#1347: High Mana Value Spells, Part 1

Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast

Wizards of the Coast

Leisure, Game Design, Mtg, Duels Of The Planeswalkers, Games, Ccg, Mark Rosewater, Magic The Gathering

4.7 • 802 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is part one of a two-part series where I talk about the designs of all the cards that have a mana value of 11 or higher.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work at home edition.
0:07.8	Okay, so I have not done a card by card episode in a while. I like to do these at home so I can read because it's harder to read them when I'm driving.
0:16.3	So what I'm going to do today, so once before I did a, I did, I once did one, which was about, uh, mostly artifacts that cost zero. So today I'm going to do today, so once before, I did a, I once did one, which was about
0:21.5	mostly artifacts that cost zero.
0:23.9	So today I'm going the opposite end.
0:25.5	So today is about cards that cost 11 or more.
0:29.2	So these are some of the most expensive.
0:30.8	In fact, there are 47 cards currently in the game that cost more than 10 minutes, so 11 or more manna value.
0:39.3	We're going to talk about those today.
0:40.7	We're going to go in chronological order, but I'm going to talk about making the big
0:45.1	cards of magic.
0:46.6	So there's only one that pre-exist me, actually.
0:49.7	It came out in Ice Age.
0:51.6	It was Polar Cracken.
0:53.8	Eight blue, blue, blue, blue.
0:55.7	So 11 men in total.
0:56.8	Three rich is blue.
0:58.3	Trample.
0:59.4	Cummative upkeep, sacrifice a land.
1:03.7	And the creature enters tapped.
1:06.7	So real quickly, just remind people what cumulative upkeep is.
1:09.8	So cumulative upkeep is, it's a cost, but the cost keeps going up every turn.
	...

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