Darksteel uncommon. When a set contains a strong “X matters” theme - that is, when a certain mechanic, zone, card type, or style of play is featured prominently - most on-theme cards reward their controller for staying on theme. Another common way of playing out the theme, though, is with cards that punish the opponent for not following it. Chimeric Egg pushes the Mirrodin block’s artifact-heavy nature by giving you a 6/6 trampler for every three times your opponent breaks theme.
Odyssey uncommon. Along with its Mossfire, Sungrass, and Darkwater brothers, Skycloud Egg was featured in Sunny Side Up, a deck that debuted for the Extended portion of the 2006 World Championships in Paris. The deck was known by several names throughout the tournament, including “the French egg deck” when it initially broke and “Omelette aux Lotus” by the French themselves.
Fifth Dawn rare. Although imprint played only a very small role in Fifth Dawn, Summoner’s Egg was included as a sort of teaser for different directions the imprint mechanic could take. It is the only imprint card in Mirrodin block that removes the card from the game face-down and the only one that allows the imprinted card to return (other than as a copy). And unlike Rukh Egg and Chicken Egg (and Mistform Ultimus), Summoner’s Egg doesn’t have the Egg creature type. The Egg tribal deck, it seems, has yet to leave the nest.
Unhinged common. Chicken Egg was an overt parody of Rukh Egg from Arabian Nights, right down to the Christopher Rush art. We are sometimes asked why the Giant Chicken token doesn’t fly when the Rukh from the original Egg does. The answer, of course, is that chickens aren’t known for soaring majestically, and a giant chicken is bound to be even less aerodynamic.
Legends uncommon. Once a Legend, now a Legendary Creature, soon to be an infamous… pirate? There’s currently some debate in R&D surrounding this fellow. It’s a standing guideline that any creature with a supported creature type in its name should have that creature type (Thrull Wizard has its type line pretty well locked in, for instance). The question here is whether flavor text should carry similar weight. Pirate is currently a supported type, and Mr. DePietro is a flamboyant one… or so his flavor text suggests.
again as Time Spiral’s Gauntlet of Power. Even Mirrodin’s Extraplanar Lens started life as a Gauntlet variant.
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.
