Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
Written on: 11月 01, 2019
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Title : Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
link : Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
The second part of the Rath Block is the Stronghold expansion. And I had wanted to combine this with Exodus, the third expansion in the Rath Block, but apparently things got a bit too wordy, so... eh, no harm in making a shorter segment than usual, eh? I've always felt like I kinda over-extend myself in trying to stuff too many cards in a single page with both M:TG and Yu-Gi-Oh just so I can get to the later expansions as quickly as possible. I guess it's a lot better for me to just kind of... enjoy the sights as we go, y'know?
Anyway, Stronghold continues the story of the Weatherlight crew journeying through the plane of Rath. In Tempest, they fought through a lot of the forces in Rath, and made some new allies, while Volrath himself captured a bunch of their allies. Now they storm Volrath's titular Stronghold to rescue their allies! Theme-wise, Stronghold basically builds up on the same themes, mechanics (Shadow, Buyback) and setting that Tempest introduced.
So Volrath's Stronghold is here to really hammer home that, hey, the expansion titled Stronghold takes place at some evil dude's stronghold! The expansion itself has a storyline that basically plays out as what D&D players would call a dungeon dive, with the crew of the Weatherlight going into the Stronghold and discovering Volrath's big, scary evil extra-dimensional invasion plans. He's going to bring his scary Phyrexian buddies over and have them conquer Dominaria! It's a pretty neat-looking evil bad guy's lair. It's spiky, it's floating, it's got some sort of scary-ass magic laser drill, and itc omes with its own dark, misty atmosphere.
After my complaints that a lot of the main characters of the story show up a lot in the card artworks and flavour text but never actually have cards of their own, here's Crovax the Cursed! We've seen Crovax and his tragic backstory throughout Weatherlight and Tempest. In Stronghold, he ends up fighting his past sins in the dark angel Selenia, and after slaying her (see those dark feathers raining all around him?) he ends up being cursed in the process, transforming into a vampire. It's an interesting case where we have the fantasy of a creature who needs to keep feeding on his allies, otherwise he'll be weakened. Poor Crovax! He's pretty much the only one out of two legendary creatures in this expansion, though, since it's a smaller one.
Gloriously, the other legendary creature is the Sliver Queen, the queen of all the slivers, because of course they function as a hive. This expansion only has a cycle of multi-coloured Slivers, five in total, plus a legendary 'boss' that costs one of each mana to summon. Seriously, though, look at this massive creature! Clearly inspired by something like the Alien Queen, I had thought that this is just a particularly large Sliver with huge eyeballs and a whole load of golden horns, two scythe-arms instead of one, and whatnot. But the flavour text and looking a bit closely at the full card art reveals that the Sliver Queen's mouth-bulbs are actually egg-sacks, and that mass of green, blue, red and silver structures on her 'neck' are actually young Slivers being born. Or adult Slivers, since her appearance in another card shows that she's absolutely massive. Hell, we even get to see that in this hive, there are a whole load of smaller Slivers just clumped together on stalactites. I love just how creepy she looks. She still has the two whip-tails that the other Slivers have, and she's got these gross-but-cool mass of anemone-like finger-tentacles that help her move around like a slug, presumably. Honestly, a pretty damn awesome boss for the Slivers!
And let's go through the other multi-coloured Slivers. Acidic Sliver is a Red/Black creature and honestly, design-wise, feels a bit arbitrary. It looks kind of like another one that I'd put in as just a very basic Sliver, and if not for the web of green poisonous goop dripping off of its talon, I wouldn't even realize that it's meant to be a poison-secreting creature.
Crystalline Sliver is White/Blue, and I actually kinda get how this one fits with the 'holy' nature of White and the 'smart, deceptive' nature of Blue. As a Sliver made entirely of crystal and the ability to mutate other Slivers to be resistant to spells, it definitely fits! I like this one a lot, particularly the row of crystalline horns it has on its pterodactyl-like head and down its back.
Hibernation Sliver makes the Aliens homage a bit too thick, but that's not a particular complaint. It's a pretty cool, if right now a 'standard' Sliver design. Armoured metal-like plates that form a helmet, and some bizarre exterior ribcage thing going on, and it's curled up into a ball. Apparently, stupid mogg goblins think that these things are balls and play ball with them. Okay? It's not like they curl up fully into a sphere... I'm not sure why this is Blue/Black. There's nothing particularly Blue or Black about hibernating.
Spined Sliver was done by the same artist who did the Heart Sliver in Tempest, and man, it definitely has the same grisly look that the Heart Sliver has! Between the neatly intertwined thorny tails, to the body that looks like a bunch of pulsating meat-sack tumours lumped together, to the absolutely nasty-looking set of back-spines and the way it's laid out on its very nasty-looking blade arm, the Spined Sliver really does look like a dangerous creature that's going to fuck you the hell up. Being somewhat more colourful than the regular Sliver also helps to make this look more like a dangerous creature, although I'm not sure if this thing isn't just covered with blood. This thing is Red/Green, which is basically what you slap into a natural creature that's also savage and destructive.
Here's your vocabulary of the day: "Victual" is provisions, food, or the act of providing people with food! So the Green/White Victual Sliver is the healer of the brood, basically allowing you, the caster, to restore health at the cost of sacrificing a friendly Sliver. The design of this thing is somewhat simple, but the transparent skin delivers a pretty creepy look at the skeleton underneath. And I'm not sure if the Victual Sliver is feeding the little baby Slivers (awww) with provisions (does it regurgitate meals like a bird?) or if it's just selecting which of its young, tiny Sliver babies is to be sacrificed and turned into provisions.
The Licids also make a return in a single cycle of cards, but, disappointingly, they still have no real lore. At least we get some pretty cooler depictions of the mutations they bring, though, as well as cooler designs for the Licids themselves other than generic bug that happens to cause parasitic mutation. The Gliding Licid is this weird slug-like thing that latches onto a dude's helmet, and apparently causes the dude to sprout some Pterodactyl wings. Or, well, it might just happen to be hitching a ride on some weird pterodactyl-man, but the fact that it gives the creature it is equipped on the Flying keyword, I'm pretty sure it's meant to basically cause a mutation.
It's easy to think that Corrupting Licid is the weird flesh-like growth on the unfortunate dude's head, forming some sort of twisted World of Warcraft style helmet-hoodie thing, but the actual Licid is the white spider-lizard thing in the foreground. Apparently, I guess the Corrupted Licid causes a permanent mutation in this dude, which involves the addition of that creepy, Licid-esque head ornament. Of course, in-game, the enchantment isn't permanent, but I would like to think that in-universe, as a creature, this is what the Licid does.
Well, two out of five that's cool isn't bad, because Convlusing Licid, Tempting Licid and Calming Licid are still basically the same Facehugger style monsters latching on to people and seemingly taking them over. They get far, far cooler artwork compared to their Tempest counterparts, though,with Tempting Licid and Convulsing Licid's artworks looking particularly dynamic.
We don't get as many Dauthi, Soldari and Thalakos as the Tempest expansion, but we definitely do get them. The Dauthi Trapper, at a glance, doesn't look super cool, just some horned, screaming demon-man made out of shadow, but the card art shows the shadow dude basically consuming the human's head and turning it straight into skeleton, while its shadowy arms just swirl around in ways that flesh-and-bone arms should not have been able to. Pretty neat!
