Choosing Your Battles, Part 3
This is my third article in a three-part series (Part 1 and Part 2) looking at all 36 battles in March of the Machine and explaining how they were designed. For each one, I'll talk about the plane and walk through why we chose its color(s), what we chose as the "enters the battlefield" (ETB) effect on the front face, and what card we wanted as the prize on the back face for winning the battle. I'm going to be talking about the cards as they appear in collector number order. I left off last week with multicolor, so that's where I'll pick up.
Invasion of Amonkhet
Invasion of Amonkhet
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Amonkhet enters the battlefield, each player mills three cards, then each opponent discards a card and you draw a card. (To mill three cards, a player puts the top three cards of their library into their graveyard.)
Sets that primarily take place there: Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): Basri Ket and Samut
Amonkhet is a plane inspired by Egyptian mythology. As part of the story that took place there, Nicol Bolas built an army of Zombies known as the Eternals. The story ended with much of the plane being destroyed, so we were limited in what we could choose for the battle. In the end, we decided to focus on making an Eternal as the back face. That influenced our mechanic, which in turn dictated what colors the battle needed to be—blue-black (blue for the copying, black for the discard, and blue-black for the milling).
The Zombie on the back face references a mechanic from Hour of Devastation called eternalize where you make Zombie versions of creatures in your graveyard, but they're always 4/4 Zombies. The ETB effect played into the Eternal's need for cards in the graveyard by having both milling and discard effects.
Invasion of Azgol
Invasion of Azgol
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Azgol enters the battlefield, target player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker and loses 1 life.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Azgol showed up on one card, Lair of the Ashen Idol, from Planechase (2012 Edition).
It showed a volcano and had mechanics that both sacrificed creatures and made Zombies. It was a tiny peak at what seemed to be a bleak plane; definitely a black-red plane. When we came across planes like these that had very little defined, the Creative team was able to do some work to expand on them. Azgol ended up a dark, volcanic plane filled with ashen Zombies.
Because sacrifice was so key to the plane, it made sense to have the ETB effect be a sacrifice effect, although one for the opponent, so you'd want to put the card in your deck. We wanted the back face to be one of the ashen Zombies, so it became a Zombie Elemental. To play into the same deck as the front, it gets a reward whenever any permanent is put into a graveyard.
Invasion of Ergamon
Invasion of Ergamon
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Ergamon enters the battlefield, create a Treasure token. Then you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
In the beginning, of the Alpha rulebook, Richard Garfield wrote a short story about two mages, Worzel and Thomil, dueling. That duel took place on the plane of Ergamon. Very little detail was put into the story about the location, so not much was known about it. The only reference on a card was Truga Jungle from Planechase (2012 Edition).
The plane card doesn't even show any creatures, just enlarged fauna and high cliffs. This meant that the plane was mostly a carte blanche for the Creative team to design. They chose to make a plane filled with wild animals, including a race of rhinos. Because this was an uncommon, we chose to make the back face a Rhino that plays into the red-green archetype, a battle-focused ramp theme. The card allows you to discard a card to tutor for a land or battle, both of which play into the archetype. The front was made generally useful, creating Treasure tokens and allowing you to rummage (i.e., discard and draw). The rummage theme is connective tissue between the front face and back.
Invasion of Kaladesh
Invasion of Kaladesh
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Kaladesh enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature token with flying.
Sets that primarily take place there: Kaladesh and Aether Revolt
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): Chandra, Dovin, and Saheeli
Kaladesh is Chandra's homeworld and our take on steampunk combined with an inspiration from India. The plane is focused on invention and mechanically cares a lot about artifacts. We first introduced Vehicles in Kaladesh the set, but the plane first showed up in Magic Origins and was shown in two colors, blue and red, colors associated with artifacts. Kaladesh is one of the planes that has a definitive two-color combination, blue-red.
The front ETB creates 1/1 colorless Thopter tokens with flying, a token unique to Kaladesh. The back face is a Vehicle and has an "artifacts matter" theme, both of which tie it strongly to Kaladesh. There's nice synergy because the token you make on the front face is big enough to crew the Vehicle on the back face.
The card also makes a fun nod to story. Saheeli is a Kaladeshi native who loves to invent things. She traveled to Ixalan where she met Huatli, a Planeswalker associated with dinosaurs. Saheeli and Huatli became very close. The vehicle depicted on the back face was designed by Saheeli and is greatly influenced by the dinosaurs she saw on Ixalan. A nice little nod to Saheeli and Huatli's relationship.
Invasion of Kylem
Invasion of Kylem
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Kylem enters the battlefield, up to two target creatures each get +2/+0 and gain vigilance and haste until end of turn.
