Magic Untapped takes a look back at Hour of Devastation, the second half of the two-set Amonkhet block.
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Video Transcript:
Featuring a set symbol in the shape of the horns of the evil dragonic planeswalker, Nicol Bolas, Hour of Devastation released for Magic: The Gathering on July 14, 2018, and is the game’s 75th expansion.
The set and its story pick up where its predecessor, Amonkhet, leave off with Bolas returning to the plane of Amonkhet and the beginning of a hotly anticipated event known simply as the “hours” kicks off.
Now, without further ado, here’s a story summary for you:
The second sun of Amonkhet closes in on its rightful position in the sky. As the hour approaches, the populace of Naktamun gather near the Gate to the Afterlife – the great barrier along the Luxa River through which the bodies of those who are ceremoniously sacrificed at the end of the gods’ trials are taken.
During the first of the Hours, the Hour of Revelation, it’s prophesized that the gate will open and all will be revealed. Djeru, still angry at his friend, Samut, for disallowing him to go through the ritual himself after his time in the trials, rushed to the gate hoping to still prove his worth and take what he felt was his place in the afterlife.
As was foretold, Naktamun’s citizens watched in amazement as the gate slowly opened to reveal paradise.
It was a paradise of nothing but wastes and decay and a large necropolis in the distance. The citizens all murmured in confusion. The noise from the crowd, though, would not last long as an imposing winged creature flew through the gates and into the city.
Many of the citizens began to cheer, assuming the creature to be their god-pharaoh. The keen-eyed Samut, recognized it for what it really was: A demon.
From atop a nearby obelisk, the demon surveyed the crowd before swooping down towards the Luxa. Hovering above the water, the demon raked his claw across his own arm and allowed himself to bleed into the river as he muttered an incantation of sorts.
As each drop of his blood joined with the water, the Luxa’s flow slowed and slowed until, finally, it ceased to move at all. Instead it coalesced into a pool of pestilence as all life within and along the river faded.
The deed done, the demon once more faced the crowd. This time bellowing a name: Liliana Vess.
The demon, Razaketh, had arrived and he was looking to collect on his portion of Liliana’s demonic contract. And, while Liliana tried to stay hidden and resist his beckoning, her body moved on its own and obeyed.
The demon, enjoying a hold over the necromancer planeswalker none of the other demons thus far did, toyed with her, making her bark like a dog and forcing her to nearly hit herself in the face as he humiliates her.
Through this display, Liliana tells the demon that she’s going to kill him just as she had two of the other contract-holding demons. It’s a threat that Razaketh all but ignores.
What he couldn’t ignore, though, was a torrent of flame striking him. Liliana’s friends had come to her aid.
Over and over again, Razaketh would dominate Liliana. Over and over again, one of the other members of the Gatewatch would interfere and break his concentration until, finally, Liliana was able to take matters into her own hands.
Using her talent for necromancy, she raises all of the corpses of the various wildlife that lived in the now-ruined Luxa River and sent them all at the demon.
Razaketh attempted to escape, but it was to no avail. The zombified beasts tore at the demon’s flesh and large undead crocodiles to devoured him until there was nothing left of note.
The third of Liliana’s demons had been defeated, but there was little time to celebrate as the next Hour, the Hour of Glory, was already upon them.
Upon Razaketh’s death, the ruined Luxa’s flow resumed, though in the opposite direction. Flowing backwards towards the necropolis, the building seemed to soak in every ounce of blood. In a flash, the three immense sarcophagi that were built into the necropolis’ very structure shatter.
Amonkhet’s three missing gods – The Locust God, The Scarab God, and The Scorpion God – had returned.
While the Locust and Scarab god stood vigilant at the necropolis, the Scorpion God was on the move and lumbered towards the Gate to the Afterlife. Amonkhet’s other five gods were puzzled. Were these newcomers allies? Is this a test?
They would soon find out as, when Rhonas went out to meet the approaching entity, it charged. The two locked in combat and Rhonas, Amonkhet’s god of strength, found himself outmatched. After a change in tactics, though, things seemed to be going better. Rhonas charged his staff with a venomous enchantment and began to wail on the Scorpion God’s carapace, cracking it and allowing the venom to seep inside. The Scorpion God slowed, then fell.
Rhonas then turned away from his opponent to address his comrades in victory, but no words ever were spoken. The Scorpion God had gotten back up and had run Rhonas’ skull through with his stinger.
