Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #342 - Urza's Saga Part 2

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

Mark talks about the design of Urza's Saga in part two of a four-part series.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay. Last time, I started talking about Urza's saga design. And I didn't finish. So we will continue today. So when last we left off, I was in the bees on cars.

I think I left off with Blanchwood Armor. So we get to Blasted Landscape. So it's a land. You tap to add a colorless. And a cycling two. So for the interesting, we made a cycle of lands that were all, they were, they enter the battlefield,

tap, you tap them for a colored mana, so, you know, either a white, there were five different ones, and we made a full cycle, and then we added a colorless. I'm not quite sure why we had the colorless one, since in, well, I see. The difference between this one and the other ones is full cycle, and then we added a Culless. I'm not quite sure why we had the Culless one, since in... Well, I see. The difference between this

one and the other ones is this one comes into play untapped. That's why. That's why we made this one. So if you need a Cycling Land, and it's more about just getting more mana, it's not about getting colored mana, the advantage to this one over the other five is that this one doesn't come into play tapped.

So technically, I guess this isn't part of the cycle, because those all enter the battlefield tap. So this is its own separate card. But it's loosely affiliated. Okay, next, up to C. Catastrophe. So Catastrophe is a sorcery. It costs six mana, two of which have to be white.

So four white, white. And it says, destroy all lands and all creatures. So it is Wrath of God and to be white. So four white white. And it says, destroy all lands and all creatures. So it is Wrath of God and Armageddon all in one. So when Magic first came out in Alpha, there was Wrath of God, that was four mana destroy all creatures. And there was Armageddon,

which was four mana destroy all lands. So we decided to mix it together. It's funny. We don't do nearly as many Armageddon effects anymore just because it's not particularly a fun effect. And we've even shifted a little bit. I mean, I guess while it's in white color pie, we tend to do it more in red these days than in white.

But even then, we don't do it very often. It's pretty infrequent. We do do Wrath of God effects all the time. But anyway, this is just one of the things that's neat when you do design is just to say, hey, here's two things that we've done individually. Hey, can we put them together?

You know, and like, the flavor works fine. Like, oh, okay, well, it's a catastrophe. It destroys creatures and land, so. Okay, Chimeric Staff. So this is an artifact, costs four. You can spend X, and then the artifact creature,

it turns into an artifact, an XX artifact creature until end of turn. So if you spend one, Chimeric Staff becomes a 1-1 until end of turn. If you spend eight, it becomes an 8-8 until end of turn. This card actually saw a bunch of play. The nice thing about it is,

if you put it in something where you have variable amounts of mana, it kind of grows in strength over time. Like, early on, it can be a 2-2 or 3-3, but later in the game, when you have a lot of mana, it can start turning into an 8-8, a 9-9, a 10-10. But anyway, I like America's Affair. It's a cool card. Next, Claws of Gix is an artifact that costs zero. You spend one sac of permanent and gain one life.

Now, when you first saw this card, if I told you this card would be played in many tournament decks, you might go, really? Well, a couple things. Turns out, A, there are decks that just like having zero drop artifacts, of which this is. And there are decks that need a way to get rid of things, and this card is nice in that it's free, and it actually nets you something for getting rid of things, and it's pretty cheap to get rid of

things. So, Closet Gix definitely went in. It's more of a combo piece. The decks that play usually if someone plays Closet Gix, you're like, oh, you're going to combo me out, aren't you? That's a sign. Not really. I guess there might be some control decks that use it you? That's a sign. It's not really a... I guess there might be some control decks that use it every once in a while,

but it's more of a combo piece than a control piece, and not an aggro piece. You don't actually see a lot of aggro decks using Closet Gigs. Next, Confiscate. For blue-blue, enchant permanent, you gain control of target permanent. So one of the things that you go back to, like, back in 98, when the game was still pretty young, you gain control of target permanent. So one of the things that, you go back to like back in 98, when the game was still pretty young,

is we could do things that like, at the time we'd never made control enchanted permanent. We'd made control enchanted creature. We had control enchanted artifact. I think at this point we had a control enchanted enchantment. Like we had all the individual pieces, but this is that, you know what?

