Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #382 - Mirrodin Showdown

Episode Date: November 11, 2016

Mark pits the mechanics of the original Mirrodin block against the mechanics of the Scars of Mirrodin block.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I recently released a podcast called Ravnica Showdown. And it went over really well. So what I did is I took the ten guild mechanics of Ravnica and the ten guild mechanics of Return to Ravnica and I fared them against each other for the Ravnica Showdown. Ended up being a tie. But anyway, people liked the showdown idea, so I thought I would continue to do the showdown.

But I realized I had to do it a little bit differently. Ravnica was kind of perfect, because there was exactly ten guilds, and it's clear which mechanic went against which mechanic. You had guild mechanics fight each other. So as I looked for other things, I decided to do Mirrodin Showdown! So I'm going to take the Mirrodin block and have it go against the scars

of Mirrodin block. Just like Ravnica went back with its return, I thought it would be fun to do Mirrodin against its return. Just a few small things that I had to adjust for. One is that if I did mechanic against mechanic, what would happen is it just depended on what I paired against other, whether one side one or the other, that it wasn't really, there wasn't a clean example of what each should face. And the other thing was that Mirrodin block had one more mechanic than Scars of Mirrodin Block had and so I needed to figure out how to balance that out. So here's what I ended up doing. First off, I'm grading each one on a scale from 0 to 3. 3 is a

superstar. It's a mechanic that got people talking and really was a showstopper. 2 was a good mechanic, a solid mechanic, excited people. 1 was a showstopper. Two, was a good mechanic, a solid mechanic, excited people. One was a workhorse mechanic that, like, you know, it did its job. And not that a workhorse mechanic can't be good,

not that we don't want workhorse mechanics, but a mechanic that kind of, you know, did its thing. Zero is a dud, meaning, eh, I wouldn't use that mechanic. I wouldn't,

if we had it to do it over again, I wouldn't have used the mechanic. I really feel it was a failure. And so anyway, I'm going to grade each mechanic on a scale of 0 to 3. And the idea is, whatever has the higher total when we're finished, will win. will win. The other thing that I did was because there was one more mechanic in Mirrodin than there was in Scars of Mirrodin, I decided to grade the gimmick of Scars of Mirrodin, the war, if you will. I'll get to that when we get there, but we did this interesting thing about how you didn't know who was going to win, you didn't know the third name of the block. I'll talk about that, I'll grade that as well um and that way i think each side has eight

things to be graded um also note that imprint was in both sets so i'll grade it but it doesn't really count against anything because i gave him print the same grade for both blocks so um okay but you guys ready are you ready for the mirrodin? Okay, we're going to start with the large sets. So I'm going to start with, for Mirrodin, equipment. So equipment was artifacts that when they entered the battlefield, they had an equip cost. If you paid the equip cost, you could attach it to a creature. And then if the creature ever dies, the equipment falls off, and then you can attach it to a different creature. Also, you can equip it to a creature and then later equip it to a different creature if you want.

The creature doesn't have to die first. I don't really have to explain to you how equipment works, because equipment became evergreen! It is one of the few examples where we made a mechanic and then instantaneously go, this is good, we've got to keep this. And it was in Mirrodin block, and the very next block, which was Champions block, it just was a thing, just was evergreen. And we made some powerful, we made Jitte and some powerful stuff in that block.

But anyway, the idea was we made equipment, it was exciting, it was sexy, people really liked it, so much so that we immediately just made it evergreen. So I give equipment a three. Equipment, by the way, went through a lot of changes along the way. I originally tried a version where, like the very first version I tried was essentially artifacts

that function exactly like an aura. They were artifacts and you paid for them like artifacts. But they just literally equipped automatically when you played it. But we decided that the flavor wasn't great. It's one thing if you enchant something and the thing dies. Well, the enchantment dies off with the creature,

but if I give a sword to a goblin and you kill my goblin, the sword's kind of still there. So anyway, it went through a lot of different changes, but I was happy with how it ended up. But okay, equipment has a three. So now let's go to infect. Here's a controversial one. So infect was, the way the mechanic works is,

creatures with infect deal damage to the opponent in form of poison counters and damage to the player in form of minus one, minus one counters. So what it had done is we kind of combined two older mechanics, the poison, which really hadn't got an official name, or had never been keyworded, per se, and Wither, which is a mechanic from Shadowmoor block. But they combined together to make something that was really uniquely its own,

and, in fact, was probably the most polarizing mechanic we've ever made. In fact, was beloved by many. In fact, it was the highest-rate mechanic in the block. In fact, was beloved by many. In fact, it was the highest rate mechanic in the block, but it also was hated by many. I think it also might have been one of the lowest rated mechanics in the block. Or what should I say?

