Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #261 - Khans of Tarkir, Part 6

Episode Date: September 11, 2015

Mark continues with part 6 of his seven-part series on the design of Khans of Tarkir.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Actually, I'm trying to pull out of my driveway. I'm being blocked by a giant truck full of goats. You see, I live up in this area where there's a lot of steep hills and they can't mow the hills because they're so steep. So what they do is they get an army of goats to come and eat all the grass. And the goat truck was blocking my driveway.

But I got around it. I have to go a slightly different detour to get to work. But I will get to work, and you guys will get your podcast. No goats. I am not stopped by goats. The podcast that is not stopped by goats. Okay, so last we talked, we were in the middle of Khans of Tarkir Design. So I'd gotten up through K, so we're up to L.

So I believe we have one or two more podcasts. Even though it seems like maybe not, what happens is I explain a lot of things the first time I get to it, so there's more cards in the beginning of the alphabet than later, although there's still plenty left to talk about, so let's jump in. Leaping Master. It's a 1R, so 1 and a red, 2, 1 human monk, and for

2 and a white, it gains flying till end of turn. So once again, this is one of the cards where we did enemy color cards, and the trick to the enemy color cards is making them such that you want both clans that can play it to be able to play it. So this is a red card, 1R21

with flying for 2W. So Mardu, okay, it's an aggressive creature. You can play it in turn 2. You can attack with it. And then later, if you have some mana, you can get some evasion to keep attacking. Mardu likes it. Jeskai, okay, Jeskai also likes it. Jeskai definitely has tends to hit you a lot in the air, so this thing

can fly. And it curves pretty nicely so that you can come out turn two and you can even attack with it in flying turn three if you want, although probably you can play more creatures. But anyway, both Jeskai and Marduk can play this card. It fits in both decks.

It's themed as if it's Jeskai because it's flying kick. It's whatever, leap master. Leaping master. So, like I said, I love the Jeskai stuff. One of the cool things that the creative team did is for each of the clans, they went to a different source material

and just really mined up that source material. So each one definitely has a very cool and different flavor. It's one of the neat things about the clans is that each clan really has a distinctive feel to it. That's one of the things I enjoy most about the set. Next, Lens of Clarity. Lens of Clarity is an artifact that costs one. It lets you look at the top card of your library and any face-down creature you do not control. So one of the cool things about

this card is, in general, Morph is a mystery mechanic. You want people to have mystery. We like to do a little bit of getting around the mystery for people who want to plan. But if you notice, this card is pretty weak. The card is not made... We don't want to make a Lens of Clarity that's so good that everybody just runs it in their deck. Because that would undercut what Morph is. Basically, what we wanted to do is say, okay, if you really, really care,

we'll give you a tool to help. Because some people do care. They want to know. But we made the power level low enough that strategically, most of the time, we are going to play Lens of Clarity. But if you really want to know, if you want to sideboard it in, I mean, it's a tool you can have if you need access to it. Next, Mantis Rider. Blue, red, white. So it's a just-guy card. It costs three mana. 3-3 human monk. It has flying, vigilance, and haste. So you'll notice,

I keep pointing this out, one of the things we did in Wedge is we often... Excuse me one second, let me take a drink of water because I am coughing here. You'll notice one of the tricks we do in Wedge is we give three... We do three things on a card and then each thing goes to one color. So Flying is Blue, Vigilance is white, Haste is red.

So it has three abilities that all have some synergy with each other, but represent the three different colors. Okay, next. Mardu Ascendancy. So red, white, black, it's an enchantment. I think all the Ascendancies are just CDE, are just three mana, one of each color. It says whenever a non-token creature you control attacks, put a

1-1 red goblin token onto the battlefield, tapped, and attacking. So the idea is whenever I play a creature, I'm sorry, whenever I attack with a non-token creature, I get a 1-1 goblin token in addition.

