Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #390 - Urza's Destiny, Part 4

Episode Date: December 9, 2016

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

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. That dropped off my daughter at her internship. Okay. So the last three podcasts, I've been talking all about Urza's Destiny. And I'm close to done, but not quite done. So today is my, I believe, it should be my final podcast on Urza's Destiny.

Anyway, it's been fun. This is, Urza's Destiny, it's interesting. It's a long time ago. Kaladesh was my 20th design lead or co-lead. And Urza's Destiny is my third, I think. So basically, it's been quite a while. So anyway, I always have fun thinking back and sort of like, uh, remembering from

long ago. This was a long time. Like, uh, Urza's Destiny was, what time was it? Was, um, uh, I would have worked on this. Okay. Urza Saga, I wonder where Saga came out. Urza Tempest came out in 98, I think. So this came out in 99.

So I would have worked on this in 97, 98. So wait, almost 20 years ago. Okay. We were up to S. So the next card is Scent of Jasmine. It's an instant that costs one white, single mana, which is white. Reveal any number of white cards from your hand, and you gain two life for each white card revealed.

Okay. So this was part of the scent. So I talked about this a little bit in my first podcast on Earth's Destiny. One of the mechanics we played around with was a reveal mechanic, where as an additional cost to either play a spell or to activate an ability on a creature, you had to reveal some number of cards from your hand of a certain color. So Santa Jasmine is looking for white cards. So anyway, I like these two cycles quite a bit. And you'll see in later designs, I came back to the well of caring about cards in your

hand as a resource. That would be something that would pop up again later in design. Scent of jasmine specifically, I could have talked about any of the five scents as the example of a scent, but I chose Scent of Jasmine. Why? So one of the things back in the day, so you've got to remember,

when I worked on Urza's Saga, I was still a developer. I mean, well, I guess I was a designer slash developer, but I was still doing development. While I was starting to do design, obviously I designed the set, I was still, my day job was still doing development, and so I was starting to do design, obviously I designed the set, I was still,

my day job was still doing development. And so I was on the development team for Urza Saga and Urza's Legacy. I think Urza's Destiny because I was the only design team member. Everybody but me was on the development team. Actually, I was not on the development team for Urza's Destiny. But anyway, because I was one of the developers, I participated in what was... I don't know whether it was called the FFL at the time. The FFL, for those who don't know, stands for the Future Future League. It's where we play Magic of the Future. And the idea is we want to play Magic. We play ahead.

So the cards we're working on, or the cards in development usually, are the cards that are in the, like, we're playing standard as if the current stuff in development is in standard, is usually how we play. The idea being, we want to figure out whether or not something is going to cause a problem. And so we're playing in an environment that one day, when this set gets released, will be standard. And I used to play in the FFL. I don't have time anymore.

Nor, that doesn't always play to my strengths. But anyway, my favorite FFL deck I ever built was for Urza's Destiny. I was very excited to play Urza's Destiny, and so I built this mono-white deck that had some

Yawgmoth's Bargain. I think last time I talked about it, I said there were four Yawgmothoth Bargain. I didn't even know there were four. There probably were less than four because I didn't need four. I would Academy Erector one out usually. So I probably only had... My guess is I had two, but the only reason you wouldn't have

one is if you draw it in your hand and the main way to get it is Academy Erector then you get in trouble. So my guess is that I had it. Anyway, the idea, though, is this mono-white deck. And so Yawgmoth's Bargain, which I will get to later today, allows you to pay life for cards. So the reason that I sent to Jasmine...

So the idea was the deck was mono-white. It had Cadmium Erectors and it had Replenishes and a bunch of other enchantments and stuff. But the main thing in the deck was that I had Yawgmoth's Bargain, and then I had Scent of Jasmine. And the thing about Scent of Jasmine was I had a mono-white deck. So if I cast Scent of Jasmine,

all the cards in my hand, minus my planes, for example, would be white cards. So I could get pretty big life swings with Scent of Jasmine. I could get somewhere between 6 to 10 life a lot of the time. Well, if you have a Youngblood's Bargain in play where every life is a card, okay, well drawing six cards, you know, essentially my deck was a combo deck. I don't even remember the exact win condition of it.

