Batch 190 today had the fifth tied result, with 285 votes apiece, so it’s time for me to lay out my reasoning and review each card before making a decision. All the tiebreaker posts live here.

Shriekhorn

Design

A simple one here - a straightforward card that comes with a certain amount of uses, does something simple with them, and then runs out. Of course this card existed in an environment alongside metalcraft and proliferate, so there was definitely more going on with it, and it fulfils a neat little place in that sense as a common that ties in a few different mechanical threads. Unfortunately, milling with this wasn’t supported in the SOM limited environment, so the design is a little bit out there in that sense. Also, while for metalcraft reasons it makes sense, I’m always a bit annoyed at limited-use cards that just sort of sit there on the battlefield taking up space once they’ve been exhausted.

Flavour

No flavour text here (although we have a Mirran watermark for no clear reason). The name tells us that the card is apparently a sort of instrument which makes a terrible noise. That flavour is certainly consistent with previous milling cards, which are often flavoured as distraction / being driven mad somehow, right back to the relentless grinding of the Millstone.

The art implies some sort of spirit things coming out of the shriekhorn - maybe that’s what the shrieking is? - which would also help explain why this has a limited number of uses. But it’s serviceable flavour, not stellar.

Art

Erica Yang’s piece is interesting. We have a twisted horn thing, which makes sense, with a cool, almost wurm-looking mouth to it. From that glowing mouth we have waves of orange ghosts, mouths open and (presumably) shrieking. It’s an interesting object. The colour palette is very Mirran - metallic tones of copper, bronze, and steel. However there’s no easy sense of scale here, and some of the background is a bit unclear. Overall this feels more functional than “wow”.

Place in Magic history

Not much to write home about here. Shriekhorn was an occasionally playable card in its home draft format, and has seen extremely light occasional Constructed play, but nothing else in terms of playability. It doesn’t have any elements that particularly tie it in to the history of the game, nor does it have any particular trivia or features that stand out about it.

Mungha Wurm

Design

Mungha Wurm is a pretty classic drawback fatty. A beefy 6/5 for 4 mana, but apparently so heavy that your lands can’t easily untap.

Prophecy had a mechanical theme around tapping out - both with cards like Spur Grappler that benefited from you tapping out, and with rhystic cards like Rhystic Lightning that could punish your opponent for tapping out. A Winter Orb effect plays into that subtheme.

Balance wise, the drawback here was a bit much, even for 2000 creature standards - Mungha Wurm will live forever in the shadow of its older brother from the previous set, Blastoderm, a much more potent card.

Flavour

As mentioned above, the weightiness of the Mungha Wurm is apparently what keeps your lands pinned down. That doesn’t totally ring true with the middling size, but the art helps sell the story.

The flavour text is a simple one-liner but rich with a sense of implied history; you can imagine the jungle civilisation struggling under the girth of the wurm.

The name is a little weird - as far as I can tell, “mungha” was made up just for this card. It’s a fun word to say but doesn’t really help sell the story of the card or the place where it’s from.

Art

Greg Staples’ piece is great, with a mysterious steamy-looking Jamuraan jungle in the background and a broken tower and a gleaming, coiled monster wurm in the foreground. Keeping the wurm’s head in the shadow adds to the sense of danger and mystery around the card, and I love the way the coils are shown as green and vibrant but thick with muscle and jungle detritus.

My one reservation here would be that the scale is a little lost - the tower and the fallen tree in the foreground are a little lost, and don’t have the details to clue us in to really get the sense of this city-strangling monster.

Place in Magic history

To the best of my knowledge, Mungha Wurm (along with almost every Prophecy card) never really saw much play. With cards like Blastoderm and previous tiebreaker survivor Saproling Burst around, the market for giant green fatties was already well served, and the back-breaking drawback put paid to Mungha Wurm’s chances. It doesn’t really tie in to any lore or the history of the game, either.

Final verdict:

DESIGN: Shriekhorn

FLAVOUR: Mungha Wurm

ART: Mungha Wurm

PLACE IN MAGIC HISTORY: Tie

Mungha Wurm takes it! See you in Round 2, Mungha Wurm.