Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #343 - Urza's Saga Part 3

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

Mark talks about the design of Urza's Saga in part three 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, so last we left, we were in the middle of Urza's Saga. I think I got through H. So we are up to K. Because I have no I's or J's. Karn, Silver Golem.

So he's an artifact creature, a legendary creature, legendary artifact creature, and he's a golem. He costs five mana. He's a 4-4 creature. If he blocks or is blocked he gets minus 4 plus 4 so he turns from a 4-4 into a 0-8 and he has the ability to spend 1 mana

target creature or target non-creature artifact becomes an XX artifact creature where X is the converted mana cost of the artifact. Okay, so this... So Karn is a character in the Wesolite saga.

So, originally, Karn was the protector for... In the original version of the story, Gerard was sent away and Karn was his protector. We later learn the card had a role in the legacy. In fact, Karn was part of the legacy. But anyway, when they rewrote the story, they decided they wanted to

bring Urza in. And so they decided that Karn, because we hadn't defined who made Karn when we did our original version of the story. So it was decided that Urza made Karn when we did the original version of the story. So it was decided that Urza made Karn. Urza was doing temporal experiments and the one substance capable of traveling through time unaffected supposedly was silver.

So he made a golem out of silver. That's the story. In the Weatherlight Saga, in the first part of the story, he was what we call the gentle giant archetype, which was he was really strong, but he was a pacifist. So what had happened was he had accidentally killed somebody with his strength, and so he vowed never to harm anyone again.

That's what we picked up in the story. That was where Karn started. And so we wanted to represent, well, we wanted him to be big and strong, but we didn't want him to harm anybody. I'm like, okay, how do you do that? So we said, okay, he's a 4-4, but in combat he's a 0-8. So the idea is it's really, really hard for someone to kill

him, but he's not going to kill anybody else. He took a vow against killing anybody else. So he's not going to kill any other creatures. That's what the minus 4, plus 4 thing is all about. The other ability is, actually interesting story. So we made a set called Vanguard,

which was a series of cards that let you, you get to start the game with a variant hand size and life total, and then you get an ability. If the ability is really good, maybe your hand size or your life total is lower than normal. If it's a little weaker,

maybe it's above normal. And so what happened was, we had made the Vanguard cards flavor agnostic because we didn't know how we were going to flavor them. And then when it became clear that we were doing the Weatherlight Saga, we decided to take the cards

and do characters from the Weatherlight Saga. Well, one of the characters from the Weatherlight Saga was Karn. So we looked at all the cards we had and we decided that one of them was, basically, it animated all the artifacts. It was Titania Song from... Is that Antiquities?

So Titania Song was a green enchantment that just animated all non-creature artifacts equal to the Converted Manacross, minimum excess creatures. So we decided that we would have that be an ability, and we were looking through the characters, we're like, well, Karn's an artifact, I guess that makes more sense that, of anybody

that cared about artifacts, let's have Karn care about artifacts. So when we went to go design this character, this was a year later, like, the Karn card had come out, and people kind of associated Karn with animating things, even though in the story, I mean, there was a bond between Karn and the legacy.

He was part of a legacy. So he had a bond with artifacts, but he didn't really animate them in the story. But people really liked that association, so we said, okay, I guess that's what he does. And so because of the popularity of the Vanguard card, we made his magic card do something very similar. Instead of just being a flat turns everything on, you have to activate

it to turn things on. But it also allows you to turn any artifact, non-creature artifact, into a creature. So you could also use it as a way to turn your opponent's thing into a creature so you can kill it with a creature kill spell, for example. The Vanguard card only turns your things on, for example. But anyway, that was Karn.

One of the things we had looked for during the Erza Saiga block was who are characters that are old enough that we could make them in the past. And so, for example, Karn of the Weatherlight crew, for example, Karn was the only one really old enough that it made sense that we, you know, Karn could be very, very old. He's an artifact creature. And there's other characters that you would later see.

