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Card Description
Bottle Gnomes (Mirrodin) Color: Artifact (neutral to colors)

Location: Inside the 'Lumengrid'
Action: Show three 'Bottle Gnomes' full of magical blue lymph liquid
Notes: Refer to the previous Bottle Gnomes art, but update them so they look like they're from this 'metal world.'[1]

Banshee's Blade (Mirrodin) Color: Artifact (neutral to colors)

Location: generic metal world
Action: Show a magical blade with a gaping, screaming mouth on its hilt. When this sword deals damage, it magically hurts everyone nearby, perhaps with sound.
Focus: The magical blade artifact.[2]

Flayed Nim (Mirrodin) Location: the Mephidross Swamp.

Action: Show the metallic skeleton of a Nim Zombie. The flesh has rotted off of this zombie.
Mood: Unnatural, ravenous.[3]

Cloudpost (Mirrodin) Location: In the sky

Action: A strange force bubble affixed to the underside of a cloud. Although we see no one inside the bubble right now, it is used as an observatory to watch the land below.
Focus: The magical force bubble on the underside of the cloud
Mood: Mysterious[4]

Tempest of Light (Mirrodin) Location: Up to the artist (but somewhere on Mirrodin). The spell effect should look white.

Action: A barely-visible figure, arms outstretched, casts a spell that brings a 'meteor shower' made of light down on the land, washing away magic.
Focus: The falling spheres of light
Mood: Cleansing, awesome[5]

Goblin Charbelcher (Mirrodin) Color: Red-aligned Artifact

Location: Generic
Action: Show a sort of magical mortar tube. The weapon fires spell energy that appears as multicolored balls of fire and spark.
Focus: The spell-mortar weapon
Mood: FOOM![6]

Awe Strike (Mirrodin) This spell brings an attacker to his knees, turning his aggression into supplication.[7]
Dross Prowler (Mirrodin) A sneaky Nim in the shadows.[8]
Memnarch (Mirrodin) Money shot of Memnarch (p. 13 of style guide). Remember that he's an artifact creature who's slowly developing flesh. Line between metal and flesh should be very blurry.[9]
Panoptic Mirror (Darksteel) An arcane mirror. Spells reflected in it can emerge from its surface. Suggestion: Show the mirror's surface bending outward, as if the spell being reflected (a lightning bolt, for example) were trying to push its way out.[10]
Quicksilver Behemoth (Darksteel) A water elemental charged with electricity. It dissipates on impact with an enemy creature, dousing and electrocuting it. (Creature type could change to beast.)[11]
Chromescale Drake (Darksteel) A metallized drake with chrome-like eyes, in flight.[12]
Gemini Engine (Darksteel) This artifact creature has four legs and four arms, and its head has a face on each side. The creature can split into two creatures when attacking, each with two arms and legs.[13]
Nim Grotesque (Fifth Dawn) Location: Mephidross metal swamp

Action: Show a 20 foot tall badly warped Nim zombie. Its deformed hulk shambles (or maybe skitters) through the swamp.
Focus: The immense beast.
Mood: Corrupt and powerful.[14]

Stand Firm (Fifth Dawn) We are looking at a male Leonin warrior. He is readying his battle-scythe as he is about to be charged by Nim. The Leonin is "bracing for impact".

Mood: It ends here![15]

Lose Hope (Fifth Dawn) This is the scene following "brace for impact". This time the Leonin warrior is covered in filth from fighting Nim and is about to collapse from nausea and Necrogen gas.

Mood: I feel sick. I'm gonna die here.[15]

Relentless Rats (Fifth Dawn) A wicked-looking metallized rat in foreground, with many of its rat friends behind it.[16]
Silent Arbiter (Fifth Dawn) Location: Razor Fields somewhere

Action: Show a larger-than-human artifact creature of artist's design. The creature should seem like it was created to be a judge, enforcer, or official. As long as this artificial creature is present, all combat becomes formal and ritualized.
Mood: Stern. This guy exists to keep the fight fair, like an artificial sergeant-of-arms.[17]

Grafted Wargear (Fifth Dawn) This is gunmetal-colored Vulshok armor (see style guide) that magically grafts to the wearer's skeleton. Once someone equips this armor, they would have to rip themselves apart to remove it.[18]
Bringer of the Red Dawn (Fifth Dawn) Location: Oxidda mountain chain.

