Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #71 - Odyssey, Part 3

Episode Date: November 15, 2013

The third part of Mark talking about Odyssey.

Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so these last two podcasts I've been talking about the set Odyssey. So today I'm going to be talking about cards from Odyssey. It's my card by card day. Now I have a lot of cards to talk about, so I'm not quite sure whether or not this is going to be one car ride or two car rides, but we will see. My gut is actually two car rides, so I have a lot to say. But I will just keep talking, and we'll see how far I get. Okay, so we're going to start with a Togatog.

So, a Togatog was actually not made for Odyssey. A Togatog was made for Unglued 2, the unset that never got made, that I did a podcast about a while back. I made it for that set. The art was done for that set. In fact, there's probably a hidden vegetable in there somewhere. But anyway, Randy Bueller, who was the lead developer for Odyssey, really wanted to add a cycle of A-Togs. Because A-Togs just worked well because you could sack cards from your hand and they could sack things from play

and you could eat things in the graveyard. He thought it would do good for zone changing and he wanted a cycle of A-Togs. Which, interesting, he thought it would do good for zone changing, and he wanted a cycle of 8-togs, which, interesting, he and I then worked out, he told me he wanted a cycle of 8-togs, and my suggestion was then to do a series of multicolored 8-togs, in which each one ate one of two things, and the things were tied to their color. So, like blue ate cards from your hand, you discarded a card. Where black, eight cards out of the graveyard.

You know, each one was thematically tied. And then there'd be two-colored A-Togs, since we had never done two-colored A-Togs, and that each one would eat those component pieces. I'll talk about that a little more when I get down to Psychotog, which is probably the most famous one of the bunch. But anyway, we had made these cycle of A-Togs,

and then I said to Randy, I go, Randy, I've got the card for you. Now that I have the card, I have the art. And I showed him a Tog-a-Tog. And if you notice in the art, what it is, it's a Tog-a-Tog with all five of the previous A-Togs in the art.

Anyway, I won Randy over, a Tog-a-Tog went in. I think in the original unset, he ate something weird. We turned him in. Maybe he always ate 8-togs. I guess he always did eat 8-togs. But there was another, I forget what it was. There was something weird about him in the unset, so it justified him being in an unset.

But anyway, it was an 8-tog that ate 8-togs. I guess that part was the same. There was something else. I don't remember the weird part about him. Um, next, Aven Shrine and the series of shrines. Uh, Cabal Shrine, Cephalid Shrine, Dwarven Shrine, and, uh, I forget the name of the Green Shrine. Anyway, interesting, we would later go on to do shrines, uh, with a shrine subtype in

Kamigawa. Um, this set, though, was... What we were trying to do was... I talked previously about how we made Kindles. And I talked about Graveyard's Barometer in my last podcast. This is one of the ones that sort of made other cards

into that. And basically what it said is you got an effect if you played a card that you'd already played. And so what it did was there were cards that kind of wanted you to play duplicates. And this is one of the things where I thought they were really fun cards. They're kind of neat. It rewards you for playing duplicate cards, something we don't do that much. But the power level was low, and I think they got played for fun,

but they never really saw as much play as I was hoping they would see. And I don't know if they... do they have a shrine subtype now? It's funny because they're shrines, but they don't have the shrine subtype, unless they retroactively gave them to them. We might have because they're named shrines in the name. Next, Battle of Wits. Battle of Wits.

Okay, so Battle of Wits. Oh, one of the things I'm going to try to do, where I can is explain what cards are. Like, a Togatog was... Was he a 1-2 or a 2-3 or a 2-4? Anyway, a Togatog was an 8-Tog that ate 8-Togs. Even Shrine, like Shrines,

were all cards that were enchantments that when you played a card that you already had in the graveyard, so you played a duplicate card or a card that you'd milled or something, it generated an effect. So Battle of Wits is an enchantment that says

at the beginning of your turn, I think, it triggers, I think at the beginning of your turn, if you have 200 or more cards in your library, you win the game. And so, most of you don't remember this, but it was a cycle of, we made a cycle of all-to-win cards that were spread throughout the entire Odyssey block.