I know it used enchantments because the deck was enchantment based. But I had some win condition. I don't even remember what it was that was enchantments. Really, it was all about getting the bargain out and then drawing lots of cards and there was just a bunch of ways to win. I mean, once you get far enough on your opponent on card advantage, you know, once I'm ahead of you by 10, 12, 20 cards, like,

eh, I'm probably going to beat you. But anyway, so that's the interesting story. So I made this deck. It actually played pretty well. The interesting story is not about the making of the deck or the FFL per se. It's when Urza's Destiny comes out, I read an article,

I think in the Duelist, where I talk about this deck. And the deck, you know, this mono white deck with the Ogmoth's Bargains in it. And I got so much crap from the community for this deck.

They thought it was the craziest deck. And I was just like, yeah, to play the deck, the deck is a good deck. I mean, I'm sure a few of the cards that I had because of my deck had been changed. So, although, ironically, neither Replenished nor Academy of Rector got changed. One of my comments about this is

I really, really would have spent more time on costing if I realized the development team would leave some of my more aggressive costing alone. Anyway, there were a few other things. In fact, I know Yawgmoth's Bargain itself got changed, although when we get to Yawgmoth's Bargain, I don't think it got changed to make it weaker. I mean,

I think they thought they were making it weaker, but I don't think they did. But anyway, I got so much craft with this deck, and people were like, Sand of Jasmine? Really? I'm like, when I can draw cards for life, gaming life is really important. So anyway,

um, anyway, that's, whenever I think of set of Jasmine, I just think of all the crap I got for this deck, which I thought was, like, I had a winning,

I won with the deck. I did really well with the deck. You know, and I'm, I'm not, uh, well, I'm a Johnny deck builder. I like building fun and weird decks. I'm not known for building really strong decks. And this was a strong deck. You know, and I'm not, well, I'm a Johnny deck builder. I like building fun

and weird decks. I'm not known for building completely strong decks and this was a strong deck. This was a very competitive deck. Anyway, I'm sure

the response to this is, what? What were you doing? Okay, next, Scrying Glass. So Scrying Glass is an artifact,

costs two. So spend three, choose a number greater than zero and a color. Opponent reveals their hand and if they have the correct, if you're correct, you get to draw a card. So let me walk through what that means. So I have to and a color, opponent reveals their hand, and if you're correct, you get to draw a card.

So let me walk through what that means. So I have to name a color, so I have to name one of the five magic colors, and then I name a number, but I can't name zero. So the idea is, I'm trying to predict how many cards of a certain type are in your hand. So let's say, for example, like, okay, you're playing blue-red.

Okay, you have four cards in your hand. How many of those are blue? I'll say two. Okay, blue, two. Then you reveal your hand. If you have exactly two blue cards in your hand how many of those are blue i'll say two okay blue two then you reveal your hand if you have exactly two blue cards in your hand i get to draw a card now the cool thing about this is i get to see your hand because i've guessed and so the idea is my opponent is now kind of like they know what i know and they're trying hard not to make sure that is true because if i can correctly guess, then I'm going to get a card. So this card, I made this card, and one of the things is, in Tempest, Richard Garfield made a card called, what was it called? Curse Scroll. And Richard had made the card as a kind of a bluffing card. Curse Scroll basically is, how does curse scroll work? You name a card and

then your opponent randomly picks a card from your hand and if they pick the name card then damage gets done. And so the idea is there... or did I say that backwards? Right, right. You, the person using the curse scroll, name a card and they pick the card you name then you do damage. And so there's a bluffing aspect to it where sometimes you might not even have the card in your hand but you name a card, they pick the card you name, then you do damage. And so there's a bluffing aspect to it where sometimes you might not even have the card in your hand, but you name the card and oh, you missed. But really, the whole idea behind it was making them think something you didn't have. Anyway, I like kind of some of the mini games of that. And so I really was into the idea of little artifacts that play these little mini games. Like, okay, I'm gonna play a little

game. And this game is kind of like, okay, I'm going to play a little game. And this game is kind of like, okay, I'm trying to figure out what's in your hand. And I'm going to use whatever data I have to figure it out. And then, once I know that, this is a little game where you are trying to shake it up so I don't quite know what's happening. But anyway, this is one of those cards that, like, it entertains me to a great deal in that, I mean, it's an okay card. This is not particularly

a strong card. Like, I talked, a lot of the cards I've been talking about during these podcasts have been, like, you know, tournament-level cards.

