Last week, I started talking about the history of typal cards, which are cards that mechanically care about creature types. For each year, I'm choosing the card I think is the most influential typal card design of the year. We're picking back up in 2003. Let's continue!

2003

Sets: Legions, Scourge, and Mirrodin
My Pick: Graveborn Muse (Legions)

The year 2003 had a lot of typal cards with Legions and Scourge finishing out the first typal-themed block. Mirrodin didn't have many typal cards, but it did do two things that provided a huge boon for typal decks.

First, it introduced a new system for creature types: species and a class. For example, White Knight was previously just a Knight. Then it became a Human Knight. This raised the number of creature types on cards and allowed us to start doing more class-based typal designs. Two, it introduced the Human creature type. We realized that it was time to start putting "Human" on cards. The decision was controversial at the time, and R&D agreed not to make any Human typal cards. We would go back on this decision in Innistrad. I'll talk about it when we get there. Humans went on to be a potent type since they're so common in Magic.

The card I chose for 2003 was Graveborn Muse. Other than being a popular card, Graveborn Muse is a good example of us starting to learn some core rules about how to make typal cards. One of the tricks to scaling typal cards involves making the typal card itself the given creature type. Graveborn Muse, for example, draws you one card even if you have no other creatures. This utility allows us to make typal cards that can also function outside of a typal theme. This is one way to make typal cards less all or nothing from a Constructed standpoint.

The other important advancement is a major change to how we template typal effects. When Richard Garfield introduced typal effects in Limited Edition (Alpha), they affected all the creatures on the battlefield. Lord of Atlantis, for example, grants +1/+1 and islandwalk to all Merfolk, not just yours. R&D realized it was better if typal effects just affected your own creatures. It worked more intuitively and lessened weird interactions in mirror matches. If you had a typal card, we wanted you to be excited to play it and not have to worry if it might help your opponent more than you.

2005

Sets: Darksteel, Fifth Dawn, Champions of Kamigawa, and Unhinged
My Pick: He Who Hungers (Champions of Kamigawa)

With Onslaught showing the popularity of typal themes, R&D started improving on typal. Champions of Kamigawa was built around a series of different creature types that each have their own mechanical identity. Most of those mechanical identities are typal in nature, and some even have their own named mechanic.

My choice for 2004 is He Who Hungers, which makes use of a creature type-connected mechanic: soulshift. Soulshift only appears on Spirits, but it also has a typal effect for Spirits built into it. Whenever a creature with soulshift dies, you return another Spirit of a given mana value from your graveyard to the battlefield. There is also an unnamed mechanic in the set, informally called "spiritcraft," which triggers whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell. This all reflects a growing appreciation of R&D for how engrained mechanical identity can be with typal themes.

2005

Sets: Betrayers of Kamigawa, Saviors of Kamigawa, and Ravnica: City of Guilds
My Pick: Patron of the Orochi (Betrayers of Kamigawa)

The rest of the Champions of Kamigawa block continued the theme of connecting creature types to mechanics. Ninjas, for example, have become synonymous with the ninjutsu mechanic. My choice for 2005 is Patron of the Orochi from Betrayers of Kamigawa. It's part of a cycle of rare creatures that all have the offering mechanic. Offering is unique because it's tied to a creature type, but that type can change from card to card. Past typal mechanics tended to work with a single creature type.

Patron of the Orochi has Snake offering, which allows you to cast the card for less mana if you sacrifice a Snake. Each member of the Patron cycle's offering ability cares about a different creature type. This demonstrates that not only can mechanics be tied to typal themes, the type itself can be a variant for the mechanic.

2006

Sets: Guildpact, Dissension, Coldsnap, and Time Spiral
My Pick: Gemhide Sliver (Time Spiral)
Honorable Mention: Swarmyard (Time Spiral)

Looking through 2006, it's interesting to note how R&D took the lessons of previous typal themes to heart but didn't always apply them to creature types. There are cards that grant abilities to all kinds of subsets (flying creatures, creatures with +1/+1 counters, white creatures, snow creatures, creatures with shadow, and so on). Part of this was because we were in the middle of the Ravnica: City of Guilds block and were using creature types to create distance between the different guilds. For example, Vedalken were commonly members of the Azorius and Minotaurs were members of the Boros. This meant the connective tissue between guilds wasn't typal.

The big return of typal came in Time Spiral with the return of Slivers. The Time Spiral block had a nostalgia theme, with Time Spiral looking back to the past. For this reason, we decided to template the Slivers in the set as we had in the past to care about all Slivers rather than just one you control. In hindsight, R&D sees this decision as a mistake.

I chose Gemhide Sliver for this year as it does something we had started to do more of with our typal effects, what we refer to as "ability granting." Instead of just giving a named keyword, the typal effect grants a line (or lines) of text to each creature of the type. That allows us to do things like add an activation cost. In the case of Gemhide Sliver, we get to use the tap symbol.