I think two of them were in this set. It was two, two, and one, I think. Anyway, there was Chance Encounters. I don't remember them. I didn't write these all down. So Chance Encounters was a coin-flipping one. Mortal Kombat. There was a white one that had to do with life gain,

and a green one that had to do with creatures. I don't remember all their names because I didn't write them down. But anyway, there were five. All of them were like, at the beginning of Return, if something is true, and the something had to be something that played into what the color did. Blue needed a large deck because, well, no, I guess blue liked knowledge. It was thematically tied. Green had to have a certain number of creatures in play, and black had a certain number of cards in the graveyard, I guess blue-liked knowledge. I mean, it was thematically tied. Green had to have a certain number of creatures in play,

and black had a certain number of cards in the graveyard, I think. And red, you had to win so many coin flips, and white had to have life gain at a certain level. So, anyway, it's funny that, all of them all, Battle of Wits went on to really be the showstopper. And the reason is, it ended up being the one card that actually ended up being fringe constructed, meaning it saw play and constructed. When we say fringe, it's an R&D term, which says they tend to talk

about tier one, tier two, and fringe. So tier one means absolutely, positively, they know for sure, or have strong, strong belief that this is going to be a major player. Tier 2 means they think it's going to show up, and it's going to have some relevance, but it's, you know, it's not guaranteed, it's not Tier 1, but yeah, they think it'll see some play. And then Fringes, eh, they're not sure. Maybe

it'll see, maybe it won't. It's a shot at Constructed, but you don't know. And so this card was made, ended up being a card that did show up a little bit in tournaments. It's a very fun deck, just because it requires you to play so many cards, so there's a lot of variance to the deck, although people who use it abuse it, have tutors and things.

But anyway, Battlewits is the kind of card that keeps coming back. It's been in the court set a bunch of times now. People often talk about this, where we'll make something that's part of a cycle, and then one of the cards just stands out and then that card gets repeated but the cycle you know people kind of forget that it was originally part of a cycle and this is one of those cards that was

in fact started as part of a cycle I like Battlewits it's one of I mean I've made a lot of cards over the years thousands and thousands of cards but I kind of like when I look back at the ones that I'm the most proud of, it's near the top. It's a fun, goofy card that does a lot of neat stuff, but it actually showed up a little bit,

meaning it was good enough that people played and constructed. It's the kind of card that I'm happy to have made. Next is Bearscape. So Bearscape, remember, some of my stories today, by the way, the thing about my card-by-card stories, some of them are design stories, because I'm a designer, and I was the lead designer, but some of them have to do with creative elements.

Now remember, for this set, I was in charge of names and flavor text and creature types, because I was sort of the function creative team member on the set, because the creative team was going through Flux. Bill came to me and said, would I mind for this set doing Named and Flavor Text? I said, sure. I had done Named and Flavor Text for Unglued, so I had done before.

And today, we'll talk about some of the cards I picked. I picked because they had creative elements. Bearscape is one such card. So, what does Bearscape do? It is an enchantment that allows you to get bear tokens. I don't remember how it gets... But all you need to know for this story is it's an enchantment and allows you to generate bear tokens.

2-2 tokens. Because apparently in Magic, 2-2s are bears. For the record, by the way, that seems... I believe we have maligned bears. I believe bears deserve better than a 2-2. Like, for example, you're like a 1-1, a hero, like a mighty man, you give him a sword, like, you know, that's a 1-1. I don't know, I think like a black bear could take to, or a grizzly bear could take to, well, armed soldiers, maybe not. But anyway, I think Bears are a little more...

deserve more than 2-2. That's pro-Bear. Anyway, the story about Bearscape was... I... Seriously, I mean... We have goofy names that we use. I'll talk about playtest names and... But I was trying to get a name for this card,

and for a while, I would say maybe a week, I was seriously contemplating calling this card Bear Supply. Now, for those that don't get the joke, there's a 70s group called Air Supply that I was making fun of, and the reason I actually didn't do the name was not because it was a pun, because that would not stop me. And the reason I actually didn't do the name was not because it was a pun, because that would not stop me.

