When asked which card in March of the Machine is his favourite or has the best story behind it, Mark Rosewater says “I really enjoy the team-up legendary creatures.” These cards show iconic characters from each plane working together to fend off the Phyrexians.
“We were trying to demonstrate how desperate things have gotten during the war with the Phyrexians, and we got the idea of pairing together creatures that would never normally work together,” Rosewater says. “The one that probably makes me smile the most is Borborygmos and Fblthp. Obviously, times are bad on Ravnica if these two are teaming up.”
Borborygmos and Fblthp breaks MTG records as the new hardest card to spell (narrowly beating Triskaidekaphobia). It’s also one of the funniest cards from March of the Machine, as it shows the little and large one-eyed characters from Ravnica in an extremely unlikely pairing. The team-up cards from March of the Machine typically combine the abilities of the two creatures they depict, and so Borborygmos and Fblthp can tuck itself away into its owner’s library and also discard Land cards to deliver some hurt.
Interestingly, according to Rosewater’s recent article on March of the Machine’s design, the original plan was to have “creatures from different planes team up, but that wasn’t how the conflict worked according to the Creative team. The Phyrexians were the ones crossing between planes.”
However, an image of creatures from multiple planes working together was created for the set and released in August 2022, leading to lots of speculation from fans (like us) about a merging of the multiverse. It seems the consequences of March of the Machine, while impactful, were not quite that drastic – though we’ll have to wait for Aftermath to be 100% sure.
Check out MTG March of the Machine guide here, for key cards and dates. And keep an eye out for our full Mark Rosewater interview coming soon – here’s what he had to say about Battles.