Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #354 - Top 10 Cards

Episode Date: August 5, 2016

Mark talks about his Top 10 favorite cards that he's designed.

I'm playing on the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today it's going to be another in my top 10 series. This is where I choose some topic and pick my favorite top 10. So today it's my top 10 favorite cards I've ever designed. So these are all cards I've made. Now be aware, this is a caveat I give on all my top tens, is this is today. I think if you ask me two weeks from now or a month from now or a year from now,

I might pick slightly different cards. I think that what my favorites are just changes. But at a moment in time, which is today, this is my top ten. And I'm going to talk about it and explain each card. And each card has a story. And I'll talk about sort of how it came to be and why it's my favorite card or my top 10. Okay, so we start with the top 10. Number 10 is Look at Me, I'm the DCI. Okay, so it's a card from the original, from Unglued. It costs five white white.

And basically what it says is ban a card. And then it tells you what that means, which is you choose a card. And then you go through all the libraries, all the graveyards, anything on the battlefield, anything in players' hands. You remove it. You've banned it. That card is now banned. And then for the remainder of the match, not just the game, the remainder of the match, the card is gone. So the idea is, you know, when you've cast this card, you are the DCI.

You've banned the card. It is gone. There are some shenanigans. It doesn't ban from exile. So I have seen people use this, stick something in exile, ban it everywhere else, and then get it back. But other than that, pretty much the idea behind it was just to ban everything. So why is this number 10? This is interesting. If I was listing solely from mechanics, while this card is cute, it probably wouldn't make my top 10. But the reason it does make my top 10 is an emotional one. This card happens to be the card.

top 10 is an emotional one. This card happens to be the card. So in the history of magic, there are only a handful of cards of which the following is true. The same person designed the card, named the card, wrote the flavor text for the card, and illustrated the card. And this is my one time in magic of doing that. So basically what happened was, I mean, I have clearly there's many, many cards in magic that I've named, designed, and wrote the flavor text for. But I've not illustrated

a lot of magic cards. So let me talk a little bit about how it came to be that I illustrated this card because it's a cute story. So what happened was, we, the original plan was, we were brainstorming a lot of cool things we could do with the art. And the original plan was we were brainstorming

a lot of cool things we could do with the art and the idea was we wanted the art itself to be kind of fun and do lots of different things so the idea for one of the cards is we decided that

it might be fun to have a child's drawing to go to get a kid and have them draw in crayon and then at one point I said you know what I could do that I could draw in crayon. And then at one point I said, you know what? I could do that.

I could draw in crayon. And then we decided it might be cute that, you know, the fact that it was actually me drawing might be fun. And we decided to put it on this card. I don't remember why exactly we put it on this card. But we decided we'd do this card maybe because it referenced wizards. And anyway, I thought it would be fun to... I mean, the idea was we needed a crayon drawing. I'm like, you know, I can look like a kid.

I can't draw. I've made this claim before, but I will stand by it. I am the worst person, the worst artist. Not person. The worst artist to ever illustrate a magic card, if you want to call what I did illustration. But anyway, so I did it. And so to call what I did illustration. But anyway, so I did it, and so here's how I did it. I had a technique

that few people have ever used. I actually drew, I don't know, a hundred of them? I just drew a whole bunch of them. I just was watching TV one day, and I figured out what I wanted. The idea essentially was, I want, the picture was supposed to be somebody throwing darts at a dartboard,

since the whole flavor was, the flavor text was, the picture was supposed to be somebody throwing darts at a dartboard since the whole flavor was the flavor text was few understand that DCI is a rigorous process and I knew the art just had to be someone throwing darts at a dartboard. Now I can't draw so that meant it was going to be a stick figure I wanted the figure to be blindfolded since the joke is they're just throwing darts at a dartboard

they're not even looking at it and then from there I wanted the person to have a mug in their hand and a dartboard. You know, they can't, they're not even looking at it. And then from there, I wanted, I wanted the person to have a mug in their hand and a dart in the other hand. I wanted some magic cards

on the dartboard. And so with that idea, I actually drew a whole bunch of them. I drew something like 100. I just, I drew one, drew the next one,

drew the next one. I think I figured out the color combinations I liked. I spent a little time figuring, and then I just literally made 100 copies of the same picture. Not enough artists are dedicated enough to make 100 versions of the picture and then pick the best one. But that's what I did. So I illustrated it.