Its overall rating was among the highest, meaning its average and everything was the highest of the block. But, if you actually look at how people rated it, it had some of both the highest and the lowest ratings. In fact, in order to be as high as it was, it had to have some really high ratings. But it also had, I think you grade it on a scale of like one to five.

It's the kind of mechanic that didn't have a lot of threes. It had a lot of ones and a lot of fives. You know, that's the kind of thing it was. So I'm giving it, in fact, a three. I'm sure that'll be a little controversial. Um, so I'm giving, in fact, a three. I'm sure that'll be a little controversial. Um, and the reason is, look, one of the things you do when you make mechanics is you want to make something that is flavorful, that just really gets the attention of people,

and that makes it, makes the game, um, exciting. I, I think that the game, uh, was a little too exciting for the people that didn't like it. Um, but, but it definitely was the kind of mechanic that got people up and talking. And, you know, it was a showstopper. It took attention. It was a star performer. A star performer

doesn't mean that everybody loved it. In fact, in some level, the things that are the most attention-grabbing sometimes can also grab some negative attention as far as positive attention. But make no mistake, it was the star of the block.

It was what people were talking about. And so I ended up giving it a three. Okay, so after one mechanic for each block, we now have a score of three, two, three. Very close.

So let's go on to the second mechanic. So the second mechanic of the block will be Affinity and Metalcraft. These two feel like they do deserve to be against each other. So Affinity was a mechanic that said, for every artifact you have

on the battlefield, this costs one less to cast. And Metalcraft was a mechanic in Scars of Mirrodin that said if you have three or more artifacts, you upgrade. There's something about you that becomes better. So let's first talk about Affinity. So Affinity, I'm really grading today on design and not on development. Affinity got a lot of attention because it was under-costed and it was really powerful.

And so it definitely defined the block. But if we had cost it correctly, I don't think it would have quite the bang that it did. I was really torn on this one because on some level, it drew a lot of attention to itself, although the reason it drew attention was a lot more power level than anything else. In fact, in contrast, really didn't do much in

Standard. It ended up being a lot in Modern, where you had access to better giant growths and things. But in Standard, in fact, Matter didn't limit it, and it showed up a. But in standard, like, you know, I mean, Infect mattered and limited, and it showed up a little bit in standard, but it wasn't dominating standard range stretch of the imagination in its day.

Whereas Affinity was like, we had to ban cards. It was just crushing the environment. And so, you know, Infect got all the attention it got without necessarily being overpowered, where a lot of Affinity's attention came from the fact it was overpowered. So I was really back and forth on this one. This one was my hardest grade of all of them because I didn't quite know...

On one level, it was exciting to people, but that was really due to the development of it. It was really due to the power level of it. Another level, it was a very workhorse. It's the kind of it. It was really due to the power level of it. Another level it was a very workhorse. It's the kind of thing where I mean it loudly got the message across of play artifacts. But it was not

a lot of nuance. It's not a mechanic that really has a lot of play value to it. It just sort of says, hey, if I put almost nothing but artifacts in my deck, this will be good. And so I was kind of torn. I mean, it's like, I love mechanics that really make you build around them and do cool things. This one didn't do that much.

So part of me says, oh, it's kind of a pretty workhorse-y, straightforward mechanic. But part of me said, nah, it drew some attention to itself. But one of the reasons it drew attention to itself was really power level, not design. And anyway, I went back and forth on affinity. So I ended up giving it a unique grade. The only grade I'm doing this the whole time today is I gave it a one and a half because I couldn't decide between one and two. I mean, for a while, I was just going to give it a one.

I'm like, oh, but it had a little more identity to that. I was going to give it a two, but I'm like, oh, I don't know if it's really worthy of being a two. So I went back and forth. So I gave it a one and a half. So we got one and a half. So we got one and a half. So let's talk about Metalcraft. Oh, the one thing about Affinity, by the way, for those who don't know,

I actually did try to bring Affinity back in Scarves of Mirrodin, interestingly, as we head into Metalcraft. I really, one of the reasons we, for those who don't know the quick story of Scarves of Mirrodin, originally it was just going to be a new Phyrexia, or a new Phyrexia, and then the end of the block you learn, oh, this used to be

Mirrodin. And then realize we were missing a cool story of how Mirrodin fell to new Phyrexia. And so we ended up starting with it being back in Mirrodin. And one of the cool things about Phyrexians invading Mirrodin, the whole point of the Scarves of Mirrodin block was to reintroduce the Phyrexians as a real threat.

