Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #389 - Urza's Destiny, Part 3

Episode Date: December 2, 2016

Part three (of four) of Mark's series on the design of Urza's Destiny.

I'm pulling out my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, last couple of podcasts I've been talking all about the design of Urza's Destiny. But I've not finished yet, so we will continue on with Urza's Destiny. Okay, I think we were up to H. Heartwarden. So Heartwarden is a creature that costs one and a green, so two mana, one of which is green, for a 1-1 elf druid. Tap, add green mana to your mana pool, or, second ability, two and mana, one of which is green, for a 1-1 elf druid, tap add green mana to your mana pool, or second ability, two and sack draw a card. Okay, so this is a good example of a cycling from play creature. So the idea was, I want to give you a creature that had some utility, but

there would come a point where you just didn't need it anymore. So an elf that produces mana is a good example, because early on it helps you get your things out. But there comes a point in the game where I have enough land, I don't really need it, it's small so I'm not gonna attack with it, where I'm happy to trade it in. And one of the tricks to finding neat things to do for cycling from play is trying to find stuff in which there was a use for it. There was something in which you know when and where you wanted it, and at some point you would want to trade it in. And this was a good example of a card where it's very valuable in the early game. You know, turn two, you drop it. It lets you get out your four drop, a turn earlier and such. But once you have enough land and you don't need it, you can cycle it away. So anyway, this was a good example of where I think cycling from play works the best, where there's a

reason that you would, there's a reason that you would, there's a reason that the card would eventually become obsolete and you'd be happy to trade it in. Next, Hunting Moa. So it's two and a green, three mana total, one of which is green, for a 3-2 bird beast. It's got echo of two and a green, it's mana cost. And then when it enters or it dies, you put a plus one, plus one counter on target creature. Okay, so one of the things we messed around with, we were doing death triggers in the set, but I also wanted to play around with things that not just death triggers, but also enter the battlefield triggers. So the idea is, coming and going, this thing can give you a bonus. And like we said before, one of the things we did with echo creatures is,

we messed around with having enter the battlefield effects on Echo Creatures and Urza's Legacy. And we are messing around here in Urza's Destiny with creatures having Enter the Battlefield or Leave the Battle play, so Death Triggers. So, of course, we wanted to have a little bit that tried some of both. The idea here is Hunting MOA has a couple choices. and one of the reasons this particular one is good is, you can decide whether or not you want to put a plus one, plus one counter on the Hunting MOA. And if you do, obviously that dictates how you, whether or not you want to spend the Echo cost on it. So, for example, I, for two and a green, if I choose to put the counter on itself, it's a four, three creature. Well, that's pretty good. I mean, now, given I have to pay its echo, I've got to pay the 2 green in the next

turn, but I can play 2 green, make it a 4-3 creature, next turn pay a 2G and keep the 4-3. But if I put a counter on itself, then okay, now I'm really encouraged to pay for it to keep it around. But if I want to put a counter somewhere else, I can do that and then I can just let it go. So for 2

and a green, I essentially could get 2 plus 1 counters out of it. And so that is a good example that a lot of what I was trying to do was take different components and mix and match them together. Because Death Triggers, like I said, worked well with Echo,

worked well with cycling from play, and it just comboed with a bunch of different things. I talked about how I wanted more sac effects. It also meant that you could be a little bit more aggressive in play. Like, one of the neat things about this thing was, let's say I put my 3-2 into play, and then I put a pulse of counter on something else, and then I can attack with my 3-2 MOA and that something else, and then if you block the MOA and kill it, well, then something else just gets stronger, you know, and there's a lot of neat decisions that go into it. I mean, Death

Strikers has some cool play value in that you have to kind of figure out the value of losing the creature versus what the bonus is. And so, for your opponent, if I attack with a 3-2, yeah, they can block with a 2-power creature and kill it, but that's going to change things. That's going to change how my other creatures

are. So, anyway, it's an interesting decision. The other story about hunting moa is, so for those that don't know, one of the things we tend to do in general is we make birds. And one of the rules we have now is pretty much birds fly. What we found is, and hunting moa is a good example of this, hunting moa, moa is an actual real creature. It's a real bird. And the actual moa is don't fly. What we found is, and hunting moa is a good example of this, hunting moa, moa is an actual real creature. It's a real bird. And the actual moas don't fly. So they're like, okay, we're making a moa. Moas don't fly. We'll say it doesn't fly. Here's the problem is most people don't know what a moa is. A moa is not that well known. So the idea

that a moa, like, you have to know what a moa is to also know that it's a bird that doesn't fly. So we made something that looked like a bird. It looked like a bird in the picture. So people made the assumption because they saw even though the bird wasn't in flight in the picture they saw a bird like well it's a bird. Birds fly. And so one of the rules we have now is

