Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #244 - Avacyn Restored, Part 4

Episode Date: July 17, 2015

Mark concludes his 4-part series on the design of Avacyn Restored.

I'm pulling my driveway. We don't know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, when last I left, we were up to M of Avacyn Restored. My goal today, to finish the podcast on Avacyn Restored. So we're going to go to a good clip today. I have a bunch of cards, but I'm going to try to get it all done. So we start with M with the Malphild Twins. Five and a black, so that's six mana, one of which is black, for four four zombie. When it dies, you get 2 2-2 black zombie creature tokens

so it's a 4-4 that dies into 2 2-2's now one of the things that's fun is there's a little status going on there where the idea that it dies into things that add up to equal what it is before it dies, and then the card is representing of 2 zombie twins so when they die, you get the twins to come back

anyway, very clever. I like it. Next, Mad Prophet. Three and a red. Two to human shame and haste. Tap discard a card. Draw a card. So we were sort of messing around to figure out... Red was something that just needed a little bit more there,

and we were trying to figure out what we could add, and actually I talked to my blog, and I asked people and something that kept coming up is, could red maybe get looting? Because that's something red could do. And so I said, you know what? That does make some sense. The issue was red's supposed

to not have really good card advantage. So the question was, could we give red looting in a way that wasn't so card advantage-y? And so the answer we came up with is, what if red discarded before it drew? So blue draws before it discards. So the idea is, in a vacuum, red would be a little worse,

although red is the color that runs out of gas. Red is the color that's trying to beat you, and at the end, just getting one extra spell to do damage often can mean winning the game. So while in a vacuum it's a little weaker, the kind of style that red plays,

looting is actually very powerful. So even though it is not as strong, it's not as strong comparatively, situationally, it tends to be red decks really, really need the last few spells to finish off the opponent. So it turns out that it works

well for red. And it's a little more flavor. Like, blue is the one that studies and like, okay, well I'm going to draw first and think about it and then take time to discard the red, the right thing. Where red is like, ah, whatever, I need a card I'll throw something away. And so it's a little more reckless, which makes sense with red. Next, Malignant, Malignus,

Malignus, uh, three, three red red, so five man, the two of which is red. For a star, star, elemental spirit. Where power and toughness is equal to the opponent's life rounded up. Damage by card name can't be prevented. So the fun thing about this card name is it basically halves your life every time it hits you.

And the reason it rounds up is it couldn't kill you if it rounded down. That once you had one life, it couldn't kill you. So the idea is, this card will kill you. Essentially, you have to look out, you know, how many powers of two your life is to figure out how many times it'll take to kill you. But anyway, it's definitely a fun card, and it has a lot of cool flavor to it. In general, whenever we make you have things, we have to tell you whether to round up or down. And depending on the card, different cards will want to do different things. This card wants to be able to kill you, so

it rounds up. Next, Mass Appeal. To you, sorcery, draw cards equal to the number of humans you control. So one of the things we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure that every we wanted to make humans something that was viable

in every combination minus black. Black did not help humans. And black-white actually had a human deck in Dark Ascension where your monsters were eating your humans. A little different human deck. So this time we wanted to have three different human decks. So we wanted to make sure there was a white-green

human deck, a white-blue human deck, and a white-red human deck. And there were combinations that didn't even involve white. But the idea was we wanted each color to care about humans in a way that was more that color. So blue is a little more control-oriented. It draws cards off your creatures, you know, the number of humans you have. So you want to have a lot of humans because it can help you net an advantage. Where red, as we'll see later, does a lot of damage based on humans.

The red is trying to beat you down. And so different colors were kind of taking advantage of humans in different ways, allowing you to build a lot of different human decks. Because human tribal was one of the big themes of the set. There was also angel tribal and demon tribal were there as well. But we wanted to make sure that, you know,

you could build a human deck and you could support it. And there were a lot of humans in both Innistrad and Dark Ascension, so we were playing on things we'd already given you, but really, we wanted to show that humans were finally shining, so we did a lot of human tribal. The interesting story there, by the way, is humans did not

exist as a creature tribe for a long time. It's not until we came up with the race-class system, which I think started in Mirrodin, where we realized that humans needed, once we did race-class, a lot of cards are human. Well, then we have to kind of tell you that, otherwise race class didn't work.

