Saturday, February 18, 2023

Putting Magic Flavor on the Table; Ice Age (Working Draft)

The Ice Age block is Magic's first block of sets, consisting of the following Sets

Ice Age
Alliances
Coldsnap
The Homelands

Block Mechanics

The block mechanics include Snow and cantrips and introduced the following keywords: Cumulative upkeep, Recover, and Ripple; while reusing Rampage from earlier sets.

The block focuses on allied colors. Each set in this block has two cycles of multicolored cards: One cycle of uncommon two-colored spells and one of rare three-colored spells.

Flavor and storyline

The Ice Age storyline, like the earlier sets that took place on Dominaria, occurred on the continent of Terisiare, where the Brothers' War had taken place. That war ended with the Sylex Blast, which was powerful enough to alter the planet's climate; the slow creep of glaciers, the mighty gales of blizzards, and the numbing cold of lumpy winters have all combined to make Dominaria a dark and frigid world. All the major civilizations of Terisiare had been destroyed by either the war or the ice. New cultures arose on the ice, fighting bitterly for survival, but when the necromancer Lim-Dûl unleashed a horde of undead, old enemies were forced to work together or be overwhelmed.

The setting was based largely off of Norse-style mythology and culture. Names were largely Scandinavian in character, and occasional runes and Norse-style clothing and armor can be seen in the art.

Themes and mechanics

Ice Age introduced cumulative upkeep and snow lands (then called snow-covered lands) to the game. Cumulative upkeep is a cost on permanents that increases with each turn and was used entirely as a disadvantage on cards with powerful and/or game-changing effects in this expansion. Snow-covered lands are a cycle of basic lands that also have the Snow supertype, which is meaningless by itself but is referenced by other cards. This feature in the set is not very well developed and considered mostly a failure by the developers of the Alliances expansion, who chose not to expand much on this theme. Snow-covered lands inspired the creation of the Arcane spell type in the Kamigawa block.

Another popular mechanic introduced in Ice Age but did not use a keyword: cantrips. These are spells that, in addition to a normal small effect, also replaced itself with a card draw. The typical formula for the mana cost of a cantrip was to add 2 to the cost of the effect, which was typically one colored mana for the typically small effect. Additionally, Ice Age set the precedent of such spells drawing a card during the next upkeep. This was done instead of today's simpler "Draw a card" because the developers were not sure if adding card drawing to simple spells would make them overpowered, and they chose to print a more conservative version of the ability. Delayed card drawing would continue on cantrips through the Visions expansion when the delay was removed for being unnecessary.

Ice Age also further explored legendary permanents, expanding on them from the lands and multicolored creatures in the Legends expansion to now include mono-colored creatures.

Ice Age also had a theme of allied color cooperation, with cards of one color that required or were improved by using allied color mana. For example, Freyalise Supplicant is a green creature that requires you to sacrifice a white or red creature, and Word of Undoing is a blue instant that returns a creature to the owner's hand, as well as any white Auras you own on that creature.

Ice Age was designed thematically for slow play, with very few creatures with evasion abilities. As a result, Ice Age limited play is often characterized by long games with non-flying creature stalls, as Magic sets were not yet designed specifically to support limited play.

Creature types

Ice Age featured the return of various familiar creature types and also introduced numerous novel ones, some subtypes of which were exclusive to, and even shared the name of, the creature cards on which they were printed.

Barbarian,
Bear,
Fox,
Dryad,
Goblins,
Insect,
Knight,
Mammoth (now Elephant),
Mercenary,
Orc,
Soldier,
Zombies,
Wolf,
Worm

The following creature types were introduced in Ice Age:

Aurochs
Barbarian
Blinking Spirit (superseded by Spirit)
Brownie (superseded by Ouphe)
Centaur
Dead (superseded by Zombie)
Dinosaur
Dog
Dryad
Erne (superseded by Bird)
Fiend (superseded by Horror)
Fox
Frostbeast (superseded by Elemental Beast)
Goat
Gorilla Pack (superseded by Ape)
Hipparion (superseded by Horse)
Illusion
Infernal Denizen (superseded by Demon)
Insect
Kraken
Lemure (superseded by Spirit)
Lhurgoyf
Mage (superseded by Wizard)
Mercenary
Mistfolk (superseded by Illusion)
Ouphe
Pyknite (superseded by Ouphe)
Ranger (deprecated)
Shyft (superseded by Shapeshifter)
Tarpan (superseded by Horse)
Tiger (superseded by Cat)
Titan
Toad (superseded by Frog)
Wight (superseded by Zombie)
Wiitigo (superseded by Yeti)
Wolverine
Worm

Counter types

The set introduces Healing counters, Ice counters, Music counters, Paralyzation counters, and Sleight counters as new counter types.