I just can steal anything. And luckily it says permanent and it doesn't say, back this is that, you know what, I just can steal anything. And luckily it says permanent, and it doesn't say, back in the day, sometimes we would label, we'd spell them out. And since we've added like planeswalkers, if I have a card that says, hey, I destroy all artifact creatures, you know, enchantments and land, oh, it doesn't affect planeswalkers. But this one, oh, it does because it says permanent. And the reason it says permanent is, at the time, we didn't say enchantment aura. We said enchant

whatever. And enchant permanent would just fit on the line. And if you spelled that out, it wouldn't fit on the line. So the reason this card affects Planeswalkers just has to do with needing to fit on the type line. See? There's things people don't think about. That's something, by the way, that comes up all the time. Whenever people ask me questions, the answer is like, oh, it needed to fit on the type line. See, there's things people don't think about. That's something, by the way, that comes up all the time. Whenever people ask me questions, the answer is like,

oh, it needed to fit on the type line. Somehow people, this is not something people really think about, although obviously we have to think about it. It's funny because there's a lot of functionality when you make cards that are just like, oh, well, we have so much space to write words that, you know, actually matters from time to time. Like there's a lot of times where we have to change something because it doesn't fit on the card type line or doesn't fit in the rules text.

And that's something we deal with all the time. But when you guys see the product, it's done. So it's not something you guys really think about where it's an issue. We do. Okay, next. Congregate three and a white. So four mana total, one of which is white. It's an instant. Target creature gains two life for each creature

on the battlefield. So we made this card consciously with multiplayer in mind. And it ended up being broken in multiplayer. So this is a good example of early explorations of us trying to do

multiplayer friendly things. So this is interesting. We're talking back in 98. So this is us having the first inklings that, hey, not all magic is played with two people. And so we were trying to make something. As often is the case in the early days, we sort of overshot a little bit. We're like, oh, we'll just do something.

It'll make it real grandiose. And what it turns out is, when you're playing with a lot of people and there's a lot of creatures in play, for four mana, especially when one player gains life for all creatures in play. You know, when we've done the effect more recently, it's like, we'll pick a player and he gets two life for every creature he or she has.

That player can only count their creatures, not all the creatures in play. But this is a good learning lesson. This is definitely us sort of like trying to do something and then realizing that we overshot and sort of, I mean, we're constantly recalibrating. Understanding multiplayer play has been something that's taken years. But it's interesting to go, hey, all the way back to 1998, we were thinking about it. You know, it was something that, I mean, it was the early days.

You know, this was a very raw attempt, but it was something we were at least conscious of. Okay, next, corrupt. So that's five and a black. It's a sorcery, and you deal X damage to target creature, where X is the number of swamps that you have, and then you get that much life. So you drain a creature equal to the number of swamps you have. So basically, one of the themes of Urza's Side, it was a subtle theme, is we really wanted you to be able to play mono-colored decks. And so we put a bunch of cards in there to enable that. Turns out, interestingly, that we pushed hard enough that limited, Urza Saiga limited, very

much became about a lot of mono-colored strategies. In fact, the very best mono-colored strategy was mono-black. Probably the card most guilty was Common Pestilence, which I'll get to. But Corrupt, which I think was also common, was also... I mean, the thing about Corrupt was that you could... You know, it allows you to not only kill something, but to gain huge amounts of life. So later in the game, when you just had a lot of swamps, it allowed you to sort of get rid of the biggest creature and make a huge amounts of life. So later in the game, when you just had a lot of swamps,

it allowed you to sort of get rid of the biggest creature and make a huge swing in life. So, like I said, there are a bunch of cards. I mean, Petulance is probably the biggest thing, but I corrupt added to it. That really made Mino Black a draft strategy in Saga that was super hard to beat. Multiple people in a draft could be Mino Black in Urza Saiga. That's how crazy Mino Black was.

