Magic The Gathering is a strategy game that has been a source of lore for over 20 years, told through multiple novels and short stories. The lore includes a large cast of characters from various locations and is continually adding new stories every year. The official Magic: The Gathering story page provides a treasure trove of information on the latest story arcs and deep dives into the lore of different planes and characters.
The lore of Magic: The Gathering is vast, complex, and often ambiguous, with many different meanings within these texts and storylines. The game’s beautiful artwork and fun gameplay make it an appealing choice for fans of political intrigue, romance, or action. Most new stories are freely available as chapters of the Magic Story column on the Wizards of the Coast website.
The MTG Lore has moved away from novels and is now more focused around short stories on the MTG website. The most important events and characters are often showcased on cards as spells and artifacts. The Wizards of the Coast website has a page within it that contains the full story, minus the novels.
The current story for Magic takes place after the Mending, in a time when planeswalkers no longer have god-like power or immortality. Plots to regain that lost power are based on the Magic Story, a column on Magicthegathering.com, which served as the primary source for in-depth story information for several years.
📹 The Entire Story of Magic: the Gathering
Chapters: 00:00:00 – Urza Saga 00:09:19 – Weatherlight Saga 00:17:29 – Mirari Saga 00:22:40 – Original Ravnica 00:24:02 – The …
What does magic do for a story?
Magic in fantasy fiction is a central nervous system that can elevate the genre above other writing styles. However, it should be consistent and work well. Magic should be set in place long in advance, and the writer and characters must stick by those rules, even if difficult. The consequences of magic should be fully explored, and the writer must accept the logical outcome of any challenges they present. This ensures that the magic is not just plausible but also adds an unparalleled spark to the story. In essence, magic should be a part of the story, not a mere distraction from the main plot.
What is plot in Magic: The Gathering?
The Comprehensive Rules for Duskmourn: House of Horror (September 20, 2024) provide a detailed explanation of the rules and their application. A player with a card with a plot in their hand can exile it using a special action, which can be taken at any time during their own turn while the stack is empty. The term “Plot” refers to a keyword ability that functions while the card with plot is in a player’s hand. Exiling a card using its plot ability is a special action that doesn’t use the stack.
Some spells and abilities can cause a card in exile to become plotted. The owner of a plotted card can cast it without paying its mana cost during their main phase while the stack is empty during any turn after the plotted turn. Casting a spell this way follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601. 2b and 601. 2f–h. An effect refers to plotting a card, performing the special action associated with a plot ability. An effect may allow the plot ability of a card to function in a zone other than a player’s hand, exiling the card from the zone it is in as the action is taken.
Is Magic: The Gathering easy to learn?
Magic: The Gathering is an easy-to-learn game that can be played by anyone, not just strategy gamers. The game offers a range of starter sets, starting with simple creatures and spells, and progressing to planeswalkers and more complex cards. Players can find places to play Magic: The Gathering through the official Wizards of the Coast locator, which lists stores running events like Friday Night Magic. These social events provide a chance to enjoy the game socially and learn the rules with experienced players.
To start playing Magic: The Gathering, players can get started for free by purchasing Magic Welcome Packs, which provide a sample 60-card deck for each of the five magic elements. Local stores can also offer these packs, while the Magic: The Gathering Arena offers free cards as players play matches. Staff at these locations are often happy to help and play hands with players to get them orientated.
What is the point of Magic: The Gathering?
Magic is a simple game where players are Planeswalkers, powerful beings who can traverse different planes of existence and battle using powerful spells. The goal is to win by drawing powerful spells and creature spells that can lower your opponent’s life total while sustaining your own hitpoints. To summon these spells, you rely on land cards, or mana, representing the basic building blocks of Magic.
There are five types of land cards, each representing a natural landscape that dictates the flavor of a spell. Islands, blue mana, are associated with knowledge and foresight, while creatures are often wizards, merfolk, or spirits.
Can I learn magic from books?
Magic books are an excellent method for learning magic, offering value for money and unique teaching methods. They encourage critical thinking and can be more challenging than hiring a private magician. The top five books for beginners offer structure, valuable advice, and incredible magic tricks. These books are essential for new magicians and can be accessed by clicking on each one for a short review. By pushing through the difficult, magicians can truly learn and grow in their craft.
Is there a storyline to MTG?
