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Magic: The Gathering Rarity Showcase: Heroes Of The Realm 2017

Hello and welcome to players, collectors, and fans of Wizards of the Coast's premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering! A few short days ago, we began a small set of articles about some of the rarest cards in the game: the Heroes of the Realm cards. To refresh memories, these cards were only given out to certain teams and employees in Wizards of the Coast for achieving novel breakthroughs in their department projects. These range from such achievements as creating really awesome cinematic trailers to advertise their games, to (perhaps at risk of using the word flippantly) simply, creating a whole new super-cool game product to market to their players. Today, we will be looking at the next three cards in this series, awarded in 2018 for the achievements of 2017.

The art for Inzerva, Master of Insights, one of the Heroes of the Realm cards of 2017. Image attributed to Magic: The Gathering and illustrated by Filip Burburan.
The art for Inzerva, Master of Insights, one of the Heroes of the Realm cards of 2017. Image attributed to Magic: The Gathering and illustrated by Filip Burburan.

One such card, Inzerva, Master of Insights, was, fittingly enough, awarded to the Consumer Insights team at Wizards of the Coast. The role that this team would have at Wizards might be a bit tricky for an average consumer to grasp, ironically, but the Consumer Insights team typically can "help companies map their customer journey and identify any gaps where there might be some, as well as find what works best, and what can be improved for a better user experience and customer journey, from awareness to purchase and advocacy," according to an article by Trustpilot.com. So it makes sense that this team did that and beyond for 2017.

Magic: The Gathering Rarity Showcase: Heroes Of The RealInzerva, Master of Insights, a special planeswalker card from the extremely rare print of Heroes of the Realm 2017. Image attributed to Wizards of the Coast for their card game Magic: The Gathering.m 2017
Inzerva, Master of Insights, a special planeswalker card from the extremely rare print of Heroes of the Realm 2017. Image attributed to Wizards of the Coast for their card game Magic: The Gathering.

The next card, Diabolical Salvation, was awarded to the Wizards of the Coast Strike Team. This team deals with fast-paced, swiftly-progressing projects.

Diabolical Salvation, a special card from the extremely rare print of Heroes of the Realm 2017. Image attributed to Wizards of the Coast for their card game Magic: The Gathering.
Diabolical Salvation, a special card from the extremely rare print of Heroes of the Realm 2017. Image attributed to Wizards of the Coast for their card game Magic: The Gathering.

According to Gavin Verhey, the reason, he believes, that there are four tokens generated by this card is because there were four members of the Strike Team at the time. The speed at which the Strike Team comes and goes is aptly showcased by the mechanics of this card as well.

The final card we will be showcasing from Heroes of the Realm 2017 is one that likely a few more people know about when compared with the other cards in the series: M'Odo, the Gnarled Oracle. M'Odo was awarded to the Magic Online team for their productive efforts in 2017.

Magic: The Gathering Rarity Showcase: Heroes Of The Realm 2017
M'Odo, The Gnarled Oracle, a special legendary creature card from the extremely rare print of Heroes of the Realm 2017. Image attributed to Wizards of the Coast for their card game Magic: The Gathering.

This card, interestingly, is based on the MTGO format called "Momir Basic". Normally in this format, players would play lands and then activate the Momir Vig Vanguard ability, which allows the players to cast creature cards chosen entirely at random. Because physical Magic: The Gathering allows for no such random physics, the eminence ability of M'Odo would have to suffice. Furthermore, the creature was named after another name for Magic Online, which is, quite simply, "Modo".

What do you think of the Heroes of the Realm cards? Do you appreciate these Magic: The Gathering cards even if you may never see one in person? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!


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Joshua NelsonAbout Joshua Nelson

Josh Nelson is a Magic: The Gathering deckbuilding savant, a self-proclaimed scholar of all things Sweeney Todd, and, of course, a writer for Bleeding Cool. In their downtime, Josh can be found painting models, playing Magic, or possibly preaching about the horrors and merits of anthropophagy. You can find them on Twitter at @Burning_Inquiry for all your burning inquiries.
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