Okay, Cradle Guard. Cradle Guard costs one green green, so three mana, two of which are green, for a 4-4 Treefolk, and it has Trample and Echo. So this is an example of a pretty good clean Echo card. So the idea is it's a 4-4 Trampler

for three mana. I mean, two of which are green, but still, three mana, 4-4 Trampler for 3 mana. I mean, 2-ish or green, but still, 3-mana 4-4 Trampler, it's not something you get too often. And the idea was, okay, really I'm paying 6 mana, but I get to pay it over 2 turns, and so I get to play it for 3 mana and then attack

on the second turn. And this is a good example of something you might do on your 3-drop, or on the 3-drop I play it, and then on my 4th turn I have to play the Echo, and I have 1 extra mana, Giant Grunt is something if I need it, but anyway, and here's another good example of an Echo card.

Crater Hellion, 4 red-red, 6 mana, 2 which are red, 6-6 Beast, it has Echo, and when it enters the battlefield you do 4 damage to all creatures. This was another Echo card that actually saw tournament play, because it could wipe the board or wipe most of the board, and it's pretty big. 6-6 for 6 mana that wipes the board most of the time is pretty good.

Okay, next, Crazed Scourge. 3 and a black, 2-2 imp. It has He and flying. So when we brought haste to black, we first did that in Future Sight, and then we started making haste secondary in black. A lot of people are like, black? Why black? And what they didn't realize was there's actually a history of haste in black. In fact, the very first creature to ever have haste in alpha was not red.

It was black. I can't remember the name of it. It was the guy that popped out of your graveyard and could attack. Netherghoul. Netherghoul? I think that's right. Anyway, this card, when we were thinking about black,

where to put haste, I actually thought about this card. Because combining haste and flying is really cool. And red really does not do flying at low rarities. And haste flying is more a limited thing. Or, I mean, it's good and limited. So, one of the things of going to Black, if I went to green, I just didn't get haste and flying. And Black did allow that. Essentially, what happened was we had a choice between going to green or black.

I felt like black gave you a little more creature options, just you could do some more things that green could do. And green and red already were overlapping in trample, so it's nice to spread out where things overlap. Okay, next, Dark Hatchling. Four black black for a 3-3 horror. When it enters the battlefield,

you destroy a target non-black creature and it can't regenerate. For a while, we called it Barry, although I think by this point we had stopped using the term Barry. And also, it's a flying creature. So it's a 3-3 flying creature that essentially kills a creature

when it enters the battlefield, a non-black creature, when it enters the battlefield. So that was... This was a pretty good creature, and it's the kind of thing where if you flicker it, there's tricks you can do with it. So you could reuse it multiple times.

Okay, Dark Ritual. So one of the most broken cards, not most broken cards, sorry. Urza Saiga is full of really broken cards. One of the cards that would later go on to be over the line, although I guess not the most broken card in this set, but it's a broken set. It's Dark Ritual. So at the time, it was a mana source. You spend one black mana,

and then you got three black mana in your mana pool. So it's interesting that Dark Ritual started as an interrupt and then became a mana source and then became an instant. So not a lot of cards have had three different card types to them. This is one of them. Mostly because it got printed for a while. Like it got printed a bunch of different times. And it

happened to live at a time where that effect was three different card types. So fine trivia question. Don't know if there's another card that also matches that requirement. But for sure Dark Ritual does. It is interesting that as of Urza Saga we still hadn't figured out how good Dark Ritual was. In fact, I just talked about how good the Mino Black deck was.