Sets that primarily take place there: Battlebond
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Kylem was first seen in the set Battlebond, a supplemental draft set built around the format Two-Headed Giant, where teams of two play against one another. Citizens of the plane love sports and games, and it has a giant stadium called Valor's Reach where people come to battle in front of giant crowds. (Interestingly, Valor's Reach is the name of one of the big conference rooms near R&D.) To play into the theme of people working together, like the players are doing, the battles in Valor's Reach are always team-ups. Battlebond even introduced the partner with mechanic to allow cards in your deck to team up. Because the plane is so focused on fighting (albeit for entertainment purposes), we made it red-white.
Both the ETB of the front face and the back face play into the strong theme of teaming up that Kylem is known for. The ETB gives +2/+0 to up to two creatures and then grants two abilities. The back creates two creature tokens that want to work together to get better. Note that both the front and back faces have art set in Valor's Reach.
Invasion of Lorwyn
Invasion of Lorwyn
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Lorwyn enters the battlefield, destroy target non-Elf creature an opponent controls with power X or less, where X is the number of lands you control.
Sets that primarily take place there: Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, and Eventide
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Lorwyn is a strange plane because it's not always Lorwyn. Sometimes it changes into Shadowmoor, and every being on the plane changes along with it. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor share a duality, with Lorwyn being the lighter side and Shadowmoor being the darker side. Right now, the plane is in its Lorwyn form, as depicted in the Invasion. The Lorwyn mini-block had a strong creature type theme focusing on eight creature types: Elementals, Elves, Faeries, Giants, Goblins, Kithkin, Merfolk, and Treefolk.
Most of the creature types were focused on two colors, so it gave us the opportunity for a theme. The two most famous creature types of Lorwyn are probably the mean-spirited Faeries (blue-black) and the opinionated Elves (black-green). We really wanted the Eldraine battle card to have a Faerie on the back, so we chose to have Lorwyn reference Elves. This made the card black-green, as that's the color of Elves on Lorwyn. It's also the two colors in which Lorwyn was seen in Magic Origins, as it's the plane Nissa first sparks to.
The elves of Lorwyn are famous about feeling that others don't match up to their high ideal of perfection, so the ETB being a kill spell that kills non-Elves plays squarely into that flavor. We chose a scaling effect tied to land so that it would naturally scale with the game. Land is the most natural element that goes up in number as the game progresses. The back face is an Elf Warrior and scales based on land, although in this case increasing power and toughness.
Invasion of Moag
Invasion of Moag
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Moag enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Planeswalker was the sequel novel to The Brothers' War. It followed Urza post war through the eyes of a character named Xantcha. In the book, Urza and Xantcha are running from the Phyrexians and unable to return to Dominaria because of something known as the Shard. One of the planes they ended up on was Moag. The plane was defined as "backwater" and described as a "hospitable world with abundant, rich soil, a broad swath of temperate climates and a wealth of vigorous cultures." Moag did show up on one plane, Field of Summer, in the original Planechase.
This is another instance of Dave Humpherys and his Set Design team looked for deep-cut planes to fill out their color grid. They needed something for green-white, and Moag felt pastoral enough to fit. The Creative team decided to focus on Dryad creatures, which the design team used on the back face. Because this was an uncommon, they chose to go with simple effects that tied together. The front face puts a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures, which plays into green-white's "go wide" strategy. The back face is a Dryad that also hands out +1/+1 counters, but over time (i.e., once a turn) rather than all at once. I'll note that in contrast to some of the darker planes, Moag was made to be brighter.
Invasion of New Capenna
Invasion of New Capenna
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of New Capenna enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice an artifact or creature. When you do, exile target artifact or creature an opponent controls.
Sets that primarily take place there: Streets of New Capenna
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): Elspeth
New Capenna is Elspeth's homeworld. It was once run by angels, but thanks to a Phyrexian invasion (a prior one), it has been taken over by demon mob families. New Capenna is another plane built on arc factions (i.e., three colors next to each other in the color wheel), but we only wanted one colorless and one five-color battle, so this one ended up becoming a two-color battle.
We felt it was important to have a lot of variety for the back face. We wanted to have at least one battle that had an Equipment on the back, and New Capenna felt like a good fit for this. (The other was Kamigawa, but we wanted that to have a Ninja.) New Capenna was open-ended as to what colors it could be, so we were looking to fit it into the uncommon cycle of two-color battles. We wanted these to fit into the draft archetype of that color. White-black ended up being the best fit.
The white-black archetype was about the Phyrexians, but we didn't want to name them by name on any of the battles. The compromise was to make an Equipment in white-black that rewarded you for playing the same creature type without specifically naming any one creature type. We ended up flavoring it as a weapon, as those are plentiful on New Capenna. The draft archetype used a lot of incubate, so the front ETB lets you sacrifice an artifact or creature to exile an artifact or creature of target opponent. This lets you use your untransformed incubate tokens to remove your opponent's biggest threat.
