#plane: lorwyn

[tumblhurgoyf]

Battle of the Planes Elite Eight

[mtglore]

The latest MTGLore.com update has added links for over 40 Magic books you can borrow to read for free on Archive.org!

The Thran, Distant Planes, the original Ravnica trilogy, The Brothers' War, Lorwyn, and... The Quest for Karn too, I guess. All 40+ options are listed in the [Patch Notes]!

Video below shows how easy it is to find and borrow the first Magic novel, Arena. (Archive.org account is required, but free.)

You enjoy reading Magic's story, I'll do my best to make it easy for you. Deal?

[markrosewater]

I want to speak up on behalf of the heavily enfranchised players like myself (I’ve been playing since 1994, reading Blogatog since the beginning) who are *extremely* happy and excited about the 2025 calendar announcements.

Here’s my perspective: As you've mentioned, for many years, the default setting for a standard “Magic year” consisted of three new sets (All set on the same plane! And two were much smaller sets!), plus a Core set made up entirely of reprints. That was it.

Now look how far we've come! In 2025, we’re getting three new large sets in the Magic multiverse (a brand new plane, a long-awaited return, and a multi-planar set), PLUS three new large UB sets! (As a comics fan I’m personally very excited about Marvel/Spider-Man, and while I’ve never played Final Fantasy the aesthetic looks amazing and a perfect fit for Magic). And now with Foundations, there’s also an in-print Core set with multiple ways to introduce new players (I’ll be buying a Beginner Box for my nephews). And then in 2026 we’re returning to Lorwyn and Arcavios (two of the most beloved planes).

I personally *love* the direction Magic is going and I think Universes Beyond and the upcoming schedule are some of the best things possible for the long-term health of the game of life. Entrenched players like myself are still getting plenty of in-universe content, and at the same time UB is bringing in *so many* new players, while also giving us oldies the excitement of seeing franchises (like Marvel & LOTR) we've always dreamed of seeing on Magic cards. And I know I’m not alone in this sentiment.

That's my two cents. But after seeing so much vitriol online, I also want to say kudos to you, Mark, for your willingness to engage with the fanbase, your infinite patience, your boundless enthusiasm, and everything you do to make the game we're all so passionate about. Keep on keeping on.

Thanks for the comments.

My tendency to want to face people who have issues with the latest thing does often create the impression that the totality of Magic players feel a certain way.

[ritunn]

Vile Beauty - A Look at the Elves of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor and Queerness

"Beauty determines values, and we determine beauty."

That's the flavor text that accompanies the card, Masked Admirers, a rare, now uncommon, elf that made its debut in Lorwyn. Flavor text that summarizes the views of the Lorwyn elves who we'll be revisiting next year.

Beauty Determines Value

I started playing MtG back in 2009 and I took a liking to the elf and kithkin tribes almost immediately. I was young enough that I didn't quite understand the social commentary being made by the writing behind the elves at the time, but it's something that's entranced me since then. In Lorwyn, the virtue often associated with elves, their unnatural beauty, has been twisted. The vain elves live in a hierarchical society where the most beautiful live on top and a single scar or blemish can ruin your life. While nature is nothing more but a tool to continue their harm of others or to be shaped to be as beautiful as them.

It's a strange society, but one that fits all too well with elves and the tropes we've come to associate with them. Though the twist of eyeblights, the name elves give to those too ugly to be anything else in elf society, but also what they call everyone else, adds an fun twist to the basic idea of "What if the beauty industry was a society?"

Eyeblights at best are treated as eye sores, creatures to be avoided if needed and an annoyance at worse. At worst, they are hunted for sport, blades slicing them in twain while the insidious moonglove poison kills them in seconds if that fails. This is often reserved for giants and boggards, the name for goblins, but they aren't above using these selfsame measure on other elves.

But for those elves who would reach so low as to become eyeblights, often due to disfigurement, purposeful or accidental, they are allowed to become nettelvine breeders. Nettlevine is a parasitic plant cultivated by the plane's elves that shortens the already short lifespan of elves, but also grants them great control over it, allowing them to make mockery of the plane's treefolk and devastate the enemies of the elves. But, what lays in the store for those elves who reach the pinnacle of beauty?

