Here's a mnemonic for remembering: "That ninja can't *betray* us, can he?" "Sure I can!"

"Neat, if clunky" describes much of original Kamigawa Block, honestly.

Champion are at the gate, while the Saviors are lighting the way. There, that should help out further.

"I have absolutely no concept of whether that's good or not" -Graham, echoing me looking at every card since I started playing

I once played against an eradicate land deck during this standard cycle where they would enchant one of your lands with a genji and then eradicate your forest while it was a creature and then you had to go through your deck and put every forest into exile. Neat, if clunky.

The way that I remember that Betrayers is the Shuriken is the phrase "Betrayal? Sure, I can!"

Champions is the Torii Gate -- It's the first set and you are stepping through the gate into the spirit world. Betrayers is the shuriken -- It's the set with ninjas who use shurikens and are sneaky and deceptive. Saviours is the lantern -- The lantern brings light to chase away darkness like a saviour fights against evil.

The delivery of that "ponder the orb" joke was flawless. *appreciative clap*

i remember when my opponent eradicated my land after turning it into a creature with lifespark spellbomb

Kamigawa still had combat damage going on the stack, so you could block with Bile Urchin, have it kill something, and then dome them for 1.

Eradicate was better but Tallowisp was actually a premium uncommon. Almost solely because it could get you a pacifism effect. Hirobi’s Whisper and Ninja of the Deep Hours were also great commons so this would be a fantastic draft pack!

the reason why Horobi's whisper requires a swamp to work is specifically because of its splice ability. if you're playing it as a nonblack murder, then you're fine, but if it didn't require the swamp, you could put it in any deck and just splice it, and I'm guessing WOTC thought that any deck having access to a kill spell was too powerful

Arcane was a underrated mechanic that came from Betrayers. It allowed you to reuse the spell many times. It was so much fun.

I think there were two spirits that could Soulshift up to a higher CMC. I believe they were both 1-drops.

Oh yeah. Mana burn was around MUCH longer than you might think. Magic 2010 was the set where it was eliminated. Also the time when the battlefield was first named, Exile replaced "removed from play", combat damage stopped using the stack, and mana began emptying during steps instead of just phases (so you couldn't float from upkeep to draw anymore)

I suppose one thing to keep in mind when evaluating Kamigawa's spirit-centric mechanics is that spirit is a type that appears in plenty of other sets in Magic.

The reenactment gag gets me every time 😁

A way to remember Champions of Kamigawa's symbol: Champions was the first set on Kamigawa; it introduced us to the setting. Torii gate = gateway = entrance = entering a setting for the first time.

Man seeing Tallowisp after all these years brings back my memories of Kamigawa/Ravnica Type 2 :( I played Ghost Dad back then and even topped a regional with it once, definitely the peak of my Magic career

Important note about Bile Urching and other cards that have sacrifice abilites like that, Kamigaw was from the era where damage used the stack, so you could sacc it after it put its damage on the stack.

Veil of Secrecy sounds sweet in a good blue ninjutsu deck, particularly if you have some stronk ETB effects as well. Make an ETB creature unblockable with Veil while bouncing a ninja, then ninjutsu the decidedly unblocked ETB creature with the ninja you bounced to make it unblockable to both get the ninjutsu effect and prime up that ETB for another use. Living the value dream, if you have enough arcane spells to splice it onto. Did this actually work? No idea, never played much during this block.

I didn't realize splice worked that way. It is now so much better

The way I remember is by theme or mechanics: 1. Betrayers- Ninjas (the only set where kamigawa ninjas were printed) 2. Saviors- Epic (this set had hand size matters mechanic) 3. Champions - Bushido & spirit tribal (most of the creatures fit into this categories) But then again OG Kamigawa was wehn i started my MTG live so i might have it ingrained in my memory.

ohhhh THAT'S why it has the "only if you control a Swamp" Because the splice cost doesn't cost mana.

Argument could be made for Horobi's Whisper as the first pick as you would probably get to cast it 3 times. Splice it twice and cast it one in the typical deck. Tallowisp was also a allstar as there were a ton of auras in the block.

Haha even Shards of Alara had mana burn.

Ah, I see you are a man of orb pondering as well!

boomerang lol

A fun old pack and succinctly summed up by "Neat, if clunky"

Ninjutsu: “We’ve seen (it) show up more recently in Modern Horizons” Neon dynasty moment

Eradicate also let's you see their entire deck, because it doesn't say that the targeted player does the searching.

