Last week, I started a new iteration of "Design Files," the series where I look at the cards from an older set's design handoff file. This week, I'm continuing my journey through the second set I led the design of: Urza's Destiny.

Opalescence

RW05
Spirit Walk
2WW
Enchantment
White
All global enchantments become X/X creatures where X is their casting cost. The enchantments do not lose their enchantment status or effects.

Enchantments were a theme in the Urza's Saga block. We had done several sets with artifact themes but none with enchantment themes. When we were designing Urza's Saga, we put a lot of enchantment themes in it. At the time, R&D and Creative lacked good communication due to my then strained relationship with the latter. We had designed an enchantment set, but the set was part of a series of stories from the Artifacts Cycle, had a set symbol of a gear, and focused on the artificer Urza.

While designing Urza's Destiny, I wasn't aware of this and continued the enchantment theme from Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy. An exercise I did involved looking at cool designs we had done for artifacts and designing enchantment-focused versions. This was one of those cards:

I had a lot of fun building decks with Titania's Song, so it seemed like a cool idea to make an enchantment version, but while I was doing it, I thought it might be fun to make one slight change, something I'd always wanted Titania's Song to do. Wouldn't it be cool if the animated enchantments didn't lose all their abilities? Glorious Anthem, for example, would be a 4/4 creature.

Interestingly, we printed the card exactly as I'd handed it off. Opalescence caused a lot of problems, especially when combined with the card Humility, a card I'd made when leading Tempest. I think it's a fun card, but I do recognize it's caused more than its share of rules headaches.

Replenish

RW06
Spirit Syphon
3WW
Sorcery
White
Return all enchantments in your graveyard to play.

Opalescence wasn't the only card that played into the enchantment theme. I've always been a big fan of recursion effects, so I thought it would be cool to make a sorcery that returned all the enchantments in your graveyard to the battlefield. Unlike Opalescence, the Development team made one change: removing a from the mana cost. Replenish went on to be a powerful card that saw a lot of tournament and casual play.

Thieving Magpie

CU05
Seagull
1UU
Summon Bird
Blue
2/1
Flying
Whenever CARDNAME damages another player, you may discard a card and draw another card.

A saboteur ability triggers when a creature with the ability deals combat damage to another player. In the early days of Magic, saboteur abilities worked a little differently. Instead of caring about you dealing combat damage to an opponent, it allowed you to prevent damage on your own unblocked attacker to trigger an ability.

I designed a card called Ophidian for Weatherlight. It was a saboteur creature that drew a card using the old style of saboteur. R&D is always thinking of ways to streamline text, and we came to the conclusion that it was just cleaner to have the creature deal the damage and get the effect, so in Exodus, I created the card Curiosity, which granted the new saboteur effect along with card draw.

Anyway, I was designing Urza's Destiny when I thought of combining Ophidian with the saboteur ability. When I handed off the file, it had a saboteur looting effect. I also had a flying creature in the file that had a saboteur effect that drew a card, which I'll talk more about next time. When that design didn't work out, we decided to make it into a flying Ophidian with the new saboteur ability. Everyone on the Development team was fine with that, and Thieving Magpie was born. It has gone on to become a staple Magic card that has shown up in a lot of core sets.

Fledgling Osprey, Metathran Elite, Rayne, and Thran Golem

CU01
Catalyst Falcon
1U
Summon Bird
Blue
1/1
Flying
If CARDNAME is enchanted, it cannot be blocked.

CU11
Teachings of Tim
2U
Enchantment
Blue
All enchanted creatures gain "T: Deal 1 damage to target creature or player."

UU02
Easy Flier
1UU
Summon Spirit
Blue
2/2
If CARDNAME is enchanted, it gains +2/+2 and flying.

RU03
Tolarian Protector
UU
Summon Wizard
Blue
1/1
Whenever you or a permanent you control is the target of a spell or ability controlled by an opponent, draw a card. If CARDNAME is enchanted, draw an additional card.

RA01
Thran Avenger
5
Artifact
3/3
If enchanted, Thran Avenger gains +2/+2, flying, first strike, trample, and protection from artifacts.

My vertical cycle for blue played into the larger enchantment theme. It included creatures that improved when enchanted. Unlike my white vertical cycle, this one stayed intact. The common and uncommon creatures had their abilities swapped. The rare became a legendary creature with a tweaked cost.