And I can sac this enchantment to give all my creatures I control plus 0 plus 3. So essentially the idea is, as long as you keep playing creatures, it just keeps growing your army. The reason it says non-token, in fact both reasons. One is a power level, but the other is, you don't want the token creature

triggering other token creatures, that way you get infinite creatures. It's like, I attack and I make a token creature, which then makes a token creature, which then makes a token creature, I attack for infinity, assuming that it ever results. But anyway, one of the things that was fun about the Ascendancies in general

is just trying to find an enchantment that really plays into the style of that particular clan. And Mardu, this is a Mardu card, it's all about attacking. It's all about building an army of small creatures and just constantly attacking. Well, this says, okay,

you want to play a lot of creatures, and as you play creatures, I'll give you more creatures. And then they just keep attacking and being aggressive. The other thing that's cool is, it's not just that when you play it, I'm sorry, it's not when you play creatures,

when you attack with creatures, but it's not just, when you attack, not only do you get a token, it's attacking along with you. It's like every creature gets to attack with a little buddy along with it. And that happens each time you attack,

so it really can build up over time. Okay, next. Mardu Hateblade. It's a 1-1 for a single white mana. I was going to write down the creature type. For black, it gains death touch until end of turn. So, once again, let's do the test. It's a white card with a black activation.

Who are the two people that would want it? Well, white-black-green is Abzan, and white-black-red is Mardu. So, Mardu is a 1-1, a 1-drop 1-1. We need, that's what Mardu wants, and it can kill things later on with death touch. So, it's a 1-drop 1-1, a weenie, that's what Mardu wants, and it can kill things later on with Death Touch. So it's a 1-1 that kind of your opponent doesn't really want to block

it, so it definitely has Death Touch can work as kind of invasion in a Mardu deck. In an Abzan deck, it's defensive. It's not that you're attacking with a 1-1, it's you have a really good way to block, because when you have a creature that can have Death Touch, wow, your opponent doesn't really want to attack into it. And so it's aggressive in the Mardu deck,

it's defensive in the Abzan deck. And that's pretty cool. That's one of the things you try to do when you're trying to crisscross dreams. Here's a general design note, is one of the things you always want to do is whenever you figure out what your different strategies are, you want to make sure you make sort of linchpins that

connect different strategies, so that there are cards that can go in different decks. The reason that's important is twofold. One is you want to make sure when people are drafting, they're not always getting the same deck. So if one particular archetype only cared about certain cards and nobody else cared about them, we would keep getting the same cards every draft,

and then you would always have the same experience. But if you make cards that multiple different archetypes want, then they fight over them, meaning that you don't always get those things. There's a little more of a mix of what happens. The second is we definitely were trying to set up the idea of draft enemy, and

then you can go into the clan that you want. And the idea is these cards were trying not to sort of force your hand. That if I take this card early, not early, but if I take this card, I can really still go into either clan. This card doesn't push me toward one of the two clans that it fits in. Okay. Next, Mardu Heartpiercer. So it's three and a red, four mana for a 2-3 human archer, and

has raid, meaning if you attack with a creature this turn, when it enters the battlefield, you deal two damage to target a creature or player. So, this thing is really nice. Raid obviously plays really nicely in Mardu because you're attacking anyway. And, this also helps to clear things out of the way. Or, it can do damage to

the opponent. So, like, if you're close to having them, having done 20 damage, you can just hit them. If you'd rather get something out of the way so you can hit with more of the creatures, you can do that. This is a very efficient card. Next, Mardu Roughrider. Okay, Mardu Roughrider is a two red, white, black, so five mana Mardu colors, five, four Ogre Warrior. When you attack, target creature can't

block this turn. So one of the things you notice is that Uncommon we, I think the morph creatures were a common, and in Uncommon what we did was, we did creatures that are just good solid creatures that you'll want in your clan. Now this

is Mardu, now this is five mana, this is. Now, this is Mardu. Now, this is five mana. This is a little top end of Mardu, but it's a big creature, and it keeps things from blocking. And so the idea of Mardu, you want to constantly be attacking. Well, this is the kind of creature you can play late

and really causes problems for your opponent and helps you get through the final damage to beat them. One of the things that we were careful of, if you notice, by the way, the reason there's not a lot of what I'll call CDE, but three mana cards that are exactly three mana, is those kind of cards push you to... They cause mana issues in general.