I could see the orb being really good in a deck that is focused around cards that give you things while tapped, or just against decks that rely on haste.

Ninja of the Deep Hours is a staple for pauper fairy decks. And now that Moon-Circuit Hacker exists, 8 ninja is a serious thing.

Don't worry graham, I played during this time and I have no idea if they're good or not either

This is way above average for a Betrayers draft pack. 5 cards that would still be solid playables today, and 3 more that aren't completely embarrassing.

I really like the Ninja of the Deep Hours, but the far more common outcome seemed to be something like, 'you let my 1/1 through but it was really a Ninja', 'cool, I shock it.'

I always think that the Torii Gate is an entry, the shuriken can betray its wielder, and the saviour holds the lantern that lights the way to salvation.

"Hey baku, you're waxing on main" -my dumb brain

I got hit with an absolutely terrifying Eradicate in one Commander game. I'm playing a silly Titania landfall deck and I had one Awaken card in there, for when I had way too much mana and just wanted to get an extra creature to swing with. I turned a Forest into a creature. For some reason, one opponent was running Eradicate in a singleton format. I don't know, exile reasons? Maybe it was an Eldrazi Processor tech deck? The point is, they hit my Forest creature with Eradicate, and then removed all CARDS WITH THE SAME NAME from my hand and library. Goodbye, 30 forests. Farewell. At least my draws were remarkably strong for the rest of the game.

Betrayers has the shuriken because it's the set that introduced ninjas. But for you to remember that, you have to know that Betrayers is the one with the ninjas so your milage may vary.

I mean, if you’re playing a ninjas deck, bouncing one of your ninjas to hand as a cost to make another creature unblockable sounds pretty great.

Champions has the tori gate because it was our entrance to Kamigawa. Betrayers has the shuriken because they're betraying & it's the set that introduced ninjas. Saviors is the last one (because then it was saved!) and has the lantern because light = good = saviour = vague Christ analogue.

Tallowwisp finds Eldrazi Conscription, that's all I remember about it.

Hey, but imagine making your duud unblockable and as a "price" bouncing your Ninja of the Deep Hours back to hand. Not a very hard decision there. lol

One of these days, there's going to be some Michael Bay levels of production for the pack opening bit.

Thanks for this. I too have found Eradicate "sweet", a decent black side for most combo decks.

Crazy that it's been so long since we've had Doom Blade around that Graham says "Murder, but only non black creatures" instead of just "Doom Blade".

Splice would have been way cooler if it could have somehow been done after you knew nobody was going to counter or otherwise respond to the original spell. Then it would have been a little like ninjutsu for spells.

(I'm only commenting because it's the first time I've seen "Eradicate" in a crack-a-pack.) Every magic player has a card they identify with as a player; a "this is a ME card," situation. For me, more than any other, that card is Eradicate. It's how I like to play black. "Oh, you can have as many of these creatures in your deck as you want? That's cool. Oh, I cast Eradicate."

Ninjas betray, it’s the only set with ninjas.

Woo! I love old Kamigawa so I’m looking forward to seeing what you pull!

Ninja of the Deep Hours is a Pauper All-Star

Champions coming through the gate Killed by the Betrayer's blades Saviors light the way

I never knew I wanted to be called a "waxmane bacu" until now

IDK why but I love cracker pack

Manaburn was around more recently than he thought he says; 2005 is 17 years ago

That orb could work really well if you can get an effect that makes it so things dont untap during their untap step

If I ever meet Graham at a convention I will ask him if he remembers which Kamigawa set goes with which set symbol

Champions is the Torii gate, as only a champion is worthy to be under the gate. Betrayer is the Shuriken, as a Betrayer attacks from the shadows. Saviors it the lantern, as the light of the savior comes to you when you are in need.

Petition to add “Ponder the Orb” to LRRbot’s !advice.

Thank you for not calling us bile urchins.

[[Tallowisp]] was played in some of the first Ghost Dad (Orzhov "bleed 'em dry" style) decks in Champions/Ravnica/10th ED standard. It could fetch up [[Pillory of the Sleepless]] for even more proto-extort! If you google "Ghost Dad Primer" you can find an article on StarCityGames from 2006 about the archetype. Second time we went to Ravnica, WotC made the ghost council even more powerful with [[Obzedat, Ghost Council]]. Ah, the memories :)

Hmm, bit unorthodox for a shuriken that emoji one :thinking:

You have absolutely opened a pack of Betrayers of Kamigawa Graham, it was just many, *many* years ago, on Tap Tap Concede (I want to say from memory back in the original setup, multiple moonbases ago). I remember you guys commenting on the Scaled Hulk, you see.

