______________________________________________
Red
Red! The colour of war, barbarism, emotion-driven anger and savage monsters! Not much to say here, which is probably how the Red mindset would want it to be.
Goblins are perhaps the creatures I associate the most with M:TG's Red colour, and that's because one of my friends actually collects Goblin cards specifically. They're one of the more consistently-supported tribes, as I gather, and they basically embody Red pretty well. Not particularly smart, relies more on brute strength and brute applications of magic.
Mons's Goblin Raiders is basically a generic band of goblins, although they don't look particularly goblin-y, more like... elves without makeup, I guess? The Goblin King is far more monstrous and appropriate for goblins. I do like the ugly-ass crown on his head, and the fun leadership of how only the most foolish goblins actually seek leadership.
While it's not apparent outside of this one card, in subsequent sets goblins would basically be the resident comedic characters in M:TG, mostly due to Wile E. Coyote-style slapstick comedy. The Goblin Balloon Brigade here shows just how wacky and unorthodox the goblins can be, and it just basically embodies everything there is about goblins in the M:TG world. Dumb, and only obsessed with doing more harm. Look at that random goblin in the right side of the artwork dropping a suitcase of all things! Quoting the flavour text: "From up here we can drop rocks, and arrows, and more rocks!" "Uh, yeah boss, but how do we get down?" Goblins. They don't think things through, but they can cause a lot of chaos!
Another "Lord", and I googled the revised edition of this card. Apparently Keldon Warlord is a human! I had thought this to be some sort of minotaur, or an ogre or orc with a fancy antlered helmet, but it's just a human barbarian who spends a lot of time bench-pressing. Not much to say here, he's an okay-looking barbarian warlord, I guess, and it's pretty flavourful for Red.
Red is the colour most strongly associated with fire, volcanoes and the like, and flame monsters themselves have tended to be shown in fiction as being pretty capricious and destructive, so it's no surprise that we have a Fire Elemental among Red's lineup. Not the most interesting fire elemental, to be honest, just a naked lady made out of flames.
Red's basic land is Mountains, so a lot of mountain-dwelling monsters are also assigned to Red. And what better to embody the mountains than an Earth Elemental? This is just a simple dude made out of rock (and both him and his fire cousin are actually vanilla creatures with no effects) but I really find his weird sumo-esque pose to look really, really uncomfortable. Doesn't this dude get cramped?
Two of the races that you're kind of obligated to include in any fantasy setting are elves and dwarves. Where the elves are green, the dwarves are assigned to red, reflecting their more war-like nature. Again, these are pretty basic Tolkien-inspired dwarves, with Dwarven Warriors basically being little pudgy Vikings. Dwarven Demolition Team shows that apparently the dwarves of Dominaria lift a page out of their WoW cousins, and do like explosives.
We are obligated at least one dragon, and I'm frankly surprised we only got two in the entirety of this first set, unless I'm missing something. Shivan Dragon here is... well, he's a pretty basic European-style dragon, a giant dinosaur-like lizard with bat wings, and the artwork is... it's interesting, I guess. Not much to say here -- even without taking into context the legions and legions of dragons that are to follow, the Shivan Dragon is just honestly kind of simple, and is only interesting by virtue of being a dragon.
The other dragon in this set is widdle ol' Dragon Whelp, which is basically a tiny version of Shivan Dragon, but with limitations on how much it can grow. That artwork is pretty derpy, with a distinct children's book feel to it. I get why M:TG would shy away from this aesthetic and go for far cooler-looking and more standardized artwork, and it's certainly preferable... but I do admit that there's a sense of charm from these far more goofy-looking artwork.
One of the themes of Red is of brutish fantasy monsters, like, in these two cards' case, giants. The Stone Giant is your generic giant barbarian man whose effect and flavour is actually kind of hilarious -- it throws one of your creatures into the air, giving it "Flying", but it dies at the end of turn. Really wished that they had communicated it better in the artwork.
The Hill Giant, meanwhile, doesn't actually have an effect, but is just, well, another Giant. This one's more clean-shaven, and actually somehow has a full set of leather armor. Somehow.
Two-Headed Giant of Foriys is just a big, angry creature. Giants with two heads are common in fiction (D&D has basically dubbed them 'Ettins', a name that tends to get imported to other fantasy settings). I do enjoy the little description, though. "None know if this Giant is the result of aberrant magics, Siamese twins, or a mentalist's schizophrenia".
Again, another expected monster trope. Minotaurs are pretty cool! There's just something neat about slapping a bull's head and hooves onto a giant muscular man. The Hurloon Minotaur is just a minotaur with some intricate tattoos, but I do like the flavour implying that these minotaurs actually have a culture where they mourn their dead and the like.
Another common 'savage creature' trope is the troll, and it's kind of interesting how this sort of lumpy, growling, grotesque brute has been phased out of most fantasy media. We either get trolls as a fully intelligent (if somewhat savage) race, or as giant lurching LOTR-inspired giants that tended to get swapped in and out with ogres. M:TG itself would later lean more towards a combination of both, but I do find it fun that Uthden Troll here is just one hell of an ugly gray, well, troll. The rather simplistic, children's book artwork actually sort of works here, even.
The Sedge Troll, meanwhile, is a bit more similar to some of the more common depictions of trolls as misshapen brutes lurking in caves and under bridges and the like. Again, not really all that much to say here -- a lot of the first set's creatures are, as I've mentioned a couple of times, just made to be the most generic versions of their creature type.
...like Gray Ogre here, another vanilla minion. The line between giant, ogre and troll tend to blur in some fantasy settings, especially those without a consistent art team, and if I hadn't seen the name, I would've shrugged and said, 'yeah, obviously a giant' since it definitely looks like it would probably be buddies with Hill Giant and Stone Giant. Anyway, it's an alright-looking, if generic, ogre.
