Magic: The Gathering

Magical Thinking: Champions of Kamigawa

Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back at the art and cards of Magic the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, through the eyes of a casual fan. This week we begin a whole new block on a new plane: Kamigawa block, with the first set of the block, October of 2004’s Champions of Kamigawa.

Inspired by Japanese mythology, Kamigawa is a plane on the brink of war as the Kami, the spirits which are the essence of all things, are becoming increasingly hostile towards mortals. It’s up to Michiko, daughter of Konda, the ruler of Kamigawa, to find out what’s going on. Along the way she teams up with Toshi Umezawa, a Ronin and black mana user, and they go out to uncover what’s going on with the Kami and how to save Kamigawa (Spoiler warning: As it turns out Konda is kind of a creep and may have messed things up a lot).

Kamigawa was not well received at the time of its publishing. It was lower power level than Mirrodin, and the high number of legendaries in the set was frustrating for players since at this point the rule for legendaries applied to both sides of the table; If one person played a legendary, no one else at the table could play that legendary. Thankfully they eventually changed that rule.

It also didn’t help that Kamigawa came after Mirrodin and preceded Ravnica, two of the most popular settings Magic has ever produced. So it’s both a tough act to follow and to a tough act to open for. Still, I kind of have a soft spot for Kamigawa. I don’t have too many cards from these sets, but I think we’ll see it’s not all that bad a setting.

Oh dear.

Yeah we’re starting off strong once again with White. Here we have two of the new mechanics introduced in this set (And as near as I can tell almost none of the mechanics introduced in this set made it out of Kamigawa). The first is flip cards. Basically you play them with the mana cost side up, and then when they do a thing you flip them over as they “level up”. I think most of these cards are normal jabronis who accomplish heroic deeds and become legendaries. Which is a cool idea and all, but once again we’re not quite there with this concept. It’s gonna take some time to make it work.

The second mechanic introduced here is Bushido. In the real world Bushido was the moral code of Samurai that governed their actions. In Magic, Bushido means that when this creature is blocked or blocks something they get a power boost. Presumably because they like dueling. They duel, that’s what they do (Any Spoony fans out there? That one is for you).

Sadly Scryfall doesn’t count the flipped card as a different image, so I can’t really show you what it looks like upside down. So I’m gonna try and keep the flip cards to a minimum (Much like WOTC eventually decided to do).

Here we have another pair of new mechanics. The more important one is splice. Splice is a fairly powerful effect that lets you add the effect of a card to another card. Now this ability confused me for the longest time until I read up on it and realized that doing this does not consume the card being spliced on. So you can conceivably keep casting the same spell forever as long as you have things to splice onto it.

Pretty powerful right? Apparently WOTC thought so too (It ranks an 8 on the Storm Scale), which is why they made it so you can only splice spells onto Arcane spells. Arcane is just a keyword meant to represent the magic of the Kami, which means splice spells only work in Kamigawa. On the one hand, that’s one good way to limit their power. On the other hand, it makes them much less useful in Eternal formats. That’s what you have to do to balance cards sometimes.

I admit my own knowledge of Japanese mythology is not up to par, but I will say there are a lot of creepy spirits in this set. It’s one of the reasons I like it so much.

Oh hey, it’s a mechanic that actually did see use outside of Kamigawa (eventually). The idea behind Shrines is that there’s one of each color, and they are legendary, so you need to play a five color deck to get the most out of them. In Core 2021, WOTC introduced a brand new cycle of shrines, complete with a five color shrine to tie them all together, so this is one Kamigawa archetype that is actually alive and well (I even ran a Shrine deck for a while, it’s fun).

11/10. A heckin’ good pupper right here.

Isamaru actually showed up recently in WOTC’s Jump/Start product. I mean, he’s pretty simple: A half priced Grizzly bear. But apparently some people use him as a commander. Must be for folks who like a challenge. Or Dog people.

I did mention there were some weird creatures in this set, right? It’s kind of like how in other sets Beast was a catch-all for whatever weird card you could come up with? Now that, but with spirits cranked up to 11.

In the tradition started with the Leonin and the Loxodon we have another creature type repurposed to create a new race: The Kitsune, who are fox people. Of course the Kitsune have a leg up because they actually come from mythology, but they never really caught on like Leonin and Loxodon did, maybe because they are exclusive to Kamigawa.

Oh hey, it’s our Big Bad right away! I mean, they didn’t exactly go out of their way to hide that Grandpa here is the Big Bad. He doesn’t exactly look like a calm and collected leader of men. He looks like he’s yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

Also, I think the fact he’s indestructible is a good indicator of what’s going on and what he did to piss off the Kami.

In honor of Masako the humorless, I present TWO Masako anti-jokes:

“Why did the Chicken cross the road? It did not because it was fenced in by the farmer.”

“Knock Knock. Whose there? Your husband, I forgot my keys. Alright I’ll let you in then.”

Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Because they wont let me leave.

Well, if I may, the Kami of Utter Silence sounds like a terrible house guest. I do not want them coming over to my house. I like my books, thank you very much. They’d probably brick my Kindle too, the jerk.