These newcomers, indeed, were no allies.
Rhonas’ soon-to-be-corpse now lying in a heap on the ground, the Scorpion God begins to move on the remaining four of his comrades. As his last effort, the dying god of strength poured what he had left within him into his staff and hurled it towards the adversary, ensnaring him. Then, Rhonas expired.
As the second of the new gods, The Locust God, makes an advance on the gate, the Hour of Revelation begins.
As he approached Naktamun, the Locust God spread out his hands, unleashing a plague of locusts against the city. The insects ate away at the Hekma – Naktamun’s protective barrier – until it fell despite the god Kefnet’s best efforts. Almost immediately the city fell to chaos as hordes of zombies from poured in from the sands outside the city’s walls.
Seeing the chaos, Djeru and Samut feel they need to work together in order to protect Naktamun’s populace. Along with Hapatra, Rhonas’ head vizier, they seek out Oketra and Kefnet out by the gate where the two are locked in combat with The Scorpion God. The trio try to convince the gods to flee to safety, but the gods relent stating that the gods are there to protect the populace rather than the other way around.
The two gods fight in tandem and, while most of their efforts seemed to have no effect against their foe, Kefnet was able to draw the Scorpion Gods’ attention just enough to allow Oketra to fire a divine arrow directly at their enemy’s head. It strikes true and the Scorpion God’s body crumbles to dust.
Djeru, Samut, and Hapatra celebrate their gods’ victory, but the celebration is brief as the dust that was the Scorpion God reformed itself. Kefnet didn’t even have time to react as, immediately, the Scorpion God lodged his stinger into his forehead, killing him.
Oketra pleaded with the mortals to flee, but Hapatra refused. Instead, she and her basilisk charged the Scorpion God. As they were about to engage, Oketra came between them and the gigantic foe just as the Scorpion God was about to strike. A stinger protruded through Oketra’s stomach as she was slain protecting her citizens.
The Scorpion God then ventured further into the city, ignoring the mortals as he sought out the remaining gods. As he departs, some of the citizens of Naktamun come out of hiding to pay their respects to their felled gods. Gideon, too, paid his respects.
Hapatra then confronted Gideon and asked if the God-Pharaoh is a visitor like he and his friends. Gideon confirmed as much. Hapatra responded that, in that case, he is their problem to deal with.
In the meantime, Samut and Djeru were seeking out Bontu and Hazoret – Amonkhet’s remaining gods.
Hazoret was easy to locate as she was defending the city from the invading horrors from Amonkhet’s deserts. The pair tried to help protect her, but protection was something she didn’t ask for. Instead, she instructed them to gather as many people as they could and find a safe place out in the desert to hide until the God-Pharaoh can arrive and make things right as she prayed for his quick arrival.
Her prayers were answered.
A dark portal tore a hole in Amonkhet’s sky, Nicol Bolas, the God-Pharaoh emerging from within.
He viewed all the destruction around him, then grinned.
You see, Bolas had arrived on Amonkhet some 60 years prior just as he was about to lose much of his power due to the effects of the Mending – the event on Dominaria that sealed the multiverse-threatening time rifts at the cost of changing the very nature of magic itself.
Bolas had been searching for a way to prevent his power loss or, at the very least, find a way to get it back at some point down the line. Amonkhet, he believed, will be key.
The plane’s eight gods, however, immediately felt Bolas as a threat. In defense of their people, they rally against the dragonic planeswalker. In short, it was an effort that went poorly for them thanks to Bolas’ reality-bending powers.
Invading Naktamun and landing on the tallest tower within the city, Bolas channeled a spell. In a blink, every living being on Amonkhet old enough to walk on their own simply vanished from existence. The gods crumbled to the ground as the cries of now family-less infants filled the air.
Then, with a swipe of his claw, Bolas wiped the minds of the gods. Amonkhet was his.
He manipulated the leylines that ran through the plane, sealed away three of the plane’s gods for safe keeping, and emptied the city’s underground mausoleums so that the mummies can serve as caretakers for Amonkhet’s orphaned population as he rewrote the plane’s history and theocracy so that the infants would be raised in a world designed by him as their God-Pharaoh.
And, to top it all off, he gave the world his promise to return, implanting that promise into the gods as prophecy that, as Amonkhet’s second sun takes its rightful place in the sky he would return and claim his eternal right as God-Pharaoh.
The God-Pharaoh now returned, Naktamun’s population’s fears turned to cheers. Then screams.
