ENTRY 23-FEAR OF SURVEILLANCE
Another Fear today, and while it doesn't have that coveted "eye" creature type, it IS another eyeball-centric design! The Fear of Surveillance is a white creature, once again fitting into the more "totalitarian" themes we get when white goes a bit villainous, and I just adore the simple weirdness of this design! It's a smooth white sphere with one big black hole, so obviously an eyeball, though the hole is also its mouth full of long white teeth! It has a collar of papery white tassels below it, reminding me of the little membrane around the stems of some mushrooms, and it stands atomp a circle of human arms and hands straight out the bottom. The collected human soul heads seem to be pouring out from under it, and their fear is fueled by the swarm of innumerable floating eyeballs all gazing straight inward.
Its abilities are Vigilance, which means it doesn't have to tap in order to attack (and can therefore still block attacks from an opponent), and when it does attack, you get to look at the top card of your deck and decide whether to keep it; an existing ability that is, of course, referred to already as "surveil."
The design maybe isn't as complex or epic in its monstrousness as some of the other fear-beings, that's another reason it's hands-down my favorite. Even without my eye creature bias, its anatomy is such a fun combination of features, it's another strange and frightening white-mana creature, and the whole illustration is just really nice! It feels a little more like the lovely paintings of earlier Magic sets, that didn't try to all outdo one another with scenes that look like CG movie stills. I feel like the game has gone back to those roots more and more lately, and it's just really refreshing. More artwork like this, please! Artwork that really looks like a beautiful strange painting!