Because in order to play, let's say you want to play a red, white, black card on turn three, it requires you to have exactly one of the lands in order, so on turn three you can play it. And we knew our mana fixing was good, but it put extra stress on the system we didn't want. So one of the things we did in Uncommon is when we made sort of the CDE cards, the wedge cards, we wanted to make sure that they were meaty

and you wanted to play them, but made them a little bit more expensive so by the time you were able to play, the most likely a little bit more expensive so it didn't, you know, by the time you were able to play, the most likely you had the mana and not like, oh, I missed my, you know, because if it's all about meeting your third turn drop, if your third turn drop's going to win the game,

then you just do crazy shenanigans to get there and we didn't want to stress the system that much. Okay, next. Mardu Warshrieker. Three and a red for a 3-3 Orc Shaman. And as raid, so if you attack this turn, add red, white,

and black mana to your mana pool. So it's a four mana 3-3, but if you've already attacked this turn, it gives you back three mana. So essentially what it lets you do is let you get a 3, three out really for one mana assuming you have something else you can cash your mana on. And this card

is very, very efficient and once again, it's one of those cards where it allows you to do what Mardu wants which is to get multiple creatures out when you can. Even when you have a four mana creature, this card allows you to actually get it out and something else out. And it's a pretty good card.

Okay, next. Master of the Way. Three blue-red sorcery. Draw a card, and then card name deals damage to target creature equal to the number of cards in your hand. Okay, well this is a very common way to do a gold card. This is a blue-red card. That you want a blue

ability and a red ability. Pretty much I've talked about this in designing gold cards. Usually when you design multicolor cards, either there's an overlap where it's something both the colors do and you save money on it, you save mana on it, essentially. Like, well, blue could do this and red could do this,

but neither could do it as efficiently as blue-red. Or you have something that has multiple abilities in it. Or you do something we've never done before and you define it as that flavor. I talked about this. Go listen to my gold podcast. I'll talk about making gold cards. But anyway, this one,

drawing a card is blue, dealing damage equal to whatever is red, happens to be cards in your hand. But by making cards in your hand, now you make it relevant because drawing a card connects. So I'll teach you another interesting thing. Whenever you have two abilities on a card,

if you want the card to feel organic, you want the abilities to feel like they have a relationship to each other. Now, you could just make a card that said, draw a card and deal two damage to a creature. But, you know, I mean, a draw card is weird because you can turn that into a cantrip. But, you know, do a blue effect, do a red effect. A lot of times it feels weird if there's not a connective tissue to it.

So this card is nice. It says, okay, I draw a card, and then the next part, the damage, is tied into my card. So having drawn a card is relevant. It increases the amount of damage. It actually guarantees I at least do one damage. It also replaces the card that I'm playing so that I get to do damage essentially equal to what my hand size was

before I played the card. Also, it's blue and red, and that means it has to go both into Teemer and into Jeskai. Well, in general, drawing cards doing damage, a nice simple utility thing that either deck would want to have. Okay, next. Meandering Tower Shell. Three green greens, so a five mana, two of which are green, for a 5-9 turtle, which I green, for a 5-9 turtle,

which I believe is the first 5-9 turtle in history. It has Island Walk. When it attacks, you exile it, and you return it tapped and attacking at the beginning of the next Declared Attacker step. So the flavor here is it's slow. It's a giant turtle, but it's slow. This card was called Turtle McDirtle in design. but it's slow. So let me tell you,

this card was called Turtle McDirtle in design. Designed, I believe, by Ken Nagel. So the way it was working was Ken was going to do Fate Reforged. Or he did do. Ken led the design. He did. He was on the design team for Concept Arcade

because normally the person who does the next step, we want them well familiar. And so he was on the design team for Concept Archeator, because normally the person who does the next set, we want them well familiar. And so he was on the team. And one of the things that we were trying to do was make cards that had a relationship between the different sets. So we really wanted a card that was some creature from present day that you got to see in past day.

Now, originally, we thought the past wasn't going to be that long ago. But when Creative finally figured it out, it ended up being over 1,000 years. We're like, wow, well, that's a long time. There's not a lot of humanoid creatures that would be alive that long. And so we had to figure out, okay, well, what kind of creature would have that kind of longevity? And so we said, you know what, how about a giant turtle?

Because turtles are famous for being old creatures. They live for a long, long time. So how about a giant creature? Because they live famous for being old creatures. They live for a long, long time. So how about a giant creature? Because they live even longer because they're giant creatures. And so we came up with the idea of a giant turtle, or it might have been Ken's idea.

