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Episode 278: The Melthos look at the Time Spiral Block
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Taya and Alex are back to talk about the Time Spiral Block with a dive into flavor and form with our Melthos Review of this block!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources including how to join our Discord
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
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- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introduction to Goblin Lore Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. We are here to talk more story, but we don't have current story to talk about. Well, I guess we're not talking story. but We're going back to old sets and doing some Melthal stuff.
Hosts Introduce Themselves and Dominarian Apocalypses
00:00:17
Speaker
ah So don't we do introductions so we can get into Time Spiral. I'm Alex, found on the Goblin Lord Discord and nowhere else for social media. My pronouns are he, him. Do you want to introduce yourself and then we can do the opening quest? Sure. Hi, I'm Taya. You can find me on Blue Sky at Taya Transcends or on the Goblin Lord Discord. And that's pretty much it for me. My pronouns are she, her, or they, them.
Exploring Dominaria's Apocalyptic History
00:00:44
Speaker
And ah today, because we're going to be talking about Time Spiral, our question of the week is, what's your favorite Dominarian apocalypse? Because there have just been so many of them.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, ah Time Spiral being one of the bigger ones. um Yes. ah And one of the few that at least directly isn't linked to Urza, which is...
00:01:11
Speaker
One of the time rifts at least was. Yeah, there's some indirect connections, but that's pretty good for Urza because most of them are directly connected to Urza.
The Ice Age Explained
00:01:21
Speaker
Speaking of which, my choice for this is the Ice Age, um which was the first big set that released after I started playing Magic. So it has a ah a fond um spot in my heart. ah you know, it was the apocalypse caused by the Silux blast at the end of the Brothers War. it took um it basically froze the planet for a couple thousand years.
The Shard of the Worlds and Planeswalkers
00:01:46
Speaker
ah
00:01:47
Speaker
And it was um a magical awful for everybody that lived on Dominaria. Absolutely. It was kind of a a magical nuclear winter is how I thought of it in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, now that one, and then it also, there was other weird lore stuff like that created the Shard, right?
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, the the Shard of the Worlds. Which which caused Dominarian and a handful of other worlds to kind of be isolated, so then Planeswalkers couldn't travel in or out. And so that ah led to Fraley's doing the Worlds spell to kind of break it and also get to wander in other places.
Urza, Yawgmoth, and Apocalyptic Events
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think mine also also directly connects to Urza. I was trying to think of something else clever and come up with a different apocalypse to reference or talk about. But, I mean, it's got to be the invasion for me. um Ice Age also was a big... Which one? yeah the Sorry, the initial invasion. That's true. There's two invasions now. The the the the first invasion. Well, even the initial invasion has multiple parts to it. There there was thera the Arathi overlay. There was the initial invasion via the portal ships. And then... and then Yawgmoth's shown
Creative Elements in Magic's Lore
00:03:00
Speaker
up too. I think yeah think if if if I'm drilling in deeper, I think the overlay is is probably my choice there. ah Yeah, that's that's definitely my favorite part of that. It's just conceptually, I think, the coolest and most sort of weird fantasy nonsense stuff.
00:03:19
Speaker
idea like Like the first, and that you know, the the portals opening and armies coming through. Okay, cool. That's fairly conventional. Very bog standard in magic fair. Exactly. I mean, even Ravnica has an invasion like that. And with and then, you know, Yawgmoth, Vengeful God, plot slash Cloud of Death, slash whatever.
The Wrathy Overlay and Fantasy Storytelling
00:03:43
Speaker
Okay, I mean, that's stepping it up a little bit, but even that isn't like wildly unusual in the whole... i mean, they just ripped that off from Final Fantasy. Yeah, exactly. it it
00:03:54
Speaker
It shows up in a lot of different properties, but the whole idea of the Wrathy overlay, where there was this... Artificial
Dominaria's Recovery from Apocalyptic Events
00:04:01
Speaker
plane created to eventually like orbit and then overlap into Dominaria to just bring terrain and armies directly there. That is a lot more innovative and and interesting to me.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, that was a really cool concept. I mean, a whole artificial plane just so you could match Dominaria. Yeah, that so that that that's probably my choice. Also, I just noticed on the MTG wiki page for Dominaria, it lists Dominaria status as recovering from the second and third Phyrexian invasions.
00:04:40
Speaker
OK, fair.
Complex Lore and Storytelling in Magic
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you have so many other options. You have the Time Spiral Crisis. You have the Thrawn Yep. The Brothers War itself. Yep. There's obviously, you know, the additional Phyrexian invasions. But yeah, there's just lots of nonsense happening here. There's the whole thing with Corona, like that whole block that does a couple of sets that was a couple of year gap that I had from playing the game. So I'm not super familiar with all that stuff. The whole Odyssey storyline. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, then I was thinking of referencing Slivers, knowing we would get into that at some point.
00:05:23
Speaker
So it was like, well, we can just talk about those when we get there.
00:05:29
Speaker
So yeah. And then I'm sure there's some like deep lore stuff. If you you really wanted to get into it, I'm sure if we had someone who who knew all the old comic books or, you know, the short story collections before there were actual novels, they could come up with some some apocalypse that happened to Dominaria that isn't as commonly known.
Significance of the Time Spiral Set
00:05:53
Speaker
So, all right. Well, We, uh, late last year, we, we talked through the story of the time spiral block, um, and didn't get a chance to, to get into like the melt those things, which like what we did with the invasion block. So it's like, if you're just in some of those older sets, the story and the cards,
00:06:12
Speaker
We did the Invasion cycle, the Invasion block ah back last year and then started doing the story for Time Spiral. and But that for me is one of my favorite sets. It probably my is my favorite set.
00:06:28
Speaker
I just really liked, um basically the reasons I like it is the reasons it wasn't such a great set for the game as a whole, at least ah relative to newer players and and people understanding what's going on.
Time Spiral's Mechanics and Storyline Ties
00:06:42
Speaker
So I figure before we get dive into to into into some of the individual cards, I thought just a quick overview of like what was going on mechanically and story-wise and why this set is so opaque might be nice.
00:06:57
Speaker
um And so for as far as, at least as as far as I, in in my mind, I think the the big part of it was, there there was a few things, but The complexity of these sets weren't understood because there is so many mechanical references, so many mechanics that came back and so many story references that people just wouldn't get. And if you hadn't been playing for years, so if you had been playing for years, I think the, the assumption or the thought from the people who designed this is that you would just get those references and it'd be fine. But if you didn't, it would be so much work to kind of figure out what's happening.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, This block is widely known as one of the most complex blocks they have ever printed before. Yeah. And and like from a – so the set itself had – or the block itself, especially like Time Spiral, had two main new mechanics and sort of a third.
