Blue mages will be rejoicing this Christmas time as they get an early present with some pop’n’flash !!! While not quite the Impulse it is still a very high impact card for any control player. While we are sure to see it find a home somewhere in Standard we will see if it can squeeze into Modern. That is also an incredible piece of Volkan Baga art which is sure to sparkle in the light. Good luck to everyone wishing for Santa to drop off an Anticipate FNM under the tree.
EJSeltzer
@ejseltzer on Twitter
ejseltzer@hotmail.com
The orange sun blazed lazily in the Jundian sky, bathing the land in a relentless tide of tropical heat. Among other things, its savage and uncaring gaze fell on a Thrash of Viashinos as they slowly trudged their way through the thick jungle and up the side of one of Jund’s hundreds of mountains. The Flame Thrash was on the move. As one of the largest groupings of Viashinos on the whole plane, The Flame Thrash boasted a whole 16 members plus it’s elder. Even so, the assembled members didn’t allow themselves the illusion that they were safe. There was no such thing as true safety in Jund.
“That blade getting a little heavy for you Kas? Or maybe the other one?” spoke one of the Viashino youths, Raz. He held out his hand to hoist his friend up a short ledge, who was unable to climb the ledge due to each of his hands being used to grip the hafts of a jagged stone weapon, one a crude cleaver, the other an even cruder spiked club.
“And let you get your hands on Rip or Tear? You’d like that wouldn’t you? Just keep on walking before I leave you for the Nyxathrids to eat,” replied Kas good-naturedly, allowing Raz to grab the shaft of his axe. With a pull from one Viashino and a jump from the other, Kas easily boosted up the ledge, and kept walking. “C’mon, we’re falling behind. Let’s get a move on.”
Minutes later the duo had followed the path smashed through the dense foliage by others before them, steadily heading geographically up. As they skirted around a huge swath of vines they found Shaman Nixl holding back. As they drew closer he gestured for them to be quiet. “Stay your mouths. A challenge is on the winds. Aka’s blood is up.”
The three Viashino huddled over at the edge of the jungle, where the vegetation started to grudgingly give way to the sheer volcanic rock of the mountainside. Thrash-member Aka stood a short distance from Elder Drassom. Aka was clearly agitated, shaking his lguanar-Skull Mallet with every few words. His voice carried on the wind.
“…we fled, like goblin runts! All because of a few balls of roiling mulch! You should be ashamed.”
By contrast, Drassom’s words were more measured. He had been Elder of the Flame Thrash for a long time, and his life had been a long one, a nearly unheard of 12 years of age that spoke of his experience and desire for survival.
“The Saprolings would have overrun and consumed us if we had stayed. I am no coward, we could have fought them off if it had come to it, but a Mycoloth was following in their path. If we had stayed we would have perished.”
Aka spat a blob of phlegm onto the ground, where it sizzled against the subterranean heat. “An Elder who flees before a piece of roving fungus is no elder at all! We should not have left the valley! Any moment now a Dragon could spot us, exposed like this. You made us move, endangered us all. I say you have no right to lead the Flame Thrash! I, Aka challenge you Drassom!”
The Thrash gathered around Shaman Nixl, excited despite their long day of trekking. A challenge could end only one way. The crowd settled in to watch.
The fight was not outwardly fair; Drassom was physically larger and more experienced than his opponent. Aka for his part, was a dirty fighter, and showed it by launching himself at the Eldar before he even had time to draw his weapon, a great obsidian blade called Slayer. The Mallet lumbered through the air with terrifying force, more than enough to pulverise bone, and Drassom ducked to avoid it. Aka followed through his wild haymaker by twisting into slap of his powerful tail, catching
Drassom on the side of the head and pushing him back a step. Aka continued to attack, reversing his momentum and launching another low attack with his mallet, this time catching Drassom in the gut. The gut strike had almost no power compared to the all-or-nothing of his first attack, but it winded the Elder, who let out a wheeze as the breath was knocked out of him.
On the sidelines, Kas caught his breath too. Was the Elder actually in trouble? Kas had little love for Aka, even aside from the lack of attachment most Thrash members had for each other, (a useful skill on a world where most humanoids were lucky to live to see their 8th birthday) Kas had always found Aka to be arrogant and obnoxious. The thought of him making the decisions for the Thrash was unpleasant to say the least.
And it did seem as though Drassom was in trouble. The Elder was staggering back, clutching his stomach and wheezing. Aka was closing in, roaring his ascension. He raised the mallet back for a killing blow, his opponent never even having had time to draw his blade.
Suddenly Drassom shot forward like a dragon’s dive bomb, he barrelled in low with arms outstretched and crashed into Aka in a running tackle and held him as he continued to run. Running with his grappled opponent held up close he didn’t seem to be very winded at all. In panic, Aka tried to bring his mallet down on the Elder’s back to break the grab, but Drassom had seized his challenger’s wrist in a grip powerful enough to stress bone to prevent exactly that. A second later Drassom slammed Aka into a nearby boulder. Aka was stunned, slumping down as his world spun violently. Drassom quickly picked the younger challenger with both hands and hurled him bodily away, causing him to crash not far from where the rest of the Thrash was watching. Moaning with pain and nausea Aka could do nothing as Drassom grabbed him by the head and pulled him up to his shaky feet. Drassom withdrew Slayer out of the notch on his vine-made belt.
“I feigned weakness Aka,” the Elder spat to his challenger’s face. Then he rammed Slayer into Aka’s stomach, forcing the blade deep in and twisting. “But you are weak. And we can’t afford to have weakness in this Thrash.”
Aka was fading fast, blood spewing from the mortal wound in his stomach. Even so, he was still alive as Drassom leant in and with lightning speed, tore Aka’s throat out with a powerful wrench of his razor-toothed jaws. Blood spraying everywhere, Aka fell, never to get up again.
Drassom let his challenger fall, Aka’s gore staining his mouth crimson. He raised Slayer up high and roared with bloodlust, beating his chest triumphantly.
“Looks like the source of our next meal’s solved boys! Meat’s on the menu!”
The Flame Thrash went wild for their leader, the Viashinos letting out roars of their own and waving their weapons with gusto. Kas clashed Rip and Tear together, gratified at the sparks cascading off the impacts. He was proud to be Part of the Flame Thrash, proud to be a warrior under Eldar Drassom. Kas looked Raz in the eyes and winked at his friend. This was the life.
And then the roar split Kas’ world open.
In an eyeblink, The Thrash’s mood changed from jovial to terrified.
“…DRAGON!!”
A shadow swiftly passed over the assembled Viashino as something huge blocked out the very sun for a moment. A ear-splitting roar echoed through the air. Instinctively, Kas and the others looked over to Drassom for guidance.
“HELLKITE!! Out of the forest!”
The Viashinos pelted out of the forest as quick as they could run. A moment later the circling dragon made an attack run on their position. With an unearthly hiss a huge patch of forest transformed into blazing pyre. Countless small predators cried out in agony as their bodies were consumed by scorching heat, and the scent of charred meat filled the air. Kas hit the rock as the heatwash knocked him from his feet.
A Hellkite. Just when they weren’t doomed enough as is.
A hand grabbed Kas’ shoulder, hauling him up to his feet, even as he coughed to get the smoke out of his mouth. Next thing Kas knew he was running.
“Move it! Into the cave! We can’t stay here!”
Elder Drassom’s voice cut through the chaos like a knife, gave the Viashinos something to rally behind. Drassom stood at the mouth of a large cave. Viashinos tended not to venture into caves, there was a whole different array of things to eat them in there, but they had no choice: out in the open the Dragon would consume them all, easy as falling off a log and into a Thrinax’s mouth.
