#shinryu

[glittergoats]

woe reynos upon ye (part 1)

[blackwraithtea]

The process was pain but I wanted to immortalise this moment for all eternity.

[brother-one]

♪ Come don the mask ♪ Storm of blood,

of blind betrayal, born in blood,

E'er does the head Forged in fire

devour its tail ♪ and thunder ♪

[best viewed on mobile]

[pennyroyal-xiv]

[ffmtg]

Zenoy yae Galvus//Shinryu, Transcendent Rival

(Scryfall Link)

Discussion of this card is basically impossible without heavy spoilers for Final Fantasy XIV's Endwalker expansion, so I'll put it below the cut

Zenos yae Galvus is the main villain of the Stormblood expansion of FFXIV but this card shows him during Endwalker.

He is the son of the emperor of the Garlean Empire, Varis zos Galvus, and the crown prince. Side note, I find the use of Human as a creature type for him kind of interesting because he is a Garlean, and while there are no species called "Human" in FFXIV, Hyurs are generally considered to be the closest equivalent, while Garleans are taller, have a third eye, and are incapable of channeling aether, which makes them unable of using magic.

He is an incredibly powerful fighter, to the degree that almost all of his opponents just bore him. That is, until he fights you, the Warrior of Light.

He becomes obsessed with fighting you again, which is represented by his first ability, My First Friend. It clears the board of weaker creatures, leaving behind only him and his friend (and anything with more than 3 toughness but shhh).

At the end of Stormblood, Zenos fuses with the Primal (the summons of FFXIV) Shinryu. After you defeat him, he kills himself, only for his will to fight you again to be strong enough that his soul posesses a soldier near his grave. I'm a bit sad that this return from death isn't represented on the card but I guess it already has a lot of text.

After spending most of Shadowbringers reclaiming his body, he once agains tries to fight you, but for most of Endwalker, you refuse to.

This of course frustrates him, be he keeps being persistent. When at the end of the game you travel to the end of the universe, he transforms into Shinryu once again to follow you there. This is represented by his transformation ability.

Now it would be quite obvious to read the abilities of Shinryu and assume that this is an extension of his rivalry with the warrior of light, but I actually have an alternative interpretation.

Zenos doesn't care about actually winning against the warrior of light, he only wants to fight them once more.

When he arrives at the end of the universe, he doesn't immediatly fight you. He first helps you fight the antagonist you came there to fight. Only then, after he helps you beat her, does he get his one last fight.

He beats a different opponent, and by doing so, wins.

[djgamek1ng]

MTG x Final Fantasy Card Discussion (Pt. 3.1 - Zenos Yae Galvus // Shinryu, Transcendent Rival)

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! I go out with my friends for the night and the official FFXIV Twitter account suddenly drops a Zenos spoiler??? We aren't even in spoiler season, that's after the debut, which is in 3 days! I guess it is just time for MMO reveals, since they can't participate in birthday reveals? Oh well, let's talk zbout Zenos Yae Galvus. Also, this post is titled 3.1 since it is an update to the mono colored cards of the main set, which was part 3. Shantotto was 4.1 since it was an update to the multi colored cards of the set and Tifa was 2.5 since it was an update to the commanders of the commander decks, one that I'm also confident we won't have another update for.

So, let's start with color identity. Mono Black is interesting. He was definitely Black aligned in some sort, since his sole motivation is for us to become as strong as possible so that we, the Warrior of Light from FF14, can give him a challenge and that he might finally transcend and be pushed again in life, since he doesn't care about literally anything else but that, even going far to protect us from potentially dying by anyone else's hands other than his. There is an argument that he should've been Black/Red, but he's not really Red aligned outside of the Warrior of Light and their continued existence. Aside from that, he's cold to basically everything else that exists, where Red is a lot more passionate about everything.

Well, let's get to the card. 5 mana for a 4/4 is a little below rate, but nothing too bad. Now the ability. Really, it is just one. When Zenos enters, you choose a creature that one of your opponents controls. Until end of turn, every creature that isn't Zenos or the chosen creature has -2/-2. Then, when the chosen creature leaves the battlefield (not just dies, exile counts!), Zenos transforms. So, let's review this side. 4/4 is fine for combat stats, you probably want an ability with it like Menace (though that's a bit counterintuitive with Zenos being the way that he is) or Deathtouch seeing as he's 5 mana, but it's not bad for it is. The ability is just freaking badass. You choose your "friend" and kill/debuff every other creature on the battlefield until end of turn. Then the goal is to hunt that friend down, get them off the battlefield and transform Zenos. This is so cool and a full thematic home run for Zenos.

