Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #72 - Odyssey, Part 4

Episode Date: November 22, 2013

Mark concludes his podcast 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, three podcasts ago I started talking about Odyssey. And then the last podcast I started talking about cards from Odyssey, telling you stories about some of the cards from the set. But I had a lot of cards to talk about, so I did not finish. So today is me finishing. So last I left, I think I talked about Holistic Wisdom last time, so we're going to talk about Ivy Elemental. So in Tempest,

the very first set I got to design cards for, or I was in charge of, I made a card that ended up being called Cracklin. And what my goal was, I wanted to make an XG card that just made a 0-0 creature with X plus 1

encounters. So essentially, XG make an X-sized creature. In fact, in design, it was called Creature Ball. And anyway, I was told that I couldn't do XG, and it changed, and it got trampled, but it was XGG. But anyway, I kept trying to make Creature

Ball. I tried tried and I tried, and eventually I finally, as Creatures got a little better, I finally, in Odyssey, was able to make Creature Ball, which is XG, you know, essentially an XX creature. It comes in with X plus and plus one counters.

Anyway, I'm excited that I finally got to make it. One of the things I often talk about is how you don't always get to make something the first time out. I mean, one of the lessons of doing design on an ongoing game is that, look, this game is going to last a long time. We'll have lots of opportunities to make things. If what you want doesn't go in one set,

look, if it's a good idea, eventually they'll get made. And so there's a lot of stories of me just, like, wanting to get something made and then it taking time. But eventually, you know, you stick around long enough and be stubborn enough, you can get it in. So Ivy Elemental was a little victory for me, and I managed to get it in. Next is Crowson Beast and Squirrel Mob. So Crowson Beast and Squirrel Mob, I believe, have the distinction of being the first cards in Magic and some of the only cards in Magic

that have the creature type Squirrel. Now, Crowson Beast has the lovely, unique combination of Squirrel Beast because what we did with all of the threshold was we played into this idea of lycanthropy. Lycanthropy? Lycanthropy. It's a hard word to say. Which is what you might know as werewolfism. But the idea was things that change.

They weren't just into werewolves. And so this was a little tiny squirrel. Like it was a one-on-one creature, but it turned into a 7-7 or something. And so the idea was, it's a kind of crazy idea, that a little squirrel transformed into this giant beast. It tickled me to no end. I enjoyed it.

And the squirrel mob was a card... I don't remember. I didn't write this one down. But anyway, it had stats. And anyway, it was another card that was a creature-type squirrel. So here's one of the things that happened was I really wanted to get squirrels in the game.

Why? Why do I like squirrels? I think the reason I like squirrels is that I like to get different types of humor in the game. And to me, squirrels are Green's type of humor. And let me explain what I mean by that. What I mean is that I think Green gets great joy in watching people misunderstand sort of what nature is.

Meaning, you look at the squirrels and they're like, oh, so cute and so innocent. And then they come and beat you up. That's funny. The idea of squirrels attacking somebody is funny to Green. Because it's just people not respecting nature. And that sort of contradiction of what something appears between what it actually is is something that Green has endless fun with.

Because to Green, that's very funny funny that people misunderstand what things are. And so having these cute little squirrels attack you, I don't know, green finds it funny. I find it funny, but I think it's a green style of humor.

I've always advocated for squirrels in magic. I think the reason they're not is they do come across kind of extra silly, and I think the game is wanting to be conscious of not coming across too silly. But my whole take, wherever we argue with squirrels, I'm always like, you guys, we have rats in the game. I mean, squirrels are just rats with better PR.

So if rats are okay, I think squirrels should be okay. But not my decision. Although in Odyssey it was, and thus are okay, I think squirrels should be okay. But, not my decision. Although in Odyssey it was, and thus, there was a lot of squirrels. Probably the most squirrels per square inch of any magic set. Next, Liquid Fire! Okay, let's talk about things that

Mark tries to do that keeps getting stopped. This one is by the rules team, though. So what Liquid Fire was supposed to be is deal five trample damage. It's an... I think it was a sorcery, but deal five trample damage. That's the idea. Deal five trample damage to a creature.

The idea being, I do damage to the creature, and then any damage beyond its toughness tramples over onto the player. Simple enough, right? Well, Magic is Littered, Liquid fires is, I think, my first attempt to do this, but one of my attempts, where I try to do something that seems cool and simple, and when you actually

have to write it out, it just gets ugly because you can't just write trample on a lightning bolt or a direct damage spell. Why? Why can't you do that? There's rules and reasons. One of the things, real quickly, one of the things, part of my job is I have a decent understanding of the rules. Like I said, I was a level four judge.

I actually passed many tests for it. I actually know the rules better than most people believe that I do. But one of the things that I've learned is I understand what is capable and what is possible, when it's not possible, so that when I can make cards, I know what I can do. And certain attributes work well with non-creature spells. Certain creature keywords work with non-creature spells. Trample happens to be one that has problems. So anyway, I keep trying to make it, but it is proving all sorts of problems.