As Kas’ legs pumped with desperation, devouring the distance between himself and the cave mouth, he could feel the rush of air that meant the dragon was closing in on them again. If his eyes could shed tears in this volcanic enviroment, Kas would do so. There was nothing he could do as death swooped in for him, but keep running and hope that it wasn’t him that was taken.
As fate would have it, it wasn’t him. As they ran, Kas could hear a scream and a crunch as Zol was wrenching screaming into the sky, born aloft by the Dragon’s maw. And then it came back.
By the time the Flame-Thrash had made it to the cave’s entrance, three of their number had died gruesome deaths. But there was no time to mourn that fact. No time for anything but survival.
Without hesitation the Thrash ran into the depths of the cave, using the small amount of light coming in from outside to guide their way. Behind t hem the Hellkite made to pursue, roaring with rage that its prey would dare to try and escape.
The cave was sharply narrowing the further they went in. At the entrance it had been cavernous, more than enough room for the dragon to move through, but now it was only four or so times their height. If it continued to narrow like this, the dragon would be unable to fit, and they might be able to find another way out, or at least wait the creature out. They were moving slower now as the light became increasingly dim. Behind them the cave vibrated to the sounds of the Hellkite as it pursued them. It was still after them, hungry for their flesh. It took a lot of Viashino meat to sate a hungry dragon.
The cave was narrowing sharply now. Up ahead there was a yellowy glow coming from under a large rock protrusion. The protrusion was narrow so low that they’d have to stoop to get under it. There was no way the Hellkite could get at them there! There night even be a way out of the cave system.
Kas let out a huge sigh of relief as he jogged the last few metres to the crevice. He leapt onto his side, sliding the last few metres under the crevice on his tough scales, and was enveloped in the pale light. As his eyes adjusted from the almost pitch-black of the cave to the yellowy light of the crevice, Kas stood. His chest heaved with the exertion of the past few minutes. He was alive! His blood still flowed in his veins, and his body still had breath in it. He was safe. He was alive! It was going to be okay!
Then his eyes adjusted to the light level and Kas looked around. He let out a frustrated moan. He wasn’t in a crevice. The walls and roof were covered in some kind of mould that glowed in the dark, filling the air with enough light to clearly see in. That yellow glow betrayed the cavernous space that the Flame-Thrash now stood in. It was a huge cavern, big enough to easily fit a Dragon. Like the Dragon that was moments behind them. The cavern was sealed, the only entrance or exit to it the one they had just come through. They were trapped.
Kas swore a long and angry oath, but none of the Thrash heard it as a huge impact rocked the wall they had just moved under. The Dragon was behind them, and it was breaking the rock down to get at them. Another colossal crash and cracks started to appear in the stone. The Hellkite was enraged; it was coming for them no matter what. Their deaths were assured.
“Thrash! To me!” Elder Drassom called over the sound of the impacts and the falling rock. The Viashinos gathered around their leader. Drassom drew out Slayer with as much reverence as he could muster. In the dim light the sword looked to be made from pure blackness. Drassom pointed the blade’s jagged edge towards the quaking rock wall. When he spoke it was in a booming voice that seemed to make him stand twice as tall.
“Our doom comes for us! Our doom comes for us now, and I say we be ready for it! We will die with a battle-cry in our throats and a weapon clenched in our fists! Once that wall breaks down, I want to see no Viashino shy away from his fate. We may die today, Flame Thrash. Jund may belong to the Dragons, the accused tyrants of flame. We may be the prey, and they the predators. But I say to you, you who have bled and fought and killed and feasted beside me…. I say that the next time this dragon sees a Thrash to prey on; it will remember us in its scars! It will remember that we, we of the thousands it has conquered, did not submit, did not go down without a fight! And for a moment, it will know fear!”
Another impact rocked the wall, and a chunk of the rock came away. A great reptilian eye swivelled into the hole, its pupil contracting as it bored into them. There was hunger in that eye, terrible hunger. The Hellkite gave a roar, shaking the carven. When it was done, Drassom roared back with all the might he could muster, his roar reverberating off the cavern walls till it sounded as though the dragon had been challenged by another of its kind.
For a second, silence filled the cavern as the Dragon’s eye withdrew. The calm before the storm. The Viashinos drew their weapons, some with nervousness, some with anticipation.
Then, it was over. With a tremendous crash that dwarfed all before it, the Hellkite’s horned, armoured head smashed through the sheer rock, its huge body following it through. The Dragon’s massive armoured body filled the hole it had made. It was easily the biggest creature on Jund, with a huge maw that could almost swallow a Viashino whole. The huge impact stunned it for a second, and it shook its head and snorted in irritation as it regained its senses.
The slight pause gave Drassom the only chance he needed.
“FLAME-THRASH! ATTACK!!!”
As one, the Flame-Thrash did just that. Howling with a combination of rage and hysteria, the Viashinos took the fight to the Dragon, wielding an array of brutal weapons made from stone and bone. It was akin to a colony of ants attacking a scorpion. The Viashino’s spread out to surround and assail the Dragon from multiple angles, and battle was joined. Only one side could emerge alive.
Kas was of course in the thick of it. With Thrash members on either side he swung Rip and Tear as hard as he could. Each blow landed, but failed to penetrate the Dragon’s scales. It was like trying to cut into a boulder. Kas struck again, and again, and again, hacking and chopping with all his strength, but each time the Dragon’s natural armour stopped his weapons from doing any damage. Looking around he could see his Thrash-members were having similar problems. The dragon had recovered now, and had wasted no time in stamping on Rok, crushing his body to bloody pulp. As it withdrew its foreleg it gave a pained snarl and Beh gave a triumphant cry, his speartip covered in Dragon blood as he wrenched it out.
“Aim for its underbelly! The scales are weaker….”
Beh’s scientific revelation was cut short as the Dragon twisted its head and snapped him up, biting him clean in half. Roaring, it turned its head to focus on Shaman Nixl, who was standing before it, and opened its jaws wide, preparing to immolate him where he stood. Shaman Nixl held his staff in both hands, and pointed it at the dragon, chanting his words of power. Desperation must have leant his magic power, as his hands sparked with electricity and Nixl thrust them at the Dragon, unleashing a bolt of lightning. The air sizzled and crackled with static as the lightning arced across the air and struck home, blasting a fist sized chunk of flesh out, and leaving a smoking crater of the surrounding area.
The Dragon howled with pain, thrashing its huge body around. The thrashing intensified as the rest of the Thrash put the departed Beh’s knowledge to use: hacking at the Dragon’s underbelly and weaker areas they started to hurt it. Kas for his part drew both his weapons up and swung both down in a sidewards chop, precise accuracy not required against such a huge target. His club still failed to break the skin, but his cleaver punctured the scales and rewarded Kas with a slight spray of blood. Kas dropped his club, gripping Rip’s handle with both hands and tried to push the head in deeper. They were hurting it! Actually hurting it!
Two of the Thrash had situated themselves near the Dragon’s rear, using spears to jab at the legs. The Hellkite’s tail swung around like a battering ram, sweeping them aside like they were leaves. The force of the blow pitched them across the cavern, where they collided with the walls. They dropped, a pile of shattered bones.
Shaman Nixl, perhaps emboldened by his earlier staring down the Dragon head-on and living, once again unleashed lightning. This time he hit the wing, vaporising a large part of the bat-like membrane. The Dragon responded with its other wing, swinging it around like a scythe. One of the bony spurs that tipped the outer edges of the wing caught Nixl, impaling him through the chest. The Shaman’s staff clattered to the ground as the Shaman, his hands as empty of electricity as his eyes were of life, was lifted into the air.
