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| Let's see what we can find in Ula's Temple |
To celebrate my 200th blog post here on Mythic Writing, I wanted to do something a little different. As became obvious in my Pekudei installment of Mythic Torah, I am a devoted fan of the collectible card game 'Magic: the Gathering', made by Wizards of the Coast.
Now Magic has a lot of different creatures in the game, from Armadillos to Zombies, but among my favourite, are of course, the Leviathans.
In Magic's 20 year history, there have been 15 different Leviathans printed (as well as Krakens, Serpents, Octopi, Fish, Merfolk and Cephalids), so I thought that I would run down the Biblical roots of these 15 Leviathans, and rank them from least to most Biblical in abilities, art and gameplay. Then I'm going to supply each of them with Biblical verse that would work as new flavour text.
Everyone with me? Then in reverse order:
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| All images are copyright of Wizards of the Coast |
The only Magic Leviathan with an actual biblical quote falls right at the bottom of the list for one simple reason - it's tiny. At only 3/3, the Segovian Leviathan is the same size as a Hill Giant or Canyon Minotaur, whereas Leviathans should be world-consuming monstrosities, enormous creatures that dominate the board and your opponents.
A lesser sin is the card's depiction of a leviathan as a colourful fish. While later rabbininic sources imagine Leviathan as a fish (how else could it be kosher?) the Bible calls it a nachash, a snake, suggesting a creature far more reptilian.
It's since been stated that Segovia is a tiny plane where everything is miniature in size, explaining why the plane's largest inhabitant, its Leviathan, is only a 3/3, but this creature's diminutive stature is enough to earn the Segovian Leviathan last place on our list.
New Flavour Text:
"Will you play with him like a bird? And bind him for your young girls?"
-Job 40:29
One strange feature of Magic Leviathans is that many of them seem to fly (usually without wings or any other obvious means of levitation), but this is not the cardinal sin of Darksteel's Eater of Days. I even appreciate the common trope of enormous downsides that keep getting printed on my favourite creature type (after all, only God can defeat the Leviathan, and you are just a planeswalker summoning a fearsome beast to your side).
But I can't get behind a Leviathan made of metal.
The Bible's image of Leviathan is so full of flesh and blood, scales and teeth, that an enormous flying metal worm just doesn't work. It barely has any kind of head, let alone multiple.
New Flavour Text:
"The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable."
-Job 41:15
You know what I just said about flying without wings? Well Nimbus Swimmer is the exception, the Leviathan that flies and has wings, a fact that earns it such a low place on this list. The Leviathan doesn't fly, but at least without wings it still looks like a sea serpent, gliding through the air as though through water.
Nimbus Swimmer looks more like a Drake than a Leviathan, with a big guppy mouth that looks far from fearsome.
The X in its mana cost on the other hand , meaning that it can be as big as you have mana to pay for it, is very evocative to me. This is a creature of potentially limitless growth and size, as is fitting the chaotic creature that is the Leviathan.
New Flavour Text:
"When he rises up, divine beings are terrified; at his thrashing they retreat."
-Job 41:17
Yes, it flies, but at least Sky Swallower looks like an enormous snake, the nachash of the sky bristling with teeth. Its body is covered in scales and barbs that make it look truly dangerous.
And then there's that downside - give away every other permanent on your side of the battlefield. This is the ultimate in boundary transgression, obliterating all sense of borders between objects. Before I had stuff and you had stuff, now you have all the stuff and only the Leviathan is on the outside.
A striking image, no doubt, but still. Flying.
New Flavour Text:
"I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
an everlasting barrier it cannot cross.
The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail;
they may roar, but they cannot cross it. "
-Jeremiah 5:22
Last of the flying Leviathans, the Simic Sky Swallower earns a higher place on our list both for its awesome art (like the vanilla Sky Swallower before it, its serpentine body is covered in teeth, scales and barbs) but also for its gameplay.
Unlike any other Leviathan, the Simic Sky Swallower has Shroud, meaning that it can't be the target of spells and abilities. This works perfectly with Job 40-1 that is all about how you can't catch Leviathan or fill it with barbs.