Intricate Mechanics and Time Shifted Cards
00:08:02
Speaker
um But so they had Suspend.
00:08:05
Speaker
Which is one of the most complex mechanics they've ever printed. And split second's probably close, too. Yeah. but So these two, the whole set, like part of the story is playing with the past, present, and future sort of setup.
00:08:19
Speaker
And so su Suspend and Split Second both play with time in a weird way. Suspend allows you to basically cast a spell early, but then it doesn't resolve.
00:08:30
Speaker
You put time counters on it and every upkeep you remove one, and there's a few cards that let you remove them at other times. And then when you remove the last one, you actually then cast the spell and resolve it.
00:08:43
Speaker
who um But there are so many timing restrictions and everything, you know, weird things around that. ah And like, I think if I remember correctly, it gives creatures haste when they come off suspend because otherwise you'd have to wait another turn for your creature to attack. Yes, that they just literally bake that into the text of suspend, like the reminder text that's in in parentheses, basically, is about.
00:09:09
Speaker
It says, you know, they creatures have if it this spell is a creature or something like it gains haste and that that way, if you're staring at this creature for four turns, when you finally get to cast it, you can attack with it right away.
00:09:24
Speaker
Split second is kind of going the other direction where if you cast a spell, if a spell with split second is on the stack, nothing else can be put on the stack.
00:09:36
Speaker
Except for a few special cases like morph. Exactly. yeah Things that don't use the stack. Exactly. Which, again, when you have to explain it in really, really technical terms, it tells you how complex this whole thing is to begin with.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that one sounds easy at first glance, but when you get into the mechanics of how it actually works, it gets a lot more in-depth. Yeah, it's it's. But the idea is really simple. It's just like this is faster than fast. Yep. you know And it's the basic like you can't respond to this is essentially how it works. And and you get a little bit of that in the later years where they're like they want things to feel like that. Well, they'll just do this. But can't be countered.
00:10:19
Speaker
Much more simple. Accomplishes most of the same thing. but maybe not all, but and enough that it kind of captures that and you don't have to then. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't prevent like activations and response and stuff like that. That's true. So it's not everything, but it, it, it's a little bit.
00:10:39
Speaker
um And then the other thing, which is basically a a mechanic that existed, but the key word in it was flash. So a spell that can be cast as an instant. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:52
Speaker
um Yeah, there was a lot of those mechanics that had been around a long time that didn't get keywords until around this time they started keywording a lot of things that didn't have keywords previously. Yeah, um when when we get to it, a future site has a few more of those too, I know for sure. yeah but then The other thing unique for Time Spiral was the time shifted sheet.
00:11:15
Speaker
um which I want to talk about a little bit. And this was a sheet of cards that came. You got one in every pack. They have a purple rarity symbol on them. um And they were the first like bonus sheet where you you were guaranteed to get one in a pack and they were cards from other sets all the way back to alpha um reprinted with their original art, even if they had new art ah to um some detriment because we have two Harold McNeil naziist Nazi arts in the set because they printed them with the original art as well. And um these also had the original frame, which they had moved away from on the core set of by this point.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah. john um So made them stand out in that booster pack a lot more. too Yeah. So this is something we saw like limited, you know, usage of with like the masterpieces and stuff. um And then we really saw the idea come back with the Strixhaven archives where you got one guaranteed in every pack. And now it's become kind of an evergreen or judicious thing where almost every set's have a bonus sheet of some sort.
The Evolution of the Bonus Sheet Concept
00:12:20
Speaker
Yep. Yep.
00:12:21
Speaker
But this, um yeah, or or they have other modern ways to sort of play with the coalition. Like the list is kind of, it's not this, but it feels like an evolution of this a little bit. Yeah, but I mean, and the cards, unlike the bonus sheet cards nowadays, the cards on this list are really low powered in general. they did They obviously did not want to impact standard with these, you know? Now they just do it. They're not legal and standard. If you get them in your draft, you can play them in draft, but the cards and the bonus sheets are not standard legal, or these ones were. So they printed really weak cards in general. Yeah, by by and large. on bona sheet A bunch of these were like really iconic, but usually... the Yeah, like we have like Disenchant, Discent and Grate... Yeah, or splashy things that aren't going show up in standard but are fun to open. Podigal Sorcerer. Well, like yeah like Nicole Bolas or Akroma are good casual cards but aren't going to show up in standard.
00:13:20
Speaker
Or you have like arena actually printed a land that does not generate mana, which is a thing they hadn't done for years. Just kind of fun. um Yeah. And arena had previously only been available as a book promo. Yes, that's right. So, yeah, it's just, you know, it's a cool, it's a cool thing.
00:13:40
Speaker
But then get like mechanically, like it doesn't play into this quite as much because these are all older cards. So at least this discussion of the Malthouse. But it's an important piece of the history of Time Spiral. And this is another another way that they were doing that like past thing, where these are literally cards from the past in your current booster packs.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, so we won't be discussing really any cards on the set other than what we already mentioned, just as some examples of what's on it. But I wanted to bring it up because the idea is it's become mainstream in Magic now, where this is bonus sheet cards. They're just common in sets. Yep.
Suspend Cycle and Powerful Spells
00:14:18
Speaker
it is It is fun. There's a few definite like nods towards each other within this this sheet. So you have things like Squire, which is a one, two for one and a white vanilla creature, just one of the worst cards in Magic.
00:14:34
Speaker
And then you have Oratog, which is a so strictly better. It's the same thing, except it also has an ability to eat enchantments to get bigger. ah my My favorite little one is you have a two card combo that we used to play a lot when I was playing casual magic. You have Merfolk Assassin. It's so one two Merfolk for blue blue that has tap, destroy target creature with island walk. But then ah in the bonus sheet, you also have War Barge, which is an enchantment that gives creatures island walk.
00:15:06
Speaker
But yeah, it's it's a cool it's a cool thing. And then of course, like it dropped all these cards into standard that, you know, are very strange to be in standard at that time.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't around for standard at the time, but um it doesn't seem like many of these impacted standard at all, most likely. Yeah, I don't think so. Prodigal Sorcerer, is it's a great limited card, but it's not really a standard playable card. Yeah, but it also puts Serrated Arrows into Modern, so i mean that's yeah a part of Magic's history there that's really important. Yeah.
