- Click here for the previous part, Invasion.
- Click here for the next part, Odyssey.
- Click here for the index.
For the most part, what I can gather from the story in the accompanying novel is basically our heroes moving and setting up individual battles in individual battlegrounds. Crovax, the ex-Weatherlight-crew member, kills and cannibalizes Invasion's big bad, Tsabo Tavoc, after her failure. Urza goes off to Urborg, Eladamri goes off to Keld, Rhammidarigaaz and the dragons go to Shiv... all that fun stuff as our heroes go off to new battlegrounds and some of them make allies with the beings that come from Rath like the Skyshroud elves and the lich-lord Dralnu (who turns out to be a traitor). The planeswalkers that Urza gathered travel to Phyrexia itself, attempting to blow it up with soul bombs, but Tevesh Szat betrays them. Tahngarth the minotaur fights Greven il-Vec and kills him, but the long-missing Ertai appears and kidnaps Gerrard. Gerrard is brought before Crovax, who promises that Yawgmoth, the Phyrexians' god-king, could being back the dead Hanna. To prove this, Crovax kills Squee the goblin, and then brings him back.Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Darigaaz the dragon manages to successfully resurrect all the other primeval dragons, only to realize that their power is uncontrollable, causing Darigaaz to sacrifice himself to deny the prophecy of the primeval dragons from being completed... but not before the Weatherlight's crew and other allied forces have to face off the other rampaging dragons. Urza meets face-to-face with Yawgmoth, who attempts to recruit Urza to the Phyrexians' side. Yawgmoth reveals that Urza's long-thought-to-be-dead brother, Mishra, is still alive and has been tortured for thousands of years in Phyrexia since the Brother's War... but it's the promise of learning all of the arts of artificing that ends up causing Urza to bend the knee. So simultaneously, Gerrard and Urza end up seemingly bowing down to the Phyrexians. Cliffhanger!
March of Souls is here because I really, really like the artwork. I'm not sure if this is what it's meant to represent because it's just honestly kind of my interpretation from the novel summary and stuff, but I'm going to assume that March of Souls represents the souls of slain warriors and defenders of Dominaria who's rising up to fight as spirits? That is pretty cool.
As usual, White is the most boring one for me, but Voice of All is a pretty cool-looking badass angel. She's got a scythe and that bizarre two-ended weapon. What is that thing? It's got a spearhead on one end and a huge chunky blade that juts out to the side on the other end. It's weird. The name 'Voice of All' is pretty cool, although in practice she just picks and blocks a certain colour. The name and the artwork (her wings are all of M:TG's mana colours except for black) seems to indicate that she was probably originally meant to be a multi-colour card? Eh.
We're jumping straight to Blue because... well, honestly, while the story is certainly exciting, both Planeshift and Apocalypse don't really have a lot of interesting monsters or cards I want to talk about. There are a couple of cool things, though, like Sea Smidd! What is a Smidd? Why is it a 'beast' and not a sea serpent or a leviathan or anything else? It appears to have the body of a sea serpent, being large and undulating, but it's also got tentacles jutting out of its body. At least I think those are tentacles; they wouldn't probably help out much to catch prey for a creature with such a huge screaming mouth. Maybe they are the Sea Smidd's young, and the Sea Smidd gives birth from pores on its neck? Or something? I do like this, it looks pretty cute.
We've had our share of M:TG elementals that embody the sea or the storm or whatever, but I always find it cool whenever the M:TG artists manage to get creative in making a 'face in the waves' look different than what you'd expect from one of these things. I like that it's got little hands made out of the waves' form.
The Arctic Merfolk is here just because I find her looking cool. I'm not sure which part, exactly. The almost crustacean-like head formation? The lionfish-esque fins on her hips? That thin, tapering eel-like lower body? I dunno. She's one of the merfolk designs that looks cool without necessarily looking monstrous, and looks graceful without looking like she stepped out of a Disney movie. That's a pretty cool balance.
Dralnu's Pet is... umm.... what? I'm not sure what's going on and I'm not sure if I'm meant to understand what is going on. It's very goopy, and it's got a vaguely humanoid body that sort of reminds me of a xenomorph? If you removed the xenomorph's face and attached another long, ridged head onto the other side. The whole consistency of this thing looks like it's covered in moss or something. It's a shapeshifter, while Dralnu himself is an evil undead lich-lord... but Dralnu's Pet is pure-Blue? Whatever it is, it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Morgue Toad is just here because I really like the artwork. Sure, it's just a more humanoid-looking toad, but the addition of sharp fangs around a circular mouth and a forked tail makes it look a fair bit more reptilian and predatory than it otherwise would be, fitting for a proper Black-mana card. Apparently the Phyrexians, upon plane-shifting into Dominaria decided that, yep, local Urborg toads are prime for weaponizing.
And we're back with yet another grisly Phyrexian zombie-monster drawn by Ron Spencer, the Maggot Carrier.
Now here are actual Phyrexian horrors! We're winding down the Phyrexian invasions and I honestly do think that my favourite Phyrexian zombie-machine-abominations were near the beginning of the Phyrexian saga. A lot of these later ones are just creepy-looking robots. But there's nothing wrong with that, designs like the Phyrexian Bloodstock still looks pretty cool! What's there not to like about a bird-headed, four armed, spider-legged monstrosity made out of wires and rust? It's even got a buzzsaw hand! Presumably it replenishes its 'bloodstock' by, well, buzzsawing up these dumb human soldiers that run headlong into him.
A "scuta" is defined as "the second dorsal sclerite in each thoracic segment of an insect." And googling that up makes me realize what Phyrexian Scuta was meant to be. I thought he's just a weird brain-exposed cyborg-zombie-man, but instead this is actually a fly-headed cyborg-zombie-man! That makes it so much cooler; what I thought were little beady eyes are instead the Scuta's nostrils, and what I thought were exposed brain ridges were actually the segmented fly-eyes. The entire vibe of the Scuta doesn't scream 'bug' at all, and it's just the head. The rest of the body is a pretty run-of-the-mill cool looking apocalypse cyborg warrior, with a pretty cool clawed hand and one of the fancier-looking shields I've seen a Phyrexian monstrosity carry around. A pretty unique looking Phyrexian monster.
And, yeah, we don't have a whole ton of cards to talk about this time around, like I said. We're already two colours down! The bulk of the expansion's going to be stuck in the post-break segment, I'm afraid. Planeswalker's Scorn is pretty neat, though. I'm not sure if this is Yawgmoth, an avatar of Mr. Moth, or just a random Phyrexian minion, but I do like... whatever the hell is going on here. I'm not entirely sure what's going on other than he's got a bunch of squid tentacles and might otherwise have a vaguely-humanoid body above it, but he sure is being scornful! This is where a flavour text would've been helpful, I think.
Hey, it's Tahngarth, Talruum Hero! Thanks to how much the novel and the cards in the Weatherlight expansion focuses on the crew, I feel like those characters are far more memorable than some of the other names or groups (like the 'nine Planeswalkers') in the saga. So it's neat that Tahngarth the angry minotaur man gets a card. Mostly I just appreciate that the non-human charactesr get some chance to shine. I do find Tahngarth's design interesting -- he's got back-swept cow horns and an extra pair of almost dog-ear-like ridges, which certainly gives him and most Dominarian minotaurs a unique silhouette. And he sure is killing all those Phyrexian fools! I do like that despite being the most violent macho manly-man minotaur out there, Tahngarth seems to have his hide patterned after a regular milk cow.
I tend to talk about monsters mostly in these reviews, but occasionally the concept and execution of an enchantment card is so beautiful. Like Deadapult. That one mage is just launching some angry zombie that's been set on fire at the enemy. That's it. That's the whole crux of the card. You blow up a zombie and you set it on fire and you launch it at the enemy for 2 damage. That's glorious.
The Magnigoth Treefolk are apparently the largest beings in Dominaria, basically being trees the size of mountains. Apparently Verdeloth, the legendary treefolk, from the previous expansion, is a Magnigoth Treefolk! I do like that their arms and legs are just giant clumps of roots, and that there are two smaller Magnigoths in the background. And, more importantly, the foot of a stomping one is in the foreground right next to a surviving Phyrexian reaver to illustrate scale. Can you even call these guys 'treefolk' instead of, oh, I dunno, 'junglefolk' at this point?
We still get more Kavus since these two expansions are sequels to Invasion, although we're sort of winding down. Alpha Kavu is... it sure has a nasty-looking mouth, yeah? Although that, I feel, is mostly from a forced-perspective angle. I don't think it's much more interesting than a regular Kavu otherwise. Amphibious Kavu is a lot more interesting for the fact that it's became a fish-frog-dinosaur, with webbed limbs and a ridge of fins, and apparently it evolved exclusively to prey on merfolk. And, judging by its effect, this amphibious mutation doesn't just make it good against aquatic creatures (the Blue side of the things), it also helps them fight Black-mana creatures for some reason. Okay, sure.