Huh, this is actually a pretty badass-looking, stylized gargoyle, I think. This one doesn't quite look like the crouching demon-like bat-people commonly depicted in media which, in turn, borrows from real-life gargoyle statues. I do really love the almost feline, panther-like body shape, with the head of a demonic, fanged bull stapled on, and giant wings. And, of course, it's made out of stone, since it's a Granite Gargoyle. I'm frankly surprised this isn't a Black card, actually, considering how most media tended to portray gargoyles as evil, demonic monsters due to their association with horror tropes.
One of my favourite parts of this card, though, is the lore segment. While most flavour blurbs have either been quotes from random real-life material, or just a description of the creature, the Granite Gargoyle's description is... actually advice on how it can be cooked, with the excerpt credited to "the Underworld Cookbook" written by a hilariously over-long demonic name. Okay, Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, you win this round.
Man, that's an ugly-ass orc. What tends to make orcs slightly more consistent than trolls/ogres/giants is basically how they're green-skinned, ugly muscular brute humans. Ironclaw Orcs is just... kinda generic, honestly. Not much to say here. Orcish Artillery is a bit more fun, though, this giant contraption of a ballista that the poor orc on top seeming to have no real idea on how to operate.
Another pretty damn cool monster! The artwork isn't the best, but hydras are one of the more popular beasts in culture because the concept of a multi-headed dragon (or serpent) whose heads regenerate when you slice them off is just, well, pretty dang cool! Rock Hydra is a card whose appeal is how it tries to mimic this fantasy, and it's Red because... it's made out of rocks! Subsequent sets would associate organic hydras more strongly with Green as Green's the colour for natural beasts. Not much to really say here, though.
The Roc is a mythological giant bird from Arabic mythology that has nothing to do with rocks, but English fantasy works tended to try and make them extra-special by associating them with rocks. I've seen enough puns of these sort, anyway. The Roc of Kher Ridges is apparently a rock beast that, when perched, basically resembles a boulder, and is only identifiable as a giant bird of doom when it unfurls its wings. Neat-o.
Of course, the obligatory wall for Red is Wall of Fire. Not really much to say here that I haven't said in Black, Blue and Green's respective walls. I guess this is where I mention that these Walls form a 'cycle', which, in trading-card lingo terms, is a set of cards spread across the five colours with similar (but not identical) effects and themes. The Walls in original M:TG doesn't quite form a proper cycle, but you can see the genesis of the idea, with colour-themed variations of a single concept being all printed as their own cards.
I do find it hilarious that the Wall of Stone is basically just the stone walls of some random city, and even that long description doesn't really say that the Wall of Stone is anything but a generic wall. And unlike the Wall of Fire, or the Wall of Bones/Thrones/Air/Water and all of the other magical walls, the Wall of Stone is a perfectly vanilla creature that isn't able to do anything or attack, just block attacks. It's a literal wall.
Red Sorceries and Enchantments tend to be relatively direct, basically showing that while Red isn't just barbarians and warriors, even their spellcasters do pretty simple things. Lob Fireballs that blow the enemy up, and then lob more Lightning Bolt that blow the enemy up.
Fork is hilarious, though! It's such a hilariously crude drawing of what I assume to be a lightning spell forking into two, to hit... chocolate chip cookies? What the hell? I dunno. It's such a ridiculous-looking artwork that I can't help but laugh.
Of course, we do get quite creative in some of the 'destroy the enemy!' spells, and I absolutely LOVE the artwork here in Disintegrate, looking pretty damn badass. Hell, even its effect makes it sure that the creature killed by Disintegrate is REALLY FUCKING DEAD, removing it from the game entirely ("Banish", for Yu-Gi-Oh players!) that not even necromantic or resurrection skills can bring them back.
We have a bunch of other "deal damage, fuck enemies up with magic" abilities in Red, but I genuinely don't have much to say. I do like the idea that casting Firebreathing basically gives any creature you control the permanent ability to breathe fire like a dragon, even silly old Uthdenk Troll.
_________________________________________________
It is, of course, ultimately a matter of personal taste. I have nothing against the White gameplay, but in terms of character and monster design it's just one that's the most boring. Admittedly it's a lot easier with the other four colours. Black can tap into as many creative demon and undead designs as they want, Green can tap into any sort of variations on real-world natural creatures, Blue likewise can do whatever the hell they want with illusions and aquatic monsters, and Red's whole "chaotic" theme does sort of make a lot of excuses to be as creative as they want. But White sort of gets pigeonholed into just repeating similar themes over and over again, and I don't find a whole lot of them particularly interesting. It's not too egregious since this is admittedly just the first set, but we'll see later on how frustrated I get with White.
And... as you can kinda see, where I joked in the Black/Green/Blue commentary that each colour gets a token "generic human sorcerer", White has a fair bit of them. Northern Paladin is kind of a generic dude in medieval-era chainmail armour, and it sort of fits the whole 'holy warrior theme. Really could've gone for a more interesting pose, though.
Of course, not all White sorceries and enchantments are boring! Karma is a pretty flavourful thing to give to the White class. I just really want to know what thing this poor sap did that the equivalent karma is having spiky rose vines wrap him up and slowly choke him to death.
This particular artwork of Swords to Plowshares isn't the most exciting thing (and this is one of those cards that gets reprinted over and over again), but I like the idea of White essentially forcing an enemy knight to repent and convert to pacifism, becoming a lowly, peaceful peasant tilling the fields.
Oh, hey, while Serra Angel is kind of boring, Guardian Angel looks a whole lot more interesting! Interestingly, Guardian Angel isn't a creature you can summon, but an Instant Sorcery where you just pray for the Guardian Angel to show up and negate damage, which is a pretty fun mental image. Guardian Angel is a far more interesting angel than Serra Angel, too, being clearly naked but also not having any genitalia, showing that this isn't just a human with wings. Guardian Angel's also got hair that seems to flow like flames or some shit, gangly arms and generally looks far more interesting than Serra Angel.
