Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #278 - Fate Reforged, Part 5
Episode Date: November 13, 2015Mark concludes his 5-part series on the design of Fate Reforged. ...
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I'm pulling out of the driveway.
We all know what that means.
It's time for another drive to work.
Okay, so this is the fifth,
I think the final,
podcast on Fate Reforged.
I got a lot of cards to talk about,
but I believe I can get it all in.
So we're going to start with N.
Starting with Neutral Blast.
So it's a blue instant,
one and a blue,
two mana, one of which is blue.
Counter target multicolored spell. So one of the things that we definitely were trying to do is um this block was a multi-colored
block cons was more of a wedge block um dragons was more of an ally color block but anyway we
like giving you tools whatever the major theme is um once upon a time we used to put the things
that fought the major theme in the next block,
but eventually we figured out
that if something goes awry, you kind of
want the answers in the block where the problem is.
So we've been a lot
better about putting the answers
to the problem in the same block, so that
if something goes awry, you have the answer
to it. Next,
Ojetai, Soul of Winter.
Five white blue for a
5-6 legendary dragon.
So this was
the cunning clan.
Once again, remember
that there was, the way we did it was
we had a clan that represented
the aspect of the dragon.
That clan went all the way through the whole
block, although the name would change.
So, for example, this is Jeskai, and you go back in time, and it's the proto version of Jeskai,
and then you have Ojitai, who takes over the clan, and it becomes Clan Ojitai,
when Ojitai takes it over in the dragon future.
Anyway, it's flying vigilance, and then whenever a dragon you control attacks,
you tap target non-land permanent
and it doesn't untap until next turn.
It's what we in R&D call freezing.
It's the ability of blue to tap and freeze, as we call it.
Anyway, this thing can freeze anything other than the land.
Normally we don't let you freeze lands
because the goal in blue is not to mana screw the opponent,
not to mess with their mana.
It's more like to take something and take it out of action for a while.
Okay, next.
Orc Sure Shot.
Three and a block for a 4-2 Orc Archer.
If another creature enters the battlefield under your control,
target creature and opponent controls gets minus one, minus one until end of turn.
So the idea is that every time you get a creature, you get to give minus one, minus one to one
of your opponent's creatures.
And you can combine this with combat and do neat things to kill larger things.
You can play multiple creatures at once.
There's a bunch of spells in this environment where you can play single spells that make
multiple tokens, for example.
This card actually would play quite well with Battle for Zendikar
when you play all the little cyan tokens.
But anyway, this was a cool card.
It was made for the Mardu deck,
because Mardu has a lot of little tiny creatures.
But any of the three clans that can play right now,
well, the three clans in Wedge World
and the two clans in Ally World,
it was just made to be a generally useful card.
In Limited, you have a lot of creatures being played.
So this card is useful no matter what deck you put it in.
It clearly had a little more of a Mardu feel for it.
I think the flavor of the card is Mardu.
But it's a nice example of a generally useful card that
has a little bit different functions in different places.
Okay, Outpost
Outpost Siege.
Three and a Red for Enchantment.
This is another one of the sieges.
So when it enters the battlefield, you choose
either Khans or Dragons.
If you choose Khans, at the beginning
of your turn, you exile the top card
of your library, and then you may cast that card from exile until end of turn.
This is an ability we started sticking in red way, way back when.
There was a card called Elken Bottle that did this.
And then eventually we did, this ability did show up in red a long, long time ago.
And recently, the last couple of years, we've made the decision,
we're trying to expand red a little bit, give Red a little bit more to do.
And so I call this impulsive card drawing, in that you get it, but you've got to spend it right away, otherwise it goes away.
If you take Dragons, whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield, you've got to do one damage to a creature or player.
So this card, once again, the cons always helps you, the dragons always hurt your opponent.
And so either you're gaining card advantage or you're killing things or damaging things.
This one's a little less connective tissue.
A lot of the posts, you can look at the two choices and they really feel like there's some parallelism going on.