They had been in early magic, they had been a big villain in magic, but you hadn't seen them for a while since invasion, so we were bringing them back. And we really wanted to give them a win. We wanted the bad guys to have a big win. And who better? I mean, this was an artifact plane, and Phyrexians love artifacts. So it felt like a neat place to have Phyrexia, but also we liked the idea that, you know, Mirrodin was this really powerful block, and so people really think of Mirrodin as being powerful. So we liked the idea of going up against this powerful force, and so we were going to do Affinity from Artifacts, or at least I wanted to do Affinity from Artifacts, to sort of remind you, like, I thought it was kind of cool that imprint in Affinity from Artifacts,

so we come back to Mirrodin, like, some of the powerful stuff from Mirrodin's there, and in the end, we decided the risk ratio just wasn't worth it, and that, you know, development thought they could do affinity from artifacts and not be broken. But they weren't sure. And part of what we do for constructed is we don't know everything. We kind of put things where we think. And then sometimes we're a little under. Sometimes we're a little over. I mean, if we can figure out what we're doing, then you're going to figure it out overnight.

So development doesn't, like, solve. They sort of make an interesting puzzle and make sure that it's relatively in the area they want but there's some ability to miss things and we felt like missing on affinity for artifacts like look it burned a lot of people back in the day and the idea is if we missed on it again it just would be really bad and but if we played it safe well then why you know like it why take a mechanic that we can't risk, you know, overshooting a little bit accidentally if it happens? And so we ended up not doing Affinity from Artifacts. Instead, we did Metalcraft. So Metalcraft was designed by Mark Globus.

Oh, by the way, so equipment was designed by the whole Mirrodin design team. So it was me and Aaron Forsythe and Tyler Bielman and Brian Tinsman, I believe. In fact, was the Scars Mirrodin design team. I sort of did the basics of Infect. And then Mark Gottlieb, I know, added a bunch in.

So it was me and Mark Gottlieb and Mark Globus. And who else was on the... Affinity was me adapting an idea from Mike Elliott Mike in uh an earlier set had proposed something uh and I sort of tweaked it quite a bit so Affinity was my tweak of a Mike Elliott mechanic from many years before um Metalcraft was made by Mark Globus uh to try. Mark Globus was in the original Great Designer Search. He came in fourth, ended up getting an internship, not in R&D, but slowly worked his way to R&D.

And he really was interested in improving his design skills, so he worked with Bill Rose. And Bill had him design his own set. And in that set, one of the mechanics he made was MetalCraft. So Mark was on the Scars of Mirrodin team when we were looking for an affinity from artifacts, light, something that had the flavor affinity from artifacts without being quite as potentially problemsome.

He presented Metalcraft. And so Metalcraft, like I said, says if you have three or more artifacts then you get an upgrade. And it didn't have to go on just artifacts. It could go on other things as well. But it proved, it proved, it did a good job of sort of feeling Mirrodin-ish. I graded it a one because it's pretty workhorse-y. It was not particularly exciting, especially, you know, in the shadow of affinity for artifacts. But it did do a pretty good job of sort of, you know,

it did a strong job, I feel, of sort of creating the feel we wanted. And there was some gameplay there. Once again, kind of like Affinity, there's not, it's instructional only and it tells you to play Artifacts. It lets you play less artifacts than Affinity. Affinity for artifacts really said, look, you know, play as many artifacts as you can. Metalcraft said play enough artifacts but not as many as you can, which allowed us to have other things in the deck. So it's a little

better as far as deck building, but it was less exciting. I mean, Affinity I gave one and a half because it's definitely more exciting. I gave Metalcraft only a one. So after two grades, we have Mirrodin is four and a half and Scars of Mirrodin is four. So four and a half to four. So we go on to the third mechanic, Imprint. So Imprint was in both sets.

So Imprint came about, I designed Imprint. In fact, I was inspired by a design that I had done, a design that Brian Tinsman had done. He and I each made a card where you used a card from your hand as a resource. I'd made a card, what you guys know as Soul Sculptor, I'd made a card called Clone Machine, which essentially was that card. And Brian had made a different card.