Thran Avenger was an extra rare artifact card meant to synergize with enchantments. It lost protection from artifacts. I also had a bonus common enchantment that granted Prodigal Sorcerer's abilities. This is probably around the time that we decided that direct damage, under any flavor, just didn't make sense in blue.

Rescue

CU10
Personal Boomerang
U
Instant
Blue
Return target permanent you control to owner's hand.

Back in the day, I was very interested in figuring out ways to tweak basic effects. The card Rescue was my way of playing around with bounce effects, effects that put things back in their owner's hand. I liked the idea of a spell that could bounce any of your permanents. My inner Johnny thought there were a lot of interesting things players could do with this effect. This is another brain-to-print card.

Donate

RU07
Take It
2U
Sorcery
Blue
Give control of target permanent to target player.

As I've often explained, I'm a Johnny player, meaning I like to create wild, off-beat decks. Before coming to Wizards, I loved to win in ways that the opponent never saw coming. Two cards that I used all the time were Juxtapose and Gauntlets of Chaos.

Both cards allowed me to exchange one of my cards for one of my opponent's cards. I assume the intended case was to trade your weakest card for their strongest, but that's not how I tended to use it. Mostly, I wanted to give my opponent specific cards as part of a larger plan. For example, I had a deck that would take a Wall, boost its toughness, enchant it with Creature Bond, give it to an opponent, and destroy it.

Because Gauntlets of Chaos and Juxtapose stole creatures, they were expensive. Because they exchanged a particular card type, it also meant my opponent needed to be playing a particular thing. The card Donate is a classic example of creating an effect that I, as a player, just wanted in the game. This is another brain-to-print card, as nothing changed in development.

Donate went on to be a tournament-winning card that played a major role in Trix decks, which gave your opponent a card called Illusions of Grandeur. You would gain 20 life, give it to your opponent, and win when they lost 20 life. We would redo this card many years later in red as Harmless Offering.

Bubbling Muck

CB11
Tainted Spoils
B
Sorcery
Black
Until end of turn, all swamps gain "Sacrifice: add BB to your mana pool."

In Limited Edition (Alpha), black got Dark Ritual. For many years, this defined black as the color that got one-shot mana rituals before we eventually moved that ability to red. I liked the idea that black could get extra mana at a cost. The version I turned in was a bit harsher than the printed card. In development, we decided that we could make all Swamps produce an extra black mana each turn without sacrificing a land. Bubbling Muck ended up seeing a decent amount of play.

Yawgmoth's Bargain

RB07
Intolerance
BBB
Enchantment
Black
Pay 2 life: Draw a card.

Now we get to possibly the most broken card in the set. Back in the day, it came about because I was trying to "fix" a problem card, in this case, one of the most notorious cards of all time: Necropotence.

Necropotence was a card so broken that it warped Standard for well over a year, creating a time colloquially known as Necro Summer. So, of course, I decided that I would make a fair version of it. I drew inspiration from a card called Greed that let you pay 2 life for a card instead of 1. Greed also had a mana cost, but I seemed to skip over that part.

I costed the card similar to Necropotence and made each card cost 2 life. Then, I removed Necropotence's draw-prevention ability and named it Intolerance (Greed and Intolerance are famous silent movies).

Development added the skipped draw step from Necropotence but preferred that you pay 1 life per card. They then raised the cost to from . Erik Lauer has convinced me that Development did, in fact, weaken the card from my proposal, just nowhere near enough. Yawgmoth's Bargain is in the upper tier of broken cards in Magic history. Drawing one card for 1 life is just really good.

Goblin Gardener

CR04
Rabid Arsonist
3R
Summon Soldier
Red
2/1
When CARDNAME is put into any graveyard, destroy target land.

This was another brain-to-print card. This printed version is a lot more flavorful, however. Instead of an angry soldier, it's a goblin gardener.

Bloodshot Cyclops

RR03
Major League Giant
4R
Summon Giant
Red
3/3
T, Sacrifice a creature: CARDNAME deals damage equal to the power of the sacrificed creature to target player.

This card stayed close to its inception. It even kept the basic flavor, though without the baseball reference. Development added to its mana cost and made it a 4/4 creature.

Impatience

RR06
Cast or Burn, Baby
2R
Enchantment
Red
During the end of each player's turn, that player must sacrifice a land if they did not cast a spell that turn.