Action: Show a huge crystalline humanoid bull in an aggressive pose.
Focus: On the beast (5/5).
Mood: Powerful.
Notes: This magical beast is made of 100% crystal that looks like ruby or garnet.[19]

Contagion Engine (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Artifact

Location: Mephidross clearing
Action: Show us a giant version of Contagion Clasp clamped to the ground like a huge, inanimate tick. Its plague sac is bloated and distended, and deadly green-yellow gas seeps out where the huge sac meets the framework of the "device."
Focus: the plague-globule
Mood: It could pop like a huge, deadly boil at any moment.[20]

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Black creature

Location: Sky around Vault of Whispers
Action: Show Skithiryx, once a fierce furnace dragon, now a skeletal, undead Phyrexian abomination. Start with Furnace Dragon, then design what it would look like as a skeleton, with green necrogen coming from its "afterburners" instead of red mana. The skeleton has thread of sinew still attached to it as well as ominous pipes and tubes to show its "phyrexianization."
Focus: the skeletal dragon
Mood: Badass, terrifying, an apt guardian for the center of black mana[20]

Tempered Steel (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: White spell

Action: Closeup of a large golem driving its fist into a gunmetal-like surface. The golem looks ancient and rusted, but its fist and forearm shine like indestructible chrome edged with gold, and the surface it's hitting buckles and splits. (If its other hand and arm are shown, they're the same.)
Focus: the golem's mighty blow
Mood: Better than new ... at least parts of it.[20]

Goblin Gaveleer (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Red creature

Location: Oxidda
Action: A goblin charges the viewer with a metal warhammer that's as big as he is!
Focus: the goblin
Mood: How can he even pick that thing up?[20]

Cystbearer (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Green creature

Action: Show a Phyrexian creature like the one on styleguide p. 76C. It's the size of a large wolf. Black ichor drips from its mouth and the spines on either side of its mouth glisten menacingly.
Focus: The Phyrexian predator
Mood: An indiscriminate killer[21]

Putrefax (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Green creature

Action: Show a large living mass of putrefaction that has arisen from Rey-Goor, the swamp at the edges of the Tangle. It is comprised of decaying matter (rotten gelfruit among other things), black sludge, tissue, and metal. Copper-scrap "teeth" protrude from its mouth. This is a green creature that has been tainted by Phyrexian influence.
Focus: The "Phyrexianized" elemental from the bayou.
Mood: A shambling, unstoppable abomination.[22]

Corrupted Harvester (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Black creature

Location: Mephidross
Action: A harvester is a large, horrifying creature that slithers through the Mephidross using its huge scythe to scoop living creatures into the cavity in its back. Show a harvester that has been corrupted by Phyrexia in ways of your choosing -- parts of it have been reduced to bone-and-metal skeleton.
Focus: the harvester
Mood: The terrifying 'custodians' of the Mephidross[23]

Flameborn Hellion (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Red creature

Location: River of molten metal in Oxidda
Action: A hellion (see reference) has just burst from underneath a river of molten metal, splashing it everywhere as it rises up in search of prey. The hellion has metal-edged scales, jaws, or both.
Mood: fierce and unpredictable[24]

Strata Scythe (Scars of Mirrodin) Color: Artifact

Location: Tangle floor
Action: Show us a Mirrodin-style scythe, sort of: a long steel bar with a gently scooped scythe-blade on the end. We see a golem using it to shear a layer of metal from the Tangle floor, revealing gleaming copper underneath the thick verdigris.
Focus: the strange carver-scythe
Mood: Harvesting verdigris or digging for treasure?[25]

Necrotic Ooze (Double Masters 2022) Color: Black creature

Location: The Mephidross
Action: Show a semitransparent, black, viscid, living ooze inching over a field of corpses. The ooze takes on attributes of the bodies it is passing over. The ooze has replicated various body parts—a jaw, a curved blade, a distorted hand, etc. We can see some half-metal bones jutting through it.
Focus: The ooze
Mood: A gruesome mimicry of the dead.[26]

Anoint with Affliction (Phyrexia: All Will Be One) Setting: "Lacrosse"

Color: Spell associated with black mana
Location: Mirrex (see pages 66–79 of the world guide)
Action: Please show the moment when a Steel Thane priest (page 144a) writes with its claws to inscribe a Phyrexian inscription (page 11, choose your favorite) into the bare back of a male humanoid aspirant (pages 146–148). The inscription is written with green necrogen acid (page 79). Avoid blood and gore.
Focus: The action of inscribing
Mood: Horrifying ritual
Notes: Copy the Phyrexian text exactly from the world guide. Do not attempt to modify it without first consulting us.[27]