But both of us had a mechanic where you sort of put a card aside and you mattered that's what the card was. And I really liked the idea of, well, what if that was just a mechanic? What if the idea was that you could use a card and then that was a way to have a memory issue that was large. Normally, we make you decide something. It has to be pretty simple because you've got to remember it. So it's like pick a color, pick a creature type, or pick something that's pretty easy to remember. This was a little more grandiose. It's like, pick a whole card.

And because you're using the card as a marker, because the card is literally, you know, exiled and you can look at it, you could do much more complex things. And so Imprint was, it's funny, imprint was a really cool mechanic in that it really allowed you to do very different things. But it was a very limited mechanic. There wasn't a lot we could do with it. We, in fact, I think if you look at original Mirrodin, by the time we got to the third set,

like I think there was one imprint card in the third set, enough to sort of say hey it's there um and that we'd kind of run out of steam and when we got back to it i i really wanted to explore and find some new space to do imprint we found a little bit but it really was pretty restrictive um imprint is cool and there's usually a couple cards you can find that are really top notch. Like, it's a mechanic that you can make a few just knock out gangbuster cards out of it. But then you kind of run out of space. And it doesn't, it's the kind of thing where you can make a few splashy cards. But you just can't make a lot of cards at any one time with it. So I ended up giving it a two.

I feel that, like, it has a lot of splashiness to it. When it's working, it's working. it has a lot of splashiness to it. When it's working, it's working and it has potential for superstar-ishness. But it never quite get there. It's always kind of like, oh, there's a couple of cards that are really awesome. And then the mechanic as a whole is never quite as awesome as the best cards kind of imply it will be. So I gave it a two. Okay. So after three mechanics, we have, it is six and a half for Mirrodin, and it is six for Scars of Mirrodin. So very close.

Dun-da-dun-dun, dun-da-dun-dun. We go to the fourth mechanic. So that is Entwine for Mirrodin, and it is Proliferate for Scars of Mirrodin. Okay, so Entwine, if you guys know the story, what happened, in fact, I can tell the full story now. So what happened was I had made energy for original Mirrodin. I was really happy with it, but energy took up a lot of space. Bill correctly said, you know what, Mark, you have too much going on.

We've got to pull something out. Energy is the most self-sufficient that we can pull out that isn't connected to other stuff. I agreed with him, even though I was sad to see energy go. What Bill said is, it wasn't that he didn't want four mechanics. He did want four mechanics. He said, can we find something that,

probably something that didn't have to go on artifacts. Because if you look at the other mechanics, equipment was all artifacts. It only went on artifacts. Imprint, we only put on artifacts. Andprint we only put on artifacts. And Affinity and Metalcraft, well, it went on artifacts. It went on non-artifacts as well, but they cared so much about artifacts. They were so artifact-centric.

So he wanted something that, you know, wasn't about artifacts at all. So, in fact, something that didn't need to go on artifacts. And so we had talked a lot about what we wanted. And in the end, I went to sleep one night with it on my brain obviously and I dreamed up Entwine. So Entwine is a mechanic that's modal meaning it gives you two choices of what to do and then if you pay the additional cost you get both modes rather than one mode. And the idea is the two modes, when combined, did something cool. So the idea was either mode was neat, but combining them by spending extra mana,

you really got a really flavorful thing. And that the two modes together tend to be greater than the sum of their parts. That they always had some synergy between them. So Entwine was definitely a cool mechanic, and I feel like it really did some neat things in how we thought of modal. It definitely was a very innovative mechanic, and it really, a lot of things that followed. I think if you look at stuff like the commands or just how we started dealing with some modal things, it really opened up our mind about how you can treat modal things differently. And the idea that you can pick more than one choice was, I think, a pretty bold thing.

And Entwined was very well-received. And once again, it was more well-received not just because of the power level, because there were a few powerful cards, but it really was sort of splashing the concept of what it was. And like I said, it was really paving new ground. The idea that it was modal, but you said, it was really paving new ground. The idea that it was modal, but you had an option of choosing more than one mode was a neat idea. So I even twined a two.

