Magical Thinking: Ice Age

Wow, been a while hasn’t it?

I have no excuse for the lateness of this. I have a nasty habit of starting projects and then losing interest in them for one reason or another. But I’ll be turning 37 in a few days, and I’ve made a birthday resolution to try and be a bit more active on the writing front. As such, I’m going to try and get one of these out at least once a week. While also juggling other projects, including a fanfic and some Let’s Reads and maybe some DnD Beyond stuff. We’ll see where things go.

So back on topic. Welcome back to Magical Thinking. A personal retrospective on some of the art and weird cards of Magic the Gathering. Today, we are looking at Ice Age.

Ice Age is the sixth Magic expansion, released in June of 1995. It marks the origination of the Block format in Magic, where sets would be interlinked via a common theme. The other sets in this block being Alliances and Homelands (Which was later replaced with Coldsnap retroactively). As the name suggests, Ice Age takes place on Dominaria during an ice age set off by the end results of the Brothers War (You remember, Urza and Mishra being dicks. Like ya do). As if the ice age wasn’t bad enough, the set’s Big Bad, the Necromancer Lim-Dul, was on his bullshit as well, creating armies of undead. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of cold and ice in this expansion, and the whole thing has a sort of Nordic theme to it.

So, lets get into the cards.

And we’re starting with a real winner. Nowadays its hard to believe that people thought that Banding was ever an acceptable mechanic in Magic. It really does illustrate why creatures in Magic were considered useless for the longest time. Still, once again the amazing art of Phil Foglio saves this card. The Foglio art always had a cartoony feel to it which injected some levity into Magic that it really needed.

That’s not an elf. That’s Eclipso from DC comics. Get out of here, Eclipso. Go fight Superman or something.

Gah! You… You okay there buddy? You kind of got… how to put this diplomatically…. you got a bit of chewing gum head there. I think this is one of Jabba’s guards from Star Wars. Either that or he had some majorly bad frost bite at one point. It’s a magical land in an ice age so any explanation is plausible. Don’t worry buddy, you do you, you’ll find love someday.

If you follow Magic: the Gathering news and set spoilers, then you know that core 2021 is returning dogs to Magic the Gathering as a creature type (Where before the closest thing we had were hounds) but not all hounds are becoming Dogs again. So hey, this good boy, who is there to save your blue or green buddy, is gonna be relevant again. Well not really but maybe. Come on Wizards, this is a good boy. Reprint them.

I am like 90% sure this guy came from a TOOl video. Like this is one of the guys from Stinkfist. Say the word and we’ll be well upon our way.

This is apparently a human too. There are just people on Dominaria who look like this. Blue magic must be a hell of a drug.

The thing that sells this one for me is just the oddly out of place wolf in the foreground. It looks like it was photo-shopped in. I get it, drawing a glacier can be kind of boring but come on. You gotta stay focused, can’t just doodle in whatever. Gotta be professional. Unlike me

This set introduced the concept of Cumulative Upkeep, where you had to pay in increasing amount of mana each turn to keep a thing in play. In this case, it’s an army of illusionary bird men. I kind of like the flavor here, with the idea that the illusion becomes harder to keep up. Look, an army of bird men with dreadlocks I can buy, but having them be blue? That just stretches the imagination. I’m gonna need at least two Blue mana to believe that.

OM NOM NOM.

You really got to admire the tenacity of that one polar bear. The others are bugging out but he’s not going down without a fight. Also worth noting that Magic recently put out a monster of a similar size in Ikoria which is literally just Godzilla.

Hey lets play a game. It’s called “How about we totally screw over the opponent’s Mana for a couple of turns. Hope you’re playing Boros or Golgari, dumbass. “

Actually, yeah, no. Golgari and Boros would just ruin this strategy, wouldn’t they? Of course this was back when there wasn’t really support for enemy colors working together so you’re probably fine. But it does always seem like Blue is on a different level than the rest of the game. I mean White is messing around with doggos and banding, and Blue is LITERALLY WARPING REALITY.

Bringing this one up for the purposes of storyline. Marit Lage was this big eldricth abomination that Magic never did anything with for years. And by the time they did do something with her, they already had way better eldritch abominations in the form of the Eldrazi. Still, she is an interesting artifact from the early days of Magic.

OH GOD NOT THE BEES! AH THEY’RE IN MY EYES! I’m sorry, I just had to do it.

Honestly this one wouldn’t be too bad nowadays in a Rakdos sacrifice deck (Since sacrifice seems to be Rakdos’ thing nowadays).

Yeah funny story on this one. The card designers meant it to be a Lemure, as in the Greek name for a spirit of the dead, but the artist thought they meant a Lemur, as in the tiny furry animal. And so now for no reason the evil necromancer Lim-Dul has a contingent of friggin’ ewoks on his side. This is a thing. I am 100% serious.