Nemata, Grove Guardian is just one of the many nature beings that fight the Phyrexians. And... he doesn't show up in the novels as far as I can tell, neither does he have any flavour text. Boo! He's a pretty cool plant-person, though, and I do like the visual of vines and brambles just seemingly shedding off of him. And yet he stands so tall and regal. He has a humanoid silhouette, but I don't think you can make out a conventional face underneath that bramble-crown, which is a nice bit of detail I liked.
Root Greevil is, as far as I can tell, the only Greevil that has ever showed up in M:TG. Not to be confused with Greevil from Pokemon Colosseum, or the Greevils from Dota 2. I guess it's just there for them to make a pun between 'greed' and 'evil'? Eh. It's a weird-looking beast, some kind of four-armed, vaguely lizard-like creature with a mantis head and a bunch of hair running down its back. Pretty neat-looking weirdo, although nothing particularly exciting.
Oh, hello, Ertai the Corrupted. This isn't the first time we've seen you, although these pair of expansions will be the last time we see you. He went from arrogant wizard to the one that was left behind by the crew to eventually being mutated into a bald dude with like eight strands of hair, a pair of extra arms growing out of his elbows, and some big, chunky World of Warcraft shoulder pauldrons. He doesn't keep this Phyrexian-mutated form for long on account of the Phyrexian saga ending in these two expansions, but at least it's not just a boring costume change. Oh, and also, he's a White/Blue/Black triple-colour. I'm not sure what is left of this crazy traitor is still White-mana, although I suppose that's a leftover from when he was a White/Blue wizard?
Doomsday Specter is pretty cool, though. And, sure, the figure with bat wings and the hood is neat and all, but the mount, this giant flying winged snake? That looks extra cool. I especially like how thin the limbs that connect the wings to the snake's main body are -- which would be heavily impractical in real life, but this is fantasy land and it's a specter anyway, who are you to argue with a specter about how his mount's wings defy physics? Actually, what's to say that what I think is a rider and a mount aren't actually joined together, like a hideous flying-snake-man version of a Nuckelavee?
Ooo boy, look at that badass face design for the Horned Kavu. Apparently, the Horned Kavu is mutated from the Rath overlay, and it's resulted in this far, far more intelligent-looking Kavu? I really do love the head design, though, it almost looks like an elaborate tribal mask of sorts. And between the more humanoid gait that the Horned Kavu has and the very intelligent and cruel-looking eyes, I am choosing to believe that the Horned Kavu has basically been elevated into more of sentient being than just rampaging Godzilla-expies. I don't think this really goes anywhere, though, and it's just one cool card.
Speaking of being mutated by the Rath overlay, Marsh Crocodile's art seems to be showing... something? I wouldn't call either creature on both sides of the portal as a 'crocodile', though. The one on the left looks more like a lumbering dinosaur, and the one on the right is like a weird lizard. And I'm not sure what's going on, I guess the unstable Dominaria/Rath overlay is causing creatures to get mutated or displaced or something? Are the two reptiles still the same creature, mutated through the overlay, or are they two creatures from two worlds fused together? What's going on here?
Okay, I guess it's actually showing these creatures transforming, I suppose. Silver Drake is apparently some sort of a duck or seagull, and now it's transformed not only into a drake, but a metallic, silver drake. Ancient Spider, in addition to being a very cool image of a spider perching on top of an ancient, overgrown tower, also has a pretty cool flavour text. "It outlived both king and castle". So did this spider grow from being just a random spider in the castle that grew to gigantic size?
\Two multi-coloured Kavu, and they look pretty interesting. Radiant Kavu is all very feathery and stuff, very grisly-looking as it's crushing that Phyrexian creature, and apparently the 'White' part of the Radian Kavu comes from the fact that it's got the ability to unleash a blinding light to protect itself and black Blue and Black damage. Okay!
The Sparkcaster isn't even recognizable as a Kavu anymore, huh? I'm not sure what it looks like, but the combination of green blobs and the somewhat wood-like texture made me think that it's some kind of spore-sac-carrying Treefolk or something. This Kavu also seems to be appearing from a portal, and based on its name, it's shooting lightning out of its body. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's probably one of the weirder Kavus from this block.
Oh, hey, it's another Snidd. I guess it's not a mere sea serpent, since Razing Snidd here is a Red/Black creature. It's... I'm not sure what it is, though. Some kind of creature with four legs clustered near the back of its body, and two giant mantis-esque arms that are as large as columns of rock, boring into the ground? And it's got the face of a particularly ugly anglerfish, plus a cluster of tentacles on its back? That sure is a 'Snidd', I suppose. Pretty cool monster design regardless.
Oh, wait, the loon is a real bird? I didn't know that. None of them are Sawtooth Loons, though, and between the saw-like teeth, the spikes on its beak and back, the pterodactyl claws on its very angular wings and the weird way that the legs are attached to the body, the Sawtooth Loon sure only superficially shares a real-life loon's appearance. And it gets more creepy when you look at the head. The Sawtooth loon not only lacks eyes, it's got a mass of red wormy flesh where the neck abruptly ends. It reminds me of some creepy tube-worm or snail or something, only instead of worm anatomy this thing has a hideous bird-beak extending out of the red flesh. A far nastier-looking design than I first gave it credit for.
And hey, speaking of old friends, it's the Skyship Weatherlight as a card! I don't think there's much to be said here, we've seen the Weatherlight depicted on cards over and over again, but here it is as an individual Legendary Artifact. I really don't have much to say here, it sure is neat!
Draco is... a pretty nasty looking zombie-robot-dragon. I really do love how Draco is just bursting out of the ground like a corpse rising from the dead, and how pieces of its robotic structure is just sloughing off from its arms and face. Pretty cool artwork, even if I don't think Draco actually plays any sort of role in the story.
Ooooh this is cool, Stratadon's name and design just brings to mind a giant elephant, only this elephant is a giant steampunk war-machine. I love the two giant tusks, I love the little spearheads poking out of its featureless 'face' (cockpit?) and back, and I love the little robotic bird and armies there for scale. And, yeah, I know that M:TG gets some rap for combining sci-fi and fantasy together a lot, but if it results in cool-looking things like Stratadon, I won't complain!
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...and the cliffhanger is continued in the final set in the Invasion block, Apocalypse! Gerrard and Urza, the main characters, have seemingly been swayed by Yawgmoth and pledge allegiance to Phyrexia. Yawgmoth teleports Urza and Gerrard into an arena, promising only to fulfill the greatest wish of whoever wins the duel. Gerrard wins the duel, cutting off Urza's head. Instead of resurrecting Hanna, Yawgmoth sends one of his avatars that looks like Hanna to meet Gerrard. The human sees through the deception and attacks the false Hanna, unknowingly attacking Yawgmoth's true essence hidden within the Hanna avatar. A panicked Yawgmoth flings Gerrard away into the Stronghold.
Meanwhile, on Dominaria, the silver golem Karn have been regaining his memory since he broke his oath of pacifism in Invasion, now having access to lots of knowledge from the past. With that, Karn combines the Weatherlight with the Thran Tome, turning the flying ship into aTransformer sentient artifact creature. Multani the Maro-Sorcerer, discoevring that Benalia, Llanowar and the ocean's merfolk countries having all falen, teleports a chunk of Yavimaya forest to take the war literally to Urborg, driving Crovax away. Gerrard arrives in the Stronghold and reunites with Squee, and the two fight and ultimately slay Ertai and Crovax. The arrival of the Weatherlight and an army of dwarf saboteurs invade the Phyrexians' stronghold and set off a volcano to wipe out the Phyrexian forces.
The rest of the surviving planeswalkers on Phyrexia decide to set off the soul bomb manually, gouging a massive chunk of Phyrexia. This is too late to stop Yawgmoth, however, who has escaped to Dominaria and intending to transform it into new Phyrexia. Yawgmoth arrives in the form of a massive death cloud, killing all he touches and turning them into his undead servants. Various minor allies, including many minotaurs and elves, either die or commit suicide. It's at this point that Urza's decapitated head (which Gerrard was apparently carrying around) reveals himself to be alive, and together with Karn, they figure out that they could go to the Null Moon, the greatest concentration of white mana nearby, that they can channel to defeat Yawgmoth. The Weatherlight is used to channel this energy via the Legacy Weapon, but in struggling against Yawgmoth, the Weatherlight's newfound sentience is gone. Urza and Gerrard use Urza's powerstone eyes and places them into Karn's chest, causing a chain reaction that completes 'the Legacy'. The resulting eruption of mana absorbs Urza, Gerrard, Karn and Yawgmoth. With Yawgmoth's death, the Phyrexian troops are disconnected from their master and swiftly defeated. And so ends the Phyrexian invasion!
One year later, as the rest of the Weatherlight survivors have a ceremony and prepare to set off on their new ship, the Victory, Karn shows up alive and well, apparently having fused with the entire Legacy, including Urza and Gerrard. And that... is the end of Magic: The Gathering's very first long-running storyline and the whole Phyrexian saga! For now...
