Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #218 - Innistrad Cards, Part 3

Episode Date: April 17, 2015

Mark continues telling the stories behind the cards of Innistrad in part 3.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so the last two episodes, or two podcasts, I've been talking about Innistrad and going through cards of Innistrad. Well, I got it to E, so I'm nowhere near done, so we're going to continue. So when last we left, I was about to talk about the card Evil Twin, which is one of my favorites. Not my absolute favorite. Endless Wings of the Dead is my absolute favorite but one of my favorites from Innistrad. So Evil Twin was interesting and one of the things we did is

Jenna Helland was the creative representative on the team so we always have someone on the large sets that's from the creative team to help make sure that we understand the larger issues that were going on

and we're tying to the story and we're catching the flavor correctly. So one of the things I normally have the creative rep do is come up with really flavorful names, especially in the top-down set of Guinness Drive. So Jenna came up with all sorts of really cool, gothic-horror-y names and brought them in,

and then we, in some of the meetings, we would design to them. So one meeting, we have Jenna's list, and I said, how about Evil Twin? And we designed the following card from Evil Twin. So Evil Twin is two blue-black for a 0-0

shapeshifter. It enters the battlefield as a copy of a creature, but it also has the ability, U-black-tap, destroy target creature with the same name as this. So the idea is the evil twin comes in, it copies something, and then it has the ability to kill the thing that it's a copy of.

Which is... Brilliant. I mean, I was part of making this card. But the thing I love in design is when you capture something and you're like, Ah, nailed it! And this card to me was, like, that is Evil Twin. This card did really, really well. It was one of the highest ranked cards in the God Book Study.

And it is both a fun card to play and a flavorful card. And a powerful card. Actually, if you ever get this in the Limited, it's a good reason to play Blue Black. So anyway, that is Evil Twin. Okay, we move on to F. Finally got to F. Okay, Falcon Wrath Marauders is a red card. Three red red, so five mana for a 2-2 Vampire Warrior.

It has Flying Haste, and whenever it deals combat damage to the opponent, you get two plus one plus one counters. So let me explain. I talked about this a little bit last time, which is when we handed over the opponent, you get two plus one, plus one counters. So let me explain. I talked about this a little bit last time, which is, when we handed over the file, we had made vampires red and black, and we had tagged the vampires as being an aggressive

tribe. And the reason was we had just, a lot of our other tribes, like werewolves, for example, which are red-green, sometimes red-green can be very aggressive, but the werewolf mechanics, like you got them out and they weren't transformed yet, you had to eventually get them transformed. They just ended up being a little bit more

mid-rangey, not quite as fast. So we wanted an aggressive deck, and so we tagged red block as being an aggressive deck, which is a little bit more challenging, you might realize. Red and black have a lot of control aspects to them. So in limited, a lot of times they'll play a little bit slower. So what happened was the development team said,

okay, they want this to be an aggressive deck, and we hadn't made it aggressive enough. Like, one of the big differences between design and development is design comes up with ideas and then tries to execute on them, and development goes, oh, a neat idea, but let's tweak it. You didn't quite execute it on it to get the effect you wanted. And what they said is, oh, if you want vampires to attack, well, we really need to encourage them to attack. You need to give them

some mechanic or something that says, hey, attack. So they came up, so there's a card in, what's that, what's it called? Legends, called Whirling Dermish. And it's the first card I remember having this ability, which is every time it hit the opponent, it got a plus one, plus one counter.

And then in, is it Mirrodin? I think in Mirrodin we created this creature that's called a Slith. And the Sliths all had this ability. Because I loved Whirling Dermish. And anyway, so we tend to refer to this as the Slith ability because we made a whole bunch of Sliths with it. It's a made-up name. But anyway, so all the vampires, not all of them,

but some of the vampires got this ability and it was really aggressive. It said, oh, how do you get rewarded? Well, by damaging your opponent. I guess I better attack then. Um, so the marauders are, um, were, uh, high, like, I think they were rare. They were special, like double slith. And they were like, you know, super, super slith. They were like the king of the vampire, or not king of the vampires. Not king of the vampires, but major players of the vampires.

