Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #313 - Limited Edition, Part 6

Episode Date: March 11, 2016

Mark concludes his his six-part series on the design of Limited Edition (Alpha), Limited Edition (Beta), and Unlimited Edition.

I'm put on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I hope to be the last day of Alpha Beta Unlimited. I got up to O and I'm going to focus to try to finish today. So when we left, we were up to Orcish Artillery. So one red red for a 1-3, summon orcs. You can tap it to deal two damage to any target and three to itself. So this was one of the misprints in alpha. This was printed not at one red red, so normally costs three mana, two of which are red, but it only costs one and a red.

So it was pretty good. It was a little bit cheaper, a little less red mana. Also, Orcish Aura Flame, which costs three and a red, it's an enchantment, and it says when you attack, all your creatures get plus one plus oh, so give all your attacking creatures a power boost, also got misprinted at one and an hour. So both Orcish Artillery and Orcish Aura Flame both were printed at one and a red, when in fact they were respectively one red red and three red. So three mana and four mana. But anyway, it's funny,

Orcish Aura Flame, I actually believe that the correct power level, if it's playable, would be one and a red. So I joke sometimes that we need to make Alpha Orcish Aura Flame. I think Alpha Orcish Aura Flame also, by the way, at one point got restricted or banned or something

in a complete misunderstanding of maybe the reason they banned it was because people were playing with the alpha version so oh when the game first came out by the way if you had a version that said something different you gotta play it as that version now we have

a rata that says okay all cards play the same way. If you have a card, whatever the current wording of it is what that card does. But back in the day, it said, oh, well, if you have an Alpha Orcish Oriflame and it costs one in a red, well, it costs one in a red. And so people were definitely playing the Alpha version of the card. There were times people would trade and they wanted the Alpha version just because it allowed you to do some stuff. Like Island Sanctuary, I didn't bring this up but island sanctuary for example in alpha

said that it prevented damage um from everything that wasn't a flyer or an island walker so for example you could use orcish artillery with an island sanctuary for alpha island sanctuary and the damage that would be dealt by it it would prevent the damage from the Orcish Aura Flame, because Orcish Aura Flame the damage, it couldn't do damage. If you had an Island Sanctuary

from Alpha, you couldn't be damaged from non-Flyers, non-Island Walkers. Well, guess what? Orcish Artillery, which does damage to you, by the way, not to the Orcish artillery, does damage to you. So it's two to any target, three to you, the player that owns it, controls it. But anyway,

the Alpha Island Sanctuary will prevent the damage from the Orcish artillery because it doesn't have flying or island walk. And later, it was reworded that combat damage. Things that have flying or island walk couldn't yield combat damage to you. are flying, things that are flying, I couldn't yield combat damage to you.

Okay, let's move on. Pestilence. Two black black. Four mana, two witches black. It's an enchantment. You can spend one black, and then it would say, do one damage to each creature

and to both players, and the card was discarded at the end of turn if there were ever no creatures in play. So basically what it did is, you could spend it to do a damage to all creatures and all players. It's funny, it says both players, because a lot of the

wording in Alpha just assumed it was a two-player game. It didn't even take into account that maybe people would play multiplayer. The idea of three or more players was not something that, I think, it's not that Richard didn't realize it could happen, but he didn't word it. The wording wasn't assumed that maybe you would play with. And we now know

that a lot of people actually play Magic with more than two people. So we now word it such that it makes sense with more than two people. But anyway, Pashlands was a very interesting card.