We Determine Beauty

Elvish society in Lorwyn is separated into four distinct classes, the faultless, immaculate, exquisite, and perfect.

Faultless: the lowest caste, the faultless meet a minimum threshold for beauty. They're without fault as the name suggests, but their beauty isn't anything better than what is expected for an elf and work the basic jobs required of society.

Immaculate: those who act as dignitaries for the elves. If you're cunning enough in addition to beautiful, you can reach the level of immaculate and attain some special privileges within elvish society.

Exquisite: second only to the perfect, elves who reach exquisite are masterful hunters and lead other elves in hunting excursions with packs of wolves to kill eyeblights. As dangerous as they are beautiful and the only caste below perfect with permission to speak to them.

Perfect: the most cunning of all elves and of transcendental beauty, perfects rule elf society in Lorwyn and have permission to kill anyone they'd like in a caste below them. Vicious and vain rulers of which only a few exist.

Eyeblights are not in the caste system. As mentioned before, these elves are either made into nettlevine breeders or killed. Even associating with creatures that aren't elves or using them to kill eyeblights such as one of the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor protagonists, Rhys, did can earn you the ire of other elves. Speaking of Rhys...

Rhys, the Exiled

Rhys was a student of Colfenor, an elder treefolk and the last yew treefolk. He taught him the secrets of yew poison magic and they'd maintain a psionic bond for life even when Rhys became an eyeblight hunter. His past of being associated with an eyeblight like Colfenor always earned him some contempt, especially from his superior, Nath. Nath was a more traditional elf, one who was quite annoyed when Rhys made use of a pair of giants to deal with goblin raiders after the hunting party's trap went wrong due to an inexperienced archer, an archer Nath cut down for his mistake. As such, Rhys and Nath had a tense relationship, one that broke when Rhys became one of the very eyeblights he hunted and his friend turned against him.

Nath had ordered Rhys to exterminate some peaceful goblins getting together for a story time festival. Despite Colfenor's pleas not to go through with it, he did and the attack went horribly wrong. The goblins turned feral and murderous due to the Great Aurora starting to begin, an event that inverts the traits of every race on the plane and brings eternal night. With little choice, Rhys unleashed the magic Colfenor taught him and killed everyone except for himself, his friend, and Nath. When he awoke, he found his horns destroyed. He had become an eyeblight and his friend and Nath had promised to slay him, but not before he was rescued by an elf named Maralen and a group of fey.

The rest of the story follows his adventures with Maralen of the Mournsong and the other adventurers on Colfenor's quest to continue to yew treefolk line and stop the Great Aurora, but this fall is what we care about. Rhys knew what was wrong but still went through with it anyway. Corrupted by the pressure of a society and willing to kill to maintain his position, only to lose it all. Though, when night comes the only true monsters on Lorwyn become its saviors.

Beauty is a Seed

The elves of Shadowmoor, the name the plane adopts when the Great Aurora brings eternal night, are an interesting contrast in the dark fairy tale feel the plane adopts during this phase. These elves are also obsessed with beauty, but the world itself has become as ugly as they were inside while phased to Lorwyn. Thus, there's the twist. They seek to preserve beauty, those little slivers left. Beauty is a seed, waiting to blossom under capable hands as the flavor text of Bloom Tender puts it. As everyone else becomes the monsters they believed them to be, they stopped hunting them. They hunted for beauty instead. No longer vain, they care for each other and see the seeds of light in the darkness. They see true beauty, of nature, of love, of life, and just want to protect it. There's something so kind about it, so heartwarming, a glimmer of hope in darkness, all ripped away when the morning tide washes away the darkness and things return to normal. We get a glimpse at what the elves could be, and in a way, it hurts.

Something I have yet to mention is the deer-like apperance of the elves. In Lorwyn, this soft apperance hides the truth: they are predators, hunters, to be feared, not prey. But on Shadowmoor, they are the prey, able to fight back, but prey nevertheless to hideous monsters like scarecrows, kelpie, deurgar, and the twistwed residents of Shadowmoor. They've become the ones they once hunted, the other, but for once, they're free of hierarchy and free to live life and dream for a better tomorrow and they revel in that. Rhys is able to find redemption in Shadowmoor, and embrace his true ideals. Night doesn't last forever though, and neither can this. But, I'm intrigued to see how it ends up being handled come 2025.

