Belbe’s first design
Did you know Belbe was originally set to have card appear in the Nemesis expansion? R&D senior designer Mike Elliot, who designed the card, has said there were concerns regarding the card’s stealing ability would bleed into black’s slice of the color pie. There were also objections to there being a monoblack Elf.
Now, as for the card’s ability, at the time there was only one other black card that allowed you to ‘gain control of target creature’ and that was Infernal Denizen. Since then, there have only been four other black cards that have ‘gain control of target creature’.
As for the card’s color, a monoblack Elf Spellshaper was included in Nemesis so I don’t know what the problem was. Of course, the next time monoblack elves would be seen would be in Lorwyn. Now, in Magic history, all Zombie Elf creatures have been black-green. The first being Llanowar Dead in Apocalypse a few sets after Nemesis.
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Mike Elliot’s design was as such:
Belbe, Phyrexian Ambassador 2BB Creature - Elf Legend 2/2 T, Sacrifice a black creature: You gain control of target creature as long as CARDNAME remains in play."
I decided to give it a slight tweak by changing the mana cost to black-green rather than monoblack, make it a Zombie Elf Legend, and updated the wording.
