Tibalt, the Fiend-BloodedTibalt, the Fiend-Blooded | Peter Mohrbacher

Let's face the facts: Magic: The Gathering's story is vast and colorful. Great heroes abound in every single part of the story. Like in other forms of media, such as on television, on film, or in comics, Magic has so many important, interesting, and powerful characters shaping its multiversal destiny.

However, for every Gerrard, Jace, or Elesh Norn, there's also a Zagorka, a Sash, and a Feroz. I won't be covering these characters today in particular; instead I'm writing about five characters in the Magic storylines who deserved better writing in many ways.

This list may be brief, potentially due to the number of really cool fan favorites in the game. However, the impacted characters, whether fan favorites or not, matter to many Magic fans. I hope I can do them a bit of justice here. Let's begin!

#5. Tibalt of Nephalia

A character that I - edgy, young, and still in college - immediately thought was a true paragon of badassery, was Tibalt, the half-devil of Nephalia. Obviously, I'd never wish to emulate his sadism or anything; I just really liked his backstory notes.

It's not like he had much else going for him since his original card from Avacyn Restored was decidedly trash. I thought his art, done by the acclaimed artist and illustrator Pete Mohrbacher, was really interesting as well. Tibalt had a ton going for him everywhere but mechanically.

This initial mechanical flop of a planeswalker card ultimately turned Tibalt into a memetic joke for years, all the way up until Kaldheim, where he got an awesome card... Except his side of it was more-or-less on the rear face of another character's card. Yes, Tibalt disguised himself as Valki, God of LiesValki, God of Lies, but Valki exists somewhere in the Kaldheim mythos, so it's a bit unfair.

Tibalt's Unceremonious Death

Fast forward a bit to Phyrexia: All Will Be One. By this point, Elesh Norn has compleated Tibalt fully and recruited him to her side. We only got a single card showing Tibalt in this new form, and it was the one where he just... dies.

Now, is that really fair?

This, ultimately, is why Tibalt deserved better. There's absolutely nothing to do here with his toxic demeanor or actions. We all know Tibalt is a complete bastich, to co-opt from DC Comics a little bit. But if nothing else, we at least deserved to have a card fully depicting Phyrexian Tibalt, and not just as a story beat alone.

#4. Dack Fayden of Fiora

One of the more suave characters in the Magic story was Dack Fayden of the plane of Fiora. As the self-proclaimed "greatest thief in the multiverse," Dack stole the hearts of so many fans of Magic's IDW Comics series.

Many cards came with IDW's comics, mostly showcasing Dack in some way. They were usually images of the comics' covers. These were truly cool promos. However, due to the way IDW and Wizards of the Coast collaborated on this comic run, Dack couldn't be portrayed beyond the comic promos, and one planeswalker card bearing his likeness (as well as a few non-planeswalker cards with his image on them).

IDW's Legal Story Kerfuffle

Because of the legal issues, Wizards of the Coast had to find a way to unceremoniously kill Dack Fayden off - permanently. That's why he died in the trailer for War of the Spark. The trailer was so interesting, but it truly hurt to see Dack get got.

There's a glaring issue with his death in War of the Spark, however. WAR had a ton of Planeswalkers get cameos in cards. But outside of that trailer, as beautifully done as it was, Dack received a resounding tally of zero representation in WAR.

Wizards of the Coast could have acted a little closer to the vest and not assigned IDW to write a comic with a main character original to anywhere but Wizards. If they had, perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation regarding Dack Fayden's unnecessary demise. However, Dack absolutely deserved far better than he got. As Linkin Park wrote and as emoted in the trailer for WAR, Dack "tried so hard and got so far / But in the end, it doesn't even matter."

#3. Jeska of Otaria

The Odyssey and Onslaught book trilogies are, to this day, some of my favorite Magic stories. Kamahl's triumph against so many adversaries and odds felt to me to be truly Herculean. But the Pardic barbarian-turned-Krosan druid suffered a lot in his social relationships.

For the main example, take Jeska, his younger sister and the third character who deserved better. The mad dementia caster Braids corrupted her into Phage the UntouchablePhage the Untouchable, and turned her into a vessel of the Numena Kuberr. The Cabal PatriarchCabal Patriarch then, most unfortunately, had relations with Jeska-as-Phage, siring Kuberr.

To make matters worse, after Phage birthed Kuberr, she was later killed by her own brother. Kamahl just can't catch a break, huh?

Jeska-as-Karona

However, as Jeska was killed, Kamahl also slew Akroma, Angel of WrathAkroma, Angel of Wrath in the same fell swoop. Furthermore, Zagorka, a character whom we never saw on a single card, was also caught in the cleaving. The death of these three prominent female characters (in the story, anyway) caused Jeska to be reborn a second time into Karona, the false goddess of magic on Dominaria.

Karona then, at some point, departed Dominaria, taking with her much of the magic she heralded. This inevitably catalyzed the temporal crisis of Time Spiral's block, although readers wouldn't have known it at the time. When she returned, Kamahl had to slay Karona again, with the assistance of the three Numena Kuberr, Averru, and Lowallyn. She returned, as Jeska, but the other two women did not.

The Temporal Crisis

Later, during the aforementioned temporal crisis, the black-aligned Planeswalker Leshrac took control of Jeska and forced her to seal many of the rifts and take their power in. Part of this was done by forcing Jeska to embrace her past as Phage. For Jeska to relive the atrocities she committed as a corrupted version of herself must have been awful.