Toil to Renown

So, what do I love about the elves of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor? Well, they are quite pretty, I love the design, but these days, I think love that they're the very people that'd despise me. Being queer means to live outside the binary standards of beauty quite often. Some transphobes even go as far as to label others trans based off of very minute masculine or feminine traits that no one but them cares about. This leads to reinforcing gender stereotypes and leading to violence and/or vitriol against anyone who doesn't fit in. We become eyeblights, as does anyone who's cis and not quite the perfect model of their gender. All the while, people like Rhys, who don't totally agree, are browbeat into conforming and suffer for it when they too find out they will never live up to the standards of such wretched people. Whether they come out queer or simply have an accident.

But, I also love these elves, the ones on Shadowmoor, because I see myself in them too. I want to find the beauty in a cruel world that despises me and others I call friends and family and protect it with all my heart. Beauty isn't flawless skin and a sharp intellect, it's in a lonely flower blossoming, the laugh of someone you love, celebration of life. We fight every day to live and assure our continued existence in a world that despises us. Is that not reason to celebrate? Life may be grim, but there's beauty everywhere and we decide it ourselves. I hope WotC explores that duality again in 2025, because it's a beautiful message I've taken to heart for years. Thanks for reading.

[vorthosjay]

I just saw the squee patron ask and i must ask to.

Which legendary creatures could possibly be your Warlock patron, to a effective degree? From my Head i think like shilgengar and other innistrad demons and the eldrazi are good, but id love some from other planes

Looking at my list of divinities, here's what I'd say:

Most Legendary Angels, Avatars, Demons, Gods, Elders, and Pre-Mending Planeswalkers

Bloomburrow's Calamity Beasts

Dominaria's Primeval Dragons

Innistrad's Horrors

Kaldheim's Cosmos Monsters

Kamigawa's Kami (quite literally, they function like warlock patrons) and specifically the Myojin

Lorwyn's non-Legendary Avatar cycle

Ravnica's Nephilim

[magicwithclass]

Duskmourn or Innistrad?

Today, Magic the gathering released a humongous amount of new information about upcoming sets in 2024. We received many spoilers about Duskmourne and I stand with what I always thought upon first hearing about the set and theme; this could have been set on Innistrad. Maybe griselbrand has been fused to a haunted house upon resurrection (demons on Innistrad can return from being destroyed). Slowly, griselbrand has been gaining more power and he is starting to expand his domain outward. I think that a future trip to innistrad may want to move away from the typal creature support as that has been done many countless times. Do you think people would approve of an Innistrad set without the majority of creatures being locked into 5 types? Of course, vampires, spirits, humans, zombies, and werewolves/wolves would still get a few cards but it would pivot away from an overused theme just as Ixalan did in Caverns of Ixalan. After seeing Caverns of Ixalan and Murders at Karlov Manor experimenting with the idenitty of established planes, I thought that any horror set would be a lock for Innistrad. Didn't Innistrad do cosmic horror at one point? There are also many similarities between Duskmourn and Innistrad. Delirium debuted in Shadows over Innistrad. It is insulting to the audience to downplay the obvious similarities and then resuse an old mechanic that debuted on the first horror plane. One of the cards in duskmourne depicts a chainsaw. Innistrad just referenced the texas chainsaw massacre with the banned meathook massacre. Many of the spirits of Innistrad have connections to enchantments. While the creatures are not spirit, some of the glimmer creatures play in this same space. I will say that delirium seems like a stronger fit in Duskmourn as some of the villainous factions are either enchantment creatures or artifact creatures (quickened toys) The razorkin also kind of remind me of zombies and the beasties kind of remind me of werewolves. Beasties have two faces just like werewolves and werewolves also usually do not want you to see the wolf face. Even the wickerfolk kind of remind me of evil treefolk masquerading as trees. I do not like to spread conspiracy theories but a part of me thinks that Duskmounre was supposed to be set on Innistrad but they changed it after the failure of crismon vow and midnight hunt. Is Duskmourne meant as a replacement for Innistrad which looks like it has diminishing returns with set after set? Has wotc realized that returning too frequently, even to popular planes does not allow us nostalgia to build? Also, what is with the butterfly set symbol. A butterfly would have made more sense for bloomburrow or lorwyn but the symbol totally contradicts the theme. Do we get a butterfly card in the set? Will it be creature type insect or butterfly? The symbol should have obviously been a spooky house. We did get more news on Bloomburrow but I think we all know enough about what to expect from that set. I had never heard of the Redwall series but I am familiar with some of the tropes. I do not feel like the news about bloomburrow was significant or important in the history of the game. However, one announcement could have a major impact on the game going forward. Standard is now five years. Yes, after just increasing standard to 3 years they have decided to make standard even longer. May sheoldred forever reign! Ok, you got me! Standard is NOT going to be 5 years...... yet. A major announcement does shake up standard in a way that many did not see coming. Magic the Gathering Foundations is a new set that is going to release November 15 2024. It will be a standard legal set and it will be legal in standard until AT LEAST 2025. That means the set will have a role in the next two standard environments. The set is supposed to be similiar to a core set with some amount of reprints and some amount of new cards and the cards showcased so far seem very simple. So why am I so concerned about this set? Well simple does not mean weak. The few cards spoiled in Foundations seem extremely pushed.

