What the Hell, Wizards

I've long suspected that Wizards is hacking my computer to steal my card ideas (preposterous, of course, as there is a limited amount of design space and we are bound to overlap occasionally). But this is a bit weird.

Mark Rosewater's latest article talks about a 6th basic land type that produces colorless mana, an idea I had on my own. That's not so shocking, as it's not a terribly original idea. I had planned to reveal it a few Land Fridays from now after I finished up the basics.



EDIT: The mana symbol I used is the Future Sight card type symbol for land. I figured it might be appropriate. Also, it's the only one I could use. Lousy Magic Set Editor.

Don't they look nice. Reliquary would be considered a new basic land type, and would pump up domain just like all the others. You could have as many Reliquaries in your deck as you wanted, and they would show up in boosters in the land slot just like Forests, Islands, etc. Also, there would be a rules tip card that dealt with Reliquary, making sure people understood it, just like any new mechanic.

"If Cave were printed, for example, the following would all happen:

• Coalition Victory would require six basic land types in play for the win.
• Anytime a card listed the basic land types from then on, it would have to include Cave.
• Dream Thrush could now make a land produce colorless mana.

Essentially, we were messing around with one of the fundamentals of the game. Sure we could do it, but was it worth the cost?"

Rosewater addresses a point I (with my standard/limited-focused mindset) hadn't even begun to consider. I wouldn't want to have to deal with all that nonsense. After reading this article, I am prepared to let the idea of the Reliquary (or Cave, as he calls it) die. I don't like this much rules complexity and I don't like doing the exact same thing as Wizards.

But that's not the end of it...

They had another idea for Cave/Reliquary that didn't introduce a new basic land type but functioned in a similar fashion when in play. The playtest name was incursion zone.


This is incursion zone, and the card it eventually became.

They used my name.

What the hell, Wizards.

Original Art - Reliquary 1
Original Art - Reliquary 2
Original Art - Reliquary 3
Original Art - Reliquary 4