Well, another tool you had access to when you drafted was a common Dark Ritual. Dark Ritual proved to be really good. In fact, there's cards that early on people thought were really powerful, like Hypnotic Spectre. And the answer was, eh, it wasn't that Hypnotic Spectre was that powerful. Because we brought it back. It's not that powerful. It's Turn 1 Hypnotic Spectre was that powerful, because we brought it back. It's not that powerful. It's Turn 1 Hypnotic Spectre is really powerful. And Turn 1 Hypnotic Spectre is not about the Hypnotic Spectre. It's about the Dark Ritual.

But anyway, it was here. This wasn't the last set to have Dark Ritual. I think we're kidding. Masks had Dark Ritual. So we weren't quite done yet with Dark Ritual being a thing that just magic sets did. But anyway, we eventually figured out it was over the line. Disruptive Student.

Two and a blue, one-one wizard. Tap to counter target spell unless his caster pays one. My favorite thing about this card, actually, and interesting enough, is this was actually young Teferi. And the disruptive student was Teferi. So one of the neat things about going back in time

was we were able to go back in time where we could see things from a different vantage point. And so one of the things is Teferi would grow up to be one of the major characters like in the Mirage story and the Time Spiral story, but during the Urza Saga story, it's at the Tolarian Academy, and this is at a time of...

Basically what happens when I get to Urza's Legacy, this is more of an Urza's Legacy thing, but we go to the Tolarian Academy, and a horrible thing happens during Urza's Legacy. I'll wait until Urza's Legacy to talk about that. But anyway, in Urza's Saga, we're just sort of visiting to set the scene that we're at the Tolarian Academy, and we're learning. In fact, there's a card of the Tolarian Academy, as people will know.

But anyway, this card is a limited card, but I just like the fact that, like, hey, we get to meet Seferi, and he's not a noble wizard. He's kind of a punk kid that, you know, is being disruptive in school, you know. And so, he's a troublemaker. I mean, he grows up to be a good wizard, but you know, not everybody

was all that well-behaved as a kid, and that's true for Teferi. Okay, Dragonblood, Artifact, costs three. For three and tap, you could put a plus one, plus one counter on target creature. I made this card.

The interesting thing about this card was I love plus one, plus one counters. I always have. And so I don't think up to this point we had made a card

that just put a plus one, plus one counter. There was Ashnod's Transmogrent that put a counter but then turned you into an artifact. I think this is my just making a clean version. We had done stuff that like put a counter, but then turns you into an artifact. Like, I think this is my just making a clean version. Like, we

had done stuff that would put plus and plus counters on things, but nothing that was just simple and clean. And so this is my saying, okay, just does this. And anyway, I like this card. Some of my favorite designs from sets are just sort of like the nice, simple, clean version of something we do.

Okay, Duress. Sorcery costs black. You look at an opponent's hand, target opponent, and then you choose a non-creature, non-land card, and then they discard it. So this actually was a two-card cycle. It was with ostracize, which was the same thing, except it only got creatures.

This only got non-land. Well, neither of them got land. This one only got non-creatures, non-land, non-creatures, and that other one, ostracize, only got non-land. Well, neither of them got land. This one only got non-creatures, non-land, non-creatures. And that other one, Electrocise, only got, only got creatures.

Didn't get spells. And so it was like, one got not-creatures, one got creatures. Turns out the one that got not-creatures was more powerful and the one that got creatures. Duress was a staple in tournaments, and we've actually done it, I think.

We brought it back, I think once, I think. But anyway, it's a very strong card, and it sees play in all sorts of formats. Eastern Paladin. Two black, black, three, three, it's a knight. And black, black, tap, three, it's a knight, and black, black, tap, destroy target green creature. So this, here's one of the things you can do, we're back in 1998.

This is back in the time where we were a little faster and looser with what we'll call continuity. So the idea was, when Alpha came out, there was the Northern Paladin. And then we would later go on to make the Southern Paladin a mirror of it. But we decided with the Northern Paladin and the Southern Paladin, we need to have the Eastern and the Western Paladin.

