art blog(derogatory)
if i look back, i am lost
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Cosimo Galluzzi
untitled
Sade Olutola
titsay
Jar Jar Binks Fan Club
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Game of Thrones Daily
Monterey Bay Aquarium
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Misplaced Lens Cap
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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noise dept.
Noah Kahan
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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@oathbreaker-ibex
Art by Donato Giancola
Card transcription
Urza and Mishra 3UR Legendary Creature- Human Artificer [mythic] Artifact creatures you control get +2/+0. Whenever one or more artifact creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, draw a card. Specialty- Ornithopter (As long as this card is your commander, your starting deck may include any number of cards named Ornithopter.) 4/5
End transcription
Urzaās Avenger
Unable to settle on just one design, Urza decided to create one versatile being.
Artist: Amy Weber TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link
Retaliation
A foul, metallic stench clogged Urzaās senses. It was then he knew his brother was no more.
Artist: Tom Fleming TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link
Breeches, Eager Pillager
Artist: Jesper Ejsing TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link
Brainstorm
Artist: Justin Hernandez & Alexis Hernandez TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link
Blightsteel Colossus
Do you fuck with the machines of madness. Yes or no
Xira Arien
Her wits are sharp, but her blades are sharper.
Artist: Simon Dominic TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link
Elvish Bard
Urza is so compelling to me. His human moments are so sad and real, which makes the frustrating and callous things he does that much harder to watch, especially as you get deeper into his saga. He's fundamentally not a Hero. He's the kind of guy who would struggle to exist in society at the best of times, but he has enormous power and responsibility plopped into his lap constantly.
He has this constant cadence of like, being fundamentally unsuited for something thrust upon him, doing it anyway because of his stubbornness and misguided sense of responsibility ,failing and creating a huge problem, being horrified and dismayed at how bad he fucked up, becoming damaged and depressed, vowing to do better, but then starting the cycle over when the consequences of his actions come home to roost and the mental damage from his last mistake make him unsuited for truly fixing anything.
Its so messy and human, especially for a character that is ostensibly the mc of his era of magic. Instead of a wish fulfillment self insert, you get mopey disaster Dr. Manhattan. You get depressing Gandalf trapped in a cycle of self-sabotage that he is constantly dragging the whole universe into.
Yes, this! I particularly find it compelling how this whole cycle started because he was enabled by his non-mother to be a shitty older brother and an entitled jerk.
Like, he was used to being treated as better-than because he was good at figuring out machines. His brother, while gifted in his own right, was better suited to living with (effectively) "the help". Urza went as far as to physically abuse Mishra, and when Mishra tried to stand up for himself, Tocasia basically went "both sides" with the situation. She kept this up for so long that the tension could never be effectively vented without literally blowing up.
Then, when Urza got to Kroog, he manipulated a woman's feelings for him and made her believe he loved her so he could marry her and get...a book. An old, rare book, yes, but a book. In his mind, being good with these old books was still what mattered most. In his mind, society was an archaeology site because that's where he was raised. Only after the "peace talks" where the Yotians did a surprise attack did he realize that things actually had weight, and by then it was too late to undo his earlier mistakes, and the cycle really got going.
Like, it's important to remember that he didn't get the first big responsibility because he it was thrust upon him. He actively sought it out and tricked a woman into a loveless marriage for it because he couldn't differentiate between the digsite mentality and real life.
This is also true for Mishra, honestly. He was raised with an inferiority complex, and he learned from Tocasia that no one would stand up for him even if they're supposed to. Immediately after splitting from Urza, he ended up being a slave, and he only got out through trading his knowledge for freedom. The next he saw Urza, Urza's ornithopters blew up his camp of peace-talkers, and that completely solidified his self-sufficiency and paranoia.
It's really cool that the first story in canon Magic: the Gathering is essentially one about childhood neglect/abuse.
Soooo true. I hadn't considered Tocasia's role in things, but she is in some ways complicit. I dont think she ever saw her taking them in as adopting them, or the love they had for her as familial. I think she was fundamentally unprepared for motherhood, partially because she, in a lot of ways, was like urza, keeping people at arms length and seeing the world as a math equation that can be solved or balanced. But by doing what she thought was the right thing, allowing 2 orphans to live with her, she neglected to follow through and really be there for them. Very urza coded. And while we're pulling pseudo-familial figures into the mix, Rusko is plenty to blame as well. He pushed Urza to woo Kayla for the book in the first place, happy to profit from the association.
But I do also think the boys were already pretty damaged from their upbringing in the noble houses of argive. Their birth mother died when they were young, their father remarried a woman who i believe is strongly implied to have poisoned their father and sent them away to die on their trip.