Those are some BIG horns, Holy Armor. It's a pretty interesting set of armour, like a weird, mismatched World of Warcraft armour piece. It's definitely not boring, though, which is something I tend to say about a lot of White Cards.
White isn't always nice, as Armageddon and Wrath of God shows. White tends to focus on healing and nice creatures, and buffing their own, but when they do get angry and unleash the holy fury of their nonspecific deity, EVERYTHING BURNS. I do actually like this trope, and it might just be me liking the 'edgy' part of it, but I do find the juxtaposition of cards like "Healing Salve" and "Protection From A Colour" with the darkened wastelands of Armaggedon to be pretty neat. That artwork for Armaggedon is also pretty dang atmospheric, too.
_________________________________________________
The thing is... even more than White, I've personally never found Artifacts all that interesting. Mechanically, as a card I put in my deck? Sure, let's go for a huge discussion about the power of mana-ramping and whatnot. But there's only so many permutations of "magic jewelry" or "powerful sword" before everything blurs together. And the scope of these articles are for the flavour and less for the actual gameplay.
I will thus note that there is a lot of Artifacts that I excluded and place under the break, because I really have nothing to say to cards that are like "Ivory Cup".
So let's talk about Artifact Creatures first, which are exactly what it says on the tin. Creatures that are also artifacts, so you can kind of play them in any deck. Most artifact creatures tend to either be golems or steampunk robots. Clockwork Beast here is some sort of cobbled-together animal that looks like... I dunno, a beaver crossed with a dinosaur? That's not an insult, though, I do really enjoy just how disfigured this thing looks, really looking like something cobbled together to look like some bizarre semblance of a living thing.
The Juggernaut initially seems to just be some sort of siege engine, like a catapult or whatever based on the artwork, but the flavour text implies heavily that the Juggernaut isn't the vehicles, but the giant creature in the distance. It's not living, and it's like this giant walking unliving weapon, and the fact that the artwork doesn't actually show its full body actually makes it look far scarier than just showing, say, a giant angry sphinx robot would be.
Obsianus Golem and Jade Statue are basically statues that can be animated and fight for you -- Jade Statue being a little buddy that animates briefly, while Obsianus Golem is just always alive. Pretty basic stuff. I do like the Obsidian Golem's creepy, glowing eyes and completely expressionless face.
Chaos Orb here is famous for having a shitballs-crazy effect -- physically flip the Chaos Orb card into the air, and it will destroy whatever card it touches. Obviously, it's a horrible effect to actually do on a physical card game, and Chaos Orb has gained a funny reputation thanks to this.
Mostly, I just really like the sheer psychedelic bizarreness of the artwork. It's... it's either a Moon or a giant spherical brain or a giant meatball, with beady red eyes and a large, gaping mouth, vomiting lava into a pool. Okay!
Living Wall here is... wow, I forgot this thing exists. And how is this an 'artifact' creature? It's like this wall made entirely out of flesh, like some tumourous abomination that you might see in games that treat Elder Gods as giant fleshy beasts. As the flavour blurb notes, it's a constantly-regenerating wall of flesh. Teeth, eyes and sinew everywhere... it's already pretty disgusting and works amazingly well as a horror piece, but the extra layer of WTF-ness is when you realize that the huge, central 'eye' isn't an eye at all, but an embryo's... amniotic sac, I guess? It's just such a horrifyingly bizarre piece of detail in an already horrifying piece of artwork.
Probably the most ridiculous and my favourite out of the "just an item" Artifacts (and there are a lot) are these two, the Glasses of Urza and Sunglasses of Urza. Mr. Urza, one of the most prominent characters in MTG (his story is super long, here's a link) is like this huge, huge badass. Yet out of all the artifacts that this powerful mage wields, two of them are apparently his reading glasses and his fancy, Willy Wonka sunglasses. What a great introduction to one of your main characters!
The Hive is just a gigantic hive that is... somehow counted as an 'artifact', despite it just being a nest that spawns giant wasps. Are these robotic giant wasps? Is this an Insecticon hive, and that's why it's counted as an artifact? Eh. I like it because it's got bugs, I suppose.
Black Lotus is notorious for being the overpowered card, and is apparently super-duper expensive and whatnot. It's... it's a black-coloured lotus flower with no real flavour, though, so I have nothing to say here. It's like super-mana-ramping, which I can definitely see as being very, very mighty indeed.
I guess it can stay here as an example of "just an item".
These are probably two of my other favourite "just an item" Artifacts, although that's honestly not a particularly low bar to clear. Helm of Charzuk just looks bizarrely interesting, this weird helm that seems to be made out of the skull of some bizarre creature. I'm not sure what a Nevinyrral's Disk is, but it's a disk with squiddy tentacles pouring out, and a Sarlacc mouth inside it, so it's probably eldritch or demonic in some way. It apparently destroys everything, which is... pretty damn horrifying for a little hand-held disc to do!
I dunno. I just kinda like these artworks, I guess. Mana Vault really looks like some sort of magical prison in hell or something, with glowing flames below it, a cube that is suspended mid-air with no real explanation, and chains tying it to the ground. It probably houses a demon. Or that dude from Karma, for doing whatever horrible thing it did.
Cyclopean Tomb is just so... so weird. It's obviously meant to look like an eye, even with those nice encrusted detailing on the side of it... but in the pupil is a humanoid figure being squeezed into the hole, while the rest of the actual eyeball and eyelid seemed to be woven together out of some material. So what is this thing? A prison for cyclopes that looks like an eye? Is it a human being imprisoned in the eye of a particularly large cyclops? Is it just symbolic? What is it? It's certainly single-handedly more bizarre and far more interesting than the 25+ other Artifact cards I can't find anything to talk about.
_________________________________________________
As with the previous bit, this is a brief little recap of all the other cards that I just plain don't really find interesting enough to talk about in the full review. I do have some one-liner commentaries for... for some of them, anyway.
Hahaha, look at that utterly daft looking giant mole monster on the artwork for Burrowing.