Magic is a strategy game with an intricate storyline that is reflected in the cards released in each expansion. The Multiverse is the shared fictional universe depicted in Magic: The Gathering cards, novels, comics, and other supplemental products. The game’s storylines have evolved over the years, with the main premise being that countless possible worlds exist in the Multiverse, and rare beings called Planeswalkers are uniquely capable of traversing the Multiverse without external aid.
This allows the game to frequently change worlds to renew its mechanical inspiration while maintaining Planeswalkers as recurrent, common elements across worlds. Players represent Planeswalkers able to draw on the magic and entities of these planes to do battle with others. The name “Dominia” was used in the early days of the game, but it fell into disuse due to confusion with the name of the plane/planet where the central events of Magic occur.
Are Magic: The Gathering and D&D connected?
Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is a game that was inspired by Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), the original fantasy game. Since its launch in 1974, players have explored expansive, immersive worlds created by Wizards of the Coast and players themselves. MTG, the original TCG, owes a lot to D&D as well. MTG was the progenitor of its genre, spawning a cascade of similar card games that followed. Players assume the roles of wizards who harness energy from the land to cast spells and summon creatures.
The game’s themes are clearly influenced by D&D’s classic setting, and its pioneering TCG gameplay gave players the chance to experience D&D-inspired fantasy worlds, creatures, and spells from a new perspective for the first time.
Senior designer Glenn Jones said that the earliest pitch for MTG was almost like a D&D minigame to play between sessions. As the game increased in popularity, the designers fleshed out MTG’s planes with interesting characters and lore to make them just as engaging as D&D’s Forgotten Realms. MTG followed in D&D’s footsteps by expanding on its world and adding a myriad of interesting and varied mechanics to the TCG genre it created, keeping things interesting and fresh for players in the years to come.
Is MTG like D&D?
Magic: The Gathering doesn’t have an exact equivalent to D and D’s free basic rules, as Magic cards are sold in randomized booster packs, requiring players to buy them as singles to build their desired decks. The closest approximation to D and D’s free Basic Rules is MTG Arena, the free-to-play digital version of the game, which includes a tutorial for mechanics. Acquiring more cards for online deck building doesn’t require any purchase, but it helps if you do. Many game events require gems, an in-game currency available for purchase in the shop. Both D and D and Magic use dice to varying degrees, but the similarities end there.
Does Magic: The Gathering have a lore?
The lore of MTG is divided into two categories. The lore of Magic: The Gathering can be divided into two categories: that which occurs prior to the introduction of the “mending” mechanic and that which occurs subsequent to its implementation. The lore preceding the implementation of the Mending mechanism encompasses antiquated entities such as Yawgmoth, Urza, and the Skyship Weatherlight. Conversely, the lore that follows the Mending encompasses well-known characters such as Karn, Gatewatch, and Nicol Bolas.
Does Magic: The Gathering have novels?
The Planeswalker novels, introduced in 2009, are a type of Magic novel that follow the story of one of Magic’s planeswalkers. The first yearly novella was released in winter and the second in summer. Doug Beyer’s 3-part novella for the Return to Ravnica block and Jenna Helland’s 2-part novella for the Theros block were released. The first two Anthologies, Tapestries and Distant Planes, were published by Harper Fantasy, while the others have been published by Wizards of the Coast.
Is Magic: The Gathering the hardest game?
Magic: The Gathering, a card game where wizards cast spells, summon creatures, and exploit magic objects, has been proven to be impossible to determine the winner. The game, which has a deck of 60 cards with varying powers, is similar to role-playing fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons but has significantly more cards and complex rules. This raises the question of where Magic falls in complexity among real-world games, as it is not a hypothetical game that game theorists usually consider.
📹 The Entire* Magic the Gathering Story in 10 mins
Really it’s more like “Most of the Major Elements of Some of the MTG Story, At Least Enough to Get By for a New Player, But Hey at …
I was so incredibly saddened when Slobad didn’t make an appearance in Scars of Mirrodin block, just being allowed to die offscreen. But March of the Machine makes me wish he’d stayed down. He shows up in a bonus story with no mention whatsoever of his old life and the potential of his amazing story arc just gets tossed away into obscurity. You could replace Compleated Slobad with literally any nameless Phyrexian and the story wouldn’t change a bit, and that’s absolutely a crime.
Thank goodness the story ended after phyrexia won an ultimately phyrric victory. Oh boy am i sure glad that nasty urza guy got what was coming to him and nothing else bad ever happened because of his actions. It sure would be a shame is phyrexias influence were to expand beyond attacking dominaria, but thank goodness the story ended there! Thanks for the concise article spice!
