Magic: The Gathering | Fairy Tales
Magical Thinking: Throne of Eldraine
Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look at the cards and art of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, through the eyes of a casual fan. And as a casual fan I am very happy that this week we are looking at a personal fan favorite set of mine. With the story of the Gatewatch over for the time being, and the threat of Nicol Bolas extinguished, it’s time to focus on a new story with new characters on a brand new plane. This week we’re looking at October 2019’s Throne of Eldraine.
On the plane of Eldraine, the peace is kept by five nobles houses (representing the five primary colors of Magic) who protect civilization against the dangerous creatures that lurk in the wild. However things go bad when the fey planeswalker Oko, with the aid of everyone’s favorite cursed planeswalker Garruk, kidnaps the good kind Kenrith. This prompts Kenrith’s children Will and Rowan to embark on a quest to save their father, restore order to the kingdom, and along the way discover truths about themselves that will ignite their own planeswalker sparks. So let’s begin this tale. Once upon a time…
Oh boy.
I saw this card a lot, both using it and playing against it. It’s another one of those cards that can snowball out of control really rapidly. It gets worse when you realize the set after this one is a Theros set, which is the “enchantments matter” set. Throw this bad boy on a Healer’s Hawk and watch the fun.
If you haven’t guessed, this is the fairy tale/ King Arthur themed set. Expect a lot of fairy tale themed card. Gere we have the princess and prince charming. Not any specific princess and prince, just in general. Flavor wise the princess is gentle and peaceful so monsters leave her alone, meanwhile the prince can solve a variety of problems.
This set puts a lot more emphasis on mono color decks, with each of the five good kingdoms having their own royalty and their own theme. Also, each kingdom has their own treasure. In this case the White kingdom of Ardenvale has The Circle of Loyalty. Each artifact is legendary, super powerful, and has their cost reduced by a specific metric.
And here we have one of the new mechanics for this set: Adventures are creature cards with a spell component. If you cast the spell part first, you can cast the creature side later. Adventures were a powerful mechanic and a lot of fun, and one I hope we see again. Luckily they are Storm Ccale 4 so the chances are good.
It’s a fairy tale. Of course it’s gonna end happily ever after. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pull off this card’s win condition, but it would be certainly cool to try.
You remember Archons, right? Those guys who ride big flying mounts and represent the less good aspects of White? Well this one makes everyone and everything that isn’t an archon a 3/3, and gives you two humans too (who also become 3/3). That’s a pretty powerful effect. I personally loved this card.
I love the effort they put into making this creature look big on the art, like he’s literally using farmland as a cloak. Also, when you play his adventure in Arena there is an animation of a huge cgi hand that comes down and looms over the land. It’s a cool effect.
Shepherd of the flock doesn’t seem like much, but he saved my creatures many times with his adventure side. I will always have a soft spot for this guy. I do hope he finds his sheep, or goats, or whatever.
I like to think since Magic is, at its core, a game about wizards fighting each other. This card literally causes a tower to sprout up from under a creature to trap them.
This card was pretty much a staple of Blue decks for the time it was in play. It’s a bounce effect that works on any enemy permanent. It can only block fliers, but you’re not using him for blocking. He’s just overall a fun card.
This was another signature card. Even if you aren’t playing mill this is a good counter spell. And if you are playing mill? Then why wouldn’t you put this one in?
A theme that started in this set was “draw your second card”, which meant you were rewarded by drawing a second card in a turn. During this era I had a deck which I called DRAWAPALOOZA! It was an Izzet-themed deck based around this concept. I’ll introduce more cards from it as we go on but this was the start.
Of all the kingdom cards, this is the one I played with the least, as in I don’t think I ever used it. I even tried out Circle of Loyalty a few times, but this one did not appeal to me.
Another staple of the mill deck, especially when paired with Drowned Secrets. You can start your first turn with milling, then throw up a 0/4 wall next turn.
I hope they remembered to put in air holes this time.
Anyway, this is another aspect of mill cards: Things that do more when you put more stuff in an opponents graveyard. It also has flash, so you can totally jack up an opponent’s attack.
Another DRAWAPALOOZA! staple (And yes, I’m gonna type it like that every time don’t at me).
“Hey, it’s the Elk Channel. That’s my whole afternoon.”
Adamant is another mechanic of this set, which encourages you to spend mana of the same color to cast a spell to get an extra effect. Like I said, big emphasis on getting people to play mono color.
Eldraine is another setting I like because the Black faction, Locthwain, isn’t evil. They’re arrogant and haughty, yes, but they’re also brave, incredibly determined, and romantics. Creepy aesthetic aside they are good people (for the most part).
And we just got creepy.
What a way to introduce my favorite mechanic of this set. Food tokens are, well, tokens you can sacrifice to get health. You can also use them to fuel a bunch of other cards. They are probably one of my favorite mechanics in all of Magic, and one I hope they bring back.
Oh dear. We’ll come back to this one, but this is one bad kitty let me tell you. When I started Arena, one of my first decks was a Golgari food deck and even noob-me was like “This seems busted”.
The Lochtwain treasure, which is unique in that they don’t actually have it. It’s lost in the wilds, and they are still hunting for it. It’s a pretty cool effect, but not one I got to play with much.
…I think I found that shepherd’s goats. He’s not getting them back.
This is an awesome card because the choice is “get hit in the face with an 8/8” or “Give your opponent life and a card”. I really love this card, like unironic love for this big guy.
Looks well preserved for a zombie. Must be all that bog stuff. This was another staple card for Black, at least for me. 1/1 deathtouch is super useful in the early game, and the card draw is nice too.