"Chaoslace" really has some really colourful art, huh? Really expected that to be something in Blue, honestly, seeing its artwork and general effect.
YOU MUST BE SWIFT AS A RAGING RIVER. Um, sorry. It's interesting that Red does get its fair share of 'natural disasters', too, although they are far more mountain-flavoured compared to Green's.
That artwork for Earthbind is really... uh... someone has bondage on their mind that day, huh? Also, really would've thought that it's the sort of ability that Green would use, but I guess actual vines and ropes made out of rocks and earth are different enough. I also really like the flavour of False Orders.
Crusade is a bit unfortunate nowadays, though I do think that it wasn't made with any particularly harmful intentions in mind. If not for the wording of the effect, I do think that religious fervour does fit the flavour of White.
And we finally close off white with a couple more holy/religious-themed spells. Neat! I like the glowing dude in Holy Strength.
I will have some trouble talking about the Artifacts. So many of them are just items. None of them have flavour text! Some are almost there, almost interesting. Like Forcefield, which exists, apparently. Wooden Sphere's got nice art. Oh hey, a rogue Mishra reference, he's going to be important in lore. Library of Leng's a reference to the Cthulhu Mythos.
These are "just items". I really, really don't have much to say about much of these. Basalt Monolith's a 2001 reference. I like the art on Winter Orb. And... yeah, sorry. I tried. I went back a couple of times to take a crack of them, but I just can't find much to say. Antiquities is gonna be fun...
Oh, hey, we've got another series of jewelry, each corresponding to each colour. Like White's Protection from X and X Ward things, they're... they're probably neat, kind of, from a gameplay standpoint, but are pretty boring to look at.
Two-Headed Giant of Foriys is just a big, angry creature. Giants with two heads are common in fiction (D&D has basically dubbed them 'Ettins', a name that tends to get imported to other fantasy settings). I do enjoy the little description, though. "None know if this Giant is the result of aberrant magics, Siamese twins, or a mentalist's schizophrenia".
Again, another expected monster trope. Minotaurs are pretty cool! There's just something neat about slapping a bull's head and hooves onto a giant muscular man. The Hurloon Minotaur is just a minotaur with some intricate tattoos, but I do like the flavour implying that these minotaurs actually have a culture where they mourn their dead and the like.
Another common 'savage creature' trope is the troll, and it's kind of interesting how this sort of lumpy, growling, grotesque brute has been phased out of most fantasy media. We either get trolls as a fully intelligent (if somewhat savage) race, or as giant lurching LOTR-inspired giants that tended to get swapped in and out with ogres. M:TG itself would later lean more towards a combination of both, but I do find it fun that Uthden Troll here is just one hell of an ugly gray, well, troll. The rather simplistic, children's book artwork actually sort of works here, even.
The Sedge Troll, meanwhile, is a bit more similar to some of the more common depictions of trolls as misshapen brutes lurking in caves and under bridges and the like. Again, not really all that much to say here -- a lot of the first set's creatures are, as I've mentioned a couple of times, just made to be the most generic versions of their creature type.
...like Gray Ogre here, another vanilla minion. The line between giant, ogre and troll tend to blur in some fantasy settings, especially those without a consistent art team, and if I hadn't seen the name, I would've shrugged and said, 'yeah, obviously a giant' since it definitely looks like it would probably be buddies with Hill Giant and Stone Giant. Anyway, it's an alright-looking, if generic, ogre.
Huh, this is actually a pretty badass-looking, stylized gargoyle, I think. This one doesn't quite look like the crouching demon-like bat-people commonly depicted in media which, in turn, borrows from real-life gargoyle statues. I do really love the almost feline, panther-like body shape, with the head of a demonic, fanged bull stapled on, and giant wings. And, of course, it's made out of stone, since it's a Granite Gargoyle. I'm frankly surprised this isn't a Black card, actually, considering how most media tended to portray gargoyles as evil, demonic monsters due to their association with horror tropes.
One of my favourite parts of this card, though, is the lore segment. While most flavour blurbs have either been quotes from random real-life material, or just a description of the creature, the Granite Gargoyle's description is... actually advice on how it can be cooked, with the excerpt credited to "the Underworld Cookbook" written by a hilariously over-long demonic name. Okay, Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, you win this round.
Man, that's an ugly-ass orc. What tends to make orcs slightly more consistent than trolls/ogres/giants is basically how they're green-skinned, ugly muscular brute humans. Ironclaw Orcs is just... kinda generic, honestly. Not much to say here. Orcish Artillery is a bit more fun, though, this giant contraption of a ballista that the poor orc on top seeming to have no real idea on how to operate.
Another pretty damn cool monster! The artwork isn't the best, but hydras are one of the more popular beasts in culture because the concept of a multi-headed dragon (or serpent) whose heads regenerate when you slice them off is just, well, pretty dang cool! Rock Hydra is a card whose appeal is how it tries to mimic this fantasy, and it's Red because... it's made out of rocks! Subsequent sets would associate organic hydras more strongly with Green as Green's the colour for natural beasts. Not much to really say here, though.
The Roc is a mythological giant bird from Arabic mythology that has nothing to do with rocks, but English fantasy works tended to try and make them extra-special by associating them with rocks. I've seen enough puns of these sort, anyway. The Roc of Kher Ridges is apparently a rock beast that, when perched, basically resembles a boulder, and is only identifiable as a giant bird of doom when it unfurls its wings. Neat-o.
Of course, the obligatory wall for Red is Wall of Fire. Not really much to say here that I haven't said in Black, Blue and Green's respective walls. I guess this is where I mention that these Walls form a 'cycle', which, in trading-card lingo terms, is a set of cards spread across the five colours with similar (but not identical) effects and themes. The Walls in original M:TG doesn't quite form a proper cycle, but you can see the genesis of the idea, with colour-themed variations of a single concept being all printed as their own cards.