all birds fly and the only exception we make these days is if it is super iconic, well-known, iconic, for not flying. Meaning, I think if we made an ostrich or a penguin or something that was a really, really well-known bird that's kind of known for not flying, maybe we consider not flying. But pretty much any bird we make now, we just put flying on it because the assumption is from the audience that, oh, it's a bird, birds fly. And it's just easier for us to say, okay, birds fly. As a general rule of thumb, we tend to avoid non-flight birds. We don't tend to make MOAs anymore because MOA is in this weird space where if you know

something about MOAs, you know they don't fly. So if we say it's a MOA, some people would expect it not to fly if they understand what a bird is. But a larger group doesn't know what a MOA is and it's just a bird and they assume birds fly. So a moa is in this weird space where some people have an expectation that it flies and some people have an expectation that it doesn't fly. And so it's tricky because, you know, a moa is a bird.

It looks like a bird. So when people see a bird, there's just some expectation that some people have. And so it's a poor example. We tend to avoid flightless birds in general. I think that there's a few, like maybe the penguin or the ostrich that might be so iconic. I think a lot more people know what an ostrich looks like than knows what a moa looks like, for example. That said, other than ostrich showing up in the art of formation in Legends, I don't think we've ever had an ostrich on the card. We've never had a bird creature type that wasn't ostrich.

So who knows? Maybe one day you'll see a bird. Okay, next. Iridescent Drake. So Iridescent Drake costs three and a blue. So it's four mana, one of which is blue, for a 2-2 Drake. It is flying because all Drakes fly. When it enters the battlefield, put

an aura in any graveyard onto the battlefield, enchanting Iridescent Drake. So the idea is, it's something that picks up auras from the graveyard. And when it enters the battlefield, it goes, oh, are there any auras in the graveyard? And then it can get one. So one of the things like I said, is we're always trying to find ways

to help out with the card disadvantage of auras. And this is a good example of a different kind of way to do it. What this thing says is, okay, look, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that auras sometimes get in the graveyard, and this thing gets a free aura, assuming that's true. So what that means is it encourages you to play with enough auras that this could happen. Or the flip side, if you have enough auras, you might want to play this creature. And we had stuff like the growing auras. You know, we had a bunch of auras in the set. And so I think what happens is I recognize that people enjoy playing auras, that auras are fun for people to play. So one of the things that I always try to do as a designer is if I recognize

people like something, even if it's not necessarily a great thing strategically to do, I want to make sure people have fun. So you want to put a lot of auras in your deck? I'll give you this creature. You know, it'll pick up an aura and it just, you know, there's a lot of added value if you get a free aura. It just requires you playing auras. And anyway, I

that's most of what this card is there. It was trying to say, hey, you want to play an aura deck. In Limited, there were some... Every once in a while you'd get enough auras that actually made sense in Unlimited you'd play this. But really this was much more of a casual, constructed sort of card. Okay, next. Junk Driver.

Costs three mana for a 1-1 artifact creature. It's a bird. It's flying. When it dies, you return another artifact creature, sorry, another artifact that doesn't have to be a creature, in your graveyard to your hand. So the idea, essentially, is Junk Driver, its death trigger is, you get back

an artifact. And like I said, for as much as we were trying to make this an enchantment block, there's a lot of good artifacts. And so Junk Driver proved to be pretty efficient. You know, you got a little 3-mana 1-1 and then you, essentially when it dies, you get back an artifact.

So, you know, it, for a little while, have a little flying creature. You can use it to block or something and then, you know, you get to turn it into something else. It particularly worked well in decks that cared about artifacts,

just heavy artifact decks because usually if you had a heavy artifact deck, you cared about artifacts. This wasn't artifacts, so you got to care about being an artifact. And then it traded itself for another artifact, which you then could care about again. Kingfisher. 2-2 bird. Another 3-U 2-2 bird. So another 3-U 2-2

flyer. This one had a Death Trigger that drew you a card. So this is where Kingfisher first came from. I was really playing around with Death Triggers and so I decided it would be fun to do in blue a Death Trigger that drew you a card. So this is where Kingfisher first came from. I was really playing around with Death Triggers and so I decided it would be fun to do in blue a Death Trigger that drew you a card.

This card ended up being, like, it's been in a whole bunch of core sets. It's just a nice, clean, simple card. It's sort of like I get a little flyer and then

my opponent can deal with it. It then replaces itself so I don't have any card disadvantage if it dies. Okay, Lurking Jackals. Lurking Jackals is an enchantment that costs B, a single black mana. So this is one of the... So if an opponent has 10 or less life, it becomes a 3-2 Hound.