Then we get to proliferate. So proliferate started because I was trying to play with the disease flavor of the Phyrexians. Originally, it only cared about minus one, minus one counters and poison counters. The idea was the disease is spreading. And originally, it was just like, you know, the disease is spreading. And so this is you fanning the flames of the disease, if you will, of the Phyrexians. So I designed it. And then Mark Globus, who was on the team made a good

suggestion of he said why restrict this to just minus one minus one and poison why not just care about any counters and the thing that that did was awesome is we ended up doing a charge counter theme in Scars of Mirrodin because we had a charge counter theme in original Mirrodin

because when energy went away I used charge counters to kind of fill in the space for what that had been. So charge counters were already tied to Mirrodin and by doing charge counters and then having proliferate care about any counter it allowed you to use proliferate on the Mirrodin side and have it be a positive thing rather than a negative thing. Like on the Phyrexian side it was you used it to fan negative things on your opponent but on the Phyrexian and on the Mirrod to fan negative things on your opponent. But on the Myridan side, you fan positive things for yourself. So it really did neat things.

Polyphorate was really popular. It's the kind of mechanic that we want to bring back. I did try to bring it back in Kaladesh. We tried really hard. Even though it seems like the perfect fit, because it does care about energy counters, and it does care about plus and plus one, there was a mismatch on how much it cared about different things it cared about plus one plus one so much more than care about energy um that it was a hard fit and we

did we couldn't quite make it work we really did try and i my promise to you people is proliferate the kind of mechanic i'm looking out for i will find a place to bring back proliferate i really do like proliferate i know the audience loves proliferate. I know the audience loves proliferate. It was a really popular mechanic. Really, really popular mechanic. It was the second most popular mechanic in the block. And one day, one day I will find a way to bring it back. Just unfortunately, as much as it felt like

it seemed like the perfect fit for Kaladesh, but we tried it and it actually caused a bunch of problems. So proliferate, I'm going to give a 3. It was a superstar mechanic. Okay, so now we have to add up all of problems. So, Proliferate, I'm going to give a 3. It was a superstar mechanic. Okay, so now we have to add up all the things. So, Equipment had a 3. Affinity

had a 1.5. Imprint had a 2. Entwine had a 2. Infect had a 3. Metalcraft had a 1. Imprint had a 2. Proliferate had a 3. So, we add them all up. That's 8.5 for Mirrodin and 9 for Scars Mirrodin. Scars Mirrodin pulls slightly ahead in the Mirrodin Showdown. So after one full fall block, we are 8.5 to 9.

Dun, dun, dun. Okay, we move on to the second set. Each one's a small set. So for Mirrodin, that was Darksteel. And for Scars Mirrodin, that was Mirrodin Besieged. Okay, so the next thing we'll talk about is indestructible. So indestructible in dark steel

is where the mechanic first appeared. We really were trying to figure out, Bill had asked me what would be cool about artifacts? And I said, what if you couldn't destroy them? And so I came up with indestructible as a means to like, well what do people most dislike about artifacts is when their opponent destroys them.

Well, what are the artifacts you couldn't destroy? So we ended up making, now indestructible originally was just an English word. It wasn't actually a keyword. It's just like, well, it means what it means in English, can't be destroyed. What does that mean? Well, whenever you try to destroy it through any means, it can't be destroyed. Now, sometimes the game tries to destroy it. That's where it gets a little confusing. So obviously Indestructible ended up being evergreen keyword and ended up becoming evergreen first and then a keyword second.

I ended up giving it a two, not because I don't like it. I think it's a really, really strong workhorse mechanic, so much so that obviously we brought it to be evergreen. And I think it's a really, really strong workhorse mechanic, so much so that obviously we brought it to be evergreen. And I think it has some splashiness to it. I just think it was never a, I don't know, it was never a superstar. It was sort of always a good player. And by the way, you don't need to be a superstar to get to evergreen status. I mean, I do think equipment was a superstar. I think the Instructable was just really solid. But so solid and the idea that it advanced to evergreen status and the fact that it

does have some excitement to play with. So I give it a two. So it's not, it's better than a workhorse but it's not a superstar. Okay, so now we go to Mirrored and Besieged.

So what we did for Mirrored and Besieged was we had a Mirrored and Besieged mechanic and we had a Frexy mechanic. There was a giant war going on. Mirrored and Besieged was we had a Mirrodin mechanic and we had a Phrexian mechanic. There was a giant war going on. Mirrodin Besiege was the war. In fact, at the pre-release, you chose a booster pack, and either you chose a Phrexian booster pack or a Mirrodin booster pack. And so we wanted to make sure that each side had a mechanic.