And, hey, we get yet another Thrull! I like the Thrulls, and while we don't get a whole ton of them in any of these post-Fallen-Empires sets, I do like that we're getting a bunch of these individual critters. The Morgue Thrull could've been just a regular human or undead dude, though, because he's just kind of basically Igor with skinnier arms, and not the body-horror-stitched-together-creature-made-for-ritual-sacrifice like the other Thrulls. Still, it's hard to argue with that perfectly wretched expression.
Serpent Warrior isn't honestly very snake-like, and I would've thought that this would be retconned as something like a 'Horror' or something along those lines, but apparently he's still snakey enough to be considered a 'Snake Soldier' in reprints. It's kind of an interesting design, going from the simple snake-man design and adding so much grisly details like the row of spines down its back, or the two random boar tusks on its lower jaw... Pretty neat looking creature!
Stronghold Assassin is a 'zombie', according to subsequent reprints, and presumably both he and the Serpent Warrior are what Volrath's experiments would eventually lead into. The Phyrexians are basically magic-punk cyborgs, and I do really like the design of this particular cyborg dude! Half of his face (not his head, just the face!) has been replaced with a metallic plate with a single off-set eye, one of his arms has been replaced with that nasty-looking cannon-claw thing straight out of Warhammer 40K, and I think he's using that metal tendril from his fucking chin to choke the life out of the unfortunate dude.
"Spirit" is a tribe that Magic: The Gathering kind of has a bit of a loose grip on, basically sometimes using it interchangeably with 'ghost' or 'specter' or any kind of incorporeal, well, spirit... and sometimes, they use it for something like the Mindwarper. Which is pretty fucking badass looking, don't get me wrong, but it's at this point in time when I wonder what makes a creature a "Horror", a "Demon", a "Spirit" or any sort of the other tribes that can conceivably lead to these monstrous creatures. Of course, Spirits would later on get a more solid identity once Kamigawa basically puts in a more Japanese mythology inspired spin on them, but we're a long ways away from Kamigawa. The Mindwarper's a pretty damn cool creature, even if we don't learn anything from it. A tail that's a gigantic set of bloody bony claws? That nasty, chitinous, bony arm? The multiple eyes, the skeletal mouth, the hunchbacked shell? Pretty damn awesome design all around.
Wall of Souls is one of the many Walls introduced in this set, and if M:TG Wiki is anything to go by, apparently the Walls introduced in Stronghold are notable for being cards that suddenly shot up in tournament and competitive play, because previous iterations of Walls aren't particularly competitive. Wall of Souls is pretty spooky, though, showing a bunch of distorted, moaning faces made out of ethereal mist, with little squid-tentacle things that are seemingly made out of screaming moaning faces as well... but it's apparently causing the dude in the foreground to harm himself. Presumably, and judging by its effect, the Wall of Souls itself can't directly harm you, but the sheer amount of spookiness from it is causing you to harm yourself!
Oh shit, I really do like the artwork for Mind Peel. It's just so creepy, and you can just make out some details and shapes in the huge blob of flesh (and/or memory) being ripped out from the dude's brain. You get to see the shape of a woman very clearly, but the rest of it is honestly so abstract, and the pretty oddly visceral artwork is definitely something I'm a fan of.
Thalkos Deceiver is our single Thalakos card in this set, and, like the other members of the Thalakos, he's a formless being made out of shadowy mist. He appears to be giving Random McHuman over there a wet willie, apparently. Or, well, possessing the dude, as its effect implies.
Richard Kane Ferguson is the perfect artist for the sheer wacky psychedelic artworks in both Dream Prowler and Walking Dream. Between the usage of the colours, the almost mosaic-like way he draws in details, and generally having a dream-like quality of yeah, you can see shapes and can generally see what's going on, but it's also so blurry and cluttered that you're not sure if you're seeing the full picture.... I do really like that these creatures are both considered Illusions brought to life by some wizard's powerful dream. That's pretty damn cool.
See, another Spirit that could've very well been an 'elemental' if you showed the artwork to me! Cloud Spirit's a pretty cool spirit, though, with those long, bony hands, the featureless face and the very prominent ribcages. We don't quite see what the rest of him looks like, and he's not so much a spirit made out of clouds but seems to be a spirit that resides among the clouds. He looks pretty cool!
Tidal Warrior is another member of the Rootwater merfolk from Tempest, and this one has a particularly dead-fish-looking eyes and a mouth that looks like a human skull's teeth. And a bunch of neat catfish beard parts. Pretty neat design!
Volrath's Shapeshifter! Shapeshifters are a huge theme in this expansion's story, even though there's only a single creature to have the Shapeshifter tribe. It's not unprecedented, though, Volrath has a bunch of shapeshifters in Tempest working for him! This one has a particularly nasty art that wouldn't feel out of place in Parasyte or something. Volrath's Shapeshifter pretended to be the missing captain Sisay in the story, and ended up assuming its true form, which just looks so god-damn nasty, with the body placed in a horrifying pose, the legs transforming into a mass of fibres and sinews rooted to the floor, the right arm bent out of shape, the left arm transforming into this massive, elongated sphincter-mouth-fang tentacle, and part of her face turning into a mass of viscera ending with a blade. Pretty cool looking card!
Carnassid is a Green creature that's pretty weird. The flavour text doesn't tell us much, but I do like just how weird this creature looks. It's like got a mixture of features from like a rhino and a bear and a bit of hyena all cluttered together into a bizarre creature that you could feasibly believe that it evolved naturally on Earth, but also looks just wrong enough.
We saw the Spike Drone in Tempest, but Stronghold's Green creatures brought with it a whole load of new Spikes! They're not quite as awesome as the Slivers, but I still do love them! Honestly, the weird slug-creatures with massive spider fang-faces and a bunch of pods running down their backs does look pretty cool, and they all have this running theme of coming into play with a set amount of buff counters, but then they can move these counters around -- if Spike Drone's artwork is anything to go by, they're moving their larva pods to their buddies! Spike Colony is basically the simple Spike Drone design, but showcased with a lot more of them brooding around what looks like a bunch of termite hills.
Spike Soldier, meanwhile, is a lot spinier, with a row of spikes running down its back, a pair of extra devil-horns and a more ornate head design. And it's got creepy slug sticky-things running down its body! Pretty cool design.
Spike Breeder looks particularly nasty, particularly with how its head looks. It doesn't look like a spider or bug's head like the Drone, Soldier or the Colony, but more like a dead animal's skull on its side. Its artwork is a lot more goopy and yucky-looking compared to the others, which really sells the whole slimy bug-monster feel of this creature.
Spike Feeder shows a particularly small Spike next to an apple. Or maybe these Spikes are all small, and it's the impressive artwork that makes them look like giant bug monsters? Whatever the case, the Spike Feeder seems to have swapped its normal fanged spider face for a nasty-looking proboscis, and is eating from an apple, leaving marks that kinda look like apple maggot boreholes in real life. Pretty neat artwork!
And we end with the also somewhat mundane-looking Spike Worker. Hey, they are pretty large, since this Spike Worker's right next to a tree! Presumably it's protecting a bunch of cocoons or egg sacs or something. I like how the set of bulbs running down its back seems to give it the impresion of having googly-eyes, but its actual eyes are a lot smaller and arranged in a >:( configuration.