Nicol Bolas arched his talons and a torrent of hellfire rained down upon the city.
As Hazoret watched this display from her god-pharaoh, it finally dawned on her that all she believed was nothing but a lie.
Her mind raced as she processes this conflict of emotions until her attention was drawn to a nearby voice singing the god-pharaoh’s praise.
It was Bontu.
Bontu, as it turns out, is the only of Amonkhet’s gods who still had her original memories intact. Ambitious and craving power, she knew right away that Nicol Bolas could help her achieve her goals and had made a deal with the planeswalker six decades ago to that end. And, now that Bolas has returned, he issued her one final task: to kill Hazoret.
Without delay, the crocodile god sent a blast of dark energy at her god-sister. The spell ate away at Hazoret, addling her mind, but also unlocking her hidden memories. Crushed by the lies of Bolas and being deceived by her sister, Hazoret tried to fight back but failed.
Bontu trapped her god-sister in a cocoon of hardened tar and brought her dying body to Bolas as if a prize. In thanks, the dragonic planeswalker informed Bontu that she is no longer useful to him and promptly knocked her down with a bolt of dark energy. Enraged, the mortally wounded God of Ambition tried to fight back, but she found herself unable to do so.
Bolas laughed and flew away as a horde of zombies did her in. With her dying breath, she killed everything around her, disintegrating the tar cocoon around Hazoret, freeing her in the process – Hazoret now the lone surviving god of Amonkhet.
Bolas flew to the necropolis and to the Scarab God as the Hour of Eternity tolls.
Prophecy states that it is during the Hour of Eternity that Amonkhet’s faithful will take their eternal place by the God-Pharaoh’s side. And, quite literally, that’s what happened.
As the Scarab God made its advance upon Naktamun, it did so with legions of eternal warriors – zombie warriors made up of God-Pharaoh faithful all coated with a near-impervious blue mineral known as lazotep.
They were coming for the blood of Naktamun, prepared to kill everybody they can find.
Seeing only this incoming army and seeing no other option, Samut finally decided to take Hazoret’s advice to flee.
She led a group of survivors out into the desert and away from Naktamun and puts Hapatra in charge of finding them all a safe haven while she and Djeru returned to the city along with a band of warriors as they tried to protect their last remaining god.
Fighting through wave after wave of eternals, it became clear to Samut and Djeru just how unstoppable a force these blue-coated zombies are. Among the eternals was one of the most storied champions from Amonkhet’s past, Neheb. The minotaur zombie nearly killed the duo and would have easily were it not for the timely arrival of the Gatewatch whom assisted her in felling the undead minotaur.
Afterwards, the Gatewatch made the assumption that Bolas probably already knew that they were on the plane. They decided it was best to take the fight to him on their terms rather than eventually being ambushed by him during all the chaos. Samut offered to join, but Djeru disallowed it and reminded her of their duty to protect Hazoret at all costs.
The pair then set off in search of the God of Zeal, leaving the Gatewatch to their charge.
On the way, Samut comes across Rhonas’ corpse. Seeing this only furthers her fortitude. She used this as a means to rally her comrades, enhancing their resolve.
A moment later, a badly injured Hazoret found them as she was being pursued by the Scorpion God. Despite her bad state, she still instructed the humans to leave for safety.
Down an arm and in bad shape overall, Hazoret tried her best to battle her adversary.
Samut, seeking to assist, leaped high into the air and landed on the Scorpion God, digging her blades into his carapace. Seeing this, Naktamun’s other mortals joined the fight in support. After some effort and good in-the-moment decision making, the mortals began to push the Scorpion God back towards some broken obelisks, eventually causing him to trip and fall backwards, impaling the god on one of the broken monuments.
As the Scorpion God struggled to free itself of its impalement, Hazoret struck it deeply with her spear, burning him from the inside out, disintegrating it once and for all.
In the aftermath, Hazoret was grateful to the mortals for their assistance – especially so to Samut for her efforts not just in the battle, but in all of her attempts previous in getting the god to see the truth.
Samut was overjoyed by the god’s praise and appreciation. So much so, in fact, that she felt something within her swell. Unbeknownst to all, Samut had the latent spark of a planeswalker within her. But it was latent no more.
In a flash, as she transcended, she vanished from Amonkhet and awoke on another plane, Theros. Knowing her work on her home plane was not yet complete, she willed her way back home, appearing a moment later before Hazoret once more.