This one's a little less so.
I mean, they're both red effects, and one's positive
for you, one's negative for your opponent.
That qualities are true, but some of the other
sieges have a little more
additive qualities to them, where the two sides
feel a little more connected. They're a little less so
here.
But it's a very good cut
functionally. Just a little
design critique. Okay, Palace Siege.
Another siege. So this is the black
one. Three black, black enchantment.
If it's cons,
at the beginning of your upkeep, you get to take a creature
card out of your graveyard and put it into your hand.
And if you say
dragons at the beginning of your upkeep,
you drain all opponents for two.
So a couple things here. First off, this one is more parallel.
Notice they're both beginning of upkeep.
It's like, beginning of your upkeep, do something. So there's a little more parallel structure there.
The first ability basically is a raise dead ability, which is you, I mean the card raise dead,
you got to go get a creature card. So the idea is you keep bringing things back from the dead,
which is invaluable. I mean, you still have to cast them, but it allows you to keep getting
things back. That's pretty potent.
The dragon side allows you to sort of drain your opponent to win.
Notice it says all opponents and not target player or target opponent.
The idea is in a multiplayer game, you can drain everybody,
although, man, it's supposed to target on your back when you're draining everybody in the game for two a turn.
Okay, next, pressure point, one and a white, instant,
tap target creature, Draw a card.
So this might seem like a pretty innocent little card, but it's actually doing a lot of work.
So one of the things we were trying to do is we wanted to make sure that the Jeskai deck had stuff that sort of had oil to keep it running smoothly.
And so one of the things that the Jeskai deck does, and this is also true of the Ojitai deck
when you get to dragons,
is in cons and in Fate or Forge,
there's lots of prowess triggers.
In dragons, there's lots of non-creature triggers,
although it's not straight up prowess.
And this card's a nice little card
that does something functional.
It's small, it's fast,
it replaces itself because it's a cantrip,
and it's an instant, so it allows you to get a lot of extra use out of prowess,
it allows you to win combat stuff you might not expect,
it allows you to do a lot of little things that can be...
I mean, it's a very versatile card,
and it's the kind of card that normally might not be quite enough to make it in your deck,
but there's just enough other things going around with a lot of the
prowess triggers and non-creature triggers and
there's just enough
going on that this little tiny spell
can really grease the works and make things
and just make the deck work.
And it seems very innocuous, but it is.
It's a very powerful card in the right deck.
In the Jeskai deck, slash
Ojitai deck, it can be very powerful.
Okay, next. Karsei, High Priest.
Black for a 0-2 Human Cleric.
For one black tap, sacrifice another creature.
You can manifest the top card of your library.
So this is what it lets you do,
is it turns any creature that you have,
other than this, can't sacrifice itself,
to turn it into a manifest creature.
So for starters, anything that's smaller than a 2-2
can just become a 2-2.
Once again, with manifest, I need to always stress that
manifest has an added benefit.
Even if you turn up something that you know
can never be anything but a 2-2,
your opponent doesn't know that.
And so it is a 2-2 that has some...
creates some hesitancy from your opponent because it could be something. It's a 2-2 that has some... creates some hesitancy from your opponent
because it could be something.
It's a 2-2 that has potential,
even if the potential you know is not there.
And this card is pretty cool.
We try to find a lot of different ways
to make use of Manifest.
This card really turns your own creatures
into Manifest creatures.
Now, the nice thing about this is
you can sacrifice something that's about to die.
You can sacrifice something that's chump-blocking,
which I guess is about to die.
I mean, you can sacrifice things when you don't need them
or when what you're getting would be
an upgrade to what you have. Like, I have a
1-1, so I can upgrade into a 2-2,
maybe more.
Okay, next. Rally the Ancestors.
X white, white instant.
Return X creature cards with a preferred amount of cost, X or less, from your graveyard to the battlefield.
And then you exile them at the beginning of the next upkeep.
And then you exile this card.
So the idea here is I can get back a whole bunch of things.