Shouldn't have been common. In fact, it got reprinted in Urza's Saga at Common and so warped with a limited... Alpha didn't have much limited. The idea of playing with cards you open

in limited formats, that didn't really happen until a couple years later. I mean, it wasn't even until we started making Mirage that we even thought about limited play and actually made decisions in building sets

for limited play. Anyone's ever played Ice Age Limited, but Ice Age Limited is painful, because it really just wasn't designed to be played limited with, and there were some cards that just, like, at common, there just wasn't ways to get rid of enchantments that weren't world enchantments, and made it hard to play when you just don't have easy answers

to things that show up all the time. But anyway, Pestilence caused all sorts of problems in Urza's Saga. It's a fun card from a flavor standpoint. It's one of my favorite designs, just from a pure sort of top-down flavor. The idea that there's this plague that's spreading, a pestilence, if you will, but

if there's no creatures to spread it, then it goes away. So that was kind of neat. I actually like Pestilence. There's a big question nowadays whether Pestilence really is a black spell. It probably is a red spell. I think we did a red version of it in Planar Chaos, trying to play out that it's really not a red spell, not a black spell. But anyway, I have fond memories.

Plague Rats, two and a black, summon rats, X, X. Some of the ones were star and some were X. I'm not sure what made... Star and X are the same thing. They're just variables. So once again, an example of templating where the same thing just meant, you know, different things would mean the same thing.

So this was XX, though. And then it said X equals the number of Plague Rats in play. And it gives you examples. Let's say there are two in play, then they're all 2-2. So the idea essentially of Plague Rats is, and it kind of all Plague Rats in play, not just on your side, but it allowed you to count the number you have. And you were allowed as many Plague Rats as you wanted.

I think early Magic didn't limit the number of cards you could have. I think Plague Rats gained that ability once we started restricting number of cards you could have. I think Plague Rats gained that ability once we started restricting how many cards you could have. So I think the alpha version doesn't tell you how many cards you want, only because you were allowed to have as many as you want. That wasn't an issue. And I think when we put the thing in place to restrict to how many you could have, we put on Plague Rats specifically that you were allowed to have as many as you wanted.

Because that was kind of the intent of the card. So Plague Rats is one of those cards that was very, very popular. A lot of people had Plague Rat decks. It was common. You could collect them. And they were really popular. Plague Rats was the kind of thing that you had a couple out and not that powerful. But you get like five or six out.

All of a sudden you have six, six, six creatures, right? And it only cost three mana. So three mana for a 1-1 isn't particularly good. Three mana for a 2-2, not particularly good. Three mana for three three, we're getting better. Four, four, five five, six, six, such thing, really good. And so the Plague Rite deck actually was back in

the day, back when people, you know, when Magic first started and everybody was a beginner, it actually it did better than it would normally do just because of the environment it was played in. And people had a lot of fun. So Plague Rats has inspired

a bunch of different things. For example, do you like Slivers? Slivers were inspired by Plague Rat. Mike Elliott, when he made Slivers, was very much inspired

by trying to make a Plague Rat-ish thing. Just taking Plague Rats and instead of just granting power and toughness boosts, what if you granted other things as well? The Kindle mechanic that I made in Tempest, the cards in which I was trying to make a

Plague Rat lightning bolt. You know, the idea that the more you have, the more powerful it is. So the Kindle mechanic comes from Plague Rats. The ally mechanic from Zendikar, which is much inspired by Slivers, but Slivers were inspired by Plague Rats. Also owes its existence to Plague Rats. So Plague Rats is one of those cards that's just very influential design-wise, very popular. Players liked it. Okay, Plateau. Plateau's a land.

On the card it says, counts as a mountain and a plains. Now it's just a rata to be a subtype mountain and plains. You can tap to add red or white. So Plateau is one of the dual lands, original dual lands. The most thing it's famous for, the reason I'm talking about it here is, it is the only card to have its art changed

for Unlimited Edition. So what we did is we made limited. So limited edition came out. It was black bordered. And the idea originally for Magic was the first edition of all cards would be black border and then all future editions would be white border. So you wanted to get the original edition

because it was black border and black border signified that. So most sets when they came out would be black border because that was the first printing. But the idea was the core sets where we were printing things, we'd make them in white border.