Next is the Mirari. So if you guys remember, I've talked about this in previous podcasts, that I had this concept of a marquee card. And the idea was, it was a card, the idea of a marquee card was, it was a card used in artifact or lands that anybody could play that just kind of did something super splashy and you know just sort of exciting um and now the funny thing morari is we've done this effect so many times now that the morari doesn't seem so exciting but in its day you couldn't just copy spells repeatedly i mean we had forks you know you could do one shot but this was like no no you can copy every spell. And the Mirari is meant to be a very splashy marquee card for Odyssey.

It ended up becoming a major plot point for Odyssey, too. It didn't start that way. Or maybe... Actually, I think what must have happened was I think the story people came up with the idea of the Mirari, and then I'm like, okay, this is important in the story. I guess I'll make this a marquee card. And the Mirari, magic- I'm like, okay, this is important in the story, I guess I'll make this a Marquis card.

And the Mirari, magic-wise, has done all sorts of stuff. I mean, right now, I believe most of Mirrodin was made from the Mirari, so it's had a lot of influence on the magic multiverse. Anyway, it was definitely a card where I was pushing boundaries a little bit.

The original version of Mirari, by the way, you just gotta copy everything for free. And then we playtested it, and it was definitely a card where I was pushing boundaries a little bit. The original version of Mirari, by the way, you just got to copy everything for free. And then we playtested it, and it was like, oh, free is a little good. So we ended up making you pay three. But even with that, it's still actually quite good. Next, Mudhole. Mudhole. Okay. Okay.

Mud hole. Mud hole. Okay. So, if I had a list, the cards I made, I got the most guff over. The players just disliked it. Mud hole's up there. So here's what I was trying to do. Sometimes you try to make cards that just play into some aspect of the set you're doing.

Except with a threshold, I'm like, you know, one of the things that can happen is you can discard stuff or you can mill stuff. And I'm like, well, you get land in the graveyard. What if I just sort of as a means to fight against threshold, I removed land out of the graveyard? Now, at the time, it sounded cooler. I mean, sometimes you're in your little bubble and you do something, and you're like, oh, that sounds like a great idea. And, you know, you get outside the bubble later, and you're like, oh, what was I thinking?

So Mud Hole is not exactly what you want to write home about. It is a pretty forgettable spell. But it's not that forgettable in that I got so much crap for it. People were like, why'd you make it? Because it's a rare, and it's just a super, super niche-y card, and it's so niche-y

that it's hard to figure out what you want to do with it because a lot of times people don't have land in the graveyard unless they've been milling or discarding or something. So it's a spell that just seems like, oh, great,

you can do this thing you'd never want to do. Hey, thanks for my rare, you know. And I do believe you want to have niche rares, and I do believe that it's okay to have cards

that are super narrow, but this one is narrower than most. And so, it has gotten down to infamy as being one of my, I don't know, one of my,

one of the things that people are like, really? You know? And my defense is, hey, I make a lot of cards. I make thousands of cards. You make a few mud holes. My new slogan. You make a few mud holes. Morrow said. Okay, next. Need

for Speed. So Need for Speed is a red enchantment for R. You can sac a land to give a target creature haste. The reason I want to talk about this is the name. So I was in charge of names and I decided I would branch out a little bit.

I would, you know, try to give... So this card was me trying to see if names with a little more of a modern edge to them were okay. I mean, Need for Speed obviously is a more modern expression. And the answer is, kind of, we learned... So fantasy has this old-time feel to it that fantasy sort of technologically... I mean, not that there aren't fantasy stories set in the present, but they feel more of the past.

You know, fantasy is more like, oh, the technology is not current technology, but older technology. And so fantasy always has been associated with a little older time, and you've got to figure out where. I mean, magic has bounced around. But it's 16, 17, 1800, depending on which

set you're talking about. And what I learned is, eh, you can't sound too modern. Like, it just modern sensibility fights with the feel of fantasy. And so, need for speed, eh, in retrospect.

I mean, I'm glad I tried stuff. I'm not against experimentation. And in fact, real quickly, I'm glad I tried stuff. I'm not against experimentation. Uh, and in fact, real quickly, a little side here. Um, one of the things that I think is very important is, uh, so, uh, one of my favorite books is a book called a whack on the side of the head by Dr. Roger Van Eck, um, O E C H. And,. And it's one of my favorite books. The premise of the book is that it says that there are people, the premise is that

people, anybody can be creative. And the reason people aren't creative is that they self-censor and keep themselves from being creative. And so he talks about the ten mental locks. The things people do and say that keep them from being creative. And one of them

has to do with I'll make a mistake. Which is the idea that oh, I don't think that's going to be fruitful so I'm not going to try it. And I just want to say that it's one of the very important lessons of the book is that

you can't judge like try things. Even things that you think might not work, like, try things. Even things that you think might not work, you need to try things because sometimes they do work, or, more often, you learn something from them that helps you advance to where you need to be. That when you're doing design, that... So, one of the things that's very important to understand is the way the human brain works

is that it will retreat to known pathways. That if you don't know what to do, your brain kind of has an autopilot and it'll just go there. And what that means is your autopilot is well-worn. It's where you always go. So if you're trying to come up with a new idea, if you just go to autopilot, you often just go play, you'll keep coming up with the same stuff. And the trick, see I've read a lot of creativity books, because it's one of my things, and basically they

