You could say all of the tree-folk are from Tolkien’s creations, the ents and Old Man Willow
Garudan’s epithet relates him to Smaug from the Hobbit
The Colossi are probably inspired by Shadow of the Colossus
Three Wishes is from Aladdin’s story in One Thousand and One Nights
Golden Aviary looks like a Roc, also from One Thousand and One Nights
Sturdy Shell is the Blue Koopa from Mario Kart
Prophet of Tides could be Moses from the Bible
Mirror Phantasm looks like Suicine
Seifer could be inspired by Cluny the Scourge from Redwall
Battle Rager has an on damage effect like minions with Battlerage from Hearthstone and an extreme statline like Magma Rager and co. from the same game.
Red Devil could be named after Ii Naomasa and his Red Devil samurai
Wind Gate kind of resembles a Jawa Crawler.
Anyone found another reference? Let’s see if we can find all of them
I wonder, but seeing as the “Chalice from the Palace” is a reference to “The Court Jester”, well, we do have a Court Jester card as well, so could it be a reference to the same movie ? That’d be fun.
Nice list there. But I don’t watch many movies or play many games, only one I know is Howl’s Moving Castle. Will look at card list to see if there’s anymore.
Here are some ideas that probably aren’t all deliberate references:
You could say all of the tree-folk are from Tolkien’s creations, the ents and Old Man Willow
Garudan’s epithet relates him to Smaug from the Hobbit
The Colossi are probably inspired by Shadow of the Colossus
Three Wishes is from Aladdin’s story in One Thousand and One Nights
Golden Aviary looks like a Roc, also from One Thousand and One Nights
Sturdy Shell is the Blue Koopa from Mario Kart
Prophet of Tides could be Moses from the Bible
Mirror Phantasm looks like Suicine
Seifer could be inspired by Cluny the Scourge from Redwall
Battle Rager has an on damage effect like minions with Battlerage from Hearthstone and an extreme statline like Magma Rager and co. from the same game.
Red Devil could be named after Ii Naomasa and his Red Devil samurai
Did you came with those yourself? Impressive!
But I think some of them are 50/50 could be coincidence or deliberate.
I would love to hear from the developers if we were right or not
Honestly,
Garudan is just your regulard gold-hoarding Dragon. While Smaug made it popular, this is a common Occidental myth.
The Colossi don’t look like colossi from Shadow of the Colossus, unless you can pinpoint which ones ?
Sturdy Shell looks a lot more like your average regular turtle than Mario Kart’s Blue Koopa (no spikes on her shell)
I don’t think Mirror Phantasm got inspired by Suicune.
Seifer is “your regular Kobol Warlord, but with added fire”. He’s a gimmick at that point.
While Battle Rager could be a Magma Rager reference, it seems pretty unlikely, and its ability does not look like “Battlerage” units at all (if anything, Kobold Warlord looks a lot more like Battlerage units)
Just posting that because OP seem to be looking for references, not for “Hey this looks like that”
The regular gold hoarding dragon lives in a barrow mound, sea cave or ruined castle, not in the “heart of a mountain”, which was Tolkien’s original idea for Smaug, afaik (though some types of Chinese dragons are associated with mountains). Like the ents, this was probably not a deliberate reference as much as most post-Tolkien fantasy drawing heavily from his ideas.
I guess I was mistaken with Shadow of the Colossus, since it was released in 2005 and there are non-classical “Colossi” in MTG as early as 2001.
Your average turtle isn’t blue. I forgot to mention Aurora and Aurora’s disciple are also accursed Blue Koopas! I think with the number of Nintendo references in the game, they start to look more like Koopas than turtles, but yeah, nothing I pointed out was clearly a deliberate reference, just possible references and inspirations.
On the Garudan point, I’ll bow. I forgot Tolkien was indeed the one to popularize the “Dragon in a cave”.
As for the turtles, they’re not Koopas, but Kappas. They are references to Japanese Myths, which further down the line inspired Mario’s Koopas. Earlier in Faeria’s history, some cards were actually called Kappas (if I’m not mistaken, Ancient Herald used to be Ancient Kappa before he got his illustration and got renamed.
But I don’t watch many movies or play many games, only one I know is Howl’s Moving Castle. Will look at card list to see if there’s anymore.
