Design Files: Fifth Dawn, Part 2

Last week, I started my "Design Files" series for Fifth Dawn, where I show the complete design as handed off from design for development (this set happened long before our current exploratory design, vision design, set design, and play design model). I ended last column with black, so today, we pick up with red.

CR1
Speedy Tim
o2oR
Creature — Wizard
1/1
Haste
T: CARDNAME deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

This card became Vulshok Sorcerer. Wizard became Human Shaman, and the mana cost changed from to .

CR2
Cageflinger
o3oRoR
Creature — Giant
3/3
Sacrifice an artifact: Target creature can't block this turn.

This became Krark-Clan Ogre. It changed from a Giant to an Ogre and had added to its activation cost.

CR3
Ornery Goblin
o2oR
Creature — Goblin Warrior
2/2
First strike
CARDNAME cannot be equipped.

This became Goblin Brawler. Other than the name, nothing changed. The drawback allowed us to push the power level of the card.

CR4
Scrye Fire
o2oR
Instant
CARDNAME deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Scrye 2 (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put the cards back in any order on top and/or on bottom of your library.)

This became Magma Jet. It was moved to uncommon, and development dropped the mana cost from to . There was a lot of discussion in design about whether red should be able to get scry 2.

CR5
System Overload
oR
Instant
Destroy target tapped artifact.

This set had a small theme of cards that destroyed tapped permanents. This one didn't make it. The set having a bunch of Equipment didn't help, because it can be unclear when Equipment is tapped, as players tend to tap the Equipment with the creature.

CR6
Fiery Edict
oR
Instant
Target player chooses a creature they control. CARDNAME deals 3 damage to the chosen creature.

This was us making a card similar to "target player sacrifices a creature," but in red. It didn't make it.

UR1
Goblin Tech Support
o3oR
Creature — Goblin
2/2
R, Sacrifice two artifacts: Destroy target artifact.

This card became Krark-Clan Engineers. It didn't change other than gaining the Artificer creature type.

UR2
Big Bully
o4oR
Creature
5/3

My best guess is this card became Iron-Barb Hellion. It changed from a 5/3 to a 5/4, became a Hellion Beast, and gained haste and "Iron-Barb Hellion can't block."

UR3
Practical Joke
oR
Instant
Attach target Equipment to target creature.

This became Magnetic Theft.

UR4
Foment
o2oR
Sorcery
Tap each untapped land target player controls. Add {1} to your mana pool for each land tapped this way.

If I remember correctly, this card had some rules issues. We didn't want the opponent always tapping the lands in response to the spell but didn't have the tools at the time to stop it.

UR99
[Commandeer]
o2oR
Instant
Untap and gain control of target artifact until end of turn. If that artifact is a creature, it gains haste until end of turn.

Bringer of the Red Dawn ended up stealing a creature every turn, which was too close to this effect. Also, this was a 99 design.

UR99
Eat Hot Lead
o2oR
Instant
CARDNAME deals damage to target creature equal to the number of artifacts you control.

This became Feedback Bolt, which hits players instead of creatures. The mana cost was raised from to .

RR1
Magma Giant
o5oRoR
Creature — Giant
5/5
When Magma Giant comes into play from your hand, it deals 2 damage to each creature and player.

This is a reprint from Portal Second Age. We were looking for places to reprint Portal cards we liked. I believe at the time they weren't legal unless they were printed in a Standard-legal set.

RR2
Roto-tiller
o1oRoR
Creature
7/6
Trample
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice CARDNAME unless you sacrifice two lands.

This card had its name changed to Cosmic Larva and we added Beast, but it stayed the same other than that. It does have one of the weirdest arts for a nonflying creature. (Also, how does that trample exactly?)

RR3
Preemptive Fork
oRoR
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals their hand. You may choose an instant or sorcery card from it. You may copy the chosen card and play the copy without paying its mana cost.

This became Reversal of Fortune. I think this has the greatest discrepancy between its mana cost at handoff to print. became . (It turns out there's one other card that had added to its mana cost later.)

RR4
Meltdown for Three
o2oRoR
Sorcery
Destroy each artifact with a converted mana cost of 3 or less.