[jasper-the-menace]

What do you think are some of the most underrated Planes?

At this point in MTG canon, it's any of them that aren't Dominaria, Phyrexia/Mirrodin, Ravnica, Innistrad, Theros, or Zendikar.

But personally, I am feral - FERAL I tell you! - over the ideas of the one-off planes introduced in Planescape but don't get much. I'm talking Azgol, I'm talking Moag, I'm talking Valla, and so on and so on.

Naturally, I must also bring up Kylem, Ikoria, Fiora, Regatha, Kaldheim, et cetera. Most of them only got one set. I'm not counting the ones that we're confirmed to be returning to in the next year - Arcavios and Tarkir - and I'm also not counting Lorwyn-Shadowmoor because Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is what I would consider the most popular underrated plane.

And no, I'm not going to bring up Kamigawa during its Neon Dynasty, Capenna, and anything newer than that because those are either still in Standard or just rotated out. Even though I have a strong New Capenna bias.

I'm just very tired of going through planes so quickly and only returning to the popular ones, ya know?

Thanks for sending this in, anon! Sorry it took so long to get back to ya!

~Jasper

[neon-dynasty]

Sometimes I think about how interests come and go in waves, and I wonder why things happen the way they do. Right now, for instance, I can't think of a single Western animated series that has the same kind of fan energy that, say, Steven Universe or Gravity Falls or the Owl House did. I'm sure they're out there, but there's also something that's missing in the field, largely due to the animation industry being on a general downswing in America. (Yes we're all hooked on Dungeon Meshi and Frieren right now, but that's another story.)

Likewise, it feels like the Magic the Gathering story fanbase has been in a rut. And there are a lot of factors for that, but I want to point out what I think are the two biggest culprits: the overprinting of Legendary cards for Commander and the decentralization of the story branch of the creative team at WotC.

It's on my mind today because the Thunder Junction Epilogue stories by Alison Lührs (one of the most loved writers from the most recent high point and arguably the best professional author of Jace x Vraska there's been) were a breath of fresh air. They came out and gave fans what they wanted in Magic story - character-driven narratives.

Sure, the endpoint was Jace and Vraska adopting an adorable plot device baby to bring the story into its next arc. But we got to learn more about Jace and Vraska, as well as understand why they think the way they do and why that makes them act the way they do. Laying there dying, Jace faces his guilt and begs his mother to save them. When the topic of marriage and children comes up, they're completely in sync and Jace knows exactly where to find a parentless child. But the most important part is that we're with these characters while they act out the plot, rather than watching characters react to the plot. As much as I love, say, Kaito and the Wanderer, neither one of them had much agency over the story as it marched steadily toward invasion.

I truly hope that we get more storytelling like this. I hope that we can see the characters be themselves and see why that's important in the ongoing sagas.

But it wasn't just Jace and Vraska we fell in love with back in the time of Ixalan. We had Chandra and Nissa and Ajani and Gideon and Liliana and Jaya and Kaya and Teferi and Ral and so many others. Hell, Bolas was the most fun villain I'd seen in any media in a long time specifically because we spent time with him as he plotted and schemed.