So the very first core set was in black border which we called limited edition. And then, and the idea was there's only so much limited edition

we're going to produce. Then, when they decided to go to white border for next printing, they called it unlimited edition. The idea being

limited meant we're only going to print so much and unlimited means we're going to print to demand. That's kind of what unlimited meant. The problem was unlimited wasn't unlimited. They only printed so much, and then they ended up going to revise, which was essentially third edition. So it's a weird name.

It's an odd name, unlimited edition. But anyway, one of the weird things is Plateau has different art. Why does Plateau have different art? The answer is that the file got corrupted, and they couldn't find the original, so they didn't have the ability to get the art again. They just didn't. So what they ended up using was a piece of art

that I think was originally designated for Ice Age, I believe, if I remember correctly. So what happened was they lost the art, they couldn't replicate it, and they didn't figure this out until late in the process, meaning, I think the artist, Rob Alexander, I'm guessing, is the artist, had the original, maybe,

because the artist always gets the original back, and maybe they didn't have time to get the original, and they didn't have a digital copy of it, it wasn't corrupted. So anyway, that is why Plateau changed art. Prodigal Sorcerer. Two and a blue. So three mana, one of which is blue. Summon wizard, one, one.

You tap it to do one damage to any target, it said. Which is kind of funny because later on, you just have to deal damage to a target creature or player. You couldn't deal damage to an artifact that's not a creature or an enchantment that's not a creature. Although that's how it was worded in Alpha. So this was the first magic card that I remember that got a nickname. So it was nicknamed Tim.

And that is because in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there's a character named Tim the Enchanter. And he throws fireballs from his fingertips. Some call me Tim. And anyways, some people thought he looked a little bit like him. He doesn't really, but he does. His ability, essentially, is he's using little magic to throw little sparks or something.

That's why he's doing one damage. And so anyway, he started getting called Tim and the name picked up and it really became the first sort of just like, I mean, there are nicknames in which the nickname is tied to the card. Your Herlu and Minotaur is Hurley. Okay, but it comes from Herlu and Minotaur.

You maybe could figure that out. Tim, if I talked about Tim and you didn't know the connection or weren't in on the lingo, you had no idea what Tim, who's Tim? I have no idea. So it's just an early example of sort of magic slang. One of the things that you get involved in magic, you know, there's this more and more slang that comes about that some of it maybe you

can extrapolate, but some of it are just some things that if you don't know, you know, you don't know the group think of what it is, it's very hard to figure out. Okay, red elemental blast, red, and alpha was an instant. Later Red. In Alpha, it was an instant. Later, it was an interrupt, and then later, an instant. So, it was misprinted in Alpha. So, I'll get back to you in a second. It's printed as an instant, by the way, in Alpha. Counters a blue spell

being cast or destroys a blue card in play. So, this was the red version of Blue Elemental Blast. While Blue Elemental Blast was printed as an interrupt, red was accidentally printed as an instant, which, without being an interrupt, you can't counter a spell with it. So technically, when it was printed, it didn't work.

It had to be eroded. The funny thing is, in 6th Edition Rules, we got rid of interrupts, so it's a weird card that was misprinted, eroded, and then eroded back to its original misprinted version that actually became an instant. So the alpha is an instant, and it says it's an instant,

even though at the time it was supposed to interrupt. A little trivia there. This card is wildly out of color pie. Red A shouldn't be countering spells, and B should not be able to just destroy blue things in play. Red doesn't really destroy things anymore,

especially not supposed to destroy things like enchantments. Like Red Elemental Blast could get rid of stasis and just things that red's not supposed to get rid of. So this card causes all sorts of color pie violations. Next, Regrowth. Regrowth is a sorcerer that costs one in the green, two mana, one of which is green. Return any cards from your graveyard to your hand.