I mean, Ken was inspired by the idea of doing an ancient creature. So he came up with a giant turtle, made him a cannon to match the giant turtle. We then made a card that represented

a little baby McDirtle that Ken put into Fate Reforged. That card did not make it. That card got cut. In fact, on the whole block, one of my biggest regrets is I really wish I had fought harder to make sure that card stayed. Now, we later made an alternate version of Turtle McDirtle

in Dragons of Tarkir, which is a zombie version. I'll get to that when I get to Dragons of Tarkir. But we did do... Turtle McDirtle did show up in one parallel, which is between this timeline and the alternate timeline. But he could have also just had little baby McDirtle. Oh!

I mean, the problem was the card just didn't... We needed to redesign the card. What happened was the card wasn't good enough on its own. Development didn't like it and killed it. And I don't think they were even thinking about, oh, this is the baby Turtle. I don't think they were thinking about that. And by the time we sort of realized it was happening,

it just, we missed the window. But anyway, one of the reasons it's very important to keep lengthy notes on what you're doing, because as you pass through different teams from design to development to creative, you want to make sure that everybody's on board and understands what you're doing. Like if you're doing a particular joke

and you want it to play, everyone on board has to sign off on it and be aware of it. A little lesson for meandering to our tower shell. Okay, next. Monastery Swiss Spear. R for 1-2 Human Monk with Haste and Prowess.

So one of the things that really gave us great hope for prowess as an evergreen mechanic was it just mixes and matches with everything. Like, you literally just take prowess and say, okay, what's another creature keyword? How about haste? Yeah, haste and prowess are actually pretty interesting. Now, in order for haste and prowess to be interesting,

it's got to be tiny. That's why we made it a one-drop creature, because you want to make sure that you can play a second spell, you'll play a spell and then play this spell. I'm sorry, I said that backwards. You want to play this spell, then play the second spell. you'll play a spell and then play this spell. I'm sorry, I said that backwards. You want to play this spell

and then play the second spell. And then, what's cute is, if you can play a spell, play a second spell, and then the thing is, for one mana, it's a haste 2-3,

which is pretty cool. So that's a neat thing. And I, one of the things that really sold me on prowess was, as we were designing cards, it was just so easy

to design prowess cards. That's one of the things you want in evergreen mechanics, that you can make nice simple cards, and they're easy to do, and you keep finding more of them. And so, Monastery of Swiss Bear, it's just a really good example of that. Okay, Murderous Cut, four and a black instant, Delve, so Delve once again is

you can make it one cheaper, one color cheaper for every card you remove from the graveyard. Destroy target creature. So there's a card, I forget the name. One of the things we try to do when we can is whenever we bring back something from Future Sight, we try to use one of the Future Sight cards. Well, there are three Delve cards.

So the very first thing we did is, one of the Delve cards is a terror that doesn't destroy target non-green creature. And we're like, oh, well, Sultai happens to be, have green in it. Perfect. It actually makes sense. Why would it kill green?

Because green is one of its own. It won't kill green. It turns out, though, that development really has been souring on anti-color stuff. It's one of the reasons that Landwalk and Protection got downgraded, and Landwalk went away, and Intimidate went away, and Protection got downgraded.

Like, development really is believing that they don't want you to just be instantly hosed because your opponent happened to play a creature that was beneficial for their deck, and, wow, you just can't deal with it with one particular color. We've been moving more toward, it's good against certain strategies, but not just wholesale against a color. But anyway, that meant they didn't want to do that kill card. So we ended up saying, okay, let's just make a clean version.

How about just murder? Destroy target creature. Let's do a Del version of that, a clean version. And I'm happy. I'm sad not to get any of the Future Sight cards in. I talked already about how Tombstalker was supposed to get in and didn't get in. This is an example of how I was trying to get the... I'm blanking on the name of the card. The Destroy Card non-green creature.

We also tried to get the Counterspell in, but that just proved to be... Just Delve Counterspells proved to be problematic. But anyway, we did it. Some moment in the file, each of the three cards from Future Sight was in the file.

We did try. That's something that was important to us. But in the end, Future Sight is hinting at things that are coming. It's cute when we reprint a card,

but it's getting harder and harder to do that because as we get more and more distance from it, we learn more and more things. The non-green thing is a perfect example where in its day

it was fine, but now it's like, oh, we really shifted from that kind of philosophy. Oh, that card doesn't make sense to reprint. So, so Fitcher's Ike

did tease at Del but just didn't tease at, you know, every alternate, every possible future you saw was slightly off from this future but close.