00:15:42
Speaker
All right. um And so one thing I thought would be fun, oh, and I didn't pull these all up, to to talk about, like, if we're talking about suspend, and there's a bunch of other mechanics things which we can talk about too, because there's there's so many mechanics that got brought back. But I want to talk about the suspend cycle that I have just suspended.
00:16:06
Speaker
And so these are six cards. I actually did a full cycle, including an artifact. Normally a so cycle you're going to have only like five, one one for each color.
00:16:18
Speaker
And they are all really powerful spells from kind of classic spells, powerful things from from magic's history that Are they all alpha effects? I think they're all I think they are. So it's Ancestral Vision, which is target player draws three cards. So that's Ancestral Recall. Ancestral Recall, power nine. You have a Restore Balance. Restore Balance is balance. It's just balance. From Alpha, which blows up a whole lot of stuff. And if you don't know it's coming, it is so unfair.
00:16:53
Speaker
i mean, it's Ban and Commander for good reason. Yes. um I think all of them are except for Eureka. Because that was Legends, I think. Hyper Genesis? Maybe I'm wrong.
00:17:05
Speaker
All right, so Eureka is not an alpha card. But the rest of them are. That's really that's really weird. The other five all are. um So that's the green one is Eureka, where players, starting with you, each player may put a permanent from his or her hand into the battlefield.
00:17:21
Speaker
really like ah two green green sorcery that lets you just cheat in anything you want everyone can cheat in whatever you want oh it's one of my favorite cards in k and t oh it's um if if i have an opening hand with eureka in it and i can cast it i will keep it no matter how bad the rest of the hand is Yep. oh there is a slight mechanical difference. Hyper Genesis doesn't say permanent. It just says it calls out artifact creature enchantment or land, which means you can't do Planeswalkers from Hyper Genesis.
00:17:54
Speaker
I think that isn't the Rachel Eureka the same way, though. Both players take any permanent in their hand and put it directly into play. Yeah. Hmm.
00:18:06
Speaker
At least according to this. Yeah, no, that sounds right. Yeah. So that's that's interesting.
00:18:15
Speaker
and Oh, and then um Living End. forgot about that one, too. Living Death was Tempest?
00:18:23
Speaker
But then for the artifact, you've got Lotus Bloom, which is a black lotus. And then I'm missing, oh, Wheel of Fate was Wheel yeah wheel of Fortune. wicker Yeah, Wheel Fortune. which So we got three alpha effects. And um yeah, I mean, there aren't really good alpha effects for green and black that would have made a good cycle. So I think they did they did pick good substitutions for these.
00:18:47
Speaker
Um, there's there's nothing in, nothing in alpha and either of those colors. I can't think of that. I would have wanted on a suspend card like that. Yeah. Not nothing. That's is that splashy really.
00:18:59
Speaker
So that's a, that's a cool thing. And again, one of the funky things about those is there is no mana cost. You cannot hard cast essentially. those cards which they play great with cascade which is that thing yeah they play great with cascade which is an entire modern deck the living end where the whole point is your entire deck you're trying to cascade to a living end right do you have something you want to call out Um, I will, I want to talk about slivers.
Re-introduction and Evolution of Slivers
00:19:29
Speaker
Um, cause we talked about apocalypse, um, you know, apocalypse and one of them, um, you know, the slivers were originally brought to Dominaria as part of the Raffi overlay.
00:19:40
Speaker
um but most of them got extinct because they got teleported right into the middle of a volcano in Urborg when the overlay happened. um but the, uh, Riptide project, uh, made the mistake of bringing them back.
00:19:55
Speaker
Uh, because that was a great idea. They did not watch Jurassic park. Um, and they all got eaten by the slivers. And as far as we know, the slivers still control that area of Dominaria. We've, that they,
00:20:12
Speaker
They've confirmed there are slivers on Dominaria, but they they do not put them in sets anymore. So we might see one show up at some point. But I was i was very disappointed we didn't get a sliver, um even a sliver bone thrown to us in the last two visits to Dominaria. Yeah. so it's the um The slivers in Time Sparrow are interesting. um So you get, there's a few... sort of basic ones that just do weird power and toughness things like watch or sliver gives plus zero plus two and that kind of fill in some stuff.
00:20:47
Speaker
There's a sliver you play if your opponent's playing sliver. Yes. like sliver yes ah Which all slivers have at the beginning of your upkeep. This creature deals one damage to you. which is Which is a thing to note, too, that the slivers post... what's it Was it Magic 15? Before and fourteen and fourteen the The ones before that all slivers. So it's global. Mine affect you. Yours affect mine.
00:21:15
Speaker
After that, they changed them so they work just within your. One of the worst changes they've ever made. ah And that's how you get like ah a sliver that's supposed to hurt the sliver player, which is a, again, it's sort of an interesting exploration of of that that space. but Yeah, I love the flavor text on the sliver. It's a sliver shares everything with its hide, even its afflictions. Yep.
00:21:39
Speaker
um But then you get you know a handful of slivers like Sidewinder that give slivers flanking. So these are other – Yeah, flanking is another mechanic in this set, another weird mechanic. old There are a lot of other mechanics in this set besides the one you just mentioned. There are so many mechanics in this set. Yes, so many old mechanics that got brought back. and But my like for me, I think the most interesting slivers – because again, this is this is my my nostalgia brain or something – are the ones that give them like so abilities from specific creatures.
00:22:12
Speaker
So you have Fungus Sliver. um All Slivers have, whenever this creature is dealt damage, put a plus one, plus one counter on it. Well, that comes... You have Vampiric Sliver yeah well, and which is the Sengir Vampire yeah ability. you have the Sengir Vampire. this The Fungus Sliver was the Fungusaur from Alpha. Sedge Sliver is... Was it Sedge Troll?
00:22:34
Speaker
Slivers, all slivers have this creature gets plus one, plus one, as long as you control a swamp and black regenerate this creature. but so it's like, if you don't know that history, that looks really weird. Why is there one sliver in this set that gives all of them that cares about swamps and gives them a, a an activation requiring black mana?
00:22:53
Speaker
No other sliver gives an activation like that or cares about basic lands. Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
You also have interesting, I didn't realize this until now I'm looking at just the slivers. Two-headed sliver is another reference to two-headed giant. That's right. Yep. a Creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures, which later becomes menace.