So one of the things that I definitely tried to do is, there were some themes that were out for the block, that were in Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy, so I continued here in Urza's Destiny. This was their enchantment. I think we called it the Waking Enchantments. They were enchantments

that they started as enchantments and then under the right conditions they could wake up, if you will, and become creatures. So it's funny. This one, I don't know if this is the first one to ever trigger off a point

of being 10 or less life. Obviously the vampires did that in Innistrad. Well, not Innistrad. In Zendikar, sorry. There was a vampire thing in Zendikar. But anyway, so Lurking Jekylls. Obviously, it's a

hound, which the ongoing fight I really, really want so cats are cats. I want dogs to be dogs. Because the problem is a hound really is a kind of dog. And a lot of the things we label hounds aren't really hounds. But I somehow have not won the hound-dog fight. I have it all the time.

I bring it up every couple years. I don't know. I think there's more dog. Maybe if I bring it up soon. I don't know. But anyway, it's a fight I've never managed to win. Marker beetles. So marker beetles cost one green green.

So three mana, two which is green, for a 2-3 insect, and when it dies, target creature gets a plus, gets plus one plus one until end of turn. And for two in sac, you can draw a card. Okay, so here's another thing I was messing around with, is death triggers obviously were a theme on the set. Cycling from play was a theme on the set. If you mix and match them, what you do is you get death triggers that you can control when they happen. So that allows me to put something that really more wants to be kind of an instant than a sorcerer, if you will. Like some effects, for example, when the creature dies, okay, fine, I get this effect. This is not a great effect to have when you die. If I attack with my Mercury Beetle, the 2-3, and then you kill it, and

then target creature gets plus one, plus one, I mean, it's too late to save anything, and it's too late, or mostly it's too late for the damage to mean anything. It'll be too late to attack. So its death trigger is the kind of thing that's not a great death trigger. It's not something we normally put on a creature. Aha! But by mixing it with a second ability, by putting the cycling from play, now I can

troll when I do it. Built into the creature is the ability to sacrifice it. And so the idea is that whenever I need help, I can sacrifice this, get plus one plus one, save my creature, and get a card. And so, like I said, one of the fun things is finding components when you're designing. You want to have a modular build.

And so the nice thing about a modular build is that different things can work together. And so I really liked how this sort of, the pieces I was picking to my thing, they all click together in different ways. Death Triggers, oh, Death Triggers go with Cycling from Play, but Death Triggers go with Echo. But, you know, Echo can work with Cycling from Play. Different things can work together. Although, did I make any Echo Cycling from Play? I believe I made one. Okay,

next, Masticore. So Masticore is an artifact creature. It's a four-manifor, four-four masticore. So for those that don't get it, by the way, the joke in the name is a manticore is a traditional fantasy creature. Mast in Latin is to eat. So the idea is it's a manticore, but a hungry manticore. So it's a masticore because it chews things, and you have to constantly feed it. Anyway, beginning of upkeep, you have to sacrifice it unless you discard a card. Always eating cards from your hand. For two mana you can deal one damage to a target creature or for two mana you can regenerate it.

So basically this card was inspired by a card called Mishra's War Machine. Mishra's War Machine was I think was a 5-5 creature that could ban and you had to sack a card to it, discard a card to it every turn for upkeep. And it just wasn't quite worth it. But I liked the idea of that upkeep, making a creature that was worthy of it. And Master Core was worthy of it. Master Core was a high-level tournament card, very good card. And it had the card disadvantage, you had to discard cards to it,

but wow, it could attack for a disadvantage, it had discard cards to it, but wow, it could attack for a lot, it could eat up the, because it could do damage to things, it could clear creatures off the battlefield. So Master Guard ended up being a very powerful card. In fact, Urza's Destiny, one of the themes you'll see here is there were a lot of really good tournament cards. Even though this set was the least strong, or not least strong, the least broken of the three sets. Urza's S Legacy, and more broken cards in it. This set still had a lot of really good tournament cards. One of the things I was happy of, as the design team, was I made so many different cards that

really saw play in lots and lots of different kinds of decks. Okay, next, Metalworker. Metalworker costs three for a 1-2 artifact creature. It's a construct. Tap, reveal any number of artifact cards in your hand to add two Cullis mana. So I would say CC. Add two Cullis mana for each artifact revealed. So this was sort of tying to the reveal mechanic, although it was his own card.

So the idea was, oh, I could reveal it to you if I showed you a bunch of artifacts. For every artifact, I got two Cullis mana. And since artifacts required Cullus mana to cast, it was, in fact, Metalworker is another tournament card. It ended up going in a bunch of different decks. But it's really, really good in a heavy artifact deck.

Because what it does is it turns that artifacts into lots of mana. And if you have a heavy artifact deck, Cullus is great for you. So it's very, very effective in a heavy artifact deck. And like I said, it definitely saw a bunch of play. Next, Opalescence.