Multani, obviously, was very old. Rofelos, who's an elf, so he can be relatively old. We definitely showed you some other characters that were actually part of the Weatherlight Saga, but were from farther back, or part of the backstory, in some cases, of the Weatherlight Saga. Like, Gerard studied under Multani.

The reason Gerard left the Weatherlight was the death of Rofelos, which was his friend. He had studied with Rofellos and Mirri under Multani. One of these days I'll do the Weatherlight saga. But that is not today. Okay, next we have Launch.

So Launch is an enchantment, an aura. It costs one and a blue, so two mana, one of which is blue. Enchanted creature gains flying. But, this is the interesting part of it, if Launch is put into the graveyard, I think from anywhere, you return it to your hand. So the idea essentially is, if I put this on my creature and then the creature dies,

or if my opponent naturalizes my enchantment, if they get rid of the enchantment or get rid of the creature, I get it back. So this was the enchantment block. We were trying to make enchantments more useful. So we made a cycle of auras that you got back. So the idea was, well, you're not going to have card advantage with these.

If the creature dies, you get it back. If they destroy it, you get it back. You get it back. So you can use it again and again. And the effects didn't have to be particularly strong. Like a flight, you know, an aura that grants flying in a vacuum is not particularly strong. It's only strong. Like a flight, you know, an orb that grants flying in a vacuum is not particularly strong. It's only strong in the sense that, you know,

if they just destroy the creature that's capable of flying, well, then you can make another creature fly. So that makes it a bit stronger. The most powerful of these enchantments actually wouldn't end up in Urza's Saga, but in Urza's Legacy. So when we get to Urza's Legacy, I will talk about it.

Okay, next, Lightning Dragon. Two red red for a dragon. It's it. Okay, next, Lightning Dragon. Two red red for a dragon. It's a four mana, two which is red. It has flying and echo and it has fire breathing. It's better red mana

gets plus one plus zero to end of turn. This was, I believe, the pre-release card. If you went to the Urza Saga pre-release, this was the pre-release card

you would get. We'd started doing pre-release cards the year before in Tempest. I believe Tempest was the first set to have a pre-release card. And so Lightning Dragon was the pre-release card for this set. It's another example of a pretty good Echo creature. You know, four mana for a... How big was it? I didn't write down how big it was.

I think it was 5-5. It's either 4-4 or 5-5. But the idea that you've got a dragon with fire breathing out of the gate... The fire breathing was kind of cutesy because the first turn, you obviously were paying mana for the echo, so you probably weren't paying too much

of the fire breathing. I mean, maybe late game you're paying more, but let's say I play it in turn four, then in turn five, assuming I have a land, I can Fire Breathe it once, so I can make it, you know, let's say it's a 4-4, I can do five damage with it. And then

the turn after that, I get a whole bunch of damage with it, once the Echo's all paid off. But anyway, just a good example of an Echo creature that was actually pretty powerful. Okay, next, Lurking Evil. Black, black, black enchantment. You can pay half your life, round it up, and if you do, this becomes a 4-4 flying whore.

Okay, so there were... All the colors but red had sleeping enchantments, and each one of them cared about conditions. The black ones, which were lurking enchantments, and each one of them cared about conditions. The black ones, which were lurking enchantments, usually made you do something negative to yourself in order to activate it. It wasn't that your opponent had to do something, you had to do something. That's how the black ones were different. Most of the other ones, I think the white, blue, and green ones were all your opponent

needed to do something, which turned this into a creature. And black was the only one that sort of, it was in your hand. Usually it had to be painful. You did something bad to yourself. But looking evil is a good example where it's essentially black, black, black, you know, pay half your life, you get a four-foot flying creature. Now, maybe early game, maybe, you know, this card's interesting in that it gets a little bit better as you go down in life, just because the amount

of life you're losing is less. Although, obviously, you're always getting closer to being, you know, to being dead. But, uh, anyway. Next, the Metronome. It's an artifact. Costs four. Uh, if a spell or ability controlled by an opponent makes you discard it, you get four

1-1 gnome tokens. So, one of the things we like to do is have anti-discard strategies. And one of the popular ones back in the day was, okay, this is your hand, and your opponent makes you discard it, something positive happens for you. I think back in Alpha, there was the blue card that would do damage to your opponent if you had to discard it. And then in Alliances, there was a red card that would do damage to your opponent if you had to discard it. And then in alliances, there was a red card that did damage to your opponent and made you discard it. This one made creatures.