The group, Hazoret included, made their retreat into the desert to locate and join Hapatra and the other survivors hopeful to see another day.
Meanwhile, the Gatewatch sought out Nicol Bolas. The problem, though, is that Bolas was prepared for them as the battle would take place in an hour not mentioned in the prophecy: the Hour of Devastation.
Nicol Bolas, in true villain form, landed in the very same plaza in which the Gatewatch stood.
Calling on the power of friendship and teamwork, Gideon instructed everybody to give it their all all at once. He’s convinced that a single powerful unified attack would probably be enough to fell the dragonic planeswalker if they acted fast enough.
Gideon went in for an attack as Liliana, Chandra, and Nissa hurled spells at him and Jace worked his mental magic on him. Bolas, however, was much more prepared and powerful than the group had anticipated.
The dragonic planeswalker, to his own mirth, toyed with the Gatewatch members as if humoring them for their attempts. The humor, however, only went so far.
Bolas, just for a moment, let down his defenses enough to draw the Gatewatch in and provide them a false sense of hope. Using this opportunity, the dragonic planeswalker took them out one by one.
Allowing Jace into his mind, Bolas took control of the connection and turned it against the mind mage, breaking his mind bit by bit in the process. Jace’s mind then, as if acting in self defense, caused the mind mage to planeswalk away to somewhere… anywhere but Amonkhet.
As for Liliana, she knew the fight was futile. In fact, she would have left the battle already had it not been to save face with her Gatewatch friends. She still needed them as she hunted down her final contract-holding demon. The Chain Veil was calling to her to use its power against the dragonic planeswalker, but Bolas – perhaps feeling the Veil’s pull as well – made her an offer.
He told her that he could teach her how to properly wield the Veil so that she can use it safely without the usual drawbacks she experiences and to flee to somewhere safe so that he could find her later. Feigning defeat, Liliana expressed her intent to flee and recommended to Gideon, Nissa, and Chandra that they do the same. It was advice that the trio chose not to take.
Conflicted between staying to help her friends and listening to Bolas and taking his deal, the necromancer saw little hope and even less in the way of options. In tears, she planeswalked away.
The Gatewatch now down to just three, the tide of the battle turns.
Chandra, lost in rage, released torrents of flame on the dragonic planeswalker. It had little effect and he dove at her for an attack. Nissa jumped in to defend, but she was of no help.
Bolas then picked up Chandra in his claw, the furious pyromancer burning with rage. Bruised and tired, Chandra comes to realize that if she stayed, she’d likely be killed. The pyromancer planeswalker planeswalked away to safety.
Nissa was relieved that Chandra escaped, but she now questioned the Gatewatch, her role in it, and the group’s goals overall. Her confidence in the group and the situation shaken, she found herself becoming consumed by dark tendrils from Amonkhet’s leylines. Were it not for Gideon’s intervention, she would have been killed. In the brief moment she had, she planeswalked away…
…which left Gideon all alone against Bolas.
The soldier felt hopeless. Still, he yelled at the dragonic planeswalker stating that, in the end, he’d never win.
Bolas chuckled. Then, with naught but a single talon pressed against the soldier, the dragonic planeswalker broke through his magical invulnerability shield, wounding him. It’s almost like Bolas was giving Gideon the choice between fleeing and surviving and staying, fighting, and dying.
Part of Gideon wanted to stay despite how foolhardy such a notion would be at this point. He was tired and there was a part of him that just wanted to see it all end.
He would not give up, though. He would live to see tomorrow and come back stronger and more prepared. He would live to fight another day. He escaped, planeswalking away.
Bolas was satisfied.
A few minutes afterwards, his agent, Tezzeret, showed up. While puzzled at the lack of dead Gatewatch bodies littering the ground, Bolas told him not to worry about it. Instead, he instructed the artificer planeswalker to travel to Ravnica and check on Ral Zarek, another of his pawns.
Tezzeret departed as instructed, leaving Bolas alone with his army of nigh-indestructible eternals. Now needing only a few more pieces of his grand scheme to fall into place, Bolas roared in triumph.
And that’s where we’ll leave the Gatewatch – well, what’s left of it anyway – as well as the story of the Amonkhet block, though there’s still more to say about Hour of Devastation as a set overall.
Set design was led by Shawn Main. Development was led by Dave Humpherys.