And there's a lot of debate at the time whether we'd ever use humans as a tribal thing. And early on, a lot of our ideas were like, no, we're not going to do that. And back in my head, I'm like, eh, we'll do it. If you name something, eventually you'll take advantage of it.

That's just the nature of having things named. The game is a hungry monster. Don't go, hey, we've never cared about this thing. Okay, next, Midnight Duelist. A single white mana. It's a 1-2 human soldier with protection from vampires. So one of the things we definitely wanted to do is, I think we made one human that was well-versed against each of the monsters,

and this is the anti-vampire card. It is not particularly strong unless you're facing vampires. So this is the kind of card that if your opponent has a vampire deck, you can sideboard this in if you're playing white. But it's not particularly effective unless there's a threat of vampires, and a pretty significant threat of vampires. Next, Miss Raven. Two blue blue for two two bird.

It is flying. And when it enters the battlefield, you bounce a creature. So this is Mana War, for all intents and purposes. Except it's a flying Mana War. And Mana War was a card we printed in Visions. It costs two and a blue, three mana, for a two2 ground creature, not flying, and it bounced the creature. It was really, really good. Too good, actually.

I mean, this card is flying, but it adds an extra mana to boot. I guess it gives you flying to give you a little extra bonus. But Mana War wasn't really... Mana War, the bounce was the biggest part of the effect. But anyway, Miss Raven. Next, Miss Hollow Griffin. Two blue blue, three three Griffin flying, and you can cast it from exile.

Okay, I'm not... So one of my pet peeves is the exile zone, which used to be called remove from the game. And we had to change the name because things that were removed from the game apparently weren't removed from the game because often they mattered in the game. Sometimes you could bring them back in the game.

As a general rule of thumb, I do not mind exile used as limbo if the card that removes it brings it back. That is just exile as limbo. It's like, well, I need to put it somewhere. Exile is as fine a place as any. And I, getting back the thing I put in limbo. I'm less of a fan of cards to get other things out of limbo. Meaning, once the card's in limbo, I like to stay.

Once it's in exile, I like to stay in exile. I do not, generally the idea is, once you've exiled something, I don't want you to be able to get the thing back, is my general sense. Is that, you have exiled it, it is a cost, you should not be getting back. Or if someone else exiled your stuff,

you should not be able to get anything back. Once they're exiled, they should be gone from you. Barring, barring, something exiling them that is bringing them back. That's okay. If Oblivion Ring exiles your creature, well, if you get rid of the Oblivion Ring, you should get the creature back.

That's okay. This creature kind of falls in the middle. I don't like the trend it sets, so I don't like the card. It does refer to itself in our other cards, so it's sort of like, well, if you exile this creature, it can get itself back. So in some level, it's

immune to exile. If the card just said, I cannot be exiled, I'd be a little happier. I guess what I dislike is that you pay ex... Here's what I don't like about this card, is that sometimes you pay a cost in which you exile something as a cost, and with this card, it's not really a cost because you can just get it back.

That I don't like. I don't like just turning exile costs null and void. That's what I don't like about this card. The card's getting itself back. I'm okay with the card getting itself back, but anyway, I would have not printed this card. I definitely fought against it, but I did not win that fight. Okay, Moonlight Geist, two and a white for two, one spirit with flying.

Three white, prevent all damage to and from it. So it is a spirit that has gaseous form, which is an ability from way back in Legends or Ice Age. I think it was Legends. But anyway, it's a creature that sort of, when you activate it, it can become hard to hurt, but

if you don't harm it, it doesn't harm you. So it can be used to sort of prevent bigger things, but it doesn't really kill anything. It just sort of prevents the damage. But it felt very ghosty. Okay, next, Necrobite, two black, instant. Target picture against death touch and regenerate it.

Black is able to gain death touch, and black is able to regenerate. This was a neat combination of the two effects. It really, it is hard to make cool, in-flavor black combat tricks, and Necrobyte is a very good one. I think we had originally done the spell as a green-black hybrid card in... must have been Eventide, I think.

