We all know of the fabled Sherlock Holmes, the creation of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, soon to be portrayed on the big screen by Robert Downey Jr.

Sherlock is the detective who could determine a man's height and weight according to the impression left in the carpet. The man who survived a fall off a cliff while fighting his arch-nemesis Moriarty. A man who has inspired hundreds of spin-offs, thousands of copy-cats and millions of little kids to take up their own mystery they might solve.

Today I take my own magnifying glass to follow the clues that may lead us to the answers we all seek about the upcoming Magic the Gathering set, Worldwake.

The set previews are still a few weeks away, but before those spoilers begin to leak it does us no good to look where we are. We instead must look where we were before. Where Magic has been to before. And even more, where lead designer Ken Nagle has been before. Ken Nagle is indeed the lead designer for Worldwake, and it is his first set as the lead. It's a big deal, a rite of passage for new members of R&D. Nagle was also one of the top finishers from the Great Designer Search, though he did not win the contest. In fact, I went back to his work from the GDS to see if we can find any hints in it.

Towards the end of the competition the designers were tasked with designing 11 commons that would be a single colors' commons for a small set as well as a flashy pre-release quality rare. It was within this task I found something that sparked my interest, what had started out as an idle bit of research turned out to be much more akin to an interesting case that would attract even the likes of Dr. Gregory House. Whereas House will fiddle and fight and snark his way through the analysis, I will be much more straightforward. Below are the 11 commons + 1 rare from the task of the Great Designer Search.

[easybox]Rikt Initiate (Common)

G

Creature - Insect Druid

Reveal a land card from your hand, Tap: Add one mana of any color the revealed land could produce to your mana pool.

1/1

Lonely Treefolk (Common)

G

Creature - Treefolk Druid

Instead of playing a land, you may play Lonely Treefolk from your hand without paying its mana cost. (This counts as playing a land for the turn.)

Instead of playing a land, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Lonely Treefolk.

1/1

Rikt Vitalizing Charmer (Common)

1G

Creature - Insect Druid Spellshaper

G, Tap, Discard a card: Target creature gets +1/+1 and gains trample until end of turn. If a land card was discarded to play this ability, you may put a 1/1 green Insect creature token into play.

2/2

Acrid Net-Weaver (Common)

2G

Creature - Spider

Acrid Net-Weaver can block as though it had flying.

Reveal X land cards from your hand, Tap, Sacrifice Acrid Net-Weaver: Destroy target creature with both flying and converted mana cost X.

1/3

Branch-Fastened Chameleon (Common)

2G

Creature - Lizard

Forestwalk

Evolve R - red Lizard (When Branch-Fastened Chameleon is put into a graveyard from play, you may pay R. If you do, search your library for a red Lizard card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)

2/2

Stink Beetle (Common)

3G

Creature - Insect

When Stink Beetle is put into a graveyard from play, you may remove it from the game and put a decompose counter on it.

Remove a decompose counter from Stink Beetle: Add BG to your mana pool. Put Stink Beetle into your graveyard.

3/3

Devolving Aberration (Common)

4G

Creature - Mutant

Protection from instants

Evolve 3G - converted mana cost 4 or less (When Devolving Aberration is put into a graveyard from play, you may pay 3G. If you do, search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost 4 or less, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)

4/3

Scavenging Wurm (Common)

5GG

Creature - Wurm

Holistic 2G (2G, Remove Scavenging Wurm in your hand from the game: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.)

6/6

Enliven (Common)

2G

Instant

If you control a Forest, you may remove a land card in your hand from the game instead of paying Enliven's mana cost.

Target creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn.

Enchantress's Touch (Common)

2G

Enchantment - Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control.

Auratide - white (Whenever you play a white Aura card, you may return Enchantress's Touch from your graveyard to play.)

Future, Present, Past (Common)

2G

Sorcery

Search your library for a basic land card, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. You may play an additional land this turn.

Holistic 2G (2G, Remove Future, Present, Past in your hand from the game: Return target sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.)

Kindled Sapling (Common - TEMPLATE)

Land

Kindled Sapling comes into play tapped.

Tap: Add R to your mana pool.

Sacrifice Kindled Sapling: Add G to your mana pool.

Kalachian Tempest (Rare - Prerelease Promo)

5RG

Creature – Elemental

If you control a Mountain and a Forest, you may remove a sorcery card and a land card in your hand from the game instead of paying Kalachian Tempest's mana cost.

Trample

Kalachian Tempest gets +1/+0 for every mana in a mana pool.