So we put that in the set. And really they're just sort of, you know, slightly mirrored versions of... So the Northern and Southern Paladin were white. So the Eastern and the Western Paladin were black. I'm not sure whether it was meant to be a subtle Wizard of Oz reference because in Wizard of Oz, the good

witches are north and south and the bad witches are east and west. But anyway, the thing about this though is does this make any sense? Why are there black paladins on Dominaria and What does it mean? It's like, eh, it's cool.

It definitely was one of those hand-wavy of like, I don't know what it means, but now we have an Eastern and Western Paladin. Okay, Expunge is an instant. Two in black. Destroy target non-black creature. Can't regenerate. Cycling, two.

So it's funny. I use this card all the time as an example of a bad cycling card. And people go, why? Why is it a bad cycling card? And the answer is, it's really the kind of card that you almost never want to cycle. It kills a creature. You know, in limited, that's so important.

I mean, there is times you might cycle it where I'm really land screwed and I need land. And okay, I got to throw really land screwed and I need land. And, okay, I got to throw whatever I need to get the land. But as a general rule of thumb, what makes cycling cards better are cards that sometimes you want and sometimes you don't. And normally cycling them is like, oh, well, I don't need them. I can cycle them. But this card, you so rarely cycle. So I don't like it for that reason. And whenever I say this, people are like, I cycled it, and here's

how you cycle it. I'm not saying you never cycle it. I mean, look, if you have your opening hand and you just don't start getting land, you'll start cycling things because you need the land. But you're never happy about it. If you have multiple cycling cards in your hand, the last thing you cycle away is

the kill spell. Especially, I mean, and it's a pretty cheap kill spell, right? It's three mana, so. Anyway, I use it, Expunge is my go-to card of things I don't like about, poor cycling choices, where

the decision of whether to cycle or not is just not an interesting decision. Okay, Fecundity, another card I made. Two and a green, it's an enchantment. It says when a creature dies, its controller draws a card. So this is back during the period where we had a lot more global effects. I think our thought at the time was green was the color of global effects. So specifically in green, we tend to do more effects in green be global.

Sort of like, hey, I'm green, I care about the environment, I affect the environment. What we found out, though, was a lot of it just made it harder for green to play some of these. Fagundity did get played just because the effect is so good. But usually it got played because you were abusing it. It was sort of what we say, never played honestly. It wasn't like, oh, I'm just going to play in a deck where creatures are attacking, and when they die, I'll draw a card. This is the kind of card that's played, and I'm going to sacrifice eight creatures and draw all sorts of cards. So this was a fun card,

but it's definitely one of those cards that sort of didn't quite... It was so efficient in where the combos were that it just sort of pushed toward a combo. Speaking of combo, Fluctuator. It's an artifact that costs two. All your cycling costs cost 2 less so essentially what that meant is everything cycles for free because in this set, in this block

all cycling costs were 2 that proved to be a little powerful there already was reasons to play cycling in your deck. Cycling was already decent. And this really pushed it over the line. We ended up having to ban this card

because it just made a degenerate cycling deck. But anyway, and this is a kind of card that seems kind of innocent, but it's a good example of the problems of the set is we keep making ways to circumvent mana costs. Like, oh, you can cast those cards for free. Oh, you can activate that for free. Yeah, you don't need to pay for things.

Why would that be a problem? The thing we keep forgetting is that mana is like our safety net. It's a thing that guarantees that things don't break. And when we just let people nilly-willy bypass, you know, costs, it comes back to bite you on the butt, which this set did in a big way. Okay, next. Gaea's Cradle. Hold on a second.

