The Mirrodin development team, struggling to fill slots for the upcoming expansion, were relieved when lead developer Randy Buehler had the idea of taking a single card and making an uninspired parallel version for each of the other colors.

"We already had Red uncommon #4, playtest name 'Land-Hungry Barbarian': a 1/2 for 2RR that gets +1/+0 for each land your opponent controls when he attacks," explained Buehler. "Then I had a revelation: what if we made creatures that cost 2WW, 2BB, 2GG, and 2UU, that were identical except for a slight change that fit with each color's flavor?"

"And thus, Land-Hungry Cleric (2WW, 1/2, gains you one life for each land your opponent controls when he attacks), Land-Hungry Wizard (2UU, 1/2, when he attacks, you may look at the top X cards of your library and put them back in any order, where X is the number of lands opponent controls), Land-Hungry Zombie (2BB, 1/2, when he attacks, each player loses X life, where X is the number of lands opponent controls), and Land-Hungry Beast (2GG, 1/2, when he attacks, you may untap up to X lands, where X is the number of lands your opponent controls) were born."

This type of card design, called "cycles," allows R&D to design one card in the place of five. Clever marketing has allowed them to sell these redundant cards as a feature, as seen in Mark Rosewater article Zen and the Art of Cycle Maintenance.

"Mirrodin also contains other blindingly obvious cycles, such as the five-artifacts-that-all-benefit-you-for-playing-a-certain-color, the five-nonbasic-lands-that-give-allied-colors-of-mana, and the five-instants-that-all-suck-except-for-white's-which-really-sucks," elaborated Buehler. "We also have the obligatory identical twin white creatures, one anti-red and the other anti-black. We're proud of our non-innovative approach."

"Players really enjoy these cycles," said Rosewater. "I think the reason is that most of our target audience lack the intelligence to learn and remember a whole lot of cards. That's why we try to make them overlap as much as possible."

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The Mirrodin development team, struggling to fill slots for the upcoming expansion, were relieved when lead developer Randy Buehler had the idea of taking a single card and making an uninspired parallel version for each of the other colors.

"We already had Red uncommon #4, playtest name 'Land-Hungry Barbarian': a 1/2 for 2RR that gets +1/+0 for each land your opponent controls when he attacks," explained Buehler. "Then I had a revelation: what if we made creatures that cost 2WW, 2BB, 2GG, and 2UU, that were identical except for a slight change that fit with each color's flavor?"

"And thus, Land-Hungry Cleric (2WW, 1/2, gains you one life for each land your opponent controls when he attacks), Land-Hungry Wizard (2UU, 1/2, when he attacks, you may look at the top X cards of your library and put them back in any order, where X is the number of lands opponent controls), Land-Hungry Zombie (2BB, 1/2, when he attacks, each player loses X life, where X is the number of lands opponent controls), and Land-Hungry Beast (2GG, 1/2, when he attacks, you may untap up to X lands, where X is the number of lands your opponent controls) were born."

This type of card design, called "cycles," allows R&D to design one card in the place of five. Clever marketing has allowed them to sell these redundant cards as a feature, as seen in Mark Rosewater article Zen and the Art of Cycle Maintenance.

"Mirrodin also contains other blindingly obvious cycles, such as the five-artifacts-that-all-benefit-you-for-playing-a-certain-color, the five-nonbasic-lands-that-give-allied-colors-of-mana, and the five-instants-that-all-suck-except-for-white's-which-really-sucks," elaborated Buehler. "We also have the obligatory identical twin white creatures, one anti-red and the other anti-black. We're proud of our non-innovative approach."

"Players really enjoy these cycles," said Rosewater. "I think the reason is that most of our target audience lack the intelligence to learn and remember a whole lot of cards. That's why we try to make them overlap as much as possible."

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!