I have to pay for it, so the more I pay, the more I can get back.
But I only get them for a turn, so what am I going to do with them?
I get them for a turn and they're going to go away.
And this thing doesn't grant haste.
It doesn't allow you to attack with things it can't naturally attack.
So the idea of this card is, what am I doing exactly?
How am I, you know, I'm going to bring them back to the battlefield
and the next upkeep I have to get rid of them.
It's a clever card to figure out the kind of things you can do with this.
And there's a lot of things you can do with it.
It definitely is a kind of card where there's a bunch of things you can do.
And like I said, this is what we call a Johnny card,
where it's sort of like, it does some cool things,
but you have to figure out exactly how best to use it.
It's not like I'm getting back creatures and then I can keep attacking them every turn.
That's just, I mean, it's a fine card, but a different card.
This card's like, I get them temporarily.
Is there a way I can make use of them and do something cool with them?
Okay, Reality Shift.
It's an instant.
Costs one and a blue, so two mana.
Exile target creature.
Its controller manifests the top card of their library.
So one of blue's things is it can change creatures from one shape into another shape.
And that's, this shape. You'll see in
Theros, we turn things into
pigs, and you've seen Blue turn things
into apes and frogs and
different things.
And so the idea here
is that I get to turn my creature,
but my opponent gets something, and
there's a little bit of unknown here because
my opponent gets a 2-2, which hopefully
is better than the thing I'm getting rid of,
but it might be more than a 2-2.
It might be a creature.
So I could get rid of something, and it turns into, oh, it's a dragon or something.
So there's a little bit of danger here because I don't 100% know what I'm doing.
But this is a good example of another way to use Manifest.
Manifest might really just seem like a token maker, but we found a lot of different
ways where you can sacrifice your creatures, or
turn your opponent's creatures, or there's a lot of
different ways to make use of it.
Focus, one and a blue instant.
Untap target creature, draw a card.
So I just talked about Pressure Point. This is
the companion. This is the exact
same card. It costs the exact same amount of mana.
It's a cantrip. It's
there for the exact same purpose as Pressure Point.
It's this nice little thing for the
Jeskai slash Ojutai deck.
Untapping's a little different than
tapping, so this is a little more
defensive. You also can combo with
tap abilities, so it's used a little
differently than the white one.
I think the white one's probably slightly
more useful because you can use it for attacking, but
both of them have their uses.
The blue one definitely gives you a little more defense,
and it also allows you to combo with tap stuff.
So my gut is the white one is slightly stronger.
But anyway, they're two companion pieces.
We like doing that.
Okay, next, Renowned Weaponsmith.
One and a blue for a 1-3 human artificer.
Tap, add two colors mana to your mana pool.
You may only use that to cast or activate artifacts. Run into blue for a 1-3 human artificer. Tap, add two colors mana to your mana pool.
You may only use that to cast or activate artifacts.
Blue and tap, search your library for either heart piercer bow or vial of dragonfire,
and then put it in your hand and shuffle your library.
So this is a cutesy card that there was this famous, renowned weaponsmith back in the day, and he made things so famous that a thousand plus years in the future,
they would remember his work.
Well, in the time of Khans,
the thing that lasted was called the Heartpiercer Bow.
And I guess it was used to fight the dragons or something.
But, in an alternate timeline,
when the dragons live,
there will be, he will be known for something different.
So the cool thing is, Vial of Dragonfire didn't exist.
It wasn't in Cons of Tarkir or Fate Report.
It's a card from Dragons of Tarkir.
So the idea was he hints at the future, but he hints at two different futures.
And one of the futures you know, so you get to realize,
but the fun thing is trying to figure out, oh, I know what this card is, but wait, what's that card?
I've never heard of that card.
And players pretty quickly picked up on that we were
hinting. We do this from time to time.
We have cards that hint at stuff that isn't out yet.
And usually, usually it's the very
next set. Normally we're
messing with that. We don't make you wait too long.