So this card got cards back. It's definitely one of the cards that's restricted in older formats. It is definitely one of the cards on the border. The only reason this card is restricted is because I think actual regrowth is supposed to cost like three mana. It's not too much overpowered. There's just

some really, really powerful cards in older formats that are restricted. And so I think it's restricted only because it gives you access to those powerful cards in older formats that are restricted. And so, I think it's restricted only because it gives you access to those powerful cards. I think it's restricted. Maybe someone unrestricted but I wasn't watching. One day maybe it gets unrestricted. I think it's currently still restricted. Rock Hydra, X

Red Red. So, 2 Red Mana plus X. X is generic. So, Summon Hydra, 0-0. You put X plus 1 plus 1 counters, and then in parentheses it says heads. Get it? These are heads. You're putting heads on the creature, on the Hydra.

Each damage destroys a head unless R is spent, unless one red mana is spent. And during your upkeep, you can grow new heads for a red, red, red. So this was the original Hydra. I'm not sure why it was stuck in red. It was a rock Hydra, so it was in the mountains, which is a red thing. We took a long time

figuring out the iconic for green, and one of the reasons it took us so long to come across Hydra, which makes a lot of sense, it's a beast, it grows, it's just it was in red originally. And, you know, Richard, a lot of decisions Richard made stuck for a long time, just because that was the way the game was made, you know. And eventually as we ran out of answers for green, someone said, you know, Hydra seems to make a lot of sense. Why don't we just move Hydra just to green? But anyway, back in alpha, back in the day,

Hydra's for red. I also find this card interesting in that it uses a technical thing, plus one, plus one counters, and then literally like just says in parentheses, like this is the flavor, get it? This is the flavor. And then for the rest of the card, instead of referring to plus one, plus one counters, and then literally just says, in parentheses, this is the flavor, get it? And then, for the rest of the card, instead of referring to plus one, plus one counters, it just refers to heads.

I find that very interesting. I kind of like that technology. Singer Vampire. Three black, black for a Summoned Vampire. Four, four, flying. And whenever a creature dies that has been damaged by Singer Vampire, Singer Vampire gets a plus one, plus one

counter. So it's a really flavorful sounding ability, which we actually call the Singer ability, which is you kill things and they get bigger because you drink their blood, you're a vampire. The problem is because players know that happens, and because Singer Vampire flies, it just doesn't happen a lot. There's not a lot of chump blocking

on the Singer Vampire. A, because it's flying, it's hard to block. And even then, use it like, do I take four or make your guy a 5-5? Unless you're going to kill me, I usually take the four. Now, Sanger Vampire was very popular, despite the fact that its ability was kind of weak. It was very popular

in Homeland. You would see the whole Sanger Vampire family would, you know, Baron Sanger and such would be played out. But it was still a popular card, despite the fact that the one ability didn't show up much. Sarah Angel, three-white-white. Summon Angel 4-4. Flying and it was the first card with Vigilance, although

at the time it was spelled out. Vigilance didn't come until many years later. But this was the card that inspired Vigilance. You know, it didn't tap when it attacked. Sarah Angel was one of the most popular creatures in the early days. Maybe even the most popular creature. It was used in

the deck, which is the very first constructed deck by Brian Weissman. He used... I think his one win condition was the Serra Angel. Just as he was locking things down, I think he might have used Stasis also. And Vigilance was good in a deck with Stasis because it didn't tap,

so you could attack with it every turn and not worry about not being able to untap it. Sarah, by the way, actually comes from the word serrated because Richard was trying to make a battle angel. He was just trying to make his own version. You know, angels in the Bible, like angels in the Bible tend to be male, and there's a lot of, I don't know.

Richard was just trying to re-envision, and he loved the idea of a female battle angel. He knew it would have a sword, so the Sarah, he was trying to make a word that sounded kind of rough, like serrated. That's where Sarah comes from. They later retroactively made a character named Sarah who made the angels,

so I think by the time the game came out, it was no longer referencing blades or anything. It was just a character. Speaking of other characters, there and Dragon. Four red red, summon dragon five five, flying with fire breathing, meaning spend a red for plus one plus social under turn. Shiv and what originally was making a reference

to Shiva, the god of destruction, the Indian god of destruction, but making reference to gods that are still currently... That was a bad idea, so we actually made up a world called Shiv, which is a place on Dominaria. And so the Shivin dragon was a dragon from Shiv.