As another blade pierced its skin, the Dragon had evidently had enough. Bellowing in frustration, it surged forward, stomping ahead like a juggernaut. One of the Thrash was too slow and was trod on, trampled into the floor. The rest of the Viashinos were tossed around by the raw force of the scaly behemoth. The Hellkite wheeled around when it had cleared its attackers, hissing with malice. It was more than hungry now, it was wounded and mad.
“Quickly Thrash! Charge it! Keep in close!” Bellowed Drassom, picking himself up and lurching forward. As deadly as the Hellkite was up close, it was a lot more so if it could get some distance between itself and its prey. The Thrash were on their feet and after him in a heartbeat, closing the distance.
It wasn’t fast enough. The dragon opened its great jaws wide, and a thick stream of blistering, searing heat screamed forth from them, sweeping across in a wall of flame. Drassom dived forward with the no-time-to-think-about-it reflexes of one who has lived a life of constant danger, but the others weren’t so lucky. It swept through the ragged line of charging Viashinos, transforming the majority of the remaining Flame-Thrash from bellowing warriors to wailing pyres in a snap. The smell of roasting meat overpowered the stench of blood in the cavern.
Kas had fallen behind the others when the fire struck, having taken a moment to grab both Rip and Tear before moving. Only positioning saved him from a hideous death. Instead the fires roared up mere paces in front of him, the crackle and heat of the flames as terrifying and powerful as the beast that had generated it. The sudden flare of brightness from the fire’s light was intense, and Kas cowered for a second as his retinas tried to compensate. Running on instinct he covered his eyes to block out of some the glare. The wall of fire was thick, impenetrable… he couldn’t see through. Somewhere beyond the barrier was the Hellkite, and the other Thrash-Members. Suddenly something moved and the fire flickered. Kas’ instincts flared again, something was coming at him. He turned to run, and it was probably that which stopped the Dragon’s tail from shattering his body like an old tree trunk.
The Hellkite’s tail slammed into Kas, battering him with the ferocity of a rockslide and knocking Kas off his feet. Laden with momentum the Viashino obeyed gravity and crashed back into the floor at speed, skull meeting rock in a collision that was not good for the former. As he came to a stop Kas’ vision shimmered with trauma. His head ached and all he was assailed with the all-consuming urge to lay down and sleep. Blackness gnawed at the edge of his vision, and he tasted blood, not the invigorating tang of a bite of fresh prey, but the coppery foulness of his own fluids. Kas tried to stand, to get back into the fight, but nausea overwhelmed him and his legs folded, sending him crashing sideways onto the cavern floor. Time seemed to lose its constant pace, winding down slowly like the setting sun. Kas heard the furious roaring of the Dragon, and the equally furious screaming of Drassom, both so full of hate and fear that the difference between the animal and the ally could be found only in their volume. As his vision swam out of focus, he watched detachedly as Raz ran over to him, eyes creased with brotherly concern. He was yelling something, but Kas couldn’t pick it up.
Then, a stream of dragonfre whipped across Kas’ stationary vision, catching Raz across the back. Raz instantly fell to his knees with a muted cry. A second later his head turned back to stare at Kas. One side of his face was a melted mess, the scales cracking open with weeping blood. The eye was gone, buried under a mass of fused tissue. Smoke steamed off his back, but Raz didn’t scream from the pain. As Kas watched, Raz held out a shaking hand. Struggling against his approaching unconsciousness, Kas made his stubborn arm move in reply, forcing it centimetre by centimetre closer to Raz.
It wasn’t a request for help; they both knew their situation was beyond that. It was an urge to reassure a brother-in-arms that when the end came they weren’t alone. Kas didn’t know what lay on the other side of death’s embrace; a life of fighting for life had left little time for introspection about, well anything really. But at least he was going there with his bond-brother, together. Raz spoke, a single word, but Kas couldn’t hear him. He was almost there, brushing the tip of the hand with his own. Then his friend, who Kas had known since he was a youngling, slumped over and died. Cruelly it was only then that the darkness took him.
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
Welcome back folks! I was looking through my entries and noticed that it had been a long time since I cracked a pack for you guys and thought it might be time to pop open a pack and treat it like I was going to draft. I have drafted loads of DTK/DTK/FRF and towards the end it was starting to get stale…but Origins seems pretty spicy and is still very much a thing for a couple of more weeks. So, let’s open up a pack of Origins and have a look at what I might pick if I was sitting down to draft.
Ok, so the rare is a nice one! Scab-Clan Berserker is actually a very nice card. I wouldn’t call it a grade A bomb, but it is a very solid card and can start to warp the board if your opponent needs to think twice about casting non-creature spells. The fact that this creature has Haste is incredibly valuable because it allows you to sneak it in to trigger the Renown on it and then sit back and allow the triggered ability to pile up and yield you further value. I would be thumbing this to the front of the pack and looking for anything that might top it.
Malakir Cullblade is an interesting card, but in order for us to get value out of it you need to have your opponents creatures die and it is highly unlikely that this is going to do it, at least initially, on its own. That means you need to do a fair bit of work to get this to a reasonable point. With one counter this is a 2/2, but it still trades with just about every other 2 drop in the format. As a 3/3 you will start to get value, but that’s asking a fair bit. If you can get this to being a 4/4 you’ve done well and you should be ecstatic, but most clever opponents will ensure that this never gets to that point. If I end up in Black I would look at this as a mid-round pick up, but even then I might not run it because it takes a bunch of work to get it to be good. I’m sure this pack has better cards, so I’ll pass and keep on looking.
Angel’s Tomb is a fun little artifact that can be a very real and relevant threat, but it is conditional on you casting other creatures to enable it. This usually isn’t an issue, but it means that you can’t always rely on this to be your answer. Make no mistake, I’ve lost my fair share of games to this card, but it is not a high pick for me and unlikely to be something I prioritize highly.
Mage-Ring Network is an interesting storage land. I am unlikely to ever want this early in the pack because I’m not big on storage lands. It has applications with Red and any X burn spells (like Ravaging Blaze) but there is no way this is an early pick.
Rhox Maulers is something I can get behind. This guy is a beating and it is exactly the sort of 5 drop I want to play. If this goes unanswered the game is over ridiculously quickly. Whoever designed Trample on Renown cards should feel kind of silly because many games end on account of Rhox Maulers crashing in for a whole pile of life. This one would get a long, hard look for sure.
Dreadwaters. No. I know if you have 3 or 4 of these that you can Mill out your opponent, but you sort of fall into that deck. You don’t go out LOOKING to draft it. Leave this until near the end and if you start to see 2 or 3 floating around it might make a for a funny story. Otherwise, save your pick on something actually relevant.
Reave Soul ! Yes Please. This is premium Black removal and would immediately get pulled to the front of the pack. With a set full of modestly sized creatures Reave Soul kills many of the most relevant ones. I’m sad that it is Sorcery speed removal, but I can hardly argue with a mere 2 mana. In most situations you are likely trading the 2 mana you spend on this spell for 2 mana to kill their “Grizzly” bear, but you could easily come out ahead on the mana if you can nab something like Charging Griffin. That may sound like a trivial difference, but that difference in mana could be huge. It could be the difference between you making them waste their 4 mana on a creature that is now dead, while you could spend your 4 mana to kill it and then follow up with a Screeching Scab or a Fetid Imp. I’m a big fan of Reave Soul and could make the case to pick this first. Let’s see what else is in this pack.
