Raise Dead

White's Raise Dead

Hi Maro, Why does White gets slow Raise Dead effects?

White’s number two in getting creatures back from the graveyard.

Creatures Mark Rosewater Raise Dead The Graveyard White

Understanding Abilities Placement in Colors

Good morning MaRo!I recently read through the 2021 Mechanical Color Pie article and had a question.How did you go about placing abilities within Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary for each color?What basis did you use to decide placement? What takes precedent? For example, White gets Raise Dead at secondary, yet hasn't gotten a card with exactly that ability in Standard since Remember the Fallen in New Phyrexia.

A couple things: 1) Primary/Secondary/Tertiary can vary in meaning based on what mechanic/effect it is talking about. The terminology exists to show how good colors are at things in contrast, but the amount of that thing can be a wide range.2) Often, colors may have access to an effect, but not always the full effect. White gets Raise Dead effects, for instance, but mostly for cheap creatures.

Color Pie Colors Creatures Mark Rosewater Mechanics New Phyrexia Primary Raise Dead Remember the Fallen Secondary Standard Tertiary The Fallen White

Request for Raze Dead

Mark, we have Raise Dead, but can I request Raze Dead? Thanks!

Or Braise Dead cooked by the Underworld Cook. : )

Humor Raise Dead Raze

MDFCs Back-sided Choice

Why were the instants/sorceries chosen to be on the back of the MDFCs? It’s only an instant/sorcery on the stack, so it limits synergies like tutoring or counting spells in the graveyard

More cards interact with creatures in other zones, so it lets you do things like Raise Dead your instant or instant.

Creatures Instants Modal Dual Faced Cards Raise Dead Sorceries Spells The Graveyard The Stack Tutoring

Understanding Spellmorph Rules

So spellmorph featured on the playtest card "spellmorph raise dead" is really easy to grock (atleast as an enfranchised player), but do the rules actually support it?

The rules would need a little massaging, but I believe it’s possible.

Experienced / Enfranchised Players Playtesting Raise Dead Rules Spellmorph Raise Dead

Hybrid Card Design Limits

Can a U/B hybrid card get a 'Raise Dead' effect, but for sorcery or instants as well as creatures?

No. Black can get back a creature. Blue can get back an instant or sorcery. A blue and black traditional gold card could get back both, but a hybrid card has to be something either color could do by itself.

Black Blue Colors Creatures Dimir (U/B) Hybrid Instants Raise Dead Sorceries

Green vs Black Regrowth

Hi Mark, I just wanted to ask why is it that green gets regrowth effects and black has raise dead? Ignoring flavour because you can justify anything with it, green is the creature centric colour so it just seems philosophy wise it should be limited to raise dead effects rather than regrowth. Is this a grandfathered choice?

That’s just a choice grandfathered in from Alpha.

Alpha Black Colors Creatures Flavor Green Limited Raise Dead Regrowth

Unique Birthday Trivia

It's my birthday! Rather than ask about a certain topic, can I just ask what your favorite piece of trivia is?

This puzzle: You’re playing with just Revised Edition cards. You and your opponent each have nothing but basic lands in play. Your opponent plays a Thicket Basilisk. You then play a creature. Your opponent attacks on the next turn with the Thivket Basilusk. You block. Your creature dies. Then on your turn you cast Raise Dead and put the creature back into your hand. You then cast it again. On your opponent’s next turn, he attacks again with the Thicket Basilisk. You block again with your creature, but this time it doesn’t die.What creature is it? Happy Birthday!

Basilisk Birthday Cast Creatures Lands Raise Dead Revised Edition Thicket Basilisk Your Hand

Reanimation Terminology

Hi Mr. Rosewater! My birthday's on the 23rd and I've tried to catch you a few years now but it likely got lost in the rush. Could I ask if development has a term for "return creature from grave to hand" effects, or trivia about reanimation effects? Happy holidays!

We just refer getting creatures from graveyard to hand as Raise Dead after the game’s initial card from Alpha that had this effect.Happy Birthday!

Alpha Birthday Creatures Mark Rosewater Raise Dead The Graveyard Your Hand

Color Tutors & Regrowth

Green has the ability to use regrowth effects for any card in a graveyard, black has the ability to tutor for any card, green only tutors for creatures(for the most part) whilst black can only have raise dead effects, was this done intentionally originally? Is this still accurate today?

It’s still true. Was the mirroring on purpose? Maybe. (Odds are probably no, but I don’t know it wasn’t.)

Black Creatures Green Raise Dead Regrowth The Graveyard Tutoring

Card Mechanics

Shouldn't Wildwood Rebirth (1G 'raise dead') have Black in it, or return a permanent? This seems to blur the line between green regrowth and black raise dead effects.

If you can do everything, we let you also do a subset. We don’t want to do this all the time because yes, normally this is black’s thing, but I’m okay as a one time thing.

Black Green Raise Dead Regrowth Wildwood Rebirth

Raise Dead Future

Will we ever see Raise Dead again?

Is this suppose to be a meta question? When will we raise Raise Dead from the dead? Do you mean the effect or the actual name? The first soon. The second less soon.

Raise Dead

Broodmate Dragon Design

Broodmate Dragon confuses me. Why was it made that way, instead of a sorcery that makes two Dragon tokens?

Because cards interact with a creature with an enter the battlefield trigger differently than a sorcery that creates two tokens. For example, you can Raise Dead a Broodmate Dragon (return from graveyard to hand) and not a sorcery. We try to tweak things because Magic is all about figuring out how different interactions work. Making things a creature sometimes and a sorcery other times allows fun discoveries.

Broodmate Dragon Creatures Dragon Enter The Battlefield Raise Dead Sorceries The Graveyard Tokens Your Hand