Impatience is a good example of how cards change in development. The basic idea of a enchantment that encourages all the players to cast spells each turn stayed, but the motivation changed. Losing a land was deemed unfair, as it makes it hard to play spells on future turns. Damage ended up being a better incentive. That's a huge part of the later stages of design: taking the core of what the card wants to be and finding the best execution of that idea.

Gamekeeper

RG03
Elvish Spiritualist
3GG
Summon Elf
Green
1/1
When CARDNAME comes into play, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature. Put that creature into play and put the rest of the cards in the graveyard.
When CARDNAME is put into any graveyard from play, put three +1/+1 counters on any combination of creatures.

Gamekeeper was a bit busier in its initial form. It found a creature when it entered and gave out counters when it died. We ended up breaking this card into two. The +1/+1 counter part became Hunting Moa, a creature that distributed a +1/+1 counter when it entered and died. We then moved the creature-finding part to the death trigger. This allowed us to lower the mana cost from to , change it to a 2/2 creature, and make it an uncommon.

It also inspired us to make a similar card in white: Academy Rector. Academy Rector  became a rare that had you tutor out an enchantment. It was another card that played into the enchantment theme of the block.

Metalworker

UA02
Mana Bot
3
Artifact
1/2
T: Reveal your hand to all players. Add 2 mana to your mana pool for each artifact in your hand.

This card was almost brain to print. It had one subtle change. Rather than having you reveal your whole hand, the printed version allows you to reveal the artifacts in your hand. Hidden information is an important part of dynamic gameplay, so we try to limit when you have to give that up. Metalworker went on to be a popular card, seeing play in numerous different styles of decks.

Junk Diver

RA03
Thran Retriever
4
Artifact
2/2
Flying
When CARDNAME is put into any graveyard from play, return any other artifact in your graveyard to your hand.

I'm a big fan of getting things back from the graveyard and was eager to make a card that could get back an artifact. I liked the idea of a smaller artifact creature that acted as a Regrowth for artifacts. It seemed like a fun combo piece. Development ended up making it a smaller creature and reduced the cost to .

Powder Keg

Nevinyrral's Pinpoint Disk
1
Artifact
3: Add a boom counter to CARDNAME.
T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Destroy all permanents in play with a casting cost of X where X is the number of boom counters on CARDNAME.

This card's playtest name gives away the inspiration. I liked the idea of making an artifact that had the ability to address permanents that shared a mana value. I got some requests to make this destroy "all permanents with a mana value X or less" but felt that violated the point of the card. I liked that you could address a specific subsection of cards but not all cards.

In development, we decided that we liked the counters slowly building up over time rather than forcing you to invest mana into the card. We made the ability a "may," so you can choose to not add counters if you want to focus on a certain mana value. Additionally, the final card only destroys artifacts and creatures. We also raised the mana cost by .

Storage Matrix

RA07
Orb of Restriction
3
Artifact
During their untap phase, each player may only untap one card type (lands, creatures, artifacts, or enchantments).

Storage Matrix was mostly brain to print. The only addition was "As long as Storage Matrix is untapped …" as the early rules of Magic had artifacts shut off when tapped. We removed that rule in Sixth Edition but adjusted the text of some cards to make them play the same. One of the cards we did that with was Winter Orb. As this was a tweaked Winter Orb, we decided to add the untapped clause. The final card was wordier to help it work within Magic's rules.

Scrying Glass

RA08
Urza's Lantern
1
Artifact
3, T: Select a number greater than zero and a color. Then look at target opponent's hand. If that opponent has a card with the exact number and color selected, draw a card.

I've always been a big fan of minigame cards, where you have a smaller game within your Magic game. The idea here is that once you look at their hand once, you have a much better idea of what to guess on future turns. In hindsight, I'm not a big fan of this card. The minigame isn't all that fun and removes a lot of hidden information. The sole change from design to print was the mana cost being raised from to .

You Can't Fight Your Urza's Destiny

And with that, we've finished the cards that made it to print. Next time, I'll get into many of the cards that didn't make it to print. As always, I'm eager for any feedback on today's column, any of the cards I talked about, and/or Urza's Destiny. You can email me or contact me through social media accounts (X, Tumblr, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok).

Join me next week for the third and final part of "Design Files: Urza's Destiny."

Until then, may you find the Urza's Destiny cards that you enjoy