Prickleboar is another very solid creature. It loves to attack and can clear out lots of things and can really get the job done. He’s not great if you are on the back foot, so he wouldn’t be a super early pick, but he does good work and can’t be ignored.
Heavy Infantry is just not something I’m big on. We’ve already seen two very solid 5 drops in this pack showing just what you can get in the way of 5 mana creatures. The return on this guy isn’t great. Sure, he does decent work in almost every situation, but you can’t tell me you’d pick him over the Maulers or Prickleboar. No, he’s a much weaker pick and is something to look at late in this pack.
Vastwood Gorger gets played surprisingly often in Green decks. He’s not flashy, but he’s a big body and can get pretty aggressive. He’s not an early pick, but he’s something that I would be looking for late in the round if I’m in Green.
Negate. Sideboard. Moving on.
Deadbridge Shaman is a card that has surprised me. It has done a good amount of work and I have seen many aggressive decks ride this guy to wins. Nobody is super keen to kill this and discard a card meaning it often goes unchecked. I’m a big fan and would be looking for this fairly early in the pack to help secure the fact that I looking to play Black.
Yoked Ox. Sigh. I don’t like this card because it does so little… except when you need it. This gets sided in against aggressive decks as an early blocker. Otherwise you will rarely play it. End of discussion.
I think we can all agree that there are really only two real picks to take out of this pack first. The Berserker and the premium removal spell are the only real options and are a cut above the rest of this pack. The safe first pick is the removal spell. Reave Soul is almost always a good spell to have in your deck and even if you take it first and don’t play Black, at least you can rest assured that there is one less piece of removal floating around the table. However, how often do you get to play with flashy rare cards like this? Personally I would take the Berserker and then see what comes my way. There is a slight chance that I see another Reave Soul later in the draft, but the chance of seeing the same rare card come around the table is very low, so I’ll take my chances with the rare.
Cards 3 and 4 are pretty easy choices, but the fifth card was something I was weighing pretty closely. I was debating selecting the Vastwood Gorger as the 5th card in this pack, but I sat there and compared a few things. Deadbridge Shaman comes down many turns earlier and in this format that is huge. You can’t afford to have many 5 and 6 drops in your deck or else you will be too slow and that is the dilemma with the Gorger. On top of the speed issue, the fact remains that Deadbridge Shaman has a form of quasi evasion. Few opponents are keen to kill it because that makes them discard and generates a form of card advantage for the player with the Shaman. The discard is a very relevant ability and something that will invariably force your opponent to change how they play. No one is truly scared of the Gorger because you can chump block it for days and continue with your own game plan or dig for an answer. Ultimately, I hate to see Deadbridge Shaman far more than a Vastwood Gorger and would rather grab it early in the pack if I’m intent on playing any sort of Black deck, thus making it more likely to be the fifth pick in the pack.
Well, there we have it. I have to say, this was a pretty interesting pack. The first pick would be very debatable and you could approach it as being a removal spell or the rare creature and be right. The thought that goes into selecting the fifth card would also be very interesting as you weigh the merits of the Gorger or the Shaman. All in all, it gave me plenty to think about and was a good sample of what a pack might look like when drafting Origins. I hope you guys reading along at home enjoyed it and I will make a point of getting another Crack a pack MTG done soon.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and have read. Your support is always appreciated. So, until the next time, have yourself a great MTG day.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
All week long during each week of September, the WotC R&D team brings us new spoilers from the long anticipated Battle for Zendikar. Today was no exception and delivered us new additions to the actual spoiler with all the promos available from the release of the new set.
Scythe Leopard is clearly a nerf from the past referencing to Plated Geopede and Steppe Lynx as the Landfall ability used to be +2/+2 until end of turn. This card will be played in limited and draft as a fill in but I don’t think it will be standard at all even with fetches.
Then, as Hero’s Downfall was there to help us manage creatures and plainswalkers, Ruinous Path say “No, we will manage them and even more!!!” given the possibility of making a 4/4 creature out of a land and it has haste. I think control gained quite a great removal just by the fact of having a 4/4 threat late game. Even if the spell is in sorcery, it will still be a format defining card in standard.
With the comeback to Zendikar, they clearly had to create new Eldrazi in this set. They made no mistake by creating Blight Herder here. This creature as alot of upside being a 4/5 colorless creature that as the possibility of putting 3 1/1’s for a total of 7 power. Although, the condition of having 2 exiled cards of your opponent to put into their graveyard creates a necessity to using the other Eldrazi in the set which have the ability to exile the top card of their library. I think this card will be limited bomb if you get the cheap eldrazi as well in your pool/draft.
Since Wizards let it all out with the big guys, they had to create cards that can manage them. After Ruinous Path, they made us a Journey to Nowhere with Flash. This is definitely a 2 to 4-of depending if it’s a control/midrange deck in Standard. I think Esper control decks will make a comeback in the top tier with those 2 removals. A card I look forward playing with!
Since Anger of the Gods is rotating, the R/x deck was going to suffer from that. Well, not anymore! Radiant Flames will fix the problem because, even as Anger of the gods was exiling the creatures, it was an irrelevant ability as not alot of creatures had graveyard abilities. Also, the fact it only costs one red is really good. I see it as a 2 or 3-of as early mass removal to support Crux of Fate or Languish here.
Battle for Zendikar Game Day
As the previous gamedays, this nice dark horde playmat will be given to the 1st place of the gameday event.
Overall, way to go wizards! R&D really rocked it and it is probably the best set since Return to Ravnica. I wish all of you will enjoy a lot of drafts and capture these great promos ’cause you know…gotta catch’em all! 😉
By Samuel Carrier
@infiwill on Twitter
Set Name – Oath of the Gatewatch
Block – Set 2 of 2 in the Battle for Zendikar block
Number of Cards – 184
Prerelease Events – January 16–17, 2016
Prerelease Format – Sealed (4 OGW/2 BFZ)
Release Date – January 22, 2016
Launch Weekend – January 22–24, 2016
Game Day – February 13–14, 2016
Magic Online Prerelease Events – January 29–February 1, 2016
Magic Online Release Date – February 8, 2016
Magic Online Release Events – February 8–24, 2016
Pro Tour OGW – February 5–7, 2016
Pro Tour OGW Location – Atlanta, GA
Pro Tour OGW Formats
Official Three–Letter Code – OGW
Twitter Hashtag – #MTGOGW
Initial Concept and Game Design –
Ethan Fleischer (lead)
Graeme Hopkins
Ari Levitch
Ken Nagle
Adam Prosak
Mark Rosewater
Final Game Design and Development –
Ian Duke (lead)
Dave Humpherys
Jackie Lee
Adam Prosak
Gavin Verhey
Languages – English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
Available in – Booster Packs, Intro Packs*, Fat Pack* (*-Not available in all languages.)
Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease Pack Contents:
“Two-Headed Giant is Central to the Experience
Oath of the Gatewatch is all about teamwork. It’s designed to support Two-Headed Giant better than most any set in Magic history.”
Participants will also get this nifty deckbox
Quennus turned back to face Tarrin, revealing he was holding the syringe from before.
“What’s it going to do?”
“It will help. Try to hold still, this might sting a little…”
“No! Wait, wait a moment, I don’t want tha- Arrrrgh!”
