Guildpact common. Though White is best know for the Spirit Link ability (it’s even named after a white card!), the first creature ever printed with this ability was actually Black! Can you name him?
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Guildpact uncommon. One of the challenges with the guildmages was getting their two abilities to be relatively equal in power, since they each have mirrored mana costs. With the Orzhov Guildmage, the challenge was that causing life loss is, generally speaking, more powerful than gaining life. So, to keep the costs and the gain/loss numbers equal, R&D made the life gain side targeted, whereas the life loss side effects everybody in the game.
Guildpact rare. Different abilities tend to have one color that is best at that ability, but then they also show up in one or two other colors, just with weaker effect or less frequency. Black is easily identified as the king of creature reanimation (moving a creature from the graveyard directly into play), but White dabbles in this area as well. Cards like Resurrection and Breath of Life have appeared at various times, and the repeating effect of Debtors’ Knell is reminiscent of Reya Dawnbringer.
Apocalypse uncommon. Designing gold cards is all about looking for where the colors in question either overlap or are opposed. The opposite effects of this split card inspired the idea for Orzhov Pontiff during Guildpact design.
Guildpact common. A “Chinese menu” card that chooses one ability from each color and combines them, the black side of this card has never actually been printed! With the White side being Pacifism, the black side is the one point of damage per turn. That ability (a creature enchantment that deals one point of damage per turn to the creature’s controller) originally began in green, starting with Wanderlust. The ability is now typically seen as black, but an exact version like Wanderlust (doing just one point per turn) has never been made.
Legions rare. This card is a good example of names that hint at a much deeper story waiting to be told. Cards with names as long as five or more words are historically quite rare. During Kamigawa some names got so long that some cards had to have their casting costs reconsidered to make room for all the letters! (For example, 
Ice Age rare. This card was originally going to be called Phelddagrif’s Winds! R&D wanted to use “Phelddagrif” as an anagram of Richard Garfield PhD to honor the game’s creator. Continuity heard about the name and denied it. When asked why, the response was, “That doesn’t sound like the name of a Goddess of Spring.” Confronted with the question what Phelddagrif did sound like, the fateful answer was: “Umm, I don’t know. A flying purple hippo?”
Onslaught rare. The gustcloak ability featured on several Onslaught cards was inspired by the Exodus enchantment Reconnaissance. Typically one of the biggest fears for new players is “attacking wrong” and having something bad happen to their creatures. Cards like this were designed for those players, giving them the option to just send in their creatures without having to worry, since they can wait to see what happens and then pull any creatures back out of combat if needed should something go wrong.
Champions of Kamigawa uncommon. Design teams often try to keep sets focused on either +1/+1 counters (like Shambling Shell) or counters that serve as some kind of marker (like Bloodthirsty Ogre), to keep potential confusion to a minimum. Early in design, Champions featured mostly non-+1/+1 tokens, and at one point this was the only card in the file that actually had +1/+1 counters. The team debated losing the card, but decided they liked it so much that it was worth keeping anyway. In the end, a few other +1/+1 counter cards made it into the set as well, quite possibly because of the decision to keep Otherworldly Journey.
Legends common. The ability that would eventually be called “vigilance” was very rare at first. Only Serra Angel had it in Alpha/Beta/Unlimited. Between Arabian Nights and Antiquities, only Yotian Soldier was printed. With Legends, however, four cards were printed involving vigilance. Showing just how wild the color pie was originally, those four cards feature a red enchantment, a green creature, a blue creature, and a BRG legend, putting the ability on all five colors!
