Welcome back!  Hopefully by now you have had a chance to come up with your answers for the mystery cards from Blood of Gladiators.  I’ll have to admit that there were some pretty good guesses out there.  Some were easier than others, to be certain, but I wanted to demonstrate some of the different ways in which cards get designed and developed.  So without further ado, here are the answers, with some explanation as to how then ended up where they are today.  And hopefully, next time you crack open a booster and see one of these goodies, you’ll stop and think “What if this card did what it used to do.  How different might things have been…” 

                                              

 

1 – When you strike with CARDNAME, put two abilities from your graveyard into your hand.

 

Twinblade of the Phoenix

 

Sometimes cards, especially weapons and armor, are designed based on their names.  Twinblade is a perfect example of this, which we like to call top-down design.  The designers thought “Hmm… what should a Twinblade of the Phoenix do?”  And thus, the idea of returning two abilities was formed.  We were not happy with how the original card played, with too many cards being returned over and over, and the end result focused more on the Phoenix aspect of the card.  The end result being one of the more popular weapons printed in some time.  MMO players may know that this isn’t the only Phoenix-named gear in the game, so will we be seeing more stuff you can regrow?  Only time will tell.

2 – Destroy target ability, ally, equipment or resource.  That card’s controller reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a card of the same type.  He puts that card into play under his control and shuffles the rest into his deck.

 

Utopia

 

This card had issues in that people were using it to ‘cheat’ an expensive ally or equipment into play, by destroying a token to tutor up something like Doomwalker or Ivus.  So it was back to the drawing board.  It was changed to only hit opposing cards, but it shared too much space with Reforestation, so was eventually redesigned to be Druid’s board sweeper.

3 – Destroy CARDNAME.  Draw a card for each damage your hero has dealt to target hero or ally this turn.

 

The Taste of Arcana

 

This was always supposed to be Mage’s piece of the ‘scaler’ cycle (The Sowing of Seeds, The Rewards of Faith, etc…), but it was always the oddball in that it didn’t actually deal any damage.  Thus the redesign, and the endless quips here in R&D of “How’s it taste?!?” every time you countered something with this card.  Tasty, indeed!

4 – Activate >>> Put the bottom card of your deck on top of your deck.  NO PEEKING!

 

“Cracklehands” Spigotgulp

 

WHAT?!?  OK, admittedly, this card doesn’t look anything like it does now.  I just wanted to show how sometimes the designers like to try out some quirky ideas just to see how they fly.  It was concluded that you would almost never want to activate this ability on an ally, and was redesigned to become part of the Spigotgulp family. 

 

5 – Activate >>> CARDNAME deals 1 nature damage to target hero or ally.

 

Bolton

 

Can you see how this card ended up as Bolton?  Often, damage-dealing activate powers on allies tends to looks very similar to Long-Range.  In order to differentiate this pet from Angrida, but still represent it’s lightning breath, as well as make it more thematic for Hunters, the activate power was shifted into Long-Range.  As an aside, there was an interesting development path this card took that I’d love to reveal, but I think I’m gonna have to save that story for another day, as it might just show up some time down the road, and I’d hate to ruin the surprise.

 

6 – Attach to target hero or ally.  Ongoing: At the start of your turn, choose a keyword.  Attached character has the chosen keyword until the end of your opponent’s next turn.

 

Center of Attention

 

As cool as this initial concept was, it had a load of issues.  Berserking hero?  Elusive  Long-Range hero?  All of these, plus many others led to the redesign, plus the creation of a whole new keyword!  Although I did like the idea someone had for a Thrown hero.

 

7 – Ongoing: At the start of your turn, your hero deals 1 nature damage to target hero or ally and heals 1 damage from himself for each totem you control.

 

Tidal Mastery

 

This was probably one of the easier ones to guess.  In the process of developing it, it was decided to create one big effect instead of the less significant one initially submitted.  The thinking being that if you can truly master all four elements, you should be able to generate a truly impressive effect.  There was a time when this card simply created an alternate win condition instead of generating a massive packet of damage, but it was eventually decided to create more of a broad appeal for this card.