The syringe effortlessly pieced Tarrin’s coppery skin, depositing a load of unknown liquid straight into the Auriok’s bloodstream. Almost instantly coolness, like ice, spread through Tarrin’s body, causing him to shiver violently for a few moments, rattling the restraints. Just as he began to seriously worry that the coldness would not stop and he would be frozen from the inside out, the cold dimmed down to a bearable chilly feeling in his head and chest, and Tarrin dimly realised his panic had gone, his fear sliding away without protest. He simply felt relaxed and blissfully at ease, even as Quennus reached for him again, holding another syringe filled with liquid.
“What have you done to me?” He asked in a hollow, level voice that echoed how he was feeling.
“I have injected you with a composite drug of my own invention. It affects the higher functions of the subject’s cortex, specifically the frontal hippocampus. In effect it’s quite useful for subjugating and de-prioritizing…….” Quennus noticed at the mildly confused look on his subject’s face. “In simple terms, it numbs your emotions. I myself am usually on a watered-down version while I go about my duties.” Quennus tossed the spent syringe back on to the tray, and grabbed another. Tarrin idly noticed that it had a different coloured band to the first one.
“And we mustn’t forget this one as well.”
Without further comment he administered the contents of the syringe into Tarrin, this time in the wrist.
“And what does that one do?”
“I will demonstrate in a moment,” Mumbled Quennus in a distracted manner as he snatched up a third syringe from his workbench. This time however Quennus injected himself, putting the syringe up to the back of his head, where it seemed to easily slide into a recess on the machinery there. His eyes closed as he pushed the plunger down, well his organic eye did at any rate, and as he withdrew the syringe he trembled violently, as Tarrin himself had done moments earlier. Without explanation he strode forward to Tarrin, and made a quick movement, whipping his hand out and back as though he was a painter dabbing with a brush.
“Do you feel anything?”
Tarrin blinked. “Should I have?”
Quennus raised a hand up to Tarrin’s point of view. He was holding a scalpel with blood on it. Fresh blood on it.
“I just severed your Primary Tendon muscle. If the drug had not worked you would be been in considerable pain. Do not be concerned.”
And he bent over Tarrin’s chest, bloody scalpel still in hand.
“Please do not move. It will make my work difficult.”
Tarrin felt a strange sensation, as though something blunt was being slowly being dragged down his chest. It didn’t hurt at all; it was just a sensation of something being there. And it was then, unhindered by emotion, with only the logic remaining, that he understood. He spoke, with the tone one might use for discussing the weather.
“I’m not going to make it out of here alive, am I Quennus?”
Quennus’ metal eye swivelled to look up at him, while his original one continued to keep track of the incision he was making. He sighed.
“No. I am afraid not.”
Tarrin’s mind knew he should have been afraid at this revelation, or angry, or perhaps wracked with sobbing, but the drug blanked his feelings, kept them out of reach. But intellectual curiosity remained.
“Can you tell me why? I’d like to know.”
Without looking up from his vivisection, Quennus continued to talk, but Tarrin noticed his voice too was a little bit flatter than it had been prior to the injection.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of ‘The Greater Good’, Tarrin. For example, taking one life to save ten is better than merely saving one, and so forth. But what…..”
A squirt of blood arched through the air as Quennus sawed through layers of muscle and skin using the scalpel. Tarrin lay his head back, continued to listen idly.
“….if we were talking not about individual lives, but entire worlds? I’ve seen them, been to them. The multiverse is vast Tarrin…..so vast. There are more worlds out there than I can count; certainly I haven’t been to them all in over 20 years of Planeswalking. You have no idea; it would blow your mind to know how just how small everything you know is.”
The scalpel danced in Quennus’ experienced hands.
“I told you Phyrexia has left its mark on me, and I told the truth. A long time ago, Phyrexia attacked my home plane, much how it is now doing the same to Mirrodin.”
“Really? What happened, was Phyrexia stopped?”
“At the end of a long and gruelling campaign, the people of my home plane thought we had eradicated Phyrexia from existence, though it left our world scarred and damaged for long afterwards. But evidently we were wrong, for somehow the infection has survived to take hold here, and Mirrodin has not been as fortunate. I would be fascinated to know how it happened; from what I’ve seen it would take only a small piece of Phyrexia to start the cycle again, perhaps as little as a goblet-full of the oil could….”
There was a crack, and suddenly Tarrin felt humid air where he had never felt it before. The sensation was unusual, but not entirely unpleasant.
“You might be interested to know you are in excellent shape for an Auriok, your heart is strong and I’m seeing a very healthy set of lungs here. You could probably have lived to an above average age if not for…..”
Quennus locked eyes with Tarrin for a moment, but the bird-man looked away from Tarrin’s blank stare almost straight away. He didn’t seem to be able to finish the sentence. Tarrin decided to break the awkward silence sooner rather than later, he was on a time limit after all.
“Please, continue your story. I want to hear it all.”
After a moment’s silence Quennus extracted his hand, holding something soft and squishy in it. As he put the harvested specimen in a preserving jar he continued to talk, and all Tarrin could do was continue to remain still and let Quennus’ words wash over him.
“I understand that Mirrodin’s people’s joined forces in the face of the Phyrexian invasion, as the people of my home plane did, but you were too late. I understand the hesitancy; no man, woman or child is ready to accept the reality of what Phyrexia means, even when it has started to spread like a cancer. But I think even at the height of the war that the Mirrans still underestimated what they were up against. Again, understandable, but fatal.”
“Phyrexia? It’s some kind of abhorrent civilisation, is it not?”
Quennus shook his head.
“No, it is more than that. You and the Mirrans see it as an invading army, seeking your lands and people’s for subjugation. But Phyrexia is far more than that Tarrin. Phyrexia is an entire ecosystem all itself, a kind of super-organism that aims only to grow and consume until there is nothing left but Phyrexia. It doesn’t exist to defeat armies or isolated villages, it exists to destroy entire civilisations, wipe out entire ecosystems. Every non-Phyrexian thing in existence is at risk, there is nothing Phyrexia will not do to assimilate everything in its path. And here is where the greater good comes in. What do you do with someone sick with an incurable disease, to prevent them from passing the sickness onto others?”
“Well, I suppose the only thing to do is to kill the person, or failing that put them somewhere separate from others, keep them isolated….”
“Exactly! Quarantine is the only solution! Mirrodin is lost, with the exception of the few remaining Mirrans, there is nothing left to save here. Phyrexia has won. But it must not be allowed to get off this world. If Phyrexia knew that other worlds exist out there they…. would find a way to get to them. They would sweep through the whole multiverse. That cannot happen. The only remaining way to deal with Phyrexia is to make it think there is no-where else to spread to. Make sure that Mirrodin is the prison that keeps Phyrexia contained. Forever.”
“And is that why you have come here? You mentioned a mission.” The words came harder now, as though he was fighting against a heavy wind to say to say them. Tarrin’s breathing rate had picked up, but he still felt no discomfort.
“Yes. I was captured by Phyrexia early into my plane’s war with it, and turned into what you see before you. Phyrexia recognises me as its own, I bear its marks and technologies, but it fails to realise that I have my own thoughts and emotions. So I came here, posed as just another cog in the machine, a drone amongst millions of others. No other could have hoped to infiltrate Phyrexia like this. By doing Phyrexia’s grotesque work well, I have worked my up through the hierarchy of the Progress Engine. Now, I am a respected scientist, my words and scientific theorems carry much influence and I regularly have the ear of none other than the Praetor itself.
Tarrin noticed a slight tone of pride in Quennus’ words, mixed with regret.
“And so I have been hiding, erasing or discrediting all evidence of the existence of other plane’s existence. Sometimes I am able to simply wipe the memory of an Exarch, other times I must dispose of them completely before they can spread word of any dangerous discoveries. It has been hard work, always so close to discovery, always covering my tracks so that The Core Augur suspects nothing is afoot. The things I’ve had to do to play the part, Tarrin, you have no idea. I don’t think I can ever forget my sins. I hate that it has to be this way, I hate that the burden falls to me and me alone to do this abominable work…..”