I brought it in. And I realized after I brought it in, I forgot to sign it. So I actually went back. I mean, I went back before they scanned it and I signed it. And I put Mara with the backward R since I was supposed to have the kid-like feel. But anyway, that is, and so the card is endearing to me. People have me sign this card all the time because I'm the artist. I sign a lot of cards, but this is the only one I sign because I'm the artist.

And it's been fun. It is kind of cool to have my name on a magic card. In fact, I should point this out. This is the only time ever that my name appears on an actual magic card. I have designed thousands of magic cards. I've been very involved in many, many different sets.

But in all of magic, it's the only time my name actually appears on a magic card, which is the one time I illustrated a card. The other fun story about this, which I've told, but it's on a magic card, which is the one time I illustrated a card. The other fun story about this, which I've told, but it's just a fun story, is so normally there's a certain amount we pay the artists. But I said at the time, oh, that's crazy. You shouldn't be paying me hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I'm doing a crayon drawing. I go, just pay me a dollar. And the reason a dollar is, if they don't pay

me something, then they can't own the rights to it. So I said, okay, just fine, pay me a dollar. And then my plan was, I owned the original, obviously it was my thing, and I was going to frame it. So my idea was, I wanted to frame it with the check, my dollar check, because I cared more to show the dollar check than I cared necessarily to get the dollar. And so what happened was, I got a call from whoever the person is in payroll, whatever, that says, so hello, so is this Mark? Yes. So I see here we owe you a dollar. I go, yes, yes, you owe me a dollar. I illustrated a magic card. I go, oh, well, it says here you want a check? Yes, I do. I want a check. And they're like, well, it says here you want a check. Yes, I do. I want a check. And they're like, well, it costs us more than a dollar to make a check.

And I go, I understand that. I go, be aware that I should have been paid hundreds of dollars for this illustration. And I forego all of that because I said, okay, you don't need to spend that much money. But I do want a check. And the guy goes, why? But can I just give you a dollar bill? And I go, no, no, no. I want a check. He goes, well, why do you want a check, and I go, well, I want to frame it, I want to put it with my art, he goes, you're not going to cash it, and I'm like, yeah, at the end of the year, you're, you'll be off a dollar on your, on your records, you know, and anyway, I got my check, and it is now on my wall, I have four pieces of art hanging on my wall in my den, one of which is Look at Me on the DCI. The other three are Maro,

which I will obviously get to later today, Jester's Sombrero, and Mai's, which happen to be the two pieces of art on the butcher wrap for Unglued and Unhinged. I purchased Jester's Sombrero. Mai's was actually a birthday present from Matt Cavada to me. So that was a gift.

That's my one piece of art. That was a gift to me. So anyway, those are my four pieces of art. The illustration, the card named after me, the card I drew, and the two ones on the covers of the unsets, the ones I own. Okay. But anyway, at number 10, look at me. I'm the DCI.

I'm trying to think of anything else to say about that card. I do like the design. I think it's a fun card, and it does something kind of neat in the fact that it affects the whole match. That's something that we don't do ever in Black Border. And so one reason, by the way, technically this card, I mean, the flavor of banning a card we couldn't do in Black Border, so that's important for this card, and affecting the whole match is a card we couldn't do in Black Border, so that's important for this card. And the affecting the whole match is not something we couldn't do in Black Border. So, that's the things

that make it Silver Border. But anyway, that's number... At number 10, look at me and the DCI. Number 9. Staff of Domination from Fifth Dawn. So, this is an artifact that costs 3. For 1, you can untap Staff of Domination.

For two and tap, you can gain a life. For three and tap, you can untap target creature. For four and tap, you can tap target creature. For five and tap, you can draw a card. So I think when I first made this card, the idea was I was trying to make something that just had

lots and lots of uses to it. That was the idea behind I was trying to make something that just had lots and lots of uses to it. That was the idea behind this card. So Fifth Dawn was the end of the Mirrodin block. We had made a lot of artifacts. I was just really trying to make some fun, different kind of artifacts. And so Staff of Demination was me just, I think early on, I think I called it Ginsu Knife. It slices, it dices, it makes jillion fries. It just does everything.