Okay. Narset, Enlightened Mafter. Three blue, red, white. So six mana, three colors of which are Jeskfter. Three blue, red, white. So six mana, three colors, of which are Jeskai.

She leads the Jeskai. First strike, Hexproof. When she attacks, you exile the top four cards of your library and to end her turn, you may cast them

without paying their mana cost. So what we wanted from this thing is we wanted, she's the leader of the Jeskai, so we both wanted a good fighter and we wanted something that enabled the Jeskai strategy. Well, the Jeskai strategy had a lot to do with playing non-creature spells, because of prowess and other related things.

It wanted a lot of spells in it. It also wanted a creature, so the idea is, okay, let's make a creature, you know, she's a five mana, how big is she? I did not write down her power toughness. She's, three, three, around there, three, three, four, four. She has first strike and hexproof,

so she's hard to kill. She's a good fighter. She's a halfway decent body. She's a good fighter. But, every time she attacks, oh wow, you get to cast a whole bunch of spells,

which can do stuff like enable your prowess creatures and things. So like if I attack with Nerset and a bunch of prowess creatures, who knows what's going to happen? That becomes a very risky thing. And anyway, so one of the questions, by the way, we'll get to this when we get to Dragon's Lair here, but did

we know that Nerset was going to become a planeswalker? We did, we did. We did know that. We hadn't designed a planeswalker yet, obviously, but that's something we were aware of when Creative mapped out the whole thing. One of the things they do is they map out planeswalker yet, obviously, but that's something we were aware of. When Creative mapped out the whole thing, one of the things they do is they map out planeswalkers. So we knew the idea they had had was, in the alternate reality,

that we'd have a character that, in one reality, was a legendary creature, and the other reality was a planeswalker. We thought that was cool. We also knew we were going to do two different versions of Sark and we knew we were going to do that as well. But anyway, Narset was pegged early on for being the right person to do that in, so I was very excited.

I think Narset was a very cool planeswalker, too. That's Dragon Stark here. We'll get there. Okay, next. Necropolis Fiend. Seven black, black, four, five demon. It's got delve, flying, and it's got the ability X-tap, exile X creature cards from your graveyard to give target creature

minus X, minus X until end of turn. Okay, so this is an interesting card. It's a delve card with tension. So it's a 7 BB, a 9 mana 4 or 5 flyer.

So delve means you can move up to 7 cards from your graveyard to make it, you know, for black, 2 black mana, you can make a 4 or 5 demon, flying demon. The problem is,

this is where tension comes in, the ability of the demon really wants to use your graveyard as a resource because you can kill creatures with it. Every card essentially stands for minus one, minus one, essentially. And so the idea is, how quickly do I want to get out this creature? But if I go too quickly, if I use up too much of my graveyard, a lot of the value of the creature is undercut. So it's got some neat tension to it.

Next, Pearl Lake Ancient. Five blue blue for a 6-7 Leviathan with Flash, can't be countered, and it's got prowess. And then, got the ability, return three lands you control to your hand to return Pearl Lake Ancient to its owner's hand, which probably is yours if you played it.

So this is a lot of things about this creature. I think this creature was made by Eric Lauer in development, I believe. I think. It might have been in design, but my memory was Eric made this, or his team made it. So first off, it's a 6-7 creature with prowess.

That is definitely quirky. Normally the prowess creatures are a little cheaper. Obviously you're not casting this card and casting something else in the same turn. But once I have it in play, I can cast things. It's got Flash, which ties into the other build. I build that you can return it to your hand. It also has Can't Be Countered.

A little quirky. Something Eric likes to do is Can't Be Countered traditionally is in red and green. Red has spells that can't be countered. Green has creatures that can't be countered. Blue, we gave Blue a little bit of can't be countered traditionally as in red and green. Red has spells that can't be countered, green has creatures that can't be countered. Blue, we gave Blue a little bit of

can't be countered on counter spells because we really thought it was cool to have counter spells that couldn't be countered. Eric took it from that that, oh,

Blue can do can't be countered and he started spreading other things. I've been trying to rein him in a little bit. Blue's tertiary in this. Blue can do it

a little bit. But I think he just liked the idea that I have a thing, I can bounce it, I can cast it again, you can't stop me. Anyway, and this card actually was pretty

cool in that it's a pretty hard card to kill. You know, you can always sort of bounce it back to your hand, and it can't be countered, so it's hard to counterspell, but anyway. I don't know. Parole Ancient. Okay, next. Ponyback Brigade., Ponyback Brigade.