Two white, white for an enchantment. Each other non-aura enchantment is a creature with base power and toughness equal to their CMC. So what that means is, if I have an enchantment that costs two, it turns into a 2-2 creature. Now notice, this does not shut off their ability. If the enchantment that costs two, it turns into a two-two creature. Now notice this does not shut off their ability. If the enchantment has some ability, this does not shut them down.

So basically what happened was I took Titania's Song from Antiquities, but Titania's Song, I think, I think shut off the artifacts, where this one does not. I thought it'd be entertaining, like it'd be cool to say, oh, I have this enchantment and I'm attacking with be entertaining like it'd be cool to say oh I have this enchantment and I'm attacking with it but it's still doing its thing like I liked the idea that Crusade could attack for three because Crusade is a two mana enchantment that gives our creatures plus one plus one

but it would enhance itself and so it would make itself three three that tickled me Opalescence ended up being causing some problems it caused some rules problems the fact that the enchantments didn't turn off

which I the Johnny and me enjoyed the cleverness of and you could do some weird things with it but it also caused a bunch of weird things in the rules the big problem was humility in Opalescence humility was an aura not an enchantment,

a global enchantment, that turned all creatures into one-one creatures and took away all their abilities. But what happens if you take away abilities, like once Opalescence makes enchantments creatures, well, now they're creatures and they have abilities, so they go away because of, does it go away because of humility?

But if it goes away, that's the thing Opalescence says, make them turn into creatures. So anyway, it was a thorny rule of problems. So Opalescence, I think, was a lot of fun. And also it was a powerful card. It saw play as well. But it was probably more known for the rules headaches

that caused anything else. Okay, next, Opposition. So Opposition was an enchantment. It cost two blue blue. Four mana total. Two of which was blue. Tap a creature you control. Tap target artifact, creature, or land. So basically, I didn't have you tap enchantments

because enchantments really... Them being tapped doesn't mean anything. So it taps any permanent that at the time existed in the game. I'm not sure why it didn't say tap target permanent. Interestingly, now... Not that I guess tapping Planeswalkers most of the time means something. I can tap Gideon, I guess. I'm not sure why it didn't say tap target permanent interestingly enough not that I guess tapping planeswalkers most of the time means something you can tap Gideon I guess but anyway

here's a good example of a card where this card ended up getting reprinted in the base set in the core set but it was a little too good we ended up not being able to reprint it anymore this is a good example of the depth of the set, which is opposition.

There's a lot more powerful cards than opposition in the set, yet this card is still too good. Like, we still couldn't reprint in the core set. Like, we did it once and then realized we couldn't do it again. There was an entire deck built around this. It's probably not the most fun of decks. It's one of those cards where I was trying to do something inventive, and it just ended up being a little more efficient

than I anticipated when I made it. And so there was an opposition deck. It was a mono-blue deck. I think sometimes there was a blue-white version, too, I believe. But opposition is just... What you would do is you would get your creatures out, and you would lock down your opponent's mana so they couldn't do anything.

I mean, you also could tap other creatures, but mostly what you did is you locked up their mana so they couldn't cast anything. And mean, you also could tap other creatures, but mostly what you did is you locked up the mana so they couldn't cast anything. And so Opposition was a control deck, but a control deck that sort of took control of the board, in addition to having usually counter spells and such. Next, Phyrexian Negator. So two and a black, so three mana, one of which is black, for a 5-5 whore. It's got Trample, And you have to sac a permanent for each damage dealt to Phyrexian Negator. So this is a high-risk, high-reward card.

Sort of a black specialty. Like, the idea is, okay, you get three mana for a 5-5. So previously, at the time, there was a card in Arabian Knights called Juzam Jin, which was I think it was four mana for a 5-5 creature that did damage to you every upkeep.

And so, one of the things that we were trying to do is could we push the envelope a little more? Okay, well, if you can get 5-5 for 4 mana, what happens if you get a 5-5 for 3 mana? And this is a pretty big negative. Like, if your opponent can do damage

to this thing, it can wipe you out. So this is really high risk, high reward. But it was high enough reward that this is another play there's a lot of cars that saw tournament play this is another card that's our tournament play um the other thing about flexing the gator by the way from a historical context is first indicator is on the reserve list um one of the things that we the original reserve list had a loophole in it that you could print premium. It didn't cover premium cards. So we were trying to see how much we could push things.

We ended up putting Progression of the Gator in a premium version in a dual deck. That caused a whole bunch of problems and led to a lot of the tightening of... We closed that loophole so we no longer do premium versions of reserve cards. But anyway, that was the card that... That was the card from Progressive Negator, for those that like your history, that did that. Next, Plague Dogs, 4B for a 3-3 zombie hound. When it dies, all creatures get minus one, minus one until end of turn. So this is an interesting creature.