And finally, when the last rift was sealed and The Mending of DominariaThe Mending of Dominaria occurred at last, Jeska died. Happy ending? I think not.

To that end, Jeska could have been treated way more by writers than just as a puppet to multiple evil forces. She could have been more than a one-note false goddess of magic. And above all, more than just a damsel in extreme distress.

A lot of her time as a Planeswalker was spent mentored by Karn, but then again, a majority of it is only done "off-screen." Jeska certainly deserved better than any of that from a writing standpoint.

#2. Ixidor of Otaria

Otarian characters really received no love from their writers. Ixidor, an illusionist and later the embodiment of the Numena Lowallyn, was a successful pit fighter in the Cabal City pits on Otaria. He had great debts to the Cabal, however. His fighting partner and love of his life, Nivea, was killed by Phage, forcing Ixidor into exile as he could not pay his debts any longer.

In an Otarian desert, he learned how to make manifest his illusions, making them into real things. This was due to Lowallyn's influence on his abilities, although Ixidor was a great illusionist in his own right.

With this newfound power, he created Akroma, whom he fashioned into the image of Nivea. Phage later maimed Akroma, and Ixidor gave her jaguar legs.

Eventually, Ixidor was eaten by an Otarian deathwurm and later found still alive (albeit barely) by Kamahl. Akroma, who Ixidor believed was his magnum opus, was already absorbed into Karona by this time. Kamahl led Ixidor out of the deathwurm, and the two, alongside Kuberr and Averru, ultimately vanquished Karona.

The Numena Lowallyn, manifested within Ixidor, perished in this final confrontation alongside his brothers.

Despair in Other Timelines

Unfortunately, Ixidor's despair manifested in a large, destructive way in many timelines. Akroma, Angel of FuryAkroma, Angel of Fury is one example. No matter what timeline it took place in, Nivea's death was potentially a nexus event in the Magic story canon.

Akroma, while her own being, was also an extension of Ixidor's pain and grief in losing his lover, Nivea. She was hellbent on avenging Nivea and Ixidor. For Akroma to die surely took a huge toll on Ixidor, who had to see his lover die twice, in essence. Nobody deserves that, and for Ixidor to be such a neat character idea and suffer that much is a tragedy.

#1. Squee

The short synopsis of Squee, Goblin NabobSquee, Goblin Nabob, the skyship Weatherlight's cabin boy-turned-immortal, is just that. Yawgmoth the Ineffable granted Squee immortality so that Crovax and Ertai could torment the Goblin forever without fear of killing him and ending their fun.

There's much more to this story, however. As such, I've enlisted the help of Hobbes, a content creator, Goblin aficionado, and advocate of the #BetterDaysMTG movement on social media. Here is what Hobbes had to say about this tragically underutilized character:

Oh Squee, my poor beautiful mess of a Goblin. Squee is very interesting to me as someone who I think was largely seen as comedic relief for so long that him actually getting the story that he deserved literally took 20 years. He is a character who, like most early Goblins, filled the role of comedic relief. Just look in all the flavor texts he appears on! And yet, his story is actually pretty tragic; that beautiful, loyal Goblin experienced torture for information, and was essentially turned into an object to be killed, over and over.

Squee was a member of the Weatherlight crew as the cabin boy. He proved to be loyal to the crew, and quite adept at getting them out of trouble (and he was a surprisingly good shot). During the Phyrexian Invasion, Squee was captured by the Phyrexians and granted immortality by Yawgmoth. Yawgmoth literally did this so that he could be killed over and over again by Ertai and Crovax (as depicted in the card Phyrexian TyrannyPhyrexian Tyranny).

However, this backfired and allowed Squee to accidentally kill Ertai. Squee remained immortal.

And then, we got no story for Squee for roughly 20 years. The wildest part about this is that we even returned to Dominaria in 2018, and he was given a card showing that he was still immortal, and still around. But, he did not feature in the story at all. Even when the Weatherlight came back, crew and all, the cabin boy was Slimefoot, the StowawaySlimefoot, the Stowaway. There were 12 stories for that set and he did not make a single appearance (which made having a card for him even more baffling). I was known for ranting about this for way too many years. Anytime Dominaria as a plane was mentioned, I would talk about how Squee was done dirty. I felt that with Dominaria the set, in particular, he had so much cool potential. Here you have a member of a species known for their short lifespan, who was now immortal, not a Planeswalker, and still living on Dominaria.

But here's the thing: in 2022, with Dominaria United, we finally got the side story of Squee and his immortality. Seriously, go read that story by Dan Sheehan, it’s haunting, it’s beautiful, and it ends up with Squee giving up his immortality as a choice after Ertai had returned and attempted to turn Squee into a Phyrexian. We then had him present for the fight against the Phyrexians, in a sweet team-up with Slimefoot (cabin boys of the Weatherlight rise up!). And now… we again know nothing other than the fact that he is now mortal. I fear it could be another 20 years before we get his full story.

I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. Hobbes knows his Goblins from toe to tip, and he's a great authority on the matter, especially regarding Squee. Hopefully, it doesn't take two decades before we get more literature surrounding this esteemed Goblin character.

Conclusion

All in all, there were plenty of other characters to look at who were also written in a way that did them dirty. So now, I'd like to open the floor to you, dear readers. What Magic: The Gathering characters do you believe deserved better in the story? Sound off below!