all say the same thing in different ways, which is that if you want to be creative, you have to learn to sort of create stimuli that forces you to break out of your normal pathways. You know, that if you just sort of think like you always do, you'll just go down the same path. But the second you introduce something that you haven't thought about before, that you've just a different vantage point, all of a sudden you're exploring new things. So when I'm starting design, one of the most important things I want is just a new vantage point. I want to do a set in a way I'm using criteria that I haven't used before. For example, one of the reasons Top Down is nice is, let's say I'm doing Greek mythology. Well, I've never tried to design a set through the lens of Greek mythology. So all of a sudden, I have all these decisions I'm

making that just are different decisions I normally make. For bottom up, a lot of times, I just want to get a mechanical heart. That's what the set is kind of mechanically about at its core. I want to get a mechanical heart. That's something that I haven't just done before. You know, that if I just try to do the exact, if I try to repeat something I've done before, I'm much more likely to go down a similar path and do the same thing.

Anyway, a little side, a little side, a little, a little design in your card stories today. Next, Psychotog. Dun, dun, dun. Okay, so a couple stories with Psychotog. So I talked about this a little last time, which was Randy Buehler, the lead developer for Odyssey, wanted a cycle of eight togs. I came up with an idea for a multicolor cycle in which each color had an ability, had something you could eat. So real quickly, let me talk about the history of A-Togs.

The history of A-Togs. Once upon a time. No, okay. Before I came to Wizards, I came to Wizards. I started working with Wizards in early 94, but I did not really come to, I didn't come to work at Wizards until 95. And so, Antiquities was the first set I worked on. So the first set of Magic that just really enamored me, I mean, not, I mean, Alpha enamored me, but beyond just the game enamoring me, the first expansion to enamor me was Antiquities. Enamor me, the first expansion to Enamor me was Antiquities.

And Antiquities, for those that don't know, there was basically the base set, Limited came out for Alpha and Beta and then Unlimited came out and Arabian Nights came out. And then Antiquities was the second expansion. And Antiquities was the first expansion. I mean, I guess Arabian Nights was what we now think of as top

down. It was all about Arabian Nights. Well, Antiquities was about artifacts. And I loved artifacts. I loved artifacts. And so, in it was this little creature called Atog. And Atog, for those who do not know, is an anagram of goat, because it eats everything, like a goat. And the idea of Atog was, you could sacrifice an artifact to him, for no mana, just to sacrifice an artifact, and he got plus two, plus two. He was a base data one, two.

And when it came out, he was a common. He was just derided. People did not like him. And I didn't understand why people didn't. I did not understand why people didn't like him, because I just thought he was a really good card. I mean, I thought he was cute and fun.

He tickled me on several levels, but I also think that I thought he was a good card. I'm like me on several levels. But I also think that he... I thought he was a good card. I'm like, okay, I have a lot of artifacts in my deck. For nothing, I can convert these artifacts into power that could kill my opponent. That seems actually pretty good. And so I made some decks with A-Tog. And I won with A-Tog.

He was good. And so, I, Atog became, before I came to Wizards, Atog was kind of my thing. So, right now, I go by the name Morrow, and I associate with the card, obviously, that I made. But before I was Morrow, when I used to go on like, boards and things, I was

Atog. Atog was my, I really liked Atog. So, we were working on Tempest, and there was a card that you guys know now is for a Tog that basically you... I think at the time

you would spend mana and then you would sacrifice a forest and it got plus two, plus two. And I was like, wait, wait, this is an Ape Tog. I'm like, all you have to do is just make it sacrifice an untapped forest, and then all of a sudden you're not paying mana, although you had to tap it anyway.

And I convinced them to sort of tweak it to make it for a Tog, a green A-Tog, and they said fine. And then I'm like, okay, we've got a red A-Tog, we've got a green A-Tog, and then next I think we were doing visions, and I convinced them to do a blue A-Tog. And the blue A-Tog ate time. Chronic-Tog, it ate time. And then the next one, I was on a roll.

I'm like, okay, we're doing a cycle. We were doing cycles back then, I guess. Anyway, I keep coming up with cycles and I convince them to do it. So then we came up with necrotol, which ate things out of the graveyard. And that was in Weatherlight. And then in Tempest, my very first set, we finished off with Oratog,

which was the white A-Tog to aid enchantments. And I was very happy. I was very proud. And we'd done the A-Tog cycle. So when Randy wanted to bring back the A-Togs, I was, I mean, there is no bigger A-Tog fan in R&D. And so I was like, okay, awesome. We should do that.

And so what happened was I came up with the idea of doing multicolored because we'd already done monocolor. And then, so I, Randy had suggested he wanted them. I said, okay,

I think I have an idea how to do them. I made them, you know, I talked about how I suggested or a tog-a-tog. Anyway, so then I had to name them. And so I knew they all wanted to be tog,

you know, blank tog, because they're A-Togs. That's the naming convention of A-Togs. A-Tog, For-Tog, Chronotog, Necrotog, Orotog. So they had to be something A-Tog. And so what I did was I looked at a lot of Greek and Latin roots and trying to figure out things. And the funny thing was Psychotog was originally on a different one. It was originally on the blue-white one, I think.