I did do things like Grizzly Fate and Apes of Wrath, and so I've made my squeeze toy. I've made my share of puns. But this particular one, I didn't think enough people would get the reference. It wasn't that I disliked the pun. I thought a 70s band was just too—not enough people would get it, and so I didn't want to name a card that people wouldn't understand the reference. But Bearscape came very close to being

Bears of Life. Braids. So one of the things... So Braids is one of the characters from the story. So for those who don't know the Odyssey story, it takes place on Oteria, which is a continent of Dominaria that was far away from the other continents. We had a lot else going on, so we were trying to tell a new story. And at this point, we weren't really, the Weatherlight Saga had hopped around a little bit from plane to plane, but we were back in

Dominaria. And for some reason, the creative team, which I didn't do the story part, I just did the name of the play. They wanted to stay on Dominator. I don't remember why, but we went to Oteria, and it was about Kamal and the pit fighters, and so one of the things was the pit fighters were run by

the Kabal Patriarch, who was another card, and one of the little schticks about all the fighters that were there is like they were named after attributes of them like one of them was Chainer because he had chains on him and Braids had

braids in her hair and you know it was just their names were based on attributes and Braids I think I think originally was just I think it was originally was just kind of a joke like once we got the attributes of the names like I just kind of a joke. Like, once we got the attributes and the

names, like, I think I made a piece of flavor text or something where, like, once we had the attribute of, oh, they're named after things, I called somebody Braids, I think. And then it was sort of like, oh, I don't know, it took a life on its own. We ended up making the character Braids. Which went on to be very popular card. So what Braids

does is every upkeep, it makes you sacrifice something. Because Braids is a little unstable as a character. I mean, seriously, like, mentally unstable. She has mental issues. And she was a little crazy. And so she makes you, each player has to sacrifice something every turn. And she was a very interesting card.

She actually had to be a pretty decent card. She also saw some constructive play. But it's funny that sometimes, I mean, the way it works now is the creative team will come to us and tell us the story

and say, these are the characters we want to focus on. And then either later design, early development, we make the characters. Some of them are

Planeswalkers, some of them are legendary creatures. But back in the day, things were a little looser and sometimes we would just entertain ourselves and end up making characters we thought were funny,

and then we'd make cards out of them. It's a little more organized than that now, but Braid's an example of that. So next is Call of the Herd. So Call of the Herd is a flashback creature. Oh, so for 2G, you make a 3-3 creature, and then for 3G, you can flash it back. But it's a sorcery that makes a token.

So one of the things that went on with flashback was that flashback only worked on permanent. I'm sorry, not permanent, on non-permanent, on instants and sorceries. But we really wanted the ability to make some creatures. So the solution was that we can make some token creatures, and that way it was a sorcery instant, it made a token, and then you can make some token creatures, and that way, you know, it was a sorcerer instant, it made a token, and then you can make another token, but because it was token, the card still went to the graveyard,

and then you could flash it back. If it was a creature, it didn't quite work. Now, years later, I would make the unearth mechanic, which essentially was my way of doing creature flashback, but we'll talk more about that when we get to, what set was that? That was Shards of Alara. But we'll talk more about that when we get to, what set was that?

That was Shards of Alara. So what we did is I decided that I wanted to do creatures and we'd use tokens to make that. And then I ended up making green, all of green's flashbacks, or most of green's flashbacks was token making. So green kind of had the creature making flashback. And the reason is that green for a long time was the creature color. Why do I say for a long time? Because eventually we realized that kind of green and white were the creature color. The green had the bigger creatures, but white had more creatures. So for a long time, green had both the most creatures and the biggest creatures. And we decided that, like, we needed more definition.

And white was the army color. So we decided that, well, white would go wide and green would go tall. So white now, white has more creatures than green. And they're smaller and it gets it up faster. But green has ramping and has larger creatures. And so white will beat you with its army of creatures. And green will beat you with its giant creatures. But green only needs a few giant creatures to beat you. Where white needs lots of little creatures to with its army of creatures and green will beat you with its giant creatures but green only needs a few giant creatures to beat you

where white needs lots of little creatures to make its army oh by the way also since I was did the I named the flip track one of the things that was very cute is all of the flashback creatures were all about sounds

because they had to generate the creature not sounds but it was all blank of the blank. So it was like, you know, Chatter of the Squirrel, I'll get to in a second, but like Chatter of the Squirrel and Call of the Herd. They all had a naming convention to feel like both I'm a spell, but also that I had to reference the creature.