Basilica Shepherd (Phyrexia: All Will Be One) Setting: "Lacrosse"

Color: White creature
Location: The Monumental Facade (pages 15–24)
Action: A Phyrexian angel (page 119A) soars through the sky. She holds a small Phyrexian mite swaddled in red cloth. Use the designs on page 115 as inspiration to design your own mites. Maybe the angel has several sets of arms and has a mite "child" swaddled in each one. Maybe we see some of the five colored suns behind her.
Focus: The angel
Mood: A holy mother with her children[27]

Experimental Augury (Phyrexia: All Will Be One) Setting: "Lacrosse"

Color: Spell associated with blue mana
Location: A workshop in The Surgical Bay (pages 54–65)
Action: Show us a shot looking inside a Phyrexian's head as a Phyrexian scientist (page 126d) performs surgery on it.
Focus: The surgery
Mood: Science and horror
Notes: This is not a gory surgery, mostly mechanical with machine and organic matter.[27]

Planar Disruption (Phyrexia: All Will Be One) Setting: "Lacrosse"

Color: White spell
Location: The Monumental Facade (pages 15–24)
Intent: This card is part of a set that showcases story moments from this release. The Wanderer and Kaito have just landed on New Phyrexia, but an enemy force field has messed with their powers, and the Wanderer is fading away.
Action: The Wanderer and Kaito reach out toward each other, but her arms have become transparent and pass through him. See attached references for character designs. Maybe the atmosphere is filled with poisonous dust (see pages 19 and 23). We're open to any solutions you have for a more abstract interpretation.
Focus: The fading Wanderer
Mood: "Don't go!" Two close friends being separated by an evil force.
Notes: Do not include Kaito's tanuki robot.[27]

References[ | ]

  1. Wizards of the Coast (October 8, 2003). "Sketches: Bottle Gnomes". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  2. Wizards of the Coast (October 16, 2003). "Sketches: Banshee's Blade". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  3. Wizards of the Coast (October 29, 2003). "Sketches: Flayed Nim". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  4. Wizards of the Coast (November 20, 2003). "Sketches: Cloudpost". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  5. Wizards of the Coast (November 26, 2003). "Sketches: Tempest of Light". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  6. Wizards of the Coast (December 8, 2003). "Sketches: Goblin Charbelcher". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  7. Wizards of the Coast (January 21, 2004). "Sketches: Awe Strike". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  8. Wizards of the Coast (February 2, 2004). "Sketches: Dross Prowler". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  9. Wizards of the Coast (February 23, 2004). "Sketches: Memnarch". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  10. Wizards of the Coast (March 1, 2004). "Sketches: Panoptic Mirror". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  11. Wizards of the Coast (March 31, 2004). "Quicksilver Behemoth". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  12. Wizards of the Coast (April 4, 2004). "Sketches: Chromescale Drake". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  13. Wizards of the Coast (May 5, 2004). "Sketches: Gemini Engine". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  14. Wizards of the Coast (May 19, 2004). "Sketches: Nim Grotesque". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  15. a b Wizards of the Coast (May 24, 2004). "Before and After Art". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  16. Wizards of the Coast (June 9, 2004). "Sketches: Relentless Rats". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  17. Wizards of the Coast (June 23, 2004). "Sketches: Silent Arbiter". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  18. Wizards of the Coast (June 30, 2004). "Sketches: Grafted Wargear". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  19. Wizards of the Coast (July 22, 2004). "Sketches: Bringer of the Red Dawn". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  20. a b c d Wizards of the Coast (September 14, 2010). "Scars of Mirrodin Sketch Quickies". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  21. Doug Beyer (October 13, 2010). "The Key is Time". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  22. Monty Ashley (October 14, 2010). "Sketches: Putrefax". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  23. Monty Ashley (October 28, 2010). "Sketches: Corrupted Harvester". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  24. Monty Ashley (November 10, 2010). "Sketches: Flameborn Hellion". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  25. Monty Ashley (November 29, 2010). "Sketches: Strata Scythe". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  26. Mark Rosewater (June 27, 2022). "A Double Take, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  27. a b c d Mark Rosewater (January 30, 2022). "Mission Compleat, Part 1". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
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