Darksteel Relic is an artifact which does nothing. If you were to make an enchantment/instant/sorcery which similarly does nothing, where in the color pie would it be?

Green or white.

"a zero mana artifact card with no text" - Darksteel Relic is pretty close to this.

True.

"I'm not a fan of making cards that don't do anything." But what about Darksteel Relic? Or Null Rod?

Darksteel Relic is the closest to a do nothing card we’ve made. Null Rod stops other things from working, so it clearly has a function. Darksteel Relic’s design was a big debate at the time, but because of affinity for artifacts it at least did something within the environment.

What are these people who want a "vanilla" noncreature spell thinking that would be? I'm having trouble coming up with anything that could be vanilla that isn't a creature

If you remove the creature restrictions, Darksteel Relic is French Vanilla. The only rules text it has is the keyword Indestructible.

"jimthcb asked: What is designs stance on non creature vanillas? Enchanments, instants, sorceries, noncreature artifacts equupments and auras that dont have any effects? They tend to confuse players so we mostly don’t make them." I think the closest to that is Darksteel Relic (0 mana indestructible artifact and that's it)

Darksteel Released is why I said “mostly”.

What was the original purpose for darksteel relic? : )

Being real hard to destroy.

It's my birthday and I sent an ask in this morning, but just in case it got lost in the daily deluge; Any interesting trivia re; my favourite card in Magic, the Darksteel Relic? How did you guys arrive at a card that both costs and does nothing? Who wrote the flavour text?

I believe Darksteel Relic was a Ken Nagle special. We don’t do cards like this often but every once in a while they can be fun.I have no idea who wrote the flavor text.Happy Birthday!

Well, equipment that does nothing could have some uses. Cards like Goblin Gaveleer and Kemba, Kha Regent could use them. Basically, they'd fill the same spot for them that Darksteel Relic does for Affinity and Metalcraft.

Magic will always have use for things that are a card/permanent or a particular card type, but we need to be careful with cards that “do nothing” as they confuse players and generally have little value. As Darksteel Relic shows, we do make them, but very infrequently.

Can you confirm or deny the possibility of a card that pretty much solely exists to aid devotion? (Similar to how Darksteel Relic enabled Metalcraft)

At the Theros PAX party, we showed off Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx which is a land meant for devotion decks

I find cards like One with Nothing, Norin the Wary, and Darksteel Relic really amusing to look at. It's like I'd want a giant post of them to hang on my wall to laugh at. What are these designs tapping into?

I’m guessing you are what we call an Uber-Johnny in that you take great pride in finding worth in cards other players find worthless. As a fellow Uber-Johnny (I once built a deck that killed with the card Tunnel), I salute you. Tunnel for those that might not know your Alpha cards read “Destroy target wall.”