6/4

/Kalach's chaotic weather is its deadliest foe./[/easybox]

Of the Designers who submitted answers, Ken was the only one to really focus on lands as resources. It was during this time that I realized there was another name, Mark Globus. Mark was also in the Great Designer search and he's now a 'Senior Producer' at Wizards of the Coast, and he has been involved with Zendikar, Worldwake and Rise of the Eldrazi. But Mark was eliminated during the competition, he wasn't one of the top three, getting cut just after the exercise we're talking about.

Wait! And Graeme was on Zendikar. Graeme Hopkins was another in the top three for the Great Designer Search. However, he sat out Worldwake before returning to work on Rise of the Eldrazi. The game is afoot Watson!

What are the odds that a new designer's first lead is involved with a block that focuses around a core concept that he pushed during his quite public "interview" process? I wager that his innovations stirred something in R&D and if I am guesstimating the R&D calendar correctly, his entry to the staff would be close to the time when the foundations were being set for Zendikar.

Let's look first at the Rikt. We don't get a description of the Rikt other than the cards themselves, the type lines tell us that they're insects. To me I now see the aliens from 'District 9.' In any case, they are adept at mana and in tune with the land. The Rikt Initiate is a fascinating concept that hasn't really been explored before, to show a land and then tap for mana, lay the land and tap it for mana. What does that remind me of... It's just on the tip of my tong... LOTUS COBRA!?

It's never Lupus, and it can't be Lotus Cobra can it?

Well no, we know that Lotus Cobra isn't a direct descendant. From Episode 82 of ManaNation, Chatting with Aaron Forsythe, we know that Mark Rosewater designed it as a 1/1 and it was later bumped to a 2/2. Also you can read what Rosewater says about its design in his article, 'Zendikar Talk.' But the concepts here, the Rikt, and Rosewater's Cobra, have a large frame of overlap. The possession of a land in the hand becomes a resource. Interesting. So will we see this creature? Perhaps we would have, had it not been beaten by the Cobra. With Lotus Cobra already out there, I highly doubt it. Imagine having a Cobra and this creature, then by drawing a land you can now provide yourself with three mana a turn. Unlikely.

How about the Rikt Vitalizing Charmer? This is one that doesn't really get seen, but it is a very interesting idea that again focuses on using lands as resources in ways other than having them in play. Here you get the benefit for actually discarding a land, an otherwise negative action. It's an interesting concept and could be a part of Worldwake, but I doubt it.

For Stink Beetle it offers an interesting hybrid of land and graveyard resource. Thematically it is interesting as an idea of another way to utilize spells in the graveyard, I love the idea that the creature dies and then it does something else as it is absorbed into the ground. It may also have been interesting to do it as more of a Suspend like mechanic, a definite amount of time before the creature's ability would be used.

Enliven caught my eye because here he uses lands as an alternate casting cost for a spell. Again he has turned to lands to provide a resource for the spell, in this case it's hearkens back to Alliances with its alternative casting costs. I don't think we'll see this in Worldwake, largely as I can't see it being present thematically. It's possible but without a strong element of control alternate casting costs become dangerous. Consider turn 1 Steppe Lynx. Turn 2 play fetch land, fetch a land, and then play Enliven by discarding a land in your hand. You've got a turn two 8/9. JEEEEEEZ. I can't see that happening.

The last common from his entries I saw of interest was Future, Present, Past. This spell was interesting because it mentioned fetching a land and playing an extra one on that turn, something we know exists on at least one of the spells that slipped out with the intro decks from the French store. The spell we learned about was a sorcery that lets you draw a card and play an extra land that turn. Definite similarities, but playing an extra land isn't all that new - so it isn't an open and shut case. It just shows some interesting similarities.

And then lastly I bolded the flashy rare that Ken designed, the Kalachian Tempest. It allows you to possibly cast it at a lessened mana cost depending on how many lands are in play, as well as what is in hand. What does that mean? It means a dream. Your opening hand is three lands, a sorcery, the Tempest and something else. Then it means on turn two you are dropping a 6/4. That's a big cookie to deal with. Oh wait, it dies to everything. I can't imagine we'll see something as powerful as this, but the alternative casting requirements are interesting as a land based mechanic.

Unfortunately though, this isn't a mystery. This isn't an episode of House (Mondays on FOX.) These facts didn't lead me to a secret cache of the Wizards R&D notes. Rather, this is the moment of the cliff hanger.

During Sir Arthur's Conan Doyle day, crowds of people would stand eagerly on the edge of the street awaiting the delivery of the latest book, they would meet ships on the dock eager to devour every story.

For you see dear reader, here is the twist, I am not Sherlock Holmes in this story. Nor am I today's re-imagining of Gregory House. I am but another avid fan, waiting on the docks just like you. Let us see if perhaps we can spot it on the horizon.

Maybe tomorrow we'll know how this story ends.

For those who read this whole article without understanding it's title, here's the deal: Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street. Gregory House lived in apartment 221b though we never have learned the street name.