Two weeks ago, I started telling the story of hybrid mana. It was too long for a single article, so today, I'm telling the rest of the story. The last article ended with us talking about hybrid's use in Alara Reborn.

Return to Ravnica Block

Deathrite Shaman Biomass Mutation

Hybrid's next return would take three years and coincide with the return to the plane that first premiered it, Ravnica. The Return to Ravnica block repeated hybrid's use from the original Ravnica block, a vertical cycle (common, uncommon, and rare) for each of the two-color pairs, five in Return to Ravnica and five in Gatecrash. Unlike the original Ravnica block, there was no ten-card cycle built into hybrid. This time, the Guildmages were multicolor. Hybrid's use in these sets doesn't innovate much on hybrid, mostly finding good overlap space.

Savageborn Hydra

The one exception is Savageborn Hydra in Dragon's Maze, the last set in the block. It had an activated ability that designers strongly felt needed to have colored mana in it for balance, but it was a cheap activation, so they only wanted one colored mana pip. If we just chose red mana or green mana, the card would bend heavily toward decks that played more of that color, and we wanted the card to be balanced between red and green. The solution was to use hybrid, as that allowed the card to function evenly between the two colors.

Its inclusion is interesting because this was the first time where hybrid solved a problem and we felt comfortable with having just one hybrid card in the set. In some ways, this was the time where hybrid truly became deciduous. It was a valuable tool R&D had access to, and we would use it on a card-by-card basis when needed.

Fate Reforged

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death Brutal Hordechief Soulfire Grand Master

Another three years went by before hybrid's next return. Fate Reforged was an interesting set. R&D had decided that every other year, we wanted the third set in the block to be a large set with a new suite of mechanics that was drafted by itself. Trying to shake things up, I came up with a novel block plan. Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir, the first and third sets in the block, would each be a large set with its own mechanics. Fate Reforged, the small second set, would be drafted with each. We created a whole storyline (Sarkhan going into the past to save Ugin, and thus, all the dragons) where the middle set represented the past and the two large sets were different timelines.

When we started designing Fate Reforged, we realized we had a unique challenge. Khans of Tarkir was a three-color wedge set. Dragons of Tarkir was a two-color ally set. How could Fate Reforged have cards that played into both a three-color and a two-color theme? The answer, of course, was hybrid. We created two cycles of creature cards, one legendary, that had a monocolor casting cost and a hybrid cost in its rules text. Mostly they were activated abilities, but a couple were costs of a triggered ability. This gave them a three-color feel (and a three-color color identity for the purposes of Commander) but allowed you to play them with just two colors. Between the two cycles, each wedge combination was represented twice, but on two different monocolor cards, neither the shared enemy color, so that only the enemy hybrid mana costs were used.

Unstable

Mary O'Kill The Big Idea

Hybrid's next appearance was two years later in Unstable, a two-color ally faction set. This would be hybrid's first appearance in a supplemental set. One of the factions was black-red supervillains. Mary O'Kill was like Savageborn Hydra in that I needed a cheap activation that wanted colored mana, but I wanted the two colors to treat it equally. I then decided to make the mana cost hybrid as well. The Big Idea originally had an activation cost of one, a black, and a red, but I wanted decks without black to be able to activate it in drafts, so I changed it to hybrid mana. We were also growing more aware of color identity as Commander continued to grow, and I wanted both these legendary creatures to have a black and red color identity.

Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance

Footlight Fiend Selesnya Locket Expansion // Explosion

A year later, hybrid returned on our third trip to Ravnica. Hybrid again appeared in a vertical cycle and on a common cycle of artifacts. The non-artifact common cycle consisted of normal hybrid overlap designs. The artifact common cycle of Lockets was for mana fixing. It used hybrid to ensure the cards were most effective in a two-color deck of those specific colors. It was playing into hybrid's ability to make two-color pairs function like monocolor in terms of cost. A four-color hybrid cost is easy to do in a two-color deck of those colors but very hard in a two-color deck where you're only playing one color.

The uncommon and rare cards were all split cards. One of the mini cards was a traditional two-color gold card, while the other effect had a hybrid cost. The hybrids had cheaper costs that you could play early, often when you might not have drawn both colors of mana, and the traditional gold cards had higher costs, usable at a time when you most likely have drawn both colors.

War of the Spark

Ashiok, Dream Render Saheeli, Sublime Artificer Huatli, the Sun's Heart

Hybrid would follow in the very next set. War of the Spark was still located on Ravnica, but instead of focusing on the guilds, it was a "capstone event set" about a war between Nicol Bolas and several Planeswalkers. Normally, we put about three to five planeswalker cards in any given set at the time, but the nature of the story had us greatly raise the number to 36. To up the as-fan of planeswalkers in Limited, we made an uncommon ten-card cycle of hybrid planeswalkers. We had never made a hybrid planeswalker before, but because of the story's many Planeswalkers, we felt okay pushing into new design territory. (War of the Spark was also where planeswalkers having static abilities became deciduous.)

