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Recently, I found myself listening to Mark Rosewater's Drive to Work podcast and heard his episodes covering Mercadian Masques block: Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy. While I have mixed memories relating to this block, one thing that Rosewater mentioned that did strike a chord was the fact that Mercadian Masques lacked "named mechanics." That is, the set had plenty of mechanical themes, but no keyword to refer to.

That means it could have been easy for us to overlook the set entirely while covering Magic's large library of mechanics. Not to fear! After hearing the podcast and growing my nostalgia for the end of 1999, I volunteered to cover a pivotal, unnamed mechanic from Mercadian Masques block: Rebels and Mercenaries.

Explaining the "Mechanic"

You may be wondering how creature types could function as mechanics. While the rebel and mercenary creature types themselves didn't define the mechanic, the ability many of these creatures shared in common with each other was a recurring theme throughout the block.

Let's take a look at examples of each and do a little compare and contrast.

Ramosian Sergeant is a one-mana 1/1 Rebel creature with a powerful recruitment ability. You can pay three mana and tap the creature (at instant speed) to search your library for a Rebel card with converted mana cost (i.e., "mana value") two or less and put that creature directly into play! In other words, you're paying an extra mana but can find a bigger creature than Sergeant to put directly into play. Not a bad deal, if you ask me!

Cateran Persuader is a two mana 2/1 Mercenary creature with a similar, but different, recruitment ability. With the Cateran Persuader, you pay one mana to search your library for a Mercenary card with mana value one or less to put directly into play.

Which do you think is more powerful? With the Rebel, you have to pay an extra mana, but you can search for a more powerful creature. With the Mercenary, you don't have to pay the mana premium, but you can only search for less powerful creatures. Rebels step up--you can fetch a two-drop, then a three-drop, then a four-drop:

Mercenaries can only step down: you fetch smaller and smaller creatures each time.

It turns out, the small mana premium demanded by Rebels is trivial compared to the power of fetching larger and larger creatures throughout the game. As a result, Rebels became so powerful in Mercadian Masques block that Wizards had to make bannings (more on that later), whereas Mercenaries were left as an afterthought. Rebels became so powerful, in fact, that in the third set of the block (Prophecy) Wizards of the Coast printed cards that did nothing but hose Rebel cards.

Noteworthy Rebels & Mercenaries

This differing structure stretched across every Rebel and Mercenary. While many were commons and uncommons, such as those pictured above, there were a couple headlining Rebels and Mercenaries at rare throughout the block.

At the top of the Rebel and Mercenary food chain are Ramosian Sky Marshal and Cateran Overlord, respectively. The former is a five-mana Rebel creature that can tutor up Rebels with mana value 6 or less, which means you can recruit any Rebel ever printed. Popular targets could include heavy hitters such as Jhovall Queen and Cho-Arrim Bruiser--two beefy six-mana Rebel creatures that pack a punch (for their time).

Cateran Overlord cost a more prohibitive seven mana, including triple-Black. On the plus side, it's a larger, 7/5 creature, with a regenerate ability. No evasion makes it a little underwhelming, however. Plus, you can only fetch up smaller creatures with its recruitment ability, though with a limitation of mana value six or less, you can seek out any Mercenary you'd like from your deck (other than another Cateran Overlord). Cateran Slaver would be a solid choice, being a six-mana Mercenary.

By far, the most notorious and well-known creature from the Mercadian Masques block is the Rebel Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero.

Being both a Rebel that can recruit creatures and a Rebel herself can definitely lead to some repetitive game play. In fact, during Mercadian Masques Block Constructed, many games would devolve into who could stick their Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero and activate it first. Once she's active and ready, the game snowballs quickly.

Lin Sivvi and her Rebels became so problematic and ubiquitous that Wizards of the Coast had to ban her in Block Constructed! Take a look at the Top 8 from Pro Tour New York back in 2000--six out of the eight decks were playing Rebels!

Funnily enough, Rebels didn't win the event--Mono-Blue Fish did. That didn't stop the other 6 Rebels players from including the full set of four Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero in their seventy-five. Rebels were so prevalent that the tournament devolved into sticking your own Lin Sivvi and/or interfering with your opponent's. Wizards of the Coast hadn't anticipated this overwhelming power level, and they quickly adjusted with her banning.

Even with Lin Sivvi's banning, Wizards of the Coast did even more to interfere with Rebels strategies. They became quite frightened by how powerful (and repetitive) the recruiting mechanic became, particularly for Rebels, that they printed one specific card in Prophecy to disrupt Rebels strategies. In fact, the card was so blatantly designed to disrupt Rebels, that it did nothing else!

Don't believe me? Have you ever seen someone cast Brutal Suppression?

You're reading it correctly. This is a real card. It hoses Rebels strategies and does nothing else. That's how problematic Rebels became in Block Constructed. Wizards of the Coast printed a card to disrupt the entire strategy within the same block!

One last interesting card worth touching on here is Rebel Informer, a creature with the type Mercenary Rebel. In other words, it could work with both deck strategies!

I don't know if this card were really all that relevant, but it was interesting to see a creature that could play both sides of the Rebel vs. Mercenary battle (although by this time, Rebels were the clear winner already).

Modern Variants

Because this recruitment mechanic debuted in Mercadian Masques block and doesn't really do much in blocks without many Mercenaries and Rebels, you may assume that the creature type has gone to the wayside over the years. In reality, that's not completely true.

First off, Wizards will print many modern day creatures with the Rebel or Mercenary type line. Creatures printed as recently as this year can have the Mercenary type, such as Cloud, Planet's Champion and, fittingly, Cloud, Midgar Mercenary. In theory, these new cards could be combined with the classics from Mercadian Masques block to powerful effect--perhaps a viable Commander strategy. That being said, I don't believe any new Mercenaries have been printed with the same recruitment text as the originals.

This isn't the case for Rebels, however. It turns out Planar Chaos had a Rebel printed with the common recruitment ability: Blightspeaker. Future Sight also contained a Rebel throwback in Ramosian Revivalist.

Even Time Spiral included Amrou Scout, another recruiting Rebel, which was even reprinted in a Modern Masters set and in Time Spiral Remastered. No new Rebel cards with the same recruitment text have been printed since, however. These are the last of them for a while. Like with Mercenaries, though, we'll continue to see Rebels printed in many modern-day sets.

Wrapping It Up

After listening to Mark Rosewater's podcast on the sets of Mercadian Masques block, I'm not expecting to see a reappearance of this unnamed "recruitment" mechanic again. Rebels, in particular, were far too powerful and led to highly repetitive gameplay. Once you get that first Rebel onto the battlefield, it's only a matter of time before all the most powerful Rebels follow. At least with Mercenaries, you had to draw bigger creatures to get them into play because they couldn't be recruited--Mercenaries only search up smaller creatures.

Despite the unsuccessful experiment, leading to a Block Constructed banning, Rebels and Mercenaries made for an interesting ability in a block where power level was significantly reduced. It's a shame that Wizards of the Coast never gave this Rebel and Mercenary ability a keyword. On the record books, Mercadian Masques appears like it has no new mechanics as a result. The reality is the set was far more innovative than players give it credit for. It wasn't the best ability, but to older players like me, it was certainly a memorable one!