And that sure was a trip, huh? I mean, I obviously haven't read any of the novels so I wouldn't have had the personal attachment to them as actual characters, but while there are certainly aspects of this that feel odd as a tie-in story to a card game (and the ending, at least from the summary, feels kind of 'oh we found the right plot device, bye Galactus' sort of dull and mundane). But all in all? The Phyrexian invasion and the forces of Dominaria rallying up to fight them is a pretty great story. On with the cards!
It's Gerrard Capashen, the main hero man of the series! We've talked about him a lot, and he's basically the main hero person, the captain of the Weatherlight, and a pretty swell guy all around. Also, like most generic hero-man-protagonists... I really don't find that there's much to talk about him. He's inoffensive and generically cool from a design standpoint, but he's also just a generic action-adventure fantasy dude, of which we have a lot in Magic: The Gathering cards. He is The Main Character (tm) so there's a neat bit of awesomeness seeing him represented as a card. Pure White, though? I mean... sure? Considering he's got a bit of a yolo vibe to him I've always thought that he would be White/Red. But pure White works, I guess.
I don't tend to find Magic's angel cards interesting (unless they're corrupted by the Eldrazi or something) but Haunted Angel's artwork is pretty cool, showing an angel seeing a specter of... well, there probably is an interesting story here. Is it her guilt? Phyrexian corruption? An actual ghost? I mostly put her here because I really do like the artwork.
Yep, definitely in sci-fi lands now with the Helionaut. This is just some dude with a bunch of wacky steampunk (or, well, magic-punk? Fantasypunk? Somethingpunk.) wings and contraptions that allows him to fly. And he's part of a whole squadron! I'm choosing that those are literal giant butterfly wings that they attached to themselves instead of the wings being painted to resemble butterfly wings.
I'm not sure if 'Volver' is even a real word, but apparently there's a cycle of Volvers here, with the... Degavolver? What is that supposed to mean? What are you -volving, Degavolver? The Volvers are apparently mutants that fused with 'opposing' colours. So White's normal allied colours on the colour wheel are Green and Blue, whereas they almost never have synergy cards with Black or Red. Yet Degavolver has just that. He's a pale dude with a cool-looking giant gauntlet holding a pretty cool flame-sword, and honestly, as far as White humanoids go, the Degavolver kinda looks pretty cool. I'm not sure where the Black mana part is; I guess it's that lame chest tattoo.
Despite being the big 'end of the Phyrexian invasion' saga, we still have place in Apocalypse to have just a bunch of regular Merfolk. I like the colours on Ceta Disciple, the orange and blue makes her look like a neat tropical fish. At first I thought she is beached and dying, but apparently she's protecting a sprouting plant. Really shouldn't bother, Ceta Disciple, that plant's growing near sea water; it's not going to survive for much longer.
Vdalian Mystic has got a pretty cool-looking Cthulhu beard, but a bit cooler is whatever ritual he's doing with that seashell and the weird smoky effect that comes out of it. Is he... extending the size of his fan-like tail? Is he actually making part of it invisible? I guess judging by the flavour text he's actually infusing himself with differently-coloured magic. Okay, interesting. Also interesting is that he's got a big tail fin.
Unnatural Selectoin is... oh man, what a fucked-up monster. I'm not sure what this reminds me of, but it sure reminds me of something. Look at this completely fucked-up poor thing, it's a bunch of tentacles bursting out of the ocean, but at the tip of each tentacle is parts of either a Kavu or a dinosaur, the tentacles ending in reptile legs or a reptile head. "Unnatural" is right, those are parts of an organic creature that should not be attached to those specific parts! Very cool artwork.
Cetavolver's name, at least, presumably comes from Ceta Disciple. And... I guess that dude was originally a merfolk, but now he's got ram horns and a flaming trident? Not sure where the Green part is, though.
Necravolver is some sort of demon-man with a holy-light shield. I'm sure that symbol means something, but I can't be arsed to find what. Like the Cetavolver, this one doesn't really look like it's channeling the Green or White powers, but rather just White. Which... I guess kinda makes sense, they only have the opposite-colour powers when you pay the Kicker mana, so I guess they can use those mana colours but are not creatures of that mana colour, which is why they're not dual-class? Eh.
Quagmire Druid is a zombie druid! Apparently, he's a druid that has died and been absorbed into a bog, but somehow rose from the dead and is still fighting for Dominaria even in death, summoning a hummingbird pal. Yeah, that hummingbird's gonna show Yawgmoth what's-what! I do really like the artwork here, though, that screaming expression really showcases the desperation and the wretchedness of the zombie druid but he's still freaking fighting, man.
Planar Despair! Okay, yeah, there are three creatures here, but look at the one in the middle, with the beady eyes and the mouth that looks like it's sucking on a straw from his mecha-suit. No seriously, look at him, he looks freaking adorable. Apparently these guys are Yawgmoth's retainers. Okay, sure, I guess that's why Yawgmoth has always been relying on Volrath and Crovax and Tsabo and all those cooler-looking heralds, his actual retainers look like reject Star Wars puppets. Not that it's a bad thing, though, I absolutely love them.
Urborg Uprising is... wow, okay, if this was just a bunch of dead soldiers turning into ghosts, I'd consider it cool but unremarkable. But the depiction of the ghosts here are so bizarrely creepy, with realistic faces on cartoon-ghost proportions. Makes it look like they're floating torsos, but without heads, and the faces appear on their chests. Extremely creepy. I also love the name that this is an 'uprising', too. Uprisings in Black-mana areas in Magic takes a whole different meaning!
Phyrexian Rager is a pretty cool Phyrexian cyborg-horror-machine, and I guess with Phyrexia being dealt with in this expansion, this is going to be the last Phyrexians we get to see in a while? And as much as I like the Phyrexians, it's neat to have a break in whatever next couple of expansions we get. And while these two do fall off to the somewhat-more-uniform creepy robot vibe instead of the more varied horrors we had in the heydays of the Phyrexian expansions, we do end off on two of the best of these creepy robots. Phyrexian Rager has spider-like legs and way too many arms, some of which are clearly fleshy, and I absolutely love the huge dome-like upper body with half a humanoid face attached to it, as well as exhaust vents.
Phyrexian Gargantua, meanwhile, is yet another one with spidery legs carrying a big dome-like body, but it's way more hulking than the Rager, with gigantic finger-arms that look more at home in a construction machine than a creature. I also absolutely love that face, with glowing eyes and approximately 80% teeth in surface area. It's like some nightmarish crab mutant out of hell.
More Kavus! And these are far, far more mutated than previous sets, which I guess nicely closes out the Kavus for now, too, since the Kavus are sort of limited to the Invasion set. Bloodfire Kavu is basically an elemental in all but name, being comprised of rock and molten magma. Whereas Kavu Glider doesn't even look like a Kavu but more like some sort of bizarre gliding lizard, with membraneous wings, skinny arms and a huge frog-like mouth. The Kavu Glider is actually a pretty interesting thing, because we do know that dinosaurs shaped more or less like these exist and if the Kavu are basically mutable dinosaurs in Dominaria, this as one of the later points of Kavu evolution kind of makes sense? I also like that its 'flying' ability is more of a gliding ability you have to spend mana on.
Another pretty cool Kavu, the Tundra Kavu is described by the flavour text (and maybe by the artist?) as a 'cross between a jaguar and an armadillo. It looks like one of those creatures from Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, the Alips or whatever, but then I realize that the Tundra Kavu actually does have four legs, and those are pretty long legs. I do like the anatomy of this thing, from the armour plates down its back, the bony protrusions on the lower jaw and the huge, long legs. I'm not even sure what those are meant to resemble. Reptilian horses? Giant beetle legs?
Okay, so I'm assuming that the symbol on those shields are like, the new alliance symbol or something? Desolation Giant is here mostly becuase I found the art pretty cool, with those weird lionfish-esque horns jutting out from the Desolation Giant's head and back and face, while he is tossing rocks around. He's got lots of hair but only on his lower arm, too. I dunno, I think that head design is really what catches my attention a lot.
Bloodfire Colossus is actually pretty cool looking, a four-armed giant warrior that's exploding with fiery energy. Its artwork of it burning up, its flavour text and its effect all really flavour the creature very well; a creature with a lot of uncontrollable strength that, upon deciding to sacrifice itself, decides to erupt. Pretty cool art, too.
The Rakavolver is... a mintaur with chipped horns, bat wings, and a glowing shield? It can volve some blue and white mana, and it's got a glowing shield, too. He's got a lot of weapons, actually, now that I look at him more clearly. A whip, a glaive and a shield? The Rakavolver does not do things in halves.
The Anavolver is probably my favourite of the Volvers mostly because I'm not even sure what it is, it's just got a really, really angry face. Look at that face, if 'wrath of nature' had a face, then it'd be Anavolver's face. He's got weird bug wings, armour made out of bark, hair, and a pair of Illidan-Stormrage-style twin-blades whose designs are basically just leaves. The Anavolver channels blue and black mana, and I'm not sure how that goes but I really do like just how much of a weirdo this guy is.
