Mirrodin uncommon. Sometimes opposite colors, for opposite reasons, end up getting similar abilities. In White’s philosophy, wiping out creatures on both sides of the table is about fairness and balance. In Black’s philosophy, it shows willingness to sacrifice one’s own minions in the pursuit of destroying one’s enemies (IE “power at any cost”). While White is the king of wiping out creatures on both sides of the table (see Wrath of God and its many variants), Black also gets this ability from time to time. However, because Black is only second best at this ability, there is usually some restriction attached, such as hitting only a limited number of creatures, or requiring more Swamps to kill larger creatures.
Homelands common. Around the time Homelands was being designed, Wizards of the Coast had a promotional program called the WotC Caravan Tour, which brought Wizards employees that worked on Magic and Magic artists to stores to promote the game. This card was named specifically as a nod to that tour.
Unglued rare. This card was actually designed before the idea for the ???un??? sets. It ended up not getting printed before Unglued because at the time, Wizards policy was to minimize cards that allowed your opponents to handle your cards. It was a natural fit once Unglued was conceived however. The first idea for the Unglued version was to mirror the card down the middle with everything: art, mana cost, rules text, you name it. That turned out too hard to read, but the printed version retains some throwbacks to that version.
Alliances common. Those that check Gatherer will notice that the entire line “Effects that alter Phantasmal Fiend’s power alter its toughness instead, and vice versa” has been been removed from the oracle wording of the card. The reason is that, after several rules changes along the way, this is now how the rules work anyway. When the card was printed it wasn’t the case, but the designer must have gotten something right, because now all power/toughness swapping effects work this way automatically!
Guildpact uncommon. Created by looking for effects that could be mirrored in Red and Blue, it’s interesting that neither of these abilities were originally associated primarily with these colors. Granting +X/+0 began as primarily a black ability (see Howl From Beyond, but also notice Berserk) but moved to Red when the color pie shift occurred (see Enrage). The “shrink” ability has shown up all over the color pie (see “Honey, I Shrunk the Blue Cards” by Aaron Forsythe for more) but starting with Ravnica it is now primarily an ability for Blue mages.