And we're like, you know what, this is a good effect, let's just get it into mono-black. Obviously, a black-green hybrid could be cast by mono-black, but we liked this spell enough. And this is a spell we definitely started using a bit, because it is just a good combat trick. Next, Nephalia Struggler. Blue for a 1-1 human rogue, 3U and tap, 2, instant flicker.

So 3U and tap to take a target creature and remove it from the game and then bring it right back. I'm not sure what, I didn't write down whether it says you, it probably says you control, because we don't like you using it to reset counters and things on your opponent, so it probably, it just flickers your own things. But once again, flickering is an effect of this, this, this,

of the set, so we, this is a repeatable one. I assume it's uncommon, it's uncommon or rare. It's not common. Nettle Swine, 3 green, 4, 3, boar that's it that's all it does

vanilla it's fun to watch this vanilla so I've done a lot of changes over time green gets to have the most efficient

larger creatures so really green's the one that tends to push the vanilla envelope the most so it's kind of cool that back in the day

it's like can you just do 3G3 yeah yeah you can do 3G3 because you can get trampled on in alpha. And we say, I think we have 3-4 for a while.

Probably like, how about 4-3? We can do 4-3. So I have fun watching the vanillas. I know Eric Lauer has a chart of what vanillas we have and haven't done. And whenever he has opportunities to do new vanillas, he tries to fill in the chart to do vanillas we've never done before. Not that 4-3 is a vanilla we've never done before. Other world atlas. 4 for an artifact. Tap. Put a charge counter on it. on the chart to do vanilla as we've never done before. Not that 4-3 is vanilla we've never done before. Other World Atlas.

4 for an artifact. Tap. Put a charge counter on it. Or, tap. Each player draws a card equal to a number of charge counters on it. So, it is an interesting card, especially interesting in multiplayer play. It allows you to sort of draw cards, but it doesn't draw cards just for you. It draws cards for everybody. I've seen this used a whole bunch of different ways.

I've seen it used politically in multiplayer play. I've seen this used a whole bunch of different ways. I've seen it used politically in multiplayer play. I've seen it used in mill decks as a means to help mill people out. It is very, the funny thing is when you first start using it, your opponent's like

not sure what you're up to. And then you're like, when the mill stuff starts happening, you're like, oh, okay. But anyway, it's a neat card and it does a couple different things. Outwit is an instant

that costs a single blue. Counter target spell that targets a player. So one of the things that's fun about counter spells is we make a lot of counter spells. We make them every set.

They're always a common and uncommon and I mean, they're all over a set and we repeat a lot of them. A lot of good counter spells we reprint. But sometimes you want

to come up with new ones and do cool things and one of the neat things is just trying to find A lot of good counter spells we reprint. But sometimes you want to come up with new ones and do cool things. And one of the neat things is just trying to find different ways to make counter spells. So this one's kind of cute. It counters a very near subset. It just counters things that target a player. But there's a lot of things that target a player.

So once again, this is the kind of thing that's metagame dependent or a sideboard card. But I like that it's very efficient at a very narrow window. And if that window happens to be something you have to worry about, then you can use it. Peel from reality.

One blue for an instant. Return target creature you control and target creature you don't control to their owner's hands. So I first made this card in Ravnica. And it has turned out to be a very useful card. I just like the parody of it, the idea being I'm going to unsummon two things,

one of mine and one of yours. The thing of yours will be something that's beneficial for me, where the thing that's mine will also be something beneficial for me. So it's kind of fun that you get to do two effects that are the same effect, but yet for you it can be very positive, and your opponent can be very negative. And it's a fun card. It's the kind of card that

interestingly, like, shows up in different environments. It's a very interesting card in different environments. It definitely proved quite adaptable. Next, Primal Surge. Eight green green. Ten mana, two of which is green. Sorcery. Exile the top card of your library. If it's a permanent, you get to put it on the battlefield, and then you