Eh, it's never a tournament-level card. But it was a fun card. It's an interesting card. It's a neat design. And this is the kind of thing that I was very, very proud of in Urza's Destiny

is I feel like if you look through Urza's Destiny, which you can, go, a little homework, homework, didn't know there'd be homework, go look through Earth is Destiny.

I'm really proud. It's a very quirky, fun set. And I really, I think because I sort of had free reign, I really made a lot of cool, quirky little cards. I mean, there's also a lot of powerful cards in there. My intent really wasn't to make a powerful set, although, I mean, I assume development would appropriately adjust stuff. But anyway, I like Scrying Glass. Scrying Glass is a cool card. Okay, next.

Next artifact. Storage Matrix. So Storage Matrix costs three. And if Storage Matrix is untapped, each player chooses either artifact, creature, or land. And then during their untap, they only untap the one they named. So this was... So there's a card in Alpha called the Winter Orb. And Winter Orb only

lets you untap one land a turn. And then there was a card called Smoke, which only lets you untap one creature a turn. And was there one? I don't think there was one for artifacts. There might have been one for artifacts in Antiquities.

Anyway, I kind of like the idea of, okay, I'm limiting how often you untap things, but I just wanted to mix it up a little bit. I wanted to make something that was kind of cool. So the idea here of this card was, okay, you can't untap everything. So what you can do, for example, is you can make a deck where you lean your deck. Imagine, for example, you made a deck where most of your things are artifacts, because I love artifacts, and you play Storage Matrix. Well, if you say, okay, I only want to have artifacts,

but most of my things are artifacts, you can build around it to a certain extent. And once again, a lot of card design for me is, I like to make cards that do interesting, weird things, and then say to people, okay, how do you use that? It's not that I necessarily knew exactly how people would use this, but I knew, for example, it was a tool by which you could slow people down, and I had a deck, so

one of the things I used to do is, I previously talked about my FFL decks, but this is more my fun decks, is in fact, this is before I came to Wizards. One of the things I used to do back when I was, you know, not a Wizards employee, but just a Magic player, is I would make fun decks,

which I would name, and literally name, I'd give them like a name like Bruce or something. And I would have fun sort of playing people, and they're like, what's going on? What's this deck doing? And I really would have fun making decks that kind of, you didn't quite know what I was up to. And part of the fun of playing me was trying to figure out what was happening.

And I think that this is the kind of card that, like, there's a deck I had. I don't remember the name of the deck anymore. But there's a deck I had that when I first came to Wizards, I said I wanted to work for Wizards. The story real quickly is I was a freelancer. I said I wanted to work. I kept coming up to Wizards, I said I wanted to work for Wizards. The story real quickly is I was a freelancer. I said I wanted to work. I kept coming up to Wizards on freelance.

And then one of the times I was up there, I said, you know what, I'd be willing to move here. And Mike Davis, who was the head of R&D, said, when can you start with the line? But the idea was I officially had to go through channels. I had to be interviewed. Even though the writing was on the wall, they wanted to hire me. channels, I had to be interviewed. Even though the writing was on the wall,

they wanted to hire me. And most of the interviews were more like I was asking them questions. It wasn't like they knew me already, so it wasn't like most of my interviews were not what are you up to and tell us about yourself. It was more just like, okay, hey, when you come here, what do you want to know?

I'd ask questions about practical things so I could figure out moving and things. But one of my interviews with Joel Mick, his interview with me is he wanted to play me a game of Magic. And so I had this, I don't remember the name of the deck. I had this deck, and the whole idea of the deck

ran off land tax, which was this card that said if your opponent had more land than you, you've got to go get a whole bunch of planes, three planes, I think, out of your deck. And it just gave you huge card advantage, and most people didn't understand it. But anyway, the deck, what it did is, it's what we call a bleeder deck. It just would gum you up. It just would keep you from doing anything,

and then it would just, like, in small incremental ways, beat you. And I remember I played Joel with this deck, and I beat him. But not only did I beat him, he didn't quite, like... My deck was weird enough that he didn't quite understand what it was doing. And so not only did I beat him, but I impressed him. Because, you know, Joel was a good magic player, you know, and I beat him, but I beat him in a way where he, like, he wasn't quite sure what was going on. And, you know, and I beat him, but I beat him in a way where he, like, he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

And, you know, he really, he liked my deck. And so I passed that interview. Anyway, I bring all that up is that deck was one of my favorite decks that I played for a long time. And Storage Matrix was, like, handmade to go in that deck. I believe that's why I made it. It was made to go in the kind of deck that that was. The sort of, like, gum-you-up-y bleeder-type deck.