The one other card I wanted to talk about was Swarmyard from Time Spiral. I believe this is the first card that does what we now call batching, which involves taking more than two items and grouping them together for flavor. We now give these batches a name, which you can see with things like historic, outlaws, or modified. Creature types have proven to be good for batching, as you will see throughout this retrospective.

2007

Sets: Planar Chaos, Future Sight, and Lorwyn
My Pick: Mirror Entity (Lorwyn)

The year 2007 brought the next big return to typal themes with the Lorwyn block. Because Onslaught was our first foray in large typal themes, we held back a little. With Lorwyn, we went full throttle. The set had eight major creature types (Elementals, Elves, Faeries, Giants, Goblins, Kithkin, Merfolk, and Treefolk), and the majority of creatures in the block were one of those types. With 20/20 hindsight, R&D believes we hit the typal theme a little too hard. Drafting was what R&D refers to as "on rails," where once you picked your creature type, you got locked into your theme and didn't have much variance in the draft as we would have liked. Typal themes did show up in Constructed, although we can do that without the as-fan being as high as it was in these sets.

Lorwyn made use of all the things we had learned over the years about typal themes and even added some new ones. Champion was a new mechanic that cared about a specific creature type, allowing you to turn a creature of that type into a bigger, more powerful creature. The biggest innovation ties into my pick for the year, Mirror Entity. While designing the set, we realized we needed "typal glue," something that allowed us to make cards that different typal themes would want. We ended up creating a mechanic, changeling, based on Mistform Ultimus from Legions. Changeling ended up being very popular and became a useful tool for typal themes, one we'd return to multiple times.

2008

Sets: Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide, and Shards of Alara
My Pick: Reaper King (Shadowmoor)

Morningtide was another typal set, this time focusing on classes rather than species. The idea, at the time, was that we could create some extra layered complexity by having cards that could take advantage of the fact that most creatures have two creature types on them. We found it led to mind-melting board states, especially in Limited, where it was hard to track what was happening. In fact, it was watching Wizards employees struggle at the employee Prerelease that led us to rethink our approach to complexity, something Matt Place and I originally called the New World Order (here's my article on it).

Although most of the typal cards from 2008 come from Morningtide, my pick for 2008 is actually from Shadowmoor: Reaper King. Shadowmoor was the darker, creepier version of Lorwyn, and we were trying to find ways to play up those darker themes. One of the ways we chose to do that was with a small Scarecrow typal theme. I should note that no card had been printed with the creature type Scarecrow before Shadowmoor (though two would later retroactively gain it). We were creating something new, but we knew we wanted players to be inspired to build around it, so we wove in a typal theme. This demonstrates how we're starting to understand that typal is not just a set theme but a mechanical tool that we can use in any set to add mechanical nuance and flavor.

Reaper King is interesting in that, on its surface, it's a Scarecrow lord that grants Scarecrows +1/+1, something we had done many times before. But we added two other aspects that made it stand out. First, Shadowmoor introduced twobrid mana, allowing you to spend mana of a specific color or two generic mana. We made a cycle of twobrid spells. We made one creature with all five twobrid mana symbols, which made the card super splashy. Then, because it's hard to make a typal deck work when you don't have as many creatures to choose from, we gave the Reaper King a very powerful ability. Every Scarecrow creature destroys a permanent. That was us being bold and drawing a lot of attention to the card. It showed that we were learning how potent typal themes can be in making a card stand out.

2009

Sets: Conflux, Alara Reborn, Magic 2010, and Zendikar
My Pick: Sea Gate Loremaster (Zendikar)

Reaper King showed that we could dedicate a small mechanical slice of a set to a typal theme. Zendikar came along and upped the game. What if a typal theme was one of the main themes of the set?

Zendikar is not a "typal set." Its main mechanical theme was lands. But the creative conceit we liked for Zendikar was that it was an "adventure world," where the setting held many riches but was hostile to its inhabitants. We wanted to evoke the feeling of adventuring parties and realized the best way to do that was through a creature type. Like Scarecrow, Ally was a brand-new creature type, something we invented to bring a flavorful backdrop to the set's mechanics.

I chose Sea Gate Loremaster as my card for 2009, but I'm really picking the entire Ally typal theme. Magic design changed from an era where we focused on a singular theme and moved toward one where the mix of different themes defined each setting. The metaphor is that mechanical themes are paint. In the early days, we'd paint the whole "room" one color, but with time, we realized that a mix of different colors allowed us to up our game and make more dynamic and interesting mechanical suites for different settings. Ally typal ended up being very successful and had a big influence on how we thought of typal themes moving forward.

