This again? Yes! I gave you a break, after Part 1 and Part 2 were back to back, but now we are back and scrapping the bottom of the barrel like never before! This week I’m hitting three themes at once! Summoning, Versatility and Resource Manipulation!.
Plenty of gnomes summon other minions. This was started by Mekkatorque and the Dragonling Mechanic. What’s really interesting to me about these is that most of them are NOT engineering devices. It started what way, but Arcanosmith and Rattling Rascal are summoning magical minions. Blingaton brings weapons, and Thermaplugg summons gnomes. So what does this tell us about gnomes? I think that this is a representation of strategic thinking from gnomes. Having multiple units on the board increases your play options, and generally forces your opponent to spend more resources to clear the board. Below are the 6 gnome cards that bring another card to play field with them.
The second trait is Versatility. These gnomes have multiple basic abilities. Charge, Taunt, Stealth, Lifesteal, Poisonous, Spell Damage and more! This stacking of abilities plays into the concept of gnomes as strategists. Having multiple abilities give these gnome a wider variety of scenarios that they are useful in.
The first sets of abilities we talked in parts 1 and 2 were about playing into the engineering specialization that gnomes are well known for. These set don’t do that, they harken to the raw intelligence of them. It’s not played up as much, but I am really happy to see it portrayed here.
Last of these we have 4 card that modify Mana Costs. These clearly reflect the gnome racial ability Expansive Mind. Like the cards above, they reflect the intellectual prowess of gnomes. These are even more pure in their representation, because none of them call back to some form of engineering. They are all mages that use their genius to maximize efficiency. … Except Millhouse. GET IT TOGETHER MANASTORM!
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