Magic: The Gathering
Magical Thinking: Rise of the Eldrazi
Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back on the art and cards of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, through the eyes of a casual fan. This week we finish off the Zendikar block by looking at its third set, April 2010’s Rise of the Eldrazi.
Zendikar is a plane of absolute danger filled with dungeons and dangerous natural phenomenon. But why is it like that? Funny story, it turns out a long time ago some planeswalkers imprisoned a bunch of giant cosmic abominations from beyond time and space on the plane. And now they’re free. The Eldrazi have returned, and now the entire multiverse is in danger again. But what ARE the Eldrazi? Let’s find out.
Now that is a big lady. Meet Emrakul, leader of the Eldrazi (I think, it’s unclear), and yes, the entire mountain is her. This is the set where they really stuck the landing when designing a eldritch horror; Marit Lage didn’t quite do it, the Phyrexians were close but not quite there, The Nephilim were ultimately a failed experiment. But this right here? This is how you do it.
Here is Eldrazi big boy number two, Kozilek. The neat thing about Eldrazi is that they are colorless. Not because they are artifacts, but because they are so incomprehensible they don’t fit into the color wheel at all. Think about that, the color wheel can be used to describe just about any person or creature, but the Eldrazi are above it. Also, check out the Eldrazi keyword: Annihilator, these guys end up blowing stuff up just by their presence. That’s how you know they are powerful.
Here’s Eldrazi big boy number three. I love the entire aesthetic of the Eldrazi; how they look like pale, skinless giant things, and that’s when they even bother looking humanoid and aren’t just giant mountains of flesh and limbs. They’re phenomenally neat!
We got the Eldrazi out of the way, now back to our regularly scheduled color pie, starting with White and a new mechanic: Leveling up. Leveling up is… just what it says. You pay mana to level up your creature, giving them better stats over time. I think this should have been a mechanic throughout this entire set since they wanted to push the “DnD-like MTG plane” aesthetic, but apparently this mechanic was not well received and has a Storm Scale rating of 8. Don’t expect to see it again after this set.
Hey, its Visionaries: the Magic Card! Yeah, you’re a true child of the eighties if you get that one. Anyway, the totem armor cards let you use your aura to take a hit for a spell. It’s a neat mechanic, and has a Storm Scale rating of 5 so maybe we’ll see it again.
Here we have a new planeswalker: Gideon Jura, native to the plane of Theros. Gideon was a soldier before becoming a planeswalker, so he’s not afraid to get down and dirty and join the melee himself, as the above card shows.
Part of the problem with the Level Up mechanic is that a lot of the levels feel like dead air. You’re probably only going to drop one level on a creature a turn, and you need to do it a few times before you get a useful effect out of it. Later cards will do this same mechanic and actually be interesting and useful and make significant changes on each level.
All things considered, I’m surprised cats aren’t an endangered species on Zendikar, when they have to deal with this crap. Also, I imagine Kor loves to throw sweet rave parties with incredibly high body counts.
Man, everyone has it rough now that the Eldrazi are back. Even the griffin need to relocate. Eldrazi do so much damage to the environment I’m surprised they didn’t get asked to be part of the EPA by Donald Trump.
Gideon makes a career of punching Cthulhu. Which makes including him in this set very appropriate. He’s dead now, so I guess the Cthulhu punching doesn’t always work out.
What were the vampires supposed to do exactly? Did you SEE the Eldrazi? They’re huge. And Immortal. And Hungry. Cut the vampires some slack. Also, wow White is not messing around this set.
Sure guys. We have mountain size abominations walking around like they own the place, but you and your three dumbass friends are gonna hold them back with your wooden shields. Good luck with that.
Okay, so maybe mister glowy face here is worth sinking twelve Mana into for full power, but I still feel like it’s a lot of time and wasted Mana.
Here’s the final new mechanic of this set: Rebound. Rebound lets you cast a spell a second time the next turn for free. A pretty good deal if you ask me. Also it’s only a 3 on the Storm Scale. I like the flavor since you’re basically hitting someone with a spell a week from now. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!
For White the totem auras we had were the elk, the mammoth, and the hyena. What does blue get? A horseshoe crab. I can’t help but feel a bit of disparity (then again Zendikar crabs are pretty badass, so maybe?)
Okay, that is a goblin. If you are domesticating sapient creatures, that’s no domestication, that’s pretty clearly slavery. Bad merfolk! That’s a bad merfolk. Shame on you. And someone buff that goblin! Rise up my friend, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
Red creatures always seem to get the worst of it in these cards: goblins and minotaurs always the one getting messed with in these spells. Red creatures deserve more respect, dammit!
Emrakul proving that air superiority (and being a mile wide mountain of meat and limbs) wins wars.
I take back what I said about crab umbra. Zendikar crabs are badass. Don’t mess with them, they’ll take your head off.
I always loved the illusion creature subtype. They aren’t really creatures, they’re just illusions made as distractions or defenses. But an illusionary monster doesn’t really impress when you have the real thing running about.
