Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #242 - Avacyn Restored, Part 2

Episode Date: July 10, 2015

Mark continues with part 2 of his 4-part series on the design of Avacyn Restored.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time we started on the design of Avacyn Restored. Well, this time we got through A, so we're not done yet. We're going to get to B. Okay, so last time I explained sort of how the design got put together, and today I'm talking about the cards and filling in with some more design stories. So we're going to start with Banishing Stroke. So Banishing Stroke costs five and a white, so six mana. It's an instant. You put target, artifact, creature, or enchantment on the bottom of its owner's library.

Miracle, one white. So the idea of miracles, remember everybody, is there's something in which you might really need them, and the moment you draw them, they might desperately help you in some way. And so this was designed to sort of get rid of a problem card. Now, I'll be fair. I don't really believe that white is supposed to just remove anything without any consequence to it.

This is one of those kind of cards that I tend to fight and often lose on. I believe that the key to white is the following. White should have answers with answers, stuff like Oblivion Ring and things, in which I can get rid of something, but you can answer my answer. It can do trades where I get rid of something, but I give you something. And when those are pushed, those are problematic, like plowshares. But when they're not so pushed,

I think they're okay. White sometimes can deal with big guys. Some of that is okay. But I'm not a huge fan of white just being able to deal with anything. And I'm not a big fan of white putting things on the bottom of the library. I know for commander

and stuff, once upon a time, that mattered quite a bit. But anyway, this is one of those cards that I'm like, eh. I mean, at six mana, it's fine, but the fact that you can do it for one mana, you know, there are things that white is supposed to do, but just not as efficiently as some of the other colors. Like, white is supposed to have creature removal, but not at the level

that other colors, especially black, has it. And cards like this can sort of unbalance things. So, anyway, my take on Venison Stroke. Next, Bladed Bracers. Artifact, equipment, cost one. Equipped creature gets plus one, plus one. And if it's a human or an angel, it gets vigilance.

Equipped, two. So, one of the things we did in Innistrad was we had equipment that was better in the hands of humans. One of the little attributes we gave to humans was they were good with equipment. They could make do. Humans have learned how to turn whatever they need to into a weapon. And the idea here is taking that same sort of element of humans are good with it, but adding angels in. Because now angels are also a thing. There's an angel tribal going on in this set.

So the big tribal of this block, not this block, of this set, is human tribal and angel tribal. There's a little monster tribal still going on because we're on an ennish ride, but there's a lot more. There's a lot of human and angel tribal going on. So you can make human decks or your angel tribal decks.

Next, Blessings of Nature. It's a green card. It costs four and a green, five mana, sorcery. Distribute four plus one plus one counters among any number of creatures. Miracle. Gee.

So the idea of miracles is that we wanted them to feel like truly like, oh my goodness. Normally this costs five mana, but if I happen to be drawing my card, bam, it can cost one mana, you know, and that is pretty, um, pretty cool, you know, and, and it makes it seem real sexy. So, um, but anyway, uh, also notice that this is a sorcery. This is a sorcery, and so when you get to play it as a miracle,

you get to play it at instant speed. And so that's one of the things that's really cool, is that you, that most, and not all of them are sorceries, the last one was an instant, but a lot of them are sorceries. So when you get the miracle, not only do you get it at a reduced cost, but you get to kind of play it at a time you don't normally get to play it. Sorry, I was distracted. Today in my home, they are picketing for larger class sizes, which is a good thing.

And so there's lots and lots of people with picket signs everywhere. That's why I was honking. I was honking in support for larger class sizes. I'm sorry, not larger class sizes. Smaller class sizes. Mark likes larger class sizes. Sorry, smaller class sizes. Okay, next. Blood Artist.

