What is up with Siege Rhino?
Lore forum
Posted on Feb. 15, 2016, 10:37 p.m. by allthingsMTG
I just now noticed that the art for Siege Rhino makes it look absolutely humongous compared to the soldiers marching next to it, so my question is. Why in the name of putin is siege rhino that f****ing big? Normal rhinos aren't that huge compared to humans, what lore-wise makes tarkir rhinos so big?
you do know that magic is a fantasy game, so i'd say normal things are throw out the window
February 15, 2016 10:46 p.m.
allthingsMTG says... #4
swkelly89 yeah I know it is a fantasy game but I figured I would ask anyways(let me have my miniscule sense of realism lol)
February 15, 2016 10:49 p.m.
scopesightzx says... #5
also, why is it the only rhino we've seen on Tarkir, whether it's a Khans or Dragons timeline? With the rhino being such an iconic Abzan card, you'd think they would have at least thought about an alternate timeline version
February 15, 2016 10:50 p.m.
allthingsMTG says... #6
scopesightzx the only explanation i can think of is maybe dromoka and her brood hunted the rhinos to extinction?
February 15, 2016 10:53 p.m.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #7
I mean... They plan these sets waaaaay in advance. I don't think anyone anticipated Siege Rhino being as popular as it was, so there wasn't any call to plan an alternate version.
February 15, 2016 11:16 p.m.
allthingsMTG says... #8
PhotogenicParasympathetic well they made an alternate version for the krotiq things so I hardly think that saying they didn't know he would be so popular is a good excuse for not giving him an alternate timeline card
February 15, 2016 11:21 p.m.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #9
No, it's exactly a good excuse. They had no reason to only make alternate versions of khans cards. That would have been boring. That would have made FRF and DTK cheap, remakes of Khans. They made some alternates, and some things new, and some things were left out. Because FRF and DTK were both completely planned out before KTK even released, they aren't going "Wow, Siege Rhino was super popular, let's make an alternate version of it!" The design phase was already over.
February 15, 2016 11:31 p.m.
allthingsMTG says... #10
PhotogenicParasympathetic well they didn't have to give it an alternate timeline card, they could have just said "hey since we decided to print a f****ing rhino for ktk, let's mention in an uncharted realms article some reason why we didn't make a alternate version, oh I know, Dromoka's brood hunted them to extinction" or some other in-game explanation. But this thread is getting off track. The real discussion is why the damn thing is the size of a train compared to the soldiers
February 15, 2016 11:38 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #11
I thought it was the Tarkir version of the Hannibal's War Elephants.
February 16, 2016 12:44 a.m.
Have you ever seen an elephant in Thakir? No? Neither have I. They must have rhinos instead, hence the large size.
February 16, 2016 3:49 a.m.
JakeHarlow says... #13
Yeah I agree with Serendipitous_Hummingbird. I think it's a play on classical antiquity's war beasts. Hannibal's elephants is a good parallel. Also, Alexander the Great noticed that beasts of similar girth (also elephants) were used by the satraps of northern India in times of siege. Usually the animals weren't directly involved in actual assaults, but rather were large and durable beasts of burden that were able to carry many supplies and war materiel. I think that might be the +3 life to its controller (provisions) and -3 to its opponent (siege implements).
February 16, 2016 7:51 a.m.
Rhino is massive because he needs to be and the designers probably had fun designing him.
And for those saying that there were no elephants
February 16, 2016 8:21 a.m.
bennybubbles says... #15
So in one of MaRo's recent drive to work's on DTK, he states that many of the large animals, including rhinos, on Tarkir were driven to extinction by the dragons. Now for the original topic. Presumably with the extinction of dragons in the KTK timeline, animals that used to be prey were able to survive longer and therefore grow larger without fear of predation. This is paralleled in real life by the rise of mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs. Furthermore since the rhino in Siege Rhino looks important, it is reasonable to assume that rhinos were used frequently by the Abzan and would therefore feed them and protect them from the very few threats in the Shifting Wastes, giving them even more freedom to grow massive in size. After all, it is in the Abzan's best interest to let their Siege Rhinos become massive, but the Dromoka wouldn't need that kind of land power, when the dragons are far superior.
February 17, 2016 4:40 a.m.
Kind of looks like the Oliphaunts in LOTR (you know, the big elephant things in Return of the King).
I suspect there may have been at least one designer who at the very least thought of those whilst designing this Siege Rhino (or whatever it is that card designers do).
GoldGhost012 says... #2
Probably to symbolize how huge of an impact the damn thing would have on Standard and Modern.
February 15, 2016 10:39 p.m.