Old Characters Revisited in Time Spiral
00:23:15
Speaker
And then we have spinneret sliver gives all slivers. All slivers have, quote, this creature can block as though it had flying, which is reach, which I believe is named two sets later in future site. Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
So, yeah, the slivers are, well, just a grab page. Yeah, which is that spinneret sliver comes from the original Giant Spider. That's the text on Giant Spider. Yes. Yep.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah, and so, you know, you have so Basil Sliver, which is just one of the most random ones, but it references Fallen Empires, which I had far too much of as a kid, because they were cheap. yeah, me too, because it was so cheap. Exactly. So this gives all slivers to sacrifice this creature, add black black to your mana pool.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah. Sure. Which is the Basil Thrall ability. Yeah. And we did get, you know, just speaking of things from Fallen Empires, we also got references to Fallen Empires. Like we have Thelenite Hermit, um which affects your Saperlings. So, you know, we have some throwbacks to... yeah and then um we get like three or four Saperlings.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, we got Thelen himself who hadn't showed up. And did we get Endrixar in this set or does he come later? I think Hendrick Sar was in this set.
00:24:44
Speaker
I'm just back and flipping. Yes, we got Endric Sarr. Yeah, so we get we get some of the major characters from Fallen Empires that never had legendary cards. They didn't do legendary in every set. They didn't even do them in every year back then. No. They showed up. They were kind of invented by legends, so there were yeah no legends before that.
00:25:07
Speaker
And then I think it took like three or four more sets before we really got legends after that. Yeah. I think Mirage might have been the first set after Legends. Yeah. we got legend and We got multicolored cards pretty quick. That got adapted by other sets, though not very common. Ice Age had a few. The Dark had a few. I don't think Fallen Empires might not have had any multicolored cards. But then
00:25:34
Speaker
yeah but then like Legends didn't show up until much later. And so it' there's a lot of... Creatures. And there's a few other, like I guess, yeah, because the Ice Age is like that, too, because you had Safi. Safi, Eric's daughter, was a legend in Norrin the Weary.
00:25:52
Speaker
Both Ice Age characters who aren't even, like, important to the story, but show up in so much flavor text. Both got a card in Time Spiral.
00:26:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I mean, obviously we have... Limb Duel got his card in Time Spiral. Yep. Another major. He was important to the story of Ice Age. Oh, he was extremely important to the story of Ice Age. The primary antagonist of yeah of all the the stuff going on. You know, and then he had folks like If.
00:26:23
Speaker
It's just had a ah ah random card in the dark. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a lot of cool legends in this
Legendary Creatures and Nostalgia
00:26:33
Speaker
set. this This set probably has more legends than most sets until much later in Magic's Yeah. Because they they just printed so many legends that were referencing flavor text characters from earlier sets that didn't have legends in them. Yeah, I think 16 legends here, which is a ton for sets back then. doesn't sound like a lot now because sets are made for Commander. Well, when you 100 plus legendaries between the main set and the Commander set. Yeah, but like Commander didn't really exist as a format at this point I don't think it existed at all. it was a couple years later. It sort of started a little tiny bit.
00:27:09
Speaker
But they definitely, it was another decade before they started designing for Commander. um and And then you get a few characters like Jaya Ballard, who became a planeswalker at the end of her story. Couldn't really make a card around that then. And so here we get her as a creature before she became a planeswalker, which is kind of a thing they could do with so the whole time spiral block thing.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, and we got her in her Ice Age form as a task mage, specifically her Ice Age yu and representation. All three of her abilities are spells that she has flavor text on from Ice Age, which is yeah really fun. Oh, it's sweet. Yeah, Malfo, she's one of the coolest Maltho's designs there is.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like seriously. um One of some, I don't know, I guess going off of cool Malthus design, if we're done with legends, I have a random card I want to talk about because it's probably my favorite Malthus design in the set.
Analysis of Temporal Isolation
00:28:11
Speaker
And that is Temporal Isolation. Um, so this is like the weirdest. And is again, this is where this set gets is the complexity of this set is is off the charts.
00:28:27
Speaker
This is like the most words they could put to create a ah unique pacifism effect. So pacifism was in Mirage. It might have even been before Mirage, I think.
00:28:40
Speaker
Creature can attack or block. Just a white enchantment. It is a staple of the game. They print these in so many sets and add different mechanics. You know, you go to Kaladesh. They add, you you know, it stops vehicles. you You go to another set, they tinker with it some more. So this one is...
00:28:57
Speaker
One and a white for an aura that has flash, so that adds a little bit of difference. But then it's an enchant creature. Enchanted creature has shadow. Shadow meaning it can only block or be blocked by creatures with other creatures with shadow.
00:29:13
Speaker
And then prevent all damage that would be dealt by enchanted creature.
00:29:20
Speaker
So the creature is, it technically can still block and it can still attack, but it does no damage. So attacking doesn't do anything unless you're triggering attack triggers.
00:29:34
Speaker
And it can only block other creatures that have shadow. Are there any other creatures with shadow in this set? A handful, actually. Shadow is one of the mechanics that shows up in this set. I thought there were some. there's there is There is a handful. but So, so ah again, it's not exactly full pacifism.
00:29:57
Speaker
But depending on how you build your deck, especially in like a limited environment, it'd be real easy to take this as just passivism. it's in If you don't have any shadow creatures, boom. You hit this on their creature, it's not doing damage.
00:30:09
Speaker
It's not blocking anything you have. It's of the same card. But it takes so much more text to get there. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to talk about, um and this is a cycle I pretty sure started in
The Magus Cycle and Historical Abilities
00:30:26
Speaker
Time Spiral. It's the Magus cycle, which they have really liked printing in commander um sets since then. But like, this is another one where we talked about like the slivers getting abilities from old creatures. The Magus cards all get abilities from old cards. Yeah.
00:30:45
Speaker
So like one example here is Magus of the Mirror, um which is a four black black four two, which you can so tap and sack to exchange life totals with an opponent only during your upkeep, which is mere universe's tech.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, yeah they they started this here and there's actually a mega cycle in all three sets and each one grabs from a different card type. So time spiral, they're all artifacts.
00:31:10
Speaker
And again, weird stuff. Weird Malthos things. I have been, I've collected all of the Megasids. So I have a little collection of Megasids. So it's all artifacts in this set.
