Alliances/Trivia

Alliances

Trivia

* Viscerid Armor and Viscerid Drone were intended to reference Homarids, but research showed that players did not like Homarids, so the names of these cards were changed to "Viscerid," which is supposed to be an advanced form of Homarid.

* Phelddagrif and Varchild's War-Riders are the first cards that put a (token) creature into play under an opponent's control.

* Dystopia, Justice, and Surge of Strength each depict the same Elf in the artwork and each share the same artist, Ruth Thompson.

* Fatal Lore, Library of Lat-Nam and Misfortune are the first modal spells to give the choice to your opponent.

* Gargantuan Gorilla, Storm Elemental, Viscerid Drone and Winter's Night are the only cards that refer to the Snow theme of the Ice Age block in the *Alliances* expansion. These were added by development.

* Phyrexian War Beast and Soldevi Steam Beast were both illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, a well-known comic artist who has worked on Batman, Superman, and many other projects.

* Arcane Denial, with a mana cost of , was later considered a mistake for making a "hard counter" too easy to splash into a deck without much blue in it. The result was the creation of a Design rule that all hard counters must have  in their mana cost.

* Ashnod's Cylix depicts such a real-world cylix in its artwork, a Greek two-handled shallow drinking cup.

* Astrolabe depicts one of these real-world devices in its artwork, which was used for navigation and astrology.

* Balduvian Horde has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored red creatures in *Alliances*. It was also distributed as a foil promotional card at the 1999 World Championships held in Yokohama, Japan.

* Bounty of the Hunt used to distribute temporary counters because the rules at the time didn't allow for a spell to target the same object more than once.

* Diminishing Returns is the first attempt at creating a "fixed" version of Timetwister and is the second member of the Power Nine to see such revision. One of the reasons for Timetwister's power was its ability to reuse itself and other powerful cards repeatedly, so Diminishing Returns included a drawback to remove the top ten cards of the library from the game in order to limit its ability to reuse these cards.

* Diseased Vermin is the first card with a triggered ability that triggers on combat damage, a trigger that is now common.

* Elvish Bard is the first creature to have the Lure ability.

* Elvish Spirit Guide inspired the creation of the Channel mechanic.

* Enslaved Scout is the only Goblin in *Alliances* and is the first Goblin not to have "Goblin" in its name. It is strictly worse than Goblin Spelunkers.

* Exile was originally called "Marriage of Convenience" and was designed as a flavorful way for white to remove a creature from the game, in that it "got married", a reference to how a creature removed from the game by Swords to Plowshares "went farming". However, when the commissioned artwork came in from Phil Foglio it was deemed too silly for a card that was to be a powerful tournament card. Some artwork swapping followed, and the original "Marriage of Convenience" artwork ended up on Unlikely Alliance. Much brainstorming eventually led to the matching of the card with its artwork and its name was changed to "Exile," suggesting that the removed creature was exiled to the castle in the artwork.

* Feast or Famine is the first card to create Zombie tokens. R&D considers this to be one of the most influential cards from the first years of Magic, as it influenced mechanics such as Entwine and the split cards.

* Force of Will's playtest name was "Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla, Stop That!" (the number of "Gorillas" used in the name is not clear) and later "Stop Spell." Although an uncommon, Force of Will is the most valuable card in the expansion.

* Fyndhorn Druid is the first creature to trigger life gain from being blocked.

* Gargantuan Gorilla has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored creatures in Alliances. It also has the greatest mana cost among all cards in the expansion.

* Gorilla Shaman is nicknamed the "Mox Monkey" for its ability to cheaply and repeatedly destroy inexpensive artifacts (like the Moxen such as Mox Sapphire), as it was designed to do. It was the only creature played in competitive Vintage decks for some time.

* Gorilla War Cry is a cantrip version of Goblin War Drums.

* Guerrilla Tactics was designed, like Gorilla Shaman, to solve a particular problem in the Vintage format. Powerful discard cards, like Mind Twist, Hymn to Tourach and Hypnotic Specter, all saw regular play. Guerrilla Tactics increased the danger of using these cards.

* Gustha's Scepter was the earliest card designed by Mark Rosewater to be printed. It was included in *Alliances* because another artifact that was to be included in the expansion proved to be far too powerful and a replacement was needed.

* Helm of Obedience was designed to be the impressive "marquee" artifact of the expansion.

* Kaysa (and to a lesser extent Juniper Order Advocate) was celebrated by some because Green, the "creature color," finally had a card to give its creatures +1/+1. All the other colors already had cards to give +1/+1 to its creatures, making it the last in an odd sort of cycle (along with Crusade, Sunken City, Bad Moon and Gauntlet of Might).