Cycles

Ice Age has 12 cycles:

Circles of Protection Circle of Protection: White Circle of Protection: Blue Circle of Protection: Black Circle of Protection: Red Circle of Protection: Green Each of these uncommon white enchantment cards costs and has an activated ability costing {1} to prevent all of the damage that a source of a given color and of the controller's choice would deal to them in a given turn.
Scarabs White Scarab Blue Scarab Black Scarab Red Scarab Green Scarab Each of these uncommon white aura enchantment cards costs {W} and has "Enchant creature", "Enchanted creature can't be blocked by [given color] creatures.", and "Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 as long as an opponent controls a [given color] permanent.".
Ice Age Boons Sacred Boon Brainstorm Dark Ritual Incinerate Giant Growth Each of these instants has a mana cost of M or 1M and an effect involving the number 3. This cycle is a rebalanced version of the Boons cycle in Alpha, including two reprints and three new cards. The overpowered Ancestral Recall and the underpowered Healing Salve were replaced, as well as Lightning Bolt.
Monocolored Hoser Enchantments Drought (anti-black) Justice (anti-red) Wrath of Marit Lage (anti-red) Breath of Dreams (anti-green) Stench of Evil (anti-white) Leshrac's Sigil (anti-green) Anarchy (anti-white) Curse of Marit Lage (anti-blue) Thoughtleech (anti-blue) Freyalise's Charm (anti-black) Each of these cards, two of each color, "hoses" one or the other of its enemy colors by "punishing" opponents, or exerting a negative effect on them, for playing lands or spells associated with that color. Amongst these are two mirrored pairs: the blue and red cards opposing each other, and the green and black cards opposing each other. The cards are uncommon, save for Wrath of Marit Lage and Curse of Marit Lage, which are rare.
Talismans Nacre Talisman Lapis Lazuli Talisman Onyx Talisman Hematite Talisman Malachite Talisman Each of these uncommon artifacts cost {2} and have a triggered ability that allows its controller to pay {3} whenever a spell of a given color is cast to untap a target permanent.
Allied-effect Commons Adarkar Unicorn ({U}) Arenson's Aura ({U}) Elvish Healer ({G}) Kelsinko Ranger ({G}) Krovikan Sorcerer ({B}) Zuran Enchanter ({B}) Balduvian Shaman ({W}) Word of Undoing ({W}) Burnt Offering ({R}) Soul Burn ({R}) Brine Shaman ({U}) Norritt ({U}) Battle Frenzy ({G}) Orcish Lumberjack ({G}) Bone Shaman ({B}) Orcish Farmer ({B}) Dire Wolves ({W}) Essence Filter ({W}) Shambling Strider ({R}) Tinder Wall ({R}) Each of these four cycles of common cards consists of monocolored cards with effects that benefit or require one of that color's allies. Two cycles go clockwise around the color wheel and two go counter-clockwise.
Shard-ability Uncommons Snow Hound Dreams of the Dead Krovikan Elementalist Orcish Healer Freyalise Supplicant Each of these uncommon permanents has either an activated ability that requires a creature of one of its allied colors or two activated abilities corresponding to each of its allied colors.
Depletion lands Land Cap River Delta Lava Tubes Timberline Ridge Veldt Each of these rare dual lands has a mana ability tapping for one of two allied colors of mana, but causing the land to not untap on the player's next turn. These lands are so named for the depletion counters used to prevent them from untapping normally.
Pain lands Adarkar Wastes Underground River Sulfurous Springs Karplusan Forest Brushland Each of these rare dual lands has two mana abilities; "{T}: Add {C}." and "{T}: Add M or N. [This] deals 1 damage to you.", where M and N are allied colors of mana.
Allied Rares Chromatic Armor Skeleton Ship Mountain Titan Stormbind Altar of Bone Each of these rare spells costs nMN, where M and N are allied colors of mana.
Multicolored Hoser Enchantments Glaciers Flooded Woodlands Ghostly Flame Monsoon Reclamation Each of these rare bicolored cards, of an allied color pairing that has one enemy color in common, directly or indirectly "hoses" opponents for playing decks with the enemy color. Four of the cards affect the opponent's lands in some way, including Flooded Woodlands and Reclamation which have mirrored effects. The odd card out is the black/red Ghostly Flame, which costs {2} less and in and of itself does not specifically "hose" its enemy color white; rather, it is designed to bypass white's own protective color hosers by changing the "color of damage" from black and/or red sources to "colorless damage", which prevents the operation of 6 cards from Ice Age (all white) and numerous others from outside the set.[15]
Shard Rares Storm Spirit Merieke Ri Berit Elemental Augury Earthlink Fiery Justice Each of these rare tricolored spells costs MNO or 3MNO, where M and O are two colors of mana that are allied with N, a third color of mana.