00:31:23
Speaker
um I think they do lands and then enchantments. in one or order or the other, and the the other next two sets. Yeah. Cause yeah, the white one is Magus of the disc, which is Nevin Yarl's disc. And they have the same mana cost and the same activation costs as the original artifact did. Yep.
00:31:39
Speaker
And then you have Magus of the candelabra, which was candelabra of, I can't remember the. Tuantos. Yes. Yeah. um And then there's Magus of the scroll was cursed scroll, I believe.
00:31:53
Speaker
Is it cursed scroll or scroll rack? Yeah. ah ah This one is Cursed Scroll. Cursed Scroll. Okay. Name a card, reveal a card at random from your hand. If it's named card, it deals two damage to a creature or player.
00:32:06
Speaker
Magus of the Jar. i can't remember which one that is. That's a jar of memories? or Yeah, Memory Jar. Memory Jar. Yeah, that's it. Yep. Everybody gets a new temporary hand of seven cards for the turn.
00:32:23
Speaker
And then you just discard that and put your old hand back in your hand. at the Yep. And then these are like one in each color where the effect kind of fits the color. So the candelabra untaps lands. So that's a green one.
00:32:35
Speaker
The never rolls disc is kind of a, you know wrath of God board wipe effect that goes in white. The blue one gets Magus of the Jar is it's a card draw effect.
00:32:47
Speaker
And is, you know, probably Magus of the Jar was probably like, uh, Oh, I can't. I think the power nine card that swaps everybody's hands. Oh, um, uh, time, um, time twister. Time twister. Keep wanting to go time spiral. No, that's the name of the set and a different card.
00:33:07
Speaker
Oh, that's a whole weird thing too. All three sets in this block. The name was the name of a card. Yeah, that was a yeah it's a cool meta thing. I forgot about that. I didn't have that in my notes. But yeah, so Time Spiral was a card from Urza's Saga, um which is a ah Yeah, the same the same effect, except... Yeah, it is the same effect. It's just like five mana instead of three, I think. Yeah, and then you untap up to six lands because that was a fair and balanced mechanic from Urza. Yeah, no, era the Urza sets are not known for fair and balanced mechanics. Which, I mean, is a Malthos win because Urza fits it's the creator, or the person whose name they they share.
00:33:56
Speaker
uh so yeah the the magus cycle i love the maguses i don't know why that's so appealing to me but i think it's super cool yeah magus of the vineyard is not from this set but that's probably my favorite magus that's a good one yeah um And Magus of the Wheel is another one that I really like. Yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, those were those were good. Because that was, with the commander sets they started doing, I think those were sorceries? And they went in that order? Well, Vineyard is an enchantment. Yeah, that that one is from Time Star Block somewhere. I can't which one. Yeah. yeah um Speaking of enchantments, here's just a cool
Paradox Haze and Shifting Card Design
00:34:40
Speaker
Melfos design. Or a cool Mel's design, really. was Paradox Haze.
00:34:44
Speaker
This is an Enchant player, which I think have been one of the first Enchant players. Well, I'm looking at this right now. It just happened to be right in front of me. Oh, nice. But this this, at the beginning of Enchanted player's first upkeep, they get an additional upkeep step.
00:35:02
Speaker
so So the idea here was that this would be bad because upkeeps used to be bad things, but now this card is like a commander all-star because upkeeps just give you all sorts of good things. Yes, it used to be back then most of the effects during upkeeps were bad. I'd say the one exception and where it fits pretty well in this set is if you... Suspend. Suspend. You played a bunch of Suspend stuff, Paradox Haze could be useful to get your stuff out faster.
00:35:29
Speaker
But yeah, it's just a weird, interesting design. Yeah, no, it specifically plays well in this set, but there are other cards.
00:35:39
Speaker
um the light there's There's stuff that has, like I don't know if it's in this set or it comes later, but there's cards with Banishing and things like that, which... No, I think they were in the time spiral. The bonus sheet, there was some cards with Vanishing on them that you do not want Paradox Haze when you're dealing with no no you don't things like that. Vanishing or Echo. Vanishing. Yeah, Echo or or the any of the the things that penalize stuff. Because there's there was a lot of older enchantments that would like you'd put them on your...
00:36:13
Speaker
opponent stuff anything with cumulative upkeep yeah yep cumulative upkeeps we' were all negative upkeep things so the uh the elder dragons which there are some in the bonus sheet as well yep you had to pay mana during the upkeeps yep
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, there are. There's at least one. There's one card with Echo in this set. So, yeah, it's mostly a positive in this set, though, because there's there's more than one card with Echo. Yep. Actually, it looks like it was a red mechanic for this set.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah. And then, i don't know, you get... There's just weird reference cards, like Cyclopean Giant. it it it It's if you don't know, if you don't know the history, it just doesn't make any sense. It's a two black black as a four two for two black black zombie giant. And it has the ability when it is put into a regular from play target land becomes a swamp remove cyclopean giant from the game. And that does it.
00:37:14
Speaker
It just seems like nonsense, but it's actually a reference to two cards. You have Cyclopean Mummy, which this is exactly twice.
00:37:26
Speaker
Cyclopean Mummy is a one and a black for a two one. This is ah four two for two and a black. Cyclopean Mummy is a creature that then when it is put into the graveyard, you exile it.
00:37:37
Speaker
So it has that exact text. And then the turning a land into a swamp is a reference to Cyclopean Tomb, which was an enchantment that permanently changed lands into swamps.
00:37:49
Speaker
And then like in the art of this artifact, not enchantment, right? Yes. Artifact. Sorry. You're right. Yeah. yeah It's an artifact. And then in the art, like even you can see like this giant is kind of coming out of this weird little eye looking thing that looks a little bit like this, like Cyclopean tomb art that actually also has something coming out of an eye, the middle of the eye there. So it's, it's just, it's just this weird references all the way down that would have been like, I'd go, Oh, I get that reference. And then other people would be like, I don't understand why all of these cards have so much extra text that I have to remember. And that's just a common that is a common that has two different death effects that you need to keep track of.
00:38:39
Speaker
And then you just change a land into a swamp for the rest of the game and have to keep track of that. Again, it's just like all of this extra nonsense to make a stupid reference. Yeah.
00:38:52
Speaker
ah next card I want to talk about is Gauntlet of Power, which is a throwback to another unlimited card, um which is Gauntlet of Might.