Look at that cute little grinning Saproling created by Ana Disciple! It's got cute little Tinkerbell butterfly wings and it's grinning so happily, aww, and you thought Dominaria's creepy Chestburster-Saprolings can't look cute.
Apocalypse gives us a bunch of weird beasts. the Bog Gnarr is something that looks like an artist's interpretation of some description of a fairy-tale beast, and it looks like maybe it's a dragon or a kirin or something, but it's got a snaky body, horns, hair, and it's nourished by the dark as shown by a cloud of black aura around its head.
And Bog Gnarr would be a weird kinda-dragon, kinda-snake, kinda-crocodile creature... if not for the fact that we see another Gnarr in the Glade Gnarr, which is like the crossbreed of a Hadrosaur and a deer. That's the best description I can made of its anatomy, with its massive crown of horns and its weirdly dinosaurian posture. The Bog and Glade Gnarrs look wildly different, and yet I can also at the same time believe that these are just particularly wild variants of a certain taxonomic genus or family. Like, look at stingrays and sharks, after all.
Oh nooo look at that funny-headed dude from Planar Despair, he got trapped by vines and those Facehugger-style Saprolings are eating its dumb bald head. Actually, from this angle, I realize that I know that these guys remind me of -- Biths from Star Wars. Consume Strength's artwork also makes me think that there are a couple of extra mutant locusts feeding on Phyrexian Bith Dude, but apparently those are the guy's robotic arms being forcibly ripped apart by the tree. It's a Black/Green card showing that the forces of nature thrive on eating decaying flesh, which... actually makes a lot of sense.
Aether Mutation is a Grenen/Blue card, and it involves some Treefolk dude trapping a Phyrexian hound-thing in an energy bubble and, I think, mutating it into a bunch ofFacehuggers Saprolings. I don't have much to say here, I just really like the designs of the Saprolings here. They look so much like angry piranha-eels.
The setting of the forces of the Green plant-based warriors fighting and trouncing the Phyrexians in a swamp really captured the design team's imagination, huh? We get another pair of Green/Black creatures. Ebony Treefolk is absolutely nasty-looking, with tar and vines dripping all over, and its giant shambling dead-tree feet really looks nasty as it's tearing these Phyrexian warriors apart. Most of all, though, is that creepy-ass face. And Ebony Treefolk is one of the good guys!
Even more formless is the Fungal Shambler, who doesn't even have a face or even any sort of vaguely humanoid silhouette, just a giant fat body with three legs, a mass of branches (hyphae?) on top and tendrils that lash all around it. Very cool looking plant creature, I'm a huge fan of these. I actually recognize this art piece a lot, because for the longest time, my D&D DM uses this specific artwork to represent Shambling Mounds. I thought he found it in a D&D publication somewhere, but apparently it's from Magic: The Gathering. Neato.
The Spiritmonger is... not a monger! It's just a beast. I have no fucking idea what is going on, but it's like, this giant, muscle-bound minotaur with a bunch of orc tusks, extra bones jutting out of his knuckles and shoulders, and the 'Spiritmonger' part presumably comes from the fact that he's vomiting a bunch of what I assume are spirits out of his chest. Nasty. None of his effects have the fantasy of summoning or consuming spirits, so there's a bit of a disconnect there, but still, a pretty weird creature.
Oh hey, we get another Flowstone card, and Flowstone Charger is here mostly because the artwork is cool, I don't really have a clue what's going on, but I find this rampaging mass of molten stone with a roaring face pretty cool.
Dodecapod is... okay, what the heck? It's an artifact creature, although it really looks like it should be another Green/Black monster. So it's a golem? It's a golem with the face of a spider and like several dozen arms, some of which have human fists and some are multi-jointed like bug monsters. It really looks nightmarish, and... and honestly, I'm not sure whether it's meant to be Phyrexian or part of Dominaria's alliance. I really like it, though, whatever it is allied with.
The Legacy Weapon is basically the sentient Weatherlight, right? Channeling power from the White moon through itself to create all the other mana colours to wipe out Yawgmoth, with Gerrard and Karn and Urza and all that jazz. Honestly not the most exciting card art, but pretty important to the story.
What in the absolute hell are you, Cromat? The great creature type update tells us that Cromat is... an "Illusion", which really doesn't help me out at all. It's a creature summoned by paying one of each type of mana, and it's got five effects that are combinations of the different colours, and... how do I even describe this creature? It's a giant... slug? Centipede? It's got giant butterfly wings, and what I think are meant to be mantis legs, and that's a second, fat floating whale-headed buddy that's flying just next to it. Its larvae? Part of its anatomy? And there's like a dead polar bear at its feet. The more I look at Cromat, the more bizarre it becomes. Even more bizarre is that this legendary being... has absolutely nothing to do with the Apocalypse storyline. So he's just a delightful little weirdo, and an awesome one to end our main coverage on the Invasion block.
And... holy shit, we did it. We finished Apocalypse, which is 23 sets of Magic: The Gathering and putting to a close to, dare I say, the first big chapter of Magic. For better or for worse, a significant portion of the blocks basically revolve around what's more or less the same concept and the same grand story of Dominaria-vs-Phyrexia. The next couple of blocks are still sequels to this Dominaria saga, but separated by a century's worth of time skip, there's a significant gap, story and flavour wise, between the post-Apocalypse blocks. And that's going to be pretty interesting to see. We still have two more blocks to go (and not to be a downer, but Odyssey and Onslaught are going to go by in a snap because I looked ahead and don't think I'll have much to talk about) before we get to Mirrodin where each block is going to have its own definitive theme and it'll give me a lot more to discuss, but I'll allow myself a bit of a pat on the back.
The rest of the Planeshift cards! Again, I don't have a whole lot to say about most of them.
Disciple of Kangee very nearly made it into the list, but I really didn't have much to say about him beyond 'lol haha I like his bird head'. Also, have the set's obligatory White Griffin and White Wall.
A bunch of White warriors and clerics doing honourable and good guy things.
More White minions, including two very good dogs.
Hobble has a very funny-looking art. I'm not sure why, but the idea of that one dude casting a magic lasso to topple that Phyrexian makes me happy. Oh, hey, there's Orim in Orim's Chant, too.
Pollen Remedy is... a giant crop circle in the form of a symbol? Eh. Dominaria's Judgment seems to be depicting the whole Rathi overlay thing, I guess? It sure looks epic, even though I don't know exactly what it's depicting.
SURPRISE DEPLOYMENT MOTHERFUCKER! SURPRISE LION TO THE FACE. Okay, I lie, this is my favourite card in the set. Not Deadapult.
Obligatory Blue Drake and Blue Wizard. And then there is Planar Overlay, which is the whole 'yep, we're combining two planets together' thing.
A bunch of story beats. Confound is Urza having to deal with one of his planeswalkers betraying them. Allied Strategies are a bunch of Dominarian dudes fighting together. Ertai's Trickery is Ertai showing himself to be alive and capturing Gerrard. All of these are neat and I don't want to demean them, but they also leave me with not much to talk about.
A bunch of Blue spells. Planeswalker's Mischief is a novella, apparently.
Rushing River has a very cool artwork; why can't land cards be as cool-looking as this? Also, hey, Captain Sisay in Sisay's Ingenuity!
Lord of the Undead is, presumably, meant to represent Lich-Lord Dralnu, a dude that shows up to help out the allied forces but then turns out to be evil all along. Never trust liches, I guess. Sleeping Potion is a very... out-of-place card compared to the rest of 'death, destruction, epic battles for the survival of the universe' vibe that the expansion has.
None of these are actually all that interesting. I didn't realize until this moment that there's a cycle of Battlemage/Familiar going on, but none of them are honestly all that interesting. Volcano Imp is a neat visual artwork, but ultimately it's just an imp on fire.
I'm not sure what's going on in Death Bomb but I really do like the artwork. There are hands and brains flying all over the place. Actually, now that I take a closer look, it's actually neat -- it's one of those giant Magnigoth Treefolk being blown up by a kamikaze Phyrexian minion. That's actually pretty cool-looking.
Diabolic Intent shows off Crovax grinning and chuckling on a throne. He is a happy creepy evil vampire man. Dark Suspicious has Urza attack some giant tentacled dude with claws for hands, which I think is a planeswalker that betrayed him. Not to make stereotypes, but maybe when you're planning for betrayal, don't include the obviously-a-fantasy-villain in your inter-dimensional strike team? Warped Devotion is the cliffhanger of the Planeshift novel, where our two main heroes gets tempted.
Crosis looks so much less impressive in Shriek of Dread. I guess it's the gangly arms. Slay shows that zombies in mecha suits >>>>> pale punk-rock elves.
I considered putting all the Kavus up above again, but honestly? None of these are all that exciting. Caldera Kavu and Flametongue Kavu are just fire and volcano-themed Kavu, although I really do like the artwork for these two.