1B for a 0-1 vampire. Whenever Blood Artist or another creature dies, target player, you drain target player for one. So the idea of this thing is it likes things dying, and when things die, you sort of get in a state where I have creatures, and as the creatures die,

I slowly drain life from you. Black is obviously good at draining, and it's, you know, it plays into a nice creature strategy where you can... Funny thing is a vampire, although it actually plays pretty well in the zombie strategy, because zombies are like, just get a lot of zombies out and a lot of zombies will die. I guess there's also a speed strategy with vampires that this will play well,

and actually, I guess it plays both in the vampire and the zombie deck. But one of the things we wanted to make sure was, not only were we making a lot of angels and sort of the good guy side, but, you know, hey, you had built a lot of fun tribal decks with Innistrad along the way. We wanted to give you some more cool cards. And Blood Artist is definitely one of those cards that can slide into a vampire deck or a zombie deck

pretty easily. Next, Bonfire of the Damned. XXR sorcery. Deal X damage to target player and each creature they control. Ba-bam! Miracle XR. So, it's a little more expensive if you cast it normally, and it's a sorcery.

But if you can miracle it, the idea of miracle is you can really save the day. And the classic, this is a classic one, I tried this last time, where Brian Kibler was playing, I think, at the World Championships, I believe. He was on Team USA. And, like, they were on the verge of winning when out of nowhere, bam, bonfire of the damned, and they lost the game. So one of the things, one of the controversies of Miracles, I mean, Miracles are just very swingy.

They allow for amazing moments. Miracles do, one of the things I like that Miracles do is they create amazing moments. One of the things you want to do in games is, when people tell stories about the games, you want to make mechanics that go, okay, I've got to tell you what happened. And Miracle is a great story mechanic. It definitely... I talk about wanting to have a narrative to your games. There's a story you can tell. And oh, bam!

Miracles are exciting and sexy. On the downside, they increase variance in that you want some variance. Matches are more fun games with their sun variance. But what you tend not to want to happen is giant variance causing the games to end. And this is definitely one of those things. Bonfire of the Damned is a good example

where you could have the game all locked up. You know, you've won the game, and then out of nowhere they win. And that is exciting for less experienced players and frustrating for more experienced players. Like I said, you want some variance, but I would argue that Bonfire of the Damned probably ended up being a little bit too much variance. It was a little too much, like, I'm going to win, but wait, you drew Bonfire of the Damned, and I lose. Okay, next. Bruna, Light of Alabaster. So this is the blue Powerpuff.

So she's three, white, white, blue, 5-5, Legendary Angel. So this is Bubbles. I believe I remember my Powerpuff Girls correctly. So she is flying in vigilance. When she attacks, you attach any number of ores to her from the battlefield or from your hand or your graveyard. She is queen of the auras.

And so when she attacks, she can gather up auras and put them on her. So she kind of wants a deck with lots of auras in it. Each of the angels has their own little—we designed them so that you'd want to have some fun building around them. And so the Powerpuff Girls came about because we wanted to have an angel-themed thing. We talked with the creative. The creative felt very firmly that angels were a white thing. They didn't want to move it out of white.

Dragons, we have a little more latitude. We occasionally make dragons in all the different colors, even though dragons are the iconic of red. It just has to do with the position of dragons in the game. Like I said, whenever we do market research, dragons are the most of red. It just has to do with the position of dragons in the game. Like I said, whenever we do market research, dragons are the most popular creature type.

Dragons, I don't know. We have decided that it's okay to let dragons drift a little more on special occasions than we let the other iconics. What we did is, each angel showed up in the non-black color, so red, green, and blue,

but as a multicolor card. So Brunin's an example of that. And the Power Force girls were very popular. Okay, next, Captain of the Mist. Two and a blue for a 2-3 human wizard. Whenever another wizard enters the battlefield under your control, you can untap it. It has an ability, one blue tap, tap or untap target permanent. Okay, so it

has a twiddle ability, you can tap or untap things. And then, we do this occasionally, that it has a tap ability, but whenever a wizard comes into the battlefield, so like, it's a wizard tribal card, it allows you to reuse this ability. So essentially, every wizard

has, when it enters the battlefield, you may spend one U to tap or untap or permanent. But it's tied to this thing. So the idea of untapping this, I can use it again because it requires a tap. And so it sort of gives an ability to each wizard that requires some mana, but in a way that's a little bit cleaner than having it as, you know, when it comes in play, you may pay one U. Next, Cathar's Crusade, 3WW enchantment.

Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a plus one, plus one counter on each creature you control. This is one of my cards. One of the things I was trying to do is, I mean, in general, one of the things the design was doing was we wanted to get the idea of your team working together. That the way the good guys were defeating the bad guys was they were working together as a team and so there's a lot of themes of the good guys working together and the bad guys not the lone mechanic is sitting in black and more the bad guy mechanic where soul bond is very much just working together

is on the good guy so this is another example of okay as you know there's a lot of things in the set about having care how many creatures you have or just okay, there's a lot of things in the set about caring how many creatures you have or just being rewarded for having a lot of creatures. And there's a lot of ways to generate creatures. So this is one of those cards which is like, if I have a deck with lots of creatures, I'm constantly just making my creatures bigger and bigger. And the cool thing that's different between this and something like Crusade is the bonus that it's granting doesn't go away if you get rid of the enchantment.

You know, if you get rid of Gloria's Anthem, well, then the creatures no longer have plus one plus one. It also works a little bit differently because the things get bigger based on when something's in a play. So what happens is the things you get in early get the bigger fastest. But the earlier things tend to be the smaller things so actually it works out pretty well.

Okay, next. Cavern of Souls. This is a very popular card. It's land. When it enters the battlefield, you choose a creature type. It has two abilities. You can tap to add one colorless mana, or you can tap to add one mana of any color, but you only may use it to play creatures of the type you selected. So this is something we do from time to time.

There's some memory issues here, but usually if we make the decision important enough, it's something you can remember. So this card was made because there's a lot of tribal stuff going on in the block. We wanted to give you something to, we really wanted to encourage you to play tribal decks. And so we made a card. So one of the things we do is called, what I call choose your own, which is one of the ways to somehow make stuff.

Sometimes you do like, let's say you wanted to do tribal things. You name things. Oh, this is a vampire lord, this is a zombie lord. But sometimes what you want to do is A, because you don't make a lord for everything, and B, it gives you a little bit of flexibility, because you make a card like this that says, okay, I need to go in a tribal

deck, you need to have some theme to really take use of me, but I don't care what you, you know, any, essentially any tribal deck can play this card. It just makes it easier to splash colors in a tribal deck, what the card was designed to do. And, oh, by the way, not only, I forgot something, not only do you have one mana to play any creature of the chosen type,

but that creature can't be countered. So not only does it help you with your mana, it also helps you against permission. Because permission often can be the bane of tribal decks. Tribal decks are a little bit slower. They depend upon the creatures. It's a lot easier to counter creatures. And so, anyway, this card was definitely made to sort of notch up tribal decks in Standard. It turned out, by the way, this card was so good that it didn't even need to be a complete tribal deck.

That you might just, you know, have a small component and use this for that small component. And just know in your deck what you need to splash for, so you name those things. But anyway, it was a very good card. Next, Cloud Shift. So Cloud Shift costs one white. It's an instant. You exile a target creature you control, and then you return it to the battlefield immediately. You instant flicker it.

So interestingly, the card flicker. So originally I talked about it. In Urges to Destiny, I made a vertical cycle, a common, uncommon, and a rare, that all had the flicker ability. Inspired by my love of phasing, or my love of phasing. I really got into making phasing cards that

phase things out. Not that they had phasing per se, but they used the phasing cards that phase things out. Not that they had phasing per se, but they used the phasing technology. And there's a lot of cards, a lot of the cards that are in Mirage and Visions that phase themselves out was my doing because I really, I became enamored of it and Missed Dragon and

there's a bunch of cards that phase themselves out that I did and that I, I really, really was entranced by this idea of I can protect myself. And the idea that you could trigger, enter the battlefield effects. Anyway, so I made it. The common card I made was an instant, was this card. It was an instant flicker card that did instant flicker.

The flicker I did originally, I believe, was instant flicker, not till end of turn flicker. That came later. So anyway, Cloud Shift, I believe, is exactly the comment I made. And then what happened was they got rid of the uncommon and the rare, pushed my comment up to rare, and changed it from an instant to a sorcery.