The flavor is it carries disease. So if you carry the dog, then disease spreads and, you know, it can kill some creatures. Oh, sorry, I forgot the most important part. This also is a cycling for play. Two and sack to draw a card. So this is another thing. This card is a little bit more use.

Boosting a creature plus one plus one doesn't tend to save them where minus one minus one can take a creature that previously hadn't yet died and kill it so this this ability doesn't necessarily need the sack the you know the cycling from play but it's nice because it allows you to control things and fine-tune things um also because your opponent knows you can do it it allows you to bluff a little better and you can make attacks where your opponent goes well i know I know you could sac that, so maybe I shouldn't be blocking.

So it has a little bit more threatening power. Next, plow under three green green, five mana total, two witches green, sorcery. Put two target lands on top of its owner's library. This is not a fun card. This ability really shouldn't have been in green in the first place. I think we... I mean, when I made it, I think I was thinking about green as, like, green is land destruction,

and maybe this is, like, slightly less mean land destruction because at least you get the land back. But I didn't really take into account the fact that not only were you going down on land, but you were losing the card drawing. So it sort of puts you back on mana and removes cards from you. So this is something, I think black can still play in this territory, but it's not something green does anymore. But anyway, this is a very powerful card.

One of my themes here. I mean, I'm talking about a lot of the powerful cards. That's why the powerful cards are coming up. Let's see how we're doing. Okay, I'm just checking to see. One of the things that's tricky when I do these podcasts is trying to figure out, like, do I have enough that I, am I supposed to rush through to finish off, or am I supposed to sort of go slower to make sure that I have enough cards for another podcast? So I think I'm going to try the latter, which is I'm going to go a little bit slower so that I can stretch this to four podcasts.

That's because I'm in the middle right now. But anyway, sorry, a little behind-the-scenes info there. Okay, Powder Keg. So Powder Keg is an artifact that costs two. So at the beginning of your upkeep, you may, and that's important, you may choose to put a fuse counter on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may, and that's important, you may choose to put a Fuse Counter on it. And then you could tap and sac it to destroy all artifacts and creatures that have a CMC, Converted Mana Cost, of the number of Fuse Counters. So here's the idea. I put it out.

On my first turn, I could put a Counter on it, a Fuse Counter, if I want to. Now, if I sac it, I can destroy all artifacts and creatures that have a converted mana cost of one. Just in case those aren't familiar, converted mana cost is if you add up all the mana, how much total mana do you have in your spell. So for example, let's take a spell that costs two and a blue, like Prodigal Sorcerer from Alpha, costs two and a blue. That's three mana total. Well, it's got a converted mana cost of three. You know, Mastigar I talked about had cost four to cast. Well, that's converted mana cost of four. I talked about Ero of Destined Drake costing four

mana. You know, three and a blue. That has converted mana cost of four. Plague Dogs costs four and black. That's converted mana cost of five. So the idea here is that I get to put Fuse Conners on it, and I get to destroy that band of things. And so each that I get to put fuse counters on it, and I get to destroy that band of things.

And so each turn I want to figure out what band do I want to threaten. Because once I go up, I can't go down. I put a fuse counter on it. Now I can destroy any one-drop artifact or creature. And note, it affects yours and your opponent's. It destroys all of them, not just your opponent's. It also destroys your stuff. So one of the things you always have to think about is, okay, each turn I can go up.

I can get bigger things, but I can stop at any point. And so one of the cool things about this is what lever do you stop at? Now, the interesting thing is I made this exactly as this. I wanted you to have this pinpoint decision. And I thought that the removal being very exact and you having to decide when to go up and when not was interesting. In development, so Mike Elliott was the lead developer. Mike really, really wanted this to be X or less.

That, you know, once you go to two, not just destroy converted amount across two, but deferred amount to two or less. And the reason I fought against this and the reason I got it not to change was that I feel like if it's N or less, all that says is every turn put it on. Why not put it on? If it's one, let's say I have one on and now I can put two on and it's two or less,

well, I would always put the second one on. Then I'd always put the third one on. In fact, I would put counters on until the end of time because it's better to, you know, N or less, it's always better to just be bigger. But the version I made, look, you have to figure out what you want. Is it a three-manager, three drops you care about? The four drops? You know, does your opponent have a six drop in his deck that you're worried about?

Do you want to build up so by the time you get there, you can destroy the six drop? Like you need to figure out what to do. And that's one of the things that to me is really important, that when you're worried about? Do you want to build up so by the time you get there, you can destroy the six drop? Like, you need to figure out what to do. And that's one of the things that to me is really important. And when you're trying to figure out sort of how to, I like when making cards to think about how it plays and what the decisions are. Because what I don't want to do is make decisions that sort of, you know, that make decisions that aren't particularly interesting decisions. And NRLS is a good example where, like, there's no decision. Of course you put it on. Where the version it is, you have to make the decision.

