Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Art as Storytelling in the Un-sets
In Magic: The Gathering, the art department has long been a storytelling partner to the rules and the flavor text. Un-sets—those winking, sometimes irreverent corners of the multiverse—lean into narrative moments that players can retell at the table. The art on flying cards, in particular, acts like a cinematic frame: a quick beat you can feel in your bones as you swing a card into play 🧙♂️🎨. Even when the joke lands and the pun lands harder, the artwork still has to carry a slice of the story forward, creating a shared memory that makes a deck feel uniquely yours. The idea that imagery can steer a game’s mood as deftly as a well-timed spell is at the heart of this conversational magic 🔥.
Grasping Tentacles in the Spotlight
Grasping Tentacles, a rare from Marvel's Spider-Man Eternal (Spe), is a perfect case study in how cross-media storytelling can manifest in a single card. With a mana cost of {1}{U}{B} and a two-color identity, this sorcery loves to operate in the space where intellect meets disruption. The artwork—courtesy of Dan Dos Santos—draws you into a moment where a tentacled force reaches across the battlefield, reaching into an opponent’s library while the other hand hints at power over their graveyard. The set’s borderless, inverted frame elevates this piece, making it feel like a cinematic still from a page in a cross-over tale, and the vivid blues and blacks echo a mood of cunning and inevitability 🎨.
The card’s Oracle text reads: “Target opponent mills eight cards. You may put an artifact card from that player's graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.” That’s not just a trick of numbers; it’s a storytelling engine. Mill eight cards feels like a narrative nudge—watching the top of the library unravel and the story start to tilt. The optional reanimation of an artifact from that graveyard adds a dramatic twist: a relic or contraption from your foe’s past reappears in your hands, reframing the tale mid-stream. It’s a moment where memory and matter collide, and the table becomes a stage for a saga that unfolds with each draw and each swing 🧙♂️🔥.
From a design perspective, the pairing of blue and black signals a deck built on control, manipulation, and graveyard play. You’re not just milling for value; you’re orchestrating a scene where a defunct object suddenly becomes a pawn in your strategy. The rarity—rare—anchors it as a memorable pick in the Spe set, inviting players to explore the mix of two distinct flavors: the classic mill motif and a narrative that nods to Spider-Man’s universe via Universes Beyond. Printed in foil and nonfoil, Grasping Tentacles can be cherished as a collectible piece or slotted into a tactical deck with flair and panache, depending on your playgroup’s vibe ⚔️💎.
Un-Set Art, Flying Cards, and a Shared Language
Even though this card isn’t from an Un-set proper, its art-and-story approach resonates with the ethos of those playful releases. The “flying” quality of MTG art—where a moment seems to leap from the frame—serves as a universal storytelling device. The Grasping Tentacles piece uses motion and composition to push you into imagining the larger moment: a strategic moment where memory, artifact lineage, and board state converge. The result is a story you might tell your friends between matches: a viable mill plan, a dramatic artifact steal, and a narrative hook that makes a single card feel like a chapter in a larger comic-book-magic fusion 🧙♂️🎲.
Dos Santos’s artistry elevates the moment further. His linework and color treatment give the tentacles a tactile sense of menace while keeping the frame modern and legible at multiple sizes. The Spider-Man Eternal crossover adds a pop culture resonance that many players find irresistible: a familiar hero and villainy refracted through MTG’s mechanics, turning a moment of foreboding into a conversation starter about how stories travel across formats and media. It’s storytelling as a shared ritual—one that families, friends, and local scene players can enjoy together 🔥🎨.
For players who relish the strategy behind the art, Grasping Tentacles encourages a dual-track approach: lean into milling to strip an opponent’s resources, and look for artifact targets that can shift the battlefield in your favor. In Commander or multicolor casual games, the card’s ability to pull an artifact from a graveyard and claim it as a prize can create a punchy late-game reversal or an early-control line that pressures opponents to adapt. The storytelling payoff is real: a card that changes hands not just by effect, but by narrating a scene in real time as the board state evolves 🧙♂️⚔️.
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