Okay, next. Falcon, Wrath, and Noble. Three and a black for a 2-2 vampire with flying. If it or another creature you control dies, you drain an opponent for one life. Or it might be any player, but usually it's your opponent.

So one of the things we're definitely trying to do is trying to both is trying to both make vampires aggressive, but make them have the flavor of vampires. The slith ability was really nice, because the idea is, oh, they feed on the opponent. They get stronger because every time they feed, you know,

they drink the blood, and they get stronger. And this one was definitely sort of the idea of draining is very much as a vampire sort of feel for it. Vampires are very, what's the word I'm looking for? That they suck the life out of things. The idea of them getting life out of the opponent was very flavorful. And so we definitely tried to mix it up a little bit.

We wanted to make sure that one of the keys to making a fun deck is to make sure that you give a lot of flavors that match but you give a couple different gameplay options so that you know it's not like all the gameplay is identical it's not like every single vampire has to attack to do its thing here's a vampire that cares about things dying now that does encourage you to attack it sort of says well i'll sit back and attack with all my other creatures and well if you block and kill them i still get to do something and kill them, I still get to do something, and if you don't, I get to do something, and so you put your opponent in a bad situation. Also, Falkenrath is, so one of the things they did is there's locations for all in Innistrad,

and the different tribes were from different places, and so Falkenrath had a lot of vampires in it. Okay, next, Feeling of Dread. It's an instant for one and a white, so two mana, tap up to two creatures, flashback, one and a blue. So this is another of the cycle of the off-color flashbacks, where the idea is, oh, well this card's okay in a white deck deck and maybe, maybe play it in

a blue deck if you have a lot of ways to self-mill. But you know what? It's really for a white-blue deck. That a white-blue deck gets to use it twice. And like I said, one of the fun things about finding abilities is where they overlap. Now normally, white taps creatures and blue taps or untaps creatures. That's normally how we differentiate them. That white mostly is just locking things down strategically, where blue has a little more manipulation with it. It's got twiddle from alpha, that blue sort of can fiddle a little more.

But obviously if blue can tap or untap, it can tap. And so that's an overlap where white and blue could do something similar. Next, feral Ridge Wolf. Two and a red, so three mana for a one-two wolf. It has trample and one R, one and a red, plus two plus O till end of turn. So it's funny. One of the big things is red normally has power equal to or greater than toughness. And every once in a while, red will have a toughness greater than a power.

And usually when it does that, it's something like this where it's got fire breathing. It's got some means to get its power up. So while on the surface its toughness is greater than its power, in practice, most of the time, its power is greater than toughness. So this is another wolf we made to give you things to do with your mana in your werewolf

deck so that you can turn your werewolves into werewolves without losing mana equity. They have stuff to do with your mana. Okay, Fefterhide Boar. Three and a green for a 3-3 Boar. It has Morbid, which is, if a creature has died this turn, when it enters the battlefield, it comes with two plus one plus one counters.

So one of the big things, Morbid came about because we were trying to get a sense of making death matter. You know, you're in a gothic horror set. You want death to mean something. And the other thing I talked about, I talked about this in my Innistrad podcast, is how I'm always trying to create a mood. The mood I wanted to make for Innistrad was I wanted the opponent to be on edge, to be afraid, to be scared. And so what we did is we did a lot of mechanics and individual cards

where your opponent didn't quite know what to expect. And so one of the neat things about this is, because things can die, normally, you know, if your opponent attacks with something that you can easily kill, you wouldn't think twice about killing it. But now it's like, oh, are they up to something? You know, does he have Festerhide Boar in his hand? Why is he doing this? And it makes it definitely, things are scary.

And things die, and now you're worried. And it definitely added an air things are scary. And things die, and now you're worried. And it definitely added an air that I liked. And Morbid ended up playing really well. Okay, next, Field Hunter. One white white for one three human cleric. When it enters the battlefield, you exile target creature. And when it leaves play, you return that creature. So one of the things that we've been trying to do more with white is the idea that white temporarily you know, white doesn't like to kill when it doesn't have to and so one of white's weaknesses is

that its answers can have answers that white can almost answer anything but a lot of white's answers themselves can be addressed like, oh, you have a creature that's a problem? Aha, I locked it away. Now it can't harm me. But if you deal with my field hunter, if you're able to do that,

you can get your creature back. And so there's an answer. Normally when black kills your creature, other than reanimation or something, there's not a lot of answers. It's gone. But here, white's like, well, I leave you an answer. If you can kill my answer, then you get your card back.

