Magic: The Gathering

Magical Thinking: Nemesis

Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a retrospective on the cards and art of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, through the eyes of a casual fan. Today we continue our journey through the Masque block with the second expansion from that block: Nemesis.

Released in February 2000, Nemesis returns to the plane of Rath, where a new Evincar has been named in the form of former Weatherlight crew member Crovax. He’s going to have to put down a rebellion and deal with his rivals in order to prove he can wear the big boy pants and lead the invasion into Dominaria. It also doesn’t help that Volrath is back, and he’s also gunning to get his old job back.

So let’s see how that works out for everyone. Gruesomely, I trust. Yep, it’s time for some good old bad guys vs. bad guys action.

Now onto the cards:

Okay, idea for a Secret Lair: This card, only she’s holding a laser pointer. It would be great.

Fading was the new mechanic for this set. The idea was that you get a (for the time) powerful creature for a (again, at the time) reasonable cost, but they don’t last long, because when the fade counters run out, so do they. With this guy at least, you can use the fade counters for something else to keep your other creatures or yourself alive.

Yikes. Let me know how that works out for you, fellas. I’m gonna noble stand way over there.

Apparently this was one of the big power cards of this set. It’s easy to see why. I mean, Banishing light is a pretty powerful removal right now in Standard and that only removes one permanent. With this you can knock out all your opponent’s best creatures in one turn, then finish them off.

Here is one of this set’s cycles: Seals. Set the seal, break the seal later to do a thing. Apparently these too were really powerful at the time. Heck, they are probably still considered powerful.

The Silkenfist cards

All have Haikus in their text

Sadly, not my thing.

Well, I guess we now know who wins in a fight between Volrath and Crovax. Sorry Volrath, there’s always a bigger fish.

Okay, but can you see why kids like the taste of cinnamon toast crunch?

…Oh come on, when will I ever get to make that joke again?

Guess he found out about Greven’s late night snacking from the Unglued set. Poor devil.

But it wasn’t a beast, it was a CRAB BEAST.

Yeah, doesn’t really roll off the tongue like Rock Lobster does it?

And here we have the first Homunculi, a creature type that would show up later in Ravnica and Alara, among other places, and would be radically different from what we see here (But more on that later). For now lets just appreciate this cute little blinky boy.

Hey, and Spellshapers are back. Not much to say on this one except she seems like she can get very annoying.

And here’s the big man himself. He’s looking pretty good. I guess they never skip arm day on Rath. This guy is SWOLE. That Bicep is bigger than my head! Forget drinking blood, this guy is just eating cows whole.

Alright, we’re getting Ali Baba a pair of gloves and a mask for this one. Also he’s getting hazard pay, because this is absurd.

Oh boy, could have gone without seeing that face. That is a guy who enjoys his job and his job is messing you up proper.

Murderous Betrayal: When you really REALLY want to kill your opponent’s creatures and you don’t care what it takes. I’ve had games like that.

Yeah, he doesn’t really look all that intimidating. I mean, he looks like he needs to sit down and get a hit off his inhaler. You okay there, buddy? You need some orange slices and water?

I like this one, especially since under the rules it will hit itself if you don’t have anything else for it to hit.

Crovax is making him watch the newest Adam Sandler movie. What else can produce that look of brain-destroying horror.

Hey, Volrath finally gets his own card….like an entire block after he was last relevant. Ah well, better late than never right (At least he got better than Ludevic).

Not gonna lie, I really love this card. I like the concept of an old decrepit Hydra, so broken down it can no longer heal, with its flesh rotting off from age, and its heads are falling off on their own as it fights, but it can still launch those heads at opponents, so don’t count it out. I mean, I don’t care if it’s a bad card, I still have a soft spot for them.

A lot of flowstone things in red this time around. Not much to say about this big Godzilla-looking guy except he looks pretty cool.

We also got Laccolith, these big ugly guys with the flame geysers on them…wait a second, this is the creature from Noble Stand those jabroney’s were gonna block. Yeah, good luck with that, fellas. You ain’t protecting jack against these big bruisers, since they can just redirect their damage wherever.

Of course it wouldn’t be red without Goblins, and we got back the Moggs, Rath’s large, Klingon-like Goblins. Always a pleasure to see them out and about.

And here we have another card from this set that was huge: Blastoderm is big, cheap, and has a powerful ability. Yeah, they only last three turns, but that’s enough time to wreck your opponent totally.

Man, here’s another big bruiser. They can just ram through your opponent again and again. Completely unable to block, and they regenerate. Total package right here.

So what exactly is the in-storyline explanation for Fading? I get it with Ancient Hydra, but why are these other people and things just disintegrating? Is it the nature of Rath? Is Yawgmoth doing it? What’s going on here?

Sadly it does nothing to protect her from the back pain of having to lug that hunk of metal around everywhere. I mean, it’s cool looking armor but it looks heavy as hell.

Oh please, you call THAT complex? I’ve seen way more complex artifacts. I mean, remember Ice Cauldron?

I actually really like the flavor here, since this can conceivably just wreck an artifact-heavy deck. Unfortunately it’s a little too specialized to that purpose.

BUT I’M THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN, AND YOU WILL BE BOUGHT, MWAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah I just made a Ted DiBiase reference in 2020. So sue me. Also, I never knew there were creature versions of the rack and the vise before. That’s actually really cool.

Seriously, what is with the weird drill-shaped buildings in this block?

And on that note we finish our look at Nemesis. Tune in next time for the final set of the Masque block: Prophecy. I predict you will get a kick out of it, and also that you will stay Magical.