I thought that was kind of cool. Cease Fire. Okay. Cease Fire. Okay. Cease Fire is an interesting story. And so, once upon a time, way back when, back when we're talking about in the Odyssey days,

one of the things that we would do is, right now, Jeremy Jarvis is our director. He's very good. He gets magic. He understands. He does a very good job of explaining to the artist

what we need. Because some of it something important to understand, the vast, vast, vast majority of artists do not play the game of magic. And so, and in fact, we don't even tell them, we don't tell them what the card does because they don't even play the game. We just give them an art description. And that one of the things that's tricky sometimes is people, if the artist, the art director isn't clear, sometimes the art will come back in a way that causes problems. And I have a bunch of examples later on. But one of the things we used to do was

we would get art that didn't quite work for what we wanted. And so we would have this period of time late in the process where a bunch of us would sit down, and we'd take all the art and we'd spread it out and take all the cards. And the first thing we'd do is certain art had to go with, like, look, this card is this thing, that art shows it, look, it's one for one, this card and that art, that definitely needs to stay together, they're meant to go together. And as much as possible, we kept the art that was meant for the picture to stay with the picture. But normally what would happen is we'd end up with some art where, like, first of all, we'd get some art that just would not

work. And like I said, I have some stories coming up about why they wouldn't work. But just art where you're like, oh, that doesn't really convey what it's supposed to convey. And then we'd have some art that was kind of neutral that could go in the card it came with, but it wasn't

tied to that card. It was general enough that it may be going in a different card. And so what we would do is we'd swap around things, and that, you know, we'd mix and match. But what always would happen is we'd end up with one card at the end where it's like, oh, we have an ambiguous piece of art, and we have, you know, and that, it would be, I was the creative person. So my job was, okay, so when the dust settled,

when all the things were done, I had a white card that prevented you from casting spells, I believe. Yeah. Players can't, target player can't play spell this turn.

It costs two W. And it's a, it must be an instant because you play on your opponent's turn. So the card kept them from playing spells. The art we had, the art that got left over when all the dust settled,

was these monks with a fire. So it was characters from white, so we knew it had to be white aligned, and they were sitting in front of this fire that was smoking. And so I'm like, okay, well here's the task before me. Somehow I have a card about not playing spells, and I have these nomad monk things sitting in front of a fire.

And I just had to make that make sense. Like, why do monks in a fire keep people from casting spells? No idea. And so I just had to get creative. And so Ceasefire was my name. Because basically, this is the trick is, it had to be a name that when you looked at the card ability,

you said, oh, Ceasefire, it stops spells from happening. Oh, Ceasefire is when you stop things. And you look at the art and go, oh, it's a fire. Ceasefire, okay, it's a fire. And then just like, it all got like, you know, as long as the name made sense with the art and the name made sense with the mechanic, it all kind of blends together. Like, oh, Ceasefire, it's the magic that stops things. And oh, but it all, like, you know, as long as the name made sense with the art and the name made sense with the mechanic, it all kind of blends together.

Like, oh, see, it's fire. Oh, it's the magic that stops things. And, oh, but it's a fire, you know. And then I'm not sure what people make up in their head. But I knew that, like, fire was just vague. It was very vague what the picture was. And, like, oh, well, there are monks that are casting some weird spell. And it's fire magic or something or smoke magic.

But anyway, I was very proud of that just because it was like, you know, it was a puzzle and we don't assemble more sets like that anymore. But I have some fun stories of just trying to fit that last card in. And I was very proud of this one because they had nothing to do with each other. So I thought it was a great

accomplishment to sort of make it all make sense. Cheddar of the Squirrels. So let me talk about squirrels. So I am a fan of squirrels. I talked about during the Mirage podcast of how I tried to get squirrels into, what was the card called, wading the weeds. And the art direction was supposed to be that you didn't see the creatures,

you just saw their eyes in the forest and they were supposed to be squirrels it was the first card that ever made squirrels and then the art came back and the artist had drawn cats and so we had to change it to cats so squirrels didn't make it into Mirage so I was intent in getting squirrels into Magic

squirrels didn't make any my first card was Tempest but squirrels made no sense in the world of Wrath. It just didn't fit. And so my next set was Urza's Destiny. In Urza's Legacy, I did card concepting. And, oh, I also did, I made the card, what's the name of the card?

It's a creature with Echo Hermit Druid. Not Hermit Druid. Hermit Druid? No. It's a druid. It's not Hermit Druid. It is I'm blanking on the name. Anyway, it's an Echo creature that when it comes into play it

makes a squirrel token or a couple squirrel tokens and then it grants all squirrels a bonus. What is the name of that card? Aaron Forsythe used it. Angry Hermit. Angry, no. Angry Druid? Angry Hermit? Was it called Angry Hermit?