Sinkhole, black black sorcery, destroy target land. Just wanted to bring this up because this was one of the... A lot of early magic. This card caused a lot of problems. It's funny. Revra's really supposed to be the land destruction color, and it had stone rain, and it's the one that requires only one, like this requires two black mana, stone rain requires one red mana, but the difference between being two mana versus being three mana, and black was already, mono black had

already all these reasons to make you want to play mono black, plus the existence of dark ritual, you know, sinkhole, sink Dark Ritual and Hypnotic Specter, that triumphant just created lots and lots of unhappy games. Because you had the ability so quickly to destroy land, to knock things out of your opponent's hand, and it just was not unfun early magic. Soul Ring, a mono artifact, costs one. So you can tap it, add two colorless mana to your mana pool.

Plays Interrupt, of course, because it was Alpha. So a lot of people, it's funny, Sol Ring is one of those cards that a lot of people think of as being innocuous. Like, oh, you know, I know we put them in Commander stuff, but it's a really powerful card. There are some that argue that it might be more powerful than cards that are in the Power 9. I've definitely heard that argued.

And that, you know, should this, should Sol Ring have been, should there have been a power 10 in Sol Ring? Sol Ring is quite, quite powerful. I think a lot of people underrate how powerful it is. It's a very powerful card. Stasis, one and a blue enchantment. Players do not get an untapped phase. And you can pay a blue, you pay a blue during your upkeep,

or Stasis is destroyed. Not sacrificed. Destroyed. There's a lot of... The idea of... The word sacrifice did show up in Alpha, but it was not consistently used for getting rid of your own things.

So the cool part of Stasis, the reason I brought this story up, it was a powerful card. It saw a lot of play. But the cool thing is Faye Jones, who did the art But the cool thing is Faye Jones, who did the art, the fun story is

Faye Jones is Richard Garfield's aunt. She, in fact, was an artist. You know, not like a, not just an illustrator, but like a fancy

hanger pictures and museum artist. And as a favor to her nephew, she drew a picture for his game he was making. And so Faye Jones

is one of the, you know, most accomplished artists as far as just art beyond just illustration, but an actual painted canvas hanging museum sort of artist. But anyway, it is a very quirky piece of art. It's a cool piece of art, I think, but it definitely is one of the odder pieces of art. And where did it come from? Richard Garfield's aunt. Okay, Stream of life. It's a sorcery for X and a green.

So one green mana plus X, which is generic. Target player gains X life. So the cool thing about this card is if you said what card from alpha if we printed today would have the exact same wording on all of the card as it did in Alpha. And the answer is Stream of Life. It would still be a sorcery.

It would still be X and green in its cost. It would still say target player gains X life. Creature cards don't work because they used to say summon and now we don't. Artifacts don't work because they were mono-artifact and continuous artifact. Interrupts obviously are now instants. Giant growth I think doesn't work because it says gain rather than

get. We've changed templates. So just between all the different changes, the one that makes it is stream of life. Swords to plowshares, instant for 1w. Single white mana. Essentially exile target creature, although it didn't say exile at the time. Just so I'd remove it from the game. And then

its controller gains life equals to its toughness. This was a very popular early card. White didn't have a lot of power. It had balance and it had Armageddon and it had Swords of Plowshares. Those were the most powerful white cards early on. But Swords was probably the most powerful creature removal spell. It removed any creature

for one mana. It didn't matter. And the fact that it gained life was pretty irrelevant. One of the problems this card had was it really made white the best creature removal color, and that wasn't what white was supposed to be. Black was supposed to be that. But black had riders, and it couldn't get rid of certain things, or white could just get rid of anything, and so

cheaply. And so Swords definitely caused a lot of problems. The flavor, by the way, a lot of people don't realize is, what you're doing in the card is, you're taking away the creature's desire to be violent. And so instead of fighting, they go become a farmer. So the swords turn into plowshares, because now they're becoming a farmer.