More Kavus, although I'm far more interested in the weird spider-legged robot with Plo Koon's face in Kavu Recluse's artwork. Mire Kavu's flavour text talks about a 'Kavu with wings' sarcastically. Don't worry, Sisay, it takes exactly one expansion for one of those to show up.
A bunch of goblins. These are Mogg, which are Rath goblins, huh? They have Klingon foreheads, apparently. I don't have much to say here, these are the serious goblins and so they are the boring goblins.
Another Battlemage/Familiar duo. The Thunderscape Familiar is a Kavu, huh? Okay, I guess that's appropriate. Black's is a zombie, Blue's is an owl, Green's is a beetle... honestly, it's not until this point that I realize that the White-mana familiar is a wall. The jokes about White being boring write themselves.
Squee we are at a war for the very survival of our plane of existence we have no time for your Goblin Game.
Implode shows the mana-bomb being detonated, I assume. Y'know, I'm going to assume that all the Planeswalker's X cards are actually showing members of Urza's nine-man planeswalker group, but none of the novel summaries actually list them.
More Green monsters. Mirrorwood Treefolk is actually kinda funny. Its bark has reflective properties, so it bounces off and blows up Phyrexian minions.
Even more Kavus. These look more armoadillo-esque. I actually almost put Stone Kavu on top, it has a very cool looking dome-head. But I ended up not having much to really say.
The Thunderscape Familiar is a giant beetle crawling on lava, and it's got... a very bizarre looking mouth. It's got a human mouth, which is the weirdest and most unsettling thing you can put on a bug.
Bunch of Green stuff.
Bunch more Green stuff. Oh hey, it's Multani! I remember Multani. He's cool. Is Falling Timber supposed to show off some kind of sigil? I'm not sure.
We have a higher amount of multi-colour cards, and I feel at this point the creative team have a better grasp of combining colours to fit the card. The Cavern Harpy is Blue because it's a harpy, and Black because it's evil. Steel Leaf Paladin is Green because it's an elf riding a Kavu, and White because it's a paladin. Lava Zombie is, well, a lava (Red) zombie (Black).
Oh hey, after a while, we get yet another Phelddagrif! The Questing Phelddagrif, judging by its name, is on a quest. You go, hippo-bird-thing. You go do your quest. That Shivan Wurm looks so absolutely gobsmacked at being summoned straight into battle. Or is that treefolk-looking creature's arm transformed into a wurm?
A couple more story beats, with Phyrexian Tyranny showing Crovax about to corrupt Ertai, and Urza's Guilt showing Urza meeting his long-thought-dead brother Mishra. And Hull Breach has Sisay drop an entire ship on Crovax's stronghold.
More story beats! These are pretty self-explanatory.
It's a Charm cycle of baubles held by dragons.
For baubles held by dragons, they are extremely bland. There isn't even any sort of attempt at making a poetic flavour text to tie the five cards together.
Not much to say about anything here.
How are Kavus born, mommy? Well, son, first you pay one red mana, one green mana and two mana of any kind, then cast Natural Emergence, and suddenly the land itself will turn into Kavus at your command.
Two more artifacts. Again, not much to say here.
Lands. I have even less to say about lands.
Dromar's Cavern actually looks cool from an artwork standpoint. Otherwise... eh.
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The rest of Apocalypse's cards.
A bunch of White-mana humans doing heroic things.
Standard Bearer is the first of our 'Flagbearer' cards. It's... it's really kind of bizarre that they decided to turn this into a creature type, but okay, sure. There are a bunch of Flagbearer synergy cards, too. Eh?
Spectral Lynx is a ghost kitty. Ghost kitty!
Divine Light is an angel kitty. Angel kitty!
Coastal Drake is a drake that apparently specifically targets Kavus. Poor Kavus!
Living Airship is... I thought it's meant to be the Weatherlight coming to sentience as the story synopsis tells me, but it's way too small to be the Weatherlight. Also, a bunch of Merfolk.
And a bunch more Merfolks! I really like the artwork for Whirlpool Warrior, Whirlpool Rider and Whirlpool Drake. Whirlpools are apparently just my aesthetic.
A bunch of terrain. Y'know, despite being the climactic end of all, a lot of Apocalypse's cards are kind of... mundane.
The flavour text for Index is funny. Is that bearded dude supposed to be the Magic team, trying to figure out what cards they already did and what cards they haven't done? Also, haha, alphabetical order makes actually finding cards and synergies hard. Jaded Response and Jilt feels more like something out of a more story-heavy expansion, that's more like it!
A bunch of regular zombies and cultists? Really, Black mana, this is like your last chance for the big Phyrexian hurrah; give us a Yawgmoth card!
Okay, a Zombie Boa is a bit cooler, but still, nowhere as cool as the rest of the Phyrexian stuff we've come to expect.
More story-related stuff! Not much for me to say here, but these are at least a lot less boring than "Zombie #98" or "Calm Terrain #121".
The Sanctuary cards are a cycle in this set. I'm obligated to point that out.
A bunch of dwarves.
Obligatory Red goblin and obligatory Red minotaur.
Tahngarth's Glare is funny. Look at Squee, fucking with Tahngarth when they are in a battle for life and death. I know you just came back from the dead, dude, but maybe don't piss off the minotaur with anger issues.
Eh. Red stuff.
Kavu Howler is pretty neat. At first I thought that giant Jurassic-Park-Dilophosaurus head is attached to a giant serpentine neck, but turns out that it's just the arms of the Howler. Still pretty cool nonetheless. Penumbra Kavu is another Kavu, but at this point they're all starting to blur together.
Kavu Mauler is a six-legged Kavu! It nearly made it into the main body of the article.
An actually pretty cool wurm, and a bunch of elves.
A bunch of Green spells.
More Green spells.
Mystic Snake? Trussssst in m eeeee in aaaaall you doooooo
Gaea's Skyfolk has a pretty neat art, a mermaid that can fly.
We get a bunch of multi-class goblins! The Red/White Goblin Legionnaire is a soldier goblin, and so are Goblin Trenches. While the Blue/Red Razorfin Hunter is... a goblin-merfolk! Which isn't obvious from the artwork, but I do like that even the flavour text is baffled if this is a result of the Phyrexian overlay or something that's been lurking deep in the ocean.
Actually, that brings to mind... they really dropped the ball on not making more Phyrexian-overlay-created mutations, huh? There are like maybe less than a dozen in both Planeshift and Apocalypse despite the focus on multi-colour cards. I think that's what actually made me so... blase about many of these. What makes a card like the zombie elf or the zombie soldier or the random jungle wall so unique that they have to be printed in a set about the Dominarians banding together fighting Phyrexia for one last stand?
These, at least, show moments in the war. But I really wished that a lot of the other cards do a bit more to illustrate that too, maybe not between Crovax and Gerrard and the rest of the main cast if they don't want all 130 cards to be 'look at our novel characters', but really, the proportion of Phyrexia-vs-Dominaria cards vesus just random generic fantasy things is pretty stacked in favour of the latter.
Again, I'd rather have more cards like Last Stand showing Dominaria's forces fighting Phyrexia, or cards like Deathgrasp or Soul Link that at least sell the vibe of something huge going on.
These are just... kinda there.
And so are these.
Okay, I approve of anything with Squee, though Squee's Embrace might be a bit iffy. Ask for consent, Squee!
Death Mutation has a cool card art, and I assume Vindicate is the huge "the good guys use the power of plot device to kill Yawgmoth" sequence. Ultimate Nullifier!
Oh more of these horizontal cards. My neck hurts looking at them.
More horizontal cards, and a brass golem.
Emblazoned Golem is a cool card art. There's nothing really much to say here. I like the name of Mask of Intolerance, though, there are many jokes you can make out of it.
Really, none of the land cards depicts Phyrexia? Okay then.
...and we're done. Yep, Apocalypse was everything I remembered it to be when I first saw these cards. Half of it is admittedly pretty cool or thematic, but the other half was kind of boring. Join me next time for the Odyssey block!
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...and the cliffhanger is continued in the final set in the Invasion block, Apocalypse! Gerrard and Urza, the main characters, have seemingly been swayed by Yawgmoth and pledge allegiance to Phyrexia. Yawgmoth teleports Urza and Gerrard into an arena, promising only to fulfill the greatest wish of whoever wins the duel. Gerrard wins the duel, cutting off Urza's head. Instead of resurrecting Hanna, Yawgmoth sends one of his avatars that looks like Hanna to meet Gerrard. The human sees through the deception and attacks the false Hanna, unknowingly attacking Yawgmoth's true essence hidden within the Hanna avatar. A panicked Yawgmoth flings Gerrard away into the Stronghold.Meanwhile, on Dominaria, the silver golem Karn have been regaining his memory since he broke his oath of pacifism in Invasion, now having access to lots of knowledge from the past. With that, Karn combines the Weatherlight with the Thran Tome, turning the flying ship into a
The rest of the surviving planeswalkers on Phyrexia decide to set off the soul bomb manually, gouging a massive chunk of Phyrexia. This is too late to stop Yawgmoth, however, who has escaped to Dominaria and intending to transform it into new Phyrexia. Yawgmoth arrives in the form of a massive death cloud, killing all he touches and turning them into his undead servants. Various minor allies, including many minotaurs and elves, either die or commit suicide. It's at this point that Urza's decapitated head (which Gerrard was apparently carrying around) reveals himself to be alive, and together with Karn, they figure out that they could go to the Null Moon, the greatest concentration of white mana nearby, that they can channel to defeat Yawgmoth. The Weatherlight is used to channel this energy via the Legacy Weapon, but in struggling against Yawgmoth, the Weatherlight's newfound sentience is gone. Urza and Gerrard use Urza's powerstone eyes and places them into Karn's chest, causing a chain reaction that completes 'the Legacy'. The resulting eruption of mana absorbs Urza, Gerrard, Karn and Yawgmoth. With Yawgmoth's death, the Phyrexian troops are disconnected from their master and swiftly defeated. And so ends the Phyrexian invasion!
