Magic The Gathering

Betrayers of Kamigawa uncommon. Though we weren’t able to verify it 100%, we’re all pretty sure this is the first Magic card to have a keyword ability repeated twice in a row in this functional fashion.

Betrayers of Kamigawa rare. Called “Spirit of the Mountain” during design, this wasn’t part of a cycle at first. However, the effect was so popular that it led to a six card cycle.

Betrayers of Kamigawa common. Counting strictly non-wall creatures (so spells like Cinder Wall or Sarcomancy wouldn’t count), Red has more 2+ power creatures for 1 mana than any other color. Green comes in second at 8, with Black bringing up third at 7.

Betrayers of Kamigawa rare. With modern sets it’s quite rare to see a card that allows for first turn kills in Standard, but pulling it off with this one takes enough cards that R&D was willing to let it see print anyway.

Betrayers of Kamigawa rare. Four different designers submitted ideas similar to this for the Kamigawa block. The one that made it into the development file was originally a land that had no drawback and also tapped for a colorless mana. Needless to say this turned out to be just a little too good. It was then changed to an artifact costing , but even that proved to be problematic.

Champions of Kamigawa rare.
During development this card was actually non-legendary, but it proved to be too powerful in multiples. The legendary subtype was added just five days into the development cycle.

Fifth Dawn common.
One of the ways black and white mirror each other in Magic is that white is willing to sacrifice itself to help others. Black, as demonstrated on this card, prefers to sacrifice others to help itself.

Mirrodin uncommon.
Conceived as a kind of yin/yang card, the idea was to find two effects that were opposite but related, both of which could make sense within the context of the card’s color. In this case, both destroying a creature and reanimating it are well within black’s flavor.

Nemesis rare.
Payment of “half your life” is a price black mages should be quite familiar with. In fact, six other cards have been printed with this drawback: Cruel Bargain, Death Wish, Doomsday, Ebonblade Reaper, Infernal Contract, and Lurking Evil.

Visions common.
Printed way back in Visions, this is still the only Enchant Creature ever printed that can only be played on a creature an opponent controls.