Arabian Nights common. You may notice that Oubliette’s printed wording and Oracle wording don’t much resemble one another. This clunky ???considered out of play??? idea, also used on Tawnos’s Coffin, worked a lot like being removed from the game, except that counters and enchantments on the creature stayed. Why, that sounds like??� Phasing! After Mirage was printed, Oubliette’s Oracle wording received a major facelift employing the new technology, representing a surprisingly small functional change for such a complete change in templating.
Weatherlight uncommon. Though many players point out Ertai’s Meddling as a likely inspiration for Time Spiral’s suspend mechanic, this obscure little guy from Weatherlight was also an inspiration for the mechanic.
Urza’s Destiny common. Basic cycles typically come in two different types. “Horizontal” cycles are those that occur in the same rarity, but across different colors. “Vertical” cycles are those that occur within one color but across multiple rarities. Fledgling Osprey features an “enchant me” theme that was originally a larger part of the set, but was eventually pared down to a basic vertical cycle plus one artifact. One possible clue that it didn’t start that way is Thran Golem’s presence in the set as well, the sole non-blue survivor from the “enchant me” cards designed.
Urza’s Destiny uncommon. One of the design areas that Urza’s Destiny explored was leaves-play effects, in part because they had such an interesting interaction with echo. Eventually many of those cards were removed from the set, but Hunting Moa managed to survive the cuts.
Time Spiral rare. Several of the legendary creatures shown in Time Spiral got demotions of a sort, showing up as legendary creatures when they used to be Planeswalkers (be it from time displacement or other issues). Dralnu managed to do the opposite by getting promoted from regular creature to legendary. Dralnu first appeared as the figure in Lord of the Undead, but as explained in Brady Dommermuth’s article “The Legends of Time Spiral” the Creative team felt he was cool enough to deserve his own legendary card when Time Spiral offered the chance.
Time Spiral rare. Though it was a relatively short-lived practice, Wizards employees used to go to conventions dressed up in costumes of various Magic characters like Prodigal Sorcerer, Lim-Dul the Necromancer, and even Bird Maiden. The costumes don’t get much use anymore, but some of them can still be seen in this promotional video shot for the Ice Age expansion.
Time Spiral rare. Once Endrek Sahr was considered for a card, there were two things known about him: He’s the creator of the Thrulls, and he was killed by the Thrulls. Designing a topdown card that could accommodate both sides of that coin would have been tough in most colors, but fortunately for R&D black is the color that specializes in gaining resources in return for risk, so combining both traits of this legend came together quite nicely.
Time Spiral rare. Saffi has only appeared one other place in Magic???s history, the famed flavor text of the original Lhurgoyf (and every version since then). Her companion, Hans, has also appeared in the flavor text for Revenant and in the name of the Unhinged card “Ach! Hans, Run!” but only Saffi of the pair has appeared as a legend on her own card so far.
Time Spiral rare. Mangara is a character from the Mirage storyline, where he (yes, he’s male) was ambushed by Kaervek and Jolrael and captured within the Amber Prison. His card’s ability was loosely inspired by Amber Prison, with the idea that he can take something back, but he has to go back with it. (Note that, thanks to the timeshifted cards, Kaervek, Mangara, and Jolrael all get to appear in the set, plus planeswalker Teferi.)
Time Spiral common. Time Spiral was a chance to bring back older abilities from the color pie that aren’t out of flavor but have just fallen out of use over time. Since the very beginning black had the occasional ability to tap and lock down permanents, starting with Paralyze in Alpha (creatures), Phyrexian Gremlins in Antiquities (artifacts), and then Mole Worms in Ice Age (lands).