I do find it hilarious that the Wall of Stone is basically just the stone walls of some random city, and even that long description doesn't really say that the Wall of Stone is anything but a generic wall. And unlike the Wall of Fire, or the Wall of Bones/Thrones/Air/Water and all of the other magical walls, the Wall of Stone is a perfectly vanilla creature that isn't able to do anything or attack, just block attacks. It's a literal wall.
Red Sorceries and Enchantments tend to be relatively direct, basically showing that while Red isn't just barbarians and warriors, even their spellcasters do pretty simple things. Lob Fireballs that blow the enemy up, and then lob more Lightning Bolt that blow the enemy up.
Fork is hilarious, though! It's such a hilariously crude drawing of what I assume to be a lightning spell forking into two, to hit... chocolate chip cookies? What the hell? I dunno. It's such a ridiculous-looking artwork that I can't help but laugh.
Apparently, in-between disintegrating their enemies or summoning earthquakes and lightning bolts, Red also plays with Wheel of Fortunes, where this cloaked figure spins around a wheel that either lands on a chalice, a skull, a sword or a heart. It's such a hilarious and honestly bizarrely out-of-place thing to see in Red, especially considering how almost the entirety of the original set of Red cards being muscular ogres, destructive orcs, roaring dragons, exploding fireballs and savage goblins. Nope, let's just sneak in this wacky little spinning sideshow game, located in the middle of a presumably cursed forest for some reason. It's not quite as wacky as, oh, fuckin' Demonic Tutor, but hey.
Of course, we do get quite creative in some of the 'destroy the enemy!' spells, and I absolutely LOVE the artwork here in Disintegrate, looking pretty damn badass. Hell, even its effect makes it sure that the creature killed by Disintegrate is REALLY FUCKING DEAD, removing it from the game entirely ("Banish", for Yu-Gi-Oh players!) that not even necromantic or resurrection skills can bring them back.
We have a bunch of other "deal damage, fuck enemies up with magic" abilities in Red, but I genuinely don't have much to say. I do like the idea that casting Firebreathing basically gives any creature you control the permanent ability to breathe fire like a dragon, even silly old Uthdenk Troll.
_________________________________________________
White
We reach the final colour of the five main mana colours, and it's... it's my least favourite colour, not because I hate it, but because... I just find most White cards to be pretty same-y. They don't really deviate a whole ton from angels, holy creatures and warriors, and I'm sorry to fans of white... until a lot later in the franchise's lifetime, White is going to be consistently the card colour that I am going to say about the least.It is, of course, ultimately a matter of personal taste. I have nothing against the White gameplay, but in terms of character and monster design it's just one that's the most boring. Admittedly it's a lot easier with the other four colours. Black can tap into as many creative demon and undead designs as they want, Green can tap into any sort of variations on real-world natural creatures, Blue likewise can do whatever the hell they want with illusions and aquatic monsters, and Red's whole "chaotic" theme does sort of make a lot of excuses to be as creative as they want. But White sort of gets pigeonholed into just repeating similar themes over and over again, and I don't find a whole lot of them particularly interesting. It's not too egregious since this is admittedly just the first set, but we'll see later on how frustrated I get with White.
And... as you can kinda see, where I joked in the Black/Green/Blue commentary that each colour gets a token "generic human sorcerer", White has a fair bit of them. Northern Paladin is kind of a generic dude in medieval-era chainmail armour, and it sort of fits the whole 'holy warrior theme. Really could've gone for a more interesting pose, though.
Samite Healer is the obligatory priest/healer/shaman trope in a fantasy setting. Not particularly interesting, but it definitely helps to build the fantasy of White as the holy-healing class.
See? A far more dynamic pose than Northern Paladin up there. White Knight is reasonably cool (if kind of generic) of a mounted knight, and I do like the fact that this is basically the opposite twin of Black Knight from all the way back when we reviewed Black.
Okay, apparently Savannah Lions here are considered to be White creatures? I guess it's part of the whole "lions are noble" cultural view of these predators.
Veteran Bodyguard is a wee bit boring, although I do like that eyepatch and that pretty neat pose. I kinda like the subversion of 'money-grubbing mercenaries' in the insistence that Veteran Bodyguard isn't that sort of evil bodyguard. Not a whole lot for me to talk about, though. He's... he's kind of just a dude.
See? A far more dynamic pose than Northern Paladin up there. White Knight is reasonably cool (if kind of generic) of a mounted knight, and I do like the fact that this is basically the opposite twin of Black Knight from all the way back when we reviewed Black.
Okay, apparently Savannah Lions here are considered to be White creatures? I guess it's part of the whole "lions are noble" cultural view of these predators.
Veteran Bodyguard is a wee bit boring, although I do like that eyepatch and that pretty neat pose. I kinda like the subversion of 'money-grubbing mercenaries' in the insistence that Veteran Bodyguard isn't that sort of evil bodyguard. Not a whole lot for me to talk about, though. He's... he's kind of just a dude.
Benalish Hero is far more boring, though. They didn't even bother putting in any background in her art! Hell, that short paragraph describing Benalia is more interesting than anything the card has to say.
Serra Angel is an angel! And that's basically all I can say about her. She's a pretty classic angel, just a lady in white with bird wings attached to her. She's one of the strongest creatures in this set, actually. Again, I keep repeating that this first set really tries to just go through as many fantasy tropes as possible, and Angels are probably the mightiest of all holy-based creatures, short of the deities themselves.
Next up, Personal Incarnation is kind of interesting, sort of summoning a holy avatar to fight in your stead. I'm not sure what specific mythology this is drawing from, but the effects of the Personal Incarnation -- a powerful warrior battling in stead of the owner, able to go on because the caster redirects damage, and when it's destroyed the caster is heavily injured -- is basically kind of like a Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which adds a layer of hilarity to this.
Besides, I do actually like the general look of this particular muscle-bound Personal Incarnation as he wreaks havoc across the battlefield while the caster looks on in the distance. Easily one of the more interesting cards in White.