* Keeper of Tresserhorn has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored black creatures in *Alliances*.

* Kjeldoran Home Guard has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored white creatures in *Alliances*.

* Kjeldoran Outpost is the first land capable of producing token creatures.

* Library of Lat-Nam is one of three cards to appear in *Alliances* that were designed by Mark Rosewater, then a new hire at Wizards of the Coast.

* Lim-Dûl's Paladin is the first creature printed with trample and a power of 0.

* Lord of Tresserhorn has the greatest power among creatures in *Alliances* and had, until the printing of the Eldrazi, the highest power among all legendary creatures. Development changed his power from 9 to 10 to fit the nickname "Good Buddy," as in "10-4 good buddy".

* Omen of Fire is the only member of the Two enemy color hoser cycle to be an instant and to have a non-symmetrical effect on its enemy colors (the other cards of the cycle are enchantments and have a symmetrical effect on their enemy colors).

* Phelddagrif is an anagram of "Garfield PhD," meaning Richard Garfield. This card was born when the Continuity department denied the name "Phelddagrif's Winds" for the card that became Freyalise's Winds because Phelddagrif didn't "sound like the name of a Goddess of Spring." When asked what Phelddagrif did sound like, Continuity reportedly replied, "Umm, I don't know. A flying purple hippo?" which is of course depicted in the artwork of this card.

* Phyrexian Portal inspired the creation of the Divvy spells in the Invasion expansion.

* Phyrexian War Beast has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in *Alliances*.

* Pillage taught R&D that having multiple cheap land destruction spells without drawbacks gives this unfun mechanic too much power.

* Primitive Justice inspired the creation of the Kicker and Replicate mechanics.

* Sol Grail is an anagram of "gorillas" in homage to the protest of the designers against the use of a race of sentient Gorillas in *Alliances*.

* Soldevi Adnate, like most of the rest of the commons in *Alliances*, has two versions with different artwork and flavor text. Unlike the rest, Soldevi Adnate's two pieces of artwork are from the same painting.

* Soldevi Sage, the art with the seated woman was actually printed reversed left-to-right. In the *Sixth Edition* version, the reversal was corrected.

* Soldier of Fortune is one of three cards to appear in *Alliances* that were designed by Mark Rosewater, then a new hire at Wizards of the Coast. Soldier of Fortune is the first creature with the Mercenary creature type, a creature type that received mechanical attention in the Masques block.

* Storm Crow being the best card ever printed became a meme, due to its ability to be exiled to pay the cost for Force of Will. The joke at the time was that just being blue made a card better than any non-blue card. FoW was so good, anything blue you could pitch was better than even powerful cards of other colors. Later, people came up with more and more elaborate justifications for why it was the best card ever.

* Storm Elemental has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored blue creatures in *Alliances*.

* Storm Shaman is the first non-Wall creature with a power of 0 and the Firebreathing ability.

* Surge of Strength was designed as a "fixed" Berserk. It was one of five uncommon former Ice Age block Japanese language cards offered as a promotion in Japan. The Ice Age block was not released in Japan.

* Swamp Mosquito is the only card in *Alliances* with the poison mechanic.

* Taste of Paradise inspired the creation of the Kicker and Replicate mechanics.

* Thought Lash inspired some tournament players to use a deck of more than 100 cards.

* Undergrowth inspired the creation of the Kicker mechanic.

* Unlikely Alliance was created to make use of the artwork that was originally intended for the card "Marriage of Convenience," which became Exile.

* Wandering Mage is the first card to reference either Clerics or Wizards.

* Winter's Night is the only World Enchantment in *Alliances*.

* Yavimaya Ants is sometimes called "the green Ball Lightning" and was the first green creature with Haste. It was one of five uncommon former Ice Age block Japanese language cards offered as a promotion in Japan. The Ice Age block was not released in Japan.

## References

1. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (December 9, 2003). "Card of the Day - December 2003". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
2. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (September 15, 2003). "Card of the Day - September, 2005". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
3. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (July 1, 2003). "Card of the Day - July, 2004". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
4. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 11, 2003). "Card of the Day - April, 2002". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
5. ↑ Wizards of the Coast (March 4, 2005). "Card of the Day - March, 2005". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
6. ↑ Magic Arcana (June 19, 2007). "Soldevi Reversal". *magicthegathering.com*. Wizards of the Coast.
7. ↑ Can someone explain the storm crow meme?. Reddit (2018).