And so I finally like Cloud Shift. It's not only the card I originally meant, but it's at common. It's like the comment I originally meant to make when I first made it. And I finally get to get it made so I was very happy I'm a big fan of flickering

the flickering theme that is in the set I had a lot to do with I felt it really fit a lot of the stuff we were doing it played well with Solban we had a lot of ETB effect anyway so the flickering theme was something that I had encouraged so it's here on the set

next, Commander's Authority is a white enchantment, an aura So the flickering theme was something that I had encouraged, so it's here at the set. Next, Commander's Authority is a white enchantment aura. Four and W, so five mana, four and one white. It's an enchant creature. Enchanted creature has, at the beginning of the upkeep, put a 1-1 human creature token onto the battlefield. So I mentioned earlier that not only does white want an army, but there are a lot of things in this set that reward you for both having a lot of creatures and help you get a lot of creatures.

Well, this is one of the ladders. This helps you get a lot of creatures. And there's a whole bunch of ways in the set to reward you for having a lot of creatures. This is just one of the ways to get them. Conjurer's Closet. Five, artifact. At the beginning of the end step,

you instant flicker something. Like I said, I like doing a lot instant flicker something. Like I said, I like doing a lot of flicker things. This was set up, the reason it's end of turn is so that you can play a creature that has an enter the battlefield effect, and then at the end of the turn, get it again. Essentially, you can get a second copy

of the effect. It did a bunch of different things. It also allows you to sort of, if your opponent put ores and things, you can clear those off. There's a bunch of different things. It also allows you to sort of, if your opponent put ores and things, you can clear those off. There's a bunch of reasons this is nice. And it's optional, meaning if you have plus one, plus one counters or something,

you don't have to flick or something. It's just, you can choose to do it if you want to. Next, Crater Hoof Behemoth. Five green, green, green. So it's eight mana, three of which is green, for five, five beasts. It has haste, and when it enters the battlefield, creatures you control gain trample, and plus X plus X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures you control.

So it has an enter the battlefield overrun, essentially. Although the overrun is based on creatures. So the more creatures you have, the bigger the creatures are. The fact that this has haste, by the way, A, because this ability works really well with haste. So not only does it make itself bigger, but it can attack. And B, usually when haste is on a card, that means that development thought that the card

had at least some constructive possibilities. Haste is tertiary in green. So development only really uses it when they have a card they think maybe has a shot at being constructed. So my guess is that looking at this is they were trying to do something they could get constructed. Anyway, and this definitely can have, I mean, costs eight mana. So it really is a finishing card.

But it can be pretty powerful because it comes in. And usually when you have eight mana, you've got a lot of creatures in play. And so this thing can really make your team giant. Okay, next, Crypt Creeper. One black, so one and a black, two mana for a 2-1 zombie. You can sac it to XL target card from a graveyard. Interestingly, this is a zombie, but this card is actually giving you some tools

to fight some stuff early on the block. This card is good for fighting against flashback. It's actually good, ironically, for fighting against a lot of zombie decks that bring things back from the block. This card is good for fighting against flashback. It's actually good ironically for fighting against a lot of zombie decks that bring things back from the graveyard. But the idea is the Innistrad and Dark Ascension did a lot with the graveyard. Absinthe Restored

does not do a lot with the graveyard. We were sort of shifting trying to do something different. And so because it's a set right after, we want to give you some answers for some of the graveyard shenanigans. So often what we do is we put answers either in the set that they're in or right after. So if something gets out of control, there's a release valve that can help make sure it's okay. This is a release valve for a lot of the graveyard things. Next, Dark Impaftor.

Two black, two two, Vampire Assassin. For four black black, you can exile target creature and put a plus one plus one on the Dark Imposter. And then, he has all activated abilities of any exiled cards. I believe exiled cards you'd exiled with this guy. So one of the things is, why doesn't he get abilities? Why does he just get activated

abilities? Why not static abilities? And the answer is, you can't... There's a lot of problem with copying static abilities, partly because there's things like define power toughness, and there's static abilities of problems with copying static abilities. Partly because there's things like define power toughness and there's static abilities that do things that wouldn't make sense and so when we're copying we can name

if you want somebody to get keyword abilities you have to name the ones to look for and we've made cards like that and say oh if Creature in a Graveyard has any of these abilities you get it. We have to list them out. Activated abilities, you can just copy. Those are fine. So this is going after activated abilities.

