourself included. Now being that it was a flying creature, if 3 mana total was spent, it would destroy this creature. So If Biff of Freed was definitely pretty powerful.

I'm trying to remember the... Is this the one? So, if... I'm trying to think which one had the... So, one of the things that happened during... I guess it was... Yeah, so, Sarah and Deborah... There was a card in...

Was it 3rd edition? That they were trying to print one of the Afrits, one of the blue Afrits. What was it? Was it Serendip Afrit? I think it was Serendip Afrit. And they accidentally put the frame for Ifbefrit on it. So this picture and the green frame were on that card. And so it was a very, very famous misprint. I think the text was all correct for the Serendipity but the

visuals and the card frame and the art was from If Biffa Freed. So anyway, that's a famous, famous misprint. Next, Island Fish Jesconis. So four blue, blue, blue for a, I think,

eight, eight, six, eight, for a six, eight creature. And you had to pay blue, blue, blue during your upkeep or you had to tap it. And it had Island Home, which it said you had to have Islands in play or it was destroyed and you could only attack if they had Islands. So, it's kind of funny that it took us a while.

A lot of the creatures in Arabian Nights that were considered powerful creatures, by today's standards, are nothing special. But back then, creatures were pretty weak. And this is a good example. For, like, a 6-8, and you have to, what? You have to pay all this mana, and then you have to, you know, have an upkeep every turn, and then you have to have island home, and, like, this was a hard card to use effectively, and it was just not particularly powerful.

Okay, next, we have Island of Wok Wok. So it's another one of the powerful lands. So you could tap it to reduce any flying creature's power to zero. So this, in turn, I think it was a sideboard card, that it was a good answer to like Dragons or Mahamori Djinn or something. If your opponent had a flying creature that was problematic, it's like, you just bring this card in, it can't be countered, and it just essentially nullifies their biggest flying creature. Mostly sideboard, because not all decks have flying creatures, but my favorite part about this is,

we used to joke that when you make land walk, you could choose whatever land walk, like this desert walk in the set, because it can walk across deserts, much like this forest walk or mountain walk. And so we kept wanting to make a card that could give you land walk, like this desert walk in the set, because it can walk across deserts, much like this forest walk or mountain walk. And so we kept wanting to make a card that could give you land walk if your opponent had this card, which would be called Island of Walk, Walk, Walk.

Anyway, we thought that was funny. Next is Jandor's Ring. So it costs six mana, and I think it's two and discard a card you just drew, and draw another card to replace it. So what it would let you do is you would draw a card, look at it,

and then you could choose to spend two and discard the card you just drew to draw a different card. So it allowed you essentially to pay a little bit of mana to reject a card and get a different one in its place. Jandor Saddlebag, speaking of other Jandor, was an artifact that cost two. For three mana, you can untap a creature.

So it could be your creature, be an opponent's creature, be a teammate's creature. For three, you can untap a creature. Oh, and both, by the way, both Jandor's Ring and Jandor's Saddlebags were mono artifacts,

which meant that they tapped to use their ability. Keeps throwing, keeps looking for the tap symbol, but a mono artifact didn't have a tap symbol. It just said minor artifact. So, everything else told you it tapped. There weren't tap symbols yet, but

it told you it tapped. And minor artifacts, no, it's baked in the rules. You just had to know that it could tap. Now, both genders I'm going to show you what genders were. General Saddleback showed up in the core set, so there exists plenty of them that have a tap symbol on it. Okay, Jeweled Bird.

So Jeweled Bird is one of the anti-cards. So remember, for those that didn't play early Magic, when you originally played Magic under the rules of the game, not alternate rules, the default rules originally, you drew seven cards, your eighth card was placed, I think, face up off to the side. It might have been face down. But anyway, if you lost the game, your opponent forever, forever got that card.

It was like marbles. You would lose a card. And that was a big part of when Richard first made the game. Now, part of the reason, by the way, that Antti was there was Richard believed that people were going to buy a lot less cards. It was one of the ways to sort of help change the environment, that if me and my friends had a small number of cards, this would create flux in what was going on and how the decks would play. So Jeweled Bird, you drew a card and you played it.

So that made it the very first cantrip, by the way. So you exchange Jeweled Bird with your contribution to the ante. So the idea is what Jeweled Bird does is it says, okay, instead of losing the thing that you're going to lose if you lose, you'll lose me instead. And jewel bird, the idea was that if you

didn't want to lose the card that was your ante, you could exchange it and instead lose the jewel bird. So jewel bird is most famous probably in all of history. The most famous jewel bird was cast by Kai Buda at the Cape Town Magic Invitational. We were playing a format called 250, and part of the scoring for it had to do with the value of each of the cards. And so they were in the third game, and by swapping his anti-card for the Jeweled Bird,

no matter what, even if his opponent won, they couldn't match because he had gotten head-on value and Kai had won one game and his opponent had won the other game. He Jeweled Bird for the win was the quote, which is like, I will use Jeweled Bird to exchange my card for Jeweled Bird. Jeweled Bird's value is low enough that even if you win the game,

under the constraints of how this format's working, you can't win. And so by using Jeweled Bird, he won the Magic Invitational. So, okay. So I can tell, since I got up to J, that I have a podcast or two left to go here. But anyway, I'm at work. How have we been doing on time today? Oh, today was a little longer day, I'm at work. How did we do on time today? Oh! Today was a little longer day. A little extra traffic.

So you got a little extra bonus time of me talking about Arabian Nights. But I'm now parked in the parking space. So we know what that means. It's time to end my drive to work. So instead of me talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I'll talk to you guys next time about more Arabian Nights.