Okay, next. Forbidden Alchemy. It's an instant two and a blue. Take the top four cards of your library. Or, sorry, look at the top four cards of your library, take one, and then put the rest into your graveyard. Flashback, six and a black. So this was the blue-black off-color flashback. Like I said, blue and black is tough. The overlap between blue and black is very small. I know when we make

hybrid cards that blue and black is a pain in the butt because they do not overlap on a lot. Blue and red are the other problem child, although blue and red have a little more overlap than blue and black, especially in higher rarities. Blue and black's problem is at common. I said blue and red have a little more overlap than blue and black, especially in higher rarities. Blue and black's problem is that common. I said blue and red's problem is that common. Blue and black's problem is all the way along. That it's just, there's not tons of blue. So here we're messing around with the fact that blue mills and black kind of secondarily mills are not nearly as much as blue,

and both of them get to draw cards a little bit. So anyway, we're messing space to try to get a sense of... This is more of a blue effect than a black effect, but with a straight face, we could flashback it in black. Okay, Full Moon's Rise. It's an enchantment that costs one green. Werewolves you control get plus one, plus O, and you can sac it to regenerate

werewolves. So this was a werewolf helper. So this was kind of a lord for werewolves, except, instead of being a creature, it boosts your werewolves, and then you can sac it to lord for werewolves, except instead of being a creature, it boosts your werewolves, and then you can sac it to save your werewolves. Now remember, werewolves save werewolves on both sides. So this helps both your human side werewolves and your werewolf side werewolves. Day or night, this card is good for you.

And it's a nice support card where once I get it out, it boosts my guys, but if I ever get in trouble, if ever something crazy happens, I can use it to save my creatures. Okay, next. Galvanic Juggernaut. Four mana artifact creature, 5-5, it's a juggernaut. So it attacks each turn of Abel. It doesn't untap like normal. And whenever a creature dies, it untaps.

So this is us messing around with death matters in a slightly different way than morbid. I mean, it doesn't work exactly like morbid works, so it couldn't have the morbid reminder, the ability word on it. But, it has a lot of the qualities of morbid, which is, in order for this thing to do what it needs to do, things need to die. Now, the cool interaction in this card is, I attack every turn. I have a 5-5. If you chump lock with something, then guess what? Something's died this turn, and I'm going to get to untap. And so, there's definitely sort of, the opponent has to kind of like buckle up and just take it once

and then try to keep creatures alive so this thing doesn't untap. And it's proven to be a pretty fun card. It definitely is one of those cards that makes you play the game a little bit differently, and you have to be much more conscious about when things die and when you jump block and stuff like that. Next, Garruk Relentless.

So three and a green, it's a Planeswalker, a subtype Garruk. It's got a loyalty of three. It's got two abilities and a trigger ability, the first ever trigger ability. So the first ability is, for zero, you can do three damage to a creature, and that creature does three damage to Garruk.

Now, note that Garruk only has a loyalty of three. So Garruk can basically fight something, but if he fights something... Well, I should take it back. If he fights a small enough thing, that thing might, you know... If the thing is a one or two-powered thing, Garruk can kill it and not die.

But if the thing's big can kill it and not die. But if the thing is big enough, it'll kill Garrett. Second ability for zero as well. Put a 2-2 wolf token into play. And then if you have two or fewer loyalty, you transform. So one of the things interesting is, one of the things I've really held back on Planeswalkers is, Planeswalkers have a very tight design space, and they're very popular,

and we've wanted to do them for a long time. So I've been really holding back on doing other things. This is the first card that ever even has a non-loyalty build on it, has a triggered ability. And, which is a hint that we can do triggered abilities, we're just being very cautious about when and where we do them. Because we want to make sure that

you know, we want to make sure that, you know, we want to make sure that they are, we're maximizing all the space before we move on. Okay, anyway, so what happens when he transforms? He becomes Garruk the Veil-Cursed, which, interestingly, had a hybrid black and green frame. I'll talk about that in a second. It's got three abilities.