So Battlecry, which was designed by, I want to say Mark Gottlieb and Mark Globus, I think. So basically the way it worked, and I think I tweaked it a little bit, it said whenever you attack with a creature with Battlecry, he gives plus one, plus oh to all attacking creatures. So he's the kind of guy that leads you in battle and makes everybody stronger. But he himself has to get in battle, which means that you're always putting him at risk when you use his ability. Battlecry was a fine ability. It definitely plays well. It's clean. It's a workhorse mechanic. It's the

definition of a workhorse mechanic. It was never super exciting. It wasn't super innovative. It just was a nice, clean execution. Now, that said, it's a good mechanic. I think we will bring it back. You know, I think it's the kind of mechanic that, in the right place, does good work. But it was never super exciting. It was just mechanic that, in the right place, does good work. But, it was never super exciting. It was just really solid. So I'm giving Battlecry a 1. So after one mechanic in the small set, we now have a total

of Mirrodin 10, Skars of Mirrodin 9.5. Dun-da-dun-dun, dun-da-dun-dun. Okay, move to the second mechanic. So the second mechanic in Darksteel was Modular. So Modular was a mechanic that said, I'm a 0-0 creature.

Well, either I was a creature or I was a non-creature artifact. I think I was always an artifact. If you were a creature, you were a 0-0 creature. I think you were always 0-0. You might have had base stats other than 0-0. But you came into play with n plus 1 plus 1 counters, where it was modular n. And then if you ever died, all counters on you, all plus 1 plus 1 counters, where it was modular n. And then if you ever died,

all counters on you, all plus one plus one counters on you would move to another creature. So the idea was not only did you sort of save the power of the creature when it died, but if you ever put plus one plus one counters on it through other means, you've got to save that as well. So these creatures were really positive with plus one plus one counters.

We made modular because I was trying to do a fixed version of the chimeras from Visions, which were cards that just had memory issues. Kind of like, when I die, just a creature gets plus two, plus two, and has vigilance. And just remember that show, you know. So I think modular was... I liked the gameplay in modular.

I ended up giving it a one because I think it's a little more workhorse-y. It was never super splashy. Never sort of got quite the excitement. I think Indestructible was definitely the splash of the two mechanics. So I give Modular a 1. So Living Weapon... So Living Weapon was...

They were equipment that came with a 0-0 black germ token and they came equipped to it. So the idea was they were equipment that were always alive, that when you cast them, they kind of came alive. You could always de-equip them to equip something else, but then the 0-0 germ would die. So if you ever unequipped them to equip something else,

or you ever equipped something else, just the germ went away. I think it was a really innovative mechanic. It was really flavorful. I gave it a 2, not because it wasn't fun or cool, but it had a really narrow design space. I mean, it had to be equipment that granted toughness. And there just was not a lot of room.

I mean, we ended up using it in Mirrored and Mystique and just a little tiny bit in New Phyrexia. But it was kind of a cool mechanic. It was really different. It was innovative and it was fun. And it definitely made you think about equipment a little differently. But I couldn't give it a three. It wasn't quite a superstar.

It was really restrictive in how we could design for it, so I gave it a two. Okay, so after the small set, the first small set, Mirrodin now sits at 11.5, while Scars of Mirrodin sits at 12. 11.5 to 12 in the Mirrodin showdown. Very close. Okay, now we go to the final set.

So the final set was Fifth Dawn for Mirrodin Block and New Phyrexia. Okay, so in Fifth Dawn we ran into a problem, which was we really had painted ourselves into a corner because Mirrity

was kind of broken, and Darksteel was not as broken, not as broken, but also somewhat broken. And so by the time we got to fifth dawn, it was kind of like, hey, you know that whole making artifacts better thing? It's nay on the artifacts better thing, you know, like, pull back. But that's the block, it's an

artifact block. So we came up with a really hard right turn, which I'll get to in a second with Sunburst. And we made the set all about five color. But the first thing I want to talk about is Scry. One of the things that Aaron, Aaron Forsythe at the time ran the website, and we brought him on this team so that he could write an article about the experience. He'd wanted to try his hand at design. We're like, okay.

