Pointed Discussion

It was a good card in TS block constructed. My RGB ramp deck probably couldn't be very competitive without it...

I used this in a multiplayer game with me facing a tough token trouble against 6 1/1 G saprolings, 10 1/1 W soldiers, and 7 2/2 B zombies... I chose number 0 and all of those token were gone... and im back in the game, and that was about turn six i think...

But it's a giant robot with a laser. I love giant robots, especially with lasers. I was really surprised to see this on a Magic card, and it only makes me more and more sad that a sci-fi card game in the vein of Magic has never been made.

All exclusively fantasy fans, you may target me with your magic missiles... now.

The first time around, this was a solid build-around-me Constructed card, yet it didn't get much play at all when reprinted in Time Spiral. Odd. Mass removal is always worth a look but I guess B/R just wasn't a combination people used all that much.

However, this has to go down as one of WotC's worst-ever art decisions. Not willing to settle for art that merely has nothing obvious to do with the name, flavour or functionality of this specific card, they went so far as to use an image that seems for all the world to be from the wrong game. What a waste of an awesome name that a good artist could have done something amazing with.

@Zulp: I wouldn't mind that quite as much (though it would still feel out of place) on an artifact creature. It's not just the fact that it's a mecha in a mainly-fantasy game that bothers me, it's that it's on completely the wrong card. Even if there's a good storyline reason to have a big mecha on some card from Invasion, why this one?

Pew pew pew.
I choose 16, discard your Dracos >:D

This card seems ridiculously good, if it has any drawback its if you and your opponent have similiar cmc creatures in play, thereby having to sac a few of your own things to make it work.

As for urza's giant robot on the picture, I'm glad magic went back to being more fantasy instead of all these robots and everything.. there have been sets of nothing but artifacts, golems, and the like in the past. If I wanted sci fi I would be.. you know.. doing something that was sci fi oriented.

@Jeff: That is one of Urza's giant robots, shown in card form on Power Armor. It is not out of place, your flavour knowledge is just bad. Um, that sounded harsh. Sorry.

@Dragon_Whelp

I don't believe his point was completely based on the fact that a giant robot is being depicted. The problem I have with this art isn't because it has nothing to do with the lore in Magic, it's because it has nothing to do with the effect of the card. Does it imply that your sorcery fires a laser that destroys creatures of a certain casting cost and then destroys all spells in that persons head with that cost as well?

When a picture is printed on a non-permanent spell, I use the picture to help envision what happens when the spell is cast. In this situation, I have no idea what to envision. I don't really see anything getting destroyed in the pictures. There's a lot of things going on in the background but the only discernible feature to the art is the robot. The robot isn't being destroyed, which implies that it's the spell. The problem with that is this spell isn't an artifact, let alone a permanent.

Now if it is supposed to be the laser that the armor is firing, why couldn't the picture have been of the laser destroying a large mass of creatures and then hitting some, obviously special looking character, in the head. Of course that doesn't make much sense either which is why I agree with Jeff that they wasted a good name and effect with some completely convoluted art. A different artist and a completely different idea for the picture would have made this my hands down favorite card.

Okay guys, the art is simple.

It represents one of Urza's Power Armor's, probably one belonging to one of the nine titans when they attacked Phyrexia, as you can tell by the darkness and swarms around it.

The power armor also featured in the old art of Urza's Rage.

@OpeeFomenom
While I agree with you mostly, I would like to say that "A different artist" wouldn't change what was depicted. The style designers decide it and send the descri-ption to the artist.

Type your comment here.

Destroy artifacts and creatures, and discard cards.
And now for something completely different:
Here's a picture of one of Urza's power armours firing a laser...

Many, many uses for it.

1) Against a weenie deck, you can sweep the board as well as whatever other small creatures and equipment they have in hand.
2) Kills artifact lands and free artifacts.
3) Kills tokens.
4) If you have a chance to look at opponent's hand, via Duress, Thoughtseize, or Cabal Therapy (especially Cabal Therapy), you can make them discard anything you want. Cabal Therapy's flashback would make use of your creatures before they die too.
5) Because of its universal effect, you can kill your own creatures and make yourself discard. This fuels Madness, Threshold, and Flashback effects and generates tactics.

The art could also represent the battle of Koilos, which would make sense since it is an invasion card...

@jeff-Heikkinen the artwork is of one of the mechanical magic imbued constructs of Urza, It's called a Titan Engine.

The planeswalkers including the OG himself Urza went to town in one of these badboys, as Keino has mentioned it was used throughout the Phyrexian-Dominarian war by the coalition forces against the rathians most notably in Koilos and Corvaxes former homeland Urborg.

although yes, the card art has nothing to do with the spell, wizards could've done better with this, as some of you have mentioned already, should've been something more akin to a laser destroying artefacts (phyrexian/flowstone constructs) but srsly no clue.

Pew pew pew...

I'll add my two pence to the ongoing illustration debate: I know for sure that when I hear the word Void, I certainly don't think of giant mecha, whatever the setting may be. Pretty high up there on my (incomplete and largely unformed) list of Most Confused Illustrations Ever.

MARO said he hated the mechs though. So the people asking 'dafuq?' and 'y is der a robot in my MTG?' are kind of taking the same side R&D does.

On Mirrodin, Artifact creatures are ok, but non-animate machines driven as vehicles by humans? That doesn't happen in Magic anymore. :P The 'vehicle'-like cards are usually animate machines with no pilot, like Juggernaut.

That said, I really wish we'd seen Urza tell Gerrard "We need Megazord power, now!" in one of the flavor texts :3

It's entirely possible that the art was commissioned for a different card, but then that card was trashed during development, and so they had to come up with a different card but didn't have time to get new art. And although the art doesn't necessarily fit the spell, it still looks pretty epic. In fact, all of the arts with Urza's power armor in them look cool (see: Power Armor and Urza's Rage (the earlier printing))

I named "one million" as a joke once, then watched in awe as my opponent, with a "what the fuck" look on his face, discarded his Gleemax.

While I get that this is a Titan Engine, I wonder if we could ever find out what the art direction for this piece actually was.