Plus one, make a 1-1 black wolf token. That is Death Touch. Minus one, sacrifice a creature and tutor for a creature and put it in your hand. Minus three, creatures you control get plus X plus X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures in your graveyard. Or, I'm sorry, I think in all graveyards, I believe.

Because you're killing things with your death touch creatures. So in the story, originally this card was going to be a double-faced werewolf, a werewolf planeswalker. That was the original idea. But the creative team came back and said, oh, no, no, no.

We have, there's a momentous event going to happen this turn where a character radically changes. Garak gets cursed. That would be, you know,

nothing against your werewolf planeswalker, but we can do a story moment on a card and use a double-faced technology to really sell this. So the idea was, there's Garak, and once he gets cursed, because he gets cursed during the Intercharge story,

he becomes dark and he gains black. Now the reason the frame on the back is a hybrid black-green was, when we did it in gold, the way it works is a black-green card in gold has a thin black-green pin line, but it's really subtle. It is very hard to understand that he gained black, and we wanted to make sure you got

that he was now black and green. The hybrid frame does a much better job of visually showing that something is two colors. As a little side note, by the way, the hybrid frame actually was a frame that I and a few other people were trying to get the multicolor frame changed to. Because one of the big complaints we had is it's very hard to tell what colors those are. We have a lot of stories, like there's some famous stories where like somebody's helping

out their friend and says, okay, you're drafting for the first time, just pick a color and then take all the cards of that color. And at the end of the draft, they look at their friend's deck and he goes, oh, I picked all these gold cards. Anyway, so what we found is the gold cards do a good job of saying multicolored maybe, but do a bad job of saying what color the cards are. But anyway, I tried to change to the modern day hybrid frames for multi-color cards. I got too much resistance. People like gold. So when hybrid came along, I actually said, oh, I think I might have some frames for you. And so we used those. And so yes,

the back frame is a little different, but we needed to communicate something and we just couldn't communicate it with our normal tools. So we had to get inventive. Okay, next, Gustav Shepard. It's one and a green for a 2-2 human werewolf, and then, if you don't cast any spells, he turns into a 3-3 werewolf with intimidate. So one of the things that's funny, early on in design, all our werewolves did a lot of doubling. I believe originally this wasn't 3-3 intimidate, it was 2wolves did a lot of doubling. I believe originally, this wasn't 3-3 Intimidate, it was 2-2 to

a 4-4. And 4-4 was a little too brutal, and so the development team said, well, how about 3-3 instead of 2-2, and then we'll give it an ability. And so Intimidate was something that Green doesn't do often, but it made a lot of flavorful sense. We stretched Intimidate a little bit more

in this set, because it fits the world so well that there made a lot of flavorful sense. We stretch intimidate a little bit more in this set because it fits the world so well that there are a lot of scary things. Okay, next. Gavony Township is a land. Tap for one. For two green and white, you tap it, and you put a plus or plus or counter on all your creatures. So the idea here was we had a cycle of lands.

I think they ended up being uncommon or rare. I forget. They were lands that were tied to the five races. So this is the human land. It's like, oh, there's a township, it's a city. And you know what? When they band together, they can make themselves stronger. And so this was really meant to go in your human deck. It's green and white, and it's meant to sort of strengthen your humans. Next, Geist of St. Traft so it's one white blue for a 2-2 legendary creature

Spirit Cleric it's got Hexproof and when it attacks you put a 4-4 angel token with flying to play tapped and attacking and then you exile and a turn

so the idea is he has a little angel buddy that every time he attacks so while he may look like a 2-2 creature on attack he does 6 damage every turn, which would be pretty potent. And the Angel's only there when he's attacking, so it's hard to deal with the Angel.

Now, he's a 2-2, you can kill him as a 2-2, but it definitely allows a lot of shenanigans, and him being a 2-2 has proven very useful in a couple other ways. So, this was a very good tournament-level card. It's all out of play in tournaments. Which is funny, because when we made Tempest, I feel like spirits have the least amount of identity, but we just happened to make some really strong spirit cards. So spirits showed up a lot in Constructed, even

though the mechanical identity wasn't quite as strong as some of the other monsters. Although, in Dark Ascension we get a little better. When I get to Dark Ascension I'll talk about that. Next, Geist Catcher's Rig. 6 for an artifact creature, four, five. It's a construct. When it enters a battlefield, it does four damage to flying creature.