Gauntlet of Power and Historical Throwbacks
00:39:03
Speaker
Gauntlet of Might is just all mountains tap for an additional red, all red creatures get plus one, plus one. Gauntlet of Power comes into play Choose a Color, and then creatures that Chosen Color get plus one, plus one. Whenever a basic land is tapped for a mana of the Chosen Color, its mana adds an additional mana of that color to their mana pool. So it is essentially the same card. I think it costs one more for the flexibility than Gauntlet of Might did. i think Might was... it might Might be the same, i think.
00:39:34
Speaker
Um... I can't remember. I thought Might was four, though, but I'm not. Might is four. Okay. So, um, you pay one more, but it's a throwback to another card that last appeared in Unlimited,
00:39:53
Speaker
It's a card I used to have in my Dreddy deck for the the mostly one-sided Mana Flare, unless somebody else was playing Mono Red. ah But ah I took it out because it was worth too much money to be playing it. Yeah, Kyle, it is.
00:40:11
Speaker
One of those cards is getting pricey because it just hasn't been printed since then. Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Avenger's Unique Design
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, and then think um next card I want to talk about is, ah again, it's like an interesting mechanic that plays with time, and I don't know if we've ever seen anything like this since.
00:40:34
Speaker
Sarah Avenger is a 3-3 for white-white with flying invigilance, but then also has you can't play Sarah Avenger during your first, second, or third turns of the game.
00:40:48
Speaker
And so it's like an under-costed 3-3 Flying Vigilance for two. Nice under-costed creature. But it's not as impactful you're playing on turn four or five. And so it's it's a it's just, again, this's this is an interesting design for me.
00:41:05
Speaker
i also like, honestly, I really like the art. Because a lot of the art is like, fantasy Mad Max for a lot of them. If you look at the lands, especially they're all, it's a very apocalyptic set. If you look at the lands for this set. And like most of the humanoids in the white, you know, color. all look very, ah very malnourished in, impoverished but they're like most of them are wearing like full full skin covers like face covers and things like that not not everybody but a lot of them are and and the sarah avenger you kind of get that a little bit get the the wasteland wearing like scraps of cloth has like a face cover that she's like well they're pulling down or pulling up i don't know i really like the art on that
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, speaking of lands, that was the next thing I want to mention is there's a cycle of legendary lands, and they did not do legendary lands very
Legendary Lands and Their Significance
00:41:59
Speaker
often. They still don't do legendary lands very often nowadays. ah It's pretty rare.
00:42:06
Speaker
um But these all are lands that reference specific places for Magic's past, like Academy Runes is the, and there's one aligned with each, roughly aligned with each color, except I don't think there's really a black one.
00:42:21
Speaker
Um, Or a green. So I guess it's just white, blue, and red each have one. And then there's a colorless one. Gemstone Caverns might be legendary just because of the ability. I don't know if it references any specific place. i there it's It references probably Gemstone Mine.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. Because again, just... It's like the same ability. But the other ones are all very specific places for Magic's Pass. Academy Runes is the runes of Tolarian Academy.
00:42:52
Speaker
ah and it's a legendary land that puts artifacts back on from your graveyard back on top of your library. And the flavor text on it is, is its secrets off-wrought the greatest artifice ever known? Now crabs loot the rubble to decorate their shells.
00:43:08
Speaker
um Because, and it it just shows this underwater rune, which if you remember from our discussion of invasion block, it because Baron set off a mini Silex blast and obliterated the whole place.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah, not a whole lot. ah And then we have flagstones that took here ah which shows just a basically a completely abandoned um a completely abandoned area. And it says, dust spiked winds eroded the stones or the ground were once hit ah where where they once stood still holds great, still holds power. but you know, that's one of the, Turkir was one of the ancient cities and now it's just runes. Yep. The, white city during Fallen Empires.
00:44:01
Speaker
Yep. And then we have Care Keep, which is a throwback to Legends and it's, it makes kobolds a Care Keep.
00:44:11
Speaker
ah And I love this one has to fairy flavor text on It says they're still here. The cockroaches may have finally met its match. So the Kobolds have survived all of the apocalypses and they're still inhabiting Carekeep.
00:44:27
Speaker
um Yep. And I was looking to see if we had, if they kind of finished that cycle later in the set and I, or in the block, I can't quite tell.
Design Challenges of Legendary Lands
00:44:38
Speaker
Cause there is a mono black land and planar chaos, but there wasn't a, what was the other color that was missing? a green. So maybe they counted Pendle Haven from the time shifted sheet is a green.
00:44:51
Speaker
And then we had Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in Planar Chaos. the next The next set in the block. Yeah. you know those And Legendary Lands were... like You're right. like They were not common back then. Because the Legend Rule was different back then. This one was... God, I think they changed the Legend Rule so many times. But I think at this time it was... This was after Kamigawa block?
00:45:17
Speaker
Right? Yes, this was after... So yeah so they destroyed, they they mutually annihilated each other when you played a second legend. Yes, and so if that's why they're like, if they make a legendary land that's good, all of a sudden people are blowing up each other's lands just by trying to play a land and it creates a lot of weird gameplay they didn't really like.
00:45:36
Speaker
And so it was it was pretty uncommon because that's despite the fact that these are sort of associated with those colors, like Teya said, ultimately in Time Spiral, these three, only one of them produces mana of a color.
00:45:50
Speaker
Flagstones of Shrokhir creates white, but then also has the ability when it's put into a graveyard from play, you may search your library for planes and put it in the battlefield tapped. So if somebody plays their flagstones, you'll just get to go get a planes and you' you're not actually down a land.
00:46:06
Speaker
Whereas the other two just have make colorless and then have a activation that requires red or blue mana. Yeah. So I want to just keep talking about weird references. So Stormcloud Jin.
00:46:19
Speaker
this is This is another one that...
Niche References in Stormcloud Jin
00:46:23
Speaker
This is like... Electric eel for some reason. they They decided that they needed to reference the the electric eel from the dark, which is a card that I certainly knew about, but I don't suspect many other people were aware of it.
00:46:41
Speaker
Because this has the electric eel in the dark is a blue creature for blue to one one and has the activated ability red, red plus two plus zero. Electric eel deals one damage to you.
00:46:52
Speaker
Also, electric eel does one damage to you when it is brought into play is the old text. It certainly isn't templated that way these days. um And so Stormcloud Jhin has the activated ability from there.