And so this was a fun card.
It definitely caused some speculation.
Neither of the cards were particularly
strong, so it ended up being
a little more of a limited thing
it never really made it to constructed
but I think
I talked a lot about how we tried to make
designs that allowed us to play with
time travel tropes and this was just
a fun one of just like hey here's
this guy and he's famous and he made these
things and he lost the test of time
but you tweak history a little bit and you just
remember for something slightly different.
So remember.
Okay, Sage Eye Avengers.
Four blue blue, four five for a djinn monk.
It's got prowess.
And when it attacks, you get a return target creature
with a power less than the djinn's power to its owner's hand.
So it's a four five.
That means when it attacks, it can bounce anything.
Bounce is just sling for unsummon.
Sorry.
Bounce means to put a creature back.
Sling.
Unsummon, bounce.
Sometimes I use different terms.
So you can put something back if it's cost three power or less normally.
Just by itself is what he does.
But if you prowess him, his power gets higher and he can bounce larger things.
So one of the fun things with this card is try to
combo, and this is where Pressure Point
or
I blinked on the blue one.
This is where those little dinky cards that
seem pretty innocuous can actually do some pretty
cool things because
you can tap a blocking creature and it boosts
his power and then
now he's got four power and he can bounce
or now he's got five power and he can bounce a four power creature and then now he's got four power, and he can bounce, now he's got five power, and he can bounce
a four power creature, and there's all
sorts of combo things you can do that's pretty cool.
Okay, next.
Sage's
Reverie. Three and a white for
enchantment. It's an aura,
enchant creature. So when it enters the battlefield,
you draw a card for each aura
on a creature you control, enchanted, or attached
to a creature you control, andanted or attached to a creature you control,
and then enchanted creature gets plus one, plus one for every aura you control attached to a creature.
So this is a build an aura deck.
It says, I want lots of auras, and auras are good,
and I will draw lots of cards if there's auras,
and I will be really big if there's auras.
So this card enables to play an aura deck.
One of the things that is very fun that we need to do is when we build cards, to make sure there's auras. So this card enables to play an aura deck. One of the things that
is very fun that we need to do is when we build cards
to make sure there's lots of different things to do.
And this card just says, hey,
do something fun with me. Now, limited,
this card's not too... You don't need that many auras
for this card actually to be halfway decent and limited.
So this card both had some limited
capabilities and was a fun
casual constructor card where if you just
wanted to build around auras... I'm not saying it was a
top tier tournament deck, but it was
a fun card. You could do some cool stuff.
Scroll of the Mafters, an artifact, costs two.
Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, put
a lore counter on Scroll of the Mafters.
And then for three and tap,
target creature gets plus X plus X
until end of turn, where X is the number of
lore counters. So
non-creature spells is the theme of the Jesk is the number of lore counters. So, non-creature spells
is a theme
of the Jeskai
slash the Ojitai.
This card
easily goes in that deck.
It sometimes can go
in another deck.
And the idea is
as I cast non-creature spells,
I can use it
to permanently buff
my creatures.
So it's flavored
definitely as a Jeskai card.
But there's a few
other decks
that could use it.
Shaman of the Great Hunt,
three and a red
for a four-ar Orc Shaman
with Haste.
Creatures you control,
whenever a creature you control
deals combat damage to a player,
you get to put a plus one
plus one counter on it.
It's what we call
the Slith ability.
You last saw it
on the vampires in,
or you saw it on the vampires
in Innistrad.
So it's an ability
we use from time to time.
It goes all the way back
to a card called
the Whirling Dervish
that was in Legends, I think, in the first year of Magic.
Also, it has a Ferocious ability.
When you have Ferocious, for two and two hybrid mana,
green or blue hybrid mana,
so two, green or blue, green or blue,
you've got to draw a card for each creature you have in play
with a power four or greater.
The Ferocious here is by being cutesy
because
you can't activate it unless you have
a creature with power four or greater, but you wouldn't
want to activate it unless you have a creature with power four
or greater. So the ferocious on here is
technically true. I mean,
you are not allowed to cast it for nothing.