Can anybody know what the... What did this card start as? This card started as the Ghost Buster's Vehicle. What is it, Ecto-1? And the idea is it kills ghosts! It comes into play and it gets rid of ghosts, because who is flying? Spcto-1? And the idea is it kills ghosts.

It comes into play and it gets rid of ghosts. Because who is flying? Spirits are flying. And so this was made kind of as a flavorful anti-spirit card. With a little tiny nod to Ghostbusters. Because, get it, they catch ghosts. So, anyway. Next, Ghost Quarter. It's a land. Tap to add one.

Tap, sack, destroy target land. And its controller gets to ramp in growth. Go get a basic land, put it's a land tap to add one tap sack destroy target land and its controller gets to rampant growth go get a basic land put in play tap so this is this is what I consider to be

the end of a long journey so when I first started playing there was wasteland which was not fun and then I got to wizards and I said

you know what I'm going to make a weaker wasteland I'm sorry weaker not wasteland um strip mine the original you know what? I'm going to make a weaker wasteland. I'm sorry, weaker, not wasteland. Strip mine. The original card was strip mine. I'm going to make a weaker strip mine and I made wasteland in Tempest.

And that, while weaker, was still pretty strong. And over the years I kept trying to find a way to make a land that was a stone rain that was fair, that kind of did what it needed to do. And the idea of the Titan Ghost Quarter is this thing is essentially useless against basic lands. If you kill a basic land, assuming they have another one in their deck,

they just go get it. But it allows you to get utility lands. It does kind of what we wanted to do, which is I play this not as a means to mana screw you, because it doesn't mana screw you, they get to replace the land, but as a means to manuscript you, because it doesn't manuscript you, they get to replace the land, but as a means to deal with problem lands. And Zendikar,

well, Zendikar wasn't standard when this came out, but anyway, there were a lot of lands in standard and plenty of lands in modern that mattered, and so we just wanted to give you some answers. And this ended up being, I finally feel like I nailed it. Like, this is a really good card for doing what I want. We've reprinted it.

Have we reprinted it? One day we'll reprint it, I hope. And it does a lot of nice functional jobs. Okay, next. Ghoul Caller's Bell. It's a one-mana artifact. Tap, each player mills one. So the idea of this card is that it is a mill card that does something a little strange.

That it doesn't just mill your opponent, it also mills you. But it's in a set where you kind of want to mill yourself. So it does this neat thing where it's like, well, maybe my deck wants to mill myself, and I also can mill out the opponent. And because it mills everybody, it gets to be a little cheaper. That's a tweak. I like doing tweaks. Next, Ghoulcaller's Chant. So this is a sorcery for a single black.

Choose one. Either you raise dead, meaning you get one creature card out of your graveyard, or you get two zombie cards out of your graveyard. And the idea here is, it's a zombie helping card, which has a general use. If you really needed to get something, you can get whatever you want. But, you get more utility if you use it on zombies, because this was meant to be a zombie enabler. Next, graveyard shovel. So graveyard shovel is an artifact for two. Next, Graveyard Shovel. So Graveyard Shovel is an artifact for two.

For two and tap, target player exiles a creature card from the graveyard. And if that card is a creature, you gain two life. So the flavor there is a little on the dark side, but some people like digging up bodies and getting nutrients from them. So the joke behind this card is, when I was making Zendikar, the goal of Zendikar was to make equipment that you as an explorer, as an adventurer would want to use, that maybe you could also use aggressively. And so I made shovels. And it got killed, and I asked, why?

Why'd you kill shovels? And they're like, well, there's no shovels on Zendikar. I go, why? Why'd you kill shovel? I'm like, well, there's no shovels on Zendikar. I go, what do you mean there's no shovel?