And you... Okay, so if you discard it, it did that. You also could spend four mana and tap to make a 1-1 gnome. They were artifact creatures. Make a 1-1 artifact creature. So the idea was this is a little Gnome maker, but it had a built-in anti-discard strategy.

So this card didn't get played a lot. It got played a little bit as an anti, like a sideboard anti-discard strategy. Metronome, I think I actually named this card. Back in the day, my friends and I used to play Dungeon Dragons, and my friend Andy had a gnome he played, named Umlat,

I believe was his name. And anyway, in the game, he was from the city, and so we dubbed him Umlat, the Metronome. And I just like the name Metronome. So I think I named this, and the creative team thought it was a funny name, they kept it as my memory of this.

The way it used to work is, when we used to do names is some of our names would be silly, and we had no intention of them ever actually being real names. But every once in a while, we'd take a shot at what we considered to be a real name. I don't know whether it was me trying to make a real name or me goofing around and doing something silly, and they liked it. But anyway, the metronome. Okay, next is Morphling, three blue blue. So five mana, two which is blue for a 3-3 Shapeshifter.

And it has five abilities. You heard me right. Five abilities. For a blue mana, you can untap it. Also for a blue mana, you can grant Flying till end of turn. Also for a blue mana, you can grant Shroud till end of turn. So it can't be the target that dispels their abilities. Note that Shroud did not exist as a keyword yet.

It was spelled out. Or you can spend one to make it plus one, minus one until end of turn. Or you can spend one to make it minus one, plus one until end of turn. So the idea here is, so this has an interesting story. So basically what happened was we wanted to make Clone. Clone was an uncommon card in Alpha. It was very popular with the players, but it had a lot of rules problems

because just copying things is complicated. So for a while, the rules didn't really know how to handle Clone. But we thought it was time for Clone to return. So we put Clone in the set. I think we put it at Rare, though. And we put it in the set. And then at the last minute, like Art had been commissioned And then, at the last minute, like, art had been

commissioned and everything. At the last minute, the rules people said, yeah, we can't make this work. This can't be clone. But the problem was, we'd already made the art. And the art was traditional clone art, which is two creatures that look just like each other, except

one is just a little bit different. If you look, you'll see. It's a little bit different. If you look, you'll see it's a little bit different. One of the Morphlings has a little tail. You'll see. But anyway, so we're like, oh, well, we have art for, you know, we have art that is sort of what we normally would use for a clone.

I mean, it is very much like, get it, I'm copying it. So we're like, okay, well, we're kind of committed to a shapeshifter. Like the art says it's a shapeshifter. There's no way around that. So the idea was, okay, what can we do? You know, we need to make a card from scratch that could be a shapeshifter. So we came up with the idea of what if we made something that just gave you a lot of options for how we could change. So we first came up with the idea of, well, we'll do plus one, minus

one, or minus one, plus one. So it's a three three creature, but you can change around its stats. And the reason we did minus one plus one is, okay, it's got six power, six, we call it girth in R&D, meaning power and toughness combined. That's a nickname. It's got a girth of six. So it means you can have anything from a five one, because it has to have at least one toughness, to a zero

six. Assuming you have the mana. Then we said, well, what else can we do to it? We liked the idea of, okay, well, flying, that's a pretty blue thing. Blue at the time was kind of limited on keywords, so we did untap, that's something you can do in blue. And there are things like Hermetic Study. I talked about Hermetic Study and Hermit Crab were a good combo. Well, Hermetic Study was also a wonderful combo with Morphling.