Tarrin gave a wet cough suddenly, his pinned frame wracked with spasms once, twice, three times. When the cough subsided he could feel blood leaking out of his face and gliding down his chin. The feel of it pooling in his nose produced a vaguely ticklish feeling.
“You don’t have long left Tarrin.”
“I guessed. But I’m not afraid.”
“I know. I am glad to know I am able to stop your suffering. Consider it the only gift I can give you.”
Quennus deftly pulled a scrap of cloth from some recess and dabbed the blood up.
“You must understand, I have been saving as many Mirrans as I can. I stage “escapes” and help the Mirran Resistance to launch rescue raids every now and again, and when I am not occupied by my cover duties I visit the Resistances’ base and Planeswalk groups of Mirrans to other words where they can live new lives, but I can’t save them all. It would be too suspicious if too many prisoners went missing, I must not draw attention to myself and my activities. The Core Augar is smart, I must be above suspicion. I couldn’t save you Tarrin, your vivisection had already been approved when I met you, it would have raised far too many questions to have you escape on my watch. I’m deeply sorry. But I will not let your death be in vain. It’s all part….”
“….Of the greater good,” finished Tarrin. He nodded in understanding. It all made sense, in a calculating sort of way. The stakes were unimaginable; casualties of war had to be expended.
Quennus leaned over Tarrin, looming in close. He spoke rapidly now, hurrying his words.
“But I can save your wife and child. They are assigned to be subjected to Phyrisis later on in the cycle; I can easily assign myself as their surgeon.”
Tarrin had started to hyperventilate now, his chest heaving rapidly as his body struggled to cope with what was happening to it. He was beginning to feel cold all over, even though his forehead was slick with sweat. His limbs felt heavy, not the heaviness after a long day of work, but unnaturally heavy, like they had been replaced with lead. Black spots began to appear in his vision, fading in and out. But Quennus was still there, looking back at him. He didn’t seem so scary now, ugly yes, but not scary, like a scarred old ancestor watching over you with advice. There was even a shadow of concern in the surgeon’s avian face, he was sure of it. With his organic hand Quennus cradled Tarrin’s head, trying to settle the shaking.
“You’re going into cardiac arrest. No no no,” he said quietly as Tarrin opened his mouth to try and speak. “Just listen. I swear to you I will save your family, Tarrin of the Auriok, and I will tell them how much you love them when I do so. I will tell them you were brave to the very last.”
“Th…..tha……Thank……you” he managed to choke out.
Quennus’ metal hand tightly clasped Tarrin’s violently shaking, vein-stricken flesh one, even though he knew the patient he had killed wouldn’t be able to feel the gesture.
“Promise….me…..one m-more thing, Q-Q-Quennus.” Tarrin’s voice had died down to a whisper, a rattle evident in it.
“I will try.”
Tarrin seemed to find some strength from within his cracked-open, partly dissected body, and he spoke clearly, one last time. Each word was an effort.
“They…. may have made you in their image on the outside, you may have to act like them, but don’t….. don’t become like them on the inside…. You have to save as many as you can….”
And he fell still, the bronze light of life that flickered in his eyes faded away with that thousand-mile stare that Quennus had seen countless times on his operating slab. The hand that had gripped Quennus so tightly a moment ago fell still, slackly releasing the chrome fingers. Quennus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt there was no point checking for a pulse, it was his own hands that had effectively taken the man’s life.
Quennus staggered back, spattered with blood and bodily fluids. He leant back against a wall, head in hands. He didn’t weep, didn’t scream in guilt or smash the fine instruments in a fit of rage. The only evidence that the emotion-suppressing drug he was on wasn’t totally working was a single tear that slid from the corner of his hazel eye. Quickly Quennus wiped the tear up, holding it up to the light of the lab. Even without his mechanical eye’s zoom function he could see the single droplet was clouded with black, filled with toxic Phyrexian oil. Phyrexia had even taken everything from him, everything, even something as simple as the purity of grief. Quennus quickly squished the droplet between two fingers as if by doing so he could crush the whole of New Phyrexia, take his revenge with just that one act.
Then, with that little private moment over, Quennus wiped off his instruments, removed his surgical attire, and strode from the room, not once looking back at the body that lay strapped and opened up on the slab.
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
Hey MTGers! I want to start with an apology for not posting much of anything in the last 2 months. I’ve been very busy with a course for my career and have been working at a summer camp helping to mentor a number of counsellors. It was a super rewarding two months, but it has meant that I haven’t been able to write much. Don’t worry, I’ve been playing plenty of Magic and have lots of ideas for some budget friendly decks, but I haven’t had a chance to sit down to write. With the new school year upon us, it’s time to get back into my routines and that includes writing. So, let’s get down to business.
One of the side effects to working at a summer camp is that there always seems to be people who want to play Magic. Some of the older campers have brought their cards and that’s fun because they get a kick out of playing with the counsellors or anyone else who happens to be around. I had a special invitation to come down and play once a bunch of campers figured I played too and they had a ball. It was fun and helped me to remember how much fun this game is and the wonder that you can experience just to watch and see what other people decide to do when they play. It was very refreshing and lots of fun.
While playing with the campers was tons of fun, some of the staff had decided to try and pick up the game as well. They were interested in more than just playing, but they wanted to learn how to play and play well. A number of them expressed an interest in learning how to draft and I jumped at the opportunity. I love to draft and I’m very willing to take the time to help people learn to draft. I’m no master, but I’m certainly good enough to help them with the fundamentals.
One of the other guys had a box of Dragons of Tarkir and we all agreed to take a first stab at that. I know it isn’t the official format, but it was easy and fun and made for a good night. Over the course of the evening I had to stop a number of the other guys and ask about their picks, their decks, and generally what their strategies were. I likely drafted the most busted Limited deck I’ve ever seen and amassed a whopping 9 rare cards in my pile, of which 7 of them were on colour. Needless to say, I pretty well smashed the other guys around, but I made a point of helping them clean up their deck at each game, talk better lines of play, and generally about how to draft. As a complete aside, I have renewed respect for the B/R Dash deck that you can draft. The combination of Pitiless Horde and Sprinting Warbrute won me games out of nowhere and were tons of fun.
Well, a week later I took a day off and picked up a box of Magic Origins and we drafted a second time. This time the guys were much better prepared and we had some really fun games. Every guy in the room had a much improved showing and a much more reliable draft deck and the games were much more balanced. My record was much less good as I went a respectable 3-3 (down from the 6-0 the week earlier) but I was happier because the guys felt like they had better decks.
My comments on the Draft format of Origins is that it feels really fast. I had a very solid G/B deck with some very solid cards, plenty of good removal, and a solid curve. However, if I stumbled out of the gate at all I was severely punished and often could not come back. I seemed to stumble more regularly than usual and was a little bummed out about that part because it doesn’t really make for good Magic, but it is part of the game and I had to take my lumps too. Reave Soul was undoubtedly the best card in my deck and I did not feel the least bit bad about firing it off at the first Renown creature I saw hit the table. Dark Petition was an interesting take on a tutor effect, but it was hardly spectacular. Was it useful? Yes. But I’m not going to lie to you and claim that it was awesome. I often used it to search up a removal spell, but often did not have enough mana to use it on the same turn due largely to the speed of the format. However, I did really enjoy the draft and I liked the chance to sit down and teach some keen players some of the fundamentals.