This became Granulate. The final version changed from "3 or less" to "4 or less." We also added "nonland" so it wouldn't destroy artifact lands.

RR5
Eternal Combustion
o3oRoR
Instant
CARDNAME deals 5 damage to target creature or player. Shuffle CARDNAME into your library.

This became Beacon of Destruction. One of our goals with the Beacons was to keep their effects simple.

CG1
Basilisk Newt
o1oG
Creature — Basilisk
1/2
Whenever CARDNAME blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, destroy that creature at end of combat.

This became Tangle Asp, changing from a Basilisk to a Snake. This was before we keyworded deathtouch. As such, how the ability worked varied from card to card. The card almost had a non-Wall restriction because it was a Basilisk. (You can't turn a Wall to stone.)

CG2
Quirion Explorer
o1oG
Creature — Elf
1/1
T: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color that a land an opponent controls could produce.

This was a reprint from Planeshift. It was given a new name and new creative, becoming a Human Druid named Sylvok Explorer.

CG3
Roused Howler
o3oG
Creature — Lizard
3/3
G, T: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of artifacts all opponents control.

This card became Viridian Lorebearers. It changed from a Lizard to an Elf Shaman and moved to uncommon. Its ability went from +X/+0 to +X/+X, and its activation cost went from to .

CG4
Sturdy Crusher
o4oGoG
Creature — Beast
5/4
1G: CARDNAME gets -1/+1 until end of turn.

This card became Tyrranax.

CG5
Scrye Oxidize
o1oG
Instant
Destroy target artifact.
Scrye 2 (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put the cards back in any order on top and/or on bottom of your library.)

This became Tel-Jilad Justice.

CG6
Fertile Moss
o1oGoG
Enchant Land
Whenever enchanted land is tapped for mana, its controller adds two mana of any combination of colors to their mana pool.

This was designed as a Fertile Ground variant. It became Dawn's Reflection and changed from having a mana cost of to .

CG99
Small Modeman
oGoG
Creature — Elf
1/1
Whenever CARDNAME comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME, or gain 4 life, or add two mana of any combination of colors to your mana pool.

Aaron Forsythe is a huge fan of charms, so he made a vertical cycle in green for creatures that have an enters effect that lets you choose one of three options. There didn't end up being space for it (note that it's a 99), so it didn't make it into the final set.

CG99
Pipe Viper
o1oGoG
Creature — Snake
3/2
CARDNAME is unblockable as long as defending player controls an artifact land.

This card was basically "artifactwalk" (a riff on the landwalk ability from early Magic). Yet another 99 design that didn't make the final set.

UG1
Tan Ouphe Clan
o4oG
Creature — Ouphe
4/3
G, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Counter target activated ability from an artifact source. Destroy that artifact. (Mana abilities can't be countered.)

This became Ouphe Vandals. It shrank from a 4/3 to a 2/2. Players were too hesitant to sacrifice their larger creature.

UG2
Stampeding Buffalo
o3oGoG
Creature — Beast
4/5
Your creatures gain trample.

This became Fangren Pathcutter. It changed from a 4/5 to a 4/6. The biggest change was its ability. Instead of granting trample to all of your creatures as a static ability, when it attacks, it gives trample to all attacking creatures. We liked that you have to put the creature at risk to gain the trample. Once it was a triggered ability, we realized it only needed to affect attacking creatures.

UG3
Verdant Collector
o4oGoG
Creature — Elf Shaman
2/2
When CARDNAME comes into play, you may return target card in your graveyard to your hand.

This became Eternal Witness. This was another pretty big change, power-level-wise. Aaron made this card because he liked the idea of having a Regrowth as an enters effect. Development liked the card, so they greatly powered it up, changing it from a 2/2 to a 2/1. It also changed from an Elf to a Human Shaman. This card went on to be a powerful tournament card.

UG4
Scrye Growth
o2oG
Instant
Target creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn.
Scrye 2 (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put the cards back in any order on top and/or on bottom of your library.)

This became Ferocious Charge.

UG99
Medium Modeman
o1oGoG
Creature — Wall
2/4
(Walls can't attack.) When CARDNAME comes into play, draw a card, or change CARDNAME's creature type to Beast, or each player sacrifices an artifact.