I need a drink. Gaea's Cradle. It's a land, and it has the ability to tap, add a green mana for each creature you control. So there's a... It's interesting. There's a cycle here in which three of the cards in the cycle are tighter than the other two. So Tolarian Academy, Gaea's Cradle, and Serra's Sanctum

all tap for some colored mana and the amount of mana is based on how much of some card type you have. Obviously a creature, Tolarian Academy is artifacts, and Seric is enchantments. The black and the red one, which I will get to eventually

here, we sort of made a land that cared about each of the colors, but because three of them were so tightly cycled, people just ignored the black and red one and said, hey, where's the black and red one? But, anyway. Gaze Cradle, another very powerful card. Saw a lot of play. In fact, the only reason people don't think of it as powerful as it really is, I think, is because Toleran Academy was in the same environment, it kind of got

overshadowed. Sorry, I'm yawning today. It got overshadowed only because, like, well, this card is crazy good but it's not as crazy crazy good as Tolerant Academy mostly because artifacts can cost zero and creatures cost something so this card can be very good but it's just

slightly worse but this card saw a lot of play it was really really good also by the way this whole cycle they were legendary lands. So that became important because here's how you tell a card was so good.

When people who aren't playing green would run Gaea's Cradle in their sideboard so they could sideboard it in, not because they even needed the mana, not because they were going to play it or anything, just to destroy the opponent's Gaea's Cradle. Because at the time, the rule was, if I play Legendary Permanent and you have the same Legendary Permanent play, both of ours goes away.

So the reason you sometimes would play Legendary cards that you expected to see your opponent play was just to get rid of them. Okay, Gilded Drake. One and a blue for a 3-3 Drake. It is flying. When it enters the battlefield, you can exchange it with any other creature. So the idea is a blue for a 3-3 Drake. It is flying. When it enters the battlefield, you can exchange it with any other creature. So the idea is, it's a 3-3 flying creature. That's a...

It's not... It's not a weak creature. It's not an amazingly strong creature. It's kind of in the middle. So the idea here is, if my opponent has something good, I can play this and exchange it. But the thing is,

I've got to give him a 3-3 flyer, so I need to get something really worth it. I want to get something that's worth the trade. So, I'm sorry. There's no reason I'm yawning a lot today. I'm tired. But I'm ever vigilant to drive carefully. So, anyway, I like effects that sort of do exchange stuff.

Later on in the block, we'll get to donate. Like, I built a deck early on. I was a Johnny Deck builder, and I loved sort of swapping things with people. And so I decided it'd be fun to make a card. We're like, oh, here's an interesting card. Do you want to swap this card? You know, it's a decent card, so you don't want to swap it for anything. But, oh, if your opponent really has something that's problem-some, you can an interesting card. Do you want to swap this card? You know, it's a decent card, so you don't want to swap it for anything. But, oh, if your opponent really has something that's

problem-some, you can make this trade. Okay, next. Glorious Anthem. One white, white enchantment. Creatures you control get plus one, plus one. So it's interesting that I talked about earlier how green was doing a lot of global effects. Well, we're starting playing around with not everything being a global effect.

In fact, when Magic first came out in Alpha, there was a card called Crusade that gave all white creatures plus one, plus one. Now, obviously, if you're playing Crusade, your deck's all white creatures, but your opponent might also be playing white creatures, and so there was a little bit of a danger. But what we found was, we tried a version where,

well, what if it just affects your stuff? And not just your white stuff, it affects all your stuff. And later, we would have a thing called Selecting 8th Edition, where we let the players pick what card to go in. We would give them two choices. And the choice was between Crusade and Glorious Anthem. And the idea in our minds was Crusade is just a more powerful card.

It's just stronger. We assumed they'd pick Crusade, and we thought that would be a fun way to get Crusade back in the set by letting the audience choose to put it in. And then they went and chose Glorious Anthem, which was a very interesting thing, because it sort of taught us that even though Crusade had more raw power,

people just liked Glorious Anthem better. They just preferred to, like, hey, I'd rather my creatures get bigger and not your creatures. It also allows you to play in a deck that wasn't necessarily heavy white, although the white and white in the cost did make you play.