No one ever wants dirt out of, like, no hole making in there? I don't know, and I'm like, why aren't there

shovels? So, when we got here, I made a shovel, and this time, it got, apparently, there are shovels,

because there were so many graveyards that had to be shovels, I guess. So, there are shovels on Innistrad,

while somehow there weren't on Zendikar, I don't understand. Okay, next, Grim Grim Corpseborn. He's a 5-5 legendary creature zombie warrior. He, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, one second. So he enters the battlefield tapped, and he doesn't untap as normal. You can sack a creature to untap him, and you get to put a plus one plus one counter on him when you do. When he attacks

you destroy a target creature and get a plus one plus one counter. So the idea is basically in order to untap him you have to sack a creature and every time he attacks he gets to kill something. If you either those things he gets bigger. So we did not make this card in design. We decided that we wanted our big

legendary zombie to be Army of the Damned, which is the horde of zombies. So we didn't make a big legendary zombie. So we got to development, and development was like, hey, where's the big legendary zombie? So they made one, which was Grim Grim, which is a good thing they did

because he's really, really popular. He's a very popular, he played a lot in Commander, and people do love the Grim Grim, so I'm glad they did. I'm also glad we made Army of the Damned, so I'm glad both exist. Grimoire of the Dead costs four.

It's an artifact. One tap, discard a card, put a study counter on Grimoire of the Dead, and then tap, remove three study counters, and sack it, and you have to put all creature cards and all graves onto the battlefield under your control

and they're all now zombies. So this was the Necronomicon. That's what this card was called in design. The Book of the Dead. And the idea is this is the answer of how you can raise the dead. And so the idea is you got to study the book but once you study the book

then you can use its great power and you can... We want a pretty grandiose effect. So if you want reanimation, how about reanimate everything? I think Liliana did this once as an ultimate, but we don't reanimate everything all that often. We might have done it as a spell and maybe once as an ultimate,

but we don't do it a lot. And so the Necronomicon got to raise all the dead. Okay, next. Grizzled Outcast, another werewolf, four and a lot. And so the Necronomicon got to raise all the dead. Okay, next. Grizzled Outcast, another werewolf. Four and a green. For a three, I'm sorry, for a 4-4 werewolf. And then when it turns into a werewolf, it becomes a 7-7 werewolf. So this is another one you can kind of tell.

I'm big on aesthetics. So whenever the aesthetics are smidging off, you can tell that there was developmental reasons it had to change. So in my version in design, the original version, it was a 4-4 that turned into an 8-8. We had a bunch of vanillas that just kind of doubled in size. And it turned out that

8-8 was a little too much. And so instead of being an 8-8, it became a 7-7. Which I admit, aesthetically, is a little off. But, well, I'm big on aesthetics. Balance has to trump aesthetics from time to time. Sometimes it's not perfectly, doesn't look quite as cool,

but it'll play better, and I don't want to have great aesthetics and have bad gameplay, so I get that. Next, Hamlet Captain. One green for a 2-2, human warrior. If you attack or block, other humans get plus one, plus one, until end of turn.

So the idea is, if the captain's involved, other humans attack for more or block for more. And so this was a really good card. One of the things we did is, because humans showed up in more than just white and green, we really, really tried hard to make the rewards for playing humans mostly in green. That way, when you wanted to, because white

had the most humans by far. So if you wanted to build a human deck, well, green had most of the rewards to make you want to play it, and white had most of the humans. So that you wanted to build a human deck, well, green had most of the rewards to make you want to play it, and white had most of the humans. So that encouraged you to play humans as white-green. And this is a really good example of a card that was very, you know, in a heavy human deck was very effective, especially in limited.

Next, Hand Weir Watchkeep. Two and a red for a human warrior werewolf. He was a 1-5 defender. And then when he became a werewolf, he became a 5-5 to head attack each turn of Fable. So this is a good example of us sort of playing around with dichotomies. You know, he is a defender. You know, when he's a human

he watches the wall. He's a guard so he can't leave. And then when he's a werewolf he can't not attack. And so there's a nice dichotomy there. Also it's sort of like he's a 1-5 that turns into a 5 dichotomy there. Also, it's sort of like, he's a 1-5 that turns into a 5-5, so he sort of, when it comes to Werewolf,

he meets his full potential, his power goes all the way up to his toughness. And so it's kind of a nice balance that he's very harmless when he's in his human state and very harmful in his Werewolf state. He's definitely one of the ones that has one of the bigger switches. Okay, next, Instigator gang. Another werewolf. So three and a red

for a two, three human werewolf. And then he turns into... What does he turn into? Oh, I'm sorry. Instigator gang is three R for two, three human werewolf. All attacking creatures get plus... All your attacking creatures get plus one, plus O. And then when he turns,

he becomes wild blood pack and he becomes a five, five trampler that all your attacking creatures get plus one, plus oh. And then when he turns, he becomes Wild Blood Pack, and he becomes a five, five trampler that all your tagging creatures get plus three, plus oh. So once again, the idea is that as a human, he guides, but as a werewolf, he also, he keeps that quality, and so the cart upgrades.