Because of that neglect, i believe Urza tried whenever he could to be Mishra's father at the expense of their relationship as brothers, which obviously Mishra never wanted or asked for, and always resented how often urza-dad was right, especially when he was childishly rude about it. Mishra wanted so badly to be equals, but Urza never saw them that way, not even when they were sworn enemies.
I will say, I think saying Kayla was tricked isn't giving her enough credit. She, like many other people urza meets in his thousands of years, falls for his genuinely wonderful traits. She believed in the spark of good in him. Did he win her in a contest? And did he also see that as secondary to winning a cool book? Yes on both accounts. But she was also genuinely wooed by him. Thats why that passage you posted of tawnos yelling at him is so poignant. Urza is a cowardly man at the heart of it, that resents his imperfections and yearns to be as perfect as one of his constructs. He would rather hide in his machines than face the reality where the consequences of his actions lie.
āThey did it! They combined the things!ā
My understanding of the plot of The Brothersā War is a bit underdeveloped, but I think I get it.
(1352)
Urza is the magic equivalent of these ads
As the audience its so frustrating to watch. But maybe thats the idea. Old Wizards was like "think YOUD be a better planeswalker, hotshot?? Buy Urza's Block today and prove it!"
Urza is so compelling to me. His human moments are so sad and real, which makes the frustrating and callous things he does that much harder to watch, especially as you get deeper into his saga. He's fundamentally not a Hero. He's the kind of guy who would struggle to exist in society at the best of times, but he has enormous power and responsibility plopped into his lap constantly.
He has this constant cadence of like, being fundamentally unsuited for something thrust upon him, doing it anyway because of his stubbornness and misguided sense of responsibility ,failing and creating a huge problem, being horrified and dismayed at how bad he fucked up, becoming damaged and depressed, vowing to do better, but then starting the cycle over when the consequences of his actions come home to roost and the mental damage from his last mistake make him unsuited for truly fixing anything.
Its so messy and human, especially for a character that is ostensibly the mc of his era of magic. Instead of a wish fulfillment self insert, you get mopey disaster Dr. Manhattan. You get depressing Gandalf trapped in a cycle of self-sabotage that he is constantly dragging the whole universe into.
Me reading The Brothers' War and starting to like Urza regardless of the fact that I wanted to hate him to the end of time.
Also, shout out to Tawnos.
"By all the gods of Yotia!" shouted Tawnos, and Urza jumped at the sound of the younger man's voice. "We have been running and hiding for three years now. I delivered your son, yes your son in the middle of a thunderstorm. I bring them all the way here, and you don't want to see them? Do you hate her so much?" Urza turned pale, and Tawnos was afraid the older man was going to flinch, to flee, to pull back further within himself. "No," he said at last. "It's not that. Not entirely. It's just that I failed. I failed to see what was coming. I failed to anticipate my brother's plans. I failed her, and I failed her nation." "And I failed," said Tawnos grimly. "And she failed. We've had to live with that failure every step of the way from Kroog. Is that what it is, Urza? Are you ashamed that you're just as fallible as the rest of us?"
Stop using the word degenerate to mean horny challenge
When you say "degenerate art" do you know what you're fucking invoking
Some random guy in the "degenerate art exhibition" in Germany in 1937 idk it's probably not important
Yeag
Iām really glad to see people are actually discovering who Max Nordau was now. You can read a copy of Degeneration online here https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51161/pg51161-images.html
It is a horrific book which is responsible for so much bloodshed and misery but just know that every time you use the term ādegenerateā or ādegeneracyā to refer to a person or thing you donāt like youāre continuing the legacy of Max Nordau and engaging in fascist rhetoric. It is a word which has no place in the modern lexicon especially as a joke
Degeneration
New Phyrexia should've stayed gnarly and gory. The overly polished licorice-candy-looking designs are really not inspiring me.
The real design challenge here is incorporating body horror design elements in a way that's practical.
Exposed, stringy sinew on joints and fingers looks sick, but wouldn't they constantly be worried about it getting severed?
Negative space in body silhouettes is iconic to the Phyrexian form, but what if they get it caught on something?
Old phyrexians trying to get thru the ambulator:
Your art brings me joy - have you ever drawn a magic the gathering card?
Nothing official of courseā¦ but yep!
I made this copy of Yenna, Redtooth Regent for my partnerās favorite EDH deck.
Itās microns & watercolor on paper, same as the factory girls piece! Iāve done little doodles for all of the token copies of enchantments in the deck, too.