Then we get to the flip side: Shinryu, Transcendent Rival. An 8/8 flyer that asks you to pick a new "friend..." or shall we say, a rival. That rival is an opposing player. When that player loses the game, you win the game. This is also awesome. Even as Shinryu, Zenos is still wanting to challenge his "friend," the only one that can give him a challenge and when they lose, he wins. It's the endgame, there is no further goal. Love it, love it, love it. Stats wise, it is a big scary dragon that flies. It will definitely be prime target for removal, so try to flip Zenos as late as possible or even have him on the battlefield as late as possible. Or have ways to protect him, like via equipment or auras.

Now, let's talk about this card. This is so hilariously a commander card, it isn't funny. The front side isn't too bad and works in 1v1 formats, since it is a Massacre Wurm like effect, similar to Sephiroth, Planet's Heir as well, and you can always target a super easy to remove creature. The backside just becomes a 8/8 flyer in a 1v1, since that ability means you win the game when your opponent loses the game... which yes, that is how a 1v1 format works. It's still an 8/8 flyer, which is scary and if it gets flipped before your combat phase, taking 8 damage is no joke, but still. It transforms from a very interesting card to just another scary flyer, which you have enough of, just look at most other dragons. In commander, this card is at its peak. However, like I said at the end of Shinryu's section, you will need to bring some sort of protection for him, since this is definitely the type of card you have to remove, even if it isn't the commander (hell, even more so if it isn't the commander, since exile then means permanently gone).

Now for the art. Credit to Alexander Mokhov. Link to his ArtStation. Let's start with Zenos. Fantastic background, very colorful and full of contrast (something FFXIV funnily enough is kind of bad at still) and Zenos is mostly looking great. The only thing is that his face feels a bit off, but it's a relatively small detail on an otherwise great art piece. I would say that I'm missing his katana barrel, but he actual ditched it right before he transforms into Shinryu. Speaking of, let's talk about Shinryu's art. This is just awesome. Everything is so on point, even having the arena of the third phase of the Normal version or the first phase of the Extreme version. Him doing, what I think is, Judgement Bolt is also so cool. This art is just fantastic, I have no notes. Well, maybe a slight note: his arms look really derp-y. They seem to just be flailing around, which is funny, but not entirely in character for Shinryu, haha!

As for the alternative art, since of course my man gets alternative art:

Credit to Susumu Kuroi. Link to their pixiv. So, aside from the blank backgrounds, which admittedly aren't as much of an issue since both of these arts are wide: HOLY SHIT, ALL OF MY YES. This is phenomenal. Even having Shinryu's tail go so far it goes into the background is such a good detail. Everything here is on point, they look incredible. Their posing is great, though a little boring in Zenos' case, though that also isn't out of character for him since he is about practicality... of being better than the Warrior of Light. These are just incredible, genuinely no notes, these feel like they could've been official FF14 art at some point.

And that's it... I think. Maybe we'll be back tomorrow, even though that would be incredibly stupid, we have the debut in less than 3 days at this point. Just leave until then. Full blown spoiler season will be right around the corner at that point anyway, if not outright starting on the same day. Anyway, thanks for reading and have a nice day o/

[dovalore]

worm on string (stormblood)

[dirty-ffxiv-confessions]

Confession: I need Zenos as Shinryu to absolutely fucking rail me with his giant dragon dick, fill me with cum, and then stuff me full of eggs.

[heretic-altias]

FFXIV Dragon Desktop Backgrounds

I've been working on this project for a little while now, and I'm super happy to show it to everyone! These are computer desktop backgrounds with every living great wyrm model + Shinryu as a special guest to represent Stormblood. I spent a long time posing these and picking out/adjusting filters for them and I have to give a special thanks to @zdusk and @fatewalker-phoenix bc they have way more gpose experience than me and these wouldn't have turned out nearly as nice without their input! The images are 1920x1080, which is a pretty standard size and also what I got from taking the photos full screen on my laptop.

You can find all of them here on google drive, each dragon has a version with and without a game logo on it. I based my logo choices on which expac I personally felt each dragon was most relevant in the msq, but you're welcome to take the plain versions and edit on a different one if you'd prefer! In addition, I've left my clip studio saves in there from when I added the logos in case you'd like to make any personal adjustments.

Below the cut, I'll directly post the logo versions of each one so you can look. These may be spoilers for their relevant expacs, with Azdaja spoiling a 6.4 location as the newest so be aware!

In expansion order we have:

[necozukin]

[glittergoats]

woe reynos upon ye (part 2)

[blackwraithtea]

Fun Zenos sketch dump I never got around to posting including my all time fav, Zenos with ‘egg’.

[blooferlady86]

Not me waking up this morning thinking about how I should learn to make plushies just so I could make a little Shinryu. He's got a bunch of frills! That would be adorable.

Square Enix why do you not let me buy merch of my favorite murderer and his dragon form? Why do you force me to make my own?

[pennyroyal-xiv]

3 seconds to protostar realization!

[storm-of-doma]

//BABY!!!

[inkywarden]

Idk if this is because of the banger that is the shinryu trial music or because of state of 🫶the game🫶 but I miss Zenos