Introduced in the original Innistrad block,Magic: The Gathering’s double-faced cards were a game-changer, with an impact far beyond the majority of innovations the game has seen. Giving cards a second side effectively doubled the real estate designers had to work with, letting them pack in double the art, double the text, and double the flavor.
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They also allowed for self-contained story arcs, two-act tales that could be told via the transition from one face to the other. These micro-narratives vary from the sad, to the funny, to the tragic. But today, we’ll look at a few that truly surprised us, transformative twists that could draw a gasp from even the most jaded binge-watcher.
10Tibalt Was Impersonating Valki The Whole Time
A major plot point and character reveal, the fact that Tibalt has been masquerading as Valki, one of Kaldheim’spantheon of Gods, is central to the set’s storyline. Expertly revealed via this double-face card representing them both, players are given a look at both sides of the planeswalker’s cunning scheme here.
It’s a simple twist, but one that’s delivered with flair thanks to the details in each side’s artwork. The sneaky grin on Valki’s face and his designation as the ‘God of Lies’ are brilliant clues that make the payoff of seeing Tibalt himself head back in a pantomime villain cackle all the more satisfying to witness.
Like a Magic: The Gathering take on The Lorax, this transformation is an ever-timely reminder of the power and importance of nature. It shows an unsuspecting woodsman taking his axe to what appears to be a dead, collapsed tree, only to reveal that it was, in fact, a towering Treefolk on the card’s latter side.
The woodsman serves as an excellent audience surrogate here, standing in stunned awe as the Treefolk rises, the axe still embedded in his leg. It’s a cautionary tale as old as time, hammered home by the wonderfully evocative flavor text on the latter half of the card.
8A Young Knight’s Apprentice Dies In Battle
Fairly subtle as double-faced card stories go, Dennick’s is a tale of quiet tragedy. The front side introduces him as a knight’s apprentice, clearly new to the profession, anxiously holding a shield almost as tall as he is. The back side shows him in a new ghostly form, more easily able to bear the burden of his duty in death than he was in life.
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What’s shocking here isn’t what’s directly shown but what is implied: Dennick’s untimely death in combat. Innistrad is a ruthless place, so such tragedies are perhaps inevitable. Still, the sense of religious duty conveyed by the repetition of ‘Pious’ on both sides creates the impression that Dennick had no say in his fate, applying a heart-rending edge to an already sorrowful tale.
7A Simple Knife Contains A Powerful Demon
The idea ofa powerful Demonbeing imprisoned in an everyday object isn’t a new one in fantasy. This iteration of the concept from Dark Ascension manages to surprise regardless. The story here is simple: once the blade draws blood by dealing damage to a player, it awakens the Demon lurking within, the monstrous Withengar.
The shock comes from the contrast between the power level of the two sides. Elbrus is an incredibly weak equipment card, granting just +1/+0 for a seven mana investment. Withengar, on the other hand, is colossal, with stats far surpassing the norm, and extra abilities that seem hilariously redundant on such a powerful creature. The juxtaposition of the two halves makes this card shocking, both narratively and mechanically.
6Garruk Is Cursed By Liliana And The Chain Veil
As one of the first planeswalkers introduced in Lorwyn, Garruk is an iconic Magic character and a core pillar of green’s color identity. For this reason, seeing him succumb to Liliana’s dark magic during the storyline of Innistrad was a striking moment for players, a moment perfectly encapsulated in this double-faced rendition of the character.
The visual transformation here is clear and effective, with Garruk’s black veins and wild, ragged appearance immediately conveying his corruption. More interesting, however, is the mechanical transformation, wherein Garruk’s wholesome green-aligned abilities are replaced with black-aligned ones, including creature sacrifice, graveyard synergy, and sinister deathtouch Wolves.
5The Mayor Of Avabruck Is Secretly A Werewolf
It’s a cutting condemnation of modern life that the core twist of this card, the respected, high-placed Mayor turning out to be a secretly villainous Werewolf, reflects so much of recent political and cultural history. That said, it still serves as a satisfying story here, shocking through an excellent build-up of tension leading into well-earned catharsis.
You can feel the Mayor’s seething struggle on the card’s front half, bent over his desk as his faithful dog serves as a cruel reminder of his true nature. On the back half, all is revealed as he finally gives in, bursting through his office window in a primal fury. It’s a straightforward and effective twist that adds a lot of depth to Innistrad’s Werewolf faction as a whole.
4Liliana’s Brother Dies, Igniting Her Spark
All of Magic’s planeswalkers have a key moment of personal tragedy associated with igniting their spark, the Multiversal equivalent of superhero origin stories.Fan favorite Liliana’sis among the most evocative of these, and it’s encapsulated perfectly in her Flip Walker appearance from the aptly-named Magic Origins.
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The front side does the heavy lifting here, with her triggered ability representing her brother’s death and her tragic, Frankenstein-esque attempt to resurrect him. It’s a terribly sad story, and it’s shocking for us as players to see her go from a caring healer to a vengeful dark mage in the space of one turn of the card.
3Man Gets Bitten By An Insect, Becomes An Insect Himself
Shocking mainly due to its cruelty, the sad fate of this resident of Innistrad is one of the most unsettling stories Magic has committed to cardboard. What starts as a simple insect bite leads to a full-on transformation, with the featured man becoming the adult form of the insect that bit him originally.
The real kicker here is the man’s face, which persists across both sides of the card, one last sliver of humanity in the Insect’s new form. It’s a bleak sequence of events, contrasting the minor nature of the initial affliction, and the end result, lending the twist its dark power.
2An Executioner Is Twisted By The Power Of The Eldrazi
As if Innistrad wasn’t twisted enough, Eldritch Moon roped ineveryone’s favorite cosmic abominations, the Eldrazi, to push things just a little further over the edge. This resulted in some truly grotesque transformations on double-faced cards, with the story depicted on Extricator of Sin being one of the most memorable.
While the latter side of this card is horrific, with warped flesh and twisting tentacles, the real horror is how similar the Eldrazi Extricator is to his Human form. The physical similarities here convey the cruelty that already existed in the Lunarch Council prior to Emrakul’s arrival, shocking us with the revelation that the horrors of the real world often mirror the monsters in our minds.
1Avacyn Abandons The People In A Murderous Rampage
Avacyn’s descent into madness in Shadows Over Innistrad was difficult for players to witness, given that she was a fan-favorite character from the previous Innistrad block. Her corruption is shown in full on this double-faced card, which neatly summarises Avacyn before and after the event.
On the front side, you have original Avacyn, able to protect your other creatures by granting them indestructible. On the back, you have corrupted Avacyn, laying waste to everything in her path regardless of type or allegiance with her board wipe effect. It’s a sharp contrast that leads to a satisfying surprise upon turning the card over for the first time.