Anyway, that's a long way of explaining why I made your storage matrix, but I did. Okay, next. Tethered Griffin. So, it costs one white mana, single white, two, three griffins, got flying, and if you control no enchantments, you sacrifice it. So, this is the third one. I talked about Coveted Dragon

and Emperor Crocodile. Well, Tethered Griffin was the third in the cycle. So Coveted Dragon cared about artifacts. Emperor Crocodile cared about creatures. This one cared about enchantments. And so the idea was, I got this really cheap creature in a flyer to boot, but I had to have an enchantment

in order to keep it about. And one of the common things you would do is sometimes you would get enchantments out, but then once you got this out, you would put a creature enchantment keep it about. And one of the common things you would do is, sometimes you would get enchantments out, but then once you got this out, you would put a creature enchantment on it sometimes. It's just like, well, you know, as long as the creature's in play, there's an enchantment on it,

and that'll keep it in play. But you had to have another enchantment at first, obviously, to be able to play this. But anyway, that... One of the things that you also see as we walk through, there's this destiny you'll see, we walk through Urge's Destiny, you'll see is there are a lot of little mini-cycles.

I love structure, so there are a lot of mini-cycles worked in, a lot of different things that I did. Not all of them were full cycles. I mean, I guess this was a full cycle, but not a five-card cycle. Okay, next, Thieving Magpie. Two blue-blue for a 1-3 bird with flying. When you deal combat damage to an opponent, you draw a card. So there's a card called Ophidian, which was in...

What was Ophidian in? Ophidian was in Weatherlight, I think. Anyway, Ophidian was a snake that when it hits you, instead of doing damage, you could draw a card. I did not make Ophidian the mechanic. I didn't make the card, although I named it. Ophidian is my name. Because they had drawn a snake, and we wanted it, and Ophidian means snake, and so anyway. I liked Ophidian. I liked the card, but the replacement, like, one of the things we did back in the day is what we called saboteurs,

and the way saboteurs originally worked, what we now call saboteurs are things like Thieving Magpie that I do damage and then I do something. But back in the day, saboteurs were in exchange for doing damage, I can do something. And what we found was

it would just slow the game down. It's like, well, I want to get this ability so I'll attack and not do any damage and then get my ability we finally realized you know it's just better to let them do the damage you know we can balance how much damage they're doing versus the effect they get so I like the Ophidian I just wanted to make a

cleaner Ophidian and just you know we ended up I made it fly because Ophidian was a little bit hard to get through. And I just liked making it sort of a modern-day saboteur versus an old-school saboteur. So, I mean, that's where Thieving Magpie came from. It's been a card that's been in a lot, a lot of different sets. Like, it was a nice, simple version of the card.

This is one of the fun things, going back to, you know, 1997 or so, is I got to design a lot of things that, like, this is the first time we did it. seven or so, is I got to design a lot of things that, like, this is the first time we did it. There's a lot of, like, very clean, clean cards in Earth's Destiny because I was messing in pretty virgin space, you know. For example, when I was doing death triggers, I don't think there were a lot of cards that existed with death triggers. So I got to do a lot of simple death triggers. I got to, you know, Thieving Magpie is a good example of, and this is one of the things

I did in Earth's Destiny, is, okay, I have some time and space to make cards. I have a whole file to fill. Let me make some cards that I've been meaning to want to make. I like Ophidian, but let's just make a cleaner Ophidian. And Thief of Magpie was just straight up a cleaner Ophidian. Okay, next, Thran Golem. Five mana for a 3-3 Golem.

If Enchanted... Sorry, if Thran Golem is Enchanted, it gets plus two plus two flying first strike and trample so this was

I had a vertical blue cycle where if you Enchanted the creature it got better this was my splashy rare I mean we didn't

have mythic rares at the time this is kind of like a mythic rare sort of thing and the idea was look five mana

for a three three nothing special five mana for a 3-3, nothing special. Five mana for a 5-5 flying first strike and trample creature? Eh, it's pretty good. So, as I mentioned in my first podcast, around 6th edition, at some point I really wanted to push for

all artifact creatures having a creature type. And I think that finally went through in 6th edition, I think. Anyway, this was the first golem that actually had creature type golem written on it. I think we retroactively made some old things golems that were golems flavor-wise because Alpha had golems in it.

