This weekend brought us our first look at upcoming Magic: The Gathering set MTG March of the Machine, the final battle between the evil Phyrexians and literally everyone else in the multiverse. Loads of content was shown off at a MagicCon Philly panel on Sunday, including artwork, Commander deck details, and new MTG card spoilers.
As well as some new compleation victims (poor Omnath), MTG March of the Machine spoilers include loads of ‘team up’ cards. These feature two iconic legendary creatures smushed into one card, and show old enemies and strange bedfellows banding together in a last stand against the Phyrexian invasion.
These cards have abilities that combine the powers of both the characters depicted. For instance, in Innistrad we have Thalia riding the Gitrog Monster – which does Thalia’s annoying control thing and the Gitrog Monster’s sacrificing lands thing. And in Ixalan – nice to get another look before we return in MTG Lost Caverns of Ixalan – Ghalta and Mavren provides both Dinosaur and Vampire tribal effects.
Our favourite of these teamwork cards, however, has got to be Yargle and Multani. This is Magic’s first vanilla creature in a long while, with a ridiculous 18/6 statline. Anyone packing Fling?
Note that Katilda and Lier, Slimefoot and Squee, and Goro Goro and Satoru are each prerelease promo cards (obtained by attending a March of the Machine prerelease event). They won’t be legal in Standard (or in prerelease matches) but are instead designed for Commander decks. Ghalta and Mavren has a bundle promo card with special art, but the card is also found within the main set.
It’s not unheard of for Magic cards to feature two characters on one card – see Rin and Seri, Inseparable for instance, but it is unusual, especially for creatures that have already had multiple cards where they stand alone. These mashups put us in mind of tag team cards from the Pokemon TCG.
One thing worth noting is that all these new March of the Machine cards feature two characters from the same plane. Promo artwork shows characters from multiple planes fighting together, so we’re expecting a merging of the worlds at some point. Clearly Wizards is keeping those details for later.