And you can't cast
it, I guess, in response, boost something. But anyway,
you could just boost it first
and then use this.
Green or blue are both cards with card drawing.
Blue just can draw any amount of cards.
Green tends to draw cards based on creatures,
so the fact that this is creature-based card drawing
means it's something green can do
into a subset of blue,
so it makes a good hybrid choice,
and the other thing that's cool is
this card makes your other creatures bigger
and then rewards you for having bigger creatures.
So the two abilities are not,
have synergy with
one another. Shifting
loyalties, five and a blue for a sorcery.
Exchange control of two permanents that share
a card type. Now this is the kind of card,
I didn't make this card, but it's the kind of card I like to make.
I'm responsible
for some of the old school
ledger domain stuff.
I really, really, there's a card
called Gauntlets of Chaos that was
in Legends that I loved.
There was that and there was one other card
that swapped things. And I always like swapping things.
So ever since I've been here,
I've definitely been a big promoter of
swapping magic. It's kind of fun.
This one, usually it makes you swap things that have some parity to each other.
So here it's like, well, I can swap a creature, but I have to swap it for a creature.
I can swap enchantment, but I have to swap it for enchantment.
I can swap an artifact, got to swap it for artifact.
I can even swap a planeswalker, but I got to swap it for a planeswalker.
Shock Maw Dragon, 4 red red, 4 4 dragon.
It is flying.
Whenever it deals combat damage to the opponent,
it deals one damage to each creature they
control. So the idea is it comes
in, it hits them, and then
it does damage to all their creatures.
You can combine that in combat. It makes it
hard to block because you know that extra
damage is coming.
It makes it easier for me to attack with my ground creatures
with my dragon.
Next, Shuyun, the Silent Tempest.
Two and a blue for a 3-2 Legendary Human Monk.
It's got prowess.
Whenever you cast a non-creature spell,
you may pay red or white, red or white.
So two hybrid mana that are red or white.
And target creature gains double strike to end a turn.
So he already is getting more powerful because of prowess.
And wherever prowess. And wherever
prowess is triggered, you can pay mana
to give something double strike. It doesn't have to be him,
although the fact that he's a
3-2, that with prowess is a 4-3,
that with double strike
does 8 right off the bat. Now, you might
have a bigger creature. You can use it on your bigger creature.
But anyway, it's a good example
of just messing around more with
the non-creature triggers,
the prowess triggers that aren't always just for prowess.
Next, Silumgar, the Drifting Death.
Four blue, black, six mana.
One blue, one black for a legendary dragon.
It's got flying and hexproof.
And whenever a dragon you control attacks,
a creature that player controls,
all creatures that player controls get minus one, minus one.
So this is a little bit similar to the Shackmaw Dragon,
although it's an attack trigger and not a damage trigger.
But it allows you, when you attack with dragons,
to start killing your opponent's stuff.
And if you have a bunch of dragons,
you really can start killing their stuff.
Okay, next, Soulfire Grandmaster.
One and a white for a 2-2 Human Monk with Lifelink.
It gives all your instants and sorcerceries Lifelink you control.
And then for two hybrid hybrids, so two blue or red, blue or red,
your Instants and Sorceries instead of going to the graveyard go back to your hands.
So this is a cute little card.
It's a little grizzly bear, a little 1-W-2-2, which is pretty good. It's got Lifelink, so right off the bat it's just a bear with Lifelink.
And it gives all your Instants and Sorceries Lifelink,
so anything that does damage will gain you life.
And it allows you, for four mana,
you have to either play blue or red
to get things back.
Sort of buy back them.
This is what the buy back mechanic did.
And blue and red both can get spells back
from the graveyard.
So this is a little bit different.
It sort of instantly gets them back
rather than later get them back.
But they both can get back instant sorceries.
Red usually gets back sorceries.
Sometimes it casts instant sorceries out of the graveyard.