Not that there were other things to do with Morphling, but it was a great combo with Morphling. Not that there were other things to do with Morphling, but it was a great combo with Morphling. And finally, we decided to do something that was kind of counter-spell-ish. Sort of like, okay, I can't be the target of spell's abilities, which essentially was a way to counter things that targeted it. Okay, I'm going to destroy it.

Oh, now, you know, you can't target it now into fizzles. Morphling went on to be insanely popular. It's very funny, like, we tried to do one thing, had a scramble at the last minute, and it became quite popular. So popular, in fact, that we've started, over

time, we have made other color versions of this. We've made a green version and a red version, and people keep asking us to finish the cycle! But it is kind of cool. It became a very iconic magic creature. It is very funny for, like,

how last minute this creature was put together and then it went on to be something so iconic. It's a very powerful card. It was particularly powerful, especially when you had damage on the stack, that you could sort of do damage and then change its stats so it would survive. So it both did its damage and survived the damage.

That's no longer true. I mean, not that it's a weak card or anything, but that did make it a little bit stronger. Okay, Persecute. Two black, black sorcery. Choose a color, and then you look at target player's hand, and you make him discard all cards of that color.

So one of the things, I made this card just because I like having little mini-games. And I like the idea of, it's a discard card, but I kind of got to figure out what I think is the threat in your hand. Now, obviously with mono-colored decks, it's good side-ranking, it's mono-colored decks, they're all that color. I mean, it's designed not to hit land, because land isn't colored. Siren against Monoculordex, they're all that color. I mean, it's designed not to hit land, because land isn't colored. But when they're playing against two-color decks or more than two-color decks, you start getting interesting choices.

Like, okay, they're playing red and green. Am I more afraid of red things or more afraid of green things? What do I think they might have in their hand? Anyway, it's a pretty cool card. It's powerful, but it's pretty cool. Okay, Pestilence. Pestilence is two black-black enchantment. At the end of the turn,

if there are no creatures on the battlefield, sacrifice it. And then for one black, you can deal one damage to each creature and player. So Pestilence goes all the way back to Alpha. It's a fun card. It's a very flavorful card. A few issues with it.

One is it's not supposed to be common. This card single-handedly, not single-handedly, but this card is one of the major things Urza Saga Limited was really really warped. If you went to the Pro Tour, for example, and watched people drafting, like three, four, sometimes five people would get

into black in Urza Saga. Five people? So black was really powerful and really deep and common. Pestilence being the biggest part of it. Pestilence wipes boards. It's just not, under nothing about it should it be common.

It is a super, uber powerful card. And it adds a little rider, like it goes away if there's no creatures get it, because it's pestilence. And if there's nobody to carry the disease, it goes away. But in limited, it's not hard to keep something around. You control sort of how much Pestilence you do. And it is just, it is a brutal, brutal card in Limited. So the fact that this one's common is nutty.

I mean, getting one Pestilence out will win you the game. But having multiple in your deck so you can get guaranteed to draw one is, anyway. That said, the other problem with it is really the flavor is super black. I mean, I guess one could argue it's black just because the flavor is so black. The abilities,

what's funny, in Planar Chaos, we did it in red. What do we call it? Pyrohemia, I think. But anyway, they're doing damage to everything. Black doesn't really do damage to things. Black can make

players lose life. It can give minus one minus one to creatures. You could clearly argue that look, it can kill creatures. Look, it can damage players. You know,

this is just it doing in a way that's simple. But anyway, this is the kind of card that we don't really do much in black anymore. Black used to do... This is the kind of thing that every once in a while we do in black,

and we really have not done black. It's more of a red thing now than a black thing. I will say, in a vacuum, this card is a beauty. This card is a thing of beauty from a design flavor standpoint. It's super flavorful, and it's potent. Probably a little too powerful, but it is a very cool, flavorful, neatly designed card. I give it big props to Richard for making it. It's a really cool card.

I give slops to us for putting it in common in Urza's Saga. That was a big mistake. But anyway, best chance. Okay, moving on is Phyrexian Processor. Okay, so here's another story of a card we tried to make that got changed at the last minute after art was done. Actually, I think

it was after art was done. Okay, so if you guys have ever played Mirrodin, there's a card called Soul Foundry, where you exile a creature card from your hand, and you imprint it, and then that artifact makes token copies of that card.

