Ancient Grudge

Commander Color Rules

Out of curiosity (relating to your point about hybrid mana in Commander), do you feel similarly about cards such as Ancient Grudge or the Bringer cycle from Fifth Dawn? That is, cards that have an alternate way to be cast that uses more or different colors, which can only go in commander decks with all of the colors on the card?

I do not. Ancient Grudge is designed such that it can go in a monored deck in limited formats where you might be pinched for cards, but in constructed formats it’s expected that it goes in a red and green deck.

Ancient Grudge Bringer Colors Commander Commander Decks Constructed Fifth Dawn Green Hybrid Limited Mana Red Rules

Feedback on Flavor Text

Can you pass some feedback on to the creative team for me? I love love LOVE the worldbuilding, art direction, and story on ONE, but a lot of the flavor text is kind of… iffy. In particular, it’s often very overwritten - the new Phyrexian Arena flavor text would be really poignant without the last sentence, but as is it feels really over-explainy and loses a lot of its effect. The flavor text for Ambulatory Edifice feels similarly overdone - the bit after the ellipses is super obvious based on the card’s art and feels like it’s Ancient Grudge levels of redundant - if it were something more conceptual like “they were wrong,” that could be legitimately chilling. Please don’t take this as too much of a knock on the set, I think it’s awesome, I’ve just seen a lot of this sentiment in the community and I thought it would be constructive for the creative team to know.

I can pass along the note.

Ambulatory Edifice Ancient Grudge Art Flavor Text Magic Arena Phyrexian Phyrexian Arena Story / Lore

Off-Color Bonus Cards

Can you do a podcast or article about cards with off-color bonuses (Sedge Troll, Cliffrunner Behemoth, Ancient Grudge, etc.)? Like, what role do they serve? How do designers use them? What do they do different from traditional gold? How are they counted in the design skeleton?

That’s a good topic. Thanks. I’ll add it to the short list.

Ancient Grudge Cliffrunner Behemoth Drive to Work Sedge Troll Skeleton The short list Troll

Old Mechanic Reprints

When you decide to bring back an old mechanic in a new set, do you deliberately look for opportunities to reprint older cards? For instance was there someone on the team who said "Hey, Ancient Grudge would be a great card to bring back" or was it more like "Hey, we need an artifact destruction spell at Common and we also need to fill a hole in that off-color flashback cycle, what could we possibly do..."

We usually look for reprints when bringing back a mechanic.

Ancient Grudge Artifacts Card Printing Colors Flashback Mechanics Reprints

Silver-Bordered Rules

Another Garfield (card) question. If Richard leaves play does the "Once per game" rule reset because he would be a new object when he comes back? And another, If I cast a card with flashback from my hand as one card can I flash it back as another?

1) Richard Garfields track what cards have been said so no you can’t. Yes, this works differently than black-bordered world but many things work differently in silver-bordered land. Basically, the idea behind it is “you’re already playing with the most powerful card in the set, we’re not going easy on you”. 2) If the card has flashback, you cast the spell as any spell that has that flashback cost as its mana cost. For example, you cast Ancient Grudge as any spell that costs 1R. You can then flash it back for any spell that costs G (its flashback cost).

Ancient Grudge Black Cast Flashback Lands Mana Richard Garfield Rules Your Hand

Flavor Text Challenges

Why does bad flavour text exist? I don't mean bad puns or something blatantly stupid because I like these. But the new Ancient Grudge is _terrible_.

The trick of writing flavor text is that much like mechanics different players like different things. I’m sure the flavor text you despise is something that someone else enjoys.

Ancient Grudge Flavor Humor Mechanics

Modern's Mana Flexibility

Bronson Magnan won with a Aggro Loam deck (BRG) that features 3 Seismic Assault (RRR) and 3 Liliana of the Veil (1BB), and yesterday Conley Woods talked about a "mono blue" deck with 4 Vedalken Shackles, and 4 Ancient Grudge. Don't you agree that Modern's mana base is just too permisive?

The bigger the format the more permissive the mana base is going to be due to the sheer amount of mana producing cards. Is it too permissive? Time will tell.

Ancient Grudge Blue Jund (B/R/G) Liliana of the Veil Mana Modern Seismic Assault Vedalken Vedalken Shackles