You have to have at least some commitment to white. Okay, the next card is Goblin Lackey. So Goblin Lackey was a 1-1 because it's a single red mana. It's a goblin, obviously. And whenever it deals damage to a player, you can put a goblin card from your hand onto the battlefield.

This was another really powerful card. The interesting thing is, I don't know whether this card exploded until... The set that followed this... Oh, no, no, no, no. This card did do really well. Yeah, it's just... Goblin decks early on were something silly

that sort of just really casual players would play. We kept just making good Goblin cards to the point where Goblin started becoming a real competitive thing, you know, for stronger, more enfranchised players, you know, tournament players. So, but anyway, Goblin Locky, and once again, we just, like,

the number of cards that just let you, you know, get around cost. Hey, who cares what the goblin costs? You can play it for free. That's a big theme. For free is a big theme in the set, which is one of the signs that we might have had some problems with it. Okay, next.

Oh, speaking of free. Oh, no, wait, wait. Goblin Matriarch. I have some goblin cards first. Goblin Matriarch costs two and a red. It's a 1-1 Goblin. And when it enters the battlefield, you get a tutor for any Goblin in your deck and put it in your hand.

So go through your library and get a Goblin and put it in your hand. So you can start seeing all the pieces of the Goblin deck come together. It's sort of like, well, I have a card that lets me play Goblins for free. Well, here's a card that lets me go get whatever Goblin I want. So I just get a Goblin that's a good enough Goblin. I play the Matriarch me go get whatever goblin I want. So I just get a goblin that's a good enough goblin, I play the matron and go get the goblin, you know, and then I play the lackey

and I can play it for free. So, anyway, you can start to see the combos that start forming here on the goblin deck. Next, goblin offensive. X1RR. Put X1-1 goblin tokens onto the battlefield. So this was an X-Token Maker.

I'm trying to think whether this was the first X-Token Maker. It might have been, which is a little bit weird because red really isn't the token color per se, although red does make Goblins. But yeah, once again, another real good example of just another sort of Goblin support card. This card didn't get played in all

the Goblin decks, but it got played in some Goblin decks. But anyway, it is just and another thing by the way these days I really dislike putting colorless mana next to with X spells I would almost prefer XRRR, X red red red

to X1 red red I don't know it's just the aesthetic and elegance it does something to me okay we're talking free to X1 red red. I don't know. It's just the aesthetic and elegance and it just does something to me. Okay, and we're talking free. Great Whale. Five blue blue

for a 5-5 whale. When it enters the battlefield, you may untap up to seven lands. Okay, so this was one of the free cards that actually was not as broken as others.

The idea on the free mechanic I explained the other day is that I was trying to sort of see if you could play a card in which you didn't lose the mana. Now, the funny thing is you had to have seven mana. It's not free in the sense that I just don't have to spend anything, but it's free in the sense that if I have it, I don't have to spend it. That I get it back. I get paid back for it. And this card was definitely, you know, I'm pretty sure this card saw a tournament play, and this is not even close to one of the worst of the free mechanic.

But anyway, I thought it was a fun mechanic, I thought it was a neat idea, it ended up being overpowered, but I don't, I still like the free mechanic, I just, you know, like, I still like the free mechanic. I just, you know, like... The problem with it is, and this is why Eric says it's one of the most problematic mechanics of all time, is there's not a lot of mechanics that when I make it more expensive

at times makes it more powerful. You know, when you can't use the mana cost to adjust power level, or even worse, when making it expensive actually makes it better. You know, when it, like, it clearly subverts how the mana cost to adjust power level. Or even worse, when making it expensive actually makes it better. You know, when it, like, it clearly subverts how the mana system works, it causes you problems.

So, the free mechanic can cause all sorts of problems. Okay, next. Greater good. Two green green. It's an enchantment. Costs four mana. Two of which is green. You can sacrifice a creature. And if you do, you draw cards equal to that creature's power, and then you discard three cards.