And we're off to red! Duct Crawler is a simple 1/1 and the ability of crawling through ducts implies that it's a tiny insect... but look at that skull next to it! It's surely another one of Magic's endless supply of giant arthropods? I'm not sure if the Duct Crawler is meant to represent a specific sort of beetle or something related to earwigs or ants. The insect anatomy is actually pretty good, but I guess it's just meant to be any generic giant bug.
We get to see a couple of Flowstone monsters in Tempest's Red, and now we have a bunch more Flowstone creatures here, because, well, the Stronghold itself is the core of where the Flowstone production is. Flowstone Hellion, unless I'm forgetting something, is also the first representative of the Hellion creatures, although it doesn't have the tag just yet. It's basically another one of those giant Dune-inspired worm monsters, only these guys also have little nubby caterpillar legs, as well as a mass of whip-like barbed tentacles around its mouth. A pretty awesome art piece, and the fact that this isn't even an organic creature per-se, and it's just melting straight out of the flowstone on the ground is pretty damn cool.
The Flowstone Shambler isn't as cool-looking compared to the Hellion, but that's just personal preference -- the image of a giant, hulking gorilla-esque behemoth being formed straight out of rock is pretty awesome. And that face that's just a straight panel of rock with no features other than two random horns, is pretty damn awesome looking. Between Cloud Spirit and Flowstone Shambler, I guess I just really like featureless, faceless monsters in general.
We also have a bunch more of the Mogg goblins, and the Mogg Bombers are a nasty, disgusting-looking thing that's muscular, holding some sort of hideous scythe and has a bucket-backpack full of dynamite. I love the flavour text, and I appreciate the effort of them wanting to have more serious goblins, but I do miss the more whimsical, wacky cartoonish goblins from earlier in Magic: The Gathering. These are still pretty cool, though! And at least we have cards like Mogg Maniac, which still looks comical even if it's still meant to display a totally serious, evil, vile creature. A combination of that expression and the sheer amount of ridiculous weapons strapped onto its back is pretty neat!
Mogg Flunkies are a bunch of larger, more muscular dudes that honestly look more 'troll' or 'ogre'-like than M:TG's standard goblins, but I do like the variety (particularly since the Moggs are meant to be more warlike and slightly mutated) and I absolutely love the flavour text. They'll attack whatever's in front of them, but they need help in you telling them what 'front' is, which translates perfectly into their ability, where they can't attack or block if no other creatures do the same. They literally are only smart enough to do basic attacks if they have someone to mimic!
Shard Phoenix is just such a weird looking 'phoenix', not even being a bird of flame, and it's got such a massive head that takes up almost its entire body, no legs, and its wings end up looking just like a kite made entirely out of metal shards. Presumably, the way it 'revives' back into your hand is the shards slowly gathering together. Honestly, it's a pretty damn cool concept and design. I'm a huge, huge fan.
I love hydras, but we haven't gotten a whole ton of them in M:TG. Spitting Hydra's pretty awesome, though, with a body that's very snake-like, a feature that I don't think I've seen a whole lot on hydra artwork -- they tend to go for larger, more dinosaurian bodies. Pretty cool looking, although I'm not sure what the implication of the effect is, of removing a counter to deal a damage to a creature. I guess spitting venom takes so much work that one of the heads just sort of buggers off and takes a break? Eh.
Soltari Champion is our sole Soltari card in this expansion, and, again, has the Shadow keyword. I do like the fact that this White creature has a pretty deformed-looking face (and way too many neck muscles), but still manages to look and be counted as a heroic fellow. Not sure if there's any significance to the Medusa-like face on the shield.
Hey, it's the en-Kor! I'm not sure if they showed up in Tempest. I don't think they did? But they're basically a race of blue or white-skinned humanoids with little weird tentacle-beards, and they will be a recurring race of more heroic people for White. They're not quite as cool as the Soltari, but it's still nice to see that White's going to get a bunch more interesting-looking creatures. The Warrior en-Kor is a pretty basic looking en-Kor, while Spirit en-Kor is their equivalent to an angel, and I really, really do love the fact that their wings are just a couple of gigantic feathers on top, and a bunch of almost starfish-like protrusions on the bottom.
The en-Kor have a unique mechanic of basically being able to redirect some damage to another creature you control, kinda like a more gimped version of Banding from the past.
The Lancers en-Kor are apparently twins. All twins in the en-Kor tribe are trained as lancers, that ride this bizarre weird dinosaur-like beast with an elongated snout, and the twins basically hold a lance that stab each side of the weird dinosaur-like beast. This random detail is such a random miniscule detail, but definitely feels like a neat little world-building detail that a fantasy race like the en-Kor would have. Pretty cool looking design for sure.
HORNET CANNON. Y'know, forget the goddamn Legacy and whatever the hell these massive powerful artifacts are supposedly able to do. Fuck the Mightstone and the Null Rod and the Thran Forge. All you need is a goddamn cannon that can shoot giant robot hornets at your enemy's face. HORNET CANNON TO THE FACE
And now... the story cards!
Apparently we start off with the Weatherlight crew arriving at the Stronghold, ready to rescue the captured Tahngarth and Karn. Mirri manages to dispatch the Phyrexian guards with a single Leap. Meanwhile, Squee hides in a cupboard, pondering danger over boredom. The rest of the crew enters the Stronghold. And... Starke is still with them for some reason? And is kinda good here? Okay? I bet the novel offers an explanation.
Crovax attacks a shapeshifter that takes the form of Selenia, attacking with such rage that the shapeshifter was torn to shreds (Amok). After the fact, Gerrard ends up consoling the traumatized Crovax (Megrim). Megrim, by the way, is an archaic term for low spirits.
In the Stronghold, the crew discovers a massive globe that details the invasion plans of Dominaria by the Phyrexians. While this is happening, Mirri accidentally triggers an intruder alarm, because, well, apparently holograms are silent.
Outside the Stronghold, the allies Gerrard and company had made throughout Rath -- Eladamri's elves and Oracle en-Vec's tribes -- end up banding together and uniting in revolution, charging and doing battle against Volrath's Mogg goblin minions. (Awakening and Primal Rage) Card text from the en-Kor cards also imply that the en-Kor tribes are gathered together to face off against Volrath as well.
Volrath is aware of the Weatherlight crew's arrival in his stronghold, but in contemplation, decides to simply observe them. The Weatherlight crew passes a bridge that lay above a Bottomless Pit in the Stronghold, but the Flowstone bridge transforms into an Ensnaring Bridge, attempting to attack Gerrard and company with its snake-like protrusions. They manage to escape this threat, eventually.
The crew ends up freeing Tahngarth from the torture chambers, but the minotaur is so wounded by the physical and mental torment, ranting about how "all that remains is the scar", and splits off from the rest of the crew to kill Volrath on his own (Seething Anger). Not depicted in the cards is them freeing Karn, who opted to return to the Weatherlight.
In the laboratory, Gerrard and Mirri battle against an army of Volrath's minions to free their captain Sisay, who's stuck in a sci-fi tank. (Ransack). However, this turns out to be yet another one of Volrath's Shapeshifter. We covered the shapeshifter above.