Mirrored Pairs

Ice Age has 17 mirrored pairs:

Order of the White Shield ({W}) Knight of Stromgald ({B}) These uncommon 2/1 Knight creatures, one white and one black, both cost MM and have protection from the other's color, "M: [This] gains first strike until end of turn", and "MM: [This] gets +1/+0 until end of turn".
Order of the Sacred Torch ({W}) Stromgald Cabal ({B}) These rare 2/2 Knight creatures, one white and one black, both cost {1}MM and can be tapped to counter a spell of the other's color at the cost of 1 life.
Hydroblast ({U}) Pyroblast ({R}) These common modal instants, one blue and one red, both cost M and can be cast to either counter a spell of the other's color or to destroy a permanent of the other's color.
Thunder Wall ({U}) Wall of Lava ({R}) These uncommon Wall creatures with toughness equal to their power plus two, one blue and one red, both cost {1}MM and have "M: [This] gets +1/+1 until end of turn."
Sea Spirit ({U}) Flame Spirit ({R}) These uncommon 2/3 Elemental Spirit creatures, one blue and one red, both have a mana cost of {4}M and "M: [This] gets +1/+0 until end of turn".
Wind Spirit ({U}) Stone Spirit ({R}) These uncommon Elemental Spirit creatures, one blue and one red, both have a mana cost of {4}M and an ability that limits an opponent's ability to block it.
Wrath of Marit Lage ({U}) Curse of Marit Lage ({R}) These rare enchantments named for the being Marit Lage, one blue and one red, both cost {3}MM and inhibit resources associated with the other's color.
Leshrac's Sigil ({B}) Freyalise's Charm ({G}) These uncommon enchantments, one black and one green, both cost MM and have "MM: Whenever an opponent casts a [the other color] spell, you may pay MM. If you do, [perform an action conferring card advantage]" and "MM: Return [this] to its owner's hand." Each is named for one of the planeswalkers who impacted the Ice Age storyline.
Icequake ({B}) Thermokarst ({G}) These uncommon sorceries, one black and one green, both cost {1}MM, destroy a target land and cause a 1 point life swing if that land was snow.
Drought ({W}) Justice ({W}) These uncommon white enchantments both cost {2}{W}{W} and have "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice [this] unless you pay {W}{W}." and an effect that hoses one of white's enemy colors.
Formation ({W}) Lightning Blow ({W}) These rare white instants both cost 1W, cantrip, and grant target creature a keyword (banding or first strike) until end of turn.
Blessed Wine ({W}) Heal ({W}) These common white instants both cantrip and have flavor text quoting Halvor Arenson, and either gain you 1 life or prevent 1 damage - mimicking the classic white spell Healing Salve (albeit and reduced potency).
Enervate ({U}) Infuse ({U}) These common blue instants both cantrip and have flavor text quoting Gustha Ebbasdotter, and either tap or untap a target artifact, creature, or land - mimicking the classic blue spell Twiddle.
Spoils of Evil ({B}) Spoils of War ({B}) These rare black nonpermanent spells both have effects that scale off the number of artifacts and/or creatures in an opponent's graveyard.
Minion of Leshrac ({B}) Minion of Tevesh Szat ({B}) These rare black Demon Minion creatures both cost {4}{B}{B}{B}, damage you during your upkeep unless you pay a cost, and have an activated ability. Each is named for a black planeswalker involved in the Ice Age storyline.
Pale Bears ({G}) Pygmy Allosaurus ({G}) These rare 2/2 green creatures both cost {2}M and have landwalk for one of green's enemy colors.
Flooded Woodlands ({U}{B}) Reclamation ({G}{W}) These rare enchantments, one blue & black and one green & white, both cost {2}MN and have "No [color] creature can attack unless its controller sacrifices a land whenever that creature attacks", where [color] is green or black, respectively - the single one of the opposing card's colors which is the enemy of both the card's own colors.

