Tenochtitlan King - Hecatomb

"Funny hats are essential to world destruction."

With all the hype last year surrounding the Mayans and their calendar, people have been overlooking another ancient Meso-American civilization: the Aztecs. Hecatomb had several sub-themes based around ancient civilizations, primarily the Aztecs, with the Ancient Egyptians appearing in the next set. Which leads us to this guy.

First, what is Tenochtitlan? From the world's most edited database (Wikipedia), I found the answer. Tenochtitlan was once the capital of the Aztec Empire. It was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, giving the Aztecs the engineering challenge of building stable buildings and foundations on less than stable terrain. And they pulled it off. The city's name is most often translated as coming from the words tetl (rock) and nochtli (prickly pear).

Tenochtitlan unfortunately also bore witness to the beginning of the end of the civilization that built it. You see, there was a jerk named Cortez. This is my own personal bias, as I view most of the Spanish conquistadors as jerks considering how they blatantly ignored and mistreated other civilizations. The Spanish arrived at Tenochtitlan, meeting the current ruler Moctezuma. Moctezuma welcomed the visitors, not necessarily just out of kindness but also for religious and political motives. Cortez and his crew showed up right around the time of an Aztec prophecy predicting the coming of some god or something akin to Jesus. Whether or not Moctezuma personally believed it, he was definitely away his subjects and some of his enemies probably believed it, and so he wasn't letting the opportunity go to waste. The Spanish repaid this kindness by destroying their entire civilization. This is a drastically shortened cliff notes version of history (aka I probably got most of it wrong), and I recommend you read the story yourself.

Continuing to show that Wizards did their research, the flavor text mentions the people of Tlaxcala and Azcapotzalco. Both are these are real places that exist in present day Mexico and that existed during the time of the Aztecs. Why they chose these names and places is another issue. Regardless of their original thinking, I think this guy being the king of Tenochtitlan works really well in the apocalyptic setting. Tenochtitlan set the stage for the destruction of the Aztecs, and now its setting it for the destruction of the world. There's also a kind of poetic justice in a destroyed city coming back to wreak havoc.

Ability wise, this guy is a lord. The term comes from Magic the Gathering, and refers to creatures that grant bonuses to creatures of the same type as it. In this case, the card is an Aztecal that gives +2 strength to other Aztecal. The flavor of the guy also works for a lord theme. He is an Aztecal king, and therefore he commands and has influence over the Aztecal.