And that was the grand promise of the Lorwyn Five, wasn't it? A storyline that could follow our favorite characters, and have them make choices that affect the entire narrative. Even if it were years between appearances, it felt like our favorite characters could show up at any time. Now with the mass desparking and the Omenpaths, that doesn't feel like such a good thing anymore.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I hope that going forward we get more of the character-driven narratives that defined the best period in the history of Magic's story. I hope that this isn't a one-off, bringing in an author who clearly still has that way of writing. I'd love to see more about how characters and planes are recovering from the Invasion and the existence of Omenpaths.

But more than that, I want the fans to be excited about Magic Story again.

[noybusiness]

The Planes of Magic: The Gathering

In my spare time, I've created links to searches on Scryfall that display the cards from each plane of the Multiverse of Dominia that has been a significant setting for Magic: The Gathering expansions so far, for your viewing pleasure below. This post is pinned and will be updated as new expansions are released. Please check it out even if you're not currently a Magic fan; it may interest you in becoming one! (see if you can find the theme of each plane)

Plane: Alara

Plane: Amonkhet

Plane: Arcavios

Plane: Bloomburrow

Plane: Capenna

Plane: Dominaria

Plane: Duskmourn

Plane: Eldraine

Plane: Fiora

Plane: Ikoria

Plane: Innistrad

Plane: Ixalan

Plane: Kaladesh

Plane: Kaldheim

Plane: Kamigawa

Plane: Kylem

Plane: Lorwyn / Shadowmoor

Plane: Mercadia

Plane: Mirrodin / New Phyrexia

Plane: Muraganda

Plane: Phyrexia

Plane: Rabiah

Plane: Rath

Plane: Ravnica

Plane: Regatha

Plane: Serra's Realm

Plane: Shandalar

Plane: Shenmeng

Plane: Tarkir

Plane: Theros

Plane: Thunder Junction

Plane: Ulgrotha

Plane: Vryn

Plane: Zendikar

Additionally, here's the compilation from 2023's big event set March of the Machine (and March of the Machine Commander and March of the Machine: The Aftermath) where New Phyrexia invaded every other plane in the Multiverse:

March of the Machine

And as you may or may not know, Wizards of the Coast, the company that created Magic: The Gathering, also owns Dungeons & Dragons now and has published Forgotten Realms-set expansions that aren't canonical to the Magic multiverse (including fan-favorite characters from the book series The Legend of Drizzt, the video game Baldur's Gate III and the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), so here they are!:

Plane: Toril

[niuttuc]

magic subject: upcoming planes/sets

Hope you’re having a good week! :3

I'll try to stay brief because there are a lot of those.

Thunder Junction: I was expecting to like this set more than I have been. The tropey character twists of MKM and the fact they just dropped a dozen existing named characters without really getting any deeper on any of them makes me roll my eyes more than anything, I'd have liked an actual new set of characters for once.

Modern Horizons III: Excited for some fun designs, dreading some pushed designs, baffled by commander precons, like the idea of new sparkers.

Assassin's Creed: I have mostly no care for that franchise or the associated designs so far. It'll exist. I'm a bit amused that they committed to the small booster formula so far and with another company before the first one even went to print and faceplanted.

Bloomburrow: Cute and new! Well, except for the fursona bonus sheet, but hopefully that's just a fun addition and it's not another set of "new setting, but all old characters" again, because we haven't had something new in a good while. At least it's a bit less tropey a space than Western or Detectives.

Duskmourn: Now that we've seen Thunder Junction and MKM, I expect the modern horror set to also be pretty shallow, and it's not a genre I have much investment in. Hopefully they don't feel the need to make it all about known characters being trapped in the mansion!

Innistrad Remastered: Would have been much better instead of Double Feature, and also probably will get forgotten like the last few remastered sets that were overpriced and/or underprinted. Be honest, whoever is reading this: did you remember they announced that?

Interplanar Death Race set: Chaining together genres that I don't care much or any about, though given its nature I expect this one will be old characters at least, as it should be.

Return to Tarkir: Finally we get development on that situation of returning Khans! We do, right?

Final Fantasy: I'm not the biggest Final Fantasy fan, I've played a couple of them, but it's the same kind of set as LotR was, and that was a success regardless, and there's a lot of material to pull from in Final Fantasy. Cautiously optimistic.