Far more obvious holy beasts are creatures like the the pegasi and unicorns. I'm not sure what is it about horses that make them feel so noble and shit. I guess it's the fact that kings and knights are heavily associated with them? The Mesa Pegasus and Pearled Unicorn are both relatively pretty neat depictions of these mythological creatures that look pretty majestic. That's about all I can say -- they both look pretty majestic, but just like the ogres up above, they're "just" a pegasus and a unicorn. Nothing wrong with that, though.
Wall of Swords here is White's obligatory Wall, and I do find it pretty... interesting! I had expected this to be a wall of light or wall of holiness or something, but apparently it's a wall of interlocking magical blades that... somehow keeps out Slimey McGoop over there, despite there being clear gaps between the swords.
If you don't like a Wall of Swords that may or may not keep out Slime beasts, though, look no further than Animate Wall! Animate Wall causes Walls to be able to attack (they normally can't)... but I absolutely LOVE the artwork here. It's easily the silliest art piece in the entirety of Magic: The Gathering, and I am ready to fight anyone who says otherwise.
Just look at this thing! From the grumpy drawn-on face, to the stubby baby hands and stubby feet at the end of the wall, and the fact that it's apparently just a wall that is detached from any sort of building and presumably just waddles around or shuffles around awkwardly... that poor lady is clearly horrified, and while this animated wall might look silly, I would scream my head off if I met that face in an alley at night. Especially if that face is the alley.
Anyway, I take back my words about White being boring and not particularly creative. They gave us Animate Wall, after all.
And we're done with White creatures, by the way, but part of it is because White is sort of the Sorcery and Enchantment-heavy class, with these enchantment 'buffs' of Wards that basically make your creature gain protection from a specific colour. And Circle of Protection: X cards that basically prevents damage from a certain colour. Okay, interesting concept, but must you devote like nearly a quarter of White's entire card pool for these? I've honestly waffled on whether to include these here or in the 'other cards' after the break, but eh, let's just acknowledge them.
Serra Angel is an angel! And that's basically all I can say about her. She's a pretty classic angel, just a lady in white with bird wings attached to her. She's one of the strongest creatures in this set, actually. Again, I keep repeating that this first set really tries to just go through as many fantasy tropes as possible, and Angels are probably the mightiest of all holy-based creatures, short of the deities themselves.
Next up, Personal Incarnation is kind of interesting, sort of summoning a holy avatar to fight in your stead. I'm not sure what specific mythology this is drawing from, but the effects of the Personal Incarnation -- a powerful warrior battling in stead of the owner, able to go on because the caster redirects damage, and when it's destroyed the caster is heavily injured -- is basically kind of like a Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which adds a layer of hilarity to this.
Besides, I do actually like the general look of this particular muscle-bound Personal Incarnation as he wreaks havoc across the battlefield while the caster looks on in the distance. Easily one of the more interesting cards in White.
Far more obvious holy beasts are creatures like the the pegasi and unicorns. I'm not sure what is it about horses that make them feel so noble and shit. I guess it's the fact that kings and knights are heavily associated with them? The Mesa Pegasus and Pearled Unicorn are both relatively pretty neat depictions of these mythological creatures that look pretty majestic. That's about all I can say -- they both look pretty majestic, but just like the ogres up above, they're "just" a pegasus and a unicorn. Nothing wrong with that, though.
Wall of Swords here is White's obligatory Wall, and I do find it pretty... interesting! I had expected this to be a wall of light or wall of holiness or something, but apparently it's a wall of interlocking magical blades that... somehow keeps out Slimey McGoop over there, despite there being clear gaps between the swords.
If you don't like a Wall of Swords that may or may not keep out Slime beasts, though, look no further than Animate Wall! Animate Wall causes Walls to be able to attack (they normally can't)... but I absolutely LOVE the artwork here. It's easily the silliest art piece in the entirety of Magic: The Gathering, and I am ready to fight anyone who says otherwise.
Just look at this thing! From the grumpy drawn-on face, to the stubby baby hands and stubby feet at the end of the wall, and the fact that it's apparently just a wall that is detached from any sort of building and presumably just waddles around or shuffles around awkwardly... that poor lady is clearly horrified, and while this animated wall might look silly, I would scream my head off if I met that face in an alley at night. Especially if that face is the alley.
Anyway, I take back my words about White being boring and not particularly creative. They gave us Animate Wall, after all.
And we're done with White creatures, by the way, but part of it is because White is sort of the Sorcery and Enchantment-heavy class, with these enchantment 'buffs' of Wards that basically make your creature gain protection from a specific colour. And Circle of Protection: X cards that basically prevents damage from a certain colour. Okay, interesting concept, but must you devote like nearly a quarter of White's entire card pool for these? I've honestly waffled on whether to include these here or in the 'other cards' after the break, but eh, let's just acknowledge them.
Of course, not all White sorceries and enchantments are boring! Karma is a pretty flavourful thing to give to the White class. I just really want to know what thing this poor sap did that the equivalent karma is having spiky rose vines wrap him up and slowly choke him to death.
This particular artwork of Swords to Plowshares isn't the most exciting thing (and this is one of those cards that gets reprinted over and over again), but I like the idea of White essentially forcing an enemy knight to repent and convert to pacifism, becoming a lowly, peaceful peasant tilling the fields.
Oh, hey, while Serra Angel is kind of boring, Guardian Angel looks a whole lot more interesting! Interestingly, Guardian Angel isn't a creature you can summon, but an Instant Sorcery where you just pray for the Guardian Angel to show up and negate damage, which is a pretty fun mental image. Guardian Angel is a far more interesting angel than Serra Angel, too, being clearly naked but also not having any genitalia, showing that this isn't just a human with wings. Guardian Angel's also got hair that seems to flow like flames or some shit, gangly arms and generally looks far more interesting than Serra Angel.
Those are some BIG horns, Holy Armor. It's a pretty interesting set of armour, like a weird, mismatched World of Warcraft armour piece. It's definitely not boring, though, which is something I tend to say about a lot of White Cards.
