Ravnica Nephilim

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

We took in an EDH / Commander game last evening at our local gamery store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario and will be back yet again tonight for some Standard Constructed action with the weekly Friday Night Magic event.  So, if you are just north of Toronto, swing on by and play some Magic: the Gathering.  Looking ahead to the new year, which is not very far removed from now, we are anxiously awaiting the start of official Gatecrash previews on the Mothersite.  Make sure you keep your monitor peeled to us here at MTG Realm and of course the Daily MTG page on the Mothersite.  In other news, we are likely to hit FIVE MILLION visits in the next week, so we want to again thank-you for your continued readership.

Anywhoos, onto today's article.
If you've followed us for any length of time, you know we serve up a wide miscellany of Magic goodness and quite often review odd and unusual creature types in this our favourite game, Magic: the Gathering.  Today, we wanted to cover off Nephilim, of which there are only five such creatures appearing on card print in the Guildpact set (Ravnica City of Guilds).  Why?  We secretly hope that the next set in the Return to Ravnica block, Gatecrash or Dragon's Maze, will see a revisit to this creature type.  We feel that there are some similarities in storyline theme to the Eldrazi.

Nephilim within the old Bible (Book of Genesis) were the offspring of the 'sons of God' and daughters of men.  In Magic: the Gathering, Nephilim is creature type unique to the Guildpact. These were powerful monstrosities that were venerated by the Cult of Yore, who saw them as the "Old Gods". In the most recent Planeswalker Guide to Gatecrash (Wednesday on the Mothersite), there is reference to some Gruul Clans honoring (or fearing) the 'gods of the deep earth', which may be a reference to Nephilim. From the novels and storyline, it appears that the Nephilim have quite a mean-on for Ravnica and would love to just plough it under. 

The five rare creatures of the Dissension Nephilim cycle have different appearances; some are spirit-like, others beast-like. Each costs four mana of separate colors; the excluded color is the enemy color of the middle two colors.

• Yore-Tiller Nephilim
• Glint-Eye Nephilim
• Dune-Brood Nephilim
• Ink-Treader Nephilim
• Witch-Maw Nephilim

In MaRo's 'Making Magic' article from 10/09/2006, he expressed some regret when designing the Nephilim cycle:

The Nephilim – The idea of making four-color cards in a set built around a guild theme and not have them connect was not well thought out. The idea at the time was to have something that players might like that didn’t fall within the guild structure, but I think that showed us not having enough faith in the guild system. Four-color cards could easily have been created as a joining between two guilds. This would have given them more flavor and identity.

Let's hope the MTG Creative and Design have another go at this creature type in Gatecrash or Dragon's Maze.

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