Time Spiral rare. Greater Gargadon started development as a 9/9, but its toughness was lowered to seven in order to increase the homage to Prophecy’s Lesser Gargadon, whose toughness was also two less than its power. Greater Gargadon’s activated ability, which involves sacrificing permanents, is a further nod to its little brother.
Invasion rare. Devouring Strossus was known as Graveyard Gourmand and Slaughter Engine at various points in design, both names that play off of how destructive it is to both sides of the table. The art keys off this concept as well, depicting the massive, contagion-spewing Strossus stomping indiscriminately across the battlefield at Koilos.
Coldsnap rare. Coldsnap creative made a distinction between being snow-y (wintry, rimy, cold, etc.) and actually being Snow (infused with the cold-based magic used by Heidar and his Rimewind sorcerers). Thus, despite coming into play covered in ice (counters), Woolly Razorback is not actually Snow (well, unless there???s a Rimefeather Owl in play).
Legends uncommon. According to Legends designer Steve Conard, this card was designed to capture the emotion “bloodlust,” which is a desire for bloodshed that manifests itself as a rage in battle. Mechanically, that makes sense; a boost of power at the cost of personal safety. The artist, Anson Maddocks, was given just the name “Bloodlust” to work with, and interpreted it to mean someone who really, really liked blood ??? which explains the unusual art and the space in the card name.
Darksteel uncommon. As its flavor text alludes, Purge was designed as a mirror of Terror, using flavor to justify giving white access to something it normally wouldn’t have. The fact that it happened to be awesome against Ravager Affinity (killing both the black Disciple of the Vault and any of numerous artifact creatures) was an added bonus ??? though not, admittedly, enough to stop the deck from dominating multiple formats.
Coldsnap rare. This card was initially designed top-down to be Avram Garrisson, the leader of the Kjeldoran Order of the Knights of Stromgald. But continuity stated that Avram’s body was irrevocably destroyed in a pyre, so he couldn’t get a card. The character of Haakon was created to fit the card.
Planar Chaos uncommon. When designing the Planar Chaos ???timeshifted??? cards with color words in their text boxes, R&D shifted the color words along with the colors. This leaves open the question of what Blood Knight is timeshifted from. Is it a double-shifted White Knight? A mirrored Silver Knight? Or a color-shifted Black Knight with the color word unchanged? Flavor gallops to the rescue, with the composition of Blood Knight???s art and the structure of its flavor text loosely modeled after that of its true inspiration, Black Knight.
Planar Chaos rare. Volcano Hellion was a 9/5 in design and had the playtest name “Dolly Parton” -not for being topheavy, but for Parton’s song ‘9 to 5′ (not to be confused with the Sheena Easton song of the same name). The “can’t be prevented” clause was added - and the wording of Reverse Damage-type effects changed slightly - to prevent ridiculous combos with the ability to deal an arbitrary amount of damage.
Urza???s Legacy rare. Deranged Hermit was the centerpiece and namesake of Angry Hermit, a red-green land destruction deck that used Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise to accelerate into Avalanche Riders, Plow Under, and Arc Lightning (which was also mana denial, frequently zapping other people???s Elves and Birds). The upshot of all this was that by the time the eponymous hermit hit play, the opponent was too far behind to answer it. The deck???s designer, a fellow named Aaron Forsythe, piloted it to the Top 8 at U.S. Nationals in 2000, landing a spot on the National Team.
Unhinged rare. Everybody notices the dinosaur on this card, but fewer people register the time machine - of Time Machine fame - in the background, a nod to the card’s ‘out of time’ nature. Blast from the Past, the other card in Unhinged with an old frame, also features the time machine, piloted by the goblin token the spell creates.
