Magic: The Gathering

Magical Thinking: Scourge

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. Today we finish our look at Onslaught block with the final expansion of this block and the grand finale of the entire Mirari saga started in Odyssey: May 2003’s Scourge.

Things are pretty rough on Otaria right now. The fight between Akroma and Phage has produced not only Karona, an Avatar of all the forms of Mana, but also a new Sliver leader who has united all the other slivers under it. To make matters worse, the energies from the Mirari are mutating Soldiers, Wizards, Elves and even zombies into almost unrecognizable forms. It’s gonna take a big silver golem shaped miracle to sort all this mess out. So let’s see how things work out with that.

Oh. Oh dear.

Now those of you who are new to Magic have probably heard of the “Storm scale” at some point, which is the rating system they use to predict if new mechanics are going to come back or not, or how often mechanics will see use. This is the mechanic it’s named for. Storm is so overpowered, so broken, so crazy it will NEVER be used again. EVER.

Basically, Storm spells copy themselves for every spell cast before they were cast that turn, which means if you are running a lot of cheap or no cost spells or you time an instant right you can do some pretty broken stuff. Needless to say, Storm cards don’t show up too much after this, and we will probably see a few more broken ones along the way.

Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!

Apparently this is the Mirari’s doing. I mentioned it was mutating people and this is one of the examples; turning warriors into faceless giants fused with their own armor. See, I keep telling people this is why you destroy the Artifact of Ultimate Evil, not just bury it. Imagine if they threw the One Ring in a lake. You’d get entire towns of Golums.

I have to assume making the Mana cost 7 was a deliberate reference to DBZ (Which I am pretty sure was still on TV at the time). Or maybe I’m just reaching.

I like this Doomsayer better than the Hearthstone one. That guy didn’t do squat to stop the doom. At least this guy is being proactive.

“Well, Tom, we got an incoming knife storm from the West, but that should dissipate in a few hours, and after that perfect picnic weather.”

I feel sorry for Weather people on Dominaria. Trying to predict the weather with Planeswalkers throwing around magic and changing the environment must be a pain in the ass.

So our last defense is a 2/2 huh? I think we might be in trouble then.

Probably a good case for waiting until after your attack phase to start casting spells. Unless your plan is to buff all your creatures before attacking, in which case I guess you’re just screwed.

Now this is some epic level Magic right here. Just turn all your creatures into dragons. I really love the flavor here, even if it’s weird they get turned into red creatures.

Here’s another one where I like the flavor: Now only are they immobilized, but they are made very brittle. Freeze your opponent’s biggest creature and then ping it down. Put that Prodigal Sorcerer to work.

Took me a second to figure this one out, but I think you can just keep trying to counter the same spell with the stormed copies until your opponent runs out of mana trying to get through them all. I mean, since it’s a counter spell effect that means your opponent has to pay at minimum four extra mana to stop them both. Right?

I think this guy works in the same lab they make Ecto Coolers in.

So basically this card is “Get all the cards you need for your combo, then draw them whenever you need them”.

Similar to how Soldiers are becoming faceless white guys thanks to the Mirari, Wizards are becoming faceless blue people, and even turning into water people (as seen in Parallel Thoughts).

And here we have the greatest Magic card ever printed. A legend in his own time. Who is this living Adonis, this Cadillac of men? He’s an 8 mana 1/1 with no effects aside from Morph.

I mean, you want to make a power move? Right before you win, hard cast this bad boy. Look into your opponent’s eyes the entire time. It’s the ultimate BM.

“Yes, Hello, my name is Bladewing, and this is my pet Zombie. Winner of Best in Show at the Cabal Zombie shows five years running.”

I guess being turned into a weird water guy is no defense against being turned into a zombie later. A good thing to remember.

Pretty sure I left some stew in my fridge for a few months and it almost turned into this.

Considering all the trouble these Morphs have been causing I’m glad someone figured out how to destroy them. Go, Cabal!

Yeah, the Mirari is even mucking up the Undead. I mean, look at this mess. It’s like someone looked at a WoW abomination and thought “Lets make it look even more messed up”.

I just want to give a shoutout to Twisted Abomination because they are one of my favorite Zombies ever. I played with these guys all the time back in the day, and I still have them in my mono black IRL deck.

I wouldn’t exactly call it unspeakable. I wonder if that’s the name taken by Dominaria Prince?

And welcome back to our latest edition of “Generic monster that gets labeled as Beast because Wizards doesn’t want to make too many different creature types.” It’s a comedy. The Joke here is you only play this if you have lots of Morph creatures.

When I started playing Arena last year, I did an event where I drafted one of these things. The event had special rules where cards cost zero mana, but you only drew one card at a time, so using this bad boy gave me super fast board advantage. Even if he’s not viable in constructed play, I still have a soft spot for the big guy.

Starting to see a theme here for Red. Probably also explains the lack of Mirari mutation in this color: Too many Dragons.

Okay, so what’s better than turning your minions into dragons, or summoning a mass of dragons, or anything? It’s becoming a Dragon yourself. Yeah, your health becomes locked at 5, but you heal up each turn, you can burn your opponent down pretty quickly, and you can only be hit by fliers. Against a lot of decks this is a death sentence (And against some other decks playing it is a death sentence, but I mean come on).

Also I’m pretty sure this is Sarkhan’s favorite card. More on that jerk later.

It wouldn’t be Magic without those wacky goblins. This expansion is pretty Goblin light, probably to make rooms for more Goblins.

More like Mana Rock Jockey, am I right? HAHAHAHA!

Why yes, I am a comedic genius. Why do you ask?

Okay, so we got Knights with guns, Ogres with flamethrowers, and now Goblins with belt sanders. Any other monsters we want to give power tools to? Maybe we should give a dragon an industrial lathe. Manticores with nail guns. Giant Squirrels with putty knives. The possibilities are endless.

And here is what the Mirari is doing to the Elves, turning them into big green muscular dudes. I mean, you’d think it would have hit them first but apparently the Mirari started mutating the Krosan animals before the Elves.

WE ARE HERE TO PUMP *CLAP* YOU UP.

I mean, Portal second age may have Knights with guns, but this is the REAL gun show right here.

Teef. We have them.

Now you can play your Scornful Egotist for 6 mana instead of 8. Honestly, just make a Simic ramp deck and have your only high cost minion be Egotist and confuse the Hell out of your opponent.

Oh, and put a few of these in that Scornful Egotist deck just to confuse your opponent to no end.

This would be like if Frodo had a DBZ training arc with Tom Bombadil, went back to Mount Doom, fished out the One Ring, put it on, then got into a bare knuckle boxing match with Sauron and excuse me I have a fanfic to write. TO A03!!!

Hey, remember Bladewing from the Cabal Pit fighting? Well apparently he died and got better. And now he’s a zombie dragon. Good for him? Or bad for him. I don’t really know.

And here is the big bad of this expansion (Well, one of them). Mechanically it seems fitting since she pretends to be on everyone’s side, but at the end she’s only on her own side. Did anyone ever play her in a deck? Cause she seems kind of not good.

This guy, on the other hand, is amazing. Not only does it let you tutor for slivers, but it lets you steal your opponents slivers. Although I think it’s weird they put this one in this set and not in the previous set which had all the slivers in it. Ah well.

And with that, we come to an end of an era of Magic. Next time, we begin a whole new era of Magic, new card borders, new block, and on a brand new plane of existence with nothing to do with Dominaria. Yes friends, tighten your skullclamps and pack your ornithropter. We’re going to Mirrodin next time. But until then, stay Magical.