Splitting up after taking out the Shapeshifter, Mirri and Crovax encounter the real Selenia. (Provoke). Mirri's instincts caused her to move in the way of Selenia's attack with the Sword of the Chosen, taking a blow meant for Crovax. F
inally seeing a friend fall thanks to his own inaction, Crovax ends up delivering a Death Stroke that slew Selenia, shattering the mind-controlled angel and his former companion. This, however, caused Crovax to be afflicted with a curse as the angel's remains scattered above him, transforming him into Crovax the Cursed. It was Tahngarth that ends up rescuing the wounded Mirri and the unconscious Crovax, taking them out from the Stronghold into the Weatherlight. (Conviction)
Karn the Silver Golem sifts through the Stronghold for other Legacy artifacts, and finds them protected by the massive Sliver Queen. However, Karn manages to communicate with the mighty creature, persuading it to give him the Legacy artifacts.
Gerrard and Starke, separated from the rest of the party, enter Volrath's Gardens, and had to take cover as the Predator passes overhead (Hesitation). They battle a group of Spikes in the garden, and Starke is nearly killed by a sentient plant. Or a Brush with Death, if you will. They end up crossing the gardens and climbing up a Shifting Wall.
The non-wounded members of the Weatherlight crew eventually arrive in the Dream Halls, where Gerrard eventually confronts Volrath (Temper).
Volrath then uses the powerful artifact, the Helm of Possession (a card in Tempest) to show off his Reins of Power, mind-controlling the captured Captain Sisay, as well as Starke's daughter, to fight Gerrard and Starke. In the battle, Starke manages to deal a blow on Volrath's person, but was tossed aside in contempt.
In the heat of battle, Starke's mind-controlled daughter Takara ends up blinding Starke with a slash across his eyes. The battle continues with Volrath retreating after Gerrard subdues Sisay (not shown in cards). After doing so, Gerrard stabs Volrath through the chest, seemingly smiting the evil monster... but despite the badass one-liner, it turns out that it's yet another shapeshifter and not the real Volrath (Scapegoat). After all, this is only the middle expansion -- we still have Exodus to go through!
Takara, meanwhile, has to watch in horror as she has to witness her father, blinded by her own blade. (Bandage). The battle continues!
And now... after our heroes go through what's arguably a disastrous dungeon crawl, we go and talk about the rest of the cards!
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Not a whole ton to say here. Dungeon Shade's got a pretty cool-looking and spooky artwork... I think it's meant to just be a floating head-ghost. Foul Imp is another nasty-looking gremlin imp, but it's not quite as awesome looking as the twin-faced imp from Tempest. Rabid Rats is our obligatory Black-mana rat swarm creature. Skeleton Scavengers has some pretty fun little details in the artwork, like that dude on the left with no lower jaw, or that dude with an animal skull on the right. They're scavenging and looting , like any good RPG player would!
Revenant is an example of the ghost-like spirits, because, again, we haven't gotten the whole 'spirit' thing down. Stronghold Taskmaster is a giant, which isn't quite as obvious until you realize those shadowed things in the background are people he's taskmastering as opposed to just a wall.
Lab Rats is pretty fun. It's a rat who's had wheels crudely grafted onto it! That's neat.
Cannibalize and Mortuary has some rather disturbing art pieces.
Hammerhead Shark! Randomly in this plane of doom and death and machine zombies and parasitic steroid bugs and anglerfish mermaids and weird blade-snake-alien hives, you just have a random hammerhead shark with strangely human-like eyes. It's a pretty dynamic pose, too, other than the fact that those eyes look oddly like something out of an Egyptian hieroglyph as opposed to something you'll find on a shark.
Silver Wyvern and Spindrift Drake are just, well, more blue-allied drakes, but both have pretty neat artworks and look cool! Spindrift Drake in particular look particularly badass, bursting out of the midst of a wave. Wall of Tears is actually a pretty neat and very fantasy-flavoured creature concept. After so many random walls in the past dozen expansions, they really have to get creative huh?
A bunch of blue spells. Mind Games has some really weird-looking faces on it, and I guess Mask of the Mimic is the foreshadowing and/or explanation for the shapeshifter Volrath in the story?
The sorcerer lady in Rebound's card art has the perfect "...the fuck?" expression on her face.
We've got a bunch of random elven troops, which I guess is meant to represent Elamdari's Skyshroud forest elves. It's necessary, but, again, just with every expansion, I try to say something about what makes these Green-mana elves interesting and I cannot find anything to do so.
It's not just Spikes and elves on Green's side, though... we've got the Endangered Armodon, and presumably they became endangered because the mean elves kept using them as mounts to fight giant zombie cyborgs and self-destructive goblins! Lowland Basilisk is a neat-looking lizard, and apparently they turn their victims into flowstone instead of rock. Spined Wurm is another wurm, but we've seen a lot of them that another dinosaurian-faced one just isn't particularly special.
Wall of Blossoms is such a weak-sounding name, but the juxtaposition of the fingers being consumed by pretty pretty flowers is just kind of horrifying, and the flavour text noting that each flower, leaf and petal being 'disturbingly' exact adds in an extra layer of creepiness to this thing. Fittingly, this is one of the best meta-defining cards from this expansion.
Crossbow Ambush features what's unmistakably a Sliver, and judging by having two pterodactyl wings and no mantis-claw, it's the Winged Sliver from Tempest. Actually... is its tail mutated into a mantis claw? So I guess those 'wings' are evolved tails, then? Huh. The flavour text talks about how drakes can't fly faster than a crossbow bolt, but that's kinda apples-and-oranges since these dudes are fighting a Sliver, yeah?
(I have nothing else to say about the rest of the cards here, which is why I'm yakking on about the Sliver in the background of a card art)
I'm not sure if the card art for Overgrowth is showing the marsh trees actually walking around, or if it's just some mangrove-tree-style roots.
A bunch of neat Red-mana cards. Wall of Razors looks pretty wacky, and we've got a couple of generic angry monsters in Furnace Spirit and Flowstone Mauler. Pretty neat-looking, but not particularly as cool as the others I've featured above.
Ruination has a bunch of neat-looking stone-heads. And, hey, look at the angry, nasty-looking goblins in Mogg Infestation!
That poor, poor goblin in Fling. That dude throwing him is a meanie. Flowstone Blade seems to have straight-up replaced the arm of the dude wielding it. Honestly, judging by Volrath's modus operandi, I wouldn't be particularly surprised.
A bunch more en-Kor tribes in Nomads en-Kor and Shaman en-Kor. I don't have a whole lot to say here, though I do like the random bit of poetry from the Nomads. I think I didn't mention that all of the en-Kor cards would retroactively be given the "Kor" tribal tag. The Youthful Knight and Honor Guard, I guess, are representatives of the en-Vec tribe.
A wall, a cleric dude, and a good, non-Selenia angel. Also, Rolling Stones! Which isn't so much rolling but more "it's living, it's moving like a goop and it's murdering the shit out of the moggs". Also, insert your own rolling stones joke here.
A bunch of White enchantments, and then Volrath's Laboratory! Which is a pretty interesting artifact that basically implies that you are using the laboratory to basically construct an army of random, creepy artificial creatures of your choosing. You, too, can be a mad scientist breaking all the rules of what is natural and decent!
Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft, coming to mobile devices near you, a trading card game for the more casual crowd!
"What does Horn of Greed do, Yugi?" Y'know, both these cards predate Hearthstone and Yu-Gi-Oh by years, but I do like making the obvious jokes sometimes.
