Mirrodin rare. Called “Blood Elemental” during design, the concept was that this card fed off the suffering of your opponent. For flavor reasons the actual card was named War Elemental to clarify that it was the strife the card feeds on, not the actual blood (to prevent the card from feeling like some kind of weird Vampire).
Judgment uncommon. The April 6 Card of the Day on Nature’s Resurgence spawned quite a bit of discussion in email and on the boards. Many players seem to feel that Nature’s Resurgence make more sense in Green (perhaps evoking the flavor of recycling/renewal), but that cards like Lhurgoyf feel more Black. As this card shows though, more cards like Lhurgoyf have been printed in Green than cards like Nature’s Resurgence, at least so far.
Weatherlight card. Nature’s Resurgence is something of an oddity in that it’s a green card that gains power by having more and more of your creatures perish, an effect normally associated with Black. It came about because Weatherlight featured a pretty strong graveyard theme, and the designers were looking for a way for Green to draw cards based on graveyards. There had been some precedent too, as Ice Age featured Lhurgoyf, which had a similar feel. Lhurgoyf made it back as recently as 8th Edition, but was replaced by its black cousin Mortivore when 9th Edition came out, since that card makes more sense in terms of the color pie. Philosophically, maybe Nature’s Resurgence makes more sense as a Black card too.
Eighth Edition rare. As we’ve mentioned many times on this site, internally it was decided long ago that Mana Flare made more sense as a green card. Mark Rosewater tried adding the green version to sets for years, but it wasn’t until Heartbeat of Spring that it actually got printed. However, Vernal Bloom also started as a “green Mana Flare” when it was submitted. By the time the set was finished however, it was switched to the card you see here.
Unglued common. A common question with this card is “What’s up with that rules text background?” The reason it looks like that is because, in the sprit of the card’s flavor, the rules text background features sections of the backgrounds from each of the five colors. Unfortunately, for some reason it shows the land/artifact background as well.