The idea was, I think I called it, it was called Ginsu Knife, I think for a while it was also called Swiss Army Knife. The flavor I was going for is it had a lot of utility. You can do a lot of different things with it. And I just like how it came out. The idea in the end was it ended up having five activations. So one, two, three, four, and I just like how it came out. The, the, the idea in the end was it ended up having five causes, five activations. So one, two, three, four, and five. Um, and the neat part about it is that each of the activations, they all do simple things

you might want, but you know, you can mix and match them. Uh, and then my favorite part of the design is the idea to make the one activation on tap it so that the one activation really lets you use the, like, it allows you to chain together different activated abilities. So, you know, I can tap, if I have seven mana, you know, well, I could, I mean, I need to spend one to untap it,

but I now have six mana to divvy up. I could, you know, untap two creatures, I could gain a life and tap a creature, I could draw a card, I could choose what I want to do creature. I could draw a card. I could choose what I wanted to do with that mana. So I can sort of... The untap allowed you to use up all your mana pretty concisely. I guess if you've exactly...

Well, no matter what you have, you can divvy up what you want to do with the thing. One of the things that this was fun is I like... One of the things that's fun when I design cards is I like cards that say to the person who's playing with the card, look, I'm giving you a lot of, how you want to use this card is up to you. And this card has a lot of sort of, okay, it's very generally useful, but what are you doing with it? You know, how are you using this in your deck?

And I know decks that definitely, my favorite decks are the ones that make use of all the abilities, but some of them make use of some of the abilities more than others. But anyway, it's just, it's a very elegant design. One of the things a lot of times I talk about is aesthetics is really important to us. We want things that just have this nice sort of feel to them. And sometimes during development, aesthetics get messed up a little bit for balance reasons. You know, sometimes, oh, well, in order to make this work, we can't do that. You know, a lot of times, for example, we'll make cycles where the cost, you know, it's like, there's a three, a four, a five, a six, and a seven. And in the end, it's like, oh, we can't do that.

We have two threes, two fours, and a five or something. And so the one, two, three, four, five is a very elegant sort of series of numbers and the fact that we were able to sort of maintain that and keep that I was really happy and this is just, I don't know, this is one of those cars that just is I like the idea behind it which was the Swiss Army knife

that just has lots of different uses and can do a lot of different things and that one of the things in 5th on, one of the things we worked on was having means that once I have mana, that I have artifacts that let you use it.

We called them spouts, I think, when we designed this set. Hey, you know, one of the cool things about artifacts is they give you access to your resources,

mana being a big one, and lets you have different ways to use it. And so spouts usually said, oh, well, if you have leftover mana, here's what you can do with it. And this took that idea and really sort of ran with it. And so, Voucher usually said, oh, well, if you have leftover mana, here's what you can do with it. And this took that idea

and really sort of ran with it. So, anyway, it's just a clean, clear, cool, fun design. And it ended up being decently powerful. You actually see Soft Domination get played in tournament level stuff from time to time. And, I don't know. It's just clever. It's fun. I like it.

Number eight. Gifts Ungiven. It's from Champions. It's just clever. It's fun. I like it. Number eight. Gifts Ungiven. It's from Champions. It's a sorcery instant. I forget. I think it's a sorcery. I don't remember. It might be. I didn't write this down. I don't remember if it's a sorcery instant.

Intuition, I think, was an instant. Maybe it's an instant. So anyway, the idea of this card is you go through your deck. You choose three different cards. Oh, no, you choose... I'm sorry, Gifts Ungiven, you choose... Did we do it before? I did not write down this card.

Well, the story behind this card... Let me tell you the story real quickly. The idea, essentially, is you choose some number of cards. It's either three or four. And then your opponent from those... I think in Gifts Ungiven, we made it four. And your opponent chooses two that go to your hand. I think that's how Gifts Ungiven works. But here's the three or four. And then your opponent from those. I think in Gifts Ungiven we made it four. And your opponent chooses two that go to your hand. I think that's how Gifts Ungiven works.

