Unveiling three new Mirrodin races

Welcome to another preview article! Nothing makes me more indescribably excited than to reveal another tiny element of my ultimate masterpiece of game design: Mirrodin. While some are ruining the fun of Mirrodin -- and Magic: The Gathering as a whole -- for everyone by leaking card information in the form of partial spoiler lists, they certainly aren't as intimately familiar with my precious child as I am. And, as I've said in the past, people want to hear about new cards from the cards themselves and from official previews -- not some spoiler list on the 'net.

The Background

Tuesday, Rei Nakazawa showed you some of the places and races that the creative team has come up with for my beautiful baby set. He introduced you to the Vedalken, a brand new and completely innovative blue race that "spend their lives in the ceaseless pursuit of knowledge." He also introduced you to the Nim which, like zombies, are grotesque, bloodthirsty, instinctive, half-living shells, except that they are called Nim. He also mentioned trolls, elves, vampires, and goblins. And, in each of the new environments, our team has randomly inserted a race of humans.

At this point you may be thinking that my sweet Mirrodin has no more surprises in store -- but you'd be wrong! In the spirit of the Leonin and Loxodon, let me introduce the Chipmuko, SquizzidanX, and Phorgax.

For a while, our creative team was having difficulty coming up with new species of creatures to inhabit the world of Magic: The Gathering. Initially, Wizards R&D was content with stealing whatever they could find from Tolkien. Eventually, we knew that we would run out of adjective-noun card name combinations. The easiest solution was to create new races. And the easiest way to do that was to put an animal head on a human body.

There have been many squirrel-oriented cards in the past, so the logical progression was to invent a new race of barbarian chipmunks. Notice that the name, "Chipmuko," sounds like the word "chipmunk," except clearly barbarian in dialect.

My bastard child, Odyssey, was the last set in which squirrels had a major role. Our team looked back at that set, and to the Cephalids, a prominent Odyssey race, for inspiration. Again, the logical progression gave us a new race... of squid warriors. The Squizzidan, as we called them at the time, were a waterfall-based tribe of nomads living in mountains. In order to survive, they had to dunk their heads every few minutes. This key weakness would give birth to several creative cards and mechanics, which you will see in the coming weeks.

Cats, elephants, chipmunks and squids -- our creative team had quickly run out of animal heads to borrow. That was when I remembered: this is an artifact set. Wouldn't it make sense to put some kind of medieval weapon where a person's head should be? I presented this idea to the team, and they loved it. We combined the words "forge" and "ax," and then replaced the "f" with "ph" to make it sound as if we put effort into it. And thus, the Phorgax were born.

Our team wasn't completely finished, however. We knew that people loved the letter "x." It is the reason "extreme" lost its "e," the reason Exalted Angel, Sulfuric Vortex, and Noxious Ghoul were played during the summer block season, and probably the reason that the five Moxen are so highly valued. We already had a multitude of x-citement in Mirrodin, with locations like the Oxidda Chain and the Radix, and races like the Loxodon and Phorgax. But how can you have too much x-citement? With this in mind, we renamed our squid warriors "SquizzidanX." It also made them sound more futuristic and metallic, ideal in our metal Mirrodin world.

The Theme

Now that you've had a preview of our new Mirrodin climate, I will show you the card. But before I show you the card, I want to give you a rough idea of how it came into being. Our card development team has had a rich history of printing broken, environment-ruining cards as uncommons. That way, people are forced to buy product in order to collect a full set, but can't fault Wizards of the Coast. Some examples include Fact or Fiction, Psychatog, Circular Logic, and the last Mirrodin preview equipment card, Isochron Scepter.

So, without further ado, I present Nutsplitting Apocalypseblade...



The Future

What will all of you do with Nutsplitting Apocalypseblade? I honestly have very little idea. If it does turn out to have the power we anticipate, we will have been successful in creating a healthy rock-paper-scissors environment of "artifact, anti-artifact, and anti-anti-artifact." If not, it will at least be a fun card to run in a casual game of "Emperor."

Until then, may you enjoy waiting for officially released preview articles and avoiding unauthorized spoilers.

Mark Rosewater

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!