You know, Aaron knew magic. We'll let Aaron come. He can make some cards, and then we'll get a good article out of it, was kind of the thought. The fifth design team was me, Randy Buehler, Aaron Forsythe, and a guy named Greg Marks, who didn't even work at Wizards at the time,

but later would. But anyway, Scry ended up being...so the mechanic of Scry is Scry N, you look at N cards on top of your library, then you may put them back in any combination both on top and on bottom of your library. So Scry 2...Scry 1 is look at the top of your library, put on top or bottom, your choice. Scry 2 is look at the top two cards of your library, put either or both of them on top of your library, and then the remaining ones on the bottom in any order if you put two on the bottom. And so the

idea was that you're peeking into the future, that's what Scry means. It was flavorful, it was really, the utility was wonderful. Scry came back like three different sets before we finally just made it evergreen. Scry was one of those mechanics that was just super flavorful. People really loved it. It was just useful. So I'm giving

it a three. I think it was really was a superstar mechanic. It was just so it did so much and people really liked it and it just smoothed everything and made it just was a great great innovation. So much so that we finally said why do we keep trying to do variants of Scry? Let's just put Scry in our toolbox. And we did. So Scry gets a 3. So now we get to New Phyrexia. So New Phyrexia, its major mechanic was Phyrexian mana.

So the idea of Phyrexian mana was it was colored mana that had a Phyrexian symbol, like it was a red mana, but you'd see the Phyrexian symbol, like it was a red mana, but you'd see the Phyrexian symbol, the Phi in Latin. Phi, Phi, Phyrexian. So the idea was that Phyrexian mana, instead of, you could pay two life in exchange for paying for that color. So like if you had a green Phyrexian mana, it either costs a green mana or two life. And so what it'll let you do is it'll let you sort of circumvent costs and circumvent a certain set of color pie.

I thought Phyrexian Mana was a really cool mechanic. People liked it. It caused a bunch of developmental issues. It caused some color pie issues. I don't believe it's inherently broken or anything. I believe just you have to be careful, and you have to treat the mechanics on it a lot like you treat artifacts, which is how I always thought of it but the mechanic was used to push some stuff that I thought was problematic you know, mental misstep for example was a counterspell that everybody should have access to

stuff like that so anyway, I gave Phyrexian Mana a 2 because I felt like I felt like it really was... What's the word I'm looking for? It was a cool mechanic. It was innovative. It was exciting.

But it also had some brokenness to it. It was dangerous. So I gave it a two. Okay, so after one mechanic in the second small set, it is, let's see, Mirrodin, 14 and a half. Scars of Mirrodin, 14. So we get to the final mechanic,

Sunburst and the War gimmick. So Sunburst was a mechanic where the hard right turn I talked about, what happened was it went on, I think it went on Artifacts, just because we were trying to make an Artifact relevant. And what it said was, when you cast this, it cared about how many colors you spent on it. It went on both creatures and non-creatures. On creatures, for every color you spent, it got a plus one, plus one counter. On artifacts, it got charge counters. So, for example, if you cost five, and you could spend a white, a blue, a black, a red, and a green on it, you could get five counters.

you could get five counters. Sunburst's problem was we made such a hard turn and we hadn't planned ahead of time for it that nothing in Mirrodin really was there to help you play five colors. And we put a little bit into Darksteel at the last second because we were aware of what we were doing. This is also the time in which you drafted the sets in order. So this wasn't a third pack.

There was no help in the first pack. It really wasn't a theme that was easy to support. And it wasn't particularly a sexy theme. So I gave it a 1. It's not a dud. I didn't give it a 0. I do feel there was fun gameplay there. I do think if supported, it could have done some cool stuff.

My issue really was it didn't end up getting supported. So I give the mechanic a 1. I think that it wasn't, it was, it gets some points for being innovative, but it really did not excite anybody. But a lot of that had to do more with the larger set. The final set was, or finally, not the final mechanic, is the war gimmick. So what we did in Mirrodin, Scar's Mirrodin block, is we had a giant war and we didn't tell you how it ended. The final set, in fact, when people ordered the final set, when stores ordered the final set we said to them, it will either be

called New Phyrexia or Mirrodin Pure. If Phyrexians wins, it'll be New Phyrexia. If Mirrodin wins, it'll be Mirrodin Pure. There's a giant war and it was exciting. People were talking about it. One of the problems with it is we didn't convey well enough.

People kind of thought that somehow they were going to have an impact on the war. Like Mirrodin Besiege, for example, had you choose a booster pack. And there were some people who thought, oh, whatever won at the Mirrodin Besiege pre-release would determine what the outcome of the war was. And the point was we have to work so far ahead that we already knew the outcome of the war. It actually turned out that more people picked Phyenpax than Mirrodinpax, so had we actually done that, we didn't. But had we actually done that, Frexen would have

been Mirrodin. I think it was like 52-48 or something. I do like the boldness of it. I did like the conversation it started. I did like how people really like, it's us innovating in a place we never innovated. Innovating in set names

like you don't get a lot of innovation in set names and so it really did something pretty cool and it i think the whole block had a cohesiveness in fact scars of mirrored and i call it the beginning of the fourth age of design and this was part of it in that the block had an identity you know there was a war there was an outcome and the whole point of the block had an identity. There was a war. There was an outcome. And the whole point of the block led toward something. It led toward... It had a scope to it. That it wasn't just...