get to do this again. So the idea is when you cast this, you might miss, you've got to put it on the battlefield, and then you've got to do this again. So the idea is when you cast this, you might miss, you might get a whole bunch of permanents in play. So there's a lot of, this is a high variance card. It costs 10 mana, you could get nothing, you could get all sorts of stuff in play. So really, it's super, super high variance. It is a Timmy card, if ever there was one. And it had to be costed such that the problem is, if the card is too good, then it just gets kind of broken in tournaments. So this was meant to be kind of a wish fulfillment,

dream for big things. A lot of times it doesn't work, so it's not good enough for constructed play. But when it works, you tell some stories. Okay, Rain of Thorns. Four green green sorcery. Choose one or more. Destroy target artifact, destroy target enchantment, destroy target land. So the key here is one or more.

What that means is you can do all three or you can do a subset. The reason it's or more is if it was destroy target artifact, enchantment, and land, if there was not an artifact or an enchantment or a land, you would not be able to cast a spell. So the spell is written such that if you're able to destroy all of them, great, but you don't have to destroy all of them. If your opponent has an artifact and a land that's bothersome,

but it doesn't have enchantment, well, you can just cast it. You don't have to destroy enchantment. That's something that is voluntary for you. And so... But anyway, it is... This is one of those cards, by the way, where I feel bad for creative,

where it's a pretty functional card. It's a very Melvin card, if you will. Oh, green can destroy a lot of different permanent types? Okay, well, let's have green destroy different permanent types, and you can pick and choose and model it. Oh, by the way, creative, oh, it's just a spell that can destroy an artifact, or can destroy an enchantment, or can destroy a land, or any combination thereof.

You know, just that. Apparently thorns raining down. This is tricky. I feel bad for a creative in that some cards we make are just, they're there for more mechanical reasons, but we need to flavor them because all magic cards have a flavor. And this is just a tricky card to flavor.

I think they tend to go vague on it, which is usually the only answer. Don't try to get too specific because it won't make sense if you really try to work it out. What actually does destroy an artifact, or can destroy an enchantment, or can destroy a land, or can do any combination of those? Okay, Reforge the Soul. This is a sorcery that costs three red red, five mana, two which is red. Each player discards their hand and draws seven, and it's a miracle for one R.

So this is Wheel of Fortune. There's a lot of debate of whether Wheel of Fortune is a red card. I fall in the camp of no, it is not. And the only reason is is red is not supposed to go to card advantage, and this really says, I have an empty hand, now I have a full hand,

and really is, I think, a bit pushing it on card advantage for red. It was a fun miracle card in the sense that one of the things about making good miracles was you wind up a card that said, okay, will I be in dire straits, but if I draw this on the top of my library, it can just turn things around?

And yeah, yeah, it can. You know, I can have an empty hand, and all of a sudden I don't have an empty hand. I have a full hand. And especially with the low miracle. With the high miracle, I've said, without the miracle, you're spending five mana. Well, how much mana do you have left to capture spells? With miracle, it's only two mana.

Odds are you have a lot more mana to capture spells. Oh, also, real quick, I haven't talked too much about the frame. So when we did miracle, we knew that we wanted to make sure that when you drew it, it was clear that you were drawing it. So what we did is we went and we made a special frame so it just stood out. We wanted when you pulled it to go, oh, that's a miracle.

That is a miracle. And so that is why the frame looks different because it was important to us that we sort of get that across. Okay, next, Restoration Angel. Three white for three, four angel. Flash flying. When it enters the battlefield, you exile target non-angel you control

and return it immediately. So it's instant flicker for non-angels. The reason it says non-angel is if it can target itself, it can instantly flicker itself. I mean, you can get an endless loop. I target me, I disappear. I come back. I target me, I target me. So what could happen is, let's say you had something that cared about a creature.

You gained a life when a creature came in play. You did a damage when a creature came in play. You could essentially get infinite whatever that is. And so, to prevent you from doing that, we had a couple options.

