The Great Wave off Kamigawa; or, Let's Get Kraken

Two weeks ago, an article on Joystiq unveiled a deck from Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 belonging to a brand-new planeswalker character: Kiora Atua. Then just last week, at the end of Doug Beyer's Savor the Flavor article we got our first real peek at her, and this blurb:

"Kiora Atua is a merfolk planeswalker who commands the powers of the depths. Kiora venerates the huge creatures of the sea—krakens, leviathans, and other denizens of the inky depths—because for her they are evidence that even the most persistent forces can be endured: time, water, predation, and darkness. Kiora is a blue- and green-aligned Planeswalker. She seems calm and wise, but her dreams are bizarre beyond imagining."

Now tell me you don't get a little Lovecraftian shiver down your spine from that last line.

So. A new planeswalker? This is the sort of thing that gets Vorthos going anyway, but this one is particularly exciting for me for several reasons:

1. She's U/G! New planeswalker color-combination ahoy!
2. GIANT OCTOPUS
3. She is deep. Really, really, deep. No, deeper than that. She is deep! Even with so little revealed, I feel like I could go on forever talking about her.
4. KRAKENS-KRAKENS-KRAKENS
5. Just look at that art! In fact, dive in and look at that art after the jump.

So what are we looking at here? First off, she's a Merfolk Planeswalker. It's always nice to see Magic's more eclectic races get some love, and Merfolks have always had an on-again-off-again relationship with Magic. That poor Merfolkless age, where they were spurned in favor of Cephalids and the like, just because they supposedly "had flavor trouble interacting with creatures that mainly lived on land." Well! How aquaphobic! Kiora Atua would certainly have some words with the people who decided that living underwater meant that you couldn't play in their Antelope games.

Then again, maybe they were right to be a little aquaphobic. Proving that eclectic races have to stick together, Kiora's taken command of some of the truly distubing, and oft-maligned races of the deep. Leviathans, Krakens, Octopi, and other assorted horrorterrors are all bent to her will, and why not? It certainly is telling that she's tied to both blue and green mana - of all the aspects of blue, wouldn't you say that giant destructive creatures of the deep are really pretty green? No tact, no mind-magic, no subtlety, just the pure, ferocious, unrelenting power of the sea.

Now, would you really want to stand up to someone who uses a giant monster octopus tentacle as a chair? Didn't think so.

And that art! Stylish and powerful, extremely impressive, and a lot of subtle details that turn up every time you look back to it.

The artist, Scott M. Fischer, while new to the Planeswalker type, has done similarly detailed work before, in Time Stop, Telling Time, and Freed from the Real, to name a few.

Let's start with the whole composition first. Looking at this, the first thing that comes to mind is this:

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by Hokusai

This is without a doubt, one of my favorite works of art. And this isn't even the first time it's been homaged in Magic. Kaja Foglio uses a similar composition in Hydroblast, and as @mikelinnemann points out, the most recent Rampant Growth art does a, well, "greener" take on it, courtesy of Steven Belledin.

What is it about this art that is so appealing? There is symmetry in the shape of the wave and the sky - in the original, it forms the shape of a yin-yang. The sky is as much a part of the piece as the sea. There is a feeling of awe present. Mt. Fuji is dwarfed in the background of the work, and the boats in the foreground are helplessly tossed about by the sea.

While Kiora Atua's art is on a much smaller scale than The Great Wave (and is certainly more horizontally constrained, due to the limits of the card-frame it would have to fit into), that feeling of awe is certainly captured. Note also that the direction of the wave is reversed; this is probably because in Eastern culture, you would read from right-to-left. So, when you look at The Great Wave, you are meant to see the relatively calmer waters on the right side first, follow the curve past Mt. Fuji, then see the wave rise up out of the sea. Since Magic has a primarily Western audience, the image must be reversed to get a similar effect.

But hang on... let's move in a little closer - what is that she's holding?

Ah yes! A nautilus shell. Hmmm.... that looks kind of familiar...

Where have I seen that before?

(Click the Image!)

Now that is some attention to detail.

Art aside, I'm ridiculously excited for Kiora. The creatures of the deep have held a good bit of fascination for me. And you know... it's been a while since I've had a decklist on here, so in honor of our betentacled friends, witness...

THE POWER OF THE SEA!!!!
Commander: Skeleton Ship

Deep-Sea Kraken
Lorthos, the Tidemaker
Inkwell Leviathan
Stormtide Leviathan
Bog Serpent
Sea Serpent
Island Fish Jasconius
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Nemesis of Reason
Serpent of the Endless Sea
Tidewalker
Sea Monster

Merfolk Looter
Streambed Aquitects
Deepchannel Mentor
Inkfathom Divers
Reef Shaman
Fallowsage
Wake Thrasher
Leech Bonder
Tideshaper Mystic
Rootwater Matriarch
Sygg, River Cutthroat

Giant Crab
Sand Squid
Seasinger
Viscerid Drone
Homarid Spawning Bed
Homarid
Giant Albatross
Floodchaser
Quicksilver Gargantuan
Drowned
Pirate Ship
Manta Ray
Benthicore
Giant Oyster
Tideforce Elemental
Draining Whelk
Sea Spirit
Tidewater Minion
Giant Shark

Spreading Seas
Convincing Mirage
Sea's Claim
Aquitect's Will
Tainted Well
Vedalken Plotter
Shifting Borders

Inexorable Tide
Fate Transfer
Contagion Clasp
Contagion Engine

Into the Roil
Whirlpool Whelm
Trickbind
Quest for Ula's Temple
Flood
Treasure Hunt
Hydroblast

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Magosi, the Waterveil
Creeping Tar Pit
Salt Marsh
Jwar Isle Refuge
Dimir Aqueduct
Polluted Mire
Barren Moor
10 Snow-Covered Swamp
21 Island

Drown your enemies! Send your Merfolk armies and creatures of the seas to keep them occupied while you summon beasts from the darkest depths to reduce your foes to nothing more than sea-foam! It's not really the most powerful deck, but it drips of flavor and it really is a blast to play. And who knows, once Kiora Atua comes out, maybe I'll rebuild this as G/U or G/U/B!

So keep your eyes out for Kiora Atua in the near (or maybe not-so-near) future. Just... don't call her a "freaky fish girl." She might sic Lorthos on you.

-Chris Young (@setzerg)