Unveiling three new Mirrodin races

Welcome to another preview article! Nothing makes me more indescribably excited than to reveal another tiny element of my ultimate masterpiece of game design: Mirrodin. While some are ruining the fun of Mirrodin -- and Magic: The Gathering as a whole -- for everyone by leaking card information in the form of partial spoiler lists, they certainly aren't as intimately familiar with my precious child as I am. And, as I've said in the past, people want to hear about new cards from the cards themselves and from official previews -- not some spoiler list on the 'net.

The Background

Tuesday, Rei Nakazawa showed you some of the places and races that the creative team has come up with for my beautiful baby set. He introduced you to the Vedalken, a brand new and completely innovative blue race that "spend their lives in the ceaseless pursuit of knowledge." He also introduced you to the Nim which, like zombies, are grotesque, bloodthirsty, instinctive, half-living shells, except that they are called Nim. He also mentioned trolls, elves, vampires, and goblins. And, in each of the new environments, our team has randomly inserted a race of humans.

At this point you may be thinking that my sweet Mirrodin has no more surprises in store -- but you'd be wrong! In the spirit of the Leonin and Loxodon, let me introduce the Chipmuko, SquizzidanX, and Phorgax.

For a while, our creative team was having difficulty coming up with new species of creatures to inhabit the world of Magic: The Gathering. Initially, Wizards R&D was content with stealing whatever they could find from Tolkien. Eventually, we knew that we would run out of adjective-noun card name combinations. The easiest solution was to create new races. And the easiest way to do that was to put an animal head on a human body.

There have been many squirrel-oriented cards in the past, so the logical progression was to invent a new race of barbarian chipmunks. Notice that the name, "Chipmuko," sounds like the word "chipmunk," except clearly barbarian in dialect.

My bastard child, Odyssey, was the last set in which squirrels had a major role. Our team looked back at that set, and to the Cephalids, a prominent Odyssey race, for inspiration. Again, the logical progression gave us a new race... of squid warriors. The Squizzidan, as we called them at the time, were a waterfall-based tribe of nomads living in mountains. In order to survive, they had to dunk their heads every few minutes. This key weakness would give birth to several creative cards and mechanics, which you will see in the coming weeks.

Cats, elephants, chipmunks and squids -- our creative team had quickly run out of animal heads to borrow. That was when I remembered: this is an artifact set. Wouldn't it make sense to put some kind of medieval weapon where a person's head should be? I presented this idea to the team, and they loved it. We combined the words "forge" and "ax," and then replaced the "f" with "ph" to make it sound as if we put effort into it. And thus, the Phorgax were born.

Our team wasn't completely finished, however. We knew that people loved the letter "x." It is the reason "extreme" lost its "e," the reason Exalted Angel, Sulfuric Vortex, and Noxious Ghoul were played during the summer block season, and probably the reason that the five Moxen are so highly valued. We already had a multitude of x-citement in Mirrodin, with locations like the Oxidda Chain and the Radix, and races like the Loxodon and Phorgax. But how can you have too much x-citement? With this in mind, we renamed our squid warriors "SquizzidanX." It also made them sound more futuristic and metallic, ideal in our metal Mirrodin world.

The Theme

Now that you've had a preview of our new Mirrodin climate, I will show you the card. But before I show you the card, I want to give you a rough idea of how it came into being. Our card development team has had a rich history of printing broken, environment-ruining cards as uncommons. That way, people are forced to buy product in order to collect a full set, but can't fault Wizards of the Coast. Some examples include Fact or Fiction, Psychatog, Circular Logic, and the last Mirrodin preview equipment card, Isochron Scepter.

So, without further ado, I present Nutsplitting Apocalypseblade...



The Future

What will all of you do with Nutsplitting Apocalypseblade? I honestly have very little idea. If it does turn out to have the power we anticipate, we will have been successful in creating a healthy rock-paper-scissors environment of "artifact, anti-artifact, and anti-anti-artifact." If not, it will at least be a fun card to run in a casual game of "Emperor."

Until then, may you enjoy waiting for officially released preview articles and avoiding unauthorized spoilers.

Mark Rosewater

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!