Invasion of New Phyrexia
Invasion of New Phyrexia
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of New Phyrexia enters the battlefield, create X 2/2 white and blue Knight creature tokens with vigilance.
Sets that primarily take place there: Mirrodin, Darksteel, Fifth Dawn, Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, and Phyrexia: All Will Be One
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): Koth
New Phyrexia is the only plane that started as a different plane. It began as Mirrodin, an artificial, metal-infused plane with a strong artifact theme. On our second visit, we learned that the plane had slowly been invaded by the Phyrexians (which had been hinted at subtly during the first visit), and by the end of that block, it had been transformed into New Phyrexia. (Old Phyrexia had been created by a different strand of Phyrexians.)
There was some talk about whether there was supposed to be a battle for New Phyrexia, as it's the home of the invaders. The Phyrexians are invading every other plane. But there is an important story point that needed to be hit. One of the big events is that Teferi is finally able to free the plane of Zhalfir, his homeworld that he phased out during Time Spiral block to protect it. Teferi then lost his spark and couldn't bring it back. It's been a major part of Teferi's story. In the story, Teferi frees Zhalfir and uses them to attack New Phyrexia. That's what's being focused on in the battle.
As I said above, we were looking for ways to put all kinds of permanents on the back face. What if one of them was a planeswalker? We then realized it would be cool to have a battle showing the Zhalfir attacking Phyrexia with the back face being Teferi. This meant it had to be white-blue, as those are Teferi's colors. This is one of a handful of two-color battles that isn't part of the uncommon cycle.
White-blue has a Knight theme, and Zhalfir famously had knights, so this card plays into that. The ETB effect is an X spell that lets you make a lot of 2/2 white and blue Knights with vigilance. The back face boosts your Knights and has an ability that lets you use your Knights, and other creatures, to answer threats. It also has a means to let you filter and/or draw cards. The total package is an exciting battle.
Invasion of Pyrulea
Invasion of Pyrulea
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Pyrulea enters the battlefield, scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land or double-faced card, draw a card.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Pyrulea first showed up in the novel The Thran. Dyfed escorts Yawgmoth to Pyrulea to demonstrate her abilities as a Planeswalker to him. The plane is a dense forest inside a giant sphere.
The plane first showed up on the Future Sight card
The plane clearly needed to be green, but it ended up being paired with blue (I think because the plane has this feel of being built by someone, as planes don't spontaneously end up in spheres). The green-blue draft archetype cares about double-faced cards (DFCs) and transformation, so the battle used that as a mechanical jumping-off point. The ETB effect rewards you for playing DFCs but can also get you land. The back face made use of a new creature for the plane, a slabhorn, which is some kind of giant beast. It also rewards you for playing DFCs.
Invasion of Tolvada
Invasion of Tolvada
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Tolvada enters the battlefield, return target nonbattle permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): Kaya
Tolvada is Kaya's homeworld. It was first mentioned in the novel War of the Spark: Forsaken but seen for the first time in a BOOM! comic. The most notable quality of the plane is that the sky is covered in blue cracks. Kaya believes Nicol Bolas was somehow responsible for it. Bolas offered to fix the sky in exchange for her services. We chose white-black to match Kaya's colors. Note that this is a rare and not part of the uncommon cycle.
The front face gets back a nonbattle permanent which is something that white and black can do when combined (white can get back artifacts, enchantments, lands, planeswalkers, and small creatures, while black can get back creatures of any size). The back face hits a story point where the spirits from Tolvada pour through an Omenpath (the gateway between planes) and attack New Phyrexia. The card both creates Spirit creature tokens and buffs them.
Invasion of Xerex
Invasion of Xerex
Battle — Siege
(As a Siege enters, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it's defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of Xerex enters the battlefield, return up to one target creature to its owner's hand.
Sets that primarily take place there: None
Planeswalker natives (with planeswalker cards): None
Xerex is an odd plane with physics that bend reality. The plane was first seen in a DCI promo connected to Planechase (2012 Edition) on the card Stairs to Infinity.
The card ended up filling the uncommon white-blue slot. That draft archetype is a creature-focused deck that cares about Knights. We wanted the ETB effect to be simple, so we chose to make it a bounce effect. We wanted the back face to be a Knight. It ended up being an Angel Knight to add a little world building to Xerex and make a finisher for the white-blue deck. The card's power and toughness are variable based on the number of creatures, so it's a perfect fit for the archetype. The art on both faces makes use of the Escher-like stairwells that showed up in the art on the initial plane.
The Battle Lines Are Drawn
This completes my three-week look at all 36 battles. As always, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on today's column, any of the battles or planes I talked about, or March of the Machine as a whole. You can email me or contact me through my social media accounts (Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok).
Next week, I'll have my March of the Machine: Aftermath preview where talk about why it exists and how it was designed.
Until then, may you win many a battle.