1:09:45 You do really good research Spice, but I do not blame you for missing the story where… Nahiri wasn’t de-sparked like how the Invasion Tree fucked up the rest of the walkers. She lost it herself after she put her spark into an artifact and then because of her mental trauma and a surprise, she lost control and destroyed the artifact. She just straight up singlehandedly deleted her most powerful characteristic
I was always under the impression that Urabrask’s whole deal was “Compleation is awesome, but as an embodiment of RED Phyrexia, I’m partially defined by freedom, so I don’t want to force people to accept it… Even if I think they’re totally missing out by not having bitchin’ robot arms.”. (Like Atraxa, who doesn’t have red ’cause he was all “She didn’t consent, I don’t want any part in this.”) Which I think is awesome, and is why I hope he survived MoM somehow. Sure, he was bleeding out, limbless, and left on the floor to die, but we all know that if we didn’t see the actual moment of death, Wizards probably aren’t willing to stop producing products with him. Also, him being the only surviving praetor would re-contextualize “All will be one”, changing it from “All planes will be part of Phyrexia” to “All of Phyrexia will serve a single leader instead of 5 fractured ones.” And I wanna see some heroic Phyrexians, some horrible looking monstrosities that are actually good guys, going around going “Hey, we noticed you’re getting old/have an incurable illness/got maimed in a battle, we can cure that! With compleation! Come got bitchin’ robot arms!” It could make Slobad a hero again…
This was excellent. If I can make some notes: The book was pretty explicit that Commodore Guff can’t rewrite the story only edit it. So he doesn’t rewrite the end of the Invasion saga as he wants it to go, only erasing everything written down. Freeing the characters from their respective ends and letting them make their choices rather than being bound to fate. But I guess “Guff Fervently Drafts History” doesn’t make as good a card name. I’m a wee little bit sad my boy Chainer didn’t get a mention, since I kinda think Torment was the best book WotC released. But I understand things got to be compressed for time. Here is a take that most probably won’t agree with at all. But when I read WotS: Forsaken and got to the infamous Chandra part my initial response was: Yeah, comfortably straight people don’t have intense inner turmoil about how they’re totally straight for the opposite gender all the time. Totally. This girl is failing to come to terms that she’s gay, or bi. I was actually somewhat surprised by the response from people who took her at face value. And even more surprised when I heard the author said he added that part because higher ups told him to make her straight. So I was reading subtext that truly was not meant to be there. I legitimately thought it was going to be the start of a Chandra comes to terms with her sexuality arc. And it kinda was. Well. Not so much an arc as just announcing she’s in love with Nissa now. But we’ll take it, I guess. I also 100% agree with your take on the disappointment with MotM.
I remember the first time I saw one of Spice’s articles. It was the Story in 10 minutes and I thought it slapped so God damn hard that I had to subscribe, even if it was likely just a one hit wonder from a really small YouTuber. And now we’re here. One of the largest MTG creators on the platform. I’m honored to have been lucky enough to experience the entire journey, and I’m so excited for the next half a decade. Thank you for all you do, Spice 8 Rack.
This was an awesome article. It was filled with epiphany moments of me going “ohhh I never realized that’s what was happening in this card” or “I never recognized that this object shows up in this card also” and things like that. I am also grateful that I didn’t have to do all this research myself lmao
Tezzeret did need that darksteel body because the Planar Bridge was slowly killing him, but he still definitely overdid the whole “helping the cyborg monstrosities” thing. In any case, brilliant work throughout. Seeing how the various “thousands of years ago” events line up is especially fascinating.
The “shadowy watchers” in the March of the Machine story were Angels. They hadn’t all materialised at that point, they were waiting for their moment or something. Realmbreaker allowed them to leave New Capenna to join the fight across the Multiverse, turning the tide, even though no one could see them. Also, the spirit of Serra resurrected Elspeth as an angel while in the blind eternities. Oh and Kaya slew Heliod.
