Schehl:These two creatures represent a non-clan alignment–they’re not [part of] a faction.
Whirlwing Stormbrood is very shark-coded in its design.
The Disruptive Stormbrood is where we’re poking at our own rules.
So it has a set of dedicated wings and then ambulatory limb wings.
I’m really glad that we got both of them in.
Was there ever any creative pushback?
Any debates on ‘Is that technically a dragon?’
I feel like there could be some funny stories there.
Schehl:That was really the beauty of the wild dragon concept.
And that was really necessary.
The dragon designs in the original block of Tarkir were already super inventive and creative.
What I found that worked best for me in that situation was really letting people go wild.
And a lot of that was just by not saying no to a lot of stuff.
But that wasn’t ever because they were too out there.
Really, out there is what we wanted from a lot of these designs.
Mechanically, these are really interesting cards, too.
They’re both Omen cards, which feel similar yet very different to Adventure cards.
What led to the decision to differentiate between the two?
Prosak:For the most part, dragons are the biggest, most awe-inspiring creatures in the set.
So that’s where the desire for a game mechanic to help out [came from].
Dragons aren’t an adventure party–they just eat people.
Outside of that, the gameplay wasn’t great.
And we didn’t like that.
We wanted the dragons to be bigger.
These are actually some of the smallest dragons in this set.
They’re all big, as big as we can make them, and Omen really helped with that.
Omen allows you at least the chance to do that again.
You’re not getting rid of your dragon forever if you do that.
Omen went through a lot of iterations.
I’m really happy with how these turned out.
But we also wanted some distinct dragons that were separate from the clans.
And I think these Omen cards do a really good job at showing that.
Are there any additional reasons these are so special to the team?
They’re mostly designed for Limited formats with a little bit of Commander applications.
But that’s why we have the best of both worlds.
And the set has loads of both.
Schehl:From a creative standpoint, these are both very special cards to us.
We haven’t actually previewed a lot of them.
We’ve looked at a lot of the spirit dragons and stuff, but…
It’s been 10 years since we last went to Tarkir.
What is it like revisiting the plane and designing these dragons, both mechanically and visually?
Are there certain things that you look back on where you think, ‘Oh, I love that.
Let’s bring more of that going forward?’
So I was ecstatic and begged to be able to lead the design of this set.
Do we want something else?'
We knew that we couldn’t just do exactly the same thing.
If we brought back the same five mechanics and Morph, we’re not making a different set.
We’re not advancing what Magic is.
And that’s a big challenge.
We decided we didn’t want to.
My goal for revisiting Tarkir was to not screw it up.
The first Tarkir was an amazing set and beloved by our fans.
I love working on it and it’s one of my personal favorites.
My goal was to make something that is awesome enough to be worthy of Tarkir.
And I think we nailed it.
I think both Forrest and Lauren did an amazing job bringing Tarkir to life visually, too.
And I did the best I could to bring it to life mechanically.
On the other hand, you are terrified.
Because like Adam said, our goal is to get it right.
Is this what you would expect Tarkir to evolve into?'
Because we are talking about someone who was not only a fan of Tarkir, but worked on Tarkir.
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