So really what this card was doing is says, okay, what I want you to do is play four power creatures. With a four power creature and up, this card just starts netting you cards. It's still playable with smaller creatures, but you're getting for card utility, not card advantage.. It's still playable with smaller creatures, but you're getting for card utility, not card advantage.

You're actually losing cards with smaller creatures. But this was a very popular card. It was played in a lot of casual, and it was played in constructed. I mean, it's card drawing. And once again, if you notice this, the theme will keep hitting again and again.

Getting around costs, drawing cards, and engines. Those show up in huge volumes. That's one of the reasons it was the combo winter with his block. Because it's not like we made one combo enabling thing. We made a whole block of combo enabling things. Okay, next. Heat Ray. Instant.

X and a red. Deal X damage to target creature. I like this card. It's clean. It is nice. Having instant X spells is kind of cool. The one fight we get in this card all the time is people keep wanting to stick this to common because it's pretty straightforward. And my feeling is that after years of getting feedback from customer service, I've really learned that X spells are confusing to newer players.

Not that I don't want X spells. I'm just like, could we keep them out of common, please? Could we not put them at the plate? Part of New World Order is saying, look, we can hide some of the complexity of the game by just being more careful about what we put at common. And X spells fall on the camp for me. But you'll notice we often do this at common.

And the answer is, well, I don't win all those fights. So there are people who disagree with me in R&D. So for all those out there who disagree with me, see, you're not alone. Okay, next, Hermetic Study. So one in the blue, it's an enchantment, it's an aura. Enchanted creature gains, tap, deal one damage to target creature or player.

Yes, it's grafting on the Tim ability or the Prodigal Sorcerer ability. This is something back in the day we were still doing. We eventually moved this out of blue. It became a red thing. I mean, the Tim ability became a red thing. But this allows you to put an enchantment on a creature.

I will get to the companion piece. The companion piece comes very, very soon, so we'll get to that in a second. There's a card that it comboed with in Limited. Next, Hidden Spider, Green Enchantment. If an opponent plays a creature with Flying, this becomes a 3-5 creature with Reach. So what the sleeping creatures were was they were enchantments that when a certain condition got met, then they sort of turned into creatures. So the Hidden Spider essentially was like, well, I'm just going to sit and wait, but if you ever play a Flyer,

boom, here I am, I'm just going to sit and wait. But if you ever play a Flyer, ba-boom, here I am. I'm a 3-5 Beach Creature. Okay. So next, Horseshoe Crab. Two in the blue, one three. It's a crab. And for blue, you can untap it. This was the Hermetic Study card.

Both in blue. Both relatively cheap. In fact, if you played Horseshoe Crab on turn three, you could put Hermetic Study on turn four and even had mana to untap it. Although, I guess if you play turn three

you can't use it yet. But anyway, the idea was I put it on, I put Hermetic Study on my Horseshoe Crab and for every blue mana, well,

I got to do one damage for free and then for every blue mana I got to do an additional damage. And so, it definitely sort of, you know, you would put them on and go, and then for every blue mana, I gotta do an additional damage. And so, it definitely sort of, you know, you would put them on and go and just wipe out your opponent's board, or

wipe out your opponent. It was very good. Okay, so... I'll finish off each. So the last card is Humble. Humble is one and a white. It's an instant target creature that loses all abilities and becomes a 0-1 creature until end of turn. I made a card called Humility tempest this was i actually think by the way i might have made this card first uh and then i couldn't get into set and then i made humility and then i think i

went back and made this is what actually happened um humble is not quite as bad as humility for rules issues but it's really close uh apparently taking away abilities just causes lots of confusion and so this card like I said it's not quite as confusing as humility but pretty close but anyway

that gets us through H and luckily well we're done for today because I've just driven up to my daughter's school so we all know what that means it means it's the end of my drive to work

so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic so I'll see you guys next time with more Urza Saga