Hey welcome to Literary Magic, a series(?) where I look at literary characters and try and convert them into Magic: The Gathering cards. This Weeks subject is Prospero from the Shakespeare play the Tempest. He is the exiled duke of Milan who learned sorcerous powers in order to exact his revenge on his usurping brother Antonio. He uses a bound spirit, Ariel, to inexact this plan but puts aside his revenge and his powers when his daughter Miranda falls in love with one of his brother’s traveling companions, Antonio. So that out of the way here is the card.

I’ve always enjoyed displaying a wizard’s power by the use of activated abilities like the Ravnica guildmages. This let’s me display a few of his powers and give him a more nuanced color identity. By using black and white activated abilities I can show the conflict he goes through in the play trying to choose between revenge and redemption. Being blue centered makes sense as all his powers come from his books and learning. Now the activated abilities are all meant to represent different actions he takes in the play. The tap ability is the use of his magic to control storms and force his foes to ground or to crash with the winds. The second one represents his search for knowledge to use for revenge, I costed it so high because repeatable draw effects are very powerful. Originally it was a drain ability, but this both felt more flavorful and synergizes with his last activated ability.  This ability is meant to show him binding creatures to his will such as what he did with the spirit Ariel that is bound to his service. His low power represents how despite all his power he is in the end a old mortal man.

I’m pleased with how Prospero came out, it might be a little complicated but it does a good job of capturing the flavor of the character. It might be too powerful in its versatility, but I think the mana intensity and fragility of the 1 toughness makes up for it. Well I hope you guys enjoyed this, I think I will do a few more Shakespeare characters and then see what other characters interest me. 

I was on MtgCardsmith, saw the power and toughness out of the corner of my eye, and thought, “This gonna be good.”