Happy Easter! To celebrate the occasion, we're taking a look at some of Magic the Gathering's great Easter Eggs over the years.
The Devilish Innistrad Block
Zombies, Werewolves, and Spirits! The Innistrad set and its block were designed starting with flavor in mind and worrying about making the mechanics work later. The theme? Gothic Horror and all the wonderful horror tropes. There were plenty of Graveyard interactions to go around and keywords such as Morbid, Undying, and Soulbond which all helped build up the theme.
So, what was so special about the first set of the block? Although it has never been confirmed 100%, Mark Rosewater, design lead on Innistrad and Dark Ascension, hinted that it was intentional the block as a whole ended up having 666 cards - the devil's number! Oh, and the Magic Arcana post that announced Innistrad was their 666th article on the now-retired site. Cool!
Phelddagrif
A card that hasn't made its way over to MTG Arena, Phelddagrif is a tricolor spell that was printed all the way back in 1996 and was a part of eighth expansion of Magic the Gathering - Alliances.
This card is an anagram of "Garfield PhD", referring to the creator of Magic the Gathering, Richard Garfield. There are a TON of anagrams of designers and their families found in Magic the Gathering. Do you know any of them?
Karona's Decree
Coming in on the art side of things, Karona, False God introduced in the Scourge set of the Onslaught block, is a familiar shadow on the rare quality "super cyclers" from the same set and future reprints. A fun mechanic to bring up considering the upcoming Ikoria has brought Cycling back.
Can you spot all the shadows of Karona? Okay, except for Decree of Silence, that isn't a shadow.
A Mistake Lives on Forever
Physical card games don't get the luxuries of the newer, digital games most of us on Out of Cards are playing these days. If you've ever looked at the back of a Magic card, you've probably noticed an interesting blue (or purple depending on who you ask apparently) mark on the Deckmaster box at the bottom of the card back. This was not at all intentional as Worth Wollpert explains in a blog from 2004.
Quote From Worth Wollpert Take the nearest Magic card you've got. Flip it over. You see the 'Deckmaster' label near the bottom? Look at the letters 'TER'. Notice something? There's a blue/purple mark right there! Is there any reason that's there? Defective printing plates? Evil government conspiracy to brainwash people through a careful message conveyed through it? Was it a fluke, or was it part of some sort of promotion?
I noticed that when I first started playing as well. Up until your question I really had no idea, but I asked around and some old-timers helped me out with the answer. According to Sr. VP Skaff Elias, the purple line through the word Deckmaster (Specifically through the T and R) was simply a printing error – a stray pen-mark, really – that was never caught and corrected. As you know, it's very important that the backs of Magic cards are all uniform, so it was never changed. On a related note, I think one of you guys should write in and ask someone (probably Richard) about the day the card backs in Arabian Nights almost changed…
In a way, it sucks to have to keep printing the human mistake, but on the other hand, this is a really cool piece of card game history.
Where in the World is Fblthp?
Fblthp, which is pronounced Fibblethip, is a homunculus from Ravnica that has been depicted in several pieces of art and card flavor text throughout the years. He finally got himself printed as a Legendary Creature in War of the Spark in 2019.
Here are the cards Fblthp has been present on.
Krenko's Goblins
It is always great to see art that spans across multiple cards but at different levels of depth. This is very subtle in Krenko, Mob Boss, where you can make out a couple of goblins far behind our guildless goblin friend. They show up in higher detail in the common of the same set, Krenko's Command.
Expropriate's Hidden Objects Puzzle
In my most humble of opinions, this is one of the most fun sets of references in existence when it comes to card art in Magic the Gathering. Luckily for us, we've got a large-ish version of said art.
Hidden within Expropriate of the Conspiracy: Take the Crown set released just a few years ago in 2016, are plenty of other cards going all the way back to the start of Magic. Would you believe me that five original Mox Amulets are all present in this trove of treasure? There are 10 references to other cards, see if you can find them all.
If you're looking for a solution, we can thank Ladsworld- on Reddit for this one.
The Squirrel Lands
Unsanctioned isn't the only time we're going to be mentioning a parody set today, though it is going to be the only time we mention lands. The lands in Magic the Gathering could be talked about in an article all on its own where several basic lands share panorama art or even some taplands have fun in pairs. Today though we're just going to highlight squirrels.
The five basic lands present in Unsanctioned are informally known as the Squirrel Lands for good reason. In each of the lands, you'll find the shape of a squirrel within the art! Some are a little bit more tricky than others, let us know if you can find them all.
"Bonus": Uktabi Apes, What The...
We'll leave you to figure out what happened here. Uktabi Orangutan was printed in Visions all the way back in 1997 with its… result… appearing in the parody Unhinged set in 2004.
These certainly aren't all the Easter Eggs found within Magic the Gathering, so we'd love to know what your favourite ones that we haven't covered are. Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Leaving Easter Eggs aside for a second how is Captive Audience not broken beyond all belief? Yes, it's 7 mana dual color, and I assume the one who gets it is the one that actually chooses the effect, but still: in 3 turns you loose board, hand AND life advantage completely most of the time.