We could say another creature. You had to target another creature. But we thought it was cute to say non-angel. It also meant that

it just, sometimes, saying non-angel was just a little more flavorful of the set. You know, sort of like it doesn't

it doesn't do its thing to angels angels are inside it does its other things so okay Revenge of the Hunted four green green sorcery

target creature gets plus six plus six and trample to end of turn miracle gee so green single green so it costs four green green

and miracle just green so the idea is plus six plus six and trample was really good, and there are definitely times where, okay, come on, I need a Miracle, BAM, and I get it. Remember also that,

well, actually, this is a sorcery. Just remember that when you get two Miracles, you get to turn it into instant, essentially. And so, I guess this particular card, you're going to cast in your turn, well, you have to cast in your turn, essentially. And so, I guess this particular card you're going to cast in your turn... Well, you have to cast it in your turn, but there's some combat tricks.

I've seen people do things where they'll draw cards in other people's turns and it allows them to have a surprise during combat. I've seen that happen. Riot Ringleader, 2 red, 2-2 human warrior. When it attacks, human creatures you control get plus one, plus one at the end of turn. Once again, the way red helps humans usually is damage,

doing more damage, doing direct damage, help boosting power. It's like, I'm going to try to be pretty aggressive. The white-red was a very aggressive deck, as white-red often is, with humans. This was actually a monster card. The idea was Red had lots of creatures

and the idea is the monsters tended to have singular creatures that were a little bit bigger. Now, there was Soulbond. There was ways to build up creatures. So, I mean,

it's not that the human decks couldn't use this, but it definitely just playing off the idea of how to do, how to boost things. And essentially what you were doing

is you were doubling its power. This is the kind of card that I'll write double target creature's power and they'll change it to this. But that's what it's doing. Scroll of Avacyn and Scroll of Gristlebrand. Okay. They both cost one mana.

They're an artifact. Scroll of Avacyn is one in sack draw card. If you control angel, gain five life. Scroll of Gristlebrand is one in sack. Tiger player discards a card. If you control Angel, gain five life. Scroll of Bristlebrand is one, and Sack, Tiger of Platter, discards a card. If you control Demon, they lose three life. Now, I can guarantee when we first made this card, the life totals were the same.

The problem we always run into is gaining life is just not as good as making somebody else lose life. And so, when they were even, either we had to make white weak or make black too strong. And so we ended were even, either we had to make white weak or make black too strong. And so we ended up disconnecting them.

But in general, it's really nice. They both did the same thing, except white is gaining you something and black is taking away. So you're gaining a card in life. They are losing a card in life. So the parity there is pretty fun. It's a neat reflection. And Avacyn and Gristlebrand kind of are the two faces of the set of the angels and the demons second guess one blue instant

counter second spell cast targets so the idea is you can counter any second spell this is another chance of us trying to make a cheaper counter spell that's usable

in certain circumstances but not in others and so that was one of the things we did I think it's sort of cute Seraph Sanctuary land when it enters the battlefield you gain a life whenever. When it enters the battlefield, you gain a life.

Whenever an angel you control enters the battlefield, you gain a life. And you can tap it for one. So this was meant to be a land that went in your angel deck that really helped you with angels. It didn't tap for any color, but it did that so that you didn't have to enter the battlefield tapped or something. Next, Sigarda, Host of Herons. Two green, white, white. So five mana, one green, two white. 5-5 Legendary Angel, flying and hexproof,

and it has spells and abilities, can't make you sacrifice permanence. So this is the Buttercup of the Powerpuff Girls, green. So once again, she's a 5-5 Angel for five mana, Legendary Angel. She is flying hand.

She has an ability. Each one of them had a second ability that tied into their secondary color. So, um, green, you got hexproof. Uh, like red got first strike. Blue, I don't remember what blue got. Maybe flash, maybe. Um, but anyway, this thing protects you. Angels are protective.

So while this is in play, your opponent can't make you sacrifice things. Okay. Somber Wald Sage. Two green for zero one human druid. You can tap to add three mana of any color, but you may only use it to play creatures. So once again, on the good side, hey, play lots of creatures. Black side, you know, the monster side, no, no, play one creature. So this was helping you sort of get a lot of creatures out.

