I knew I wanted to include the Metroid lifecycle in my decklist. The primary line would all have some form of Infect, but there'd be enough room for others as well.
Production note: It appears that Gamma Metroid (Viral Drake) completely missed my card production transition between tools, so I never got Gamma Metroid to print. Sad. For the sake of continuity, it's produced here without a collector number.
Most of these images I had to AI-upscale/-modify, as I wanted to use screencaps from Metroid: Samus Returns, on the Nintendo 3DS. They're all a little bit dark and could probably use more tweaking, if I'm being honest, but it's nice seeing them all lined up. Zeta Metroid (Spinebiter) is in the sideboard and not the mainboard as it's quite a hefty mana value at 6 converted mana cost. I guess Gamma is in the sideboard too...
There is a decent amount of fanart for the Metroid lifecycle, but most of them veered toward 'creature concept art' when I wanted to really display the creature in their element, hence the Samus Returns upscales.
Metroid Treatments
I couldn't not have special treatments for the Larval Metroid. Come on. These four treatments depict the Metroid as it appears in 4 classic games that featured Metroids. I attempted to align the flavor for each card from its respective game, and got it mostly, except for one -- I don't remember which game unfortunately.
I'm absolutely tickled that my collector numbering lined up to make the first treatment print for Larval Metroid (Flensermite) # 100. Some of these images were manually doctored from video game screenshots. I was kind of hoping for a GameBoy-colored version of the Metroid, with the classic green and black pixels, but found some high-quality video using the Nintendo Switch Online version of Metroid II: Return of Samus.
The Boss Monsters
There are other bosses depicted in my deck, but I wanted to highlight the black Infect pieces. They each bring something different to the table and I look forward to throwing them at my opponents.
Honorable Mentions
Metroids have evolved over the course of the franchise's decades of history. I incorporated Mochtroids and Metroid variants such as Hunter Metroids in my mainboard/sideboard as well.
There's a plethora of fanart around The Last Metroid, depicted in Metroid 2 and Metroid 3. I chose not to depict it, because the emotional core between it and Samus is so strong, it would detract from the story that I wanted to tell.
There are some mini-packages that I wanted to call out: Beetles and Plated Beetles are depicted on Essence Symbiote/Gemrazer, for example. The evolving Muzby from Metroid dread is depicted as well as its final form Golzuna, in Glowstone Recluse/Auspicious Starrix. I really, really wanted to get Sheegoth on a card, but never found the right pairing or art. So Baby Sheegoths (Pollywog Symbiote) is stranded without a parent to protect it. Hey, I tried.
The rest of the creatures are mostly utility creatures that had a decent Metroid pairing. I'm particularly fond of Silent Arbiter, depicted as the AI from Metroid Dread which aids Samus on Planet ZDR.
The flavor depicts exactly Silent Arbiter's role, as well as the insidious motive of the Adam AI: It took the form of a supercomputer that Samus was already familiar with, when it was actually Raven Beak behind it. Raven Beak wanted to fully unlock Samus's Metroid DNA and claim it for himself, under the guise of the Adam AI.
Helper cards: Metroid tokens + Phazon Corruption
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