It's called Clone Machine in design. Anyway, Clone Machine was this card. Threxen Processor was Clone Machine, was Soul Foundry. And the rules people came to me, you see a theme here, the rules people were very naysayer back in the day, and said to me, yeah, you can't do that. It doesn't work. And they wouldn't let me do it. And I tried and I tried. I really thought that Clone Machine was an awesome...

I still think Clone Machine's an awesome card. Soul Foundry's an awesome card. But anyway, I couldn't convince them to do that, so we had to change it again. But the art had come in and it showed a creature being made. In fact, I think it shows... I think it was one of those things where I think you see a creature

and then another copy of the creature is being made, kind of hinting that it's making multiple of the same creature. So we said, okay, we have to make something that makes creatures and can make multiples of the same creature. So we came up with the Phyrexian... Oh, Phyrexian Process. What does it do?

It's an artifact that costs four. When it enters the battlefield, you choose some amount of life and then four and tap make XX minion, black minion creature tokens, where X is the life paid when you played it. So if I pay 10 life, it can make 10 tens. If I pay 19 life, it can make 19 nineties. If I pay 5 life, it can make 5 fives.

It's sort of, how much do I want to risk? So for those that have never watched, if you ever want to go online and watch a really good match, John Finkel against Bob Marr, two future Hall of Famers, are playing in the finals of the World Championship 2000 in Brussels, Belgium. And they are playing the same deck. Both decks have Phyrexian Processor in it. It is one of the most dynamic, exciting matches.

It's a really cool match. I think it went to five games. And the Phyrexian Processor. In fact, the reason John Finkel won that and became world champion is because Bob Marr made a subtle error with how much life to use for his Phyrexian Processor. Now, to be clear,

it wasn't like everybody was aware he made a mistake. It's like, after analyzing everything with days to think about it, we realized that he'd made a mistake. I'm sure John realized he made a mistake the second he did it. But Bob had made a slight mistake that John capitalized on and won. But anyway, it was a really good game.

There were giant creatures, 10-10s, 19-19s, giant creatures swinging back and forth. It was pretty cool. So seriously, if you've never checked out it, it's a very neat match. And I'm pretty sure it is online. Okay, next. Pouncing Jaguar.

It's a 2-2 for a single green mana with Echo. That's all. Just a simple Echo. Just a 2-power for one mana. One mana, 2-2. I know for a while there was a deck called Stompy, which was a really good mono-green weenie deck. I think they played Punching Jaguars.

I know they played Wild Dogs, which we'll get to eventually. But anyway, I'm not sure whether they played Punching Jaguars or not. Some versions of Stompy might have played Punching Jaguars. Okay, next, Priest of Gix. Two and a black for a 2-1. At the time it was a minion, now it's a human cleric minion. And when it enters the battlefield, it adds black, black, black. So this was kind of a free spell, but not exactly the free mechanic.

The free mechanic is when it enters the battlefield, untap the number of lands equal to what you would have paid to cast it, essentially. This just gives you the mana. So this kind of is an ETP dark ritual, essentially. But what makes it interesting is it costs three mana. So essentially, if you have three mana, you get three mana back. He even converts it to black. I mean, if you have non-black mana, I mean, for good or for bad, he converts it to black.

But anyway, he definitely is... This is a very powerful card. I saw a bunch of tournament play just because a 2-1 creature that essentially doesn't cost you mana. And more so than that, there are effects and stuff where you could replay him and things where you could... There's ways to sort of gain mana off him versus just breaking even. Okay, on to another priest. Priest of Titania. 1 and a green for a 1-1 elf.