It's in Red's wheelhouse.
Blue obviously gets instant sorceries back more.
Normally when we break them up,
Blue gets instant and Red gets sorceries.
But we've allowed both to get both.
Okay, next.
Supplicant form.
Four blue blue blue instant
you take a creature
and put it back
to its owner's hand
and then
you get a
token copy of it
the coolest thing
is to bounce
your opponent's creature
and then get
your version of it
so you can bounce
your own creature
and then get your token
and put your
caching creature again
that's possible as well
this is a neat thing
I like
like one of the things
that's fun is
blue does bounce
all the time
blue does making
clones all the time
how many unsummoning
clones have we done
together
not a lot
so it's always
neat to see that
you can combine things
that you've been doing
for a long time
it shows that magic
has a lot of possibility
that you can just say
hey we've done
these two effects
but hmm
have we done
these two effects
together
okay next
Tassigar the Golden Fang
five and a black for a four-5 Legendary Human Shaman.
He's got Delve.
He also has an activation using Hybrid.
So two, green or blue, green or blue, four mana, two Hybrid.
You take the top two cards of your library, you put them into your graveyard,
and then your opponent must choose a non-land card from your graveyard
and let you put it back in your hand.
So the idea is he mills yourself,
puts cards from library to graveyard,
and then your opponent has to give you something
from your graveyard that isn't a land.
Now, obviously, they'll give you what they think is your worst thing,
but this card was actually really interesting
because your opponent has odd choices at times.
Like, look at your board and gauge what you're doing.
Wow, what card in your graveyard
would be of least value to you?
I think that's pretty cool. This card got a lot of notice by my
blog because there's bananas in the art and I don't like bananas.
So everybody had to point out that this card had bananas in it.
I will point out that having bananas might not be good for you long term.
A little teaser for Dragon's Dark here.
His future fate might not
be so good in Dragon World.
Okay, Temporal Trespass.
Eight blue, blue, blue sorcery. It's a
delve time walk, meaning you take an extra
turn after this turn.
The only difference is you exile this card. Whenever
we let you take extra turns now, we exile the card
because you have extra turns, because recursing extra turns
is pretty scary.
Two things. One is that it's not
Liliana in the art. Everybody seemed to think it was, but it's
not. And
because it's a thousand years ago.
And a lot of people
could not believe we made a Delve time walk.
I could believe it, because I think
I made it. At least I was one of the people who suggested
it. Maybe most people suggested it.
But, you know, we like
pushing things. I mean, it does... I mean, if
you have eight cards in your graveyard,
it is a time walk for blue, blue, blue.
Which is not quite as good as time walk,
but better than a lot of other things. So,
it definitely is a cool spell.
Okay, Teemer Sabertooth. Two green, green
for a 4-3 cat. For one
and a green, you may take a creature card
you have in play on the battlefield,
and you may return it to your hand,
and if you do so, then this
creature, the cat, gets indestructible until
end of turn. So this
is another fun card. It has a lot of
Johnny possibilities.
Even Spiking Timmy can do some stuff with it.
Or Tammy.
Anyway, the
idea here, which is sort of fun, is
it both allows me to give indestructible to my cat,
and it lets me bounce something.
And bouncing something, I know it always is worded like a cost, but it is not.
You can save things.
You can get cards back you want to recast because it got into the battlefield effect,
or you want to redo something, or you want to clear something.
It just allows you to sort of reset things.
You have a passive as well, whatever.
It's something you can do.
Next, Torrent Elemental.
For you, for a 4 or 5 elemental, it's got flying.
When it attacks, you tap all defending creatures,
and for 3 and 2 hybrid mana, which are black or green,
3 black or green, black or green,
you can return it from grave to the battlefield tapped.
So this is the thing. Both black and green can do green, you can return it from grave to the battlefield tapped. So this is a thing.
Both black and green can do that. They can return things from the graveyard to the battlefield.
And so this card is just this really
mean flyer that taps all the things when it attacks.