Okay, my... Sometimes, see, I did my research ahead of time. I wrote down names of cards I needed to talk about, but I did not do research on cards affiliated with it. Anyway, in Urza Saga block, I definitely did some, I was in charge of card concepting for Urza's Legacy, so like, Might Oak showed

a squirrel, and I got a squirrel on an Echo card, so I got a few squirrels into Urza Saga. But come Odyssey, I decided, you know what, let's have some fun with creature types. And obviously, I did not know what was coming. I did not know that we were going to be doing

Tribal of the Next Dead and Onslaught. But one of the things I did is every year we have the green mix tokens every year. Green's always making tokens. And usually there's 1-1 tokens the green makes. Some years there's sapperlings. Some years there's elves. So this year, for Odyssey, I got to make them squirrels.

And why? Because I was the guy who got to decide what the creature types were so the creature type wonkiness in Odyssey was all my doing I was the one that said let's not do the staples let's try different things I was also the one that said let's do squirrels

so Odyssey is kind of where squirrels came in their own in fact it's where squirrels got themselves in trouble I'll tell the squirrel story so one of the things, oh no no no, I had that story coming hang on and you will learn the fate of the squirrels, that story is coming maybe today, maybe tomorrow

next is Elephant Ambush which by the way is one of the few cards that does not match my naming although it's an instant other ones are sorceries we just thought this name was funny I think it's one of the things where we named the card in design and everybody really really liked it and I did the card concepting

for this set and so probably today you would not see this card. So the card concept, for those who have never seen this card, it's called Elephant Ambush, and let's see, for 2GG instant, you get to put a 3-3 creature into play,

a token into play, and for 6GG you can flash it back. So, the picture is, it's called Elephant Ambush, of an elephant hiding behind a tree. Because the idea was an instant, it's called Elephant Ambush, of an elephant hiding behind a tree. Because the idea was an instant. It's like, aha, you wouldn't expect an elephant. And I will admit, this is a little silly.

By today's standards, we're not quite that silly. But I thought it was funny. And the reason the name doesn't match all the other conventions is, A, it was an instant, instant and B we liked the name. I don't know. I probably should have been consistent. Ambush of the Elephant. I guess if I called it Ambush of the Elephant, it would have been fine. Anyway,

and the art is, I don't know, the art tickles my fancy. In fact, I was doing this. I was looking at cards to prepare for today and I laughed again because the elephant is hiding behind a tree, but he's an elephant, so you can see he's there. Anyway, it makes me laugh. What's next?

Next is Engulfing Flames. Oh, now I get a story of art. Okay, so Engulfing Flames. So somewhere in the card, I don't even know what the original card was, the art description was we need an elephant made of fire. An elephant made of fire. An elephant made of fire. Created from fire. Magically, like it is a beast,

magically made of fire that looks like an elephant. And I don't know where we were going with this. Fire finch. I have no idea what the actual card was. But anyway, that was the art description. So we get the art back, and the artist had drawn an elephant on fire.

And not in, like, the Human Torch kind of way, where it's like, clearly he's empowered, and he's lit on fire. No, it looked like a poor elephant, like someone had lit on fire that was, like, in horrible pain. And so we're like, oh, we can't, this doesn't work. Like, we were planning to make, like, you know, an

elephant elemental, and, like, you know, it's I don't know what we're were planning to make, like, you know, an elephant elemental, and like, you know, it's I don't know what we're going to call it, but, you know, um, you know, engulfed elephant or something. I don't know whatever we're going to call it. Um, but we got the art back, and we're like, oh, this, this looks like this elephant's in pain. Like, so it looks like the spell wasn't, the elephant wasn't

the, wasn't a creature spell. It was like a direct damage spell, and you're hitting an elephant. So we changed it to engulfing flame. So we It was like a direct damage spell. You're hitting an elephant. So we changed it to Engulfing Flames. So we turned it into a direct damage spell because it looked too much in pain to be a creature card, meaning you couldn't focus on the elephant because the focus seemed to be the elephant in pain

rather than the elephant. So it became Engulfing Flames. Next is Entomb. Oh, I promised I would tell the Entomb story. So one of the things that I find funny. So in Myrion, I believe, I have the, I don't know, honor is the correct word, the infamous honor of passing Richard Garfield as being the designer of more banned cards. Banned slash restricted cards.

I mentioned Entomb because Entomb at one point got restricted. So the funny thing was, I mean, sometimes, sometimes I'm messing around areas that you're like, I made Yawgmoth's Bargain when I did Urge's Destiny.