00:47:04
Speaker
a 3-3 flyer that can only block creatures with flying for 4 to blue and then has red red it deals plus 2 plus 0 until end of turn it gets plus 2 plus 0 until end of turn deals 1 damage to you I'm like I I don't know why i don't know why they wanted to do that but it that made me happy when I saw that card for the first time in a booster pack yeah ah there's just a lot of weird cool cards like that you know, um, stuffy doll is one too. So all the way back to alpha, we've had the stuffy doll showing up on things like the rack and, ah things like that. And, ah it finally gets a card of its own here. Yeah. And one of those was in the time shifted sheet, the rack or the vice. I can't remember which one. Yeah. Rack or vice. And, uh, that was kind of just a point where it was well, we get our little, We get our poor abused ah stuffy doll that has been showing up in card art since the beginning. and we get an artifact for it that ah is indestructible, redirects damage that's dealt to it to other people and can hit itself for one. Yep. <unk> like yeah it's it's It's just interesting. um Again, the the interesting mechanic of, okay, so it's activated ability just hits itself because of its other ability that's doing damage.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah, but you can also keep it up to block, and if nobody ah nobody attacks you, you can tap it to do the one damage. Yep. Yeah, and so you also have the, if it blocks, then it's doing more than the one damage, but this, oh no, Indestructible was in Mirrodin, which would have been before this.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah,
Spirit Loop and Lifelink Development
00:48:53
Speaker
no. um Another like weird mechanic thing that I think is fun to mention Spirit Loop, which also sort of goes back to a Legends card called Spirit Link. So Spirit Loop, the one from Time Spiral Block,
00:49:09
Speaker
is an aura that ah one and a white enchant creature you control. when it deals When an enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life.
00:49:20
Speaker
And then when spirit loop is put into a gimmick from play, you return it to your hand. So Spirit Link from Legends is the the first part of that. When enchanted creature deals damage, you gain that much life, which is, you know, we're talking about these mechanics that became keyworded. so This sort of became key, like this became Lifelink, which does that.
00:49:42
Speaker
But one of the interesting things, I think, about Spirit Link and Spirit Loop is That's a little different from how lifelink works is lifelink says when it does damage, you know, its owner gets the life or its control controller gets the life. Thank you. Yeah. So if you put and this was a thing we did way back in the day when I used to play big, weird group games. If you put spirit link or spirit loop on someone else's creature, you control the enchantment.
00:50:14
Speaker
You get the life. Yeah, so it was like a quasi-pacify in a lot of ways. Yep. Or in a group game, it's fun too, because it's like, I'll put this on your big guy, and then I don't care if you swing at somebody else.
00:50:26
Speaker
You're not hurting me. It's not worth it for you to swing at me, because I won't block and you'll do no damage. But if you swing at the other person, you can do some damage to them. ah and That's a thing that you don't you don't get out of modern things that give lifelink now. This is the one sort of instance because of that weird little quirk where it's different from say reach. Reach, if a card just says this can block creatures as if it had flying or it says reach, it's the same thing all the time.
00:50:56
Speaker
This is one weird little niche where if I just have a card that says Enchanted Creature has lifelink, well, i control the enchantment, but you still control the creature and the creature has the lifelink. So you get the life, I don't.
00:51:11
Speaker
So that's just a fun... This one, this is one instance where the complexity wasn't added to the set. This this was a pre-existing thing that didn't really change much. um But that, it's it's a fun... i just like to call it out when I can because it's a weird... It's probably...
00:51:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, and this is another one where he's this sort of apocalypse, like desert survival gear. Mm-hmm. And it's like he's throwing a snake at somebody. Yeah. yeah um Cool. Well, i I want to mention one more um because it's another one of those weird cards that only works in a set like this, and it's called Clock Spinning.
Clock Spinning's Strategic Applications
00:51:57
Speaker
which is a blue for instant with buyback three. Buyback's another one of the most broken mechanics they've ever made. um And they decided to print it on a new card here, which just lets you basically, if you pay the buyback cost, you get the spell back to your hand after it resolves instead of it going to the graveyard.
00:52:15
Speaker
um So for four mana, you can just cast this every turn if you want. It's to choose a counter on a permanent or suspended card, remove the counter, or put another counter of that type on it.
00:52:26
Speaker
um So obviously it plays really good with suspend. You can hurry up your suspend card, or you can delay your opponent's suspend card. Yep. And then um because it's not specific as well, it it works outside of, so you could use it to add a plus one plus one counter or you know any other kind of counter that a permanent might have.
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, and it has some really sweet art on it too. Yes. There's there's a lot. like Just the art on this set is incredible. like look at all It's similar, which is interesting too, to the split second.
00:53:00
Speaker
All of the split second cards have the yeah have this weird time-like effect somewhere in their art. Yeah, where there's there's so there's like a dividing line where then there's like this sort of...
00:53:12
Speaker
these effects going on and it's, it's, it's really cool how they sort of tried to put that weird concept into art. Um, I, I want to talk about one that I believe is, I know Hobbs has talked about it in the past. And so I want to bring it up for him. i don't remember all of the history of this exactly, but he loves this story.
00:53:35
Speaker
so from what I recall of this, it's the card in Time Spiral that is Viscid Lemures, um which is kind of a
Viscid Lemures' Art Cue Misunderstanding
00:53:46
Speaker
reference. Well, the flavor text here in particular is a reference to a misunderstood art cue on an Ice Age card.
00:53:55
Speaker
So a Lemure, L-E-M-U-R-E, it's a... it's a
00:54:05
Speaker
A malevolent spirit from some, I can't remember which, the like which culture, but it's a malevolent spirit. And so that's what they were trying to reference with the spell. Oh Lord, I didn't think i was going to have to pronounce. i didn't think about trying to have to pronounce this.
00:54:29
Speaker
T-E-R-O-U-S, Lemure, which is a card from Ice Age. And the the person who drew the art for this was not familiar with a Lemure,
00:54:43
Speaker
And art descriptions were not what they were. No. Not what they are today, where they they define what they want the art to be. Back then it was like, here's the card name, draw what you think. Yep. And also it didn't help. I don't know if this would have helped back then or not, but these days this is a creature spirit. Back then where they did summon and things were just what whatever, granular things. so this was a summon Lemure, which doesn't help. So this person turned an art of a lemur, or something very lemur-like, which is a animal that exists on Earth.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yes. And so then they, they i think they had flavor texts that tried to help this where the Ice Age flavor text said, the Lemures looked harmless until they descended on my troops. Within moments, only bones remained. remained Lucilda, fixed daughter, leader of the order of White Shield.