The fact that this is the only Leviathan that was good in competitive Magic may have helped its position somewhat as well...
New Flavour Text:
"Can you fill his skin with barbs? And with a fishing-spear his head?"
-Job 40:31
We're past the flying Leviathans but not yet done with those made of metal. While the Eater of Days comes from Magic's original metal plane of Mirrodin, this enormous monster emerges from the etherium heavy part of Alara that is known as Esper.
It has a lot going for it - it's enormous at 7/11, with the shroud that made the Simic Sky Swallower so exciting, as well as Islandwalk and Trample, both mechanics that make sense with enormous sea monsters.
The art is exciting, with the gigantic metal leviathan bursting from the waves and leaping over a lighthouse, and even the flavour text is powerfully mythic - this is a monster that swallows seas that are never seen again while the world endures.
But while the Inkwell Leviathan may have flesh and blood parts (it is Blue as well as an artifact) its metal nature just doesn't sit well with me, earning it a low place on this list.
New Flavour Text:
"His bones are as pipes of brass; his limbs are like bars of iron."
-Job 40:18 (okay I'm cheating, this quote is really about Behemoth).
9] Grozoth - Ravnica
I used to think that it was a leviathan whose name was Grozoth, but it isn't Legendary, meaning somehow, somewhere, there is more than one Grozoth - but what is a Grozoth? Why does it have defender (meaning that it can't attack) unless you pay 4 mana? Why does it let you search out lots of other 9 cost cards from your deck? And what connection does this Leviathan have with the Dimir guild (note the watermark and the Dimir Transmute ability)?
The Dimir are supposed to be the most secretive and mysterious of all the guilds, composed of spies, rogues and assassins. What use does the guild of subterfuge have with a 9/9 Leviathan?
And yet the Grozoth has earned a spot near the middle of the list because its the only Leviathan in Magic that looks like it might have many heads, and that alone takes it to 9th place.
New Flavour Text:
You parted the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the water.
-Psalm 74:13
At our lists half-way point we meet the non-specific Thing from the Deep. Originally printed without a creature type, this was only later updated to be a Leviathan, a creature type that suits it nicely.
It may look a bit more like a giant fish than a serpent, but the Thing from the Deep's body is out of frame, allowing the possibility that it really is more snake than fish. It needs to be fed your own islands to allow you to attack with it, swallowing your own oceans if you want to bind it to your will.
But what really pushes it to the 8th spot on our list is the name - the Deep can only be a reference to the Biblical Tehom or the Babylonian Tiamat.
New Flavour Text
"I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep..."
-Proverbs 8:27
With another serious downside mechanic we have Coldsnap's Jokolmorder, that earns a place in the top half of our list for one reason only - it's the biggest Leviathan on the list at a colossal 12/12. Only 7 creatures in the whole game are bigger!
It eats your islands when it enters the battlefield, but as you play more islands it is invigorated by the flow of water, untapping to strike down your foes with its 12 power and trample.
The Nordic name makes it sound more mythic, Norse mythology of course has its own sea monsters such as the world-serpent Jormungandr and various Krakens, but I can't really give it more points for it, as it isn't exactly Biblical.
Still, for being the biggest Leviathan in magic, Jokulmorder makes it into the top half of the draw.
New Flavour Text
"Nothing on earth is his equal – made as he is, without fear."
-Job 41:25
From another shard of Alara, the place called Grixis, comes the Kederekt Leviathan. It's only a 5/5, which is pretty small as Leviathans go, and honestly I have no idea what's going on in the art - is it made of stone? or wood? Is that its mouth? or its snout? Or does it have lots of mouths?
And gameplay-wise, why does it bounce all other nonlands to their owners' hands? How does a Leviathan do that?
So given everything I just said, why did the Kederekt Leviathan get so high on the list?
It's because this is the only Leviathan that doesn't stay dead, because of its Unearth ability. Kill it once and it will just stay in your graveyard, lurking and waiting for an opportunity to come back from the dead and strike again.
The monster always returns!
New Flavour Text:
"On that day the Lord will visit with his sword, hard, great and strong, Leviathan the swift serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and He will slay the Sea Monster that is in the sea."