And you don't have to spend all of them on the same creature. You just can only spend them on creatures. Soul of the Harvest, four green, green, six, six, elemental with trample. And whenever a non-token creature enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card. The reason we say non-token on stuff like that is it's just kind of broken with tokens. It's easy to get a lot of tokens in play. So you say non-tokens, you actually have to get creature cards in play. And that's a little harder to do.

It's still not that hard, but it's harder to do. Spectral Prison, one and a blue. Enchantment aura. Enchant creature. Enchant creature doesn't untap. It's normal. And if enchanted creature is ever sacrificed, sorry, is ever the target of a spell,

not an ability, of a spell, you sacrifice the card name. You sacrifice Special Prison. So the idea is I lock you down, but you can free it if you ever target your creature, and then you can free your creature from the prison. Stern Mentor. Three and a blue for a 2-2 Human Wizard. It's got Soulbond, and

its Soulbond ability is all the creatures it and the creature it's Soulbonded with, paired with, get tap mill to. A target creature puts the top two cards of the library into their graveyard. This was a deck we like involving mill strategies, so this was a Soulbond mill deck you could make.

Next, Stolen Goods, three and a blue for a sorcery. You mill, or take the top card of your library and put it in the graveyard. You keep doing that until you get to a non-land, which you exile, and you may cast it this turn without paying its mana cost. So it allows you to sort of steal a spell off your opponent's library, but you don't know which one. Next, we have Tamiyo, the Moon Sage.

Three blue, blue, Planeswalker. Comes with a loyalty of four. For plus one, target permanent doesn't untap this turn. For minus two, draw a card equal to the number of tap permanents target player controls. And minus eight, you get two emblems, no maximum hand size, and whenever

a card will be put into a grave from anywhere, in your grave, from anywhere, instead return it to your hand. So this allows you to get cards into your hand, not just by playing them, but by, they die, you discard them, you know, it gets stuff back. Anyway, she was fun. Her tap ability tied into the drawing cards off the tap. Also the draw ability tied into not having a max hand size. So anyway, Tamiyo it's funny. Originally, she was not

very popular. And then, as people realized how good her card was, kind of the strength of her card slowly seeped over to people liking the character. It was an interesting case where the character wasn't all that liked up front, but as the card became more powerful,

she gained a little more, a few more fans. Okay, Temporal Mastery, five blue, blue sorcery. Take an extra turn, and then you exile this card, and you can miracle it for one and a blue. So the fun thing here is it's Time Walk, and the miracle is exactly Time Walk, except it exiles itself. The reason we don't exile itself when we draw a card is there's a lot of abuse that comes from constantly taking turns. One turn usually isn't too bad, but if you can keep getting it back and playing again, you can make locks and things. So anyway,

pretty much now when you take it after a turn, we tend to exile the card. Terminus, four white white sorcery. Put all creature cards on the bottom of their owner's libraries. Miracle white! So, we were constantly looking for things that you could draw when you were in trouble that all of a sudden would be exciting and you would just do something cool. And that was one of them.

I'm not sure why it's bottom of library instead of just exile them. Maybe it might have been a commander thing. Because tucking used to mean something in commander, but I'm not sure. Okay, next. Thatcher's Revolt. Two red sorcery. Put three 1-1 red human creatures onto the battlefield. They have haste,

and at the end of turn, or beginning of the end of turn, you sacrifice them. And so, one of the cool things about this card was, on the surface, it seems pretty mild. It seems like, oh, okay, this is special.

Like, I can try to do some damage. This card was a linchpin. This was my favorite card in the set. There's so many things in the set were enabled by this card. This was, like, the universal enabler. It just enabled human decks, it enabled creature decks, it enabled um,

death trigger deck. I mean, it all, it just did all sorts of things. It was amazing how many fun things you could do with Thatcher Revolt, and I really, really liked this card. Thraben Valiant, 1 white, 2-1, Human Soldier, Vigilance. I think this is the first time we did this card. I just want to point this out that, like, when you say

2 mana, 2-1, Vigilance, like, we hadn't done that yet, so it is neat how every once in a while you come across, like, a French Vanilla card, meaning a Vanilla creature that just has one, just has creature keywords, nothing else. We call it French French vanilla. And that it's fun to have simple cards, you're like, oh, we just never made a simple card. You know, and it makes you realize that there's a lot there. That as much as we've made 15,000 cards 22 years

later, there's still stuff we can find, still simple things we can find. Thunderous Wrath, four red red instant, deal five damage to a creature or player. Miracle R. So it's a Lightning Bolt for 5. Once again, we want to do miracles. We really want miracles that when you look at the miracle, you're like, oh my god, that's amazing. R, do 5 damage. I know Lightning Bolt is good. This must be even better. Do 5 damage.