Notable Cards

Brainstorm was certainly less powerful than Ancestral Recall, but it is still a notably powerful card that continues to see lots of play in the formats it remains legal in.
Demonic Consultation was initially considered to be too risky, but it eventually proved to be a solid tutoring spell and proved just how valuable tutoring spells really are. It, too, was later banned.
Fyndhorn Elves adds mana acceleration to a Stompy deck together with Llanowar Elves, of which it is a functional reprint.
Illusions of Grandeur gained fame when it was combined with Donate to gain 20 life and force an opponent to pay its Cumulative Upkeep until they lost 20 life.
Incinerate was initially seen as only a weakened version of Lightning Bolt, but it has since also been decided to be too powerful for its cost until its return in Tenth Edition.
Jester's Cap was, at the time, the most valuable card in the expansion for its ability to interfere with an opponent's strategy. It has since been overshadowed and is now seldom played.
Necropotence was originally dismissed as a bad rare and even called the worst rare of the set by InQuest Magazine. It later became the centerpiece of the powerful, mono-black deck of the same name. The deck was so powerful that its reign is often called "Black Summer" or "The Summer of Necro." Several cards from the deck were later banned, but Necropotence appeared again later in several other decks, and was finally banned itself.[16]
Pox had a powerful tournament deck built around it.
Prismatic Ward was chosen as the preview promo and has therefore the unique quality of being printed with both the old and the new white mana symbols.[17]
Pyroclasm is a powerful, inexpensive board-clearing effect that continues to see play today.
Stormbind is a recurring source of damage from a time when they were much harder to come by. It was a powerful tournament card at the time, comboing well with Whiteout for added effect.
Urza's Bauble is one of only two cantrips in existence without any costs attached. Although it does next to nothing, the card would be very good if it wasn’t a slowtrip.
Zuran Orb is a powerful and zero cost artifact that gives any deck life-gain, and was notorious for prolonging games. It eventually was banned or restricted in every sanctioned format it could have been played in as a result.

Reprinted cards

Ice Age is the first expansion to include true reprints. These cards were considered to be the defining cards of their colors, and all of them came from the Core Set.

Counterspell
Dark Ritual
Death Ward
Disenchant
Fear
Giant Growth
Howl From Beyond
Hurricane
Lure
Power Sink
Circle of Protection: Blue
Circle of Protection: Green
Circle of Protection: Red
Circle of Protection: White
Regeneration
Shatter
Sleight of Mind
Stone Rain
Swords to Plowshares
Wild Growth
Icy Manipulator
Circle of Protection: Black

Functional reprints

Ice Age has twelve functional reprints:

Balduvian Bears Grizzly Bears (4th Edition) and Barbary Apes (Legends) (save for creature type)
Fyndhorn Elves Llanowar Elves (4th Edition)
Hydroblast Blue Elemental Blast (4th Edition) (save for a slight rules side case)
Juniper Order Druid Ley Druid (4th Edition)
Kjeldoran Warrior Benalish Hero (4th Edition)
Knight of Stromgald Order of the Ebon Hand (Fallen Empires) (save for creature type)
Moor Fiend Bog Wraith (4th Edition) (save for creature type)
Orcish Cannoneers Orcish Artillery (4th Edition)
Order of the White Shield Order of Leitbur (Fallen Empires) (save for creature type)
Pyroblast Red Elemental Blast (4th Edition) (save for a slight rules side case)
Tor Giant Hill Giant (4th Edition)
Zuran Spellcaster Prodigal Sorcerer (4th Edition)

Misprints

Aurochs - Ken Meyer, Jr.'s name is spelled without a comma on this card (Ken Meyer Jr.), unlike the other six instances of this artist's name in the Ice Age set, where it is spelled with a comma (Ken Meyer, Jr).
Balduvian Shaman - The first word in the text box is spelled Permanantly instead of Permanently.
Johtull Wurm - In the text box of the card, it refers to itself as Johtull Worm instead of Wurm. It was corrected in later printings: Johtull Wurm (Fifth Edition)
Jokulhaups is a type of mudslide that occurs when a volcano erupts beneath a glacier. It is actually misspelled and should be Jökulhlaup.
Mountain Goat - The word "Folklore" is misspelled "Folkore" in the flavor text.