But this was the first set to actually have the word golem written on the card. In the creature type line, obviously. Not in the title. But anyway, this was just the obviously. Not in the title. But anyway, this was just the splashiest version of the cycle. I mean, it's weird I had a vertical cycle and then one more. I'm not sure why I did that.

But anyway, this was fun and people really liked it. It was a cool card. So, go for it and go. Okay, next. Treachery. So, treachery costs three blue blue for enchantment. It's an enchant creature. When it enters the battlefield, you unt Treachery. So, treachery costs three blue blue for enchantment. It's an enchant creature. When it enters the battlefield, you untap five lands,

and then you control enchant a creature. So, when I first talked about this set, I talked about how Urza's Saga had cycling and echo. True. The other thing is, we also had other mechanics that went on. I talked about with lurking... Was it lurking hounds? Lurking jackals. I talked about with Lurking... Was it Lurking Hounds? Lurking Jackals. I talked about how we had the enchantments that woke up.

Another mechanic that we had, which actually was my mechanic, what we called the Free Mechanic. So what happened was Ice Age had cantrips in it. And then I think Mirage had cantrips in it. And Tempest had cantrips in it, I think. Oh, no, Mirage didn't have cantrips in it, and Tempest had cantrips in it, I think. Oh, no, Mirage didn't have cantrips in it, but Tempest did. And then I wanted to put more cantrips in Urza Saga

because cantrips are just useful, but Bill really felt that, like, we should save cantrips. I think he thought cantrips were a little more exciting. I mean, cantrips are useful and functional, but I think Bill was thinking they were a little more splashy than they were. So he's like, let's not do cantrips. So he didn't want us to do cantrips. So I came up with the idea of, okay, well, if you have a card, instead of replacing the

card, because one of the neat things about a cantrip is like, oh, I don't, it allows me to get effect without losing a card. Well, I said, what if instead of not losing the card, you lose the card, but you don't lose the mana? And the idea of the freeze ball said, okay, if you have enough mana to cast it, then we'll untap the lands equal to what it costs to tap it. So essentially, it's free if you have enough lands to cast it. That mechanic was kind of broken,

but it was something that we had done in Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy. So I did one. I put one here. It turns out to be a really strong card. Treachery is a very strong card. For starters, it's five mana for Control Magic, which we long since realized is a little on the aggressive side. I mean, original Magic had it at four

mana. Like, Control Magic in Alpha was four mana. So, clearly here I put it at five mana because it's free. But now I believe we do it at higher mana anyway. So, anyway, this is a pretty strong spell. One of the things we always used to do in the third set was make sure we... Like, anything that went on in the first two sets

that were big enough themes, we wanted to at least have a tip of the hat to. So this is my... Hey, Untap exists. And I just made one of them. Obviously, the one I made is really strong, but I just made one of them. Obviously, the one I made is really strong, but I just made one of them, so... But anyway, the one free mechanic.

So, by the way, it is quite possible that the free mechanic is the most broken mechanic I've ever made. I mean, I also made Dredge, so maybe it's Dredge. But it didn't make Storm. Brighton didn't make Storm. But the free mechanic... I think Eric thinks the free mechanic

is the most broken thing. The reason the free mechanic, by the way, is so broken is this. Is that most mechanics, development can just add some mana to it and now it's not a problem. But the free mechanic has this really weird quality where there are broken cards

that adding a mana to it sometimes makes it more broken. That's a tough mechanic to make that true on. The other thing, by the way, is because we untapped lands, and there are ways in this environment to have lands that produce more than one mana. I mean, Urza Saga, for example, has Gaea's Cradle and Sera's Embrace and Tolarian Academy that all produce lots of mana, especially Tolarian Academy. So the idea that you can untap a land when just one of the lands could produce a whole bunch of mana, especially in Southern Academy. So the idea that you can untap a land when

just one of the lands could produce a whole bunch of mana meant that not only did you get your mana back, but the free spells really in this environment netted you mana. It's like not only, like not only, it's not like this spell was free, it's like it made me money. Should've been called the make me money mechanic. Instead of the free mechanic. Okay, let's move on to the next one. Yavimaya Elder. So Yavimaya Elder was one green green, so three mana, two of which was green, for a 2-1 human dryad. When it dies, you

search your land for two basic lands, and then put them in your hand, and for two in sack, you can draw a card. So this was one of the death triggers that cycling can play with the death trigger. This one's particularly good. This is one of the ones, this one's all play because

you end up drawing three cards. And what I mean by that is you actually draw a card because if you sack it, you get a draw card, and you go through your deck and you get two lands and put them in your hand. Now, of the three cards you draw, they're not off the top of your deck, but as I mentioned earlier, like, with

the just getting lands out of your deck. I was talking about, what was I talking about earlier? Land tax. Like, it's really, really powerful as you just get cards, even if they're lands, because there are ways and means to turn cards into other values.

