Ice Age common. Ice Age was the first set with “cantrips” - cards that draw an extra card in addition to their normal effect in return for costing more mana. Our friend Pyknite here was the first creature printed as a cantrip, so to this day R&D members refer to cantrip creatures as “Pyknites”. Pyknite is also a perfect example of the standard formula for cantrip mana costs. Though there are exceptions, being a cantrip typically adds two generic mana to what a given card would otherwise have cost.
Coldsnap rare. With Coldsnap the designers wanted to explore completely new possibilities for cumulative upkeep. This card was a reaction to the fact that traditional cumulative upkeep cards were mostly defined by a big effect that showed up and then slowly became unaffordable, which meant that the cumulative upkeep was just a cost. With Karplusan Minotaur, the cumulative upkeep creates the effect!
Coldsnap common. Black removal spells like Terror or Dark Banishing that could take out large-sized creatures historically had the drawback of not being able to affect other black creatures, and sometimes not artifact creatures either. Flavor-wise, this was a representation of the idea that you couldn’t manipulate other fear-mongers through fear, and artifact creatures don’t have the ability to be scared in the first place. Since then this drawback has been tweaked in many ways that no longer limit the cards to just non-black or non-artifact. In more recent examples, the drawbacks were instead chosen with the current set’s themes in mind, such as Rend Flesh, Rend Spirit, and now Chill To The Bone.
Coldsnap rare. Though the ability to draw cards through a creature attacking and getting through is often referred to as the “Magpie” ability, this ability also shows up in green’s share of the color pie. In fact, green is the number two color at drawing cards, behind blue and slightly ahead of black. The difference is that with green the card drawing (almost!) always involves creatures in some way.
Coldsnap common. In Magic’s earliest days, anagrams in card names and story locations were very common. Though Coldsnap is the first set to have “Ronom” in its card names, the location was originally referenced as part of the story line for Ice Age. But, the first reference to Ronom on a Magic card was actually in Antiquities! (See Feldon’s Cane)
Coldsnap uncommon. White Shield Crusader is part a two-card cycle with Stromgald Crusader. When it was decided that Coldsnap would have lots of references to favorites from Ice Age and Alliances, there was little doubt some nod would make it for the wildly popular “pump knights” - Order of the White Shield and Knight of Stromgald. In testing, these two crusaders were referred to as the “jump knights”. It’s no coincidence that the real names they both ended up with reference their Ice Age predecessors.
Coldsnap uncommon. One of Coldsnap’s goals was to reference the Ice Age and Alliances sets on many different levels. Sometimes it’s something very obvious, like the name of Shape of the Wiitigo, but sometimes it’s something a little more subtle. For those that may not have noticed, this creature basically “casts” the Ice Age spell Stonehands on creatures for you, and even at the same mana cost!
Coldsnap rare. This was originally a black creature as a reference to player-favorite Lord of the Pit. However, the cumulative upkeep proved to be so difficult for black decks that the card was made an artifact instead, allowing decks with colors better suited to serving up a stream of creature snacks for this 8/8 beater.
Coldsnap uncommon. One of the early things current Director of R&D Randy Buehler is credited with is getting the comes-into-play tapped “dual lands” into Invasion. At the time, there was concern this level of mana fixing in a dual land was simply too good. Randy managed to convince the team to give it a try, and since then R&D has been increasingly open to powerful fixing lands. With Coldsnap, the Invasion lands come back in a form that often will be strictly superior to their predecessors, something that would have been unthinkable in the times of Invasion design.
Coldsnap common. Sometimes a card gets killed from a set after the art has already been commissioned. When that happens, the art goes to “the graveyard” and has to hope for another chance. Sometimes designers use graveyard art to inspire top-down cards. Another way for graveyard art to get a second chance is when a new card is designed that happens to work with that art. The art you see on this card was actually done for a Kamigawa card that got killed!
