Magic: The Gathering monsters, Creature-Thread

So Scythe did some coverage of creatures from Magic: The Gathering on his blog a while ago. They were all from older sets, but that doesn't mean that more modern blocks (groups of sets) haven't had some interesting creatures of their own.

Let's start with the Eldrazi, from the appropriately named Rise of the Eldrazi set.



The Eldrazi are eldritch abominations from the Blind Eternities, the spaces between planes. They eat mana, and will descend on planes to do so, leading to the plane's destruction. Three planeswalkers (powerful magic users who can travel between planes-it's a bit complicated) decided to try and stop them. This ended when the three Eldrazi titans above were imprisoned on the plane of Zendikar. For thousands of years they were imprisoned until, by apparent accident, they were released, spawning broods of ickle little abominations to destroy Zendikar.



So far I haven't heard whether the set's story ended with the Eldrazi being defeated or not.

We move from one set of villains to another, Magic's big bads, the Phyrexians. They kind of fell out of favour in the past several years, but they've made a big comeback in the Scars of Mirrodin set. The Phyrexians are more of a virus than a race, spreading via a black oil that transforms organisms into disturbing blends of flesh and metal.





Currently they're trying to take over the metallic plane of Mirrodin. As its inhabitants are already partially metallic, the Phyrexians seem to have half their work done for them. Art from the upcoming Mirrodin Besieged set, showing quite a few of the protagonists from the previous Mirrodin sets as Phyrexians, seems to confirm that the Mirrans are completely fucked.

But my favourite set/block in terms of creatures is the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block (well, they're both individual blocks, but they're the same block flavour-wise). They were based on the mythologies of the British Isles, and also, to an extent, fairy tales. Lorwyn was an idyllic plane, perpertually sunny (really, the sun never went down very far), and lacking in maelevolent things. Well, aside from the elves, who were so obsessed with beauty that they hunted down anything they considered an 'eyeblight'.

Then something called the great aurora happens, and Lorwyn becomes Shadowmoor, a plane of perpetual twilight based on the darker aspects of fairy tales. The change affects the inhabitants too. I'll show this with one character, as she appears in Lorwyn:

and as she is in Shadowmoor.

I love the Shadowmoor creatures because they're just so downright creepy without having to be multi-limbed monstrosities with multiple mouths. Well, aside from the scarecrows. They're pretty weird.






There's even a Nucklavee, though it looks nothing like the actual thing.


I got these images off magiccards.info, just so you know where to look. The official card database is crap, the images are tiny.

Hehe, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is my favourite block too!

One of my favourite designs from the Shadowmoor block in terms of pure horror is the Grief Tyrant. Arguably it's a lot more eldritch and abominable than the rest of the set, which makes it stand out.



And then you have THIS illustration, which is apparently a very unfortunate hobbit/kithkin being devoured alive by a Grief Tyrant.



Sweet dreams.

I still never figured out how I lost my collection, so carefully organized and full of obscure creature art...some of which is pretty difficult to find in card databases, especially since creatures didn't used to always fit into broad "types." The card type would just be the creature's name.

I only own one Magic card.
That card also happens to be my favorite.

You people and your magic cards.

BROODSTAR

Broodstar
Propping up the bar
Driving in a car
It looks so easy
Broodstar
Propping up the bar
Driving in a car tonight

Yes, but does it scream when it remembers cats? Only then will it be perfect.

I STILL can't figure out what the hell the parts are on this thing.

All those scarecrow monsters are really awesome. But of course my favorite is the one with the bear-trap for a head.

My favorite thing about trading card art is how it's sometimes impossible to tell what the fuck the card is illustrating. Granted, that's rarely a bad thing.

Primordial Jund was the deck I started off with, and so the Jund plane is one of my favourites. It's essentially prehistoric times as done by Magic, where everything eats everything else.



It is also where everything can kill everything else.

Took me a long time myself, but the segmented thing on the right is a single leg,it has an identical one mostly hidden behind it, two arms ending in gigantic mouths, and a very small nubby head, hanging down and covered in armor plating.

It's roughly humanoid and symmetrical, but very cleverly distorted.

It's in a porn star pose!

RAPE!!!!