White isn't always nice, as Armageddon and Wrath of God shows. White tends to focus on healing and nice creatures, and buffing their own, but when they do get angry and unleash the holy fury of their nonspecific deity, EVERYTHING BURNS. I do actually like this trope, and it might just be me liking the 'edgy' part of it, but I do find the juxtaposition of cards like "Healing Salve" and "Protection From A Colour" with the darkened wastelands of Armaggedon to be pretty neat. That artwork for Armaggedon is also pretty dang atmospheric, too.
_________________________________________________
Artifacts/Colourless
Equivalent to 'neutral' cards in some modern card games like Hearthstone, artifacts are cards that don't require any specific mana to cast. The flavour is that these are magical items or objects that any magician can use, so long as they have the mana to 'activate' these artifacts, but, unlike, say, summoning goblins or knights or the living dead, you don't have to be a specific type of magic-wielder to utilize these artifacts. It's great from a mechanical standpoint, for sure.The thing is... even more than White, I've personally never found Artifacts all that interesting. Mechanically, as a card I put in my deck? Sure, let's go for a huge discussion about the power of mana-ramping and whatnot. But there's only so many permutations of "magic jewelry" or "powerful sword" before everything blurs together. And the scope of these articles are for the flavour and less for the actual gameplay.
I will thus note that there is a lot of Artifacts that I excluded and place under the break, because I really have nothing to say to cards that are like "Ivory Cup".
So let's talk about Artifact Creatures first, which are exactly what it says on the tin. Creatures that are also artifacts, so you can kind of play them in any deck. Most artifact creatures tend to either be golems or steampunk robots. Clockwork Beast here is some sort of cobbled-together animal that looks like... I dunno, a beaver crossed with a dinosaur? That's not an insult, though, I do really enjoy just how disfigured this thing looks, really looking like something cobbled together to look like some bizarre semblance of a living thing.
The Juggernaut initially seems to just be some sort of siege engine, like a catapult or whatever based on the artwork, but the flavour text implies heavily that the Juggernaut isn't the vehicles, but the giant creature in the distance. It's not living, and it's like this giant walking unliving weapon, and the fact that the artwork doesn't actually show its full body actually makes it look far scarier than just showing, say, a giant angry sphinx robot would be.
Obsianus Golem and Jade Statue are basically statues that can be animated and fight for you -- Jade Statue being a little buddy that animates briefly, while Obsianus Golem is just always alive. Pretty basic stuff. I do like the Obsidian Golem's creepy, glowing eyes and completely expressionless face.
Chaos Orb here is famous for having a shitballs-crazy effect -- physically flip the Chaos Orb card into the air, and it will destroy whatever card it touches. Obviously, it's a horrible effect to actually do on a physical card game, and Chaos Orb has gained a funny reputation thanks to this.
Mostly, I just really like the sheer psychedelic bizarreness of the artwork. It's... it's either a Moon or a giant spherical brain or a giant meatball, with beady red eyes and a large, gaping mouth, vomiting lava into a pool. Okay!
Living Wall here is... wow, I forgot this thing exists. And how is this an 'artifact' creature? It's like this wall made entirely out of flesh, like some tumourous abomination that you might see in games that treat Elder Gods as giant fleshy beasts. As the flavour blurb notes, it's a constantly-regenerating wall of flesh. Teeth, eyes and sinew everywhere... it's already pretty disgusting and works amazingly well as a horror piece, but the extra layer of WTF-ness is when you realize that the huge, central 'eye' isn't an eye at all, but an embryo's... amniotic sac, I guess? It's just such a horrifyingly bizarre piece of detail in an already horrifying piece of artwork.
Probably the most ridiculous and my favourite out of the "just an item" Artifacts (and there are a lot) are these two, the Glasses of Urza and Sunglasses of Urza. Mr. Urza, one of the most prominent characters in MTG (his story is super long, here's a link) is like this huge, huge badass. Yet out of all the artifacts that this powerful mage wields, two of them are apparently his reading glasses and his fancy, Willy Wonka sunglasses. What a great introduction to one of your main characters!
(These cards would probably give me a lot more to say if they had flavour text).
The Hive is just a gigantic hive that is... somehow counted as an 'artifact', despite it just being a nest that spawns giant wasps. Are these robotic giant wasps? Is this an Insecticon hive, and that's why it's counted as an artifact? Eh. I like it because it's got bugs, I suppose.
Black Lotus is notorious for being the overpowered card, and is apparently super-duper expensive and whatnot. It's... it's a black-coloured lotus flower with no real flavour, though, so I have nothing to say here. It's like super-mana-ramping, which I can definitely see as being very, very mighty indeed.
I guess it can stay here as an example of "just an item".
These are probably two of my other favourite "just an item" Artifacts, although that's honestly not a particularly low bar to clear. Helm of Charzuk just looks bizarrely interesting, this weird helm that seems to be made out of the skull of some bizarre creature. I'm not sure what a Nevinyrral's Disk is, but it's a disk with squiddy tentacles pouring out, and a Sarlacc mouth inside it, so it's probably eldritch or demonic in some way. It apparently destroys everything, which is... pretty damn horrifying for a little hand-held disc to do!
I dunno. I just kinda like these artworks, I guess. Mana Vault really looks like some sort of magical prison in hell or something, with glowing flames below it, a cube that is suspended mid-air with no real explanation, and chains tying it to the ground. It probably houses a demon. Or that dude from Karma, for doing whatever horrible thing it did.
Cyclopean Tomb is just so... so weird. It's obviously meant to look like an eye, even with those nice encrusted detailing on the side of it... but in the pupil is a humanoid figure being squeezed into the hole, while the rest of the actual eyeball and eyelid seemed to be woven together out of some material. So what is this thing? A prison for cyclopes that looks like an eye? Is it a human being imprisoned in the eye of a particularly large cyclops? Is it just symbolic? What is it? It's certainly single-handedly more bizarre and far more interesting than the 25+ other Artifact cards I can't find anything to talk about.
