When the original planners had to adapt to the dodgeball direction their sport veered into, they sought out a way to manifest the spirit of fast paced, high stakes spell slinging into this sport.

Here, they decided to play into the flexible and delicate nature of balloons to create balloon creatures that like a powerful magic spell, can appear in an instant and disappear just as quickly.

Thus the SpellBeast was created. abstract, elemental personifications of magic spells.

SpellBeasts are the most fleshed out archetype in the game right now, and a personal favorite if I'll be honest. SpellBeasts are interesting because they have a lot of mechanics surrounding them that help to cheat them into play, accelerate them into your hand, and pull them from discard.

in many ways they are less carriers of mechanics and more so targets of mechanics. they get the privilege of having stronger searchers and recursion options that get them into play again and again. a big part of this is the fact that SpellBeasts try to basically fill the utility of token creatures without being token creatures.

The balloons themselves share a common design trend of being frontloaded in power while also removing themselves after they swing at a player, either because of the Fragile keyword or because they leave the field through other means. SpellBeasts are very ephemeral by nature and that's a key part of their design.

They're also a favorite of mine from a conceptual standpoint, the premise of anthropomorphized spells has a lot of food for fun ideas that I'm eager to dive into.