Man, the zombie knights are batting a thousand. Not for finding the Cauldron of Life. They suck at that. But they are pretty powerful nonetheless. This was another must-have removal card, especially since he reincarnates into your deck upon death.
It’s Rankle! The Master of Prankles! He should be given a spankle! This was another card I enjoyed if I may be frankle. Okay, I’ll stop now.
Of course it wouldn’t be a fairy tale without your very own wicked step parent. Complete with their obnoxious evil pet. Get yours today. Or don’t. They’re actually pretty terrible all things considered.
Ah, Bonecrusher Giant. I like to bring this card out to illustrate how far Magic creatures have come in terms of utility. There was a time when putting creatures in a deck was a sucker’s game. But now, in the modern era, we get a card that would have been insanely overpowered just ten years ago.
This card is insanely good; an overpriced shock attached to a 4/3 body. But at the same time it’s not the kind of card you build a deck around, just one that fits in well with any Red deck you can make.
Oh, Embercleave. This card was the bane of my existence. It showed up in so many Red beatdown decks it wasn’t even funny. This is the “You are already dead” card. You opponent plays this bad boy during an attack and you’re dead before you can even say “Nani?”.
Yeah, this guy showed up a lot too in those beat down decks. The instant you saw Fervent Champion you knew it was gonna be a short match.
Fires of Invention is another one of those super busted cards that eventually had to be banned because people were doing crazy stuff with it. I saw this card in action and yeah, don’t even mess with these decks. These are the big brain decks right here.
A personal favorite, this was the main damage output for DRAWAPALOOZA! If you get two or three out, you basically got a cannon barrage every turn.
Robber of the Rich is a fun card and a personal favorite, because you are literally stealing their cards by attacking your wealthier opponents. As for the Merry Men, we’ll get to them later.
I think it’s a matter of circumstance whether you prefer this one or Lava Coil. I like Lava Coil better but this one is more versatile being an instant.
I like this card in theory, but I don’t think I’ve ever drawn more than two or three of these guys in a single match, so it’s not really worth filling your deck with seven of them.
And here we have another staple of the Red rush deck. You see this guy, then things are gonna be painful for sure.
This was a Green staple for a while, and a fun card on top of that. Land acceleration plus it’s as big as the number of lands you have. Makes for one jolly green giant. Ho Ho Ho.
Speaking of mana acceleration, we have not quite Bird of Paradise. I think I prefer this one though because A) flavor, and B) you can use the food tokens for other stuff.
Of all the treasures, this is the one I got the most use out of. It’s just so fun mass-drawing cards with it and playing buffed creature after buffed creature. Insert Spinal Tap reference here.
Spoiler warning: The king got turned into an elk. It’s a magical land, these things happen.
Beauty and the Beast reference. I love that he won’t fight unless he has a 1/1 to fight for, but that creature type doesn’t matter, just stats. You can use a goblin, a rat, anything that’s 1/1. Hey, maybe he just really likes his pet kitty or his Healer’s Hawk.
This is an absurdly powerful creature; haste, vigilance, deathtouch, can’t be chump blocked, and it auto damages planeswalker. Questing Beast will always be a personal favorite. WHY ISN’T IT A GIRAFFE?
You may recall last time we saw Garruk, he got super cursed by Liliana Vess. Well now he’s cured, thanks to the Kenrith kids, which means he’s gonna become their babysitter for a while.
Ow, poor little baby piggies. Run little piggies! I believe in you! And your little sniffers.
This is always a fun card to break out, especially if you have graveyard recursion you can keep playing stuff with. It’s always fun to see what your opponent will throw away to stave off their eventual doom.
…looks legit to me.
This was one of my favorite Gruul cards in this era, and I ended up using him a lot as a Brawl commander in Arena, among other places.
And here is another card that was a staple of my DRAWAPALOOZA! deck. It doesn’t seem like much, but believe me, those pixies add up and fast.
Here is the Big Bad of this set. He’s so much of a villain that his card is banned in almost every format. Only legal in vintage and commander. I came on the scene just as this guy was on his way out so I was spared the desolation of Oko, but I bet it was awful.
It’s interesting that the Merry Men card is Boros, who in Ravnica are super-cops. Anyway, this is a favorite card of mine. Probably my favorite in the set since it churns out random creatures each turn, and because of its random nature.
Here we have the heroes of the set. Will and Rowan were actually introduced in Battlebond, a set I skipped over but will come back to once I get through the standard sets. This was basically the focal point card of my DRAWAPALOOZA! deck (and don’t worry, that’s last time I’m doing that. Probably).
It’s taking all my restraint not to make a crack about fast food. Anyway, this was a staple of rush decks, and thus incredibly annoying. I hope someone dunks them in a cup of milk.
This was the card that made Cauldron Familiar so broken. Because you could use it to endlessly sacrifice the cat over and over to make more food tokens to sacrifice to bring back the familiar. Which means A) constant damage and life gain from the cat coming back, and B) an endless chump blocker. I think the familiar eventually got banned from standard because of this.
Fabled Passage is basically a better version of Evolving Wilds, so it saw a lot of play when it was standard legal. It will probably continue to see play in eternal formats as well.
The big man himself, Kenrith, ready for all your commander politicking needs. He has five abilities for five colors, so there’s no telling what kind of deck he runs.
And they all lived happily ever after, but the story isn’t over for us just yet. Next week we head back to Theros and see what Elspeth has been up to. Oh, she died? Well, when has that ever stopped anyone in fantasy? Come back next time for Theros Beyond Death. Until then, Stay Magical.