And I was talking to whoever was in charge of development. Who was in charge of development at the time? Maybe it was Randy. It must have been Randy. And so I guess Randy said to me that we were working on them and Randy said that the good one

was the blue-black one. And I liked the name Psychotog. So I changed it. I changed from the blue-white one to the blue-black one. I'm like, ah, it could be Psychotog. And I'm happy I did because Psychotog has gone on

to have quite the history. And it was like Lithotog. I think maybe Lithotog and Psychotog swapped. Psychotog to me was my favorite of the 8-dog names, so I'm happy I lined it up. And that card definitely, it's funny how you make something. I said this was in Tomb, too. You kind of make a card, and I was just trying to make 8-dogs,

and I was just trying to pick abilities, and eating a card out of your hand or eating a card from your graveyard, it just seemed like it made sense for blue, it made sense for black. And, you know, I recognize there's some synergy there, but I didn't realize how much synergy there was. And so, you know, it definitely, Psychotron was one of those cards where if you had asked me when I was making it, like, is this going to be a tournament staple that might, you know, one of the top 20 creatures of all time? I would not have said yes. Although, I never say yes. I never realized my cards were that good, because I'm not

really concerned about power level. Not my thing. Recoup. So Recoup is my favorite flashback card. And here's where you learn that I'm a Johnny. Um, the funny thing about Recoup was I think originally Recoup was going to just cast a spell,

an entry or sorcery, or maybe a sorcery. We're going to cast a sorcery out of your graveyard. Because we let Red get sorceries back from the graveyard. And then it just dawned on me one day that, well, isn't casting out of the graveyard kind of like it, having flashback? And then Recoup kind of came about. It was just like a kind of like it, having flashback. And then R'Koop kind of came about. It was just like a flashback card with a grunter flashback.

And, of course, once we made the thing to flashback, I was like, well, it's got to have flashback. Anyway, I like R'Koop. R'Koop is one of my... One of the things I used to do back in the day is I used to make puzzles, obviously. I used to make magic puzzles. And Richard Garfield dubbed something he called Rosewater Cards. And what Rosewater Cards were, were cards that just made awesome puzzles. That just, you put in a puzzle, like, oh, so many

options, so many things you could do. And so whenever I make a card like that, he called it a Rosewater Card. And Recoup is a Rosewater Card. It's just like, it's awesome in a puzzle. Like, you have it in your hand, like, oh, and like you have in your hand like oh I know I have my graveyard like ooh what can I do you know and it's also a perfect puzzle card because you can use it twice I don't know

those of you who remember my puzzles from way back when but a lot of the trick was trying to figure out how to have the fewest cards on the page because they got cluttered and so I would

try to pick cards that had you know could do multiple things anyway Psychotog. Oh, sorry, sorry, Recoup was a very Rosewood card. Roar of the Worm. What was that, Roar of the Worm?

Oh, oh, I know what Psycho-Tog was. So this was Flashback, 6G for 6, 6, and Flashback for 3G. So one of the things that I want to talk about for this card, which is an interesting design thing, which is when you get a mechanic, one of the things we refer to when we make a mechanic is what we call knobs. It's more of a development term. But knobs are how many different things can you change? How many things are there to play around with? And the more knobs you have on something, the easier it is for development to balance it because the more

means you have to adjust it. So, for example, I'll give you an example. Let's say I have a card that says, you know, draw two cards. You know, inspiration. There's not a lot of knobs on that card. In fact, the only knob, well, the only really knob is the mana cost. You could argue that maybe how many cards you draw is a knob. But so So a one knob thing usually is look, all you have is the mana cost. Now, something like creatures, they have multiple knobs. Why? Well, not only do you have the

mana cost, you have power and toughness to mess around with. And you also have creature type, which sometimes can matter a little bit. And so, there's just more knobs. Now, something like Flashback is knobby because it's got both a mana cost and has a flashback cost. In fact, I talk about that oftentimes in design, we try to have one cost, like Bestow when we first made it had one cost, Flashback when we first made it had one cost.

And each time development is like, well, we really want a second cost, we really need the means to sort of fine-tune this. And kind time, developers are like, well, we really want a second cost. We really need the means to sort of fine-tune this. And kind of what makes Flashback awesome is the fact that later in the game it has a second use.

Now, once that is true, once you lay off and once you set up your knobs, one of the things that's fun is to have a few cards that sort of go against how the rest of the mechanic works to make something

a little different. I mean, this is a card that says, oh, I'm not particularly cheap to cast. In fact, 7 mana for 6-6 is nothing special. But what does make this card special is 4 mana for 6-6 is very good. And the hoop you have to jump through is get this to your graveyard. Now, obviously you can cast it, and if you cast it the next turn you can play it, so that's pretty easy. But there's a lot of other ways to discard it or mill it or get it into your graveyard. So this card has a lot, I mean

it has a nice Johnny-ish quality, I mean spikes like a two I guess, in that it's just like, okay solve this puzzle and you get a four mana six six, that's pretty good, solve the puzzle. How do you do that? How do you get it into your graveyard? And I think that it's important um

i mean it's funny that i don't think the so one of the big differences between um how r&d looks at a set and how the public looks at a set is our set is in flux meaning it's not locked down when i play when i play test a Set, anything can change. If I think something's unfair, I can just say, make a note, this should be three and not four, or I think this guy should be smaller or bigger,

or whatever, whatever the issue, I want to change. But I play knowing that every variable is still, is not locked down. Whereas the audience, it is what it is.

