After three exciting and sometimes shocking weeks of previews, the Gatecrash official spoiler is up on the mothership. Naturally, every Magic player on the planet is combing through it in order to get to know the unfamiliar new set. Well, in the course of my examination of the set I found something very interesting in terms of flavor: A vicious cat with an oddly defensive feel...
Zarichi Tiger appears to be nothing more than a random creature designed to fill a hole in the set, certainly nothing any designer had to spend a heck of a lot of time on. But the name, artwork, and flavor text add up to something strange. The tiger has some kind of ornate armor on, which rather reminds me of He-Man's pet tiger, and those magical flames coming out of its eyes and off its fur make it look like a Boros war animal. But there's nothing that indicates it's affiliated with any one guild, and the name Zarichi has never appeared before in Magic lore. Then there's the matter of the flavor text: "The taming and consecration of these creatures is evidence of our faith," says Resimir, a priest at Zarichi Temple. There's that word again. Apparently, the Zarichi are a new religion on Ravnica in competition with the established Orzhov church.
But whom do they worship? The other major religious movement from Ravnica's past that we know of was the Cult of Yore, otherwise known as the Nephilim worshippers. And something tells me the Zarichi Temple is up to something suspicious as well, and it may well be that they're involved with Ravnica's Old Gods as well. I give even odds that this is deliberate foreshadowing by R&D, and these Zarichi folk are going to play a big role in the events of Dragon's Maze.
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