Planar Chaos common. As befits an ability that has swapped back and forth between white and black, the Kev Walker art for Vampiric Link is a dark mirror image. The Ninth Edition?�Spirit Link art, also by Kev Walker, shows a white-aligned mage imbuing a batlike creature with crackling life energy. Vampiric Link takes the scene and turns it on its head, showing a similar creature, now black-aligned, attacking the same white mage and draining his life away.
Planar Chaos common. Prodigal Pyromancer was known in design as “Tom,” a riff on Prodigal Sorcerer’s nickname, “Tim.” It’s one of a few timeshifted cards in Planar Chaos that would also be printed in that color if they appeared in a “normal” set. They represent intersections between the current “normal” color pie and the Planar Chaos color pie, as illustrated by cards printed in the “wrong” color in the past. Thanks to the Pyromancer, such cards became known as “Toms.”
Planar Chaos uncommon. In the Planar Chaos color pie, white gets regeneration. In both the “normal” color pie and in Planar Chaos, green is best at pumping creatures. The design team found that both of Sedge Troll’s abilities had shifted since it was printed, but not to the same color. Thus, Hedge Troll became the only Planar Chaos timeshifted card that “double-shifted” in this fashion; the other color-related text changes are either unchanged (Mycologist), self-referential (Sunlance), or mirrored (Dunerider Outlaw).
Planar Chaos uncommon. Compare the art of the original Curiosity to the ???timeshifted??? Keen Sense ??? it???s a scene between the same two characters played out very differently. In the Curiosity art, Mirri is about to attack Crovax after he has killed the dark angel Selenia and triggered the curse of vampirism. This attack leads to her death. (Curiosity did, after all, kill the cat.) On Keen Sense, the scene has been twisted; Mirri has been cursed, and the still-noble Crovax flees rather than attempting to kill her.
Planar Chaos uncommon. ???Pyrohemia??? comes from the Greek roots for ???fire??? and ???blood,??? so its name means ???blood of fire??? or ???fire in the blood.??? Ouch. When it was decided to timeshift Pestilence, there was some discussion over whether it should be uncommon or rare. Its effect on Limited is significant (read: insane) enough that it could be justified as a rare, but it remained uncommon because the original card had been printed mostly at common (!) and some at uncommon (and the uncommon Pyrohemia passed Development muster).
Planar Chaos rare. Magicthegathering.com content manager Scott Johns pointed out a neat detail in Damnation???s art that many members of R&D had missed. Where the Ninth Edition Wrath of God art by Kev Walker shows people and debris being blown away from a sphere of light, Damnation???s art, also by Kev Walker, shows people and debris being sucked into a sphere of darkness. So Damnation sucks where Wrath of God blows, but both of them rock. If you follow.
Planar Chaos common. The Planar Chaos charms were originally designed with a simple idea in mind: Like all charms, they would each have three abilities ???representing in this case the core, mantle, and crust of each color???s slice of the pie (as explained in Mark Rosewater???s article Chaos Theory). The initial plan was to design all five charms from scratch, but it soon became apparent that the black Funeral Charm could be timeshifted verbatim to illustrate blue???s Planar Chaos beat. The charm cycle is thus unusual in having one of its members timeshifted and the other four normal.
Planar Chaos uncommon. Calciderm caused a debate over how much cards could be changed and still be considered ???timeshifted.??? Blastoderm had fading, but Planar Chaos contains vanishing, the ???fixed??? fading. Allowing Calciderm to persist as the one fading card in the set was judged to be less desirable than giving the timeshifted Blastoderm a slightly different functionality, and so fading 3 became the equivalent vanishing 4.
Ice Age rare. Although this card is famous for its role in the format-dominating Trix deck (based on giving it to your opponent with Donate so that you get the life gain but they get the life loss), it deserves some recognition for a clever and amusing illustration. Look carefully at the art: A clever mage hides behind a rock, crafting an illusion that makes a harmless and adorable bunny look like a huge and imposing dragon. The mage’s enemies quail at the prospect of fighting such a beast. The concept breaks down a bit when Donate is added to the mix, but that’s hardly Illusions of Grandeur’s fault.
Ninth Edition. Any ???Summon??? cards would now read ???Creature,??? interrupts are now instants, and many templates have changed, but ???Target player gains X life??? has been a constant.