Anyway, a lot of people miss that. Tear, one and a black instant. Destroy target non-black, non-artifact creature. So the reason I put this here is actually not for the effect, although that effect of non-black would really, and non-artifact would shape things to come. Black for a long, long time only would destroy non-black things,

often non-artifact things, and just sort of the grandfatherness sometimes of early alpha things would last. But the reason I brought this card up is something most people don't realize about the art. The art as turned in by the artist, Ron Spencer, is not oriented the way that he painted it. I think that his back is on the ground. Yes, Premier

Force didn't realize which way it was up and printed the card in a different orientation than intended by the artist. But it just, people liked it. It looked cool, and we ended up, you know, once it got known by that orientation, it stayed. It never changed.

But it's interesting that the artist did not intend that orientation. Next, the Hive. Five, Mineral Artifact. Five and Tap. Make a giant wasp. Artifact 1-1 creature with flying. This card is interesting in that it told you,

it said you made a giant wasp token and said you represent it with tokens. It told is interesting in that it told you, it said you made a giant WAPS token and said you represent it with tokens. It told you to do that. And it also described a lot of token rules. It talked about how if it went away it didn't come back. If you unsummon it, it went away. This is the card that sort of was the first real token making card and in its text explained a bunch of things about token making.

This card was wildly popular, much like Clockwork Beast. This was one of those cards you had to open if you wanted to get your hands on because it was so popular and I think it really showed us the popularity of tokens this is one thing that said you know people really like creature tokens and got us to make a lot more of them Time Vault, Mono Artifact, cost 2

tap to gain an extra turn but it doesn't untap it normal the only way to untap it is to skip your turn so the idea is I give up it is to skip your turn. So the idea is I give up a turn to get a turn later. So the idea is maybe early on when my turns don't matter as much, I trade it for later on when the turns really matter. There were some nasty combos

where you would animate this. You would animate artifacts to turn this into a creature and then use instill energy and then untap it every turn so you get infinite turns. I was later errated to say that you couldn't untap it unless you spent. It wasn't just that the card didn't untap. It couldn't untap unless you paid the turn. You couldn't throw other means untap it because it was just kind of degenerate.

We've been back and forth on this. One of the big things is, was that the intent or not the intent? There's all sorts of arguments about time fault, but it causes all sorts of issues. Time walk, sorcery, one of the big things is, was that the intent or not the intent? It causes all sorts of arguments about time and fault, but it causes all sorts of issues. Timewalk, Sorcery, one and a blue. Take an extra turn after this one. I think I told this story earlier on, but this is the card that originally said an opponent loses next turn. And so people thought that, like, oh, next turn you lose the game and I win. And so Richard changed it, so instead of your opponent losing a turn, you gained a turn to avoid the confusion.

This is one of the Power 9. It's a very popular card, a very powerful card. And we later remade this in Tempest, costing 3 blue blue, which is 5 mana. And I think our belief was it was still too cheap. So this card is a powerful effect. Time Twister, 2 and a blue sorcery. You set aside Time Twister in a new effect. Time Twister, two and a blue sorcery. You set aside Time Twister in a new graveyard. Then you shuffle your hand graveyard...

You shuffle all hands graveyards and libraries together. I mean, not... You shuffle your hand graveyard and library together, and your opponent shuffles their hand graveyard and library together. And then all players draw a hand of new cards. So this card is really powerful, and then it allows you to

essentially draw seven cards. I mean, you have to lose your hand. Normally when you cast this, it's because you don't have much of a hand. It also allows you to shuffle stuff from your graveyard back into your library, which can be very important. It does it to everybody, but once again, because it's a fact where you control when it happens, most often it's more beneficial for you.

This is one of the Power Nine. It's probably the weakest of the Power 9. Like, when people argue that Sol Ring is stronger than a piece of the Power 9, probably Time Switcher is the one they're arguing about. Not that it's a weak card. It's by no means a weak card, but it is not quite as strong as some of the other Power 9. Although, still pretty strong.