There is actually a reason given for why Emrakul sealed herself in the moon, though it is a bit complicated and dives into the nature of the Eldrazi and their existence. There are a few inferences made here for things that aren’t explicitly stated, but based on things we know. This is essentially the Vorthos community consensus. Basically the Eldrazi are giant living world recycling machines and while they do have some sort of alien consciousness, they can’t really help doing what they do. Also each of the trio fulfils a specific purpose: Ulamog processes a planes matter into raw material to be used in the reconstruction of the world, Kozilek essentially reformats the plane’s time-space continuum into a blank state and Emrakul comes in at the end and uses the resources created by the other two to create new life on the plane before they depart. Since Ulamog and Kozilek weren’t there anymore, Emrakul couldn’t do her job and was just kind of drifting around purposelessly, mutating preexisting lifeforms rather than creating genuine new ones. She understood that she wasn’t acting according to her purpose, so as to stop doing that (and because whatever made the Eldrazi/caused them to exist probably either gave them a survival instinct or just made it impossible for them to off themselves for security reasons) she sealed herself in Innistrad’s moon.
My personal head fanon about the whole “forgetting how to oil” was a result of Elesh Norn having to brilliant idea of adding chronic amnesiac Jace Belern into the psychic group chat. Although in all seriousness despite how overall underwhelming it was I did very much enjoy the short of Innistrahd getting invaded and my too favorite characters in all of magic Gisa and Geralf competing to see who can best reanimate eldrazi corpses to fight them off
As someone who never really got into MTG lore, you did a great job of giving a glimpse into the inner pain WOTC and Hasbro are inflicting to you. To me MTG is a hobby that is simply getting to expensive to invest into regularly. But to someone invested to the lore it is much more of a inner conflict. It’s a story you want to see continue/conclude with a satisfying end. It’s a whole alternate world you have grown to love. Seeing something so carefully crafted being carelessly discarded…
This seems like the best place to put this. I firmly believe that in the original script for War of the Spark Elesh Norn was intended to be Radiant and Elspeth was Serra or Serra’s daughter. It makes the whole story fit together so much better, ties it in to the old stories they were pulling from, and gives the whole thing actual emotional weight. Think about it. Radiant, who was Serra’s number 2 and was put in charge of her Domain while she was working with Urza mainly struggled with fear. She was so scared of threats she entombed herself in a nest of cameras and ultimately destroyed the plane because she was so scared of Urza and Phyrexia and everyone outside. This dovetails really nicely with what we see happening with Elesh Norn in the story. She’s built a world where everything is stable and nothing can surprise her again. That’s why she wants to make everything Phyrexian. We even know that her driving motivation is fear because Ashiok says it in one of the first stories. It covers everything that doesn’t quite make sense in the story. It covers the whole Phyrexian oil being centralized thing because Elesh Norn is paranoid. She needs to be the one in control, even to her downside. It even covers why Radiant got a random full art card in Modern Horizons 2 which would have been around when they were writing this story which would remind players she existed. This would also explain why it’s Elspeth who can kill her. If her mother really is Serra which makes sense with the whole doesn’t know her mother angel refugee thing then its Serra’s power that can unmake her.
Wait wait wait wait…. They specifically set up Vivien having the Arkbow, a spirit summoning bow made to kill Bolas, that Tashiro Unezawa once killed Bolas with a bow, Satoru Umezawa i assume being some sort of tattooed spirit summoner on Kamigawa, Viviens home being blown up by bolas AND DIDNT PAY THIS OFF???? Like you could at least pay that off as failing… Like connect Satoru and Vivien… Give Satoru Viviens Arkbow by like…. Idk desparking Vivien, then Satoru tries to use it and demons to kill Bolas and it literally just fails cuz of bullshit. At least it acknowledges part of MtGs history
As someone who followed Warcraft’s story for many years, to see it rough shod into a contrived ending in Shadowlands made me really sad. I just came to Magic after 10 years (I think the last set I played before this year was Dragon’s Maze) and I missed a lot of story. Invasion block was still the best, IMO.
I want to say thanks specifically to all of the Patrons that enabled the creation of this article. And thank you all also for making Spice8 read all of your ridiculous names, lol. Also I suppose the article itself is okay. Seriously though, awesome article. Highly informative and highly entertaining. I will definitely be coming back and listening to this one again.
Spice, let me just say mate you have a wonderful sense of humour and that this article is amazing!! I honestly lost count (not that I was really counting to begin with, but still…) how many times I had a good chuckle at all your little jokes and side comments during this article, it was awesome! Keep up the great work! 😂💯🔥
I really wish they would go back to 3-set blocks. Some stories just can’t be told in a single set. Imagine if all of Tarkir block was one set. Flipping through a card pack, the general gist of the world would be incoherent. “Oh the dragons are extinct. But this is a dragon? And this snake lady is on two cards, and she’s a zombie on one of them?” Kaldheim is a great example of what we lose in the compression of the narrative. Ten unique worlds full of stories, compressed to a single set. That’s like all of ravnica block in a single set, except worse. Just imagine a 3-set Kaldheim. Imagine the enemy-colored realms Kaldheim, the first set. Then ally-colored realms in Omenpath Runners, the second set. Then it all comes together in a big climactic clusterheck of a battle in Doomskar, the third set. But what do I know? I just care about storytelling.