The one other card I wanted to call out was Vampire Nocturnus from Magic 2010. Magic 2010 was a revolutionary core set. Aaron Forsythe realized that the restriction of only doing reprints in core sets was holding us back from making better core sets. If a core set needed new designs to better deliver on what it was doing, it needed to have the ability to do that. This allowed us to make a bunch of high-profile typal cards. The focus of Magic 2010 was on resonance, and typal themes are very resonant. Beginners, for example, tend to be drawn toward typal themes, partly because they're flavorful but also because they're easy to understand. They look at one creature type and put a lot of creatures of that type into their deck. It's a straight-forward task, something important when starting a game as complex as Magic.

2010

Sets: Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Magic 2011, and Scars of Mirrodin
My Pick: Eye of Ugin (Worldwake)

My pick for 2010 is Eye of Ugin. When we were making the Zendikar block, the original plan was for the fall to have a large set and the winter set to be a small set, with both taking place on Zendikar. Then, the spring set would be a large set that took place on a different plane with different mechanics. The Creative team said they weren't staffed to create two planes in a single year (something we're equipped to handle now), so they suggested a story where something happened that was so impactful that it would allow for the complete shift in Zendikar's mechanics.

Inspired by the hedrons that the Worldbuilding team added to Zendikar, the Creative team came up with the idea that three ancient beings imprisoned by the hedrons were causing the chaos on Zendikar. They would escape, causing the shift in the block's mechanics. While making Worldwake, we liked the idea of teasing what was to come, but not just in the narrative. We wanted to do it mechanically. The solution to our problem was to create a card that made colorless Eldrazi cost less. The interesting thing was that we had never used the word Eldrazi before, so the audience didn't know what that was. The first ability of Eye of Ugin, in fact, didn't do anything at the time of the set's release, but the card acted as a teaser for the next set. The Eldrazi creature type was a balance of mechanics and flavor, allowing us to do this.

The other card I wanted to talk about was Quest for Ula's Temple. Swarmyard might have been the first card to "batch" creature types, but Quest for Ula's Temple managed to make a grouping (Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents) that has proven popular enough to have shown up on nine cards as of Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™.

2011

Sets: Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, Magic 2012, and Innistrad
My Pick: Endless Ranks of the Dead (Innistrad)

My pick for 2011 is Endless Ranks of the Dead. Innistrad took the lessons we learned from Zendikar and expanded upon them. We wanted to make a set inspired by the Gothic horror genre. When we had a brainstorming meeting about what elements the set needed to have, monsters were at the top of the list. We knew we wanted to include vampires, werewolves, and zombies. We also needed to have a human faction act as the victims of the monsters and the creatures that turn into monsters. All four were creature types, so a typal component seemed clear. We then realized that each of our four creature types fit neatly into an ally-color pair. We found a fourth monster, ghosts (or Spirits in Magic), to fill in the fifth slot.

The challenge involved wanting the monster themes to matter without making it a typal set in the way the Onslaught and Lorwyn blocks had been. We explored the idea of a lightly typal set. We did this in two ways. First, we themed the archetypes around the color pairs. For example, we concentrated our Zombies in blue and black. If you were to draft a blue-black deck, it would have a lot of Zombies in it. Second, we only added a little bit of typal. At common, we only included a handful of typal cards, and they all had a threshold of one, meaning that to optimize them, you only had to have one creature of that type on the battlefield. At higher rarities, we designed cards that required you to have a high density. Endless Ranks of the Dead is a great example of this type of card.

The typal themes of the Innistrad block were more opt-in rather than the prescriptive experience of Lorwyn Draft. If you want to make a Vampire deck, you definitely could, but you could also draft a black-red deck and have zero cards in your deck that referenced Vampires. This model has become an important tool in our toolbox.

2012

Sets: Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Magic 2013, and Return to Ravnica
My Pick: Cavern of Souls (Avacyn Restored)

Dark Ascension hit the monster typal theme a little stronger than Innistrad did. With 20/20 hindsight, we consider that a mistake. Avacyn Restored had a core Angel typal theme. Angels are one of the most popular creature types, and we'd been looking for a place to give them a typal theme. Magic 2013 made some new flavorful lords with cards like Krenko, Mob Boss and Master of the Pearl Trident (a revised version of Lord of Atlantis).

My pick for 2012 is Cavern of Souls. Avacyn Restored had an Angel typal theme and was trying to add a handful of new monster typal cards, so the Design team decided to make a neutral typal-friendly card, similar to what we had done with Coat of Arms. Cavern of Souls has gone on to be a very popular card, indicative of the popularity of typal themes in casual formats.

Just My Typal

That's as far as we'll get through today. I hope the typal history of Magic is proving interesting. As always, I'm eager for any feedback on today's article or any thoughts on typal cards and themes. You can email me or contact me through social media accounts (X, Tumblr, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok).

Join me next week for part three.

Until then, may your typal decks do their own thing.