This was Aaron's uncommon charm creature in his green vertical cycle.

UG99
Happy Hermit
oXoGoG
Creature — Elemental
0/2
When CARDNAME comes into play, put X 0/0 green [NAME] creature tokens into play. All [NAME] get +1/+1.

This was our clever design to make a bunch of 1/1 creature tokens that went away when the creature that created them went away. We would later use this technology on the card Master of Waves in the original Theros.

RG1
Candy-Coated Surprise
o5oGoG
Creature — Elemental
6/6
Whenever CARDNAME goes to a graveyard from play, you may search your library for any number of creature cards with a combined converted mana cost of 6 or less and put them into play.

This card didn't make it into Fifth Dawn, but Aaron remembered it and put it into the file for the first design he led, Dissension. It was called Protean Hulk.

RG2
Tornado Elemental
o4oGoG
Creature — Elemental
5/5
Trample
T: Destroy target artifact creature or creature with flying.

Tornado Elemental stayed in the set with that name but went through some changes.

It changed from a 5/5 to a 6/6. Instead of having a tap ability to destroy fliers, it deals 6 damage to fliers as an enters ability. It lost trample but gained a better version where it deals all its damage to defending player when blocked.

RG3
Fungusaur World
o2oG
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on it. (The damage is dealt before the counter is put on.)

Fungusaur was one of my favorite cards from Limited Edition (Alpha), so I designed this enchantment as a nod to it. This became Rite of Passage.

RG4
All Suns' Dawn
o4oG
Sorcery
Return target white card, target blue card, target black card, target red card, and target green card from your graveyard to your hand. You can choose less than the required number of targets. Remove CARDNAME from the game instead of putting it in a graveyard when it resolves.

The card made it in as is, with the only change being some templating.

RG5
Eternal Monsterball
oXoG
Instant
Put an X/X green Beast token into play. Shuffle CARDNAME into your library.

This became Beacon of Creation, a sorcery. Instead of making one X/X Beast creature token, it makes a whole bunch of 1/1 Insect creature tokens (equal to your number of Forests). Because the new spell didn't have a variable, the mana cost changed from to .

RG99
Growth Ooze
oGoG
Creature — Ooze
1/1
Whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on a non-Ooze creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME.
o4oGoG: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.

This card was a 99 design because of rules concerns. It was a little too easy to create an infinite loop.

RG99
Large Modeman
o2oGoG
Creature — Giant
3/3
When CARDNAME comes into play, put two +1/+1 counters on CARDNAME; or put two 1/1 green [NAME] creature tokens into play; or CARDNAME deals 4 damage to each creature with flying.

And here's the rare in Aaron's vertical cycle of charm creatures. A note from the record:

Mark R. (4/22/03): 99'ed to save for future set.

Aaron F. (4/24/03): *sniff*

RG99
Mincer
o1oG
Enchantment
If a nontoken artifact comes into play under your control, you may instead remove that artifact from the game and put X 1/1 Myr artifact creature tokens into play, where X is that artifact's converted mana cost.

A Johnny card I designed that sadly didn't make it.

RG99
Nature's Reward
o1oGoG
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, each player that controls the fewest number of artifacts may draw a card.

We realized that all our rares had the word "creature" on them, so Aaron designed a card in case that was an issue. This 99 design didn't make it.

CA1
Maximize Bear
o2
Artifact Creature
0/0
Maximize — +1/+1 (This comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the number of different colors of mana used to pay its mana cost.)

"Maximize" is the playtest name for the sunburst mechanic. It was designed by Aaron Forsythe (as was scry—as I said, Fifth Dawn was what convinced us Aaron should be on the R&D team). In our handoff, we had five sunburst creatures at common. The printed set had only three. This version didn't make it. A two-mana 2/2 that required two different colors of mana was pretty weak, even back then. You'll note it calls out that what you're maximizing is +1/+1 counters. When we got to templating, we moved this to the reminder text.

CA2
Maximize Golem
o3
Artifact Creature — Golem
0/0
Maximize — +1/+1 (This comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the number of different colors of mana used to pay its mana cost.)

This one made it to print as Suntouched Myr. The only change was that it moved from a Golem to a Myr.

