Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #16 - Urza's Legacy

The second part of the Urza block, Urza's Legacy.
 
Not really much to say here other than a repeat of what I said before -- all three parts of the Urza block were originally written as a single article by me and split apart due to length.

I really don't have a whole ton to say about Legacy, really. We'll discuss the storyline before the break this time, because I simply don't find enough cards that are interesting enough to justify the normal length of these 'reviewing monsters' articles.

• Click here for the previous part, Urza's Saga.
• Click here for the next part, Urza's Destiny.
• Click here for the index.

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And one of the secondary characters gets a legendary card, and that's Radiant, Archangel, who ends up filling the antagonistic role of what initially appears to be an obstructive bureaucrat with a point -- that the planeswalkers are fucking up the artificial Serra's plane by dragging it into the Phyrexian war. But then turns out she's either insane, or corrupted by Phyrexians, or both, which is kind of a pretty lame 'out' of writing a morally ambiguous character. Oh well.

Anthroplasm is just such a horrifying creature! Ron Spencer seems to be M:TG's go-to artist for the gruesome shapeshifters, particularly in the Rath block, and the Anthroplasm (anthro means 'man', so this is a protoplasm made out of man) looks pretty horrifying! From the way that the creature just bursts out of the otherwise-normal waist and legs of a human but then twists and melts into this horrifying mass of gore and sinew... complete with that fucked-up looking hand and a pitifully screaming face. Pretty nasty!


BEEBLES! We don't really get to see much of the Beebles after this cycle because apparently people out there hate that one out of the hundreds of cards in a single expansion could be a cutesy, jolly kiddy bit with little pink meat-fairies. But honestly, I love it! Bouncing Beebles are far, far more fun than yet another generic Blue-mana wizard sitting in his laboratory anyway, and I do love the bizarre swarm just fucking around with the artifacts in some poor mage's laboratory. They're neat.

I have no idea what Palinchron is supposed to be. It's this weird-ass pelican with the consistency of rock, and the ability to contort its neck and spine in unnatural ways? And it has some unreasonably buff wing muscles? It's certainly a bizarre-looking illusion creature. And honestly, at this point I'm just guessing that "illusions" are just any utterly bizarre creature born out of a mad wizard's imagination. In this case, it's a bizarre rock pelican contortionist that will activate entire lands and refill mana when it arrives on the battlefield.


The Walking Sponge is a pretty fun creature! It's clearly based on those crabs that walk around with anemones and whatnot on its back, but man, what a pretty fun artwork! The massive crab is walking around with a bunch of volcano-esque sponges, and apparently it shoots out these mutant, electrical fishes out like cannonballs? I think? It's also considered as a "Sponge" creature as opposed to a crab, which makes me think that it's either meant to show a sponge that has mutated a bunch of crab-like limbs, or that the crab is the accessory mind-controlled by a sponge.

Plague Beetle is such a bizarre, creepy beetle, and I really do love just how nasty this creature's face looks. There's just something unnatural about plopping on a maw full of demon fangs onto a giant beetle monster, y'know? I really do love the colours on this piece, too. It's colourful while at the same time still screaming that this thing is likely unnaturally toxic.


And more Phyrexian monsters! The Eviscerator is a somewhat more humanoid example of a Phyrexian, and I think it's meant to represent Kerrick, a Phyrexian agent that shows up in the storyline for Urza's Legacy. It's not the most exciting creature out there since it's just a gangly cyborg-ghoul, though it's still pretty neat.

The Phyrexian Broodlings looks really mismatched, and its flavour text notes how Kerrick "used parts from one beast to build another", which really does sell the hodgepoge nature of these creatures, and why they look so oddly mismatched. My favourite grisly detail has to be the painful-looking way the shoulder of the foreground creature seems to be attached. There's a lot of bizarre details going on with random bits and bobs of machines all over the place, and the creature in the background's head just looking so wrong.


Phyrexian Defiler is another giant cyborg-titan, leaning more towards the 'robot' part of things. It appears to be some sort of massive plague-carrier, because the Phyrexian cards in this set have a slight plague bent to them, and I do love the screaming face under that massive dome. Those scythe-arms look pretty neat, too, and I do like the random bits of wires and whatnot. There's a squad of these things in the background, too.

The Phyrexian Debaser, on the other hand, seems to be the airborne version of the Defiler, and we see the specimen in the foreground actually using some nozzles to spread the gas contained on the massive green sphere on its body. I do like the bat wings, and that 'head' that could either be interpreted as an animal skull or just a fancy boat-front does look neat. Again, another pretty neat Phyrexian design.