Tap add green equals the number of elves in play on the battlefield. By the way, not just your elves, all elves. This was, for a long time, in fact, I'm sure this is still played in Legacy, the elf deck. This is a major, major player in the elf deck. This is the thing that allows elf decks to just sort of, you know, turn to 11, if you will, that just allows you to sort of ramp up to huge amounts of

mana. It's funny because Gaea's Cradle gets you a green mana for every creature you have in play. And Priest of Titania, when you are playing an elf deck, let's assume your opponent has no elves, just you have an elf deck and all your creatures are elves, essentially is that. The only difference

is Gaea's Cradle is a legendary land, you can have one. The Priest of Titania is not legendary. You can have four of them. So this thing really can produce a lot of mana. And like I said, it was very powerful. Next, Raze. Okay, so Raze was a sorcery.

What it did is, as an additional cost to pay it, you had to destroy a land. Or when you cast it, sorry. When you cast it, sack a land, and then destroy a target land. So essentially, for one mana, it's like, I destroy one of your lands of my choice,

and I destroy one of my lands of my choice. So, each of us are losing a land, but I choose what those lands are. And Raze was so good. If you look at the 1999 World Championship, the finals was Kaibuda versus Mark Lapine. And Mark Lapine was playing a really aggressive land destruction deck. And Raze was part of that.

That during this time period, we gave you enough land destruction things in red that you really could do something pretty destructive. And the fact that this costs one mana. Yes, yes, it costs your land, but if your deck is about just getting rid of lands, like if your opponent isn't doing something, you've got time to build up.

You're eventually going to get ahead of them. If you're destroying their lands, and they're not destroying yours, fine, fine, fine. You'll trade one for one from time just to keep them from developing at all. So anyway, I made Raze, one of the cards after the fact, like, what did I do?

That was a big mistake. But anyway, it was very powerful. Okay, Remote Isle is a land. Enters the battlefield, tap. You can tap to add blue, and it cycles for two. So this is one of the five cycling lands. I mean, there's also the battlefield, tap. You can tap to add blue, and it cycles for two. So this is one of the five cycling lands. I mean,

there's also the colorless one. These are all enter the battlefield, tap. So there's five, one of each color. And we made these just because we thought that cycling would go really well on land. Everything was cycling, too. When we bring these back in Onslaught, we actually upgrade them and make it

instead of costing 2, costing C, which makes it better, obviously. These still got played, especially in, there were cycling decks and stuff, got played in cycling decks

and even, it still was useful from time to time if you had a slower deck. If the fact that your lands came in tapped didn't matter as much to you because you're playing

more of a control-ish deck, sometimes the ability to trade later lands into cards was really valuable. Okay, Rescind. Rescind is an instant. Costs two blue, blue. So four mana, two which is blue.

Counter target spell, and then untap up to four lands. So this is the free spell counter spell. Now here's what's interesting about this. We've repeated this in the basic set. We've not this in the basic set. We've not done that with very many free mechanic spells. And the reason that this is allowable is, what we learned is, being reactionary matters a lot.

That when I can use my free mechanic to help generate mana for me, it's problematic. But when I don't control when I use it, you know, when it's like all my opponents turn and react to their spells, when it's not a good window for me to be untapping my stuff, it's nowhere near as powerful. So we were able to actually reprint this card because reactive free spells aren't nearly as problematic. Like, there's a lot of other free mechanic cards we would never reprint, especially in a core set. But Resin was, I believe, in multiple core sets.

So it does say that sometimes when you have something that's broken, it doesn't mean every aspect of it's broken. You know, you have to understand how and why it's broken. Okay, let's see how many... Okay, so I don't think I'm going to finish today, but I'm going to make a noble attempt here. Okay, next, Seasoned Marshal. Hold on one second.

It's in the middle of the road. I didn't want to hit it. Okay, Seasoned Marshal. It is two white white for a 2-2 human soldier. When it attacks, you tap target creature. This is something we do all the time right now, but it is something that we didn't do a lot when we

made this. This might be the first time we did this ability. One of the interesting things about going back and looking at old magic sets is I told this story about how I studied film in school. We'd watch film classes. You'd watch a film and you're like, back and looking at old magic sets is like I told this story about how I studied film in school. So we watch film classes. You watch a film and you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

And they're like no, no, no, no. We watched The One I Was Trapped With, The Great Train Robbery which looks when you first see it it looks almost amateurish. It looks like some kids made it. And they're like no, no, no, this is early, early film. See here,

where they're at one place and they cut, and they're at another place and they cut back into the first place and it conveys that the events of those two places are going on simultaneously?