I am always on the lookout for a fun new budget deck that can surprise a few people. I know that everyone needs to keep their wallet in mind and this one is super easy on the wallet and has been surprisingly potent. Let’s take a peak.
When Magic Origins was spoiled, Archangel of Tithes immediately got noticed and there was some measure of discussion of a Mono-White deck that might be able to get a little toe hold. Mono-White is indeed a thing and seems to be badly underrepresented, but could certainly make some noise. I decided that the Devotion style of Mono-White deck doesn’t really have enough of a payoff to warrant leaning on devotion. If Heliod is your big payoff it sort of feels like a big let down because he just doesn’t do enough and his activated ability for the Cleric token is very expensive. Instead, Mono-White needs to rely on having a strong start, curving out and then overwhelming your opponent as you pump your creatures with some sort of trick. It is a very simple and direct strategy, but certainly can get the job done.
Here is the list I’ve been using:
More than just about any deck I’ve ever built, this one is super important to curve out or you’ll be dead in the water. When this deck comes together you have a turn two Lightwalker, a Turn Three Outcast and a Turn four Skycaptain. This puts you in pretty good shape to move to the offensive and start putting the hurt to your opponent. Things get really crazy when you land a Citadel Siege and can start pumping your guys each turn, but if you don’t find the Siege Echoes of the Kin Tree can play a similar role, just much less efficiently. The impact that Elite Scaleguard can have on the game can be tremendous if your opponent can’t answer it quickly and makes for a very powerful Turn five play as well.
The biggest weaknesses with this deck is the removal package and the fact that if you curve out and your opponent isn’t on the back foot because they have had answers you are in big trouble. Magic Origins offers some help on the removal front with Swift Reckonning and Celestial Flare instead of the very bulky Enduring Victory. I still have no solution for when you end up going into top deck mode because you have run out of gas. White rarely gets to draw cards and this is indeed a very real issue because almost every other colour can replenish their hand through some sort of mechanism.
Now, there are countless substitutions out their that could improve the general card quality of the deck and likely speed it up. Echoes of the Kin Tree is cheap, but it is also inefficient to use, so obviously another Citadel Siege would be preferable. I feel like the Eidolon of Countless Battles doesn’t offer much, but I’m not sure what I would rather play in its place. If I drop an Echoes of the Kin Tree and the Eidolon I would have room for a pair of Topan Freeblade, or perhaps just replace the Lightwalkers all together and go with 4 Freeblades. Glaring Aegis is hardly a frightening card and could stand to be upgraded, but the pseudo evasion it offers is nice and can help push through the final points of damage. There are lots of other things you could be doing too, but this is just a budget friendly starting point. Feel free to experiment and make it your own.
This list, as simple as it looks, has helds its own against many decks. It seems to fare best against Midrange decks. Control decks can wipe away the creature base and then win by virtue of card advantage, and the W/R token decks just swarm over and outnumber the deck, but against many others you can have a solid game plan. Great Teachers Decree is a blow out for sure and has helped me to win many games on the spot. Don’t overlook this relatively simple deck. It packs a mean punch and is very easy on the old wallet.
Thanks for taking the time to stop in and have a read. Like I said, I’ll be getting back into the routine of writing more now that the summer is winding down and things are getting back into their routines. So, until next time, take care and have yourself a fun MTG day!
Tarrin was straining against his bonds when he heard the sound. As soon as he had awoken, strapped to an operating slab deep in some biomechanical hell, he had been feverishly working to free his arms. At first he had tried to tug the clamps free, but they were made from some type of organic cable that gave in against his pulls, and then elastically snapped back. Giving up on that, Tarrin had tried to use the metallic growths sprouting from his left shoulder blade to cut through the cords, but he could hardly reach them to get a good cut, and it was tiring work. He had just cracked the metal outer casing of the bonds on his right hand, revealing weaker sinew beneath and causing bubbling black ichor to slowly leak out when he heard someone, or more likely something approaching. The irregular clanking of the figure was closing in; the isolation of the surgery/slaughterhouse Tarrin found himself meant that the figure could only be coming this way to see him.
Tarrin fought down rising fear: he had no illusions about what was going to happen to him now. Back in the refugee camps, he’d heard the tales from traumatized Neurok spies: how captured Mirrins were taken to Phyrexian laboratories like the one he was in and subjected to tortuous experiments so vile and debased as to be practically indescribable. Dissections conducted while the subject was still alive, forced organ removal and graftings, biological weapons testing: these were just some of the options facing Tarrin, and at the end of it all, Phyresis, turning him into one of them. Tarrin thrashed wildly on the slab, pulled at the damaged clamp with all his strength, but it didn’t work, he needed to damage the clamp more, needed more time. Time he didn’t have.
As the door to the surgery slid open he abruptly laid corpse-still, trying to avoid attracting the attention of whatever Phyrexian had entered. He heard as two figures entered the lab, the insidious scuttle of something multi-legged, presumably an insectoid menial drone of some kind, and the heavy irregular steps of something humanoid, no doubt its master. For all their vat-grown horrors and shock troops, the leaders of Phyrexia were always humanoid, if only in the vaguest, barest sense of the word.
Unable to see what was going on because the slab was facing away from the entrance; Tarrin could only listen as the drone chittered in its obscene indecipherable dialect, while its master rummaged around placing metallic instruments on a tray. A moment later, and the master was moving towards Tarrin. This was it then: he was going to be experimented on. Blind terror rose in Tarrin’s chest, but he forcibly quelled it. He didn’t know if Sadra and Varil had escaped the Phyrexian’s raid, but he had to cling to that hope. He wouldn’t beg, wouldn’t give the Phyrexians the pleasure of breaking him. Wherever they were, he could do that much for them. Breathing deeply to try and master his emotions, Tarrin braced himself for the disturbing sight that would be his captor.
A hand gripped the operating slab, shifting it down from its angled position to an almost horizontal one, and as the slab descended, Tarrin caught an eyeful of the Phyrexian Surgeon. He gasped. “Bladewardens preserve us all…..” He’d been prepared for something disturbing, something out of a child’s nightmare, but not for this. Tarrin’s brain tried to supply further words, to perhaps beg for mercy, or even just scream, but the surgeon’s appearance had shocked him beyond words.
The figure that loomed over him possessed an aesthetic common to all Phyrexians: a form that was partly organic and partly mechanical combined seamlessly in some places and crudely in others. While some Phyrexians were unrecognisable from their original forms, others were simply modified versions of what they had been pre-phyresis, and this creature clearly took after the latter. It was no Leonin or Loxodon though, nor an elf, goblin or ogre, or any species Tarrin had ever seen or heard of, but some kind of bird-hybrid.
The surgeon had the body shape of a man, with the head, hands and feet of a great bird, a hawk perhaps. Two currently folded-in wings sprouted from its back, and feathers coated about half its body, wherever metal didn’t intrude. Steam hissed from various hidden parts of the bird-thing, and Tarrin could pick out the slow sound of pistons moving back and forth somewhere around the chest, as well as crackling electricity. One hand had been completely replaced with an abnormally long-fingered metallic graft, each of the 8 multi-jointed fingers tipped with an assortment of sharp instruments not out of place in a torturer’s rack. Countless plates of polished chrome glinted brightly from where they have been grafted, bolted, and fused onto the Phyrexian’s flesh, and blood mixed with black oozed with treacle-like slowness from around them to slowly spatter the floor. The beak appeared to be the best crafted of these plates, the top half of the beak was a solid and finely fitted piece of what looked to be pure silver. It looked a bit out of place, as though put in by a different artificer to the rest of the Surgeon’s “improvements”. The surgeon turned to look at Tarrin in better detail, revealing that one of the creature’s original eyes had been removed, replaced with an implant. The forbidding neon-red light stared back at him from the cavity. Unblinking. Alien. Merciless.