Dead Eye Navigator. Four blue blue, five five spirit. Has soul bond. And whenever it's paired to something, it and the thing it's paired to, get one instant flicker. This card proved to be very powerful. And I know there are a lot of people that played this card in Constructed

because it has some combo enabling in it. But anyway, this was another very popular card. Soulbond is interesting in that we were trying to make different Soulbond cards that could matter in Constructed as well as in Limited. It's a lot easier to make Soulbond matter in Limited. You just have more creatures.

It's a little harder. Killing creatures is not quite as easy, where in Standard and Constructed it's a lot easier. And so making them matter, making that ability matter, it's just a little trickier. Okay, next, Defy Death. Three white, white for a sorcery. Return target creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield.

If it's an angel, it gets two plus one plus one counters. So this is an ability that would normally be in black, which is reanimation. White tends to reanimate small things. The problem was we loved the idea of rewarding you for reanimating an angel. Well, black couldn't do that. Black could never ride. It doesn't reward you for having an angel. Black is the evil

gullet that's against, you know, all the monsters that are in for the set. So we made it in white. We pushed it a little bit. Like I said, it's more of a bend than a break. White can reanimate things, just it normally tends to reanimate smaller things. So we pushed that a bit. In the angel set, we pushed a little bit

of allowing you to get things back from the graveyard in white. Okay, next, Demonic Uprising, three black, black enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control exactly one creature, put a five, five black demon creature token with flying onto the battlefield. So the idea here is

that this says, hey, if you have no creatures, I'll get you a demon. And remember, the demon's a creature. So the idea essentially is, what this card says is, as long as there's no other creatures, I'll provide you a demon. And remember, the demon's a creature. So the idea essentially is, what this card says is, as long as there's no other creatures, I'll provide you with a demon. If something happens to that demon, I'll give you another demon. But it's a loaner card in the sense that if you have other creatures, you don't get the demon. Although, once you have the demon, you can play other creatures. It won't go away if you have other cards. But it won't generate it unless it's the only creature.

Oh, I'm sorry. Exactly one creature. So you are allowed to have a creature out already and then get a demon. But once you have a demon... So you can generate... Sorry.

You can generate two demons. If the only thing you have in play is a demon, it will generate a second demon because you have to have exactly one in play. If you have two demons, then it won't.

Okay, next. Demonic Taskmaster. 2B for a 4-3 Demon. We're in the Ds. We're in the Demon slash Demonic section. 2B for a 4-3. 2 and a block

for a 4-3 Demon with Flying. At the beginning of your upkeep you have to sacrifice another creature. So this is kind of classic Demons. Going all back to

Lord of the Pit and Alpha where like it requires some sacrifice and you kind of got to feed your other creatures. This is exactly that. It won't eat itself, so it's not easy to get rid of. But once you have it in play, it's going to eat everything.

Now, if you don't have a creature in play, it does not sacrifice itself. Sometimes it'll say, you know, sacrifice it unless you sacrifice another creature. This doesn't say that. So once again, this card is kind of a secret loner card, which is, if it's the only thing in play, it's not going to go away, it won't eat itself, and you won't lose anything. So if you get this thing in play, and there's

no other creatures in play, then hey, it'll just be okay. It understands when there's no food around. It's willing to serve you, and it knows probably more food's coming, so it won't attack you. Okay, next. Demon Lord of the Ash Mouth. Two black black for a 5-4 demon with flying. Note, by the way, in magic, not all demons fly. A lot of demons fly. Demons

can fly. We're very careful that when we do flying demons, they have wings or something to make it very clear that they can fly. But demons unlike angels. All angels fly. All angels have wings. All angels fly. Demons, on the other hand, don't always fly. There are non-flying demons, although there's plenty of flying demons. Anyway, demon of Ashmoth has flying.

