Tempest rare. As many of his readers could probably tell you, Mark Rosewater has always been a fan of Safe Haven. So, when he got to work on the Tempest team, it should come as no surprise that he promptly added a card inspired by the Haven. The idea behind this version was to make it more flexible by allowing it to unload its creatures at any time, rather than just during the upkeep.
The Dark uncommon. If you asked most players “What’s the first Magic set with ‘graveyard matters?’” they probably wouldn’t jump right to The Dark! The fact that the first expansion to have a graveyard matters theme was also the set to have one of the most powerful graveyard hosers of all time shows just how much Magic design theory has changed over the years. In more modern sets (or even blocks) a moderately powered hoser may be printed to keep a set’s main theme in check, but a card as powerful as Tormod’s Crypt at cancelling a theme would be unlikely in that same set.
Unhinged uncommon. Though it’s easy to miss at card size, the art to Stone-Cold Basilisk features two guys playing Magic under one of the tables, which references Enter the Dungeon. By their expression, it’s clear they’ve figured something is up. (For a bigger view of the card’s art, click here.)
Ice Age uncommon. This card was featured on the cover of a special supplement bundled with The Duelist #10. The supplement was added to provide coverage of the very first Pro Tour, which occurred in New York on February 17 and 18, 1996. The cover was in honor of Michael Loconto’s winning deck, which had several innovative uses for the obscure card, including minimizing the impact of opposing Armageddons and making his Mishra’s Factories more difficult to deal with. (You can see a copy of that cover by clicking here.)
Ice Age rare. The Ice Age designers named this card “Polar Bears” - but continuity told them they couldn’t use that name because Dominaria doesn’t have any poles. So, the designers changed the name to Pale Bears. A bit after that, continuity then went on to name a card in the same set “Polar Kraken“.
Alliances uncommon. Early in Magic’s history the order of graveyard cards sometimes mattered quite a bit because of cards like this, but since around Tempest there has been a conscious effort to avoid designing new cards that care about the order of the graveyard. Instead, other techniques are used so that what’s in the graveyard is more important than what order it got there.
Onslaught rare. Over the last few years R&D has been taking various steps to make the regeneration ability more relevant. Akroma’s Vengeance was intentionally worded to allow regenerating creatures a chance to survive, which then made cards like Silvos, Rogue Elemental more powerful.
Legions rare. Windborn Muse is part of a five-card cycle from “the all creature set” Legions. During that set’s development, there was concern that despite efforts to include creatures that had spell-like abilities, there still wasn’t enough variety of play within the set. One answer was the Muse cycle, created to add more interesting effects that might normally have been associated with artifacts or enchantments. The point with these cards was to be influential enough in play that people noticed the impact of their effects more than just the fact that they were creatures.
Betrayer’s of Kamigawa uncommon. This spell is interesting in that, though it’s an Arcane spell and thus associated with kami magic, it can still be used to benefit a non-Spirit instead. Rather than work only on Sprits, this Arcane spell instead offers an extra benefit if the creature happens to be a Sprit.
Ninth Edition uncommon. Magic often features cards inspired by older cards that turned out to be too powerful. From there, a cycle often occurs as the different versions of that ability reach or miss the threshold for seeing much play. Fastbond from Alpha offered some truly ridiculous openings for just one mana. Summer Bloom offers a worse version at an extra cost, and didn’t see play despite appearing in the same block as the famous Prosp-Bloom deck. (Named, obviously, for a different bloom!) By contrast, Exploration from Urza’s Saga saw plenty of play.