I think you can make a good case for picking Horobi's Wisper here. Eradicate is cool and all but Whisper can kill multiple creatures by splicing. That's actually extremely strong.

getting ready to crack into my Kamigawa neon dynasty booster box it felt right to watch this first.

arguably splice onto is the better, less clunky version of forecast. Forecast is similar, but was so much worse to keep track of.

Maybe I'm just dreaming but I'm pretty sure I opened a booster with the exact same cards once upon a time

Neat and clunky describes my commander deck builds. 😂

Splice is a cool mechanic, but incredibly parasitic. Unfortunately, Splice onto Instant or Sorcery is probably too universally powerful. If Magic had had instant/sorcery subtypes from the beginning, Splice could probably be made a pretty cool mechanic splicing into an existing type. Since it doesn't, it's either everything (which is excessively powerful) or the tiny subset of Kamigawa Arcane spells (which is too few).

I think the of the gate as a welcome to Kamigawa, so that's the first set, Champions. Then the shuriken is a deadly weapon, so that's for the Betrayers. And a lantern can be a beacon of hope in the dark, thus Saviors.

To summarize soulshift, "Downgrades, people, downgrades"

Eradicate: 2BB Go, and stay go.

Vital Surge? yes, Serge IS vital :P

It’s interesting how much more Ninja of the Deep Hours is worth on MTGO compared to in paper.

I dub that snake shaman a mana professor, you need to tap mana dorks to generate mana, but mana professors do it passively.

I built a spellslinger EDH deck with an arcane subtheme. Did you know that if you copy a spell, the copy also has the things you spliced on?

I think splice is cool, the issue was mainly that arcane ended up being very parasitic since it was never printed again, i do think the solution to issues like that is to print more cards that make it relevant though, instead of the current approach of just pretending the mechanic doesnt exist.

Engagement for the engagement god!

I still wish they'd bring back Splice. They hinted at it in Modern Horizons with Splicer's Skill, but they haven't done anything else with it yet last I've heard.

Algorithmic punch!

I remember when that was a dollar- rare. used to be tech in EDH against Prossh if you were not in white

haven't seen one of those packs in years.

A dream scenario with Eradicate that I've always had (but never attempted) is to put a Wind Zendikon (from og Zendikar block) on an opponents basic land, then Eradicate it. Then it helps my Mind Funerals. But yeah, total casual scenario.

You can't betray me Sure I can

Regarding "if you control a Swamp" for the black removal spell - in the context of the game's history 2006 (the year after this set) will be the first time in MtG since Alpha that land type Swamp will appear on a non-basic land. The requirement of need a swamp would be much more punishing prior to the release of the Ravnica shock land duals. I wonder how much the impact of that design choice would be known at the time.

Think of Splice onto Arcane as like Kicker.

hmm.. is there such a thing as power-leak? like the opposite of creep? I like eradicate.. just noticed that if it were printed today it would probably add "that player draws a card for each card exiled this way".. just interesting..

Do you think people would like this set more if Splice was just onto Instant or Sorcery?

I think players would be more okay with Arcane, if both spells from the splice went to the graveyard after. It's weird to be able to cast a spell, but keep it in hand. As for Shinka Gatekeeper, it seems odd in a set that has ninjas, since it might encourage you to not block in some instances. As for Tallowisp, I looked it up and apparently there's only 7 enchant creature spells in Betrayers.

officially in: Betrayers defeated

Mana burn went away with m10

Now I wonder when this was recorded since Graham failed to mention ninjitsu in the most recent set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

Original kamigawa draft when?

Schadenfreude idea for FNPF: Old Kamigawa block draft.

Eradicate acts as an orbital nuke in commander for Ardenn+Bx Partner. Use Ardenn to give an opponent's creature Spy Kit, and then Eradicate it to remove all non-legendary creatures from their graveyard, hand, and library. If they are playing only black creatures which you can't target, give them a Spirit from Forbidden Orchard and use that to nuke them.

praise O R B

Remember as that great MTG player Syndrome once said 'When everyone has horsemanship, no-one does.'

google has informed me that betrayers of kamigawa was released in 2005 and mana burn was removed in 2010 so a decent amount of time before mana burn was removed

Mana burn was removed in 2010? Let me get my Tylenol