00:55:37
Speaker
So the Viscid Lemures from Time Spiral definitely look like angry spirits. But then you have the flavor text from Norrin the Wary. Lemurs? Is that all? Finally something harmless.
00:55:52
Speaker
And so it's this is even more deep reference than most of these others. Because you had to understand not just this old card, but then this old card that got a misunderstood art cue.
00:56:07
Speaker
Oh, and then I didn realized i just noticed they brought the they reprinted the Ice Age card in Dominaria Remastered and gave it new flavor text and new art. like The new art definitely looks like an angry spirit.
00:56:19
Speaker
And the Norrin flavor text here says, I was wrong, not harmless at all, which is a reference to the time spot. to the this flavor text yes it's References all the way down. But Dominaria Remastered, at least, is not a standard set. And is the the set expectations, there the product expectations are that it will be references to historical things.
Time Spiral's Legacy and Impact
00:56:43
Speaker
Back when Time Spiral was in standard, like that's not, that those were the sets. You had you had a core set every so often, you had your main sets, and then on occasion you had some so ancillary product. And so if your primary sets were for ah you know for a full block were these wildly opaque, hard to understand. like If you didn't know all of this other story, or you didn't like de like read all the books, you'd have no idea what's going on from the cards.
00:57:18
Speaker
Because so many of these cards are just referential. you'd you'd have And there's just so many, even if you just go by what's on the card, this set has so many mechanics in it.
00:57:30
Speaker
ah And, you know, most sets, even... you know it's It's changed lately, there's you know but most sets typically have like two or three you know returning mechanics and maybe one new mechanic. yeah Not counting or you know the evergreen mechanics. yeah Or if there's some of them always some of the bigger ones where there's like factions, they may add like five mechanics, but then they're really careful about how they... you know If you have you go to Tarkir and you have the five clans, like they're really thoughtful about how they balance this so that it's not too much.
00:58:03
Speaker
That's not what happened in this set. we didn't We didn't mention a single morph card, despite the fact that morph was a significant presence in this set too. Yeah, or flashback. Or flashback. Which flashback is a dodicious mechanic now, so it can show up in any set. But back then it was a... No, it was... Much more mechanic. And this was at a time, was relatively early in the game, where they hadn't really repeated mechanics. Yeah.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah, but we have we have Echo, Shadow, Flanking, Flash, um Suspense, Storm. Then then there's like un- Morph, like you said. There are so many mechanics in this set. And you have things like Slivers and Spellshapers that aren't like labeled mechanics but are essential. And the Rebels were werere in here too.
00:58:55
Speaker
It's absolute nonsense. Yeah.
00:59:00
Speaker
you know And then you get cards like Vesuvian Shapeshifter that not only has Morph, but then has all of the Vesuvian that has all the Vesuvian doppelganger mechanics.
00:59:10
Speaker
Except then you can like flip it upside down to
Teaser for Future Sight and Planner Chaos
00:59:13
Speaker
reset it. So it's just like, there's just so much nonsense going on in this set, which again, One of the reasons I liked it, but it made it really hard.
00:59:22
Speaker
Evil Eye of Urborg. This isn't uncommon. You're going to see a bunch of these if you play this if you play this set a lot. Four to black for 6-3 that has non-eye creatures you control can't attack.
00:59:37
Speaker
Whatever becomes blocked by a creature, destroy that creature. Madness. There's a bunch of so cards with madness. Yeah, that' that's one that I missed when i was just... I forgot about that....buyback we talked about. Yep. there's I just realized one of the reasons that containment isolation, isolation containment, has flash, or temporal isolation, sorry, has flashes because there's a full cycle of enchantments that have flash. A full cycle of horrors.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, that that evil eye is now, it shows up in commander decks that want to give away bad cards. Oh. You'll see that once in a while. and ah yep Yeah. exactly so Yeah.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah. There's, there's just so much, so much going on. Even what would be like basic common slots are taken up by things like pit keeper. When it comes into play, if you have four or more creature cards in your graveyard, return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
01:00:34
Speaker
And so every card is sort of a one-off. I mean, obviously there's, you know a handful that have echo, a handful that have flanking or flashback, but there's just, you have to read every card that comes out that gets put on the table that comes out of a booster pack. And it just made the set way, way more complex.
01:00:55
Speaker
And we haven't even gotten to the next two sets, which we will. Which get worse. Oh, those two get so much worse. I can't remember the statistic, but I want to say Future Sight itself has about the same number of mechanics as the entire history of the game before Future Sight combined.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's like 40-something mechanics in Future Sight. There's a lot of cards that have one-off mechanics that have never been printed since. Yep. um Yep. i I love that stupid set so much because Future Sight is the future. Yeah, so next episode that we we cover this stuff, um well we'll we'll talk about Planner Chaos, which is the middle set that also just gets weird.
01:01:43
Speaker
because Yeah, that was when they were, instead of screwing around with time or anything, they were screwing around with alternate realities and color shifted a bunch of cards. and Which has just created a lot of headaches for them ever since.
01:01:58
Speaker
Yeah. Created a lot of ah a lot of precedent for color blending that they didn't really want to do. that They weren't trying to set, but they sort of set the expectations. I mean, color identity wasn't a big deal until Commander. So like when they did this as a one-off thing in a set, it wasn't really a... Yeah, it wasn't as big of a deal. Like color color identity from a mechanical standpoint was was more just about... was ah was a gameplay thing to make sure that you needed...
01:02:27
Speaker
to you couldn't play all of the the best effects in one deck. That if you had you know two colors, that you you had some weaknesses that you these two colors couldn't cover. And so if you're trying to play more colors, you opened yourself up to weaknesses in your mana pool to get access to disenchant effects or board wipes, things like that.
01:02:49
Speaker
That they've messed with so much. But again, in a more limited, you know, a standard is only a few years and limited. You're just dealing with, you know, whatever's in the handful of booster packs you're opening. That didn't really break the game.
01:03:04
Speaker
But again, it kind of sets this weird precedent going forward that has made it. More complicated, but it also, again, made it harder to, it's more opaque. It was harder to understand the set. It doesn't help that Time Spiral was 300 cards, and that doesn't count the 120 cards on the time shifted sheet.
01:03:24
Speaker
So this single set had 420 cards. It's
01:03:30
Speaker
bananas, but I love it.