I think that's pretty cool. Okay, the next card, Replenish. So Replenish, like I said, all these powerful cards I'll tell you about. So Replenish is a sorcery. It costs three and a white, so four mana. And it returns all enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. So we had done cards before this that reanimated creatures. Living Death, for example, is a card that actually Mike Elliott made in Tempest, where it destroyed,

exchanged all the creatures in play for all the creatures in the graveyard, for example. You would exile all the creatures in play, return all the creatures in the graveyard to play, and then put the card, the exiled creatures in the graveyard, for example. You would exile all the creatures in play, return all the creatures in the graveyard to play, and then put the exiled creatures in the graveyard. And we had done, I think, a few other stuff. We had been messing around a bit with bringing back creatures from the graveyard. So the idea here was, this was the enchantment block. So I really wanted the idea, like I made a caddy rector that let you go and get enchantments, and I made opal lessons that turned enchantments on.

Well, I really like... Part of what I was trying to do in the set is to play into the enchantment theme. Was take what were popular favorite cards of mine that I liked and effects that I liked. And said, okay, well, if enchantments are going to matter, what if you can animate them? What if you can bring them back from the graveyard? What if you can tutor for them? You know, I wanted to give you all the resources because I wanted you to be able to build an enchantment deck. And this was another one of them. The nice thing about Opalescence and Replenish is

they really encourage you to play a heavy enchantment deck. What Replenish said is, hey, make a deck of a lot of enchantments. Your opponents are going to get rid of some of them and Replenish just brings them all right back. And in fact, the, um, I talked about, I made the mono-white deck. So in the last podcast, I talked about how I was in the FFL at the time, and I made a mono-white deck that had four Yawgmoth's Bargains in it, which I'll get to.

But Yawgmoth's Bargain costs four black blacks. It's a black spell. I had no black mana, no swamps in my deck, no ability to make black mana in my deck. All I did is I had white cards, and I had Academy Rector that I could go tutor for and put it into play. I had Replenish. That if it ever got into the graveyard, and there

were ways for me to get things in the graveyard, I could get Replenish and just get it back in play. Or, if I ever got it into play, we'll say like Academy Rector, and my opponent got rid of it, Replenish allowed me to get it right back. And the thing Replenish did is because it wasn't just a singular thing, it was all your enchantments, it really let you play a heavy enchantment game, and then if your opponent was able to deal with it, this was really devastating. It just brought everything right back.

And so Replenish did exactly what I wanted to, which is it did encourage some heavy enchantment decks showing up in Constructed. For all the... it's the artifact cycle and broken artifacts and for all the Focus on Artifacts, there was some enchantment play going on. We did manage to make enchantments relevant in a way that had not been quite as much before. So Urza Saga did help with enchantments. Maybe not quite as much as people were hoping it would, but it did. Okay, next. Rescue.

So Rescue is an instant, costs a single blue mana, and you return target permanent you control to the owner's hand. So this is the first time I've ever made this card. This is one of those cards... One of the things that's fun, and this is just early Magic where you can do this easier than it is now, is just making classic simple effects.

I think the idea is that I know we had Echo, I know we had Enter the Battlefield stuff, and so I just liked the idea of that I could do some stuff and I could sort of use it to save my own thing. This was one of those, like me being niche-y and trying to find up and I could sort of use it to save my own thing.

This was one of those like me being nichey and trying to find interesting space to do something. Obviously, Unsummon existed in alpha and Unsummon could return only creatures to your owner's hand. This could return anything. So it allowed you to do other things. Like you could use something where you were using up the resources of the thing and then I could bounce it back to my hand.

Notice, by the way, that both this effect happens and flicker is in the set. So one of the things that I really was playing around with, which if you know anything about my design, will become definitely a reoccurring theme, is finding ways to reuse resources and use that as something that on the surface goes, oh, is this a negative? You go, no, no, no, this is a positive. as something that on the surface goes, oh, is this a negative? You go, no, no, no, this is a positive. Rescue also fulfilled the role, which was pretty cool,

of letting you sort of protect your things. Like, this doubles as a way to sort of replay things that you want to replay, but also there's a means to protect your stuff. So, anyway, one of the ways you can tell, by the way, here's a little tip. When I think I made a very simple classic card, this is back in the day where I had a lot to do with the naming, we always make sure that nice, simple cards we think we're going to rent have simple names.

Rescue's a good example. If that's a card that says, oh, this card's coming back, you know, sort of like Talarian Rescue or something. We're not planning to do it all the time. So, anyway, nice simple card. Okay, next, Raphelos, Land of War Emissary. So it costs green and green for a 2-1 Legendary Elf Druid. And he taps to add green mana equal to the number of force you control.