It’s not just the illusionists taking inspiration from the Eldrazi. It’s also the local shapeshifters, who can’t help but look at the Eldrazi and be like “Oh yeah, gotta get me some of that.” Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Never take directions from a broken Rubik’s Cube. Still, more reliable than map quest, I guess.
Time to step into the squared circle and prepare to put someone in the hurt locker, brother.
How arrogant is this bloodlord? Well they rolled into this fight on the back of a giant ant. How does that make them arrogant? I don’t know.
Come on, Emrakul just woke up and she’s hungry. Be trapped a billion years and see if you don’t have the munchies.
Must have been one pretty wild Burning Man.
He’s a death cultist. I kind of expected dying to be part of his abilities. It’s nice to see someone committed to their job, you know?
Someone should really open up a shelter for the abandoned and orphaned nulls, and help them find hones with new vampire overlords. Or just burn them down with flamethrowers. That works too.
AKA the effect watching the news on any given day has on people.
Here’s another level up creature that seems worth it. If only because first strike and deathtouch are a powerful combo.
I know that looks bad, but that Eldrazi was just helping her lance a really bad boil on her face.
I know this looks bad, but I promise Sorin is a good guy. Seriously. Why are you looking at me like that?
I wonder if the horrors feel threatened now that the Eldrazi are here, considering they are way bigger, scarier and more alien. Are they even capable of feeling envy? Questions for another day I suppose.
FROM THE TOP ROPE! OH MY GAWD, HE’S BROKEN IN HALF! SLOBBERKNOCKER! BEER SIX BRAWL!
What’s better than a treason effect? A treason effect attached to a creature! And a pretty big creature at that. Of course with the Eldrazi about I doubt it’s ability to command anything.
The drones are the things that do the main Eldrazi’s dirty work. They may not be very numerous now, but watch out! Also, that new Billy Hatcher reboot is looking weird.
This guy, and a bunch of other goblins from this deck, were reprinted in core 2021, so I got to play with them a bit in my mono red goblin tribal deck. These guys are super fun, and I just realized he’s wearing part of a broken hedron as a hat.
Red mana: killing things with fire since 1993.
I don’t think you want to be invoking any kind of fumes, especially lava fumes. Seems like a great way to pass out and fall into lava. But I guess he knows something I don’t, so whatever.
Ogre brand pest control. All natural, organic, and cruelty free (except for the ogres, who are extremely cruel…okay scratch that last one).
Here is another card currently legal in standard, and one I faced numerous times in Arena. It is very annoying and can kill you very quickly.
One thing I like is that the Zendikar natives are not completely helpless against the Eldrazi. Taken off guard? sure. Surprised? Definitely. But they are a society of badass adventurers, so they are rolling with and fighting back against these monsters.
Here’s another example of that; all these warriors are going to run up on that Eldrazi like they don’t give a fudge. I mean, they’re probably gonna die but YEAH! GET YOU SOME, GUYS! I’ll be over here…watching.
If you are playing Eldrazi you are probably gonna be partially Green to take advantage of all the mana dorks and ramping to get those big boys out quick. Ironic because Green is the color of nature and Eldrazi are super unnatural.
Now we’re talking! Now you can ride in style on your Bear Umbra. Be the envy of the teddy bear picnic. Turn a stroll in the wild into a country bear jamboree. I can continue.
Yes, life finds a way. Nice to know when the Eldrazi are done razing Zendikar the goo will still be alive and well.
And of course we have the latest chapter of Green’s inexplicable and entirely driven by game balance hate for flying creatures.
Watch out Eldrazi! The Khalni druids are coming to collect, and what they are collecting is a piece of your ass. Eight pieces in fact, one for each head.
It occurred to me that a lot of Eldrazi spells create these little spawn you sacrifice for colorless Mana, and then it hit me that they have those to get the big Eldrazi out faster. Kind of feel stupid it took me that long to figure it out.
Like I said, Zendikar is a plane of badasses. If anyone can deal with the Eldrazi it’s them. Also, apparently Eldrazi are great for the grill.
I wish people were that unified against the end of the world in real life. HA HA HA IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE LAUGH WITH ME!
“Yeah, whose where on the food chain now, jackass? Let’s see how you like being bite sized.”
Well congratulations, the Eldrazi are no longer the freakiest creature on Zendikar. Addendum to that observation: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Oh, great. This guy again. Yeah, Sarkhan is back. I kind of wish he wasn’t. But enough about the Number One Dragon Fanboy.
On Zendikar, you need a big knife for when Thanksgiving rolls around, so you can really cut those big turkeys (Also Eldrazi cranberry sauce. Just say no, kids).
Is this like the MTG version of Pickman’s Model, where this was meant to be an artistic representation of an Eldrazi? If so, SUPER-neat.
This is one of the most relevant cards in the set. No lie, when I played Arena I saw this card and it’s counterpart Fabled Passage all the damn time. It’s easy to see why this is an auto-include in most multicolor decks, especially ones with landfall.
And with that we leave this apocalypse in progress…to check out another plane with an apocalypse in progress! Next time we return to Mirrodin, where something is cooking under the ground. It’s Scars of Mirrodin next week, but until then stay Magical.