But here's the story behind this. There's actually a story. So I made the card Intuition in Tempest. So Intuition is an instant that lets you go get three cards. Your opponent chooses one. That goes in your hand. And the other two go in your graveyard. And the intent of my card was it was three different cards,

but I forgot to write that down when I made the card. So we got into playtesting, and people started abusing it by getting three of the same card. And then no matter what, you know, you had no choices, so you would get the card you wanted, and the two other would go in your graveyard. And part of the thought of intuition was figuring out, oh, I want to, here's a card that's cool for one in my other will go in your graveyard. And part of the fun of intuition was figuring out, oh, I want to

here's a card that's cool for one in my hand and three in my graveyard. But I said, I go, no, the intent of the card, the design intent was not that you pick the same card. But they'd been playing with it. Oh, no, this is cool. We like it. And I couldn't get them to change it. So gifts

I'm given was me just taking intuition and saying, okay, let's fix intuition. And I think I changed the number of cards, just to change it up So gifts ungiven was me just taking intuition and saying, okay, let's fix intuition. And I think I changed the number of cards, just changed it up a little bit. But it's basically the same flavor as you go, you get some number of cards, and your opponent gets, you don't get to choose exactly what you get, but the ones you don't get go

to your graveyard, so there's some interesting tension you can make with your opponent of, oh, well, these cards might be good in my graveyard, and these are good in my hand, and do you want to give me a card, you know, deny the stuff in my hand, or do you want to put stuff that is better in the graveyard in my hand so it doesn't go to the graveyard? There's a lot of cool interactions that go on there, and I really like

it is fun to me when you make cards that just create interesting decisions for the person casting the card, and interesting decisions for the person, the opponent. This is definitely one of those cards where neat things happen, And I picked this one just because this is the one that did it the way I meant. Intuition would have been the one if they

just did it the way I meant it to be. But it was a little frustrating for me. Usually we follow the designer's intent. Usually the person who made the card goes, no, no, no, this is what I meant. This is one of those cases where, for whatever reason, I could not sway them.

I guess they found some fun, abusive ways to use it as is, so they wanted to keep it like that, so anyway. But Gifts Ungiven is from Champions of Kamigawa, by the way.

I was not on the design team for Champions of Kamigawa. So the previous thing, like Unglued, I was the lead designer for, and Staff Domination was Fifth Dawn. I was the lead designer

for that as well. Now we're getting to a card in a set that I didn't lead, but I made the lead designer for, and Staff Domination was fifth on. I was the lead designer for that as well. Now we're getting to a card in a set that I didn't lead, but I made the card. And so I was on the development team for Champions of Kamigawa. I wasn't even on the design team. But one of the things that happened is you get a lot of card filling during development,

so I did a lot of card filling. And so this is one of the cards I made. I think I saw the opportunity... I think I needed to wait long enough from Tempest since I wanted the card to sort of be out of of standard you know type two for a while um but anyway I felt like this is the right time so I brought it back and I think it's a fun it's an elegant card um it's a powerful card but it does neat interactions it's cool play with it um a lot of my favorite things about cool designs is it just lets people have either make cool decks around it or have cool play with it. A lot of my favorite things about cool designs is it just lets people have

either make cool decks around it or have cool plays with it. It's something that shines, that people get to tell stories about. It does neat things. So number eight, gifts ungiven. Okay, number seven comes from Odyssey.

I said I did lead. The Mirari. So the Mirari is an artifact that costs five. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, you may pay three, and if you do so, you copy it. Interestingly, by the way, the original version of the Mirari actually cost more mana,

but the copying was free. It cost like six or seven, but then you got to copy it for free. That ended up being a little more degenerate, so we ended up adding the mana in, so it wasn't. So here's where Mirari came from. There was a theory I had. When Ice Age came out, it had a card in it called Jester's Cap that got a lot of attention.

And I came to this theory that what I used to call a marquee card. As I said, every set wants to, every at least large set, needs to have a card that anybody can play. So an artifact, maybe a land, but usually an artifact that just kind of does something you've never seen before. That does something that just makes people go, what? Oh, I didn't even know you could do

that. That just was a big splashy card. And so for the early days, for Mirage, for Tempest, for Urza Saga, some of the early days, I tried to make this card. And so, Mirari was the card I made for Odyssey. It was just sort of this super splashy, and it ended up becoming a very iconic part of the set. The expansion symbol is the Mirari. It ended up being a focal point of the set. Like, the thing that everybody's after is this card.