So, Raphelos is interesting. One of the things that we did when we made the Weatherlight Saga, when Michael and I made the Weatherlight Saga, is we worked a lot of backstory into it. That part of making the story isn't just figuring out what happens now, but we wanted to make sure that it was an interesting story in the background. So, Raffelos is an interesting part of the backstory. And a lot of people don't even realize Rufellus has anything to do with the Weatherlight Saga.

But let me explain just because I have some time. So what happened is Gerard is destined to do some important task. And that the legacy is his destiny. So Gerard and the legacy, put under the care of Karn, are given to Siddhar Kondo, which was a chieftain who's friends of Gerard's parents, and he's put away for safekeeping because he knew that the evil forces would come looking for him since he was sort of destined to be the one that stopped them. So Gerard ends up being adopted by Siddharth Kondo.

Siddharth Kondo has another child named Vool. Basically, the short version of that story is there's a test that a child takes at a certain age. Gerard and Vool took it at the same time because they were roughly the same age. Vool gets himself in trouble. Gerard helps him. But helping him was against the rules.

And so Voul doesn't pass the test. Neither Gerard nor Voul pass the test. But Gerard cares less about it than Voul does. And Voul blames Gerard. Because he doesn't pass the test, he's not allowed to yet take the passing of the crown. He was supposed to be the next leader of his people, but that can't happen. Anyway, Vull takes it really badly, takes it out on Gerard. And because of this, he misses his opportunity to sort of become the next Siddhar,

become the next leader of his people. He takes it badly. Vull's not a great guy. Ends up killing Sidar Kondo and leaving the village. Obviously to go to Wrath, to become Vull of Wrath or Vulrath. That would be later in the story. Gerard is really, really,

the death of Sidar Kondo is really hard on him. And he decides that he needs to, he needs to do something to sort of get his mind off it. And something that Sir Dark Kondo had wanted him to do for a long time is do some magic training. One of the things he believed was, Gerard had done a lot of training fighting-wise, he was a good fighter, He was a good fighter. But Miltani, I'm sorry,

Sid Arcando knew that he needed to have more knowledge than just on sort of physical defense. He needed some magical defense training. So he had set up for him to study under Miltani, who was an Amaro. Miltani had a card, obviously, in Urza's Legacy, I think. Oh, no, is he here? No, I would have mentioned he was here. He must have been Urza's legacy, I think. Oh, no, is he here? No, I would have mentioned him. He must have been Urza's legacy.

Anyway, so Moltani takes him in, and Moltani has two other students. So Moltani is teaching them magic. So he's teaching not just Gerard magic, but also teaching Mirri, the cat warrior, and Rofellos, the Llanowar elf. And the three of them become really good friends. Oh, by the way, real quickly, a lot of people don't realize that Gerard knew any magic

because he studied magical tani. When Gerard gets thrown off of the or falls off of the Weatherlight, a lot of people don't understand how he survives. What happens, actually, is he originally is caught by Selenia, who is tied to Krovac, who Volrath at this point has control over. He ends up sort of punching his way out of that and continues to fall. And then he uses a magical spell to break his fall. That's why he doesn't die.

That's why he's able to fall from high up above and not die is he uses magic to save himself. A lot of people don't realize, we didn't really play up the fact that Gerard knew magic. It comes up a couple times

in the story. That's one point where it happened. His broken fall. He cast broken fall. He used the spell to protect himself. Anyway,

not a lot of people know that. Okay, so what happens is Gerard and Mirri and Rufellos band together. They become friends. Gerard is in charge of protecting the legacy. And at one point, Sisay is brought in on it, and Sisay is tasked with helping Gerard and saving the legacy. So what happens is Sisay hunts down and finds

Gerard and Mirri and, well, hunts down Gerard, Mirri and Felzer with them, and basically offers him a chance to offers him a chance to Oh, I'm sorry. I missed a really important part of this. When

when Vul leaves, not only does he kill Cid Arcando, he steals the legacy. I mean, he doesn't take Karn, obviously, but he steals the legacy. And so Sissi was tasked with tracking down the legacy. And so she finds Gerard, knowing that she needs Ger Gerard's help because Gerard has the expertise with Legacy. And so anyway, she's the one that recruits Gerard and Sisse and Rufellos onto the ship. And so

there's a period in time where Gerard is the first mate to Sisse, and they travel around rounding up different parts of Legacy. And travel around, rounding up different parts of the legacy. And anyway, they at one point are in Urborg, and they have a run-in with Mournfin and Galabraid,

yes, of Weatherlight fame, and the crew got a little bit cocky, and they end up fighting these demons. They're horrors, I think. I'm not sure what they are exactly. They're horrific creatures. And Raffaellos gets killed. Raffaellos actually dies during it.