I mean, given I was trying to make a Greed variant and not a Necro variant, but nonetheless, I was trading cards for life. That's dangerous territory. If you tell me later,

this card has to get restricted or banned, I'm like, okay, I was messing cards for life. That's dangerous territory. If you tell me later, this card has to get restricted or banned, I'm like, okay. I was messing in dangerous territory. This one caught me off guard. This was just like, we had a graveyard set. We wanted things in the graveyard. Things were active in the graveyard.

I'm just like, I mean, this was solely a Johnny card for me to go, okay, hey, this is neat little fun things you can do with this. And I don't think power level, that's not how development, that's not how design works.

Development does power level, so I'm just like, this is a fun, goofy little card. For the life of me, if you told me, okay, when I was handing Odyssey over, one of these cards is going to be restricted slash banned in certain formats, which card? I would not get this card in a million years.

What it does show me is that my job to shift where card advantage was from in play and in hand to the graveyard was mightily successful. Because this card basically was draw a card. And not just draw, it was a tutor, right? It's like, tutor for the exact card you need, fine. It had to be a subset of cards that were advantageous in the graveyard. But essentially it was as a tutor, right? It's like tutor for the exact card you need. Fine, it had to be a subset of cards

that were advantageous in the graveyard, but essentially it was just a tutor and tutors are good. Tutors are very, very good. Flameburst. Oh, this is another. Okay, so I wanted to do Kindle. Flameburst is the Kindle.

Why didn't I bring back Kindle, by the way? I'm not sure. I think I wanted to do ale. Flame Burst is the Kindle. Why didn't I bring back Kindle, by the way? I'm not sure. I think I wanted to do a whole cycle of them, and I decided that I wanted to connect the cycle so they felt connected, and I didn't feel that I could do Kindle and have them match up and make sense, so I changed it to Flame Burst. I believe... I think it's... I think...

Flame Burst is just... I think it's just Kindle. I think. Anyway, the funny story about this card is so the art that's on this card was actually, if you take the art and turn it upside down,

that card was given to us as an Aven. In fact, an Aven that had protection from red. So what happened was I think the artist was instructed to show, because it had protection from red, that it was like the flame was instructed to show, because it had protection

from red, that it was like the flame was supposed to be bouncing off him or something, like it was impervious to red magic. And we saw this and we're like, okay, that doesn't look impervious. That kind of looks pervious. So, you know, like it didn't, so once again, we're like, okay, well, this can't be, this can't be a Aven, especially an Aven that's protection from red. Um, so what we did is we flipped it upside down and made it a drug damage spell. So, uh, I'm sure, uh... We don't often flip the art. That was kind of... I mean, and we would not do that nowadays.

That's, uh, back... We were a little wild back in the days. But anyway, the art turned in, I'm pretty sure it was flipped, and it was turned in for a projection from Red Aven. Which, if you look at the art, does not, uh, does not really seem like a Aven that's just shrugging off

red magic. Next, Gallantry and Repentant Vampire. So, Gallantry is a spell that, what, gives plus four, plus four? Um, it's a cantor that gives plus four plus four to a creature a blackened creature I think and repentant vampire is a black vampire

that at threshold when you have seven more cards in your graveyard turns into a white vampire that kills black things so what happened was when I was making so I for those that don't know I am a giant fan of Joss Whedon

I've been trying to meet Joss Whedon I made a video I will continue my quest to meet Joss Whedon but anyway I'm a big fan he made Angel and Buffy Angel the Vampire Slayer and Buffy Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel Angel is a spin off of Buffy so Buffy is this, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Angel's a spin-off of Buffy.

So Buffy is this, for those who have never seen the show, she's a cheerleader, a blonde, the person who usually in a horror movie you would expect to get attacked by the monsters, except in this universe she's the Slayer. And she goes out, she kills vampires and other monsters and she's the hero of the show. She ends up having, she falls in love with a vampire with a soul named Angel, who's a good vampire. And Angel ends up being spun off on his own show. Anyway, I wanted to make a, so I don't know what it was. I was making a threshold card, and I decided that it might be fun to make an angel card. So the idea was, it was a black vampire that they would turn,

and when they turned, they became a good vampire, and they started killing other things. In the story, by the way, for those that don't know Angel, he was an evil, evil vampire. All vampires in the world of Buffy are evil. They have no soul. But he was cursed by a gypsy and given his soul back so that he would realize the horror of what he'd done. So without the soul, he was known as Angelus.