But interestingly, I made the card before... I didn't make the card to be the Mirari, necessarily. I made the card to be a big, splashy card, and then we realized that it made sense being the Mirari. So it wasn't a top-down Mirari necessarily. I made the card to be a big splashy card, and then we realized that it made sense being the Mirari. So it wasn't a top-down Mirari. I didn't go, oh, what would the Mirari be? But I think the Mirari kind of existed in the story, and I made this card, and then we just realized, oh, this is a thing that makes whatever you wish come true. I'm like, okay, well, in some ways, the flavor of just copying things, it flavor-wise made sense.

I love copying things for people that don't know, and I like big, grand splash. This was just fun in that it really helped define the set, and it played a major role in the story, and I don't know. I just love how this card ended up playing. It just did neat, fun, bold things. It's definitely the kind of card you can build a deck around and you can do neat things with.

So, I don't know. That's my number seven is the Mirari. Okay, number six is from Unhinged. Yet another Aether Vortex. Three red red for an enchantment. And it says, play with a card on the top of your library face up, and if that card is a permanent, in addition to being on top of your library,

it is also on the battlefield. So, this is a card that I came up with for Black Border Magic. A lot of cards that were in on sets, I first came up with in Blackboard of Magic. And it turns out that the rules don't really like things being in more than one zone at the same time.

And so it really... So I wasn't allowed to do it in Blackboard just because when you care about tournaments and the lots on the line, the rules have to be very precise. This is a wonky card. But what I realized was, and this is what i like for uncards is something that's neat and cool and fun and messes in weird territory but there is a consistency to it and i've done a lot of rulings in fact of all the cards i've had to do rulings on yet another a the vortex is one of the highest up there um and one of the things is the the one given that we take that Black Border has issues with is just like, okay, something can be in two zones at once if a card says...

Normally it can't, but if a card says it can, it can. And there's just a lot of fun, interesting things that happen when you have a card on top of your library that's also in play. The other fun thing about it is when you draw a card, it leaves play, reducing a new card. So you're constantly getting cards in play. They don't enter the battlefield, by the way, so they don't trigger enter the battlefield things, because it never

enters. It's just there. As soon as you reveal it, it's just, it is there. It didn't enter. It is there. And so, a lot of people sometimes get confused about the enter the Battlefield stuff, but it doesn't trigger Enter the Battlefield. But anyway, it is a card, it's my, it is my favorite,

my favorite personal card from Unhinged, especially from a design standpoint. It is just, it's very out of the box and weird and quirky and fun, and you can build decks around it and just do really strange and unusual things. I like to say that some of the best cards really produce a story and make you sort of, oh my, you have to hear what happened. This is one of those cards that does lots of weird and quirky and fun things.

It's the kind of card that I kind of wish Black Border could support because it really is a fun card. I get why it doesn't. But it is something that I, when I look back and try to pick up cards that really mean something to me, I love cards where it is fun to explore new territory and just go to places you haven't gone before. And it's one of the reasons I love doing unsets, is I love kind of exploring the unknown and saying, oh, okay, fine, fine, fine. And this card, by the way,

when I've done rulings on it, is very consistent. It is one of those cards that, like, it does work. It has an internal consistency. It assumes something the rules don't actually do in Black Border. But, if you assume they did, it works fine. And so, like I said, I've made a lot of rulings on it,

but I really have wrapped my brain around it. It requires you understanding the idea of, okay, things are in two zones at once. You've got to wrap your brain around that, but once you do, a lot of cool and fun things can happen. Okay, that is number six, Yet Another Day at the Vortex. Number five, Endless Ranks of the Dead from Odyssey. So it's an enchantment. It costs two black blacks, so four mana,

two of which is black. At the beginning of your upkeep, for every zombie you have in play, you take that number, you round down, and then you, well, you take half of that number, round it down, and then you make that many two two zombie tokens. So the idea behind this card was I really wanted zombies to mirror zombies in pop culture.

And the idea is any one zombie isn't that scary. What makes zombies scary is that there's always more zombies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can kill any one. You can kill one zombie, but can you kill two? Can you kill four? Can you kill eight? Where zombies get scared at some point is just they overwhelm you.