Yeah. That didn't happen. This is where they created that. This is where they came up with that language in film. You know? And the point is, it's such a thing

that's just an everyday place that you're so used to that it doesn't even think like it... But somebody had to go, that had to not exist and somebody had to make it exist. So Cesar Marshall's good. I think this is the first card that ever did this. This is now just a staple thing white does. But at some point

someone had to go, hey, here's a neat idea for white. So one of the cool things about that is, I mean, this is just a really good example of how one of the neat things about going back and looking at old cards, look at the history. I talk a lot about how this is a history of magic

podcasts at times. It's also a history of magic design podcasts that we've learned a lot over the years. And one of the things I love is going back and looking at sets and saying, oh, oh, oh, this is where we came up with that. Like, I'm pretty sure Season of Martial is the first time we did this. That's where we're like, okay, you know, the attack trigger to tap something. Like, White can tap things, and we had tappers before this.

You know, Master Decoy goes back to Mirage, I believe. So White could tap things, but just the idea of saying, oh, well, what if we made an attack trigger a tap? You know, the timing's perfect. You know, it's newer order friendly. It, you know, reduces the amount of choices the opponent had to make. It's just done at the right time where it's thematic, it's flavorful. It's just neat seeing that happen and going, oh, that's what we figured out to do that.

You know, that is pretty cool. So I definitely like, I don't know, I like when we go back and look at things. And, I mean, the designer in me definitely is always excited. So I realized I forgot a card I meant to talk about. So I'm going to go back. Back to P. I forgot to talk about Phyrexian Tower. So this is a land.

You tap to add a colorless mana. Or tap, sac a creature, add black, black. So the interesting thing about this card was we made a cycle of lands. So the white land is Serra Sanctum, the blue land is Salarian Academy, the black land was Frexian Tower, the red land was

Shiven Gorge, and the green land was Gaia's Cradle. Shiven Gorge, right? Yeah, Shiven Gorge. I'm going to talk to that soon, maybe this podcast, maybe next podcast. So anyway, people, because the white, blue, and green ones work very similarly, tap add certain colors to your mana pool equal to some permanent play. Add white equal to enchantments, blue equal to artifacts, green equal to creatures that you control.

The black and red didn't feel like they fit part of that cycle. But we did have a legendary land that had black in it and one that had red in it. And so they were tied to colors. But it's one of those things where we tied some of them so closely that the others didn't feel connected. some of them so closely that the others didn't feel connected. The interesting thing is that Shiven, not Shiven Gorge, Phyrexian Tower actually ended up being

a playable deck. One of the major reasons is something I did in Urza's Destiny is I made a I made a theme in Urza's Destiny of being leaves play triggers. Things that when they died, actually I guess they were death triggers, when they put in the battlefield from play triggers. Things that when they died, actually I guess they were death triggers,

when they were put in the battlefield from play triggers. And so I made some very powerful ones. A powerful one probably was Academy Rector, which when it died, you've got to go through your library, find an enchantment, and put it into play. In fact,

I also had one that did creatures. Anyway, I made some powerful. And Urza's Destiny. When we get Urza's Destiny, we'll talk about this. But I also had a card that was sort of a new Necropotence called Yawgmoth's Bargain. And so you needed a way to sacrifice your rector to go get your bargain.

