Dissension rare. When R&D ran its first survey to see which cards were most popular with the players, only Grand Arbiter Augustin IV managed to top Voidslime. The other three (from third to fifth) were Windreaver, Avatar of Discord, and Coiling Oracle.
Dissension uncommon.Early in Dissension design the three guildhalls had keyword abilities. The Simic land was actually just a land that tapped for colorless, but had Graft 1 as well, letting you improve one of your creatures +1/+1 for free. When the idea for the cycle was scrapped and the current version came about, the reason for adding the colored activation was to make sure the ability only worked for decks with access to Simic mana, since the original land had seemed so strange in non-Simic decks.
Exodus common. Throughout much of the game’s history designers have explored different ways to offset some of the disadvantages inherent in enchant creature cards. One common answer is the opportunity to return the enchantment to hand should the enchanted creature be about to perish. The ability to return or reattach to different creatures is also an interesting one in that it has different uses depending on whether the enchantment is beneficial or detrimental to the creature it enchants.
Mirrodin common. During Mirrodin design the Myr were actually gnomes. Gnomes were introduced to Magic during Legends with Quarum Trench Gnomes. But, starting with Clockwork Gnomes in Homelands, the gnome creature type became associated with artifact creatures. Since then, seven artifact gnomes have been printed, to just the one non-artifact gnome. Since gnomes-only-as-artifacts doesn’t actually make much sense, the Myr were created instead so that gnomes didn’t always have to continue being artifacts.
Onslaught rare. Jokingly named “A Little Mercy” during design in reference to Urza’s Legacy rare No Mercy, the difference is that white often encourages creatures to stop wanting to attack rather than just killing them. (For more on this, see the Card of the Day from May 17, 2006.)
Fourth Edition common. One of the rarest Magic cards is a set of “misprint” Lightning Bolt foils with no text. Intended for special promotional use, the foil Lightning Bolts were printed on Japanese Urza’s Legacy and Urza’s Destiny sheets as a test to make sure they were coming out correctly. Though they weren’t intended to show up in boosters some slipped through, making them incredibly rare.
Ninth Edition common. This card is so associated with bounce that other bounce spells are often referred to as Boomerangs. While most people probably think of the curved thrown weapon known for returning to its thrower when hearing the name of this card, “Boomerang” can also mean an act or utterance that backfires on its originator.
Ice Age uncommon. Many of white’s single-creature “removal” spells focus on convincing the creature to simply not want to fight anymore, with the flavor that white is often about showing opposing creatures a better way rather than just killing them off. Though Swords to Plowshares actually does remove the creature from the game, many of white’s other spells in this flavor leave the creature behind but uninterested in combat, such as Pacifism or Faith’s Fetters.
Invasion uncommon. One of the best tempo-generating cards ever printed, it has the distinction of being the first card in Multiverse that a newly hired Randy Buehler had posted about. He was man enough in his article last year during Invasion Week to admit to posting the following:
RB 11/11: I still doubt whether this will see enough constructed play to justify printing a super sealed card. recommend 2RG.
Urza’s Destiny common. What makes a spider a spider has been getting a lot of public attention lately. While mechanically the ability to block fliers is probably what most players would link to the creature type, there is also a strong history of having higher toughness than power. Aside from newcomer Aquastrand Spider (who is a mutant, after all), only Root Spider and Plated Spider of the 15 spiders printed so far have equal power and toughness. The biggest anomaly (literally!) is Goliath Spider, which actually has a higher power than toughness.
