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Battle on the High Seas

Traveling the multi-verse, Enigma finds himself on a plane filled with the wonders of the sea, piracy, and treasure. To learn more about this new world, he finds some new clothes and uses a bit of illusion magic to blend in with the locals and join a pirate crew.

Unfortunately, even the best laid plans come with a bit of risk. Will Enigma be able to escape the Kraken and defend his crewmates?

This piece was commissioned as a YCH from Buffpup, known as Tihusky at the time, in April of 2018.

At the time, Sea of Thieves has just been released, and she was having so much fun playing it that she offered this YCH as a way to make some fan art of the game. Not only had I only been enjoying my time with the game, but the first Ixalan block was still relatively new in the world of Magic: The Gathering. In other words, I was deep in the throes of pirate fever, and this was the perfect opportunity to capitalize on it.

And because Enigma was designed from the ground up as a Magic: the Gathering OC, to fit in to the various diverse settings of that franchise, he was perfect for the part. That said, even back then I was reticent to link Enigma directly to any particular plane that already existed in Magic canon, so I did not specifically name Ixalan when writing the original description back in 2018.

Even now, with my fondness for the card game firmly cemented and my lore turning into full-fledged short stories, I believe this is the correct decision. With Wizards of the Coast making me more and more weary by the day, I want to be able to decouple my own creativity from it should I ever feel the need to.

But that’s a conversation for the future. For now, pirates are fun and so is this piece!