He was as evil as evil comes, evil as the vampires. But once he had a soul, he became good, and he would fight other vampires. He helped Buffy and the Scooby gang fight. The Scooby gang was her side, what they called the sidekicks that fought with her. And anyway, he got spun off on his own show where he was a detective, and both are worth your while if you've never seen them.

Okay, so I wanted to make an angel card, and so I came up with the idea of a pen vampire. And then when we were drawing the art, I sort of made mention to somebody. Merc Tadine did the art. I'm not sure. Maybe I wrote this in the art description? Anyway, I asked Merc Tadim if he

could draw the Repentant Vampire and I sort of hinted at his angel and draw next to him, fighting the same art with him, a blonde girl fighting with a ponytail. Because Buffy had blonde hair and a ponytail.

And when we got the picture back, the girl's hair was a little dark. It looked more brown than blonde. So we actually asked him if he could fix it and we ended up making it blonde. And then that art went on gallantry. So the art of the woman kicking

butt is on gallantry and the repentant vampire is on repentant vampire. But if you put them together, they're actually one giant piece of art that go together. And that is my little nod to Buffy and Angel, a little Easter egg, if you will. Also, if you notice how the repentant vampire is dressed, that to me, definitely, I mean, it fits Odyssey,

but it has a little bit of an angel look to it. So anyway, that was Odyssey's little Easter egg, Angel Buffy Nod. We try to find Easter eggs where we can. I did a few of them in Invasion, not Invasion, in Indistrad. But anyway, we don't do tons of them these days, but when I can,

I like to do a little bit. Gorilla Titan. So I talked about Gorilla Titan on another podcast about how, maybe I told the story, but I'll tell it again quickly,

which is, we wrote this, Gorilla Titan was this giant green gorilla and we wrote this flavor text that like, I forget the flavor text, but it was like dramatic

about I'm a big bad gorilla. And then we got the art and the art was really goofy and we're like, okay. And then like, I forget the flavor text, but it's like dramatic about I'm a big, bad gorilla. And then we got the art, and the art was really goofy, and we're like, okay. And then I put it up on the bulletin board, and people wrote down notes, wrote down the captions. And the reason I got that from is when I worked on Roseanne, we used to do that all the time, is every week we'd cut out a picture from the newspaper,

and then you would write captions, and whoever had the winning caption, and the person who put out the picture would pick the winning caption, they got to post the picture for the next week. And I came in second, like, six weeks, but I never won at the Roseanne Caption Contest, which, by the way, is

Roseanne Raider, so it was competitive. And I always came really, really, really close to almost one, but I was, like, one behind. But anyway, I had that idea, and we used it. And like I said, it's this art that made both the top five and the bottom five. Well, the art is, he's holding his hands out, and so the flavor text was, I want a banana this big,

which made me laugh, still makes me laugh. Once again, one of my themes of the day is, I was pushing boundaries when I was doing names in flavor text. One of the ways I was pushing them was with humor, like Elf and Ambush and stuff. It's my personal belief that we could push the envelope in humor a little more. Now, I'm the guy who made Unhinged,

and I'm a comedy writer, so I have a lot of reason to want to push comedy. But, you know, if I was in charge of Named and Flavor Text, I probably would have a little more humor than we have now. I want it to be in... I don't want unhumor in Blackboarded sets, but I do want... I do think

there's more opportunity to have humor. I'm thinking one day of doing a humor podcast where I talk about the five colors and how they saw humor. Anyway, maybe one day I'll do that. Next is Ground Seal. So this is an enchantment where, for for single green mana that kept cards in the graveyard from being targeted.

And the idea was it's a seal and protects the ground and the graveyard's in the ground and somehow you're protecting your graveyard. But this is the perfect example of how the danger of words. So I made a card called Ground Seal, and then everyone was like, oh, that's not at all what I was expecting. And like, you know, what were we expecting? People were like, yeah, I was kind of expecting like Seal Hamburger,

like something you'd see at the Eskimo drive-in. Like, ooh, what do we have tonight? Oh, Ground Seal. I'd like to try some of the Ground Seal. So anyway, I did not see that. Sometimes when you have, one of the weird things is, and this happens a lot where in creative, you just have a certain mindset

and then just you don't see the other mindset, like ground seal. Oh, it's a seal that seals the ground and then I don't see, oh, ground seal. And anyway, a lot of jokes on that card. I always find it funny. Next, haunting echoes. Okay, so haunting echoes costs 3 BB. You remove, you exile a target

player's graveyard from the game, and then all copies of those cards from hand and library, and I think the battlefield as well, go away. It, like, it wipes away everything that's in the battlefield, including everything related to it. So once I get one copy, I get all copies. And anyway, I'm going to explain a concept I call a hat trick. So in the second graphics, I talk about there's Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. Some cards are made for Timmy. Some cards are made for Johnny. Some cards are made for Spike.

