Welcome back to Making Magic with chezkevin. I'm writing about the design process for my reskin project of a Commander deck. The in-universe Commander is Brokkos, the Apex of Forever and it's reskinned as Metroid Prime, Corrupted Apex.
Brokkos is a Nightmare Elemental Beast hailing from the magical plane of Ikoria, a realm of behemoths. It reigns supreme as an apex predator of its domain -- there are others, but this is the one we're choosing for our Commander deck, namely because it comes back from the dead using the Mutate mechanic, very similar to the way Metroid Prime adapts to destruction in the Metroid Prime series.
In the climactic boss battle of the original Metroid Prime on the GameCube, you encounter the Metroid Prime in its insidious lair, where it's been irreversibly mutated by the Phazon meteorite that smashed into Tallon IV. It feeds from within, getting stronger and stronger as its poison spreads across the planet.
Metroid Prime is a first-person adventure game where you shoot with different energy beam weapons. Prime vacillates between weaknesses to those beams, clearly marked by the glowing lines on its carapace. I chose to put that on cardboard via 4 different beam variants.
The original artist is HanageMissile, and I did use AI to re-draw his original art to convey the 3 other beam colors (Yellow = Power Beam, Purple = Wave Beam, Red = Plasma Beam). I considered the icy cool blue of the original as the Ice Beam. The largest legs still reflect some blue in each of the AI-generates images, but I chose not to fuss over that -- it could be reasoned that they're merely reflecting the blue of its Phazon cave. Of the 3 variants, my personal favorite is the purple, as it pairs very well with that Phazon blue, as well as the red of its eyes. The red variant, while delightfully intense, goes a little overboard with the red. Each print is accordingly attributed.
I considered other artwork for this creature, but none of them had the quality of HanageMissile's. I also fussed around with the tiny Samus just above the center of the typeline. You can see it in some of the variants; others you can't.
A special note: Mutate creatures actually have a special frame, even on their standard prints (see Brokkos up top). The 'Mutate' portion of the rules text is semi-transparent, allowing you to see more of the artwork through the rules textbox. I considered using this semi-transparency to accurately convey the small Samus in the art, but concluded it was too much work for too little gain. I did mock up a version with that transparency, but ultimately decided against it, since it sacrificed too much for the sake of source material consistency. Considering I had 10+ other mutate cards to design, it wasn't going to be worth it.
Metroid Prime went through several iterations over the course of my 3 months of design, and each one was worth it.
Alternate Commanders
I took inspiration from the Ikoria commander decks, which had these two as Partner Commanders:
Cazur, Relentless Stalker and Ukkima, Stalking Shadow.
These two are clearly meant as 'partners' in the truest sense: they hunt together and rely on each other as partners. When Ukkima connects in combat, Cazur rewards it with a +1/+1 counter. For these two, I looked to the final phase of the boss fight with the Metroid Prime. After you defeat its initial form, it rolls over and falls into another dark cave, filled with pools of Phazon. You realize that the Metroid Prime has shed its outer carapace, and you see what's inside: the essence of Metroid Prime.
For this pairing, they are still 'partnered' as Partner Commanders, however it's in a completely different way: they are paired in an evolutionary arms race between hunter and hunted. I wanted to evoke that final battle with these two cards, and so the other is portrayed in each of their cards, just in the background. Samus hunts down the Metroid Prime; it adapts. Samus gets stronger to chase it; the Metroid Prime adapts.
And even in Ukkima's last ability, when it leaves the battlefield, it lashes out and deals damage to a target player. That's exactly what happens at the end of Metroid Prime, when the remaining blue blob of the Metroid Prime essence reaches out at Samus and steals the Phazon suit, becoming Dark Samus as seen in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
Other Legendary Creatures
I knew I wanted Toski in this deck. Toski is an indestructible creature and made for a perfect Mutate target for Brokkos. While not a 'perfect' mapping, it was the best I could determine after some deliberation. I mapped Toski onto the Etecoons of Super Metroid: when Toski or any of your creatures connect in combat, you draw a card. Effectively, combat = knowledge. That maps pretty well onto the Etecoons, who teach you how to wall-jump in Super Metroid. Hence, Wall-Jumping Wayfinders.
Skithiryx is a powerful Infect card that goes in pretty much any deck with Poison. He was an easy map onto Ridley. In particular, I chose the Metroid Prime version of Ridley: Meta Ridley. It worked out very conveniently that Skithiryx's typeline includes 'Skeleton,' when Meta Ridley is named as such because he's reconstructing his body after losing to Samus in the original Metroid.
Ridley took me several iterations to get right, and I'm a big fan of his flavor text.
Honorable Mentions
Fan reskin projects tend to get bloated with a litany of legendary creatures, reflecting the wealth of original characters in that particular universe. I'm happy with the restraint shown in my project. Instead, I showed characters in numerous non-legendary cards.
The original flavor for 'Cold-Eyed Selkie' mapped well for Samus as 'Cold-Eyed Stalker': I simply mapped the merrows onto the Chozo. Raven Beak as Baleful Strix is a little bit cheeky, and I think somewhere there is a legendary creature that would map even better on him. In general, you just can't not have a Dimir deck and omit Baleful Strix.
Evil Twin has that same level of delight: I could have mapped any old shapeshifter onto the SA-X of Metroid Fusion, but I particularly enjoyed its activated ability of destroying the creature that it copied -- something that many players of Metroid Fusion have likely encountered firsthand.
Samus x Tinkerbell mashup? Yes please. This is exactly the kind of crossover that sparks joy, and while it never made it to my main decklist, it was perfect sideboard material. Alongside the intentionally playful art, it maps onto real Metroid play patterns of copying your fallen enemies' abilities. Some other titles I workshopped for this representation of Samus:
Samus, Missile Magpie
Samus, Pickup Artist
You have to imagine that out there, somebody's drawn Samus hitting on someone at a space bar. I just know it exists already.
That does it for today. Next: Worldbuilding with Cardboard