-Isaiah 27:1
Magic's original Leviathan was the biggest creature at the time, at a gigantic 10/10, and came with a hefty mana-cost and a hard-to-swallow downside to match. Having to sacrifice 4 islands just to attack once with this creature made it very hard to play with, though if you have to swing more than twice you're probably doing something wrong.
Being the first Leviathan gets this creature high on the list, but the stunning art gets it to 5th place. With the body of an enormous serpent and the gaping mouth of a whale this creature looks mysterious and terrifying. It blends perfectly into the water, and yet beneath it is a house with the lights on. It's strange and otherworldly, just as the Leviathan should be.
New Flavour Text:
"Behind him is a luminous wake, he makes the deep seem white-haired."
-Job 41:24
Kederekt Leviathan is not Grixis' only sea monster. From the final set of the block, Alara Reborn, emerges the Nemesis of Reason, Magic's only Leviathan with an additional subtype. And a Horror is certainly what this creature is, as it drips with Lovecraftian flavour.
Just seeing this sea monster is enough to make you lose your mind, as every attack it makes reduces you to a gibbering wreck.
All very Call of Cthulhu, but what does this have to do with the Biblical Leviathan?
Honestly it's the flavour text that gets this creature so high on the list, because it suggests that the Leviathan is so nightmarish that stories cannot be written down about it, that words fail to be able to talk about it.
I've noted that the Bible never actually tells us the story of the Leviathan. It drops hints at ancient combat with God, at eternal imprisonment, at a creature that will one day rise again, but the story is never told, and I love the idea that the creature itself defies the possibility of telling its own story. Hence the Nemesis of Reason achieves the lofty heights of 4th place.
New Flavour Text:
Just blank space.
We've reached the top three, and find another creature that was originally printed with a different creature type and only later did it receive errata joining it to the Leviathan tribe. Marjhan is an odd creature, from an odd set.
The Marjhan lives so deeply in the waters that it not only needs your opponent to have an island to attack, if you don't have any it dies. This sea monster also needs a stream of sacrificed creatures to energise it enough to attack your opponent.
It may look like a giant fish, but the Marjhan makes it into the top 3 because of its unique ability to do damage to creatures without flying. I had a really hard time understanding why a Leviathan would deal damage to creatures, but then it came to me - the Marjhan breathes fire (kind of).
For being the closest thing Magic: the Gathering has to a fire-breathing Leviathan, Marjhan gets 3rd place.
New Flavour Text:
"From his mouth streams firebrands, sparks of fire shoot out."
-Job 41:11 (though it would also need new art).
2] Trench Gorger - Commander
The art is almost note perfect - Trench Gorger looks terrifying and fearsome, with teeth and fins but not too much like a giant fish. The only thing missing are multiple heads.
But best of all is the mechanic - this Leviathan enters play and swallows all the water out of your deck, growing huge in the process. This is a monster made out of oceans, a creature that one could legitimately call Yam, the Sea itself.
New Flavour Text:
"Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you set a watch over me?"
-Job 7:12
1] Stormtide Leviathan - Magic 2011
This is it - the most Biblical of all the Magic: The Gathering Leviathans - the Stormtide Leviathan, designed for the 2011 core set that tries to capture resonant fantasy tropes. It's playtest name was apparently Leviathan So Big (it raised the water level) and it's game play really captures the notion of a monster that brings a flood.
While it looks a bit fishy to me, its long snake-like tail makes up for it, and its ability to submerge the land in water is a very powerful image of the Leviathan that represents the primordial flood, just biding its time to cover the world in water.
The only creatures that can attack when the Stormtide Leviathan is in play are other sea monsters (those with Islandwalk) and creatures with flying, like Angels. We know, of course, that God flies on the backs of Cherubim - coincidence? I think not.
New Flavour Text:
"I am going to bring flood-waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish."
-Genesis 6:17
So there you have it. For strongly Biblical gameplay, Stormtide Leviathan takes the crown as the most Biblically rooted of all the Leviathans in Magic.... until some more sets come out!
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