If you open a card, that's what it is. It's never changing, it's never going to be better, it's never going to be worse, it's what it is. If you open a card, that's what it is. It's never changing. It's never going to be better. It's never going to be worse. It's what it is. Whatever you find, that's what you got. And playing in a world of locked information,

it's just a very different world mentally than playing in a world of open information. And, I mean, I think it's important that when you design that you want to leave yourself the ability to dabble. Now, be aware, in order for something to be special, it has to be the exception. A very common mistake people make when designing is they go, they'll make something, and that's the default,

and they make something that's not the default, so it's different. Ooh, this is so fun, and then they make a whole bunch of that thing. And what they miss is the reason it's fun, it's not necessarily what it is unto itself. It's the context that contrasts it to the normal thing. It is exciting. And my best example there is

I make dinner for my family. And then at the end of it, I make a special dessert. Well, that dessert is awesome. But if next time all I do is serve dessert well that dessert becomes less special because what made the dessert kind of fun was there's a whole meal there the dessert was a special thing in the end and the dessert was atypical to the meal

the rest of the meal wasn't super sweet but the dessert is and that when you're designing you have to understand what your super sweet stuff is. Just like the food pyramid, there's certain elements to your game that want to exist in different amounts. And that just because people find it fun

doesn't mean in larger amounts it's more fun. In fact, a lot of times, what you want is just enough. Sometimes you want the little tippy top of the pyramid, and, you know, the sweets are the sweets because they're special. And then if the sweets were the bottom of the pyramid, you'd grow pretty tired pretty quickly of sweets. Okay, that ends our short aside.

I like, by the way, this is just how you can tell how I function, that in everything I do, like in my comic, in my articles, in my podcast, I just like doing asides. It's just, it's just like I'm thinking about something. Wait, I'm thinking about something else in the middle of thinking about that. That's how I am. Next, Shadow Mage Infiltrator. Okay, so who designed Shadow Mage Infiltrator? This is actually not that hard of a trivia question if you know anything about the Magic Invitational. So Shadow Mage Infiltrator. This is actually not that hard of a trivia question if you know anything about the Magic Invitational. So Shadow Mage Infiltrator was the winning card for John Finkel when he won in Sydney, Australia. He beat Ben Rubin in the finals of the Magic Invitational.

The previous year, he had come in second, being defeated by Chris Pakula, who would go on to make Meddling Mage. So the Magic Invitational, for those who are unaware, and one of these days I really, really got to do a Magic Invitational podcast. It was my baby. It was the all-star game. We ran it for a long time. It has an interesting origin, which I'll get into in the podcast,

and I talked about it. And anyway, the prize for winning was you got to make your very own magic card. And, uh, you were always, you, the player, were featured in the art. Um, so Shadow Magician, uh, when John won, he actually had a, I think it was called a Wrath of Lek'neth. So Lek'neth is Stinkle still backwards. Uh, and it was, I think, an Uncounterable Wrath of God, if I remember correctly.

Uh, and we were like, yeah, we're not giving you... John is known for being a control player. He loves blue, he loves control. And so what he was making was the ultimate control card. Like, I can clear the board and you can't even stop me from clearing the board. So we said, John, no, no, no, we're not going to make that. In order to make it, it had to be real expensive

and it wouldn't be what John wanted. We wanted to make cards that people could play with in tournaments. We wanted to be able to make that. In order to make it, it had to be real expensive and it wouldn't be what John wanted. We wanted to make cards that people could play with in tournaments. We wanted to be able to push them. So if players gave us cards they couldn't push, we'd sort of tell them we couldn't push it. And some players said, no, I want it. Some players said, nope, I'll make a new card. John said, okay, make a new card. And he came back and said, this card is one colorless, black and a blue. I think it's 2-2. And it's got fear and curiosity. So fear is old school intimidate. Basically, intimidate was fear, but built into black.

Fear just said, black creatures and artifact creatures can't block me. Where intimidate says, you know, creatures that share a color with me can't block me. But fear is old school intimidate. We change it, A, so we can open it up a little bit to put it on other cards, and B, the fear was an odd word, meaning that you were inducing fear. You didn't have fear. You were scary, not fear. You were fearful, no, fear creating.

Anyway, we had a bunch of problems, so we changed them. For mechanical and creative reasons, we changed it over to intimidate. So, anyway, John turned that card in. I don't think it... I think the printed version was what he turned in, which is not...