For those curious about Nicol Bolas releasing the eldrazi titans, Bolas needed the sparks from a multitude of Planeswalkers to reach god hood and he thought bringing the three together on Zendikar would be enough, but it wasn’t. He then went on his way to plan to make a beacon on Ravnica to force all Planeswalkers there and use the immortal sun to make sure they couldn’t escape. He then used to elder spell to despark and achieve god good for like 5 minutes. If you look up “Saga of Bolas” it tells you his entire story up to him being imprisoned after the war of the spark. Definitely watch for you other lord lovers
My personal pet peeve about the story is how the writers just seem to have forgotten about Narset. She was a nicely written autistic character who seemed like she had a lot of plot potential, with her plot both linking her to Nicol Bolas and her being good friends with Tamio, but the main thing they did with her after she went planeswalks was entirely unrelated to all of that and basically just served to reverse the character development she got between the tarkir timelines and make her Jeskai again.
I’m someone who first started fumbling around with my father’s cards (a gigantic pile of secondhand draft chaff from Fallen Empires – Onslaught) at the age of 7, and simply never stopped. My foundational memories of engaging with MTG have very little to do with the story threads woven through the lore, and much more with the suggestions of story and import given on the cards themselves. Getting into EDH in 2020, buying singles for the first-time after playing for decades, and actually paying attention to the story as the latest Phyrexian invasion kicked off… has ended up being really disillusioning overall. I still love the game, and will keep buying cards, holofoils and proxies alike. But there’s something that makes me immensely jealous of that younger me, the one who still hadn’t looked behind the curtain, and a certain magic lost. It feels like a profoundly sad and poignant example of growing up in such a commercialized state. Loving the article, but boy has it reinforced the idea that the only way I’ll keep playing this game I’ve played for almost my entire life – is if I start ignoring WoTC releases. Cheers.
This article was too long. Halfway through it, I got hungry so I left it playing and went to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. But then I found out that I’m out of mayonnaise so I went to a store. There, I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my whole life. But I’m a really shy person so I took up a three-year personality development course so I could introduce myself. She was very friendly and all, but unfortunately, she had a boyfriend. So I said, all good, I’m a mature person. I wanted the best for her and I harbored no illusion that I am the best person for her and she seemed happy with her boyfriend, so I didn’t bother her anymore. But we kept in touch and we became friends and I got over my crush on her. Then she broke up with her boyfriend, we drank some alcohol because of it. I told her she’ll be fine and I wished her well. I still think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, but like I said, I am over my crush on her. It was like five years already since I first saw her. Besides, I am quite happy with the friendship I developed with her. It was more important than a crush. So we kept hanging out, drinking, having coffee, and all. I had a girlfriend, she started dating other guys. My girlfriend wanted to live some other life without me in it, so I said, “Okay, I want the best for you and I want you to pursue your happiness.” My lady friend and I drank alcohol about it, and she gave me the same advice I gave her when she was in that position and I became okay with the breakup immediately.
Cant wait for an update to this in the future where in the beginning something about the Fomori (whatever happens in cannon) which is over the top and obusrd. Then the Oltec sealing themselves in inner Ixalan because of the Mycotyrant. Also just randomly in the middle we add Marina accidentally unleashing Valgavoth on all of Duskmourn. And then maybe the future implications of Ugin needing to be killed because of the dragonstorm unleashing dragons on every plane because of the omenpaths and as a result of his death(?) Nicol bolas coming back to power- or not idk… Did Tamiyo like tell the stories about her sealing away Emrakul in the moon to the cultists of Valgavoth? Cause that would be bad if that happened- anyway can’t wait!
I just really need to mention something that you missed but not really. Sarkhan was originally supposed to be a temur shaman, this was back when he was first introduced in Shards of Alara. Dragons weren’t entierly extinct from Tarkir but just mostly. And he was part of a group that worshipped them. That’s why he’s gruul back there, despite green not being part of his “colour” if he was supposedly Mardu. He, and Tezzeret most notably, are part of the “fun” club of characters where they’ve been almost entierly retconed but someone at Wizards didn’t get the memo and are still both writing and designing them based on their original story drafts. That’s why Sarkhan, Unbroken is Temur coloured – that was what he was always supposed to be.