One year later, as the rest of the Weatherlight survivors have a ceremony and prepare to set off on their new ship, the Victory, Karn shows up alive and well, apparently having fused with the entire Legacy, including Urza and Gerrard. And that... is the end of Magic: The Gathering's very first long-running storyline and the whole Phyrexian saga! For now...
And that sure was a trip, huh? I mean, I obviously haven't read any of the novels so I wouldn't have had the personal attachment to them as actual characters, but while there are certainly aspects of this that feel odd as a tie-in story to a card game (and the ending, at least from the summary, feels kind of 'oh we found the right plot device, bye Galactus' sort of dull and mundane). But all in all? The Phyrexian invasion and the forces of Dominaria rallying up to fight them is a pretty great story. On with the cards!
It's Gerrard Capashen, the main hero man of the series! We've talked about him a lot, and he's basically the main hero person, the captain of the Weatherlight, and a pretty swell guy all around. Also, like most generic hero-man-protagonists... I really don't find that there's much to talk about him. He's inoffensive and generically cool from a design standpoint, but he's also just a generic action-adventure fantasy dude, of which we have a lot in Magic: The Gathering cards. He is The Main Character (tm) so there's a neat bit of awesomeness seeing him represented as a card. Pure White, though? I mean... sure? Considering he's got a bit of a yolo vibe to him I've always thought that he would be White/Red. But pure White works, I guess.
I don't tend to find Magic's angel cards interesting (unless they're corrupted by the Eldrazi or something) but Haunted Angel's artwork is pretty cool, showing an angel seeing a specter of... well, there probably is an interesting story here. Is it her guilt? Phyrexian corruption? An actual ghost? I mostly put her here because I really do like the artwork.
Yep, definitely in sci-fi lands now with the Helionaut. This is just some dude with a bunch of wacky steampunk (or, well, magic-punk? Fantasypunk? Somethingpunk.) wings and contraptions that allows him to fly. And he's part of a whole squadron! I'm choosing that those are literal giant butterfly wings that they attached to themselves instead of the wings being painted to resemble butterfly wings.
I'm not sure if 'Volver' is even a real word, but apparently there's a cycle of Volvers here, with the... Degavolver? What is that supposed to mean? What are you -volving, Degavolver? The Volvers are apparently mutants that fused with 'opposing' colours. So White's normal allied colours on the colour wheel are Green and Blue, whereas they almost never have synergy cards with Black or Red. Yet Degavolver has just that. He's a pale dude with a cool-looking giant gauntlet holding a pretty cool flame-sword, and honestly, as far as White humanoids go, the Degavolver kinda looks pretty cool. I'm not sure where the Black mana part is; I guess it's that lame chest tattoo.
Despite being the big 'end of the Phyrexian invasion' saga, we still have place in Apocalypse to have just a bunch of regular Merfolk. I like the colours on Ceta Disciple, the orange and blue makes her look like a neat tropical fish. At first I thought she is beached and dying, but apparently she's protecting a sprouting plant. Really shouldn't bother, Ceta Disciple, that plant's growing near sea water; it's not going to survive for much longer.
Vdalian Mystic has got a pretty cool-looking Cthulhu beard, but a bit cooler is whatever ritual he's doing with that seashell and the weird smoky effect that comes out of it. Is he... extending the size of his fan-like tail? Is he actually making part of it invisible? I guess judging by the flavour text he's actually infusing himself with differently-coloured magic. Okay, interesting. Also interesting is that he's got a big tail fin.
Unnatural Selectoin is... oh man, what a fucked-up monster. I'm not sure what this reminds me of, but it sure reminds me of something. Look at this completely fucked-up poor thing, it's a bunch of tentacles bursting out of the ocean, but at the tip of each tentacle is parts of either a Kavu or a dinosaur, the tentacles ending in reptile legs or a reptile head. "Unnatural" is right, those are parts of an organic creature that should not be attached to those specific parts! Very cool artwork.
Cetavolver's name, at least, presumably comes from Ceta Disciple. And... I guess that dude was originally a merfolk, but now he's got ram horns and a flaming trident? Not sure where the Green part is, though.
Necravolver is some sort of demon-man with a holy-light shield. I'm sure that symbol means something, but I can't be arsed to find what. Like the Cetavolver, this one doesn't really look like it's channeling the Green or White powers, but rather just White. Which... I guess kinda makes sense, they only have the opposite-colour powers when you pay the Kicker mana, so I guess they can use those mana colours but are not creatures of that mana colour, which is why they're not dual-class? Eh.
Quagmire Druid is a zombie druid! Apparently, he's a druid that has died and been absorbed into a bog, but somehow rose from the dead and is still fighting for Dominaria even in death, summoning a hummingbird pal. Yeah, that hummingbird's gonna show Yawgmoth what's-what! I do really like the artwork here, though, that screaming expression really showcases the desperation and the wretchedness of the zombie druid but he's still freaking fighting, man.
Planar Despair! Okay, yeah, there are three creatures here, but look at the one in the middle, with the beady eyes and the mouth that looks like it's sucking on a straw from his mecha-suit. No seriously, look at him, he looks freaking adorable. Apparently these guys are Yawgmoth's retainers. Okay, sure, I guess that's why Yawgmoth has always been relying on Volrath and Crovax and Tsabo and all those cooler-looking heralds, his actual retainers look like reject Star Wars puppets. Not that it's a bad thing, though, I absolutely love them.
Urborg Uprising is... wow, okay, if this was just a bunch of dead soldiers turning into ghosts, I'd consider it cool but unremarkable. But the depiction of the ghosts here are so bizarrely creepy, with realistic faces on cartoon-ghost proportions. Makes it look like they're floating torsos, but without heads, and the faces appear on their chests. Extremely creepy. I also love the name that this is an 'uprising', too. Uprisings in Black-mana areas in Magic takes a whole different meaning!
Phyrexian Rager is a pretty cool Phyrexian cyborg-horror-machine, and I guess with Phyrexia being dealt with in this expansion, this is going to be the last Phyrexians we get to see in a while? And as much as I like the Phyrexians, it's neat to have a break in whatever next couple of expansions we get. And while these two do fall off to the somewhat-more-uniform creepy robot vibe instead of the more varied horrors we had in the heydays of the Phyrexian expansions, we do end off on two of the best of these creepy robots. Phyrexian Rager has spider-like legs and way too many arms, some of which are clearly fleshy, and I absolutely love the huge dome-like upper body with half a humanoid face attached to it, as well as exhaust vents.
Phyrexian Gargantua, meanwhile, is yet another one with spidery legs carrying a big dome-like body, but it's way more hulking than the Rager, with gigantic finger-arms that look more at home in a construction machine than a creature. I also absolutely love that face, with glowing eyes and approximately 80% teeth in surface area. It's like some nightmarish crab mutant out of hell.
More Kavus! And these are far, far more mutated than previous sets, which I guess nicely closes out the Kavus for now, too, since the Kavus are sort of limited to the Invasion set. Bloodfire Kavu is basically an elemental in all but name, being comprised of rock and molten magma. Whereas Kavu Glider doesn't even look like a Kavu but more like some sort of bizarre gliding lizard, with membraneous wings, skinny arms and a huge frog-like mouth. The Kavu Glider is actually a pretty interesting thing, because we do know that dinosaurs shaped more or less like these exist and if the Kavu are basically mutable dinosaurs in Dominaria, this as one of the later points of Kavu evolution kind of makes sense? I also like that its 'flying' ability is more of a gliding ability you have to spend mana on.
Another pretty cool Kavu, the Tundra Kavu is described by the flavour text (and maybe by the artist?) as a 'cross between a jaguar and an armadillo. It looks like one of those creatures from Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, the Alips or whatever, but then I realize that the Tundra Kavu actually does have four legs, and those are pretty long legs. I do like the anatomy of this thing, from the armour plates down its back, the bony protrusions on the lower jaw and the huge, long legs. I'm not even sure what those are meant to resemble. Reptilian horses? Giant beetle legs?