When it enters the battlefield, you exile it unless you sacrifice another creature and it has undying. So the idea is you have to sacrifice something and if you don't, then unlike demonic taskmaster, that this one will go away if it's Undying. So the idea is you have to sacrifice something and if you don't, then unlike Demonic Taskmaster, that this one will go away if it's not fed. So you've got to feed it. But only when you enter the battlefield.

But it has Undying. So the idea is I enter the battlefield, I eat something, I'm big. When I die, as long as I can eat something else, then I can come back. So the Undying, normally Undying goes and enters the battlefield effects that you want to repeat. This one actually is not true.

It's an entrance to the battlefield that's a drawback. But you get a 5-4 Demon for 2-black-black, which dies and becomes a 6-5 Demon. Okay, it requires you sacrificing a few creatures, but hey, hey, you knew you got into it if you were summoning the Demon Lord of Ashmouth. Okay, next, Descendant's Path. This is a green card, 2 and a green. It's an enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, you reveal the top card of your library. If that creature shares a creature type

with a creature in play, then you get to play it for free. Otherwise, you put it on the bottom of your library. So once again, because we knew we were coming to the end of the block, of a tribal block, and we didn't want to have too many monster reward cards, what we did is we made a bunch of tribal cards that are open-ended. So a good example is, if you're making a werewolf deck,

well, you know what? You can play this in your werewolf deck. Werewolf's red-green is a green card. And when you draw a werewolf, you get to play werewolves for free because you have werewolves in play. Obviously, the card only goes in a green deck, or a deck capable of playing green. But the idea is, it doesn't matter. Play whatever tribal card you want, and this will help you.

You want to play elves? It'll help you. I mean, it's better, obviously, on things that are bigger. That's important, that you want to have things that are larger. And, you know, that is the key. So the idea is you want to, I mean, that is the key. So the idea is you want to, I mean, because you get to play it for free, it just synergizes better with things that are larger things. So, anyway, what's my next card?

Descent into Madness. So Descent into Madness is an enchantment. It costs three black and a black. So it's Madness is an enchantment. It costs three black and a black. So it's a five mana enchantment. And so what it says is, at the beginning of your upkeep, you put a despair counter on it. And the despair counter So that's that.

You put it on the despair counter, and then all players must exile X cards in hand and or from the battlefield where X is the number of spare counters. So the idea of this card is, okay, you've got to lose one thing. Okay, now you've got to lose two things. Okay, now you've got to lose three things.

And slowly, you know, it's eating up everybody's stuff. Now, hopefully, you've made a deck to deal with this. You're generating tokens or something. You're doing something to get ahead on between cards in hand and cards on the battlefield so that you're staying ahead of your opponent. One of the things we definitely wanted to do in the black cards is the black cards were supposed to be like,

things are bad for black finally, and you have a lot of despair, and you know, like, the monster's on the run, and we were really trying to create the sense of things were bad for the things were bad for the monsters, and we were really trying to create the sense of things were bad for the things were bad for the monsters, and so this is kind of playing into there.

Okay, next. Devastation Tide. So Devastation Tide is a sorcery that costs five mana, three blue blue, so five total, return all non-land permanents to their owner's hand. Miracle, one and a blue. So this is another miracle card where, like, and the idea is,

miracle cards were sometimes situational. This is a good example where it's not that you always want to return all permanents to owner's hand, but there's many times where you're behind, where you're in trouble, and this would allow you to sort of have a breather to catch up. And so the idea is,

if I draw it and I'm in trouble, I can miracle. It's pretty cheap, only costs two mana. If I draw it and I don't need it, I don't have to do it. Miracles don't require you to do it. That's one of the other differences between where Brian was messing around and where I was messing around back in Tempest is, when I was doing draw triggers back in Tempest, I was playing around with

mandatory draw triggers. Like, it's going to happen whether you like it or not. Which is a very different animal. This is more like, I have a reward that's positive if I want it to be Like, it's going to happen whether you like it or not. Which is a very different animal. This is more like, I have a reward that's positive if I want it to be. If it's not beneficial for me, I don't have to opt into it. I don't have to cast a miracle. And a lot of times, by the way, you'll draw this card,