And, hey, getting mana also is very valuable. But even once the point where the mana managed to you, the cards as a unit can still mean something. For example, take something like MasterCard that I talked about a couple podcasts ago. MasterCard requires the cost of just feeding it a card. Well, guess what? If I use this and get some cards, I can feed MasterCard with them. MasterCard doesn't—he's not a picky eater.

He'll eat whatever you feed him. And so, this really ended up being a really good card because the card advantage was huge. That you, from one card, netted three cards. And one of which, not all of which were land, one of which was an actual card off the top of your deck. Okay, next, Yavamaya

Enchantress. So, Yavamaya Enchantress costs two and a green, so three mana total, one of which is green. It's a two, two human druid. And it gets plus one, plus one for each enchantment on the battlefield. Note, by the way, not on your side of the battlefield. That's how we would do it nowadays. But on the battlefield.

So if your opponent has enchantments, you get a bonus from them as well. So the original magic had Verdurian Enchantress, which drew you a card whenever you played an enchantment. And that led to people who really liked playing enchantment decks in green. And this was an enchantment block, and we had done in Urza Saga a new version of Enchantress.

The one with Shroud, I believe. Not called Shroud. It wasn't called Shroud at the time. So anyway, I was trying to make a different kind of card that you might want to play. And so the idea here was, well, what if I just got bigger? Rather than netting you card advantage, what if I just got bigger? And the idea is, okay, play this in a really heavy enchantment deck. And then this can be one of your kill conditions. Because, you know, I just have a bunch of things.

And it gets really big. And Limited, this card, also did a neat thing. I mean, not that this I think this card was rare, so it didn't show up a lot in Limited, but you could build around it and do neat things with ores and things that just really make it really big. Okay, next.

How are we doing on time here? Let me check my time. Okay. We are doing good. Okay. Next, Y my time. Okay. We are doing good. Okay. Next, Yavimaya Hollow. So Yavimaya Hollow was a legendary land. You could tap it to add a colorless mana to your mana

pool, or you could green and tap it and regenerate target creature. So why do I bring up this land? This is nothing. I mean, the land is functional. It was a decent land. It did see play. But why do I bring it this land? This is a nothing. I mean, the land is functional. It was a decent land. It did see play. But why do I bring it up?

I bring it up because this is part of the mega, mega cycle. So here's what happened. Something we did. It took us five years to do this. Over the course of five blocks, we made a cycle in which one appeared in each block. So let me explain. In Mirage, which was the first set to do this, in the first set, which was Mirage, we made Teferi's Isle, which

was a phasing island that produced two mana. And then in Tempest, the next block, in Stronghold, in the second set, in the middle set, we made Volresh Stronghold, which was a land that allowed you for black to get creatures back from the graveyard.

I think they went to the top of your library. Then, in Urza's Saga, in the third set, we made a green card, Yavimaya Hollow, which regenerates creatures for green. In Mass Block, in the second set, we made Corehaven, which was a white card. I forget what Corehaven did. Something whitish.

Boost your team or something. And then, in Invasion, in the first set in Invasion, we made Keldon Acropolis, which was a red card that did damage. So if you notice, we made a cycle. And the way the cycle worked is it was over five years, five blocks. It was first set, second set, third set, second set, first set. And it made all five colors during the course of five years. And we occasionally make what we call mega cycles, which are cycles that go within a

block. Like, for example, Odyssey had five alt win conditions, one in each color, and the cycle ran through the course of the block. That the red and blue one was in Odyssey, the black one was in Torment, and then the white and green one was in Judgment. So we call that a mega cycle, a cycle that runs through the, not in a singular set,

but through the course of a block. Well, mega, mega cycle ran through the course of five blocks. That is the only time we've ever done that. I mean, we've done other larger things. We've had other larger themes, like A-Togs. I guess we made a cycle of A-Togs.