_________________________________________________
As with the previous bit, this is a brief little recap of all the other cards that I just plain don't really find interesting enough to talk about in the full review. I do have some one-liner commentaries for... for some of them, anyway.
Hahaha, look at that utterly daft looking giant mole monster on the artwork for Burrowing.
"Chaoslace" really has some really colourful art, huh? Really expected that to be something in Blue, honestly, seeing its artwork and general effect.
YOU MUST BE SWIFT AS A RAGING RIVER. Um, sorry. It's interesting that Red does get its fair share of 'natural disasters', too, although they are far more mountain-flavoured compared to Green's.
That artwork for Earthbind is really... uh... someone has bondage on their mind that day, huh? Also, really would've thought that it's the sort of ability that Green would use, but I guess actual vines and ropes made out of rocks and earth are different enough. I also really like the flavour of False Orders.
I... really don't have anything at all to say about any of the White cards, honestly. Do I really have to go and talk about the effects? Dang.
Okay, the flavour of Island Sanctuary 'hiding away' you and your army unless the enemy specifically has a way to counter islands is neat.
Crusade is a bit unfortunate nowadays, though I do think that it wasn't made with any particularly harmful intentions in mind. If not for the wording of the effect, I do think that religious fervour does fit the flavour of White.
I like Balance's effect. It just splits everything equally between two players. The crusader holding the scales also has a neat helmet.
And we finally close off white with a couple more holy/religious-themed spells. Neat! I like the glowing dude in Holy Strength.
I will have some trouble talking about the Artifacts. So many of them are just items. None of them have flavour text! Some are almost there, almost interesting. Like Forcefield, which exists, apparently. Wooden Sphere's got nice art. Oh hey, a rogue Mishra reference, he's going to be important in lore. Library of Leng's a reference to the Cthulhu Mythos.
Sol Ring! I know you, you show up in practically every Commander-format deck. Shows how overpowered some cards are. I like the ridiculousness of the Soul Net, being a net that catches ghosts. And I would just like to point out the nice art for Throne of Bone and Time Vault.
These are "just items". I really, really don't have much to say about much of these. Basalt Monolith's a 2001 reference. I like the art on Winter Orb. And... yeah, sorry. I tried. I went back a couple of times to take a crack of them, but I just can't find much to say. Antiquities is gonna be fun...
Oh, hey, we've got another series of jewelry, each corresponding to each colour. Like White's Protection from X and X Ward things, they're... they're probably neat, kind of, from a gameplay standpoint, but are pretty boring to look at.
(So of course, the Mox cycle are some of the absolute most powerful cards in the game. That tracks.)
Basically, you gain mana as resources depending on basic mana cards that you put in your deck. With the original set, you get a whole ton of other land cards that can serve as either one of two mana colours, and they're basically pretty basic combination of "what is x + y?" configurations. Like all land cards, I have absolutely nothing to say about them, even moreso than the artifacts.
Basically, you gain mana as resources depending on basic mana cards that you put in your deck. With the original set, you get a whole ton of other land cards that can serve as either one of two mana colours, and they're basically pretty basic combination of "what is x + y?" configurations. Like all land cards, I have absolutely nothing to say about them, even moreso than the artifacts.
Also, damn, the templating of these with the concentric colour squares are a gigantic eyesore. That's perhaps one of the things I must say about old Magic. The templating and the format is... not the best.
And that's it for Unlimited, the very first huge set of Magic: The Gathering. It's been really fun going through these, as cynical as I might sound talking about some of these cards. It is clear that Magic needed to go through some growing pains as it is obviously brand-new and there was nothing like it before. Maybe some time in the future I'll pick and choose all of these classic monsters and see how they have been interpreted in the future. And... I'm quite excited to see what we have in the next couple of expansions!
As someone who knows a decent amount about MTG, these reviews are interesting to read(In a good way!) Seeing the cards effects/history be mostly ignored in favor of looking purely at the art/flavor text gives a interesting perspective. Like you'll spend more time writing on Granite Gargoyle than Serra Angel(who at the time was like THE white powerhouse creature and is generally seen as iconic) And then you look at the Moxen and as a sidetone mention " they're probably neat, kind of, from a gameplay standpoint" when the Moxen are considered so iconic and overpowered that they make up 5 of the Power 9 slots. It's just such a unique perspective to see that I haven't gotten anywhere else before.
ReplyDeleteI do dabble in Magic: The Gathering a bit, mostly with borrowed cards, quick forays into M:TG's not-always-great digital adaptations, and relatively more recently with friends in the Shadows Over Innistrad block, but there are so many cards and rules, and I am such a casual player that I really don't claim to really understand any more than the basic rules given to me in the basic sets. Like, I'm the sort of very, very casual player that will understand how a strong deck operates, but not individual cards.
DeleteAnd, well, I did one of these for Yu-Gi-Oh a while back, talking about the flavour, but M:TG have always held a more significant attempt at trying to build a cohesive internal world even while the main focus is (rightfully so) at game balance and the like. I haven't looked at all the M:TG sets as closely as I did the original "Unlimited" set, but I do know that M:TG puts a lot of emphasis on flavour and set coherence, which is why this is a fun little exercise for me -- I had wanted to do this with Hearthstone, initially, but I've had way too much Hearthstone content on this blog and frankly I'll just end up ranting about how the character was cool in World of Warcraft, or whatever, so I decided to delve into the longest-running TCG series and one that I am pretty blind about, flavour-wise.
But the intention of this series, for me at least, is to focus more on flavour... and as powerful as things like the Moxen are (and obviously instant mana generation is pretty damn powerful -- I know that much, at least) flavour wise they're just sort of pretty jewelry... Which doesn't really lend a lot for me to talk about. Scouting a bit ahead, I'm pretty sure a significant amount of the cards in Antiquities will end up being shrunken down to the "yeaaaah I'm sorry I don't have anything to say" sequence.