Space Set: Neat! I hope they pull it off and make it feel expansive and alive without invalidating the rest of the game!

Return to Lorwyn: A bit too far into the future to know what to expect, but the one narrow and unhelpful look at Lorwyn in March of the Machine did not make me hopeful for the return, especially with how the previous block ended!

Return to Arcavios: That's a lot of returns! Hopefully this is about Arcavios as a whole and not as focused on Strixhaven. Honestly had forgotten this was a set!

First Marvel booster set: See Final Fantasy. Thankfully, probably will be focused on the comics moreso than the MCU. But wouldn't surprise me if the different sets are different comic book runs. We don't know enough details to give a real opinion.

Finale to the multi-year story arc: I imagine the arc will end with battling returning Fomori or a big villain taking control of their tech in some way. It's starting pretty slowly for now, so can't really guess much about this one.

[pikachugirltits]

Magic Story Speculation: Return to Lorwyn and Irish Myth's The Book of Invasions

So, the other day on Blogatog Mark answered this ask:

And I made a comment in the replies about wanting to see a proper Theros/Kaldheim/Amonkhet style Celtic mythology world. Particularly something that acknowledges that there's actually no such thing as a universal pan-Celtic mythology. I wouldn't mind a world that mashes up elements of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh myth, just as long as we're all aware that they aren't interchangeable.

But then I got to thinking about Irish Myth. And I realized that with the Omenpaths, there's a particular part of Irish Myth they could evoke for the return to Lorwyn: the Lebor Gabála Érenn, or as it's known in English The Book of Invasions.

So the tl;dr of The Book of Invasions is that Ireland has been settled over the years by six distinct groups, with the previous groups of settlers either dying off before the next group arrives or being conquered and driven out. Notably, the fifth group of people that conquer and settle Ireland are the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods of Irish Paganism, and the sixth group of invaders are the Milesians, a.k.a humans and the ancestors of the modern Irish people.

Now, one of the things Lorwyn is best known for is that it's one of the few planes in the Multiverse with no humans. At the time of Lorwyn's release this was considered a controversial element and was occasionally speculated as one of the reasons for Lorwyn's poor performance. Now, while the existence of Bloomburrow does show that WotC hasn't completely soured on the idea of human-less planes, one does have to wonder if they might want to fix that element of Lorwyn.

So here's my completely baseless bit of speculation: our return to Lorwyn is going to be inspired by The Book of Invasions. A group of humans from another plane are going to travel through an Omenpath to Lorwyn and attempt to settle it, kicking off a battle between them and the inhabitants of Lorwyn. Now, wether Magic plays it straight and has the humans succeed and become a part of Lorwyn going forward or if they reverse it and have the humans driven off so future returns to Lorwyn go back to having no humans remains to be seen, and I have to wonder how much of that will hinge on the reception of Bloomburrow and fan reaction to this theoretical invasion of Lorwyn.

(Interestingly enough, the Phyrexian invasion works well within this pseudo-Book of Invasions plotline. The Phyrexians wind up taking a role similar to the Fomorians, a group of malicious beings that are fought by several of the groups that settled Ireland at various points in these myths.)

[tumblhurgoyf]

Round 2 of Battle of the Planes has begun! There are 7 other polls up for this round.

[stareyedesper]

The superhero-fication of Magic: The Gathering has been incredibly detrimental to its storylines. Small scale, plane-centered conflicts are gone, and now every story has to center around some extraplanar cock causing mischief, usually as a settup for a bigger villain later on. This frustrates me to no end, because it means that any new places we go to have to push their worldbuilding to the side for a larger story, a new character to be introduced, or for an earlier storyline to wrap up. Let me explain what i mean by showcasing every new plane we got post-Oath of the Gatewatch:

Kaladesh: Settup for War of the Spark

Amonkhet: Not only was it a settup for War of the Spark, Wizards built an entire civilization and culture for Nicol Bolas to destroy. Until they do anything else with it, it was nothing but a rollercoaster ride

Ixalan: Settup for War of the Spark, Jace & Vraska story

Eldraine: Kenrith twins origin story, Oko as the main antagonist, AND Garruk story x3 combo!