And it's also the kind of card that can really save you when you're in trouble. Okay, next, to Bolt, the Fiend Blooded. Red, red, Planeswalker, loyalty of two. For plus one, you can draw a card and then discard a card at random. For minus four, you can deal damage to a player equal to the number of cards in your hand.

And for minus six, you can threaten all creatures in play, meaning you can gain control of all creatures, untap them, and then you have control of them until end of turn, so you can attack with them. Tibalt was an experiment to try to make a two-mana Planeswalker. I would say it's a very unsuccessful attempt.

His first ability, which is only plus one, requires randomness, where you lose stuff out of your hand, which is quite frustrating. Anyway, this card didn't quite work out. Can we make a two-mana Planeswalker? I don't know if we can or we can't. I do believe it's quite a challenge.

I don't believe that that box needs to be checked, meaning I don't believe we're going to keep trying to do it just to see if we can do it. If we happen to stumble on something that makes sense, maybe. But Tibalt really kind of soured us in that we were trying to sort of make a two mana planeswalker. I think that was inherently kind of a bad idea, meaning it just

wasn't something of boxes to check. It wasn't also necessary box to check. So, I mean, not that we shouldn't try things from time to time. I'm all for us experimenting, but this was a failed experiment. Okay, Timberland Guide. 1G for a 1-1 creature. When it comes to enter the battlefield,

you can put a plus one plus one counter on any creature. It's a grizzly bear variant, because you can always put it on itself, so it's always a 1G2-2, but it's better than a 1G2-2 because you could put the counter somewhere else if somewhere else is more valuable to you. You have a flyer, you have an evasive creature,

you have something that just needs to be a little tougher, well, this could be a 1-1 instead of being a 2-2, and in exchange, that could be a little tougher. I like this card a lot. This is another one of those cards I think was unique to this set. I mean, I think this set was the first one to do this card. But it was a very cool card. I love little cards that, like,

are very simple, but just in play they give all sorts of cute little decisions and just really make for fun gameplay. Okay, next. Treacherous Pit Dweller. Black, black for a 4-3 demon with Undying. But when it came back from the graveyard to the battlefield, you had to give it to your opponent.

So it was a 4-3 for black, black, but when it died, your opponent got a 5-4. So that was the drawback. That's kind of cool. Ovenwold Tracker, green for a 1-1 Human Shaman, 1 green and tap, target creature you control fights another target creature. So this is something that you can make things fight. The reason it says target creature you control is,

I don't want to make two other things fight. That's way too powerful. One of my guys has got to be in on the fight. But this card is pretty powerful, because it allows you to pick things off, which is something that green normally has a problem with, but fighting is a green thing. Okay, unhollowed pack.

Two and a black for enchantment aura. Enchant creature. When enchantment creature dies, return to the battlefield under your control. This card was formerly, I forgot the name of it, but it used to be in blue. It makes a little more sense in black. It's kind of like, we made a deal,

which is I get your zombie when you die, and so I paid you handsomely or something. I did something for you. It's kind of neat because you can put it on your own creatures as a regeneration sort of thing, where it gets to die once and come back. because you can put it on your own creatures as a regeneration sort of thing, where it gets to die once and come back. Or you can put it on your opponent's creatures, and when you kill it,

and you're kind of invested to kill their creatures, then you get the creature. So it's a neat way to do it. One of the things in general we tend to do is, blue tends to steal things permanently, red steals them temporarily, and black steals things, blue steals them from the battlefield,

black steals them from the graveyard. This is a neat way to kind of get a creature from the battlefield. Black steals them from the graveyard. This is a neat way to kind of get a creature from the battlefield, but via the graveyard. Vexing Devil. Red for 4-3 Devil. When it enters the battlefield, any player may take 4 damage. If they do, you sacrifice it. So this is a

what do we call these? I'm blanking on the name of it. Not permission. Something red does where you have a choice between two things. Your opponent has a choice between two things, and both things are powerful for you, but you lose the choice. Your opponent gets to pick them.