It's like, well, plus one, plus zero to a tagging creature is good, but not as good as plus three, plus zero. And we did another cute thing where he doubles. So he was a two, three, becomes a five, five. So the idea is he had five worth of points of power and toughness combined, and it doubles to ten points. That's another way aesthetically sometimes for us to sort of mess around that area.

Next, Invisible Stalker. One of the most hated cards in the set. So Invisible Stalker started as Invisible Man. Like, a fine trope, he's Invisible Man, but what would Invisible Man do? I'm like, well, you can't see him, so you can't block him, and you can't see him, so you can't target him with spells. And remember, when we first started,

I believe Shroud had not yet been replaced by Hexproof. So when the file first got built, it was Shroud and Unblockable. And then during the course, it changed over. And so I think it changed the block before this. So just like in our file one day, it magically changed from Shroud to Hexproof. And Hexproof proved to be a little more potent because Shroud, you weren't able to pile enchantments

and artifacts on it, equipment on it. So a lot of our playtesting, we didn't realize that. And then I think development realized it was possible, but they thought that it would be fun for people. It turned out to be a little more aggravating. In retrospect, I probably would have said, and this is pretty flavorful, if I had to do it over again, I would say it is hexproof as long as it is not equipped. And the flavor is, as soon as it's holding a knife or holding something,

when you see the knife floating in the air, you're like, I think that's Invisible Man. I can now target him. You know, and so, anyway. Miocopa. Next, Kesik Wolf Run. It's a land. You tap to add one. And for X, red and green, you can tap to give target creature plus X plus O and trample to end of turn.

So this was probably the strongest of the five lands. This was tied to the werewolves. Clearly what it was doing is that, okay, we want a land. Well, how do you help the werewolves? Well, let them maximize all their mana so they can turn into werewolves. And so that's what this one does.

It gives you something to do with your mana so that you can distress on getting your werewolves into werewolves. And so that's what this one does. It gives you something to do with your mana so that you can distress on getting your werewolves into werewolves. And it's just pretty potent. It turns all your mana into a howl from beyond, essentially. And it adds trample, too. Anyway, it ended up being a very powerful land, and it was one of the things that helped

make the werewolf deck kick. Okay, next. Cruin Outlaw is another werewolf. It's a 1RR 2-2 with first strike that becomes a 3-3 with double strike and must be blocked by at least two creatures. What we call the Goblin Wardrums ability,

based on a card called Goblin Wardrums, from the dark, I think. So anyway, the idea is, it's first strike that kicks into double strike. And then as an added bonus, not only does it have double strike, meaning it can do double damage, it requires two creatures to block it. So anyway, it kind of goes from single to double.

The first rate of Double Strike is something we do from time to time. There's not a lot of mechanics we have where clearly there's stage one, stage two, where it's first grade and it's upgraded, and Double Strike is just better than First Strike. And so it is fun for us when we have the opportunity to do first

strike going up into double strike. And I know we knew we were going to do it in red because green doesn't have first strike or double strike and so we fiddled around a bit. We knew we were going to do it on a werewolf and we ended up moving around a couple different werewolves before we finally settled on what we were going to do.

Okay, I'm now at wizard so on what we're going to do. Okay, I'm now at Wizard. So, okay, we're going to stop here. We, I got up to L. So we will start with L in the next podcast. I'm not done.

Hopefully you guys are enjoying this. I, it is fun to look back and to see all cards that I worked on and where they came from and how they were designed and developed.

And anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying that and we are are chugging along so I will keep at this until I get to all the cards I want to talk about but I just parked my parking spot so we all know that means it means it's the end of my drive to work instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic see you guys next time