That is not true for most invitational cards. Most invitational cards go through some massaging, but I think John's card actually went straight through. If it changed, it was a very subtle change. But anyway, one of the things that's funny is when I first made the card, it got very poo-pooed. When I first said, here's the Invitational, here's the prize, I think the public always thought it was cool. But the players early on were kind of like that. When Ularati won the very first one,

he didn't even take his card. He would later. And just the players didn't sort of see it as a cool thing. And what I realized was... And I mean, my picture's not on Morrow, but I definitely have a card that's associated with me that I made. And it's cool that, you know, it's one thing to play a game of Magic,

but it's another thing to become part of the game that you love. And there is just... And the funny thing is, like, I've talked to a player like Chris Bakula, like, you know, he and I were talking not too long ago, I mean, a couple years ago, and where he sort of admitted to me that, like, really it is the most awesome thing he ever won in Magic. That, yes, he won money and he won a lot of other things,

but that, like, it was just kind of this prize that sort of, as he got older, you know, to say that he and Delvey became part of the game that he loved, that had, you know, meant so much to him, that that kind of was something, yeah, money was great and you spent it, but you know, when the dust settles, you know, when you're on your deathbed many years from now and look back at your life, you're like, who knows when the money was spent, but knowing that you kind of have, you live on through your game, it's a pretty cool thing. And I'm kind of happy that I made it. I know a lot of people

say, well, hey, you should continue this. And I'm like, well, I would like to if possible. It's not quite as easy a thing to do. Anyway, that was a separate issue for another topic. Let's get back to Odyssey cards. Okay, next is Spheres of duty, grace, law

something in truth is that reality? I can't read my writing so these were our attempt to fix circles of protection, so circles of protection showed up in alpha, well all but circles of protection

black and circles of beta, but the five circles of protection were in in alpha. Well, all but circle of protection. Circle of protection blocked and showed up in beta. But the five circle of protections were in the limited edition. And they were cool. They were flavorful. But they had a lot of busy work. And sometimes they could lock people out. So this was our attempt to try to fix them, to make them a little cleaner. They just prevented damage once, and so they could stop smaller things,

but a lot bigger things to get through. We didn't have to pay mana, so a little less management. In the end, by the way, we decided that it just wasn't crucial for us. It slowed the game down too much, and the white didn't have to have it, so that's why circles have kind of gone away. Okay, next, squirrel's nest circles have kind of gone away. Okay, next. Squirrel's nest. Oh, okay, okay. So squirrel's nest is when I wanted to do squirrels, the brand team was kind of dubious. They were like, squirrels

are cutesy. I'm like, no, no, no. Oh, what they said to me is, because at the time, our slogan was that we were about badass creatures. That was part of our you know, like the brand team would have like, here's things that represent magic. One of them was badass creatures. And I'm like, oh no, no, we can do badass squirrels. And so Squirrel Max is a squirrel that instead of a nut, it has an eyeball. And it's funny because there's a movie coming out, a horror movie called Squirrels, I think. And it's the same image, but instead of having an eyeball, they have like a finger. But the same basic idea, instead of a nut, it's got part of the human body.

And the number of people that have forwarded me the link to that movie is hilarious. Because everyone's like, see, squirrels are scary. I'm like, I'm preaching to the choir. Preaching to the squirrel choir. Okay, next. Stone Tongue Basilisk. So Stone Tongue Basilisk is a basilisk, meaning it has a death touch, although this was before death touch existed.

And it probably wasn't 100% with death touch, but similar. And at threshold, you got lure. Lure means that you must block me. Everybody must block me at April. And we had a big fight about this because sometimes Arnie felt it was too easy. Like, well of course you want lure on your basketballs, but why put it on the same card? Why make it too easy? And I remember they used to make fun of, I used to make cards like this all the time, they used to make fun of me, they called them clever cards,

you know, sarcastically. And one thing I said is, look, magic is awesome and you want to have opportunities where people have to figure things out and craft things together and there should always be those moments of discovery and those will exist

but sometimes sometimes you just want your chocolate and your peanut butter together okay from non-Americans there's this thing called Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

that's chocolate peanut butter I learned that peanut butter is not very popular outside the United States which I did not know until I started traveling outside the United States but anyway I like making know until I started traveling outside the United States. But anyway, I like making that reference because

in the States they talk about the, you know, that's my American-centric Reese's comparison. But anyway, sometimes you just want the pieces together, and you know what? It's exciting to go, oh, this is good. And the threshold, oh, oh, oh, this is really good. And people get excited.

And that, well, yes, you should make people work for things some of the time. You don't always have to make people work for things. It's okay to hand people things. That sometimes it's okay. You know, you don't have to make everybody work for everything. Okay, next is syncopate. Oh, okay. So syncopate is probably, as the guy in charge of names of the set,

the cleverest name in the set. So, syncopate is essentially, for XU, you mana sync them, meaning unless they pay X, the spell gets countered, and then the spell gets X off from the game if they don't pay. So, the card is power syncink plus Dissipate. Syncopate.

Which is a word and means something you would put on a counterspell. Bam! Bam! Anyway, that's some good wordsmithing there. That's all I have to say.

Mighty fine wordsmithing. Okay, next. Thought Nibbler, Thought Eater, and Thought... See, my handwriting is not that good.bler, Thought Eater, and Thought... See, my handwriting is not that good. Devour, Thought Devour. This is a vertical cycle of cards

that when you have them in play, they ate your hand size. The funny thing, I mean, I think at the time we were thinking blue is mental, and that's why I didn't blue. It's funny, now I would stick them in black. I think black's more about sacrificing hand size. That feels more black to me.

Anyway, I like that. So vertical cycle means you have a common, uncommon, and rare. Sometimes, nowadays, we have a common, uncommon, and mythic rare. And that means it's all in the same color that goes up vertically. We call that a vertical cycle. Next, time stretch. So time stretch, originally, was a very simple card. Time walk with flashback. Time Walk with Flashback.