This was done by the same guy who did Balduvian Conjurer, and once again I just have to assume, based off of this, that the guy was a huge TOOL fan. I’m looking at his other Magic work and it seems to scan. I see you Mark Tedin. I see you. Keep it up, buddy. We’re rooting for you.

Look at this guy. Norritt. Just Norritt. I don’t know if Norritt is his name or his species or what, but that is the look of a guy who’s up to shenanigans. Like he was an extra on Gremlins and they fired him for being too rowdy. He’s the Jared Leto of Gremlins.

Sometimes I wake up and I feel like this guy looks. No plains can stand up to that morning stank breath. The two mana to prevent the damage is to buy the guy some damn mouthwash.

I know the first thing I think of when someone says Anarchy is a half naked demon guy on a mountain waving a staff and making a volcano go off. I mean obviously, right?

I’m torn. On the one hand I love weird and janky cards which can just end the game by themselves. On the other hand, I recognize they are a pain in the ass to play with or against. I’m torn between good and evil here.

Ah, Goblins. Probably my favorite Magic Tribe after Thrulls. Red this time around has some pretty good Goblins, and even better Orcs (which at this point I consider to be an extension of Goblins since they fill the same niche at this stage). I like the flavor here that even though it’s bigger than the average Goblin, it’s still a massive coward.

I feel like anything I add at this point would detract from this, so enjoy.

Fun fact: the reason everyone is freaking out is because he’s wearing a MAGA hat underneath that hood. I’d be appalled too.

Orcs have kind of a land-destruction, despoiling theme to them. I like the flavor here, where the Orcish farmers despoil whatever land they occupy by letting it apparently fill up with pig shit. Remember kids, if you ever need Black Mana just buy a pig, clean up their droppings, and use it to summon the lord of the pit.

I think the guys at Blizzard looked at this card and were like “I have an idea on something we can do with our Orcs/Goblins.” Later versions of this card would cut out the mech, but I honestly have a soft spot for this version.

…Well, he’s not gonna need that heart anymore I guess. Maybe he should have asked to be made out of something more durable than tin.

Ah, the iconic monsters of Green. The noble elf, the towering treefolk, the fearsom Hydra, the… Ouphe. What….. what’s an Ouphe? What the fuck is an Ouphe? Why is it brown? Does it need new pants? Is it… is it trying to steal my cereal? Is he after my delicious sugary breakfast cereal? NO YOU CAN’T HAVE MY OUPHE-O’S. GET OUT OF HERE. I’M CALLING THE COPS.

I know when I think “Setting trapped in an ice age” I think of gorillas. I mean Gorillas love cold weather right? It’s probably fine. Whatever.

YOU CAN’T TELL ME YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF THAT VERY FAMOUS CREATURE FROM FOLKLORE, THE LEGENDARY LHURGOYF. TALKED ABOUT IN SONG AND FICTION THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IF YOU ASK ME “What the fuck is a Lhurgoyf?” THEN I WILL SLAP YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A GODDAMN LIAR. I’m… I’m breaking down people. I don’t know how much more I can take.

…Okay that might be some of the most messed up flavor text I’ve seen in a while. What the heck?

…Um guys? I think the word you are looking for is “Wendigo.” No? Well I guess you know what you’re doing. Pretty sure it’s supposed to be Wendigo but whatever.

Okay, I’m calling color pie break on this one. That does not look like it belongs anywhere near green OR white.

Say what you will, but Lim-Dul knows how to ride in style. Also, skeletons on turtles. SKELETONS ON TURTLES. FLYING TURTLES. You wanna look badass? Show up to an EDH game with this as your commander. That’s a power move right there.

Yeah we’re still doing ante cards in expansions, although I think we are fast approaching the end of their presence in Magic. I mean look at that amulet. That is a face that says “I’m a complete waste of space and I don’t even know it”.

I did not realize this and Reality Twist were in the same expansion. I think this is a better deal because it hits all the colors, and it can’t be as easily countered by playing dual color decks like Boros and Golgari. I wonder though, what happens if you play this AND Reality Twist at the same time?

This weird clock-and-skeleton aesthetic shows up on a lot of early artifact cards, in particular ones that cause mass destruction. I love how it’s hooked up to what looks like a crudely drawn modern dynamo. The tech levels on Dominaria are apparently all over the place.

Nothing to say on the lands here except that this is the expansion that introduced the snow lands, which can be useful in some things. Mainly though I picked this one because just look how chill that guy in the springs is? I bet he hangs out with Norritt. He’s Norritt’s weed man, I bet you.

Well, it’s time to hang up the coat, stomp the snow off our boots, and have some chicken noodle soup, because the Ice Age has ended. Next time on Magical Thinking we look at Homelands, considered by many to be the very worst Magic expansion of all time. Is it true? We’ll find out next time. See you then.