And I really wanted to make a card that captured that flavor of overwhelming you. And so this card did that. And it's very flavorful. It's funny at the time. The card is not quite strong enough to really be a tournament card. We talked about making a tournament card

and development was scared that it's the kind of effect that would be not so much fun if it was pushed too hard. That said, a lot of people build decks around it. It's a lot of fun. And it does exactly what you want a zombie deck to do, which is, if I get this card out, all I need to do is get a few zombies out, and then there's just a lot of zombies.

If you're not careful, the zombie deck sort of stalls until it overwhelms you with zombies. Well, this card will do that all by itself. All you've got to do is get this card out, get a couple zombies, and you quickly get more zombies. I remember I gunsling,

or spell sling, at one of the world championships, and I think Billy Moreno built me a, I said to him, I go, I want an Endless Rings of the Dead deck. I go, make it a good deck, but I want four Endless Rings of the Dead.. I go, make it a good deck, but I want four Endless Rings of the Dead. And he made me one. It was a fun

deck. And when you get Endless Rings of the Dead ongoing, it is just wave upon wave upon wave of zombies. And it's a fun deck. And it's super, super flavorful. It also has one of my favorite pieces of art of magic. I mean,

other than one more piece of art I'll get to in a second. It's probably my favorite piece of art that I don't have personal attachment to. And it's a beautiful piece of art. It's basically these zombies outside the church. You see the stained glass window of Avacyn and they're pushed behind it. But anyway, it's a fun, flavorful, to me, sort of a perfect mirroring of flavor and mechanics. Like, this card embodies what the zombies are and what the zombies are supposed to be all in one card,

and I was a big fan of it. Okay, number five, Endless Rings of the Dead. Number four, another unglued card, BFM, Big Furry Monster. So, basically, I've talked about this card a bit. It came about because I had meetings with different people. I was told that I could break the rules. I was doing, when I was given unglued, I was told, it's silver-bordered.

That means it can't be played in tournaments. Do whatever you want. You have no rules. Figure out what that means and do whatever you want. So one of the things I had done is I had different meetings with different people that work on magic

to say, okay, we can break the rules. How do I break the rules in your area? So one of the things I had done is I got together a bunch of people

that do the graphic design, including Dan Jelen, who was the person that actually laid out my cards. Like the way Unglued was done was each card was individually laid out and Dan Jelen, who's

a magic artist, Dan Jelen, who worked at Wizards for a long time, did that. And Dan brought up, so I was talking about people that physically make the cards, not like R&D that makes the mechanics, but physically lays out the cards. And Dan said, well, here's something. When you put it on the sheet,

the cards are, we already have to gutter cut and stuff. There's some technical things we had to do. Because what you can do, though, is cards lean up against each other. The things from one card can go into the next card. You know, that we can print them together on a sheet. So on the actual printing sheet, they're next to each other. We can make things extend.

That means we can bleed to the end. We can have things cross over. So one of the cards I made is free-for-all and I'm rubber, you're glue. In free-for-all, there's pink elephants and leprechauns having a fight. And there's one leprechaun that's being knocked off the card. And then on the card I'm rubber, you're glue, the leprechaun was knocked off one card onto another card. And you see him being knocked onto that card. card was knocked off one card onto another card, and you see him being knocked onto that card. So the same idea, I said, okay, you know, free-for-all armor of your glue was

a cool visual joke, but it was something I could do mechanically with it. And that's when I realized that I could do it to make a giant card, that I could take two cards and I could bleed them such that they would go against each other, they would bleed across each other, so that when you put them together, they'd make one giant card. So there'd be a left side and a right side. Once I figured out that, I'm like, okay, what am I making? What am I making with this giant card?

And I decided, okay, well, the giant card should represent something really, really big. And because it was a left and right side, I wanted to see the left and right side. So I needed to make it a permanent. So I decided, like, okay, well, what makes us, how about a creature? But not just any creature, the biggest creature the game had ever seen. Now, Magic had been playing this game where I think Alpha

had an 8A, then we made a 9-9, then we made a 10-10, an 11-11, a 12-12, you know, and I said, okay, I'm going to hopscotch over that. So I made a 100-100. Now, it turns out in the end, Bill for some reason said he didn't want me doing three digits and wanted me doing two digits, so we went down to nine and nine, nine and nine, saving the three

digits for the future. We also didn't, at the time, weren't doing tramples in basic sets, which they consider this, like core sets. I don't know why they did, but they did. So instead of having that, it has sort of super menace. It can only be blocked by three or more creatures. But it was a 99-99.

