May 10th is Mother's Day and we here at Gathering Magic decided it would be a great idea to look through the history of MTG at some of the more famous mothers.  A noble quest to be sure.  One inspired by the notion that we could cobble together a Matriarch Theme Deck and fill it them.  However, once the rabbit hole was delved we discovered something rather surprising.  Apparently the WotC design team does not share our affection for mothers.  Perhaps this is their way of rebelling against their own parents.  Who knows?  What we do know is the list of prominent MTG moms is a short one.

[caption id="attachment_2295" align="alignright" width="215" caption="is there a father of summer?"][/caption]

How short?  Only six cards have the word mother in the title.  Of those six, a scant three have the term 'mother' without prefix or suffix.  Mother of Goons is an UnHinged copy of our next card so it really doesn't count.  That leaves us with two mothers in MTG.  The first, printed in 1999 is the Mother of Runes.  That is correct, the first momma is a creator and caretaker of magical symbols instead of children!  The flavor text alludes to a mysterious family although we are not sure if that includes children.  The second mother happens to parent something less tangible. If that is even possible.  Sakiko Mother of Summer is the mother of a season!  Seems that mothering inanimate objects or ideas is more plausible in the Multiverse than simply having real children of your own.

There are three more cards on our Mother-list.  These particular cards only have mother as part of a larger indentifier.  We have a Broodmother, a Grandmother, and a Raidmother.  Grandmother Sengir would be a perfectly acceptable endgame to our motherly quest, except for one tidbit.  Grandmother Sengir is not actually Sengir's grandmother!  In fact it is the twisted remains of a wizard named Ravi subjugated to Baron Sengir.  Check her off the list.  The newest addition to the WotC matron list is Dragon Broodmother of Alara Reborn fame.  One of only two matriarchs I can find that are at once playable and actually have some form of brood to mother.   The other is Wort the Raidmother, assuming the boggarts she surrounds herself with are indeed her progeny.

[caption id="attachment_2296" align="alignleft" width="215" caption="this goblin shaman could be getting flowers come sunday"][/caption]

Notice that both playable mothers are red/green and from recent sets.  That is only one of the interesting tidbits of familial trivia from MTG.  Here are a few more curious details:  The only color with two mono-colored mothers is black, while blue has none at all.  There are more cards with the word auntie in them (four, all from Lorwyn) than mother.  Of course, speaking of slights, there exists only one card with father anywhere in the title.  A land from Kamigawa named Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers.  Meaning there are zero cards with only 'father' in the name.  This would probably explain why 'child' is only seen three times.  Each example being a child of something that is only a parent in the metaphorical sense.  Sorry, perhaps we are being too hard on Alara, Gaea, and thorns in general.  Apologies.

Sadly there are not enough card to produce our original idea of a Magic Mother themed deck.  However, if you think that it can be done please submit you deck list as we would love to see it.  Until then -

Happy Mother's Day!