Okay, so I'm assuming that the symbol on those shields are like, the new alliance symbol or something? Desolation Giant is here mostly becuase I found the art pretty cool, with those weird lionfish-esque horns jutting out from the Desolation Giant's head and back and face, while he is tossing rocks around. He's got lots of hair but only on his lower arm, too. I dunno, I think that head design is really what catches my attention a lot.
Bloodfire Colossus is actually pretty cool looking, a four-armed giant warrior that's exploding with fiery energy. Its artwork of it burning up, its flavour text and its effect all really flavour the creature very well; a creature with a lot of uncontrollable strength that, upon deciding to sacrifice itself, decides to erupt. Pretty cool art, too.
The Rakavolver is... a mintaur with chipped horns, bat wings, and a glowing shield? It can volve some blue and white mana, and it's got a glowing shield, too. He's got a lot of weapons, actually, now that I look at him more clearly. A whip, a glaive and a shield? The Rakavolver does not do things in halves.
The Anavolver is probably my favourite of the Volvers mostly because I'm not even sure what it is, it's just got a really, really angry face. Look at that face, if 'wrath of nature' had a face, then it'd be Anavolver's face. He's got weird bug wings, armour made out of bark, hair, and a pair of Illidan-Stormrage-style twin-blades whose designs are basically just leaves. The Anavolver channels blue and black mana, and I'm not sure how that goes but I really do like just how much of a weirdo this guy is.
Look at that cute little grinning Saproling created by Ana Disciple! It's got cute little Tinkerbell butterfly wings and it's grinning so happily, aww, and you thought Dominaria's creepy Chestburster-Saprolings can't look cute.
Apocalypse gives us a bunch of weird beasts. the Bog Gnarr is something that looks like an artist's interpretation of some description of a fairy-tale beast, and it looks like maybe it's a dragon or a kirin or something, but it's got a snaky body, horns, hair, and it's nourished by the dark as shown by a cloud of black aura around its head.
And Bog Gnarr would be a weird kinda-dragon, kinda-snake, kinda-crocodile creature... if not for the fact that we see another Gnarr in the Glade Gnarr, which is like the crossbreed of a Hadrosaur and a deer. That's the best description I can made of its anatomy, with its massive crown of horns and its weirdly dinosaurian posture. The Bog and Glade Gnarrs look wildly different, and yet I can also at the same time believe that these are just particularly wild variants of a certain taxonomic genus or family. Like, look at stingrays and sharks, after all.
Oh nooo look at that funny-headed dude from Planar Despair, he got trapped by vines and those Facehugger-style Saprolings are eating its dumb bald head. Actually, from this angle, I realize that I know that these guys remind me of -- Biths from Star Wars. Consume Strength's artwork also makes me think that there are a couple of extra mutant locusts feeding on Phyrexian Bith Dude, but apparently those are the guy's robotic arms being forcibly ripped apart by the tree. It's a Black/Green card showing that the forces of nature thrive on eating decaying flesh, which... actually makes a lot of sense.
Aether Mutation is a Grenen/Blue card, and it involves some Treefolk dude trapping a Phyrexian hound-thing in an energy bubble and, I think, mutating it into a bunch of
The setting of the forces of the Green plant-based warriors fighting and trouncing the Phyrexians in a swamp really captured the design team's imagination, huh? We get another pair of Green/Black creatures. Ebony Treefolk is absolutely nasty-looking, with tar and vines dripping all over, and its giant shambling dead-tree feet really looks nasty as it's tearing these Phyrexian warriors apart. Most of all, though, is that creepy-ass face. And Ebony Treefolk is one of the good guys!
Even more formless is the Fungal Shambler, who doesn't even have a face or even any sort of vaguely humanoid silhouette, just a giant fat body with three legs, a mass of branches (hyphae?) on top and tendrils that lash all around it. Very cool looking plant creature, I'm a huge fan of these. I actually recognize this art piece a lot, because for the longest time, my D&D DM uses this specific artwork to represent Shambling Mounds. I thought he found it in a D&D publication somewhere, but apparently it's from Magic: The Gathering. Neato.
The Spiritmonger is... not a monger! It's just a beast. I have no fucking idea what is going on, but it's like, this giant, muscle-bound minotaur with a bunch of orc tusks, extra bones jutting out of his knuckles and shoulders, and the 'Spiritmonger' part presumably comes from the fact that he's vomiting a bunch of what I assume are spirits out of his chest. Nasty. None of his effects have the fantasy of summoning or consuming spirits, so there's a bit of a disconnect there, but still, a pretty weird creature.
Oh hey, we get another Flowstone card, and Flowstone Charger is here mostly because the artwork is cool, I don't really have a clue what's going on, but I find this rampaging mass of molten stone with a roaring face pretty cool.
Dodecapod is... okay, what the heck? It's an artifact creature, although it really looks like it should be another Green/Black monster. So it's a golem? It's a golem with the face of a spider and like several dozen arms, some of which have human fists and some are multi-jointed like bug monsters. It really looks nightmarish, and... and honestly, I'm not sure whether it's meant to be Phyrexian or part of Dominaria's alliance. I really like it, though, whatever it is allied with.
The Legacy Weapon is basically the sentient Weatherlight, right? Channeling power from the White moon through itself to create all the other mana colours to wipe out Yawgmoth, with Gerrard and Karn and Urza and all that jazz. Honestly not the most exciting card art, but pretty important to the story.
What in the absolute hell are you, Cromat? The great creature type update tells us that Cromat is... an "Illusion", which really doesn't help me out at all. It's a creature summoned by paying one of each type of mana, and it's got five effects that are combinations of the different colours, and... how do I even describe this creature? It's a giant... slug? Centipede? It's got giant butterfly wings, and what I think are meant to be mantis legs, and that's a second, fat floating whale-headed buddy that's flying just next to it. Its larvae? Part of its anatomy? And there's like a dead polar bear at its feet. The more I look at Cromat, the more bizarre it becomes. Even more bizarre is that this legendary being... has absolutely nothing to do with the Apocalypse storyline. So he's just a delightful little weirdo, and an awesome one to end our main coverage on the Invasion block.
And... holy shit, we did it. We finished Apocalypse, which is 23 sets of Magic: The Gathering and putting to a close to, dare I say, the first big chapter of Magic. For better or for worse, a significant portion of the blocks basically revolve around what's more or less the same concept and the same grand story of Dominaria-vs-Phyrexia. The next couple of blocks are still sequels to this Dominaria saga, but separated by a century's worth of time skip, there's a significant gap, story and flavour wise, between the post-Apocalypse blocks. And that's going to be pretty interesting to see. We still have two more blocks to go (and not to be a downer, but Odyssey and Onslaught are going to go by in a snap because I looked ahead and don't think I'll have much to talk about) before we get to Mirrodin where each block is going to have its own definitive theme and it'll give me a lot more to discuss, but I'll allow myself a bit of a pat on the back.
The rest of the Planeshift cards! Again, I don't have a whole lot to say about most of them.
Disciple of Kangee very nearly made it into the list, but I really didn't have much to say about him beyond 'lol haha I like his bird head'. Also, have the set's obligatory White Griffin and White Wall.
A bunch of White warriors and clerics doing honourable and good guy things.
More White minions, including two very good dogs.
Hobble has a very funny-looking art. I'm not sure why, but the idea of that one dude casting a magic lasso to topple that Phyrexian makes me happy. Oh, hey, there's Orim in Orim's Chant, too.
Pollen Remedy is... a giant crop circle in the form of a symbol? Eh. Dominaria's Judgment seems to be depicting the whole Rathi overlay thing, I guess? It sure looks epic, even though I don't know exactly what it's depicting.
SURPRISE DEPLOYMENT MOTHERFUCKER! SURPRISE LION TO THE FACE. Okay, I lie, this is my favourite card in the set. Not Deadapult.
Obligatory Blue Drake and Blue Wizard. And then there is Planar Overlay, which is the whole 'yep, we're combining two planets together' thing.
A bunch of story beats. Confound is Urza having to deal with one of his planeswalkers betraying them. Allied Strategies are a bunch of Dominarian dudes fighting together. Ertai's Trickery is Ertai showing himself to be alive and capturing Gerrard. All of these are neat and I don't want to demean them, but they also leave me with not much to talk about.
A bunch of Blue spells. Planeswalker's Mischief is a novella, apparently.
Rushing River has a very cool artwork; why can't land cards be as cool-looking as this? Also, hey, Captain Sisay in Sisay's Ingenuity!
Lord of the Undead is, presumably, meant to represent Lich-Lord Dralnu, a dude that shows up to help out the allied forces but then turns out to be evil all along. Never trust liches, I guess. Sleeping Potion is a very... out-of-place card compared to the rest of 'death, destruction, epic battles for the survival of the universe' vibe that the expansion has.
None of these are actually all that interesting. I didn't realize until this moment that there's a cycle of Battlemage/Familiar going on, but none of them are honestly all that interesting. Volcano Imp is a neat visual artwork, but ultimately it's just an imp on fire.