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Title : Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
link : Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
The second part of the Rath Block is the Stronghold expansion. And I had wanted to combine this with Exodus, the third expansion in the Rath Block, but apparently things got a bit too wordy, so... eh, no harm in making a shorter segment than usual, eh? I've always felt like I kinda over-extend myself in trying to stuff too many cards in a single page with both M:TG and Yu-Gi-Oh just so I can get to the later expansions as quickly as possible. I guess it's a lot better for me to just kind of... enjoy the sights as we go, y'know?Anyway, Stronghold continues the story of the Weatherlight crew journeying through the plane of Rath. In Tempest, they fought through a lot of the forces in Rath, and made some new allies, while Volrath himself captured a bunch of their allies. Now they storm Volrath's titular Stronghold to rescue their allies! Theme-wise, Stronghold basically builds up on the same themes, mechanics (Shadow, Buyback) and setting that Tempest introduced.
- Click here for the previous part, Tempest.
- Click here for the next part, Exodus.
- Click here for the index.
So Volrath's Stronghold is here to really hammer home that, hey, the expansion titled Stronghold takes place at some evil dude's stronghold! The expansion itself has a storyline that basically plays out as what D&D players would call a dungeon dive, with the crew of the Weatherlight going into the Stronghold and discovering Volrath's big, scary evil extra-dimensional invasion plans. He's going to bring his scary Phyrexian buddies over and have them conquer Dominaria! It's a pretty neat-looking evil bad guy's lair. It's spiky, it's floating, it's got some sort of scary-ass magic laser drill, and itc omes with its own dark, misty atmosphere.
After my complaints that a lot of the main characters of the story show up a lot in the card artworks and flavour text but never actually have cards of their own, here's Crovax the Cursed! We've seen Crovax and his tragic backstory throughout Weatherlight and Tempest. In Stronghold, he ends up fighting his past sins in the dark angel Selenia, and after slaying her (see those dark feathers raining all around him?) he ends up being cursed in the process, transforming into a vampire. It's an interesting case where we have the fantasy of a creature who needs to keep feeding on his allies, otherwise he'll be weakened. Poor Crovax! He's pretty much the only one out of two legendary creatures in this expansion, though, since it's a smaller one.
Gloriously, the other legendary creature is the Sliver Queen, the queen of all the slivers, because of course they function as a hive. This expansion only has a cycle of multi-coloured Slivers, five in total, plus a legendary 'boss' that costs one of each mana to summon. Seriously, though, look at this massive creature! Clearly inspired by something like the Alien Queen, I had thought that this is just a particularly large Sliver with huge eyeballs and a whole load of golden horns, two scythe-arms instead of one, and whatnot. But the flavour text and looking a bit closely at the full card art reveals that the Sliver Queen's mouth-bulbs are actually egg-sacks, and that mass of green, blue, red and silver structures on her 'neck' are actually young Slivers being born. Or adult Slivers, since her appearance in another card shows that she's absolutely massive. Hell, we even get to see that in this hive, there are a whole load of smaller Slivers just clumped together on stalactites. I love just how creepy she looks. She still has the two whip-tails that the other Slivers have, and she's got these gross-but-cool mass of anemone-like finger-tentacles that help her move around like a slug, presumably. Honestly, a pretty damn awesome boss for the Slivers!
And let's go through the other multi-coloured Slivers. Acidic Sliver is a Red/Black creature and honestly, design-wise, feels a bit arbitrary. It looks kind of like another one that I'd put in as just a very basic Sliver, and if not for the web of green poisonous goop dripping off of its talon, I wouldn't even realize that it's meant to be a poison-secreting creature.
Crystalline Sliver is White/Blue, and I actually kinda get how this one fits with the 'holy' nature of White and the 'smart, deceptive' nature of Blue. As a Sliver made entirely of crystal and the ability to mutate other Slivers to be resistant to spells, it definitely fits! I like this one a lot, particularly the row of crystalline horns it has on its pterodactyl-like head and down its back.
Hibernation Sliver makes the Aliens homage a bit too thick, but that's not a particular complaint. It's a pretty cool, if right now a 'standard' Sliver design. Armoured metal-like plates that form a helmet, and some bizarre exterior ribcage thing going on, and it's curled up into a ball. Apparently, stupid mogg goblins think that these things are balls and play ball with them. Okay? It's not like they curl up fully into a sphere... I'm not sure why this is Blue/Black. There's nothing particularly Blue or Black about hibernating.
Spined Sliver was done by the same artist who did the Heart Sliver in Tempest, and man, it definitely has the same grisly look that the Heart Sliver has! Between the neatly intertwined thorny tails, to the body that looks like a bunch of pulsating meat-sack tumours lumped together, to the absolutely nasty-looking set of back-spines and the way it's laid out on its very nasty-looking blade arm, the Spined Sliver really does look like a dangerous creature that's going to fuck you the hell up. Being somewhat more colourful than the regular Sliver also helps to make this look more like a dangerous creature, although I'm not sure if this thing isn't just covered with blood. This thing is Red/Green, which is basically what you slap into a natural creature that's also savage and destructive.
Here's your vocabulary of the day: "Victual" is provisions, food, or the act of providing people with food! So the Green/White Victual Sliver is the healer of the brood, basically allowing you, the caster, to restore health at the cost of sacrificing a friendly Sliver. The design of this thing is somewhat simple, but the transparent skin delivers a pretty creepy look at the skeleton underneath. And I'm not sure if the Victual Sliver is feeding the little baby Slivers (awww) with provisions (does it regurgitate meals like a bird?) or if it's just selecting which of its young, tiny Sliver babies is to be sacrificed and turned into provisions.
The Licids also make a return in a single cycle of cards, but, disappointingly, they still have no real lore. At least we get some pretty cooler depictions of the mutations they bring, though, as well as cooler designs for the Licids themselves other than generic bug that happens to cause parasitic mutation. The Gliding Licid is this weird slug-like thing that latches onto a dude's helmet, and apparently causes the dude to sprout some Pterodactyl wings. Or, well, it might just happen to be hitching a ride on some weird pterodactyl-man, but the fact that it gives the creature it is equipped on the Flying keyword, I'm pretty sure it's meant to basically cause a mutation.
It's easy to think that Corrupting Licid is the weird flesh-like growth on the unfortunate dude's head, forming some sort of twisted World of Warcraft style helmet-hoodie thing, but the actual Licid is the white spider-lizard thing in the foreground. Apparently, I guess the Corrupted Licid causes a permanent mutation in this dude, which involves the addition of that creepy, Licid-esque head ornament. Of course, in-game, the enchantment isn't permanent, but I would like to think that in-universe, as a creature, this is what the Licid does.
Well, two out of five that's cool isn't bad, because Convlusing Licid, Tempting Licid and Calming Licid are still basically the same Facehugger style monsters latching on to people and seemingly taking them over. They get far, far cooler artwork compared to their Tempest counterparts, though,with Tempting Licid and Convulsing Licid's artworks looking particularly dynamic.
We don't get as many Dauthi, Soldari and Thalakos as the Tempest expansion, but we definitely do get them. The Dauthi Trapper, at a glance, doesn't look super cool, just some horned, screaming demon-man made out of shadow, but the card art shows the shadow dude basically consuming the human's head and turning it straight into skeleton, while its shadowy arms just swirl around in ways that flesh-and-bone arms should not have been able to. Pretty neat!