So Ponyback Brigade is a six-mana card, three red, white, black, so Marduk Owls, two, two Goblin Warrior. When it enters a battlefield or turns face-up, you get three 1-1 red Goblin tokens, and it has morph. It morphs for two red, white, black, so for one cheaper than the caftan.

So this is one of the things where I can just play it upright. No matter what. So some cards you have to turn them face up to get the ability. Some morph cards. Some morph cards just do it no matter what. This card says, you know what?

You're going to get three 1-1 tokens. You're going to get them. It doesn't matter. The question really is, do you want to play a little earlier and turn it face up? And one of the nice things is, it's one cheaper to turn it face up

than it is to play. So if you're able to get it face down, that means in turn five you can have it rather than turn six. But once again, Marduk card plays in Marduk's strength. It gives you lots of little creatures to attack with, so a very good Marduk card. Raider's Spoils.

Three and a black enchantment. So, four mana. Creatures you control get plus one, plus oh. And whenever a warrior you control deals combat damage, you may pay one life to draw a card. Okay, so, I explained before that the white-black archetype was a warrior tribal. So, this card is meant for that. It has two abilities on it. The first ability

is just, it buffs your team. Not a bad ability. Four mana for that ability is a little much. So it's one of those things where maybe you'll play it in limited if you need to, but it really the more warriors you have, the more valuable the card is. So the second ability really is where

the power lies. And, if you're playing warriors, if warriors are your thing, well you're just going to drop this card higher. It's just much more valuable the card is, because the second ability really is where the power lies. And if you're playing warriors, if warriors are your thing, well, you're just going to drop this card higher. It's just much more valuable to you if you have a lot of warriors in your deck.

So it's definitely a card that's sort of like meant for the warrior deck, but it's not useless outside of the warrior deck. So what we did there is, and this is another trick we do all the time,

is we make a card so it's slightly stronger, more than slightly stronger, stronger in its theme, but potentially usable outside its theme. But the idea is that the person who's dedicated to that theme will value it higher and draft it higher than the person who doesn't.

So the idea is the warrior player has a better chance of getting this thing earlier than the non-warrior player, who might take it, but much later than a player with lots of warriors would. The other thing it did, by the way, is this card says, obviously if you have a warrior strategy, you're playing it, but let's say I'm just playing those colors.

I'm playing Mardu or I'm playing Abzan. You know, if I have enough warriors, I might consider it, especially Mardu. You know, it's one of those things where I go, oh, well, I don't have to fully commit to it. I mean, the card has value even when I don't have warriors. And you know what? Every warrior I have is just a little bit better. Oh, how many warriors do I have?

I got three or four? Okay, maybe I can play this. And you know what? Maybe because I'm playing it, I'll throw in a warrior or two extra that I was not sure about. You know, my 23rd creature or 23rd card might be a warrior,

where before I wouldn't necessarily care if it was a warrior. Okay, next. Rakshasa, Rakshasa, Rakshasa Death Dealer. First off, the cat demons, the Rakshasas. I cannot pronounce this word. Rakshasa, Rakshasa. Okay, got it. Rakshasa, okay.

So I just can't say this word. I don't know why. Sometimesshasa. Rakshasa. Okay, got it. Rakshasa. Okay. So I just can't say this word. I don't know why. Sometimes I can. Rakshasa. Rakshasa. I cannot say this word. The team found it hilarious that I had trouble with this word, and I think they would rename things. They would turn in designs

that just had it in the name. I'm like, that's not even a cat demon. Why does it have that name? They're like, what name? What's it called? Anyway, it was a running joke all through design. Rakshasa. Rakshasa. Got it.