Unholy Strength, Black, Enchant Creature. Target Creature gets gains that it doesn't get. Target Creature gains plus two, plus one. So the reason I brought this card up was in the back of it, it had a little pentagon. It had this little guy. I don't know what he's doing. It looks like he's stretching, but he's doing something. And there's a pentagon in the background.

And for a while, Magic was really concerned. We got a bunch of early complaints, and so we stripped away the pentagon from it. So there's... The alpha version has the pentagram in the background

and then later versions didn't. You know, the... I don't know, like in Revise it didn't have it there. And then later we said, what are we doing?

We put it back. We sort of... We were a little worried. The same time we sort of took Demon, the Demon creature type out of the game. I wrote an article

about it called Where Have All the Demons Gone if you ever want to read about it. Okay, next. Verdun Doppelganger. Not Verdun. Vesuvan. Vesuvan Doppelganger. The Verdun Enchantress, Vesuvan Doppelganger. Three blue blue. It's a star star,

not an XX. Summon Doppelganger. It enters the battlefield as a copy of any creature, much like Clone, except it has a text that says, at the beginning of your upkeep, you can choose another creature if you want, and copy it, but also keep this text. So clone, you made a choice, copied it, and then, like, clone was never on the battlefield as anything other than the thing you chose, where doppelganger kept changing. I guess it's never the doppelganger, but it kept changing.

So you play it, and then you can keep upgrading what you want it to be. Now, you can always stay the same thing like a clone, but you have the ability, and clone costs four, this costs five, you have the ability to change it. And this was a very popular card early on. This was on the t-shirts. I said originally Wizards made free t-shirts. This is one of the art on the original t-shirts, so people really like the art.

It's by Quinton Hoover. Very, very pretty. Volcanic Island. So an island mountain, or counts as an island and mountain in Alpha. It's a land that taps for blue or red. It's one of the dual lands. It's the dual land we forgot from Alpha! So there are only nine dual lands in Alpha.

There were ten in Beta. So this was the one that was forgotten. Winter Orb. Two. Continuous Artifact. Players only untap one land a turn. So this card was very famous. One of the turn. So this card was very famous. One of the interesting things about this card was during

6th edition rules, we changed the rule. Imagine you set a rule that said, if artifacts are tapped, they turn off. Which was very powerful with this card. You would play it, and you'd have an Icy Manipulator or something, and you would tap it to turn it off. So on your opponent's turn, they only got one land. On your turn, you got all your lands to untap,

which is really powerful. And then when we changed the six edition rules, we took the few cards that cared about being tapped, which mostly was like Howling Mine, Winter Orb, and we gave it a rata that said,

when this is tapped, or as long as this is untapped, it's a fact. So the idea is you could tap it. So then what happened was we reprinted a Howling Mine in the core set, and we put that text on it. But we never reprinted Winter Orb because it's too strong.

And then we went to the idea of, you know what? We're going to stick to the original tent of cards, and we're not going to change their ability with Oracle. But the thing is, because Howling Mine had been printed, and the most recent printing had the rider of, if untapped, we kept Howling Mine that way. But Winter Orb, which never had a printing that did that, because it was only in Oracle, got undone. And a lot of people were upset with us because they liked that version of Winter Orb, but because the original card didn't do that, and we never printed a version that had that effect, we took it off, and there was much debate about that.

Word of Command, black, black, instant. This card allowed you to play a card out of your opponent's hand. It was super, super wordy. It didn't really work in the early days. Eventually, using the Mind Slaver was a card in Mirrodin that allowed you to take control of your opponent for a turn. Using Mind Slaver tech, we were finally able to fix it, because now what it allowed you to take control of your opponent for a turn. Using Mind Flavor tech, we were finally able to fix it. Because now what it does is

you take control of your opponent for a little sliver of time so you can cast a spell. And that allows you to just cast the one spell, but it keeps your opponent from doing things. The problem originally was

when you cast this card, you were allowed to use your opponent's mana to make the spell, but in response to you casting it, they could mess with you and spend all their mana, and then when you got there, you didn't have mana to cast the card.