A moment later it appeared to have seen enough, and it turned away from Tarrin. As it set its tray of surgical instruments down and sorted them, Tarrin saw that the eye wasn’t the only area that had been extensively worked on around the head, the back of the cranium had been encased by machinery, no doubt to allow for greater processing power, or, as Tarrin realised with horror, to allow easy access to the surgeon’s brain. Similarly, though partially concealed beneath liquid-spattered surgical garments, the surgeon’s shoulders and upper back around the spine were a lot bulkier than its natural form would suggest it should be, with steel cables entwined through the natural sinew of the wing’s pinions.
This observation of his captor’s anatomy, though distressing in its own way, was a welcome relief from Tarrin’s dire situation. But when the surgeon turned back to face him, now clutching a huge medical syringe, his temporary stunned calm shattered. Breathing kicked into overdrive, Tarrin felt all the fight-or-flight terror of a cornered animal, but without either of the options. The surgeon barked something harshly to the drone, an order perhaps, and then moved towards Tarrin with the syringe, test squirting a few spurts of some rust-coloured viscous liquid.
Tarrin’s resolve collapsed in a moment. “GET BACK! DON’T YOU COME ANY CLOSER MONSTER!!” he bellowed, half in fear, half in anger.
At the word “monster”, the Surgeon, who had the syringe mere centimetres from Tarrin’s neck, stopped abruptly. It looked Tarrin in the eye, as though looking for meaning there. For a long moment Tarrin looked into his captor’s mismatched eyes, before turning away, unable to bear seeing his own fearful reflection in the Surgeon’s half crimson, half hazel gaze. Out of the corner of his eyes, Tarrin could sense the Surgeon cock its head to one side in an owl-like manner, as though puzzled by what it had heard. A second later it abruptly stepped aside, out of Tarrin’s field of vision altogether. He heard the insectoid drone give a confused chittering as the surgeon approached it. Then there was an almighty flash of blue, like a solar flare off the blue sun. It filled the room for a moment, then faded away without explanation. A few seconds later, the Bird-Surgeon was back, uncomfortably filling Tarrin’s field of vision. Its beak opened, as it grasped the syringe once more. To Tarrin’s astonishment, it spoke in perfectly pronounced Aurian, though it had a mechanical inflection to its words.
“I am no monster. I may have been….. marked by Phyrexia, Auriok, but it is NOT my master.”
Tarrin goggled. “You…… you can talk!?”
The Surgeon snorted, causing a burst of steam to emerge from somewhere on its body, ruffling his surgical attire.
“We have precious little time, let’s not waste what we have with obvious questions. My name is Quennus.”
A thousand questions seemed to clamour for first place in Tarrin’s mind, jostling for prime position.
“I’m Tarrin, of the Glint Hawk tribe. Look, if you’re not with the Phyrexian’s, what are you doing here? And why are you able to stand here and talk to me? You…. you were about to cut me open, like one of them! How could you?”
Quennus leaned in. “As I said, there is little time, so you need to listen closely and be prepared to understand a great deal of information swiftly. I am assisting the Mirran resistance, particularly the Neurok agents Vy Covalt and Kara Vrist.”
Hope flared in Tarrin’s chest, maybe there was a way out of this after all! “You’re with the resistance! That’s great news! Are you here to free me? Have you seen my wife and son? Are they safe? Are they…..” But a moment later Tarrin realised that something was wrong with the situation. He jerked his head over his shoulder repeatedly, trying to convey a message without words. Upon seeing Quennus’ look of confusion he sharply whispered.
“You’re blowing your cover, the drone! The thing that came in with you! It’s heard everything we’ve said! You’ve got to cut me free, we have to get out of here right now, before it raises the alarm!”
Understanding filled Quennus’ organic eye, and then he slowly shook his head, one measured movement, left, and then right.
“Do not worry. My transcriber-drone has unexpectedly suffered a most unfortunate malfunction, and has been totally and utterly focused on looking at a blank space of wall since we started talking. It is not of concern to us.”
“Did…..you did something to it?”
“That is correct.”
Tarrin smiled. Everything was going to be okay now, he knew it. “So, you’re in the resistance? I have so much I wish to know! Are you here to get me free? How did you infiltrate into this place? And, forgive me, but I have to ask, what ARE you? You don’t look Mirran, I mean I know you’ve been…. worked on, but I can’t even figure out what you are.”
Quennus looked at himself for a moment, an expression something like regret writ over his features. Was it regret? Or maybe just concentration. It was hard to identify subtle emotions off him, his face and body had been so disfigured by the Phyrexian “augmentations”. Then the moment was gone, and his face was once more impassive.
“Listen closely Tarrin. I am not ‘with’ the resistance as such; I am simply sympathetic to their cause. My presence, and my work here, is more anti-Phyrexian than pro-Mirran. But yes, I help them out when it is feasible to do so. The reason you do not recognise my species’ genus, is because I am not native to your world. To put it in simple terms, I have come to Mirrodin from another plane of existence.”
What does one say to a statement like that? Where do you even begin… thought Tarrin, his disbelief stretched so far it was about to snap. “If that’s true, then how are you….”
“I am a mage of rare, extraordinary power. I have the skill to be able to travel between worlds. It is known as Planeswalking.
“That’s….. incredible. Amazing.”
“That is the standard reaction.”
Suddenly Tarrin recalled the blue flash he had witnessed earlier. “And you used this magic of yours to hoodwink the drone before?”
Quennus nodded. “Very astute. It will not realise what has happened, and later, I will submit it to my superiors as having malfunctioned, losing all my information. It will probably be broken down into its constituent parts and used for other purposes. Now, you mentioned before your wife and child. Were they with you when you were captured?”
“Yes, well not quite. I told them to run when the raiders came, I have no idea if they managed to get away. But we were in the same camp at the time. Sadra and Varil, have you seen them? Please, tell me they’re not here. Tell me they’re not….”
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Quennus nodded, seemed to understand. “One moment.” He took a step back from the operating slab, deftly tapping his metallic temple with a hand. His artificial eye whirred clicked and sparked for a few seconds, rotating madly this way and that, zooming in and out. Eventually it came to a stop, the chrome iris retracting to reveal more of the crimson light. Suddenly light shot out of the eye, forming a projection a few centimetres from Quennus. The projection shifted, it seemed to be some kind of moving pictures. Tarrin squinted, tried to make them out, but they were back to front and the wrong way up from where he was, the images flashing by at lightning speed: corridors and hallways, shapeless things that filled the projection and disappeared, racks of strange and disturbing devices, and last, a row of what looked like faces with collars around their necks….
Quennus tapped his temple again, and the projection vanished, his artificial eye returning to its prior state. He looked Tarrin straight on. “I think I have seen them. Your son, he has your eyes?”
“Yes! Yes! That’s Varil! Can you save him? Is he okay?”
Quennus raised a hand abruptly.
“Hush, calm yourself.” He walked over to his tray of implements, facing away from Tarrin. He spoke without looking back, his tone less mechanical, but more serious than anything he’d said so far.
“Tarrin, would you do anything to save your family?”
“Of course, of course, but what are you talking…..”
“Anything, Auriok?”
“Yes, of course. Please, please. Save them.”
“Very well. Then you’ll need to take this.”
To Be Continued…
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