It costs 15 black mana. But you had to have both cards in your hand. Although, if you could get both cards into play at the same time, like with a card called Incoming in the set, which took all the permits to put them into play, it also could come into play. I actually made an Incoming deck that the win condition was to put BFM into play, it also could come into play. I actually made an incoming deck that the win condition was to put BFM into play. But anyway,

BFM is just another really break things, do something crazy. I really, it was the most popular card in Unglued. Or cards, I don't know how to refer to it. But anyway, it's really out of the box, really

doing strange, interesting, cool things. The flavor was fun. anyway, it's really out of the box, really doing strange, interesting, cool things. The flavor was fun. Anyway, it's my favorite, one of my favorite undesigned. Probably Unglued is my favorite. I guess it's my favorite design in Unglued. I mean, looking at DCI has some, you know, emotional thing. But as far as just pure cool, this is an awesome design. I'm very proud of BFM. Okay, number three. Mineslaver. So this was in Mirrodin. Artifact that costs six. Four and tap. You control

target players next turn. Originally, this was a marquee card for Tempest. It was Helm of Volrath. Helm of Volrath used to take control of people's minds. But we couldn't work out the rules, so it went by the wayside. And then Mirrodin and I brought it back,

and I said, I was looking for cool artifacts that I'd made in the past that somehow never got made. The rules manager at the time said we could do it. The car's even better now, because now that Mana Burn's gone, we don't have to explain that you can't use Mana Burn, because the fact that you can Mana Burn yourself was one of the ugly parts of the car early on.

We had to start to say, well, you just can't do that. And now there's no Mana Burn, Because the fact that you can Mana Burn yourself was one of the ugly parts of the card early on. We had to sort of say, well, you just can't do that. And now, there's no Mana Burn, so we don't have to say that. Mind Flavor, I love. It is just an out-of-the-box. It is the essence of what a Marquis card was. The idea of just doing something

you've never seen before. I'm taking control of another player. I get to tell another player what they do. This card came about, by the way, because I was trying to solve... Richard had made a card in Alpha. What was it called? It was a black card

where you looked at the opponent's hand and played a card out of their hand. I'm blanking on the name. You guys all yell it out, as you always do when I forget card names. And I really liked that card, but it was weird because you could always react to it.

So when they cast it, you would just... Whatever you would do, you would just do it ahead of time. And then your opponent really didn't get to do what they wanted to do, which is have a chance to take over your turn. Mind Slaver is much beloved and behated. But I think it's a really neat card. And you talk about making stories.

That's the card that makes stories. It really is a card that, like, okay. And it just does neat, cool things. And, like, it's just fun to take over someone else's turn. Like, okay, I get one turn to be as destructive as possible. What can I do? And anyway, it is a neat, innovative, really cool card. Okay, at number four, or sorry, number three is Mindslaver.

Number two, Doubling Season from Ravnica. Costs four and a green. And it basically says, anytime you make counters, double the amount. Anytime you make tokens, double the amount. Just double all counters and tokens that you make. This card was made,

it was a very selfish design. I just really wanted the card. I love doubling. I love counters. I love tokens. I just made a card that I, the player, really, really love. And it's like,

one of the perks, you know, it's nice to be king. One of the nice things about making magic cards is occasionally you get to make a magic card that speaks to you. Can't do that all the time. You've got to understand all the different players, make a lot of different cards. Most of the cards you make aren't for you. But every once in a while you can make a card for you. I made this card for me. And the fact that so many people fell in love with it, that so many people really embraced this card,

just said like, oh, well, the thing I love about it, a lot of people love about it. A lot of people love counters and tokens and a lot of people love doubling things and there's just so much fun, cool, neat things that you can do with this card. I have tried to bring it back. In fact, I put it in Zendikar, which it would have been awesome in,

but it turns out that it's broken with Planeswalkers. And so while I think we brought it back in Modern Masters, it's not something we can bring back in Standard with Planeswalkers in it. We have made a lot of variants of it. We have made a lot of doubling season tweaks. But we haven't... I don't think doubling season itself is going to come back in Standard. That's number two, doubling season. We get to number one. Number one, if you don't know number one, you don't think doubling season itself is going to come back in standard. That's number two, doubling season.

