At the time of Visions development, Wizards was testing out the idea of opening game stores, and was doing a test of one at our offices. R&D would often play World of Warcraft on the computer network late at night. What Visions card was inspired by this?
Spirit of the Night. The name was originally supposed to be Spirit of the Nightstalker, but the name, along with the mana cost, didn’t fit on the title bar.
Pro Tour Atlanta in 1996 was the only prerelease Pro Tour. Players opened Mirage packs having never seen the cards. According to the tournament data, opening what card most improved your win rate?
Foratog. It originally was “Sacrifice an untapped Forest” and not an Atog. I said, “This is basically an Atog,” so we tweaked it and made the second card in the original mega Atog cycle.
What Mirage creature wasn’t designed to be part of a mega cycle (meaning different cards are in different sets), but the design was so close we made into part of the cycle?
Maro. Mirage’s art director, Sue-Ann Harkey, found the illustration by Stuart Griffin, titled “The Green Man” at an art show and bought the rights to the image. I would later purchase the original art.
Today's #MakingMagic column is part 3 of my "Design Files" series looking at cards handed off for Odyssey: magic.wizards.com/en/news/maki...#mtg#WotCStaff
Bill Sienkiewicz. He illustrated Phyrexian War Beast and Soldevi Steam Beast. For those unfamiliar with his work, Sienkiewicz is a very famous comic book artist.