Let me talk a little bit about the value of using hybrid to up as-fan. War of the Spark had ten uncommon planeswalkers. Let's imagine they were all two-color gold cards. If you were playing white-blue, you would have access to ten percent of the uncommon planeswalkers (i.e., one of them, the white and blue one). Now, imagine they were all monocolor, two in each color. In this scenario, a white-blue deck has access to 40 percent of the uncommon planeswalkers, the two mono-white ones and the two mono-blue ones. Next, let's examine what would happen if they were all hybrid. A white-blue deck has access to 70 percent of the uncommon planeswalkers, the white-blue one, the three others with white, and the three others with blue. That's the power of hybrid. It stretches availability and makes a theme that might not have the footprint to work more viable.

Modern Horizons

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis Nature's Chant

A month later, Modern Horizons released. It's a supplemental set with more advanced themes, and it dipped its toe in hybrid. I believe Hogaak wasn't initially designed as a hybrid card, but they realized that the ability could work in both black and green and changed it to hybrid to add a little pizazz. Interestingly, Nature's Chant was one of the initial designs I made when I was first showing off hybrid all those years ago. It was a bit too narrow for the vertical cycle in original Ravnica, so it sat around for years looking for a home. It was one of our cards in our Hackathon card file handoff to prove the viability of the Modern Horizons concept.

Throne of Eldraine

Arcanist's Owl Oakhame Ranger Thunderous Snapper

Later that year, Throne of Eldraine releases. It had a monocolor theme that was part of the courts of Eldraine (the adamant mechanic also played into this). The Set Design team was interested in making a cycle of ten uncommons that played equally well in a monocolor or two-color deck, so they made a cycle of hybrid cards that all had a mana cost of four hybrid mana. Nine out of the ten were creatures (the last being a sorcery), but other than the link of their mana costs, the designs were varied. The green-white card had an adventure where the spell was also four hybrid mana.

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

Lurrus of the Dream-Den

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths was our monster-themed set. It made use of hybrid in a couple different ways. The splashiest was with a new mechanic called companion. They were creatures that you could chose to start with outside the game. Then, if your deck met certain deck-construction requirements, you could cast it from outside the game. Companions were a cycle of ten two-color rare creatures. There were only ten because of the tight design space. Companions were all hybrid cards to maximize how many decks could play them.

Lore Drakkis

Hybrid also showed up in a major mechanic of the set, mutate. The set had an above-average number of multicolor cards. All ten of the gold cards with mutate made use of hybrid mana. The uncommons were all enemy-color cards with hybrid mutate costs in the same colors. This made use of hybrid much as Khans of Tarkir made use of morph. If you have both of your colors, you could cast the card with its normal mana cost, but if you're missing one of the colors, the card can still be used to mutate.

Nethroi, Apex of Death

The mythic rare creature cycle had three-color wedge costs (a central color and its two enemies). Its mutate cost was its central color along with a hybrid mana of the other two colors. Like the uncommon cycle, this allowed you to mutate the card even if you haven't drawn all your colors. It's interesting to note that hybrid also had a flavorful component here as the gold mutate creatures were flavored as a cross of two or three different types of creatures.

Jubilant Skybonder Fiend Artisan

The final use of hybrid was the more traditional use of overlap design. It appeared on a cycle of uncommon creatures with ally hybrid costs. Because of the wedge component of the set, designers had to be careful with making ally-color cards, so this cycle was hybrid to make sure the cards would fit in more decks. There was also one single mythic rare hybrid design. Like Hogaak, I believe it was a design that ended up working in two colors, so it was given a hybrid cost.

Commander (2020 Edition)

Shabraz, the Skyshark

Commander (2020 Edition) was released in conjunction with Ikoria. It had one creature with a hybrid activation. As you can see, R&D is becoming more comfortable with using hybrid whenever its needed.

Jumpstart

Emiel the Blessed Bruvac the Grandiloquent Neyith of the Dire Hunt

Jumpstart was a beginner product designed to make Limited play as simple as possible. You open two boosters, shuffle the cards together, and you have a deck. The product had several new cards (37), five of which were new legendary creature designs. The cards ideally wanted to have a two-color color identity, but most of the Jumpstart boosters were monocolor. How can cards be playable in a monocolor deck but still have a two-color color identity? Hybrid to the rescue! As R&D learned in earlier sets, if you have an activation with colored mana, you can turn that activation to hybrid mana. It's just as easy to use as if it had been one color, but now you add a second color to the color identity of the card.

Zendikar Rising

static.wizards.com/Cards/medium/A547B9729A9B73522521DE9206A3B55AA0995467BA53AC20D9B851330C38BF53.webp">Tazri, Beacon of Unity