These cards, sometimes they're very popular players, sometimes they're not. Depends a lot on the execution. Vexing Devil is very popular. Vigilante Justice. Three-hour enchantment. Whenever a human enters the battlefield under your control, you deal one damage to a creature or player. So this turns all your humans into extra

damage. And like I said, red usually turns humans into damage. So when you're playing a red human deck, it wants to do damage to the opponent. That's what it tends to do. Wild Defiance. I'm almost done here. I'm almost to work. Two-in-green enchantment. Creatures you control. Whenever they're the target of instant or sorcery, it gets plus three, plus three

until end of turn. So this allows you to sort of target your creatures and then get a big boost out of them. If what you're targeting them with is already some sort of giant growth, it gets to be a super giant growth. But there's also a lot of other fun things you can do. And it's definitely the kind of card you build around. You can do neat things.

Wild Wood Geist. Four green for a three, three Spirit. On your turn it gets plus 2, plus 2. So it's kind of a cute card. It's 5-5 on your turn and 3-3 on the opponent's turn. This is another card I like where it's pretty simple, but just a little twist between being bigger and smaller means your opponent can

have an easier time getting rid of it on their turn, because it's smaller. But in your turn, which is usually when you want it bigger, and it makes the creature more aggressive, because, hey, it's a 5-5 in your turn, it's 3-3 in your opponent's turn, so, yeah, maybe you want to attack with it on your turn. Okay, next, Wolf Fear Silverheart. 3 green green for

4-4 Wolf Warrior, because the werewolves had turned into the Wolf Fear, so they were wolves now, because of Abyssin returning. And then Soulbound, and in Soulbound, you got plus 4, plus 4. So this creature, one of the things we definitely do is we make

constructed versions of our mechanics. Every mechanic, if possible, development tries to make a strong version of it to make sure that it sees constructed play. This was the Soulbound constructed play card. Not that there weren't other ones that saw constructed play, but this was the if this doesn't see, you know, constructed play, we'll eat our hats sort of card. Not that there weren't other ones that saw Constructed Play, but this was the this doesn't see, you know,

Constructed Play will eat our hat sort of card. Three green, five mana for a 4-4 that if you are able to pair it with something, which is not that hard to do, you just need another creature in play, it's an 8-8 and the other creature is plus 4, plus 4. So it was really, really powerful and it definitely got played. Finally, the last

card is Zealous Conscripts, 4 and a red for 3-3. It has haste, and when it enters the battlefield, you, uh, threaten something, and you take target creature, your opponent controls, untap it, bring it to your side, and then you can attack with it this turn. Um, and that was a fun card. Uh, I think that's the kind of thing that we like, of finding neat ways

to, uh, staple cool spells as it enters the battlefield effects. This had haste, so not only did it steal it, but kind of like, hey, come on, let's go attack. And I thought that was kind of cool. Let's see how we're doing on time. Wow. I got to work and just a little bit extra time, a little bit of traffic. I did it. I got some ammo

all the way through Z. So what basically I want to say is this was absolutely for sure was a lot of fun to work on. There was a lot of takeaways. I think we had some themes that we pushed probably a little too hard. And we themes that we pushed probably a little too hard and we pushed the loner theme a little too hard

and I think there were some lessons in limited, this ended up not being the strongest of limited sets but the set was actually much beloved a lot of people really enjoyed the angel themes and the human themes and some of the monster stuff and soul bond and miracles

there was a lot of stuff for people to like. And so I think this was a fun set. So I hope you guys enjoyed my little jaunt through Avacyn Restored. But anyway, I'm now in my parking space. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking

magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So thanks for joining me, guys.