He's killed by, I think, Galabraid. And anyway, Gerard and Mirri are just devastated. The three of them were like the three amigos. They were really close. And their death really throws him. And Gerard, for the first time, questions his role in the world. And he was always ready, saying, you have this destiny. You have to do this thing.

And when he watches his friend die, it just disillusions him. And so what happens is, Gerard leaves. He abandons the ship. Actually, Gerard and Mirri both leave. But they're both grieving and so they grieve in different ways. Mirri, actually, by the way, goes back to Llanowar

to tell the people that Rufellus has been killed. That's why at the beginning of the Weatherlight Saga, because she stays with them, that's why when they go to get Mirri, they go to Llanowar to get Mirri. That's where Mirri was, because Mirri went to tell Rufellus' family and then ended up staying in Llanowar. Gerard, meanwhile, went back to what he knew.

He ended up becoming a Sergeant-at-Arms. He sort of wanted to just forget his role, and so he leaves. So in the Weatherlight saga, when Sissi gets captured, and the Weatherlight comes back to get him, the reason he's so resistant is he sees that it's picking up on his destiny,

and he doesn't want to fulfill his destiny. He believes that his destiny, you know, led to Rufellus' death, and, like, he questions it. The other thing that goes on, by the way, for those that don't know the Weatherlight Saga, is Gerard and Hannah actually had a thing back in the day, and when Gerard leaves, he leaves not only the Weatherlight, but he leaves Hannah. And Hannah takes it really bad. Because obviously Hannah has strong feelings for him.

She thought he had strong feelings for her, which he did. But anyway, so there's a lot of subtext. A lot of what we had done in the Weatherlight saga was we built in a lot of backstory. So I don't know. Anyway, let me explain the backstory. I don't know how many people know necessarily all that backstory. So I don't know. Anyway, let me explain the backstory. I don't know how many people know necessarily all that backstory.

Some of it gets explained. But the reason Raffaello's, for example, is in, like one of the things that happened when we went to Urza's saga was, from the little I was involved, we listed all the characters that had been part of the story, the backstory to the Weatherlight saga,

and a bunch of those we got a chance to see. Like, you learn a little bit more about Beren, and Rain is Beren's wife, because they are Hannah's mother. For those that don't know, Hannah was Beren's daughter, Beren and Rain's daughter. So Rain shows up, we'll get her, I think we'll get her. Did I not do Rain yet? Did we not talk about Rain? I thought Rain was in this. Or maybe Rain was in Earth's Legacy?

Hold on a second. No? Okay. I guess I didn't do Rain. Or, no? Maybe Rain might have been in Earth's Legacy. But anyway, oh, so Raffaello's, by the way, from a tournament standpoint,

was once again a really good card. He was a card that allowed you, you know, for two mana, he was a 2-1, that could often tap for huge amounts of mana because he tapped equal to your forest. We liked the idea

because what we did when we designed him, while I was no longer doing story at this point, I was doing card design. And so I did design Raffaello's. And because he was a character from my story, I wanted to make him good. So I did.

And he was a Llanowar elf. The reason we had made him originally in the story was we were trying to make sure we got some iconic things into it. And there wasn't a place for him in the main story, but we ended up working him into the backstory. Much like Selenia, we wanted an angel in there. And so Selenia was a major part of the story but we worked her in the backstory and she actually played a role in the modern day story and Rufellis was killed so he couldn't

but Selenia obviously if you know the story did play a decent role but anyway guys I'm going to wrap up for today because I'm just about to Rachel's school and I wanted to leave just enough that tomorrow I could have one final day of talking

about one more podcast. Sorry, next podcast. I want another... So I'm going to stretch this to four because I feel like I have some fun stories to tell. And I got to tell you about the Rofellos and the Woodlight Saga, which is... I don't know how many people knew that. My one wrap up

for today is one of the things that was a joy for me in getting to do this is there is ups and downs in doing your own set. One of the downs is it's a lot of work and you have no one to lean on. But it was fun. I really got to stretch my muscles and make a lot of different kinds of cards. And one of the things you look at today is if I talk about all these different tournament cards that, like, Raffelos and Replenish

and Masticore and Opalescence and, you know, just all the different cards, Fracturing the Gator and Opposition, that these all went in really different decks. It's not like I made all these cards and they went in a singular deck. There was an Opposition deck. There wasn't a Gator deck. There was an Opalescence deck. There wasn't, you know, the Mastergore was the center of a bunch of

decks. Like, there was a lot of stuff in which really whole archetypes got formed around it. Like Donate, I talked about last time. Donate made its own deck, you know, and so one of the things that's neat is really able to stretch my wings. And I said, Johnny, it was fun to make a lot of different cards that did a lot of different things to allow people to make all sorts of different decks. But anyway, join me next time when I will talk a little bit more and finish off talking all about the cool cards from Urza's Legacy. So I'm here at my daughter's school. So we all know what that means.

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