Now this was a confusing card until I read the errata. You swap life totals of players, as opposed to pooling the remaining life and redistributing it. This feels like it was made specifically for EDH.

The Zubera are a brand new creature race, a group of faceless spirits based on the Nopera bo (SIC) from Japanese mythology. The Zubera are far better designed than the Slith from Mirrodin, who were just kind of there.

Yeah, cause I’m sure destroying the shrines will make the Kami less pissed off at you. I thought Blue was supposed to be the smart color.

It’s Om Nom Nom the card. Again this kind of demonstrates the power of splice. If you have enough mana and arcane spells you can just bounce opponent’s creatures all day.

…Have I mentioned Goldfish creep me out? Maybe it’s because my mom tried to raise them numerous times while I was growing up and they kept dying, but I am not a fan of Goldfish. Especially creepy-looking flying ones. The only thing that could make them worse is if they were vomiting up something…

Wow, um, sounds like you were working some stuff out, Snow-Fur. Do you want to talk about it? Preferably away from the creepy floating guy with the roses?

This feels like a card that benefits from having a large hand. Luckily that’s usually not a problem for blue in general. Not much else to say except things don’t really go well for Hisoka in the long run.

It’s the Kami of a rushed Bethesda game.

Moonfolk are a new race created for Kamigawa, much like the Vedalken were made for Mirrodin. I don’t really know much about Moonfolk because they didn’t really catch on like Vedalken did, so the only plane they exist on is Kamigawa. We do see at least one of them around though: The Planeswalker Tamiyo is a moonfolk.

And this is why you never use an octopus as a bong (I mean, it should go without saying but here we are).

Can I say I really enjoy the flavor text of this set. It really does convey the idea that things are going seriously wrong in Kamigawa and that the world is literally turning against humanity for some unknown sin (Of course we know what that sin is, but they don’t).

This picture is much better than the last one because I think it gives a better look at the moonfolk physiology. They’re pretty clearly meant to be rabbit people (Which is another thing from Japanese mythology. See, they don’t see a man in the moon, they see a rabbit), and they seem more sky-based than other blue races, which tend to be aquatic.

This is an example of an Akki, the Kamigawa Goblins. More on them in a bit, but I think this card pretty much exemplifies them despite not being a red card.

I guess this is what those goldfish guys are supposed to be. Or at least what they turn into when they grow up (do they grow up?). I mean, I didn’t think it was possible to become creepier but here we are. But again, at least they aren’t vomiting or anything.

Special guest stars The Blue Man Group.

Also, how topical is it that the Kami War was started by the selfishness of the guy on top, who gets to enjoy immortality while the rest of his people have to suffer from Kami attacks and the loss of their protection. Once again, the poor have to suffer because of the acts of the wealthy.

Hey, not only do we have spirits, we have demons in this set as well. Those are always fun. Ogres are also a favorite of mine.

Apparently one thing we don’t have in Kamigawa are zombies, because this feels like he would maybe be a zombie in another setting. Also not sure what his curse is meant to be but I bet it’s pretty bad.

….I NEED AN ADULT. I NEED TWO ADULTS, I NEED ALL OF THE ADULTS.

And here we have the other half of the equation: Oni, who are the demons of Kamigawa. I also like the flavor of how the ogres need oni to do stuff, but the ogres also help keep the oni from going wild. It’s a pretty neat system.

Oh, here’s another new mechanic. Soulshift, which lets you bring back a spirit of a specific converted mana cost after this one dies. It’s pretty meh, so let’s talk about this weird looking Kami. Like what is even going on with this guy?

Here’s another one I really like, where it uses a creature’s own strength against them by animating their shadow. That’s some very good flavor, explained pretty concisely by the flavor text. Nicely done.

And here we have another new tribe: The Nezumi, or rat people. We already know the kind of trouble rats can cause in Magic, so I’m kind of disappointed these guys aren’t more widespread, instead of being another Kamigawa exclusive. I mean, you can give us a Nezumi planeswalker at the very least.

Seems like there’s a serious problem with systemic racism against the Nezumi on Kamigawa. I guess we can add that to the list of problems this plane has along with the Kami going berserk.

What a wonderful day for an exorcism.

Kind of weird we don’t see this sort of card more often: Black using demonic possession for a power boost. I guess early on they had to worry about moral guardians (Although it does occur to me we had those threshold cards that became horrors because they were possessed), but most demons in Magic don’t possess people, do they?

Isn’t that the guy from Resident Evil? You know the one.

Oh, the political jokes I could make here. But I’m gonna restrain myself because I have another one coming up in a later set. Trust me, it will be good.

That is an awesome looking Machete. I love the jagged bits on the other side especially.

They really do love rocks, don’t they?

Anyway, these are the Akki, the red skinned, rock flinging, vulgar, angry, explody goblins of Kamigawa. I’m not sure how they factor into the Kami War, but they’re Goblins and therefore are awesome.

Man, that Akki looks stoned off his ass (Hah. Stoned. Cause he’s talking to a rock). Also he’s a Goblin who gives you a reimbursement on your red mana. So that’s always good.

