Mercadian Masques common. This card is a lot more fun when you picture the pirates on the airship leaping from blimp to blimp with their cutlasses in their mouths, trying desperately not to puncture anything.
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Betrayers of Kamigawa common. It probably comes as quite a surprise when that seemingly-innocuous Birds of Paradise or Ornithopter suddenly turns out to be a humanoid rat that’s been trained in the deadly arts. That would be startling enough to make anyone lose some cards.
Portal Second Age common. Unlike most monkeys in Magic, the Tree Monkey (and Zodiac Monkey from Portal: Three Kingdoms) has the creature type “Monkey”, not “Ape”. This is just one of the ways in which Magic does not conform to Earth’s division of species.
Portal Three Kingdoms common. Though there are several cards that show or mention rabbits in Magic (see any of the cards from this week???s Card of the Day for examples), Zodiac Rabbit is the only card in the game that actually has creature type: Rabbit.
Fallen Empires rare. Players often assumed that the Praetor is the bunny, but Praetor is defined as: ???an ancient Roman magistrate ranking below a consul and having chiefly judicial functions.??? So, it turns out the Praetor is the official in the background, presumably presiding over some kind of judicial matter.
Starter 1999 rare. On Monday???s Card of the Day we told you how Kezzerdrix and Orgg were selected for a commercial campaign. R&D wanted to include these cards in the next set since they were out of print, but they were too complicated for Starter??� which is how the cards Vizzerdrix and Trained Orgg came into being!
Tempest rare. When Wizards of the Coast hired an advertising agency to put together TV commercials for Magic, the agency went through all of the cards printed and picked two creatures to feature. The winners were Kezzerdrix and Orgg. (Lucky you, today???s Magic Arcana features the Kezzerdrix ad!)
Champions of Kamigawa common. The first Zubera, this one was so popular that it ended up inspiring an entire cycle. Interestingly, all of the Zubera were 1/1???s for 2 mana, but they proved to be ridiculous with Skullclamp (still legal at that time) so each was given an extra toughness to make them worse!
Fifth Dawn uncommon. During design this was a 2/2 but had a casting cost of 
Champions of Kamigawa rare. This card was designed by concept first: an assassin that killed by animating the victim???s shadow. Though the resulting ability ended up being an effect normally associated with white (see Repentance), the flavor of the card was still a fine fit for black.