 

8 – When CARDNAME enters play, your hero deals 3 ranged damage to target hero or ally.

 

Fists of Mukoa

 

Yes, this text looks like it belongs on Cuffs of Devestation.  Sometimes, we like an idea, but feel that it isn’t right for the classes that have access to a particular piece of gear, or we need to fill a hole somewhere else in the set.  Cuffs used to generate a very different effect that no one was really pleased with, so we felt that shifting the Fists text over to Cuffs and creating a different effect that let your hero deal some damage via a piece of armor was the best solution.  Plus, the final version of Fists of Mukoa has a much more Shaman-y and Hunter-y feel to it that everyone was happy with. 

 

9 – When you strike with CARDNAME, you may shuffle your deck and reveal the top card.  Until the start of your next turn, as long as that card remains on the top of your deck, you may play it with out paying its resource cost.

 

Seth’s Graphite Fishing Pole

 

While cool, in that it gave you a free card, the Fishing Pole always felt kinda awkward and a bit out of flavor, thus the redesign.  Why did hitting someone with a fishing pole let you play a card out of your deck for free?  So we changed the text to simple ‘fish’ a card out of your deck.  And yes, you can still hit someone with it if you really want to, but I’m not sure why.  Although I’d love to hear if anyone has.

 

10 – This space intentionally left blank.

 

Gorehowl

 

Sometimes, the simplest designs are the best, and it doesn’t get much simpler than this.  The textbox was there for the longest time just to remind everyone that we wanted a nice, clean, simple design for the axe of Grom Hellscream.

 

11 – When CARDNAME enters play, he deals 2 frost damage to target hero or ally.  A character dealt damage in this way can’t attack or protect this turn.

 

Rehgar Earthfury

 

For a while, Rehgar was an Instant Ally, representing his Frost Shock that he used on Lo’Gosh.  And for a while, it was debated whether or not he should actually be an Arena Ally, since he doesn’t actually fight in the Arena.  It was eventually decided that as the leader of an Arena team, he should be able to conscript other allies onto his Arena team, thereby creating his attack trigger.  And as a leader, he’s got to buff his team, creating the Rehgar we know and love today.

 

12 – Target ally has +2 ATK this turn.  Target ally has -2 health this turn.

 

Phase Hound

 

This is another tricky one.  Obviously, this is nothing like what Phase Hound ended up as, but it does demonstrate how designers have to find ways to create dual-class cards.  The original thinking was to find some overlap between Hunters and Warlocks, thus the ATK boost and Health decrease, giving a little flavor of each class.  Ultimately, it was decided that a Health decrease was too out of flavor for Hunter, so a Pet that the two classes could share was created instead.

 

13 – When a hero or ally in your party prevents damage, CARDNAME deals 1 shadow damage to target hero.

 

Kazamon Steelskin

 

The Lord of Hardiness originally just buffed all of your other allies with Hardiness, making them strike back when their Hardiness triggered.  No one was really in love with that power, and it never felt as impressive as other Racial keyword champions.  As a result, it was decided to see how many instances we could reasonably put in a text box, and came up with 20 as a nice round number.  We like to infuse a little humor into the game every now and then, and Kazamon is just one of the more recent examples of a card that is the perfect fusion of powerful and fun!  As an interesting side note, Jeff Liu once killed a Kazamon in playtesting by actually dealing 22 damage to him in one hit by swinging with an Earthrend Weapon.

 

So there you have it.  Just a little insight into how some cards end up seeing print.  Sometimes, initial designs are pretty much right on, and other times we have to scrap ideas completely and go back to the drawing board a few times until we hit upon the right fit.  It is always interesting to look back and see where we came from to get to where we are today.  And you never know, just because an idea didn’t quite work out before doesn’t mean that it won’t pop up again some time down the road.  I hope you enjoyed this peek inside the development of Blood of Gladiators.  Let me know if this is something you’d like to see again for future sets by emailing  andrew_wolf@upperdeck.com.  As always, thanks for reading!

- Andrew Wolf