Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #278 - Fate Reforged, Part 5

Episode Date: November 13, 2015

Mark concludes his 5-part series on the design of Fate Reforged. ...

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:16 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
Starting point is 00:00:43 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
Starting point is 00:01:00 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
Starting point is 00:01:15 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,
Starting point is 00:01:43 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.
Starting point is 00:02:06 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.
Starting point is 00:02:30 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,
Starting point is 00:02:54 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.
Starting point is 00:03:19 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
Starting point is 00:03:37 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,
Starting point is 00:04:03 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.
Starting point is 00:04:42 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
Starting point is 00:04:59 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
Starting point is 00:05:15 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
Starting point is 00:05:43 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.
Starting point is 00:06:10 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
Starting point is 00:06:42 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,
Starting point is 00:07:03 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.
Starting point is 00:07:20 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,
Starting point is 00:07:38 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,
Starting point is 00:07:57 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
Starting point is 00:08:16 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
Starting point is 00:08:32 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.
Starting point is 00:08:52 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?
Starting point is 00:09:14 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.
Starting point is 00:09:38 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.
Starting point is 00:09:55 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
Starting point is 00:10:16 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.
Starting point is 00:10:32 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.
Starting point is 00:10:56 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
Starting point is 00:11:12 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,
Starting point is 00:11:29 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.
Starting point is 00:11:47 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.
Starting point is 00:12:16 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,
Starting point is 00:12:38 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.
Starting point is 00:12:57 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
Starting point is 00:13:12 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.
Starting point is 00:13:27 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.
Starting point is 00:13:48 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.
Starting point is 00:14:03 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
Starting point is 00:14:20 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
Starting point is 00:14:35 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,
Starting point is 00:14:56 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,
Starting point is 00:15:13 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.
Starting point is 00:15:30 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
Starting point is 00:15:45 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
Starting point is 00:15:53 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
Starting point is 00:16:02 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,
Starting point is 00:16:12 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.
Starting point is 00:16:20 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,
Starting point is 00:16:35 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
Starting point is 00:16:52 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.
Starting point is 00:17:09 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
Starting point is 00:17:26 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,
Starting point is 00:17:42 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
Starting point is 00:17:57 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.
Starting point is 00:18:15 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.
Starting point is 00:18:33 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.
Starting point is 00:18:52 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,
Starting point is 00:19:10 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,
Starting point is 00:19:27 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.
Starting point is 00:19:47 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.
Starting point is 00:20:05 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,
Starting point is 00:20:29 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
Starting point is 00:20:43 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.
Starting point is 00:20:58 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
Starting point is 00:21:09 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
Starting point is 00:21:16 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
Starting point is 00:21:23 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
Starting point is 00:21:30 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
Starting point is 00:21:37 that you can just say hey we've done these two effects but hmm have we done these two effects together okay next
Starting point is 00:21:43 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.
Starting point is 00:22:04 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.
Starting point is 00:22:20 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
Starting point is 00:22:45 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
Starting point is 00:23:01 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
Starting point is 00:23:17 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,
Starting point is 00:23:34 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
Starting point is 00:23:49 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,
Starting point is 00:24:07 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.
Starting point is 00:24:29 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.
Starting point is 00:24:50 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
Starting point is 00:25:05 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,
Starting point is 00:25:15 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,
Starting point is 00:25:26 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
Starting point is 00:25:42 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.
Starting point is 00:25:57 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.
Starting point is 00:26:13 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.
Starting point is 00:26:32 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
Starting point is 00:26:47 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.
Starting point is 00:27:04 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.
Starting point is 00:27:20 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.
Starting point is 00:27:31 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
Starting point is 00:27:46 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
Starting point is 00:28:02 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.
Starting point is 00:28:19 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
Starting point is 00:28:37 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.
Starting point is 00:28:54 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
Starting point is 00:29:15 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,
Starting point is 00:29:47 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.
Starting point is 00:29:59 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
Starting point is 00:30:11 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
Starting point is 00:30:27 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
Starting point is 00:30:43 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
Starting point is 00:30:59 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
Starting point is 00:31:15 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
Starting point is 00:31:32 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
Starting point is 00:31:47 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
Starting point is 00:32:03 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.
Starting point is 00:32:19 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.
Starting point is 00:32:36 See you guys next time.

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