We get to number one. Number one, if you don't know number one, you don't know me. And I did an entire podcast on this card, so this shouldn't be much of a mystery. But the number one card is Marrow from Mirage. Two green green. It's a star star creature. And its power and toughness is equal to the number of cards in your hand. The real quick version of this, although there's an entire podcast on this card if you want to have the lengthy version of this card,

is we had a hole. I was in Mirage Development. I was not on the design team. I was on the development team. We made a hole. It was a green hole, and I said, oh, I made a lot of cards before I came to Wizards. They go, I have a cool card for this hole, and I pitched it in the meeting, and they said, oh, that's cool. And so when Bill wrote the card in, Bill had figured out in the email system we had at the time how to type the fewest letter of numbers to be able to get anybody's name in the system. And so for me, it turned out the first two letters of my first name

and the first two letters of my last name were the shortest way he could type my name to get me on the email system. So he just typed M-A-R-O. He named it M-A-R-O because we didn't have a name for it, and that was the shorthand for me. So the continuity, the creative team at the time thought it was a cute idea. We did vanity cards at the time, so we just left the name on. And it's gone on, obviously, to be my nickname.

And so it's a card in which I named the card sorry, the card is named after me I designed the card I wrote the flavor text, I didn't do the illustration it's a beautiful illustration by the way a guy named Stuart Griffin it's one of the few pieces of magic that we bought the art, he didn't make

the art to be a magic card Sue Ann Harkey, the art director at the time saw it at a show and bought the rights to it, which we don't do a lot, but she did it there, and then we ended up using it in a set, and then I ended up

buying it from Stuart Griffin. In fact, it's one of the four things hanging, in fact, it's a large, full piece of art, and we had to crop it,

so there's more to it that's on the card. But anyway, it's, the cool thing about Marvel for me, and this is what actually inspired me

to make the prize for the Duelist Invitational slash Magic Invitational, where I let people make a card, is it is very cool to make something where you feel that you become part of the game you love. Like, that card is very personally my card. I've made thousands of Magic cards. All the cards I listed today are cards I made.

I mean, obviously I've had pretty big influence on the game of Magic, but this one takes it to a different level. It is kind of personified with me. It's the card I've signed more than any card. And one of the things, by the way, if you've ever signed a

Maro, I always draw on the Maro's face. I have lots and lots of different things. I have different hats and different things I'll put on it, but I always decorate that. That's what I do when I sign tomorrow. But anyway, this card is very personal to me. The game, Magic, means a lot to me. It has had a huge

impact on my life. Like I said, it brought me my dream job. I met my wife there. It's just so much, so many awesome things have happened to me because of the game. I really owe a great debt to Magic, and the fact that I get to become part of the game in some small way, the fact that there's a card named after me that's sort of my card,

it's such a cool thing. And it's why I made the Invitational Prize, as I did. The idea of becoming part of the game you love is really cool. And I've talked to a lot of Invitational winners that, like, some of them didn't even appreciate the time, but sort of with, as time has gone by, just the sort of having something that's you that, you know,

of this game you love and being part of it is just such a cool thing. So anyway, to recap my top ten favorite cards that I designed today. Ten, Look at Me on the DCI from Unglued. Number nine is Staff of Dominations from Fifth Dawn. Number eight is Gifts Ungiven fromI from Unglued. Number 9 is Staff of Dominations from Fifth Dawn. Number 8 is Gifts Ungiven from Champions of Kamigawa.

Number 7 is Mirari from Odyssey. Number 6 is Yet Another Age of Vortex from Unglued. Number 5 is Endless Rings of the Dead from Innistrad. Number 4 is BFM from Unglued. Number 3 is Mindslaver from Mirrodin. Number 2 is Doubling Season from Ravnica. And number 1 is Marorrow from Mirage. So that, my friends, in a nutshell, is my top ten favorite cars I designed.

Hope you guys enjoyed this episode, but I'm now dropping off my daughter at school. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Well, I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.