That wasn't done one per block, though. That was kind of done, like, the original A-Tog was Antiquities, and then Foratog was in Mirage, and then Chronotog was in Visions, and then Necrotog was in Weatherlight, and then Oratog was in Tempest. So we I mean, the first of the cycle was earlier, but once we got there, I then four in a row finished the cycle. So we've done stuff like that, but this is the only mega, mega cycle that ran over five different blocks. Anyway, I thought that was cool. It would entertain me to do more stuff like that now. It's just a lot harder when all the planning we're doing,

there's so much interconnectivity and just things that we kind of do now that we never did back then that make it harder to just have a random card to do random shenanigans. Although I do appreciate random shenanigans. Okay, the final card today is Yawgmoth's Bargain. Okay, so Yawgmoth's Bargain costs four black black. It's an enchantment.

You skip your draw step, and you pay one life to draw a card. So this card was... There was a card in Magic, obviously, called... What was it called? Necropotence. That was really powerful. You skip your draw phase, and then you could pay life to, at the end of turn, draw cards. So I was trying to make a cleaner version of Necropotence, but I was blending with a card called Greed. And what Greed was, was a card in which you paid black and two life to draw a card. So I was kind of crossing

the two of them together. So the card, the playtest version of the card was called Intolerance, because there's a Greed variant. So for those that did not go to film school, greed and intolerance are two really famous silent films. So I was making a little film joke. So anyway, I made Intolerance. I costed it BBB, but you had to pay two life to draw a card, not one life. So my original card was BBB, so it matched Necropotence, and you skipped a draw

phase, and then you immediately, for two life, got a draw. So it was a cross between greed and Necropotence. So what happened was, in development, they decided that was problematic, and they changed it from BBB, from Black, Black, Black, to 4 Black, Black.

But, since they were charging you so much mana, they could go back from two life to one life and they changed it to pay one life draw card so i've talked with eric lauer about this and he claims that my version while still probably a little bit broken was less broken um so one of my jokes is i talk about i've turned in like replenish and i've turned in academy record like cards that just don't even get changed during all of development. And probably the most broken card in the whole set, I turned it in at a lower power level

and it got juiced in development. I don't think on purpose, I don't think they were trying to make it more powerful. But anyway, Yawgmoth's Bargain and other, I mean, it's been banned in formats. It's a really, really powerful card. And it turns out, not delaying

the card draw is quite a thing. Another big lesson this card was, I had a tendency back in the day to take cards that I liked and then change them, but I didn't always respect the drawback. Tinker is another good example of this, where I'm like, oh, why pay the difference between the artifacts? Well, it kind of

balances the card. That's why you do it. Anyway, this was a lesson for me of, uh, be careful. Understand when you're changing something, why you're doing it. Why did the original card work a certain way? It turns out it, there was a reason for it. It was valuable. Ah, but Yawgmoth's Bargain is Y-A-W. So we're at the end. That's the end of Ursa's Destiny. So, um Destiny. Anyway, my wrap-up, I just want to say that I had a lot of fun making Ursus Destiny. It was a real challenge for me. You'll notice that I never again made a set by myself. I think I got it out of my system and said, okay, I did it.

While that's hard, you know what? I can have other people help me. It's okay. And so I never again designed a set by myself. Mostly because I think there's so much like I'm glad I did it it's kind of fun to be on my resume I not that I did enjoy it when I did it but I realized how much work it was and like one of the neat things about having a team is having a lot of different vantage points and ideas and you know it is it is tough doing it all yourself and like

um it is I really do like having teams. One of the lessons from this is I was really excited in the beginning to do it. And then I did it. And, like, I'm proud that I did it. But, wow, it really taught me the importance of having a team and how value it is to just have other voices and other people and other designers. And so that was my first and probably my last solo design. But, anyway, I'm very proud of it. Like I said, your homework, you had homework.

Go look at the set. There's a lot of neat, cool, I didn't even go into all the cards. There's a lot of neat, cool stuff. And there's a lot of stuff that shows up there that kind of like you would see later in Magic, but that's a lot of, you know, me messing in the earliest phases with a bunch of different stuff. I talk about a lot of it during this podcast. But anyway, guys, that is Urza's destiny. But I'm now in my parking space,

so we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you next time. Bye, guys.