Hunting Echoes is a hat trick. So it had a big, grandiose, splashy effect. Timmy's liked it. It just was impactful. Like, it made something happen, and you remembered it happened. Very Timmy. Spike's liked it. It was powerful.

It was actually a very good card. It got used quite a bit. It was sideboarded a lot. It was just a powerful card. And John's liked it because it allowed you to do a lot of cool things. You know, you can manipulate things, and you can interact with trying to get cards in their graveyard allowed you to do a lot of cool things you know you can manipulate things and you can interact with trying to get cards in their graveyard so you can have a giant effect happen

but anyway it was a card that was popular with Timmy's and Johnny's and Spikes. A hat trick. We don't do those all the time. They're hard to do and not all of them coming out of the gate I didn't know for example I didn't know this card was going to be something Spikes were going to like because I didn't realize it was going to be that good but you know.

And the interesting thing about it is that I'm kind of happy when they happen. You don't often know they're going to happen until kind of the dust settles and everything sort of... you know, the lights... everything aligns. Like... But, anyway.

One of the hat tricks. And I was happy. Like I said, it's one of my cards. I was proud of it. I mean, one of the hat tricks. And I was happy. Like I said, it's one of my cards. And I was proud of it. I mean, one of the things that's interesting is that when you make magic, I've been making magic, by the time you've heard of this, I will have celebrated my 18th anniversary. So 18 years, 18 years.

And people are like, don't you just run out of things to do? Like, aren't there only so many combinations of things you can do? And I'm like, no, actually, magic's pretty robust. And one of the fun things is just, like, this is a card where, like, okay, we've done cards that exile cards from graveyard, and we've had cards that affect cards in hand and lobotomy effects, and

there's just one of those cards that said, oh, what if I crisscross graveyard exiling with lobotomy, and it just kind of worked out, and and I think a lot of, there's just kind of worked out. And I think there's a lot of fun just mixing, matching effects. It is true that it's hard to find an effect

we've never done before, but it's not that hard to find combinations of effects that we haven't mixed and matched before. There's a lot of combinations. There's a lot of effects, so a lot of combinations. I see Wizards up above, so I'm going to pick one last card here and talk about it which is Holistic Wisdom which is an enchantment for 1 GG

for 2 you exile a card from your hand and then you can go get a card out of your graveyard that matches the card type in your hand so this is one of the so one of the things about designing cards is it's very important that you

as a designer don't just design for yourself it's a very big problem that we get early in design is that novice designers understand what they like but they don't always understand what other people like and so they keep making cards that they like well I know this card will be popular, I like it

and so they keep making cards that they'll enjoy and so with time, you kind of have to learn that, you know, you can't always do that, that you have to learn how to make cards for other players, not just yourself. That said, that said, that said, it doesn't mean you can't make cards for yourself. It just means, you know, you have to be careful how many you make. Holistic Wisdom, 100%, 100% was like, I love the game of Magic. I would love to play this card. I'm going to make it so that I can play this card. This card was as selfish as they come.

It just plays in the kind of stuff I love. I love regrowth effects. I love combination stuff. I like Johnny cards. This is just me going, I would have a blast with this card. Now, it turned out a lot of other people had a blast with this card, so I don't feel too bad. But this was as selfish a design as they come.

This was, I want this card. This seems cool. And so I made it. Anyway, as predicted, I did not get through all the cards. I'm hoping maybe next time I'll get through it. So probably one more podcast is my guess. But anyway, thanks for joining me today in my talk-through cards. I see there's some traffic today, so you guys got a little extra content.

And it was raining because they cannot drive. For folks that it rains all the time, they cannot drive. Seattle drivers cannot drive in the rain. But anyway, it was fun talking Odyssey with you, but I gotta go because it's time for me to be making magic. See you next time, guys.