Time Walk, Flashback. Development wouldn't have none of that. None of that. So they turned it into Time Stretch, which is just take two turns. Now, I'm not quite sure why take a turn with Flashback, take a turn, when you can cost those, whatever you want to cost them, is somehow worse than doing two turns. My big problem, not that i dislike time stretch it's just one of my big things about saving design

resources is if i have a card that can only do in a set that i'm working on i'd rather do in that set so example if i want to do uh um time walk with flashback well i can only do that instead that is flashback and be aware at the time i I wasn't expecting Flashback to come back. This is still when we were sort of mechanicals that are disposable, they were not evergreen. So, I thought this was Flashback's one chance to be in the limelight. Time Walk Flashback? Whoa, that's awesome!

And take two turns, also awesome, I don't think it's that awesome, but we can do that in any set. Any set could do Time Stretch, but only this set could do flashback time walk. But, anyway, I'll ask development when I get into work today.

Why couldn't I do that? I never understood why, but, anyway, that's why it's not time. You ever wondered why we didn't do time walk flashback? We did. Or I did. Couldn't close the deal. Couldn't seal the deal couldn't seal the deal one of the things

by the way is I'm a big fan of Time Walk I know it's a dangerous effect and we have to be careful with it but

if you notice that Magic has a lot of Time Walks I mean it's funny there's certain things that I like now if you ever

watch me there's a lot of things I like I'm a pretty big I have a lot of interest in Magic but one of them is like. I'm a pretty big, I have a lot of interest in magic. But one of them is Time Walk.

To me, Time Walk is awful fun, because just taking an extra turn is just, it is simple in concept, but it has a lot of complexities. It's pretty lenticular in the sense that how to value when you need an extra turn and how to use it,

there's a lot of moving pieces, but the actual execution of it is you understand how your turn works, so like, well, just take an extra turn and how to use it. There's a lot of moving pieces, but the actual execution of it is you understand how your turn works. It's like, well, just take an extra turn. It's something... Oh, one of the funny stories, real quick. I mean, this is really an alpha story, but I'll tell it.

So Richard was playtesting alpha, and one of his playtesters said to Richard, he goes, I don't get this car. This car seems crazy, crazy powerful. And he shows him Time Walk. And Richard's like, well, yeah, it's good, but I'm crazy, crazy powerful. It's good. It's very good.

And the guy goes, yeah, but it seems, can we print this? And Richard was like, yeah, yeah, we can print it. And he goes, I don't understand how. I mean, you play it, and then you just automatically win. And Richard's like, well, what do you mean you automatically win? And so Richard looked at the card, and it said,

opponent loses next turn. And obviously Richard meant, well, the next turn of the opponent is lost, so you get to take another turn. But the person had read it, opponent loses. When do they lose? Next turn. And Richard changed it so that you gained the extra turn rather than the opponent losing a turn.

But anyway, it's one of my favorite stories. Snuck in an alpha story. One of these days I'll do alpha. See, when I do alpha, I just stole a story from alpha. Okay, next we have Traumatize. Oh, so Traumatize What's Traumatize? Traumatize is 3UU

sorcery mill half a library. So I also like mill effects. I like a lot. So I also like mill effects. I like a lot of stuff. I like mill effects. Odyssey had a strong milling theme. And I was just trying to come up with the most awesome... One of the experiments I do sometimes with my team is I say, just try to make the craziest thing you can think of.

Just the craziest thing you can think of. And sometimes it's too crazy. But sometimes, you know what? Not that crazy. So I was just sitting around going, okay, what's the craziest milling spell I could do? And for some reason, I mean, like, obviously, mill the library felt like too much.

So I'm like, okay, how about mill half the library? Because I felt like, oh, my goodness, half the library. And it was funny because, what's it called? Xenos Paradox. So there's this riddle where you have, I think the idea is you have a car that can teleport, but it only teleports half the distance from the place you want to go. And so I had a big kick out of teleport.

Traumatize rounds down so that you can never kill them with Traumatize. The Traumatize can almost get you there, but something else had to make them lose. Traumatize itself could never actually defeat them. And that was me goofing around with a little paradox. I like riddles. I'm a big fan of logic riddles. In fact, I did a whole column once where I took some of my favorite

logic riddles and just gave them a magic sheen. I think there's five... what did I call it? If you look up, what did I call it? I don't know what I called it. Maybe if you look up my name in puzzles or something, I don't know, but you'll get, I'm not sure how to find it. Anyway, hidden deep in the bowels,

I do a bunch of logic problems dressed up in magic dressing. Next, werebear. I liked werebear. So werebear, the flavor of werebear is lycopropy. It's a human that turns into a bear. So the flavor text is he exercises his right to bear arms, B-E-A-R. Did I write that? Absolutely, positively, 100% I wrote that.

I would have written that whether or not I was in charge of names in Flavor Text. I don't know whether the person in charge of names in Flavor Text would have put it on the card. But it's funny. That one actually did pretty well. That one was not in the bottom five, unlike Griddle Titan. Although I think it might have been bottom 20. I mean, whenever you do a pun, the thing that's funny about puns is you are trained to groan at puns and go, that's bad!