Firsts

Counterspell is the first card to reference a battle between two wizards in its flavor text.
Deflection is the first spell to have the ability to change the target of another spell (Reflecting Mirror was an artifact), introducing this ability to blue where it would stay for many years before changing to red.
General Jarkeld is the first mono-white Legendary creature.
Jeweled Amulet is the first attempt at creating a "fixed" Mox card (after the cycle of Mox jewel cards in the Limited Edition and Unlimited sets) and the first attempt at creating a "fixed" version of any of the Power Nine cards. Despite its association with the powerful Moxen, Jeweled Amulet was too weak to see much play at all.
Krovikan Fetish is the first enchantment to also be a cantrip.
Legions of Lim-Dûl is the only card ever printed with Snow swampwalk.
Márton Stromgald is the first mono-red legendary creature.
Pale Bears is the first green creature with islandwalk. Its name was changed from "Polar Bears" because Dominaria "does not have any poles" (nevertheless, Polar Kraken is in the same set). This was the first card artist Anthony S. Waters was paid to paint.
Pygmy Allosaurus is the first green creature with swampwalk (although Wormwood Treefolk had activatable swampwalk). Up until the Ixalan block, it was the only Dinosaur ever printed, and was later issued errata to become a Lizard.
Pyknite is the first creature to also be a cantrip.
Ray of Command is the first spell to gain temporary control of a creature.
Shyft is the first creature to be able to change its colors on its own.

Inspired

Blinking Spirit, like Whippoorwill before it, confused many players who assumed it had flying because of its depiction in its art. Blinking Spirit inspired the creation of Ghost Town.
Chaos Moon is a more unpredictable version of the card that inspired it, Gauntlet of Might.
Conquer inspired the creation of Annex.
Fyndhorn Elder inspired the creation of Nantuko Elder.
Fyndhorn Elves is a functional reprint of Llanowar Elves. Playtesting correctly showed that having both available at the same time was not a problem.
Howl from Beyond inspired the creation of Endless Scream and Enrage.
Lhurgoyf inspired the creation of Revenant, which alludes to Lhurgoyf in its flavor text. It also inspired the creation of a cycle of Lhurgoyfs in Odyssey. The name is a made-up word that vaguely sounds of Norse origin.
Necropotence was designed to be interesting, forcing players to evaluate the value of card drawing and life. It inspired the creation of Yawgmoth's Bargain.
Orcish Cannoneers inspired the creation of Orcish Artillery. This happened because Richard Garfield was still looking for a few last minute cards to add to the original Alpha set while Ice Age was being developed.
Orcish Lumberjack is considered to be an "above-the-curve" mana acceleration card. It inspired the creation of Goblin Clearcutter.
Pit Trap inspired the creation of Trap Digger.
Stone Spirit and Stonehands together inspired the creation of Greater Stone Spirit.
Stunted Growth inspired the creation of cards such as Fallow Earth, Plow Under, and Uproot.
Wiitigo inspired the creation of Shape of the Wiitigo.

Names explanation

Adarkar Sentinel, Adarkar Unicorn and Adarkar Wastes were named for Skaff Elias' friend Aditya Adarkar.[2]
Aurochs is an extinct ancestor of domestic cattle; prior to Coldsnap, it was the only card that had the Auroch subtype.
Foxfire is a phosphorescent glow produced by certain fungi that grow on rotting wood.
Fumarole is a hole that emits gas, usually near a volcano.
Hipparion is an extinct three-toed relative of the horse.
Hyalopterous Lemure is a ghost with glassy wings, but the art depicts a winged lemur instead.[3][4]
Jokulhaups in an Icelandic word referring to a type of mudslide that occurs when a volcano erupts beneath a glacier. It is actually misspelled and should be Jökulhlaup.
Naked Singularity is a region of extremely high density outside of a black hole.
Tarpan is an extinct wild European horse.
Thermokarst is a type of land surface that results from melting permafrost.