And you can keep getting it back. So it's
pretty potent. The Sultai
play around in the graveyard, so it's kind of cool that this card
is a Sultai card. But once again, because
of the hybrid, when you get
dragons, it just turns into a Silmgor card, not a Sultai card. But once again, because of the hybrid, when you get dragons, it just turns into
a Silmgor card,
not a Sultai card.
Okay, next, Ugin,
the Spirit Dragon.
It costs eight mana
for a Planeswalker.
He comes with seven loyalty.
For plus two,
he can deal three damage
to a character, creature, or player.
Notice it's Cullis
because he's Cullis,
so it is a Ghostfire.
He can cast a Ghostfire,
which is his spell.
For minus X,
you exile each item on the battlefield that costs X or less
that has a color in it.
So he can exile as many color things
up to, if he has to spend the X on it.
So the more loyalty he spends,
the more he can get rid of. And finally,
for minus 10, you gain 7 life,
draw 7 cards, and put 7 permanents
from your graveyard back onto the battlefield.
So this ability, for all intents and purposes,
is the negative version of Nicole
Bolas's ultimate on his Planeswalker
card, which itself
is a reference to the original Nicole Bolas card.
So we are trying to
play up that Ugin is the anti-Bolas.
So how do we do that? His ultimate is the
anti-Bolas ultimate. He also
gets to do Ghostfire, and he gets to mess around
with killing colored things,
because he's into colorless magic.
So anyway, that all plays pretty well.
Ugin will play really nicely, by the way,
with the block that follows.
It has lots and lots of colorless things.
So it allows you to play a deck with lots of colorless things
using Devoid and such, and your morph creatures,
and then you can return to everything else,
because hopefully your opponent's playing with colored things.
Okay, we're almost done.
Luckily, I'm close to work.
We're close to work. Luckily, I'm almost done.
Warflame, two red and a white
for an instant. Creatures you control
get plus two, plus one until end of turn, and you untap them.
So, white and red both
can boost you. White tends
to boost evenly power toughness.
Red tends to boost power. So the cutesy
thing here is normally
red would boost like plus one plus oh and white
would boost like plus one plus one. So we combined them.
Also to give you a little extra and make it defensive
it untaps them. White can untap all
creatures. Something white gets to do. Green now
more untaps a single creature.
Blue can tap or untap things and then white untaps
all creatures.
Okay. Warden of the First Tree.
It's a 1-1 human for a single green.
For 1 and a hybrid mana, which is white or black.
All the hybrid mana is white or black.
So 1, white or black.
So that's 2 mana, 1 of which is white or black.
He becomes a 3-3 human warrior.
For 2, hybrid-hybrid.
So 2, white or black, white or black.
So 4 mana.
He becomes a human spirit warrior.
That's still a 3-3.
Then now his trample and lifelink. And for 3, white or black, white or black, white or black. So four mana. He becomes a human spirit warrior. That's still a 3-3.
Then now it's trample and lifelink.
And for three, white or black, white or black, white or black.
For six mana, three, which are hybrid.
Assuming he's a human spirit warrior,
which you need to have done the previous thing,
you put five plus one plus one counters on him.
So he becomes an 8-8.
And then a 13-13.
And then an 18-18.
So this card is very influenced by a card.
What is the card called? This card
was in
it was a Brian Tinton specialty
it was a red white card
that I'm blanking on the name of the
card. You guys know what it is. So the idea
was that you activate it once and you
made it bigger, then activate it a second time, then make it bigger
and activate it a third. That
card was inspiration for
the levelers
that Brian made in Rise of the Odrazi.
What is it from?
It is from...
I'm blanking on the name of it.
Oh, it's from Eventide.
It's from Eventide, from my set.
It's a card Brian made in Eventide. It was a red or white card.
It was the most popular card in Eventide.
And I'm blanking on the name. You guys hopefully know what I'm talking about.
But anyway, we tried to do it again.
It works well with hybrid.