Ikoria: An actual storyling involving the plane and its inhabitants. The Ozolith settup was so vague it could be anything

Kaldheim: Settup for March of the Machine, Tibalt story

Arcavios (Strixhaven): Kenrith twins story, Liliana story

Kamigawa, Neon Dynasty (Old Kamigawa is dead this is a new plane): Settup for March of the Machine, Wanderer story

New Capenna: Settup for March of the Machine, Ob Nixilis story

Not to mention all the old, previously visited planes who were also usurped for an MCU treatment. Now i wonder, with March of the Machine on the horizon, where do we go from here? To a palette cleanser from all of this, hopefully, but what then? Are we gonna keep doing this song and dance forever? Are new planes no longer intresting places to visit, but quick detours to the ACTUAL plot? This doesn't even go into the fact that March of the Machine has raised the stakes as far as they will go. This is IT. When you make a story about how EVERYONE we know is being driven to the brink of death, there's nothing else you can put on the line and have the playerbase care.

All this said, i don't hate March of the Machine (yet). I like what i see from the previews and it looks fun. I'm just really tired of Wizards stringing the playerbase along with hooks and cliffhangers and higher machinations that might not even lead to anything satisfying (fuck you War of the Spark). I just hope we can go back to having smaller stories for a while, and it's not just me. I started playing at around the time Ravnica Allegiance was coming out, and at the time, every person i talked to or Magic creator i watched did not care for the Gatewatch at all, and so it was mercifully put out of its misery by the writers. I just hope we can get more low stakes, plane centered stories for a while, maybe go back to Alara or Amonkhet or Lorwyn and make something new with them already.

[markrosewater]

If you were starting Magic over, would you have explored worlds that trend further from traditional high-fantasy tropes earlier on in Magic's history? Or were people in the 90s and 2000s not ready for planes like New Capenna and futuristic Kamigawa?

I think the evolution of the multiverse tended to follow along with the expansion of the audience. The reaction to original Lorwyn shows the audience at the time was less receptive to deviation than they are now.

[leafdrake-haven]

Update on the future, TWO!

Ok these ones are so far in the future they don’t have names yet and nothing is set in stone. They had some concept art but Maro stressed they are literally still working on these so stuff can still change so mostly these are the teasiest of teasers

Tennis

Death-race set. So like my best comparison is Petals to the Metal in Adventure Zone 😅 Neat thing though, because of the Omenpaths, this race/set takes place across 3 planes. Two are planes we’ve been to on premier sets before and the third is one that has been on cards but we haven’t actually been there yet. So 👀 Feels like a potentially good return for Kaladesh? Also maybe Kamigawa again? Idk about the plane we haven’t officially been to before.

Ultimate (Frisbee)

I have made my posts so I’m gonna be so normal here I swear. Return to Tarkir. Design philosophy, “best of both worlds” (dragons and khans!!!) Ahem yes. That is what this is about.

Volleyball

Top down space opera set. I’m intrigued. The concept art was pretty nifty and I mean, Unfinity showed us that space lands can fuck severely. Between cyberpunk Kamigawa and Unfinity I am way more receptive to this than I might have been a few years ago. I don’t know the actual “space opera” trope specifically so IDK have an opinion there much, but still. I’m excited magic is exploring new ground.

Wrestling

We’re going back to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor baybeeee! I’ve never been there and I’m excited to go. I’m excited to see the new twists! :D

Yachting

Back to school season! We be going to Arcavios (Strixhaven)

Ziplining

Capstone/end set. It’s the finale of the 3-year story arc starting with Wilds of Eldraine. The giant storyline is split into 3 mini arcs, Omenpath Arc, Dragonstorm Arc, and [Redacted] Arc. Being compared to War of the Spark and March of the Machine. We don’t know anything else about this set. Kinda neat that the next big arc ends with the alphabet keywords. It will truly be a fresh start with the next A xD.

Wow ok so 3 years ahead in magic. These last few Maro said were still in vision design, wild to see so far ahead. There’s a lot of potential here! I’m curious to see how it all goes :D

[vorthosjay]

Hi Jay,how's life? could you tell me which plane has the most Elementals,that we know of?

Elemental cards, or just, the most common elementals?

Lorwyn and Zendikar are probably both contenders for that title. The Roil makes the land more active on Zendikar, and elementals are really common and unique on Lorwyn.