Anagrams

Chub Toad is an anagram of "bad touch", an expression favored by former R&D member Shawn Carnes during his time working in customer service, meaning "in poor taste".[5][6]
Elkin Bottle is an anagram of "Klein bottle," which is a one-sided bottle related to the Möbius strip and is depicted in the card art.[7]
Freyalise's Winds was to be named "Phelddagrif's Winds" (Phelddagrif is an anagram of "Richard Garfield PhD") but it was decided that Phelddagrif didn't sound like the name of a Goddess of Spring.
Leshrac's Rite is another card with artwork by Richard Thomas featuring "Stuffy" the tortured doll in its art. Previous cards to have "Stuffy" in the art include Black Vise, The Rack, Cursed Rack, and Wall of Wonder. Leshrac is an anagram of "Charles".

Illustrations

Balduvian Shaman is probably the most complicated common card ever printed. In addition, there was no style guide for Ice Age, so all the people of Balduvia look completely different thanks to the different angles of many artists. Compare Balduvian Shaman to Balduvian Barbarians and Balduvian Conjurer for examples of these different angles.
Disenchant: the characters on the sword blade are from an alphabet known as the "Anglo-Saxon Futhorc". They spell out "MAGIK".
Formation was named "Tactics" until the art came back featuring ostriches and the name didn't seem to fit anymore.
The illustration of Knight of Stromgald references chess: the ground is colored like a chessboard, to the left is a tower ("rook" in English), to the right another tower shaped like the chess war elephant ("bishop" in English), therefore the knight corresponds to the chess horseman (or "knight", that is the same thing); near the "war elephant tower" are two towers looking like chess foot soldiers ("pawns" in English).
Lost Order of Jarkeld is depicted by artwork that was commissioned for a card cut from the Legends expansion. That card was to represent one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Urza's Bauble has the word "Urza" written on the bauble in its art.

Promotional cards

Fylgja and Prismatic Ward were the only cards in this expansion to use the old white mana symbol. This was because they were used promotionally, and so were released before the rest of the expansion.[8][9]
Fylgja was depicted with the wrong mana cost in the Magic: The Gathering Official Encyclopedia, and for a long time in Gatherer as well.[9]
Fylgja inspired the creation of Ursine Fylgja in Coldsnap. The name is a Norse word referring to a kind of guardian spirit animal that is associated with a particular person.
Goblin Mutant was one of five uncommon Ice Age block Japanese language cards offered as a promotion in Japan. The Ice Age block was not released in Japan.
Krovikan Vampire was one of five uncommon Ice Age block Japanese language cards offered as a promotion in Japan. The Ice Age block was not released in Japan.
Norritt would not be printed as a common today, as it is complicated (as evidenced by the small font used in its text box) and has abilities normally associated with uncommon and rare cards. It was used as a promotion, being given away with Scrye magazine before the release of Ice Age.
Biggest creatures
Chaos Lord has the greatest combined power and toughness among monochrome red creatures in Ice Age. The characters on his shield are from the "Elder Futhark" runic alphabet. They spell out "I AM REALE MEAN".
Infernal Denizen has the greatest combined power and toughness among monochrome black creatures in Ice Age.
Polar Kraken had the greatest combined power and toughness among all creatures at the time of its printing until Phyrexian Dreadnought in Mirage. It was also the card with the highest converted mana cost until Draco in Planeshift.
Scaled Wurm has the greatest combined power and toughness among monochrome green creatures in Ice Age and among all common creatures at the time. It was used as a promo before the release of the expansion.
Seraph has the greatest combined power and toughness among monochrome white creatures in Ice Age.
Soldevi Golem has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in Ice Age.

Miscellanea

Anarchy breaks the "red can't destroy enchantments" rule.
Dance of the Dead has Oracle text longer than would fit into a text box.
Dark Ritual last had the card type Interrupt in Ice Age. It then became a Mana Source and later an Instant, making it the card to have had the most number of card types in its history.
Earthlore was named in reverence to the design name of Ancestral Recall [10]
Flare was named "Poke" but was changed for being potentially sexually suggestive.
Incinerate replaced the overpowered Lightning Bolt and yet was still considered too powerful in retrospect.
Jester's Cap was designed both to thrill players with the new idea of manipulating an opponent's library, which had previously been considered a taboo, and to hurt decks reliant on powerful Restricted List cards.
Meteor Shower confused many players as a result of its {X}{X}{R} mana cost and "X+1" damage it dealt.
Mind Warp was intended to be a fixed Mind Twist.
Pestilence Rats has power equal to the number of rats in play, but it is only the third card printed with the creature type Rat after Bog Rats and Plague Rats.

The Card List

237 Forgotten Lore is represented by Pathfinder's Lore Skills.

Rule Zero