Both the Defiler and Debaser have flavour text that detail the horrifying effects that happen from a certain illness, presumably the plague they're spreading.


And the Phyrexian Plaguelord is presumably the dude that's responsible for this plague, and I'm actually not sure what's going on here. I mean, sure, he's a more humanoid figure than most Phyrexians, but where's the "head" or the head-equivalent? What is that bizarre contraption jutting out of his left shoulder? The anatomy of this dude is just so all over the place and really sells this thing as not being human at all, it just shares the vague body shape.

And I'm not even sure what the fuck is going on with Bone Shredder. It's got a bunch of purple wings that resemble some sort of beautiful sea slug, while the rest of its body is like an upside-down wasp with approximately three dozen crab-claws that's apparently in the process of grinding some poor dude's arm bones into dust. Is that what this creature is meant to be? Just a massive mutant upside-down crab-wasp that goes around crushing bones? That's a pretty weird-looking Phyrexian creature. I like it.


We've got a Goblin Welder, and I really do like that apparently he's being moved down by a pulley system that's attached to his pants and hat while he's going around doing some wacky goblin tinkering on these robots' faces. It's very old-school cartoony, and you just know that there's going to be some hilarious slapstick going on here. And failing that, apparently the goblin welder broke the robot and turned it into an ashtray. Okay!

Goblin Medics has a pertty fun artwork, although they're not doing too poorly of a job, actually. They have little ambulance hats and are evacuating the goblin in the middle! Hilariously the cards actually just deal damage to people.


There are a fair bit of Viashino in this set, but none of them are doing anything particularly noteworthy, just generic 'cool lizardfolk' poses. Except for Viashino Cutthroat, who apparently earned his stripes by killing a particularly lazy goblin scout that's fallen asleep. Very cutthroat of you, Viashino man.

Pygmy Pyrosaur is here because I kind of enjoy the artwork of this little spindly lizard that breathes fire. It's a pretty neat creature that doesn't necessarily fall into the "obligatory Red-mana hydra/ogre/cyclops/roc/goblin" that has became kind of stale as of late.


We got the sentient Swamp-Thing-style nature spirit Maro back in Mirage. And now we get a named Maro, Multani the Maro-Sorcerer, who's pretty neat! It draws from the basic Maro artwork while having a neat, stern expression. He's a guardian of the forest that come to blows with Urza due to some past sins, or something... and honestly, I'm just happy that some non-humans actually end up seeing play as legendary creatures.

Might of Oaks! MIGHT OF OAKS! Run from your lives, it's fucking squirrelzilla, and it's going to crush all civilization! Bow before its might and despair!


The Thran War Machine actually looks ridiculously clunky, but I love it for it. I think the idea is that unlike the Phyrexians, the Thran, being their predecessors, are a lot more just dudes in mechanical suits of armour? I do love the absolutely wacky proportions on the Thran War Machine, as well as that.... 'face', which is sort of embedded within the 'chest' and the 'shoulders' of the robot. Admittedly, this War Machine looks like it'd probably topple over if a treefolk tackled it a bit hard, but it's still neat!






AND THE STORY CONTINUES!


...and here we go with the story of the second expansion, Urza's Legacy! As its name implies, it basically involves Urza creating the Legacy artifacts. Urza returned to the Tolarian Academy under the guise to oversee the rebuilding, and there he learned that a Phyrexian sleeper agent called Kerrick had made it onto Tolaria, but was trapped in one of the many time bubbles in the academy (Slow Motion). While trapped, Kerrick was able to create powerful machines like the Eviscerator and the Phyrexian Broodlings (covered above).

Not shown here is Urza's failed attempt to destroy the Phyrexians. A Tolarian student, Jhoira, assisted him in this endeavour, and while they did not destroy Kerrick, they managed to rescue a fellow student, Teferi. (Who we would meet later on as an ancient mage in the Mirage block).


Urza brings Jhoira and Teferi back to Shiv, in order to get them to help out to operate the Thran mana rig. While there, he finds the Viashino at war with a goblin tribe (Rivalry), although Urza quickly managed to managed to realize that the goblins were actually naturals at fixing the Thran Mana Rig (Crawlspace). Urza and the Viashino begrudgingly operated with the goblins to help fix the Thran Mana Rig (Impending Disaster, Defense Grid).