It's hard to judge sometimes when people like or don't like things. Because if they actually think it's bad, they say it's bad. But when they really like it, they say it's bad. So sometimes it's hard to gauge who does and doesn't like puns. But who does like puns? Who has two opposable thumbs and likes puns? This guy. That visual works much better not on a podcast. Okay, but Werebear

was, I love the idea of one of the things we were trying to do with Threshold was have creatures that had one functionality early game and a different functionality late game. And so the idea with this card was pretty simple, was, oh, it was an elf, you know, a mana elf that got you mana,

and later on became a beater that can beat down. So it was a 1-1 elf that I think turned into a, got pluses with three, I think, so 4-4. So, like, early in the game, it helps ramp you.

Later in the game, it turns into a 4-4. And I, I like Werebear. I like his Slaver text. I like his Slaver. I like everything about him. I like his name. I'm very fond. So the final card everything about him. I like his name. It's very fun. So the final card today,

I see Wizards up here. It's my final card of the day. And luckily we're near the end of my list. Or actually, the end is Wild Mongrel. So the interesting thing about Wild Mongrel, I explained that... Did I explain this? I think I did. One of the problems is when I do my podcast,

if things don't work, I'll re-record it. And so sometimes I tell stories and I'm like, oh, I know I told the story, but was it a podcast you guys heard? So the real quick version of the story is we wanted a cycle of cards that were going to have discards.

So there were a cycle of cards, creatures, that were all small, and they all had discard a card as a cost. And Randy asked me for his friend Eric Lauer, who at the time did not work at Wizards, whether or not we could make a cycle of dogs. Because Eric's always wanted a cycle of dogs, because a couple colors

didn't have dogs in them. And I said sure. So the green one was Wild Mongrel, which went on to be the good one of the five. Now the main reason it's good and funny is you can discard a creature to give it plus one, plus one. Discard it's funny, is you can sacrifice a creature to give it plus one, plus one. Discard a card, sorry. You can discard a card to give it plus one, plus one. All five of these cards,

you've discarded a card to give them an effect. Sorry, not sacrificed. You've discarded a card to give them an effect. And the plus one, plus one was very, very powerful. It allowed you to, you know, it was hard to block because if you had a handful of cards, you always could trade and kill things. And if they let it through and you had enough cards, you could kill them. So it was just to block because if you had a handful of cards, you always could trade and kill things. And if they let it through at the end of cards, you could kill them.

So it was just pretty powerful. But we added one other thing. People often ask about this, which is it can change its color. And people are like, why? Wasn't the plus one plus one enough? And the answer was there was some kill spell, tear, dark banishing, or something that couldn't kill black cards. We wanted this to be good.

And so Randy added on that ability in development to protect it from dark banishing, I believe. And so it's kind of funny that like, now, it went on to have other functionalities, it did other things you know, circles and things that would

try to stop you or, you know, protection it would, it ended up having some other functionality. It's not a useless ability, but it's a little inelegant in my mind because the two don't really feel like they go together. You know, and green doesn't change colors. It's a really odd ability for green. So, I mean, back in the day,

green used to change colors a little bit. I mean, blue really is a color-changing one now. I guess the idea is that green had a little bit of camouflage to is a color-changing one now. I guess the idea is that green has a little bit of camouflage to it. Anyway, so, that is Wild Mind Girl.

Okay, so I got through all my Odyssey cards. So, in four short, easy podcasts, I have given you Odyssey. So, I mean, looking back, the thing about

Odyssey I found cool was it was my fourth set, my second large set. I made a lot of mistakes on Odyssey when I talked about Lessons Learned. In some ways found cool was it was my fourth set, my second large set. I made a lot of mistakes on Odyssey when I talked about lessons learned. In some way, Odyssey, one of my biggest mistakes I ever made was on Odyssey.

But I think it might be the set that I learned the most from of any set I've ever designed. It might be the set that just single-handedly gave me the largest advancements. It taught me to stop designing for myself and start designing for my audience. It taught me to figure out what the audience wants to do and not to push them in directions that they don't want.

It taught me to focus and not overstuff sets. It was a very valuable set. In some ways, if you enjoy modern magic, in my designs at least, you kind of owe a little bit of a tip of the hat to Odyssey. And, by the way, if you're super, super spiky and you ever want to have a crazy draft environment, I know a lot of pro players and stuff love drafting that format because it is probably the spikiest

or one of the spikiest blocks we've ever done. And if you enjoy trying to understand how card advantage gets warped and you're willing to throw away your hand and this and that, it's fun. I mean, I do think, I am proud of it. I think I made some mistakes, but I do believe that if you're the audience

that I was making it for, it is a very fun set. And so anyway, I thank you guys for listening to me. It was, as always, fun to talk to you. Oh, and I had some traffic today. Also, when I got here, I talked for a little bit, so you guys get listening to me. It was, as always, fun to talk to you. Oh, and I had some traffic today. Also, when I got here, I talked for a little bit. So you guys get an extra long time. Not quite as long as my longest, but longer than normal. So anyway, it's raining in today.

Ugh, Seattleite drivers. Okay, thank you very much for joining me on this podcast. My second longest ever, which was good because I needed a lot of cars to get through. And I hope you enjoyed all four Odyssey podcasts. So thank you for joining me, and it's time for me to go making magic. Bye-bye, guys.