Before that, a lot of times, it's like, oh, it's just another set and here's a new mechanic. But this was like, no, no, no. The set had a cohesiveness to it. There was a feel for it. You were rooting for the Frexians or rooting for the Mirrens. And people really you know, people really, oh no, like when we finally announced what happened,

there were people like, yes, I won the Frexians-Windsor. Oh no, no, Mirrodin is lost. Like, it meant something to people. Like, it was funny how we said, you know what, we want to dial back and show the fall of Mirrodin. And what ended up doing is we really did we showed it in a an emotional way like if you cared about Mirrodin you watched it fall it fell and you didn't know along the way what was going to happen much like the people of Mirrodin kind of didn't know and it made a suspense that the block would not normally have had if we had just told you upfront it's called new for exit it's what it's called it would have been like from the first thing like oh well okay let's watch Mirrored and fall like but we didn't do that

and so that was pretty cool um but was it a superstar um it was neat it was innovative uh it caused a little bit of problems like like i said there's a little bit of confusion about what influence the audience had so i ended up giving the war gimmick a two. Solid. Good. Did a lot of good work. Not quite a superstar, but I thought really, really solid. So when you add them up, that means Mirrodin had 15 and a half, and Scars of Mirrodin had 16. In the Mirrodin Showdown, Scars of Mirrodin Showdown! Scars of Mirrodin defeats Mirrodin! So this was really close to recap Equipment 3, Affinity 1.5, Imprint 2, Entwined 2, Indestructible 2, Modular 1, Scry 3, Sunburst 1, where Scars of Mirrodin had Infect 3, Metal Craft 1, Imprint 2, Proliferate 3, Battle Cry 1, Living Weapon 2, Phyrexian Mana 2, The Wargaming 2.

So they were really close. It is true that Mirrodin had more mechanics that ended up being evergreen, but it also was from eight years earlier. So the earlier on in Magic, the easier it is to get things to be evergreen, just because there's more space that you get to find that hasn't been found,

that's more virgin space to discover than later on in Magic's life. Both set had two showstoppers. I had Equipment and Scry being the showstoppers in Mirrodin. I had Infection and Proliferate being the showstoppers in Scars of Mirrodin. The twos were Imprint, Entwined, Indestructible, and then the

other set was Imprint, Living Weapon, Phyrexian Man, and the Wargimmick. And then the ones in the set that were, well, one and a half for Affinity, one for Modular, one for Sunburst, and then we had Metalcraft and Battlecry having one, and Scars for Mirrodin. So overall, if I look at them, it was really, really close.

I think that Scars and Mirrodin just ekes out Mirrodin by having a few less, sort of lower mechanics. Like I said, it only had two ones in my mind, which is Metalcraft and Battlecry. And the rest of the mechanics were just a little more solid mechanics. A little more innovative in some ways. And there definitely was some innovation in Mirrodin, obviously. But Scarlet Mirrodin being, whatever, eight years later,

the fact that I think there's even a little more innovation in it, it's impressive, you know. But anyway, they both were awesome sets. I mean, 15.5 to 16 is really, really close. So the answer was they both were awesome sets. There were a lot of cool things in both sets. And Scars of Mirrodin just barely ekes out Mirrodin

in the Mirrodin Showdown. But I'm here to drop off my daughter. So we gotta end the Mirrodin Showdown. But I hope you guys enjoy it. I we got to end the Mirrodin showdown. But I hope you guys enjoy it. I hope you enjoy the new format for the showdown. I think this is the way I need to do in the future just because I can't so cleanly match things up

like I did in Ravnica. But anyway, if you guys enjoy this, I will do some more showdowns. For sure, I have at least one more world that we revisited that I can talk about. So probably the next showdown will be Dun-da-dun-da, Innistrad showdown! We'll have to figure that one out because it's a three-step

versus a two-step. But I'll figure that out before then. But anyway, thanks for joining me, and we all know what this means since I'm at my daughter's school that it's time to end my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So thank you guys for joining me, and I'll see you next time.