CA3
Maximize Soldier
o4
Artifact Creature — Soldier
0/1
Maximize — +1/+1 counters (This comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the number of different colors of mana used to pay its mana cost.)
Remove two +1/+1 counters from CARDNAME: CARDNAME gets +4/+4 until end of turn.

This card became Sawtooth Thresher. Instead of a 0/1 for , it became a 1/1 for . It also lost the Soldier creature type, leaving it with none. At the time, artifact creatures were not required to have a creature type. I would eventually have that rule changed, but in Fifth Dawn, I just put a creature type on most artifact creatures in the file, and the Creative team would leave it where they felt it made sense. This card also shows us playing around with sunburst creatures that weren't always base 0/0.

CA4
Blazin' Pterodactyl
o5
Artifact Creature
0/0
Flying
Maximize — +1/+1 (As this card comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its mana cost.)

This card became Skyreach Manta. I believe the word "Blazin'" in its name came from the fact that "blazin'" was the name for the keyword before "maximize."

CA5
Maximize Elephant
o6
Artifact Creature
2/2
Trample
Maximize — +1/+1 (As this card comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its mana cost.)

Development realized that we didn't need quite so many sunburst creatures that were French vanilla (just had creature keywords with no other text), so they cut them. This was one of the cards that was cut.

CA6
Fly Boy
o4
Artifact Creature
1/3
Flying
T: Target artifact creature gains flying.

Darksteel had a theme of artifact creatures helping other artifact creatures that we were continuing with this design. Development decided to push the aspects that were more novel to Fifth Dawn, and this card was cut.

CA7
Little Bugger
o4
Artifact Creature
1/2
Tap two untapped artifacts you control: Regenerate CARDNAME.
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, it gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

The card ended up being annoying because it played a lot like an indestructible creature, so it was cut.

CA8
Robo-Roach
o1
Artifact Creature — Insect
1/1
At the beginning of your upkeep, return all cards named CARDNAME from all graveyards to play under their owners' control.

This card was printed as Myr Servitor. The card stayed as is, except for changing to a Myr from an Insect (good call) and having a template that made it clearer that one of the creatures had to be on the battlefield for the rest to come back.

CA9
Hopper
o3
Artifact Creature
2/2
Tap an untapped artifact you control: CARDNAME gains flying until end of turn.

This card was printed as Thermal Navigator. The big change was that it requires you to sacrifice an artifact rather than merely tap it. This change was mostly a development decision, making the cost a little higher.

CA10
Steel Centipede
o3
Artifact Creature — Insect
1/1
CARDNAME is unblockable.
Whenever CARDNAME deals damage to a player, you may remove a counter from target permanent.

This card was printed as Ferropede, with the only change being that it was moved from common to uncommon. This is another card where the art was done before the design. (I'll talk more about this at the end of part four.)

CA11
Chrome Serpent
o6
Artifact Creature
3/4
Protection from red, protection from green

This card's design was simple. Artifact destruction was mostly in red and green (yes, white did have some). Its protection kept it from dying to most of the artifact-destruction spells. It didn't make it to the final set. In fact, no artifact creatures with protection made it into the set (and Auriok Champion was the only colored card with protection).

CA12
Glass Golem
o5
Artifact Creature — Golem
6/2

This card didn't make it into Fifth Dawn, but would make it years later, name and all, in Ravnica: City of Guilds. It's common practice when a card you like gets cut to try it again later in a future design. It ended up being printed at uncommon.

CA13
[Bot]
o7
Artifact Creature
4/4
CARDNAME gets +1/+0 for each creature blocking it.

This card was a riff on the flanking mechanic from Mirage, although it only pumped power and didn't care about other creatures with the ability. It didn't make it to print. The highest mana value for a common artifact creature in the final set was mana value 6.

CA14
Crystal Myr
o3
Artifact Creature — Myr
1/2
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

My best guess is this turned into Paradise Mantle, an Equipment that grants this ability.

Time to Stop

We've come to the end of part two. As always, I'm eager for feedback. If you have thoughts on this article, my "Design Files" series, Fifth Dawn, or any of the cards I talked about, you can email me or give me feedback through social media (Bluesky, Tumblr, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter).

Join me next week for part three.

Until then, may you smile when you see things you'd long forgotten.