It's kind of neat because
one of the interesting things is, note that it
gives trample on the second ability. Both
white and black neither have trample
primary or secondary. Both can do
it tertiary. Any color
if it gets big enough is allowed's allowed to do trample, so
that's stretching a little bit there, but allowable.
And then the idea is if it gets so big, the trample
becomes very valuable. Okay.
Next. We're almost done.
Whisper Wood Elemental. Three green green
for four for elemental. At the beginning
of your upkeep, you get to manifest the top card of your
library, so take the top card of your library, put it
onto the battlefield face down. It's a
2-2 creature, and manifest means that if it's a creature, you may pay
its mana cost to turn it face up.
If by the way it has morph, or later megamorph, you can pay its morph or megamorph cost to
turn it face up.
A lot of times morph costs are less than the cost to play the creature.
Anyway, also you can sacrifice Whisperwood Elemental, and if you do, all your non-token creatures gain when they die, you can manifest.
So this card is pretty cool. It lets you manifest every turn, and then it also lets you protect your creatures.
Basically, if they're about to die, it lets you take all your non-token creatures and manifest them.
Notice, by the way, that a manifest creature is not a token creature.
So it does allow you,
if your manifest creature dies,
to manifest,
which is kind of cool.
This card, by the way,
was a very, very good tournament card.
This is one of the most powerful cards.
In fact, this is the card
that I previewed in my article.
It's a pretty good card.
Okay, the final card.
We're almost done.
I'm literally turning
onto the road to work
as I come up the final card of Fate Reforged. I'm literally turning onto the road to work as I come up with the final card of Fate
Reforged. My timing worked really well.
So this is Yasova Dragonclaw.
Two and a green for a
4-2 Legendary Human Warrior.
It's got Trample.
At the beginning of combat, you may pay
one Hybrid-Hybrid. The Hybrid is
blue or red, so you may pay one blue or red,
blue or red, to gain control
of target creature with power less than
card name until end of turn, and it gains
haste.
So what is it doing? It's gaining control of the
opponent's creature for the turn.
Normally that's something red
does. Blue traditionally
tends to gain things permanently, control
permanently. Blue used to have this
way called ray of command, but now
red now has it, so it's no longer ray of command.
Now it's act of treason.
But anyway,
blue can steal things, red steals things
instantly. It definitely has overlap.
Letting blue steal things temporarily
felt like, okay,
now a little bit of a bend because we moved
it to red, but it's in blue's
larger wheelhouse, I guess.
And the idea, which is cool here, is
that it gets to steal things that are
smaller.
And so, and it is a
4-2 creature, so it's pretty big. So the idea
essentially is when it attacks, it gets to steal any
smaller creature, 3 power or less. And if you
can boost it in any way, if you can enchant it
or do something to it to make it bigger, obviously you can steal
bigger things. But
anyway, that, my friends, is
all the cards of Fate
Reforged that I wanted to talk about.
So, I hope you guys had a good time with this series
of podcasts. I managed to get it done in five.
I'm happy.
This was a fun set. Like I said
walking in, it was a very challenging set
because there was the having
to draft with two different environments.
Making sense with cons and making sense with
dragons and having
each one mean something different. One of the things I loved
about this set is when you draft it with cons
or you draft it with dragons, just different
cards did different things and cared about it in different ways
and even though it was the same card set
it mattered. It was different. That's one of the big things
we set out when we started with this block
is to make this draft matter
and the key of making it matter was making
this middle set matter. I think
that Ken and the whole design
team did an excellent job, so I was very happy.
And anyway, that is all my
things I have to say about Fate Reforged.
So anyway, hope you guys enjoyed
my Fate Reforged podcast.
Not right away, but next up I will be doing
obviously Dragon's Detour here, so I will get to that
soon enough, and you guys will hear about the alternate future
and what happens when we get there.
But anyway, I'm now in my parking space.
We know what that means.
It means it's the end of my drive to work.
So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.
See you guys next time.