Considered a small set at 199 cards (plus an additional ten cards that are exclusive to the set’s two planeswalker decks), Hour of Devastation was sold in traditional booster packs, a bundle, and the aforementioned planeswalker decks with those decks featuring the cards Nissa, Genesis Mage and Nicol Bolas, the Deciever as face cards.
In terms of mechanics and themes, -1/-1 counters, aftermath, cycling, and exert all carry over from Amonkhet, as does the concept of brick counters (though, this time you’re taking brick counters off of cards rather than putting them on).
New with Hour of Devastation are two more named mechanics:
Afflict, which is a triggered ability that says whenever a creature with afflict become blocked, the defending player loses life equal to that creature’s afflict value.
<MARO DTW HOUR 12:28-13:02 “We wanted to create…something not good.”>
And eternalize, which is an evolution of the embalm mechanic from Amonkhet. With eternalize, players can create a token copy of specific creatures in their graveyard, except that that creature also becomes a zombie in addition to its other types and has power and toughness of 4/4.
<MARO DTW HOUR 11:58-12:20 “The idea we liked…the eternals.”>
And, like with Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation had a punch-out token card to help players keep track of it all.
Three new gods are also added (The Scarab God, The Scorpion God, and The Locust God), increasing the plane’s pantheon to a total of eight.
The set, despite its size, also features 13 cycles. Most notable among them are:
- Cycling deserts at common, which represent a degraded version of Amonkhet’s five monuments and can either tap for mana once in play or be cycled away from one’s hand;
- Spell deserts at uncommon, which can each tap for mana (either colorless or colored with the latter causing its controller to lose one point of life) and also has a triggered ability that involves sacrificing a desert to use;
- Defeats at uncommon, which represent each of the Gatewatch member’s defeat by Nicol Bolas;
- The gods’ last actions at rare, which represent each of Amonket’s main gods final actions before succumbing to their fates, and;
- The hours. A cycle of five cards at rare, they serve to showcase each of the five hours that make up the climax of the Hour of Devastation story complete with mechanics to bring that element of the story into card form.
As far as individual cards of note, Hour of Devastation has a handful. And that includes…
- Abrade, a popular and fairly powerful sideboard card thanks to it not only destroying artifacts, but also possibly creatures via direct damage;
- Bontu’s Last Reckoning, which is part of the gods last actions cycle. While undercosted at just three mana (two black and a generic), it destroys all creatures in play (though with the drawback of locking down your tapped lands for the next turn). Despite that, it still saw play in Standard and still sometimes today in Modern and Pioneer;
- Hollow One, a discard-oriented card that can be brought out essentially for free as early as turn one if you’ve cycled or discarded enough cards in a turn. It pairs well with card such as Faithless Looting and Bazaar of Baghdad and, in turn, can be seen in formats such as Modern, Legacy, and Vintage;
- Hour of Promise, which can often be found in Modern land-based strategies and can be used to abuse cards such as Field of the Dead and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle;
- The Locust God, which sees play in Commander as well as in Pioneer combo decks;
- Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, a powerful four-ability planeswalker that can make the game essentially un-winnable by your opponents should its final ability be used;
- Ramunap Excavator, which is part of land combo decks and allows you to play land cards from your graveyard;
- Ramunap Ruins, part of the spell deserts cycle. It was a key part of the popular and powerful Red Deck Wins Standard deck and even found itself getting banned in the format in 2018;
- The Scarab God, which wound up being a rather powerful midrange card in Standard and has found a home as a popular card to use in Pioneer still today, and;
- Solemnity, an enchantment that makes it so that players can’t get counters, nor can artifacts, creatures, enchantments, or lands. It combos very well with cards like Nine Lives and Phyrexian Unlife.
In terms of promotional cards, prerelease participants received a foil, date stamped rare or mythic rare. Draft weekend participants were handed a foil promo Ramunap Excavator. Game day participants received a full-art Abrade with top-eight finishers also being given a foil, full-art Adorned Pouncer. The set’s buy-a-box promo was a foil Wildfire Eternal.
The Amonkhet Invocation showcase cards also returned and they're just as difficult to read as before. This time around, though, there is a different array of cards that can be found including cards like Doomsday, Omniscience, and The Scarab God.
Now, as for some final thoughts on Hour of Devastation as well as the Amonkhet block as a whole, again here’s Magic: The Gathering Head Designer, Mark Rosewater.
<MARO DTW HOUR 26:11-42 “I think Hour…something.”>
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