have the ability to play it, but you don't need it, and you save it, and then cast it later when it could be more valuable for you. Okay, next, Devout Chaplain. Devout Chaplain costs two white for a 2-2. It's a human cleric. You tap it and two untapped humans you control to exile

target artifact or enchantment. So white has the ability to exile artifacts or enchantment, something it does. So we're playing in the theme that I talked about, about cooperation. It's like, okay, the idea here is, oh, well, he can do it, he'll help. So you need to have a bunch of creatures, which already is a theme of the set, and you can kind of have them work together.

So there definitely is, the group is stronger than the individual going on here, where white especially is playing into that group thing. And this is a good example of just a card to do that. Okay, Dread Slaver. Three black black for three five zombie horror. Whenever a creature... Whenever... Oh, whenever a creature dealt combat damage

by Dread Slaver dies, it returns to play under your control as a zombie in addition to any creature types it has. So the idea is, if this bites something, it kills... If it bites it and it dies, is, if this bites something, it kills it. If it bites it and it dies, it comes back as a zombie and you get it. We've messed around this territory before. Black doesn't...

Black is allowed to steal things, but usually only when they die. It can steal things from the graveyard or steal things when they die. Blue gets to steal things upright and red gets to steal them for the turn. But the way black steals things is kind of it, it steals dead things, is the idea. Next, Druid's Familiar.

Three and a green for a 2-2 bear that has soul bond, and it and the creature it's paired with get plus two, plus two. So this is an idea of sort of soul bond, it's sort of, it's vanilla. It's just like, there's just a power stat, you know, power toughness increase. Like, okay, I have a 2-2, and the idea is 3G for a 2-2 is nothing special, but if you pair it with another creature, it's a 4-4. Well, 3G for a 4-4 is pretty good, and by the way, it makes another creature get plus 2 plus 2. So this is definitely, I think

this was, my guess is this was one of the ones that was meant for Constructed. This has definitely pushed it a little more. But anyway, this is the idea of Soulbond. The thing you always want to do when you make a mechanic is make sure that the vanilla versions of it, the simplest versions of it, are exciting and fun. And this card was a lot of fun. This was a very fun card. And one of the kind of cards that proved this very early on that there was a lot of potential in Solban. That when the vanilla versions of a mechanic are fun to play,

that's a good sign that it's a fun mechanic. That if you have to do a lot of rigmarole dating mechanics to be fun, that's a sign that you have a problem. But when the nice, simple version of it itself is fun, that's an excellent sign. Okay. So my final card. Actually, I may be able to do two less cards. Druid's Repository. So Druid card, actually, I'll do two last cards.

Druid's Repository. So Druid's Repository, actually, this is my last D. I'll make this my last card. I'll pick up next time with E. So Druid's Repository is an enchantment

that costs one green green, so three mana. When a creature you control attacks, put a charge counter on card name, and you may remove a charge counter to add a mana of any color to your mana pool. So the idea here is it turns creature attacks into mana.

Well, once again, the theme of the set is you want to have a lot of creatures. And so the idea is you get creatures out, and you attack with your creatures. It can turn them into mana, which will get you more creatures. And so this is definitely... It also plays into the... It makes you want to have a lot of creatures and has sort of a little bit of a teamwork quality where certain creatures are getting you mana

so you can play other creatures. And like I said, the theme of teamwork shows up in all of the colors. You'll see that, except for black. But the creatures matter was definitely a theme that's a little more in white and green just because that's white and green sort of special area. So if you played a white-green deck, you really wanted to build up a giant army and get rewarded for that.

Okay, I finished with D, so I did B, C, and D. Hopefully I'll pick up the pace a little bit in the next couple days. But anyway, that is my podcast for today. Obviously, I will pick up with E next time. But thanks for joining me, guys. I hope you're enjoying my jaunt through Avacyn Restored. But I'm in my parking space, so we all know what that means. Time to end my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.