#sengir

[blacklotusmuseum]

"Ihsan's Shade"

MTG Homelands 1995 | Illus. Christopher Rush

[sorinmarkov]

“I’ve long heard rumors that Sengir once travelled with an unknown planeswalker at his side. It was you, wasn’t it?”

Planeswalkers: Notorious was crazy for this I think.

anyways, rarepare pride month art I managed to actually make before the end of the month. yippie!

also new brush practice.

[magicwithclass]

7 mana for a 5/5 is not on curve so the ability needs to really stand out to compensate for the suboptimal stats. You really want a 6/6 for 7 at minimum before the card becomes woefully overcosted. This is a legendary creature so it can be your commander but this card does not lend itself to a clear strategy. On edhrec, there are currently 20 commander decks that Veldrane leads and he does not see significantly more play in the 99 of any commander deck. Obviously, this is not a competitive card by any means. The only deck I would play this card in is a Baron sengir flavor deck as Veldrane was the most loyal servant and minion of the vampire. Veldrane is primarily responsible for hunting for food for the Baron. Veldrane often carries a Dwarven sword and this is one of the only identifying features. Many believe Veldrane is but a puppet of Baron Sengir. As a hunter, Veldrane would often hunt in the woods of the Autumn Willow. While he can get through the words unscathed as evidenced by his ability to gain forestwalk he is not quite as powerful going through the harsh woods. The autumn Willow does not like Baron sengir and likewise does not care for Veldrane. In order to insult him she made a miniature replica of him out as a form of open mockery. The replica is represented on the reserved list cars faerie noble. Notice that both arts have the characters wearing eye patches. The story of Homelands was probably the best thing about he set. It is interesting to see how the legendary creatures interact. Homelands seemed to be a precursor to the stories of today which also sometimes uses legendary creatures to represent events in the actual story. I would not be surprised if we never revisit the Homelands or Baron sengir storyline especially with the omenpaths. The card is about 75 cents or less currently and only ever held a high of about 4 dollars. There's no playability here so unless you really enjoyed Homelands or you think that all of these characters will get a redesign then you can pick up one copy to have one of every legendary creature and call it a day. What would a new version even do? Would it be a hate card against green decks? Would it have abilities that trigger when a creature with lower power than its printed power attacks? Even then, are you really going to use this minion? Baron Sengir barely sees play and that character is way more interesting and beloved than Veldrane. Everything I like at this card though I think of the mutant callisto from x-men.

[angryfangface]

Here's a nice start for Spooky Season!

This is my animation-y style take on the Sengir Vampire from the Magic: The Gathering card game, one of the classic cards thats been around since the 1st set in 1993!

Reblogs appreciated!!!

[strixhaven-star]

These next possible Sengir members are unique each in their own way.

Knight of the Ebon Legion is able to pump itself up as well as get stronger when an opponent loses life.

Vampire Warlord is a "lord" by name only as it sacrifices other creatures to heal itself only and thus has no synergy with the Vampire tribe at large,

Viscera Seer is the outlier of these three. Originally printed in Magic 2011, it could easily be a vampire from any plane Magic had visited at that point. That's why I've included Viscera Seer here as it lacks the facial tattoos of Zendikari vampires and the communal sense of Innistrad vampires. This is a lone 'vampire wizard' out in the woods reading portents from the entrails of an animal.

[almostlookedhuman]

[dissonant-aria]

Commander Legends references pt.1/11

[azoriusfilekeeper]

A Real Red Baron: Baron Sengir

The art doesn't make sense. Its supposed to be a vampire feeding, but the art is of a creature gazing with longing at the carotid artery of a creature(its the carotid and not the jugular because it is carrying red, freshly-oxygenated blood). This implies that either the feeder is minuscule and the victim is of normal size, or the offender is of normal size and the blood provider is humongous. When we consider that the vampire has a five casting cost, and is a 4/4 creature, it can only be surmised that this “Sengir Vampire” is the normal-sized one.

Back when I first started to play Magic, very few people played mono-colored, and the dual-colored decks of the people I knew lacked a strategy, other than get my creatures out and obliterate my opponent before he does it to me. The key to these games was a heavy hitter that you had a reasonable chance in getting when you bought a deck box or booster AND didn't cost an arm and a leg to cast. After all, why spend seven on Island Fish Jasconius(with Islandhome, to boot) when you could spend four on a Phantasmal Forces or Phantom Monster and tag your opponent for three flying damage(and were of lower rarity).

And that's exactly where Sengir Vampire fit. Yeah, he wasn't as cool as a Lord of the Pit; but Sengir was two mana cheaper, was an uncommon as compared to the Lord being a rare and didn't require a sacrifice every turn. Most people I knew that played black ran at least two Sengirs in their decks. And I would be surprised if I didn't have at least four Sengirs from Revised or 4th Edition.

But all of this meant that Sengir was not very Vorthos worthy. Heck, he didn't even have flavor text.

And then Wizards released Homelands in ‘95.

Someone on the design team decided to increase Sengir’s profile. If the Sengir is a vampire, and every vampire has a master(see: Dracula), where is the Sengir’s master? And, does this master have other thralls at his disposal?

Meet the master!

As a fan of White Wolf’s World of Darkness games, I wonder if Wizards was influenced by these games, and the WoD CCG they released; Vampire(full disclosure: my Magic friends and I also played the Vampire CCG). Here was a big bad for their little expansion set, referenced in almost half of the black cards of the set. He had family(Grandmother Sengir), thralls(Irina Sengir, Veldrane of Sengir, Sengir Autocrat), a home(Castle Sengir) and animal familars(Sengir Bats).

Homelands suffers as one of the, hands-down, least favored expansion made by Wizards ever, and part of me suspects that the reason is that the set was made top-down; they had this story about the followers of Serra in Aysen being in opposition to Baron Sengir and his servants, with the key being Ihsan, a former Serra paladin, who betrayed his fellows and whose ghost now serves the Baron. Flavor-wise, that's a great place to start a story from. But that story had the other three colors as mere bystanders, and therefore the set has no cohesion.

If not for my Vorthos fascination with Serra and her angels, I would like to think that Grandmother Sengir rang the Apocalypse Chime and sent the plane of…Ulgrotha?…to the dustbin of the universe(The flavor text on Serra Aviary reads, “[Serra’s] her spirit shall survive as long as the Homelands do.”). Alas, the spirit of Serra has survived long enough for Wizards to give us a Serra planeswalker card this year(thank you!). And while I think it will be a cold day in Phoenix before we revisit the plane of the Homelands, it is only a matter of time before the good Baron gets a brand new reprint in a set, if only to make a bigger splash in the Commander format. And when he does, I hope he gets some good flavor text to let us know what happened after we left the Homelands.

Thank you for coming and reading my article. I will see you all again next week, and until then, may Svyelun and her tides favor you.