And so it turns out Fruxing Tower was very efficient. It lets you sacrifice creatures, lets you get mana. So it happened to fit the metagame really well. So Frexing Tower was, even though people complained about it not being up to snuff with some of the other lands in the cycle,

it was still very good. It still saw play. It was still a powerful card. So, I don't know. I feel like Frenching Tower was not, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, the biggest problem also was there aren't five, or at least at the time, there weren't five permanent types, so as far as

you know, there is land, but tapping equal to land is a little crazy, and Planeswalkers didn't exist, and that's the five permanent types, so it wasn't even a cycle we could completely finish that way. Okay, next. Sarah Avatar. That's another cool card. So four white,

white, white for a star, star avatar. And its power and toughness were equal to your life total. And then it said if Sarah Avatar goes to the graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into your library. On that last ability it was just, this was such a good reanimation

target that we didn't want you to be able to reanimate it. You know, for example, it costs you 7 mana, 3 of which is white. So, if you pay 7 mana, you get something pretty potent, and something each of your life can be pretty potent. It's 7 mana, so later in the game,

usually it's not a 20-20 by the time you get to 7 mana. But if you can reanimate it, especially back in the day when we had really cheap reanimation, you know, we had reanimation for 1 and 2 mana. We didn't want you, like, you know, somehow dumping this into your graveyard and then on turn 1 or 2 or 3 or something, you know, getting a 20-20. That was pretty potent. So that's why the Rider's in there.

This was a really popular card. The funny thing about this card is it is more... It seems a little more powerful than it is. If you actually have to cast it for seven mana, three, which is white, it's a little bit harder to use. The other thing that's cool about this card is

white is the life-gaining color. So not only can you play it, but when you play in white, you can play it with life gain. And so that makes it better. The problem at the time was life gain sucked. So this became a very fun casual deck, which is I have a lot of life gain in a Serra avatar.

So it's like, you're having trouble dealing with me because I keep gaining life. I'm being very defensive. And then, the thing I'm going to kill you with is this giant creature that often was bigger than 20-20. If I can get my life total higher than 20-20. Because I'm doing a lot of life gain. Never, I don't think this card was ever, I mean, I might be wrong. I don't remember this being a big card in any sort of tournament setting. But, it was much beloved.

It was a very casual, friendly card. Okay, my final one today is Serra Sanctum. So this was the land where it's a legendary land, tapped to add a white mana for every enchantment you have on the battlefield. Funny thing is, this card had to live in the shadows of Tolarian Academy and Gaea's Cradle and the answer is when you compare it to Tolarian Academy this card is way worse

you know Tolarian Academy gets to do artifacts there are zero drop artifacts you can actually on the turn one drop a number of zero cost artifacts and Tolarian Academy on turn one is tapping for a huge amount of mana champions aren't that way the champions have mana cost and you know there aren't a lot of And Tolarian Academy on turn one is tapping for a huge amount of mana. Enchantments aren't that way.

Enchantments have mana costs. And there aren't a lot of even cheap enchantments that are really tournament-level cards. You compare Serra Sanctum even to Gaea's Cradle. It's kind of weak. Because there's a lot of cheaper creatures. And there's creatures that produce mana. There's things that are... Magic makes one-drop creatures. Like, we want you to have a curve.

So there are just good, efficient, one-drop tournament-quality creatures that we make. So Tolerant Academy was like crazy, crazy good. And Gaea's Cradle was really good. So a lot of times people think of Serra's Sanctum as being weak. Not weak. Really strong card. Very powerful card.

It's only in... I mean, if we had made this card in a vacuum and Tolerant Academy and Gaea's Cradle didn't exist, it would be a power card. It's only in... I mean, if we had made this card in a vacuum until Land Academy Gage's Cradle didn't exist, it would be a powerhouse. It is just, you know, it's like, it's just the weakest, it's like, you know, it's part of the triplets, and the two other triplets are just bigger.

But this is a big triplet. This is a powerful one. This was a really powerful card, and it did see play, and there are people that were using it, and there were cool things you could do with it. I know there were enchantment tranches, decks, and things that were enchantment-centered already that really used this to good effect. But anyway,

do not dismiss the Serra Sanctum. It's actually a pretty powerful card. Serra Sanctum, by the way, was, in the story, it was the realm that Serra had designed, and so anyway, it represented that. It was actually not on Dominaria. But anyway, I'm here at my daughter's school, and that

means that it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye-bye.