Urza then goes off to the forests of Yavimaya to gather wood in order to construct a ship able to travel through planes. However, he is attacked by the mighty Maro sorcerer Multani, and imprisoned by Treefolk Mystics. Multani imprisons Urza, blaming him for the past destruction of Argoth (Defense of the Heart; Wing Snare).

Kerrick, meanwhile, expanded his influence, blighting the land on Tolaria (Subversion), and eventually unleashing a massive swarm of mechanical horrors, taking advantage of the time fluxes of the land (No Mercy; Brink of Madness).


Not shown in the cards; Urza manages to talk down Multani, who recognizes Urza's greater purpose, and with the help of the mighty elemental, Urza was able to destroy Kerrick and his forces. Multani then presents Urza with a mighty Weatherseed from a Weatherseed Treefolk (Cloud of Faeries), which would provide the material for the unique ship Urza is trying to create.



Given a second chance to right his wrongs, Urza then continues researching and building the mighty planeswalking ship.... the Weatherlight. (Urza's Blueprints; Opportunity)

Afterwards, Urza travels to Serra's Realm, now ruled by Radiant, in order to find a power source for the Weatherlight. Serra's Realm has been collapsing, and Urza means to use the Weatherlight to evacuate the plane, while simultaneously using the energy of the collapsing plane to power his ship.


The Archangel Radiant, ignoring the signs of the plane's destruction, has been intent on bringing peace and quiet back to the realm and purging every single trace of Phyrexian corruption. Radiant is openly hostile at Urza's return (Knighthood; Hope and Glory) and rallies her forces against Urza, who she blames for 'bringing the dark ones'.

Urza, however, quickly discovers that Radiant's targets are the people of the realm, and that Radiant and her angels themselves have been tainted by Phyrexia, and are actually funneling energy towards the realm of Phyrexia. Urza's attempts to beseech Radiant to release those that are innocent was met with resistance. (Angelic Curator) With the aid of Jhoira, Karn and the Weatherlight, Urza planeshifted the refugees (Blessed Reversal), but ended up facing Radiant herself in combat. Radiant rips the two mighty Thran stones from Urza's eyes, the Mightstone and the Weakstone, and was annihilated in the resulting explosion. Urza then uses the resulting energy from the collapse of Serra's plane to escape with the refugees in tow.

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The rest of the expansion of Urza's Legacy.


Buncha knights.


Buncha holy looking people.


Buncha angels doing angelic stuff.


Buncha Opal things.


Okay, Giant Crab's neat. So is the weird little imp-gremlin thing on Fleeting Image. 


A bunch of faeries, plus a drake and a raven.


"Delusions of Mediocrity" is such a fun little name for a card. Like, that poor mage has such a low self esteem that even in his delusions, the best he could come up with is mediocrity. Poor dude.


Man, Karn's face in the artwork for Miscalculation is just so expressionless and contrasts so hilariously to those other two mages who has got those "shit something blew up in my face" anime hair.


Tethered Skirge is kinda like the other Skirges, and I wanted to make the 'rest of the cards' all sort of organized. Fog of Gnats and Giant Cockroach are cool insects, but they're basically the two ways to show an insect monster in fiction -- a massive all-consuming swarm, or a single big example.


I'm not sure why Lurking Skirge is an enchantment. Eh. Phyrexian Reclamation has a pretty nasty-looking ghoul in the foreground.


More Black spells. Honestly, these all kind of have pretty cool artwork, too.


Bunch of Red dudes! The Ghitu tribe shows up here. They're fire-dancers. Okay!


Also, there are more Viashino.


A bunch of obligatory Red-aligned animals. It's kinda-sorta obligatory that we have a hydra and either a phoenix or a roc in each block's Red lineup, huh?


Bunch more red spells...


And a bunch more red spells. And a bloated toad. 


More Green-aligned animals...


...and more Green-aligned elves.


Yavimaya Scion has such a nonplussed expression on his dumb tree face, like he's sure he's going to fuck up these lumberjacks' saw. Hidden Gibbons show that the elves finally recruited animals scarier than an elk.


Even more Green spells. Rancor's artwork looks pretty badass.


More artifacts! I really love that Jhoira's Toolbox is this weird robot-beetle thing, which is neat. Beast of Burden apparently gives poor Karn some existential crisis.


Even more artifacts...


And artifacts.... Thran Weaponry is kinda cool, I guess.


Wheel of Torture is brutal. And then we've got lands, I guess.


I never have anything interesting to say about lands beyond "the art is purdy". And the art is sure pretty!