And, hey, we get yet another Thrull! I like the Thrulls, and while we don't get a whole ton of them in any of these post-Fallen-Empires sets, I do like that we're getting a bunch of these individual critters. The Morgue Thrull could've been just a regular human or undead dude, though, because he's just kind of basically Igor with skinnier arms, and not the body-horror-stitched-together-creature-made-for-ritual-sacrifice like the other Thrulls. Still, it's hard to argue with that perfectly wretched expression.
Serpent Warrior isn't honestly very snake-like, and I would've thought that this would be retconned as something like a 'Horror' or something along those lines, but apparently he's still snakey enough to be considered a 'Snake Soldier' in reprints. It's kind of an interesting design, going from the simple snake-man design and adding so much grisly details like the row of spines down its back, or the two random boar tusks on its lower jaw... Pretty neat looking creature!
Stronghold Assassin is a 'zombie', according to subsequent reprints, and presumably both he and the Serpent Warrior are what Volrath's experiments would eventually lead into. The Phyrexians are basically magic-punk cyborgs, and I do really like the design of this particular cyborg dude! Half of his face (not his head, just the face!) has been replaced with a metallic plate with a single off-set eye, one of his arms has been replaced with that nasty-looking cannon-claw thing straight out of Warhammer 40K, and I think he's using that metal tendril from his fucking chin to choke the life out of the unfortunate dude.
"Spirit" is a tribe that Magic: The Gathering kind of has a bit of a loose grip on, basically sometimes using it interchangeably with 'ghost' or 'specter' or any kind of incorporeal, well, spirit... and sometimes, they use it for something like the Mindwarper. Which is pretty fucking badass looking, don't get me wrong, but it's at this point in time when I wonder what makes a creature a "Horror", a "Demon", a "Spirit" or any sort of the other tribes that can conceivably lead to these monstrous creatures. Of course, Spirits would later on get a more solid identity once Kamigawa basically puts in a more Japanese mythology inspired spin on them, but we're a long ways away from Kamigawa. The Mindwarper's a pretty damn cool creature, even if we don't learn anything from it. A tail that's a gigantic set of bloody bony claws? That nasty, chitinous, bony arm? The multiple eyes, the skeletal mouth, the hunchbacked shell? Pretty damn awesome design all around.
Wall of Souls is one of the many Walls introduced in this set, and if M:TG Wiki is anything to go by, apparently the Walls introduced in Stronghold are notable for being cards that suddenly shot up in tournament and competitive play, because previous iterations of Walls aren't particularly competitive. Wall of Souls is pretty spooky, though, showing a bunch of distorted, moaning faces made out of ethereal mist, with little squid-tentacle things that are seemingly made out of screaming moaning faces as well... but it's apparently causing the dude in the foreground to harm himself. Presumably, and judging by its effect, the Wall of Souls itself can't directly harm you, but the sheer amount of spookiness from it is causing you to harm yourself!
Oh shit, I really do like the artwork for Mind Peel. It's just so creepy, and you can just make out some details and shapes in the huge blob of flesh (and/or memory) being ripped out from the dude's brain. You get to see the shape of a woman very clearly, but the rest of it is honestly so abstract, and the pretty oddly visceral artwork is definitely something I'm a fan of.
Thalkos Deceiver is our single Thalakos card in this set, and, like the other members of the Thalakos, he's a formless being made out of shadowy mist. He appears to be giving Random McHuman over there a wet willie, apparently. Or, well, possessing the dude, as its effect implies.
Richard Kane Ferguson is the perfect artist for the sheer wacky psychedelic artworks in both Dream Prowler and Walking Dream. Between the usage of the colours, the almost mosaic-like way he draws in details, and generally having a dream-like quality of yeah, you can see shapes and can generally see what's going on, but it's also so blurry and cluttered that you're not sure if you're seeing the full picture.... I do really like that these creatures are both considered Illusions brought to life by some wizard's powerful dream. That's pretty damn cool.
See, another Spirit that could've very well been an 'elemental' if you showed the artwork to me! Cloud Spirit's a pretty cool spirit, though, with those long, bony hands, the featureless face and the very prominent ribcages. We don't quite see what the rest of him looks like, and he's not so much a spirit made out of clouds but seems to be a spirit that resides among the clouds. He looks pretty cool!
Tidal Warrior is another member of the Rootwater merfolk from Tempest, and this one has a particularly dead-fish-looking eyes and a mouth that looks like a human skull's teeth. And a bunch of neat catfish beard parts. Pretty neat design!
Volrath's Shapeshifter! Shapeshifters are a huge theme in this expansion's story, even though there's only a single creature to have the Shapeshifter tribe. It's not unprecedented, though, Volrath has a bunch of shapeshifters in Tempest working for him! This one has a particularly nasty art that wouldn't feel out of place in Parasyte or something. Volrath's Shapeshifter pretended to be the missing captain Sisay in the story, and ended up assuming its true form, which just looks so god-damn nasty, with the body placed in a horrifying pose, the legs transforming into a mass of fibres and sinews rooted to the floor, the right arm bent out of shape, the left arm transforming into this massive, elongated sphincter-mouth-fang tentacle, and part of her face turning into a mass of viscera ending with a blade. Pretty cool looking card!
Carnassid is a Green creature that's pretty weird. The flavour text doesn't tell us much, but I do like just how weird this creature looks. It's like got a mixture of features from like a rhino and a bear and a bit of hyena all cluttered together into a bizarre creature that you could feasibly believe that it evolved naturally on Earth, but also looks just wrong enough.
We saw the Spike Drone in Tempest, but Stronghold's Green creatures brought with it a whole load of new Spikes! They're not quite as awesome as the Slivers, but I still do love them! Honestly, the weird slug-creatures with massive spider fang-faces and a bunch of pods running down their backs does look pretty cool, and they all have this running theme of coming into play with a set amount of buff counters, but then they can move these counters around -- if Spike Drone's artwork is anything to go by, they're moving their larva pods to their buddies! Spike Colony is basically the simple Spike Drone design, but showcased with a lot more of them brooding around what looks like a bunch of termite hills.
Spike Soldier, meanwhile, is a lot spinier, with a row of spikes running down its back, a pair of extra devil-horns and a more ornate head design. And it's got creepy slug sticky-things running down its body! Pretty cool design.
Spike Breeder looks particularly nasty, particularly with how its head looks. It doesn't look like a spider or bug's head like the Drone, Soldier or the Colony, but more like a dead animal's skull on its side. Its artwork is a lot more goopy and yucky-looking compared to the others, which really sells the whole slimy bug-monster feel of this creature.
Spike Feeder shows a particularly small Spike next to an apple. Or maybe these Spikes are all small, and it's the impressive artwork that makes them look like giant bug monsters? Whatever the case, the Spike Feeder seems to have swapped its normal fanged spider face for a nasty-looking proboscis, and is eating from an apple, leaving marks that kinda look like apple maggot boreholes in real life. Pretty neat artwork!
And we end with the also somewhat mundane-looking Spike Worker. Hey, they are pretty large, since this Spike Worker's right next to a tree! Presumably it's protecting a bunch of cocoons or egg sacs or something. I like how the set of bulbs running down its back seems to give it the impresion of having googly-eyes, but its actual eyes are a lot smaller and arranged in a >:( configuration.