Rakshasa Dealer. Death Dealer. Black and a green, two mana for a 2-2 cat demon. It's got two abilities. For black and green, it can get plus two, plus two until end of turn. And for black and a green, it can regenerate. The neat thing there is,

the first ability is kind of a crossover. Black has the shade ability, green has the root wall ability. So normally black tends to pump for smaller amounts, green pumps for higher amounts, but green pumps only once per turn, black pumps repeatedly. So this is repeated like a shade, but a little bigger like a root wall. And then the second ability, regeneration, happens to be in black and green. And so

basically it's just a creature that has two abilities that kind of play in the overlap of black and green. Once again, let's do the test. Black and green is in Soltai, and black and green is in Abzan. Okay. Well, the plus two blue pumper is good for attacking, and the Regenerator is good for

defending. So it's got one ability that makes it more friendly for a Soltai deck, and one thatenerator's good for defending. So it's got one ability that makes it more friendly for a Sultai deck, and one that makes it more friendly for an Abzan deck. Okay, next. Rakshasa Vizier. That's two hard words. Two black, green, blue, five mana, and it's

Sultai. 4-4 Cat Demon, obviously. Whenever one or more cards is exiled from your graveyard, put that many plus one luck counters on card name. So this is a delve. Not an enabler. A delve, it beneficially works when you delve.

So basically what it says is, hey, if only there were a way to exile a lot of cards in your graveyard. Oh look, a whole mechanic that does that. So this card really is meant to play nicely with delve. Just lots of good things happen when you Delve, and so that is what it is there for. Next, Rattleclaw

Mystic. One and a green for a 2-1 Human Shaman. Tap, add green, blue, or red to your mana pool. It's got Morph 2. We'll get back to that in a second. And when it's turned face up, you add green, blue, or red to your mana pool. So this card is definitely

very interesting. For starters, it morphs for not-colored mana. What that means is you've now made a card that any color could play in their deck. Now, it's better for you in these colors, partly because the colors it's giving you are beneficial if you have

stuff that uses those colors. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes, it's colorless. Also, the colors it's giving you are beneficial if you have stuff that uses those colors. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes, it's colorless. Also, the thing that's neat is you might have some of these colors in your deck, but not all of your colors. So, now it's a green card. Normally it would morph to green. The decision was made to let everybody have access to this.

It's mana. We let artifacts get access to mana. It's something we do, let every deck get a hold of. Not necessarily in every color, mana, artifacts get access to mana. It's something we do, let every deck get a hold of. Not necessarily in every color, but every deck get a hold of. And so we decided to let it do it. This card is neat in that if you unmorph it, you actually

end up getting four mana because you get the three mana that it adds, plus you then can tap it for mana. So it secretly actually gives you four mana when you unmorph it or turn it face up. I like to use it to turn unmorph. It's probably not technically the correct term. We just never really... One of the things we never really

defined was, was morph playing a creature from your hand face down? Or was morph taking it face down and turning it face up? What is morphing it? I always thought morphing was putting it from your hand face down, and then to me it's unmorphing it. Like, morphing is hiding it, and unmorphingorphing is un-hiding it. That's why I say un-morph.

Okay, ride down, red-white instant, destroy target-blocking creature, and then creatures blocked by that creature gain trample. So mostly what that wanted to be, this is one of the ones where I think originally it was like, remove a creature and pretend like it didn't block. And then the rules people go, well, once it blocks

it's blocked, you can't pretend like it doesn't block, and then the rules people go, well, once it blocks it's blocked, you can't pretend like it doesn't block. And the rules people are like, well, what you want is we can just give trample to the creatures and then essentially... That's a good example where we make something and then the rules team sort of turns it into actual practical like, here's actually how you have to write it. A lot of times when that

happens, it's not as cool sounding like, you know, target a creature, destroy target target creature and pretend like it never blocked you sounds cooler than what this is, although essentially what this does is equivalent to that. It just a lot of times design writes it in the more sound-splashy way, and then

once it gets to development and template, it's like, no, let's actually write it on the way the rules can handle it. Okay, next. Roar of the Challenge. Two green sorcery. All creatures must block target creature available, and ferocious, that creature

gets indestructible. So this is playing to what we call the lure ability, showed up in Alpha, which says, hey, everybody's got to block me! And the ferocious thing is cool, because not only did everything block you, but you get to survive the experience. So that's a nice, like I everything going to block you, but you get to survive the experience. So that's a nice, like I said before,

finding ferocious was tricky because you've got to find the fact that you like the first effect, and the second effect is just synergistic with the first effect. Well, this is a good example. Being indestructible is pretty good when everyone's going to block you. It means you won't die. So, you know, I like that. I thought it was pretty cool.

