Future Sight common. Unblinking Bleb’s name was inspired by Brady Dommermuth’s days as a proofreader at Publication Services, Inc. in Champaign, IL (where editor Kelly Digges also worked). Brady proofread a pathology textbook during his time there, which is where he learned the phrase “blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome.”
Future Sight common. The mantra is often repeated that “green should have the best creatures.” Well then, why is it that the color whose creatures cannot be killed by “Banishing” effects something other than green? Wouldn’t that go a long way to making it the best creature color? R&D experimented with this restriction on Death Rattle to see how it feels when green is immune to some of black’s removal instead of being extra-susceptible to it.
Future Sight common. The “future” is a huge theme in Future Sight???not just the future of Magic as a whole, but also mechanics that hint at the future of the game they are used in. The “Augur” cycle provides prime examples of the latter???while in play, they let your opponent know that at some point in the future you may sacrifice them for powerful spell effects.
Future Sight uncommon. Noncreatures with the morph ability create some interesting rules corner-cases. You can end up with a suspended land, for instance, if a morphed Cavern is hit with Delay while on the stack. What about Crucible of Worlds? Crucible of Worlds lets you play a land from your graveyard. So, you can play a Zoetic Cavern from your graveyard as a land. But it doesn???t let you play a creature from your graveyard, so you can???t play Zoetic Cavern as a creature.(Similarly, if you have Teferi in play and Zoetic Cavern in your hand, you can play Zoetic Cavern as a creature any time you could play an instant. But you can???t play Zoetic Cavern as a land any time you could play an instant.)
Future Sight rare. During most of design, the first line of this card was simply “Enchant enchanted creature.” That sounded neat, but it didn’t have the functionality R&D wanted. It did prevent you from playing it on a creature that wasn’t already enchanted, but if you managed to move it or sneak it into play (with Lost Auramancers or Nomad Mythmaker), it would satisfy its own condition! Hence the change to “Enchant creature with another Aura attached to it.”
Future Sight uncommon. Though it is not a rule, there is a guideline in Magic Creative that a card’s name should contain a mechanic only if the card actually has that mechanic. Though this guideline is violated within reason???there was a discussion, for instance, about the fact that Stormfront Riders does not have storm???it is rare that a new card will sidestep it completely. In the case of Storm Entity, the name was consciously chosen to emphasize the fact that the Entity’s ability is strongly tied to the storm mechanic.
Stronghold common. Whenever a provoke creature like Deftblade Elite attacks, it basically casts Provoke on target creature. The one key difference, of course, is that Deftblade Elite’s version of the spell doesn’t contain “Draw a card!” If it did, Deftblade Elite would be quite an amazing creature. Even if your opponent had a blocker to stop your one-mana white Ohran Viper, Deftblade Elite could just pay 
Mirage rare. Flash is an amazingly cool idea with a terrible template and low power level, both of which are vastly improved by Time Spiral block flash creatures like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Sulfur Elemental, and Bogardan Hellkite. Another modern descendant of Flash is the “Flash for Sorceries,” Quicken, which also vastly improves on the original Flash’s template and power level.
Invasion common. Just like Recover, the recover ability lets you bring cards from your graveyard to your hand, getting card advantage along the way. Comparing the recover card Grim Harvest to Recover prompts a question: Do you prefer the more straightforward card advantage of Recover or the more open-ended, potentially unlimited card advantage of the recover mechanic?
Invasion uncommon. Dredge works a lot like the dredge ability on Golgari Grave-Troll. Throw some cards into the graveyard, and you get a card back. Dredge and dredge also create a combo: Play Dredge, sacrifice Golgari Grave-Troll, then replace the “draw a card” on Dredge with the Troll’s dredge ability to mill yourself for six and put the Troll back into your hand, ready to be played again bigger than ever.