And we're off to red! Duct Crawler is a simple 1/1 and the ability of crawling through ducts implies that it's a tiny insect... but look at that skull next to it! It's surely another one of Magic's endless supply of giant arthropods? I'm not sure if the Duct Crawler is meant to represent a specific sort of beetle or something related to earwigs or ants. The insect anatomy is actually pretty good, but I guess it's just meant to be any generic giant bug.
We get to see a couple of Flowstone monsters in Tempest's Red, and now we have a bunch more Flowstone creatures here, because, well, the Stronghold itself is the core of where the Flowstone production is. Flowstone Hellion, unless I'm forgetting something, is also the first representative of the Hellion creatures, although it doesn't have the tag just yet. It's basically another one of those giant Dune-inspired worm monsters, only these guys also have little nubby caterpillar legs, as well as a mass of whip-like barbed tentacles around its mouth. A pretty awesome art piece, and the fact that this isn't even an organic creature per-se, and it's just melting straight out of the flowstone on the ground is pretty damn cool.
The Flowstone Shambler isn't as cool-looking compared to the Hellion, but that's just personal preference -- the image of a giant, hulking gorilla-esque behemoth being formed straight out of rock is pretty awesome. And that face that's just a straight panel of rock with no features other than two random horns, is pretty damn awesome looking. Between Cloud Spirit and Flowstone Shambler, I guess I just really like featureless, faceless monsters in general.
We also have a bunch more of the Mogg goblins, and the Mogg Bombers are a nasty, disgusting-looking thing that's muscular, holding some sort of hideous scythe and has a bucket-backpack full of dynamite. I love the flavour text, and I appreciate the effort of them wanting to have more serious goblins, but I do miss the more whimsical, wacky cartoonish goblins from earlier in Magic: The Gathering. These are still pretty cool, though! And at least we have cards like Mogg Maniac, which still looks comical even if it's still meant to display a totally serious, evil, vile creature. A combination of that expression and the sheer amount of ridiculous weapons strapped onto its back is pretty neat!
Mogg Flunkies are a bunch of larger, more muscular dudes that honestly look more 'troll' or 'ogre'-like than M:TG's standard goblins, but I do like the variety (particularly since the Moggs are meant to be more warlike and slightly mutated) and I absolutely love the flavour text. They'll attack whatever's in front of them, but they need help in you telling them what 'front' is, which translates perfectly into their ability, where they can't attack or block if no other creatures do the same. They literally are only smart enough to do basic attacks if they have someone to mimic!
Shard Phoenix is just such a weird looking 'phoenix', not even being a bird of flame, and it's got such a massive head that takes up almost its entire body, no legs, and its wings end up looking just like a kite made entirely out of metal shards. Presumably, the way it 'revives' back into your hand is the shards slowly gathering together. Honestly, it's a pretty damn cool concept and design. I'm a huge, huge fan.
I love hydras, but we haven't gotten a whole ton of them in M:TG. Spitting Hydra's pretty awesome, though, with a body that's very snake-like, a feature that I don't think I've seen a whole lot on hydra artwork -- they tend to go for larger, more dinosaurian bodies. Pretty cool looking, although I'm not sure what the implication of the effect is, of removing a counter to deal a damage to a creature. I guess spitting venom takes so much work that one of the heads just sort of buggers off and takes a break? Eh.
Soltari Champion is our sole Soltari card in this expansion, and, again, has the Shadow keyword. I do like the fact that this White creature has a pretty deformed-looking face (and way too many neck muscles), but still manages to look and be counted as a heroic fellow. Not sure if there's any significance to the Medusa-like face on the shield.
Hey, it's the en-Kor! I'm not sure if they showed up in Tempest. I don't think they did? But they're basically a race of blue or white-skinned humanoids with little weird tentacle-beards, and they will be a recurring race of more heroic people for White. They're not quite as cool as the Soltari, but it's still nice to see that White's going to get a bunch more interesting-looking creatures. The Warrior en-Kor is a pretty basic looking en-Kor, while Spirit en-Kor is their equivalent to an angel, and I really, really do love the fact that their wings are just a couple of gigantic feathers on top, and a bunch of almost starfish-like protrusions on the bottom.
The en-Kor have a unique mechanic of basically being able to redirect some damage to another creature you control, kinda like a more gimped version of Banding from the past.
The Lancers en-Kor are apparently twins. All twins in the en-Kor tribe are trained as lancers, that ride this bizarre weird dinosaur-like beast with an elongated snout, and the twins basically hold a lance that stab each side of the weird dinosaur-like beast. This random detail is such a random miniscule detail, but definitely feels like a neat little world-building detail that a fantasy race like the en-Kor would have. Pretty cool looking design for sure.
HORNET CANNON. Y'know, forget the goddamn Legacy and whatever the hell these massive powerful artifacts are supposedly able to do. Fuck the Mightstone and the Null Rod and the Thran Forge. All you need is a goddamn cannon that can shoot giant robot hornets at your enemy's face. HORNET CANNON TO THE FACE
And now... the story cards!
Apparently we start off with the Weatherlight crew arriving at the Stronghold, ready to rescue the captured Tahngarth and Karn. Mirri manages to dispatch the Phyrexian guards with a single Leap. Meanwhile, Squee hides in a cupboard, pondering danger over boredom. The rest of the crew enters the Stronghold. And... Starke is still with them for some reason? And is kinda good here? Okay? I bet the novel offers an explanation.
Crovax attacks a shapeshifter that takes the form of Selenia, attacking with such rage that the shapeshifter was torn to shreds (Amok). After the fact, Gerrard ends up consoling the traumatized Crovax (Megrim). Megrim, by the way, is an archaic term for low spirits.
In the Stronghold, the crew discovers a massive globe that details the invasion plans of Dominaria by the Phyrexians. While this is happening, Mirri accidentally triggers an intruder alarm, because, well, apparently holograms are silent.
Outside the Stronghold, the allies Gerrard and company had made throughout Rath -- Eladamri's elves and Oracle en-Vec's tribes -- end up banding together and uniting in revolution, charging and doing battle against Volrath's Mogg goblin minions. (Awakening and Primal Rage) Card text from the en-Kor cards also imply that the en-Kor tribes are gathered together to face off against Volrath as well.
Volrath is aware of the Weatherlight crew's arrival in his stronghold, but in contemplation, decides to simply observe them. The Weatherlight crew passes a bridge that lay above a Bottomless Pit in the Stronghold, but the Flowstone bridge transforms into an Ensnaring Bridge, attempting to attack Gerrard and company with its snake-like protrusions. They manage to escape this threat, eventually.
The crew ends up freeing Tahngarth from the torture chambers, but the minotaur is so wounded by the physical and mental torment, ranting about how "all that remains is the scar", and splits off from the rest of the crew to kill Volrath on his own (Seething Anger). Not depicted in the cards is them freeing Karn, who opted to return to the Weatherlight.
In the laboratory, Gerrard and Mirri battle against an army of Volrath's minions to free their captain Sisay, who's stuck in a sci-fi tank. (Ransack). However, this turns out to be yet another one of Volrath's Shapeshifter. We covered the shapeshifter above.
