Nephilim

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Nephilim
Creature Type
(Subtype for creature/kindred cards)
Beeble Scale	8
Statistics	5 cards 100% as of Guildpact
Scryfall Search
type:"Nephilim"

Nephilim is a creature type unique to the Guildpact set and the Ravnica plane.

Description

The five rare creatures of the cycle have different appearances; some are spirit-like, others beast-like. Each costs four mana of separate colors; the excluded color is the enemy color of the middle two colors.

• Yore-Tiller Nephilim ()
• Glint-Eye Nephilim ()
• Dune-Brood Nephilim ()
• Ink-Treader Nephilim ()
• Witch-Maw Nephilim ()

The Dune-Brood Nephilim resembled a six-legged cross between a salamander and a bloated fish: all arms, legs, and gullet. The bulbous throat of the beast writhed with what looked like a thousand tiny imitations of itself, some of which wriggled free of the thing’s mouth and hopped into the streets, attacking fleeing townsfolk.

The Glint-Eye Nephilim was serpentine, with a tubular, coiled body covered in multihued scales and patches of pinkish skin in several coils upon which it sat. Its head and upper body were one, and the creature had a freakish resemblance to at least part of a human being. It had a pair of humanlike arms with clawed hands and a small mouth ringed by silvery teeth set in the navel of a torso-shaped head. In the center of the nephilim’s chest-face was a single reptilian-like yellow eye that stared intently. All in all, it was like a centaur that was all tail and eyeball. Nicknamed "Slither" by Pivlic.

The Ink-Treader Nephilim was a burrower, capable of ripping through solid stone. When fully exposed, it resembled a cross between an octopus, a jellyfish, and a freakish tree on tentacles. Smaller appendages supported eyestalks with yellow, reptilian eyes. It had barbed hooks lining its writhing arms, capable of ripping away flesh, and between its light-sensitive eye sacs was an organ that had no known analog on the plane of Ravnica, a combination stomach and brain. It could see in every direction, and in seven dimensions. Nicknamed "Brain" by Pivlic.

The Witch-Maw Nephilim looked like a tapered eyeless tube of raw, exposed muscle and tendons with a gaping, toothy mouth on one end that opened to the sky and emitted a keening roar, excruciating to the ears of those who heard it. The nephilim was large, like two good-sized wagons stacked on top of each other, and its skin was disturbingly human-like, pink and fleshy, with a smell like rotten eggs. The nephilim clamped its jaws with a sound like a clanging bell, and two spindly legs emerged from either side of its glistening torso and pressed two disturbingly human-looking hands against either side of the ground. It had an odd, skull-shaped scale over its drooling mouth. When wounded, it bled greenish blood, drizzled fragments of bone, and leaked slimy gray matter.

The Yore-Tiller Nephilim initially looked like a junk elemental or a rusted construct of immense power, with large chunks of masonry and old, crumbling girders through its body. It had a blunted head made from concrete and stone, arms of wiry metal bars with scrap-iron knuckles that grazed the ground, and a skeleton of girders rusted together by time and fused by magic. The monster reeked of dead rats and tangy corrosion — a cloud of rank odor that washed over the area. Later, when the bits of ruined architecture had fallen off it, it looked like living rock, a hunk of hillside on three crustacean-like legs. The head of an ancient statue hovered over its center of gravity, a peculiar effect born of this nephilim’s magical nature and a recently ended four-century nap during which it had played the part of actual hillside a bit too well. Nicknamed "Stomper" by Pivlic.

History

Nephilim were powerful monstrosities with limited intelligence that were venerated by the Cult of Yore, who saw them as the “Old Gods”. As such they were a symbol of the old Ravnica, before the time of the Guildpact. Unlike the created lords of the Guildpact, these entities did not make demands or accept sacrifices. They did not require or answer prayers. They were there only to humble; living, walking examples of the world's vastness, diversity, unpredictability, danger, wonder, horror, and complexity beyond comprehension.

The Nephilim were subdued thousands of years before the events of the Ravnica block, and imprisoned deep below the plane's surface. Their precise origins are unknown. Once awakened by construction works in the Utvara district, five of the creatures fed on a dragon corpse and grew in size and power, showing a shared ability to absorb power from other beings. Almost forgotten for 10,000 years, the return of the Nephilim was seen as a sign for change and indeed it coincided with the fall of the Guildpact at the Decamillennial. Though they defeated Niv-Mizzet, he managed to destroy two of them. The remaining three made it to the center of Ravnica City where they were eventually subdued: Rakdos defeated one of them, and the last two were killed by mana explosions.

Gallery

• 
  Dune-Brood Nephilim
• 
  Glint-Eye Nephilim
• 
  Ink-Treader Nephilim
• 
  Witch-Maw Nephilim
• 
  Yore-Tiller Nephilim

Four-color design

The Nephilim were the first cards printed that needed exactly four different colors to play. They were created because there was some concern in R&D that some players might not buy into the “guild thing” and they wanted to have some other cool cards for them. They ended up not being all that liked, and none saw any tournament play, as their admittedly unique abilities were not seen to justify the difficulty of assembling those colors. However, as the nephilim were the only four-color cards in all of Magic until Commander 2016, there has been a persistent wish from some Commander players for R&D to issue errata for the Nephilim to make them into legendary creatures. Although Mark Rosewater admits that he should have made them legendary, R&D is unwilling to do a functional errata. Rosewater has cited the Nephilim as an example of creative design that didn't come together into a compelling whole.

Trivia

• The name is taken from eponymous Hebrew biblical creatures. Nephilim is derived from the Hebrew ‏נפיל‎ (singular: nephil), “the fallen”. It can also mean Giants, specifically the giants who were the fallen angels (hence the name "the fallen") in Jewish myth and their children.
• Dune-Brood Nephilim produces Sand creature tokens. The only other card producing Sand creature tokens is Hazezon Tamar from Legends, and later with Hazezon, Shaper of Sand in the Dominaria United/Box Toppers.
• Dissension had two cards referring to the Nephilim: the aura Blessing of the Nephilim and the instant Might of the Nephilim.
• Dune-Brood Nephilim's art has a strong resemblance to one of Zdzisław Beksiński's Untitled paintings (Depicted here: https://www.wikiart.org/en/zdzislaw-beksinski/untitled-504)

Story appearances

Title	Author	Publishing date	Set	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Wake Up Call	Matt Cavotta	February 22, 2006	Guildpact	Ravnica	Bougrat, Obzedat, Chorus of the Conclave, Niv-Mizzet, Razia, Rakdos, the Nephilim
Precious Gold	Matt Cavotta	March 29, 2006	Guildpact	Ravnica	Emilya, Obzedat, Yore-Tiller Nephilim