It’s the Super Yamazaki brothers! I kind of love this because it’s such a unique concept. A shame you probably can’t play commander with these guys.

Now there’s something you don’t normally see, a story where the Spirit is the one who meets a bad end trespassing on a human domain. Of course we can’t have things be too one-sided towards the Kami in this war.

From the game that gave us knights with pistols, now we have goblins with bazookas. Has science gone too far? Or not far enough?

Again, I like the flavor here, that Kiki-Jiki is animating people’s reflections and turning them into weapons. Apparently people agree with me because he’s been reprinted a ton of times, presumably for commander. I would like to play him in a Gruul deck sometime.

Well isn’t this also depressingly topical. *Sigh* No worries, folks. I think things will start getting better soon.

Teef.

Also, the flavor text confirms the Kami are going after the Akki as well. I guess everyone is in on this fight (except the Ogres I guess, but it seems like they and the Oni are doing their own thing).

Oh yeah, there are dragons in Kamigawa too. Forgot to mention them. They are also spirits, in case you were wondering what side they came down on on the whole Kami War thing. I mean, I wouldn’t want to mess with them.

Call this the “Blow up EVERYTHING” card as a last ditch effort to kill your opponent.

And oh, what’s this? A familiar name in the art. It’s Wayne Reynolds! You may know him as the main artist for the Pathfinder games. Big fan of his art, big big fan.

I know this looks bad, but he’s actually here to deliver a singing telegram. Why don’t you go and get it, and I’ll start running for no related reason. Don’t forget to tip him!

Hey, another Wayne Reynolds piece. Also, I think Hisoka is the smart one here. Of course I don’t think Konda is gonna take the advise (the jerk).

Hey Azusa. I know her. She’s currently legal in standard because she was reprinted in core 2021. Right before the most recent Zendikar set.

So they reprinted a legendary that lets you play more lands, right before a set with landfall.

I guess it goes to show the right environment can make a good card a great card.

Well that’s terrifying. This is what would have happened to the Krusty Krab if Spongebob hadn’t come back with that new spatula in time to feed the Anchovies (Anyone get that reference? First episode of Spongebob? I know you’re out there, I can hear you closing the browser tab).

In Kamigawa, it’s kill or be killed. (UNDERTALE REFERENCE!)

Man, Humble Budoka is built like a pro wrestler. Is Vince McMahon a planeswalker? Someone make that a fan card! It would be amazing.

Teef Two, the Re-Teethening. Also, I wonder if this applies to spliced cards as well.

And our stand-in for elves in this set are the Orochi, who are snake people. Although I gotta say the art doesn’t make these guys look very snake-like. 2/10 on the snakeiness scale.

This guy is more like it. Now that is a snake man right there. 8/10. But only because I think we can do better.

Because even on Kamigawa we need green to be able to mess up fliers.

I like the optimistic flavor text here. It’s worth noting that this was reprinted in 9th edition, and they kept the art, but gave it somewhat less optimistic flavor text:

So much for never giving up hope, huh brah?

Okay, NOW we’re getting somewhere. Gonna give this one a 10/10. Maximum snakeiness.

Oh hey, a snakeiness modifier card. For three mana increase snakeiness by 1. I can dig it. Give that to every Orochi and we’re golden.

Hey, another soulshift card, on a otherwise vanilla creature that’s overpriced for its power and toughness. Meh, I say. MEH. It doesn’t even have trample. MEHHHH.

And here we have our first non-Mirrodin equipment cards. Complete with the “I hope you’re packing a Wrath of God in your deck cause it’s the only way you’re killing this guy” helmet.

I was gonna make some paddle jokes. But I looked into it, and the Shaku is apparently a tablet used to take notes in Japanese and Chinese royal courts. So I’m not gonna make fun of it. I will say having it be blessed by every hero in Kamigawa sounds like a lot of work for each Shaku. I mean, how does the scheduling work for that?

Ah yes, good old fashioned paranoia fuel about statues. File this one right next to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.

You know, if you have a mirror where your reflection dresses differently from you and doesn’t match your movements you have a bad mirror. Then again I’m guessing all the good mirrors were broken by Niki Jiki.

Oh, it’s the “Good luck trying to mill me” card. Something we definitely need more of (And I say that as someone who loves mill).

And here we have probably the most infamous card from this set. One that’s banned in Modern and Legacy. Easy to see why since it has the power to A) fix your draws, and B) draw you a card. This card could lead to some busted stuff.

And it totally doesn’t look like an evil fortress or anything.

Another good flavor card: If you pick from the garden, you better be ready to deal with its guardians. Of course you can probably come up with ways to use this against your opponent or mitigate the drawback.

And here we have an example of the slow lands, which you can tap for one of two colors, but then they freeze for a turn. Needless to say these never really caught on like other dual lands. Go figure.

And with that I think we come to the end of the Champions of Kamigawa. What an interesting set. I can’t wait to explore more of this setting next week when….

…Where did this bicycle horn come from?

…Why am I wearing a rainbow wig?

…And why am I dressed like a clown?

Oh no. It’s coming. It’s returned. Tune in next time for Unhinged, and stay Magical.