I'm not sure what's going on in Death Bomb but I really do like the artwork. There are hands and brains flying all over the place. Actually, now that I take a closer look, it's actually neat -- it's one of those giant Magnigoth Treefolk being blown up by a kamikaze Phyrexian minion. That's actually pretty cool-looking.
Diabolic Intent shows off Crovax grinning and chuckling on a throne. He is a happy creepy evil vampire man. Dark Suspicious has Urza attack some giant tentacled dude with claws for hands, which I think is a planeswalker that betrayed him. Not to make stereotypes, but maybe when you're planning for betrayal, don't include the obviously-a-fantasy-villain in your inter-dimensional strike team? Warped Devotion is the cliffhanger of the Planeshift novel, where our two main heroes gets tempted.
Crosis looks so much less impressive in Shriek of Dread. I guess it's the gangly arms. Slay shows that zombies in mecha suits >>>>> pale punk-rock elves.
I considered putting all the Kavus up above again, but honestly? None of these are all that exciting. Caldera Kavu and Flametongue Kavu are just fire and volcano-themed Kavu, although I really do like the artwork for these two.
More Kavus, although I'm far more interested in the weird spider-legged robot with Plo Koon's face in Kavu Recluse's artwork. Mire Kavu's flavour text talks about a 'Kavu with wings' sarcastically. Don't worry, Sisay, it takes exactly one expansion for one of those to show up.
A bunch of goblins. These are Mogg, which are Rath goblins, huh? They have Klingon foreheads, apparently. I don't have much to say here, these are the serious goblins and so they are the boring goblins.
Another Battlemage/Familiar duo. The Thunderscape Familiar is a Kavu, huh? Okay, I guess that's appropriate. Black's is a zombie, Blue's is an owl, Green's is a beetle... honestly, it's not until this point that I realize that the White-mana familiar is a wall. The jokes about White being boring write themselves.
Squee we are at a war for the very survival of our plane of existence we have no time for your Goblin Game.
Implode shows the mana-bomb being detonated, I assume. Y'know, I'm going to assume that all the Planeswalker's X cards are actually showing members of Urza's nine-man planeswalker group, but none of the novel summaries actually list them.
More Green monsters. Mirrorwood Treefolk is actually kinda funny. Its bark has reflective properties, so it bounces off and blows up Phyrexian minions.
Even more Kavus. These look more armoadillo-esque. I actually almost put Stone Kavu on top, it has a very cool looking dome-head. But I ended up not having much to really say.
The Thunderscape Familiar is a giant beetle crawling on lava, and it's got... a very bizarre looking mouth. It's got a human mouth, which is the weirdest and most unsettling thing you can put on a bug.
Bunch of Green stuff.
Bunch more Green stuff. Oh hey, it's Multani! I remember Multani. He's cool. Is Falling Timber supposed to show off some kind of sigil? I'm not sure.
We have a higher amount of multi-colour cards, and I feel at this point the creative team have a better grasp of combining colours to fit the card. The Cavern Harpy is Blue because it's a harpy, and Black because it's evil. Steel Leaf Paladin is Green because it's an elf riding a Kavu, and White because it's a paladin. Lava Zombie is, well, a lava (Red) zombie (Black).
Oh hey, after a while, we get yet another Phelddagrif! The Questing Phelddagrif, judging by its name, is on a quest. You go, hippo-bird-thing. You go do your quest. That Shivan Wurm looks so absolutely gobsmacked at being summoned straight into battle. Or is that treefolk-looking creature's arm transformed into a wurm?
A couple more story beats, with Phyrexian Tyranny showing Crovax about to corrupt Ertai, and Urza's Guilt showing Urza meeting his long-thought-dead brother Mishra. And Hull Breach has Sisay drop an entire ship on Crovax's stronghold.
More story beats! These are pretty self-explanatory.
It's a Charm cycle of baubles held by dragons.
For baubles held by dragons, they are extremely bland. There isn't even any sort of attempt at making a poetic flavour text to tie the five cards together.
Not much to say about anything here.
How are Kavus born, mommy? Well, son, first you pay one red mana, one green mana and two mana of any kind, then cast Natural Emergence, and suddenly the land itself will turn into Kavus at your command.
Two more artifacts. Again, not much to say here.
Lands. I have even less to say about lands.
Dromar's Cavern actually looks cool from an artwork standpoint. Otherwise... eh.
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A bunch of White-mana humans doing heroic things.
Standard Bearer is the first of our 'Flagbearer' cards. It's... it's really kind of bizarre that they decided to turn this into a creature type, but okay, sure. There are a bunch of Flagbearer synergy cards, too. Eh?
Spectral Lynx is a ghost kitty. Ghost kitty!
Divine Light is an angel kitty. Angel kitty!
Coastal Drake is a drake that apparently specifically targets Kavus. Poor Kavus!
Living Airship is... I thought it's meant to be the Weatherlight coming to sentience as the story synopsis tells me, but it's way too small to be the Weatherlight. Also, a bunch of Merfolk.
And a bunch more Merfolks! I really like the artwork for Whirlpool Warrior, Whirlpool Rider and Whirlpool Drake. Whirlpools are apparently just my aesthetic.
A bunch of terrain. Y'know, despite being the climactic end of all, a lot of Apocalypse's cards are kind of... mundane.
The flavour text for Index is funny. Is that bearded dude supposed to be the Magic team, trying to figure out what cards they already did and what cards they haven't done? Also, haha, alphabetical order makes actually finding cards and synergies hard. Jaded Response and Jilt feels more like something out of a more story-heavy expansion, that's more like it!
A bunch of regular zombies and cultists? Really, Black mana, this is like your last chance for the big Phyrexian hurrah; give us a Yawgmoth card!
Okay, a Zombie Boa is a bit cooler, but still, nowhere as cool as the rest of the Phyrexian stuff we've come to expect.
More story-related stuff! Not much for me to say here, but these are at least a lot less boring than "Zombie #98" or "Calm Terrain #121".
The Sanctuary cards are a cycle in this set. I'm obligated to point that out.
A bunch of dwarves.
Obligatory Red goblin and obligatory Red minotaur.
Tahngarth's Glare is funny. Look at Squee, fucking with Tahngarth when they are in a battle for life and death. I know you just came back from the dead, dude, but maybe don't piss off the minotaur with anger issues.
Eh. Red stuff.
Kavu Howler is pretty neat. At first I thought that giant Jurassic-Park-Dilophosaurus head is attached to a giant serpentine neck, but turns out that it's just the arms of the Howler. Still pretty cool nonetheless. Penumbra Kavu is another Kavu, but at this point they're all starting to blur together.
Kavu Mauler is a six-legged Kavu! It nearly made it into the main body of the article.
An actually pretty cool wurm, and a bunch of elves.
A bunch of Green spells.
More Green spells.
Mystic Snake? Trussssst in m eeeee in aaaaall you doooooo
Gaea's Skyfolk has a pretty neat art, a mermaid that can fly.
We get a bunch of multi-class goblins! The Red/White Goblin Legionnaire is a soldier goblin, and so are Goblin Trenches. While the Blue/Red Razorfin Hunter is... a goblin-merfolk! Which isn't obvious from the artwork, but I do like that even the flavour text is baffled if this is a result of the Phyrexian overlay or something that's been lurking deep in the ocean.
Actually, that brings to mind... they really dropped the ball on not making more Phyrexian-overlay-created mutations, huh? There are like maybe less than a dozen in both Planeshift and Apocalypse despite the focus on multi-colour cards. I think that's what actually made me so... blase about many of these. What makes a card like the zombie elf or the zombie soldier or the random jungle wall so unique that they have to be printed in a set about the Dominarians banding together fighting Phyrexia for one last stand?
These, at least, show moments in the war. But I really wished that a lot of the other cards do a bit more to illustrate that too, maybe not between Crovax and Gerrard and the rest of the main cast if they don't want all 130 cards to be 'look at our novel characters', but really, the proportion of Phyrexia-vs-Dominaria cards vesus just random generic fantasy things is pretty stacked in favour of the latter.
Again, I'd rather have more cards like Last Stand showing Dominaria's forces fighting Phyrexia, or cards like Deathgrasp or Soul Link that at least sell the vibe of something huge going on.
These are just... kinda there.
And so are these.
Okay, I approve of anything with Squee, though Squee's Embrace might be a bit iffy. Ask for consent, Squee!
Death Mutation has a cool card art, and I assume Vindicate is the huge "the good guys use the power of plot device to kill Yawgmoth" sequence. Ultimate Nullifier!
Oh more of these horizontal cards. My neck hurts looking at them.
More horizontal cards, and a brass golem.
Emblazoned Golem is a cool card art. There's nothing really much to say here. I like the name of Mask of Intolerance, though, there are many jokes you can make out of it.
Really, none of the land cards depicts Phyrexia? Okay then.
...and we're done. Yep, Apocalypse was everything I remembered it to be when I first saw these cards. Half of it is admittedly pretty cool or thematic, but the other half was kind of boring. Join me next time for the Odyssey block!
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