Splitting up after taking out the Shapeshifter, Mirri and Crovax encounter the real Selenia. (Provoke). Mirri's instincts caused her to move in the way of Selenia's attack with the Sword of the Chosen, taking a blow meant for Crovax. F
inally seeing a friend fall thanks to his own inaction, Crovax ends up delivering a Death Stroke that slew Selenia, shattering the mind-controlled angel and his former companion. This, however, caused Crovax to be afflicted with a curse as the angel's remains scattered above him, transforming him into Crovax the Cursed. It was Tahngarth that ends up rescuing the wounded Mirri and the unconscious Crovax, taking them out from the Stronghold into the Weatherlight. (Conviction)
Karn the Silver Golem sifts through the Stronghold for other Legacy artifacts, and finds them protected by the massive Sliver Queen. However, Karn manages to communicate with the mighty creature, persuading it to give him the Legacy artifacts.
Gerrard and Starke, separated from the rest of the party, enter Volrath's Gardens, and had to take cover as the Predator passes overhead (Hesitation). They battle a group of Spikes in the garden, and Starke is nearly killed by a sentient plant. Or a Brush with Death, if you will. They end up crossing the gardens and climbing up a Shifting Wall.
The non-wounded members of the Weatherlight crew eventually arrive in the Dream Halls, where Gerrard eventually confronts Volrath (Temper).
Volrath then uses the powerful artifact, the Helm of Possession (a card in Tempest) to show off his Reins of Power, mind-controlling the captured Captain Sisay, as well as Starke's daughter, to fight Gerrard and Starke. In the battle, Starke manages to deal a blow on Volrath's person, but was tossed aside in contempt.
In the heat of battle, Starke's mind-controlled daughter Takara ends up blinding Starke with a slash across his eyes. The battle continues with Volrath retreating after Gerrard subdues Sisay (not shown in cards). After doing so, Gerrard stabs Volrath through the chest, seemingly smiting the evil monster... but despite the badass one-liner, it turns out that it's yet another shapeshifter and not the real Volrath (Scapegoat). After all, this is only the middle expansion -- we still have Exodus to go through!
Takara, meanwhile, has to watch in horror as she has to witness her father, blinded by her own blade. (Bandage). The battle continues!
And now... after our heroes go through what's arguably a disastrous dungeon crawl, we go and talk about the rest of the cards!
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Not a whole ton to say here. Dungeon Shade's got a pretty cool-looking and spooky artwork... I think it's meant to just be a floating head-ghost. Foul Imp is another nasty-looking gremlin imp, but it's not quite as awesome looking as the twin-faced imp from Tempest. Rabid Rats is our obligatory Black-mana rat swarm creature. Skeleton Scavengers has some pretty fun little details in the artwork, like that dude on the left with no lower jaw, or that dude with an animal skull on the right. They're scavenging and looting , like any good RPG player would!
Revenant is an example of the ghost-like spirits, because, again, we haven't gotten the whole 'spirit' thing down. Stronghold Taskmaster is a giant, which isn't quite as obvious until you realize those shadowed things in the background are people he's taskmastering as opposed to just a wall.
Lab Rats is pretty fun. It's a rat who's had wheels crudely grafted onto it! That's neat.
Cannibalize and Mortuary has some rather disturbing art pieces.
Hammerhead Shark! Randomly in this plane of doom and death and machine zombies and parasitic steroid bugs and anglerfish mermaids and weird blade-snake-alien hives, you just have a random hammerhead shark with strangely human-like eyes. It's a pretty dynamic pose, too, other than the fact that those eyes look oddly like something out of an Egyptian hieroglyph as opposed to something you'll find on a shark.
Silver Wyvern and Spindrift Drake are just, well, more blue-allied drakes, but both have pretty neat artworks and look cool! Spindrift Drake in particular look particularly badass, bursting out of the midst of a wave. Wall of Tears is actually a pretty neat and very fantasy-flavoured creature concept. After so many random walls in the past dozen expansions, they really have to get creative huh?
A bunch of blue spells. Mind Games has some really weird-looking faces on it, and I guess Mask of the Mimic is the foreshadowing and/or explanation for the shapeshifter Volrath in the story?
The sorcerer lady in Rebound's card art has the perfect "...the fuck?" expression on her face.
We've got a bunch of random elven troops, which I guess is meant to represent Elamdari's Skyshroud forest elves. It's necessary, but, again, just with every expansion, I try to say something about what makes these Green-mana elves interesting and I cannot find anything to do so.
It's not just Spikes and elves on Green's side, though... we've got the Endangered Armodon, and presumably they became endangered because the mean elves kept using them as mounts to fight giant zombie cyborgs and self-destructive goblins! Lowland Basilisk is a neat-looking lizard, and apparently they turn their victims into flowstone instead of rock. Spined Wurm is another wurm, but we've seen a lot of them that another dinosaurian-faced one just isn't particularly special.
Wall of Blossoms is such a weak-sounding name, but the juxtaposition of the fingers being consumed by pretty pretty flowers is just kind of horrifying, and the flavour text noting that each flower, leaf and petal being 'disturbingly' exact adds in an extra layer of creepiness to this thing. Fittingly, this is one of the best meta-defining cards from this expansion.
Crossbow Ambush features what's unmistakably a Sliver, and judging by having two pterodactyl wings and no mantis-claw, it's the Winged Sliver from Tempest. Actually... is its tail mutated into a mantis claw? So I guess those 'wings' are evolved tails, then? Huh. The flavour text talks about how drakes can't fly faster than a crossbow bolt, but that's kinda apples-and-oranges since these dudes are fighting a Sliver, yeah?
(I have nothing else to say about the rest of the cards here, which is why I'm yakking on about the Sliver in the background of a card art)
I'm not sure if the card art for Overgrowth is showing the marsh trees actually walking around, or if it's just some mangrove-tree-style roots.
A bunch of neat Red-mana cards. Wall of Razors looks pretty wacky, and we've got a couple of generic angry monsters in Furnace Spirit and Flowstone Mauler. Pretty neat-looking, but not particularly as cool as the others I've featured above.
Ruination has a bunch of neat-looking stone-heads. And, hey, look at the angry, nasty-looking goblins in Mogg Infestation!
That poor, poor goblin in Fling. That dude throwing him is a meanie. Flowstone Blade seems to have straight-up replaced the arm of the dude wielding it. Honestly, judging by Volrath's modus operandi, I wouldn't be particularly surprised.
A bunch more en-Kor tribes in Nomads en-Kor and Shaman en-Kor. I don't have a whole lot to say here, though I do like the random bit of poetry from the Nomads. I think I didn't mention that all of the en-Kor cards would retroactively be given the "Kor" tribal tag. The Youthful Knight and Honor Guard, I guess, are representatives of the en-Vec tribe.
A wall, a cleric dude, and a good, non-Selenia angel. Also, Rolling Stones! Which isn't so much rolling but more "it's living, it's moving like a goop and it's murdering the shit out of the moggs". Also, insert your own rolling stones joke here.
A bunch of White enchantments, and then Volrath's Laboratory! Which is a pretty interesting artifact that basically implies that you are using the laboratory to basically construct an army of random, creepy artificial creatures of your choosing. You, too, can be a mad scientist breaking all the rules of what is natural and decent!
Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft, coming to mobile devices near you, a trading card game for the more casual crowd!
"What does Horn of Greed do, Yugi?" Y'know, both these cards predate Hearthstone and Yu-Gi-Oh by years, but I do like making the obvious jokes sometimes.
That's the article Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold
That's it for the article Reviewing Magic: The Gathering #13 - Stronghold this time, hopefully can be useful for all of you. okay, see you in another article post.
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