Innistrad/Trivia
Innistrad, similar to cards from Time Spiral block or older cards, have a lot of cards with specific functions or meanings. In Innistrad, most cards are references to gothic horror stories and make use of horror tropes in some way.
Horror Tropes
Transformation cards
- The werewolf mechanic has been designed after Werewolf lore, Humans who turn into monsters when a full moon is present at night. In the game the day and night cycle is represented by the activity of the people playing the game. During the day, people play more spells, but at night people play fewer spells. Werewolves in the set transform accordingly.
- Stalking Vampire can transform at will between a bat and a vampire. This ability of Vampires has also been put into card frame with Sengir Nosferatu
- The Double-faced card Civilized Scholar transforms into a Homicidal Brute and thus mirrors The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Cloistered Youth shows a little girl being possessed by a demon, a common occurrence in the horror genre made most famous by the book The Exorcist and the film based on it, though both could be considered more modern horror than classical horror as they were published in the 1970s.
Other
- The number 13, often seen in western culture as a bad omen and subject of several horror stories, shows up in several places in the set, including Lucevic's Abomination, Army of the Damned and Into the Maw of Hell.
- Rooftop Storm: A common occurrence in horror stories about mad scientists. The primary source for this is the 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in which Dr. Frankenstein uses the power of lightning, harvested through a lightning rod mounted on the roof of his laboratory, to animate his monster. Frankenstein's Monster is a Zombie in Magic.
- Stitched Drake and Skaab Ruinator require creatures from the graveyard to be exiled. This is another allusion to Frankenstein lore as Frankenstein's monster required a corpse as a base or the brain of a corpse. Graverobbery for body parts or a brain is often depicted in retellings of Frankenstein.
- Use of corpses for scientific experimentation is again revisited in the flavor text of Deranged Assistant.
- Invisible Stalker: Modeled after The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells about a scientists who turned himself invisible and goes mad in the attempt to become visible again. The invisible man is a common horror trope due to him being hard to anticipate or defend against, thus presenting a highly potent threat and inducing paranoia.
- Village Cannibals portrays the common use of Cannibalism in Horror
- The art of Endless Ranks of the Dead shows a common horror scenario, in which the shadows of a horde of zombies appear on another side of the barrier, such as a window. The number of zombies steadily increases, threatening to break down the barrier. The people behind the barrier are left in horror of their impending demise.
- Several Vampires such as Bloodcrazed Neonate and Skirsdag Noble have a mechanic of gaining counters when dealing damage to a player, mirroring the ability of vampires to gain strength from sucking blood.
- Moonmist is both a reference to the Full Moon that causes Humans to turn into Werewolves, as well as the card Fog.
- A Wooden Stake is a common weapon in mythology to destroy Vampires by driving it through their heart.
- Blazing Torches are often used by mobs of people on the hunt of the monsters.
Other
- Snapcaster Mage is the Magic Invitational card designed by Tiago Chan
- Diregraf Ghoul follows a long tradition of 2/2 Zombies for
which includes Sarcomancy, Carnophage and Accursed Centaur. The first two cards saw widespread tournament play in Suicide Black decks. - The Flavor text of Devil's Play refers to the old folk saying "Idle hands are the devils plaything", referring to the stupid things people can do when they are bored.
- Creepy Doll is modeled after a song by Jonathan Coulton