Because it was an instant, they could respond to it. So, anyway, the other fun thing about this card was, I don't know whether the art never came in, or they somehow in the end, it was about to go to press, and they didn't have the art. And so it was up to Jesper to make the art.

And so this art was done really, really quickly. There's a rumor that this is the eyes from Holling Mine. I actually think that's not. I think Jesper was just inspired by the eyes from Holling Mine.

I think. I don't think there's physically the eyes from Holling Mine. But anyway, it was done really quick, last minute. And that's why this is not the most breathtaking

of pieces of art. Because it was literally really quick, last minute, and that's why this is not the most breathtaking of pieces of art, because it was literally done, literally, literally, right near the end. Okay, Wrath of God, Two-Way White Sorcery. All creatures in play are destroyed and can't regenerate. So it buried back for a long time in magic, or not long time, for early days, we had a word that said bury, which is destroy and cannot regenerate. And so there's actually a version of the card which says, you know, bury all creatures in play.

Or all creatures in play are buried, probably is what it said. Anyway, this was a very powerful early card. We eventually decided it was a little too strong, so we don't make it anymore. The one reason I brought this up is, somebody pointed this out to me, and forever changed Wrath of the Gods, so I'm going to point it out to you, which is

there's a guy lying on top of the pile, right in the middle with a thong. And once you see that, you can't unsee the thong. I've now ingrained the thong in your mind. So now whenever you see Wrath of the Gods, you'll go, Oh my God, the thong! Okay, last card, Zombie Masters. One black, black, so three

mana, two of which is black. Summon Lord. It was I assume it was a 1-1. I didn't write down his power toughness It was I assume he was a 1-1. I didn't write down his power toughness. My guess is he's a 1-1 only because Goblin King and Lord Volantis were both... I don't know. Was Lord Volantis? Lord Volantis was a 2-2. Maybe he's a 2-2 for one black black. I don't remember

whether he's a 1-1 or a 2-2. I apologize. Anyway, all zombies gain Swamp Walk and Black... gain Swamp Walk and Texas Splice. You can spend a black mana to regenerate. So it gave the Drudge Skeleton ability, essentially. So all zombies have the ability to have Swamp Walk and have regenerate. The biggest problem with this card was, I don't know,

the only zombie in the set. So Richard made three lords that all gave bonuses to creatures. And then he made a merfolk lord, but there was one merfolk, a 1-1 vanilla merfolk. He made a goblin lord. There was two, a 1-1 and a 1-1 that could fly for red activated ability. And then he made a zombie, and there was a scade zombies, a 2B22. And that's the only zombies. The funny thing is there are actually other cards in Alpha that should have been zombies,

like Scavenging Ghoul, which probably should have been a zombie, but at the time it was a ghoul or whatever. But anyway, it was a long time. I think the first time there was another zombie was in the dark, and it was a blue card, so not even a black card,

that had black regenerate, which is what this granted. So, anyway, it took a while for the zombie deck really to find enough... I wrote a whole article called ICC Dead People, which was me... The idea of the article was that each creature type had a

representative that would write to me, and it was Garg, who was the zombie representative who would write to me. I was in charge of overseeing the zombies. And he would write letters to me talking about how happy or unhappy he was with each set. And he's really, really mad in the early days because we just didn't do a lot for zombies.

He gets happier a little later as we do. Anyway, I got from A to Z. So that, my friends, is Alpha Beta Unlimited. So hopefully I tried to share a lot of different stories with you and gave you a sense of some of the behind the scenes things of Magic's very first set. I hope you enjoyed this series and I will again in the future do some

more old timey type stuff but I thought it was fun to bounce back to the early days. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the series but I'm now in my parking space so we all know what that means. It means the end of 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.