Okay, my final card for today I'm going to do R and end with R and pick up next time with S so I have Ruthless Ripper

black for a 1-1 human assassin with death touch morph reveal a black card from your hand to turn it to un-morph it

and then when it turns face up target player loses two life okay I ended up with a card but I have something to save up

so I'm going to do it in time okay a little extra bonus today okay so save up, so I'm going to do it in time. Okay, a little extra bonus today. Okay, so one of the things I wanted to do when we planned out the block, we knew that we were doing morph in the first set. We were doing manifest in the second set, and we were doing some morph variant.

What we thought we were going to do ended up changing, but we were doing a morph variant in the third set, which ended up becoming megamorph, obviously. So one of the things about the first set was I needed to do Morph as is. I wasn't supposed to. We were doing Morph. Later sets we were going to do version of Morph that's not Morph. But I needed to do Morph. But I still wanted to innovate a little

bit. We were doing a lot of straight up Morph. And so one of the ideas I had was, how else, what could be cool about Morph that we didn't really let you do? And one of the answers was we haven't really made do do morphs that aren't mana. I mean, there's a little bit of paying life, and we've touched our toe in it,

but we haven't done a lot. And so one of the ideas I liked a lot is, okay, is there a way to morph that doesn't require mana? And the question was, but I still want you to be in that color, meaning I don't want you to say, hey, I'm playing, like, there was a black card that you could un-morph for paying life. Well, that got played

in every deck, because every deck could pay life, everyone had life. I didn't want you to throw this in other decks. So what I realized was, we needed to find a trigger that required you playing the color, but didn't require you having mana. And the nice, clean answer was revealing a card from your hand of that color. Well, if I'm playing black, I had to have a black card

in my hand, so like, okay, I can un-morph this by showing you a black card. That, by the way, did all sorts of neat things that I really, really enjoyed. One of the things is, revealing a card as a cost feels like the most nothing cost in the world, because, hey, I have the card in my hand

already, so really what you're giving up is information, which is kind of cool. A, in that it's a different kind of cost. And B, it allows you to do things that are interesting because your opponent gets to see something in your hand. You're giving them knowledge. But you actually can use that to your benefit because sometimes you can show them

something and then manipulate things because they know that's in your hand. Like, for example, a real common trick is you reveal it, you show a morph card, and then, you know, that turn or next turn, you play a morph card. And like, for example, a real common trick is you reveal it, you show a morph card, and then, you know, that turn or next turn, you play a morph card, and like, oh, did he just play the morph card he showed me?

Is that what it was? Or did he show me a card and play a morph of something else? You know, so there was a lot. One of the things I loved about this set is, and one of the reasons I really, really liked morph is, one of the things that I was trying to get for the environment, for Warlord world, was there was a lot of intrigue,

trying to figure each other out. There's, you know, there's all these Warlords that are plotting and planning, and everyone doesn't quite know everything. That information is so important, and there's secrets, and you're trying to glean things, that Morph really played into that sensibility of, you know, trying to understand all around you,

and trying to outmaneuver and outwit your opponent but you don't quite know everything. And I really felt I did a good job of doing that. So one of the things we did is we then decided that not only would you get to reveal this, but there would be a small effect. So it would also allow you to, for no mana,

generate a small effect. And so we tried different effects. I think this one originally drained rather than just lost life. But in the end, we ended up making the white one life gain, so we ended up making this life loss. And the drain was a little too powerful. But anyway, of all the morph cards in cons, I really, really like this cycle. This is a whole cycle.

I'm just talking about the black one. This was a whole cycle. And I really liked how they played. I really liked the fact that we were able to innovate a little bit and do something kind of cool with Morphly

and done before I just liked how it added to the overall mood and tone and the gameplay we were trying to do like I talk about this all the time that you're trying

to create a mood and that what you want to do is make gameplay that reinforces your tone and your mood like I say this a lot but to me gameplay is as much

environment and story building as names or flavor text or art. If players can feel what you want them to feel in the environment or feel in the story, that is really, really powerful and really helps capture what you're trying to do.

And so I consider gameplay just another component of getting people part of the world. You know, that there's all this... That gameplay really can help in a very cool way of making you feel part of what's going on. And I feel that these cards did a neat job of doing that. Okay, I've gotten up to S. So my plan next time is next time hopefully

will be my last podcast on Conjuring Dark here. I hope. Anyway, but I'm now in my parking on Cons of Tarkir. I hope. Anyway, but I'm now in my parking spot, so we all know what that means. That means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

See you next time for the last Cons of Tarkir.