A great recap, really nice article. Mtg has a great lore, but sometimes it has to fall to the business necessities. And this sucks, like the event of the turn off of all phyrexians after the Norns defeat and New Phyrexian phased out. No one of the readers axpected this Indipendence Day end, cause there was no one clue of it. Was just a situation like “lets rise the shit up the airs for the good guys and than let them rise up clean and shinyng” like Avengers Endgame, but in the wrong way.
Cataloguing my favourite things about this article to enthuse with my Friends about later Important characters not having cards still after like 30 years is really funny to me Guff has the power of meta storytelling The fey girl who im going to scrub back in the article to find her has a crazy ability (maralen of the mourn song) Could you imagine in commander “my commanders ability is no one draws anymore you only tutor” absolute chaos V Vivian having the “bow of bolas slaying” being completely forgotten about during the avengers endgame fight against nicol bolas Professor onyx being secretly lilliana the whole time????? I always wondered why ob-nixilis was “captive” but it’s because he cant planeswalk anymore that makes sense
Ya know, I love Lim Dûl. Sure, hes not that prevolent in the story but I liked him in the stories he was in. So for them to make him the Raven Man is a bad omen to me. After everything they’ve done with the modern story, I’m scared to what they’ll do to my boy. I’m pretty sure he died on Shandalar anyway so how is his spirit even still around??? Also, Marsil gives STRONG David Bowie as the Goblin King vibes
So…. When do we get an update on the Friends list now that Gix, Commadore Guff, and a few others have gotten cards? Also, appreciate this article so much. I’ve tried explaining lore to people but my ADHD makes me go into tangents about various characters and several hours later I haven’t even reached Amonket yet.
I hope Slivers are a huge part of the story going forward. seeing them invade multiple realms and really put that adaptive ability of theirs to work would be amazing. Heck, we can give them a planeswalker that communed with the Hivemind in an attempt to stop them and got overtaken by them as a result! LET THE NOODLES BE PLOT RELAVANT WOTC!
I’ve been playing since the 90s. I was excited recently when BRO, MOM, and ONE came out. A lot of old names and themes popped up again. But to hear it’s just kind of done (such as the phyrexians)…that’s disappointing. I miss the blocks that would complement each other in story/themes but also gameplay mechanics. MOM and ONE could have been part of an epic block, I bet.
‘tubers at this level don’t read comments, so this is for who will… Whoa! You (tried) made sense of a story!? …well done! Where is slivers? (I’m only 1/3 into the article, and you’re already on PlaneaWalkers…slivers were old hat when PlanesWalkers came in…you mentioned Eldrazi once…and a sliver has yet to be)
Us all: well, I hope they learn their lesson after LITERALLY EVERYONE hating March of the Machine and do a better job with future sets– Wizards of the Coast, literally the next set: hey, how about telling this WHOLE story in only 5 chapters? Us: at least we can rely on the side stories WotC: nope, not this time Us: …I suppose there won’t be that many new characters or plots going on then WotC: actually we have 9 new legendary creatures who are not even mentioned in any chapter Us: what–
March of the Machine was so anticlimactic. Imagine the hype with All will be One: The Phyrexians just bypassed their most problematic restrictions. Every drop of glistening oil is capable of corrupting entire worIds while containing phyrexian culture (Including their sick writing system) I would expect one set for each invaded plane…
Yeah even some of the plains on battles should absolutely have been conquered. Do they honestly expect us to believe that Segovia successfully fought off Phyrexia? I know Segovia has angels that would have received Halo but even a Halo empowered Segovian Angel would probably only be like a 2/2 at most.
I was so excited to watch this. I got less than one minute into it when I realized the caption should have read, “The entire history of magic told as an inside joke for people who already know the entire history of magic and if you don’t already know everything then you’ll hear ‘just kidding’ so much that you unsubscribe from the website altogether”…but then again that is a terribly long name and might make it difficult to monetize. Anywho, carry on 😘
So I’m about half n hour in, having payed close attention, replaying sections when I missed something and making sure to get everything. I remember literally no proper nouns except Ravnica, and Forexian, and the only plot point I remember is that eugenics and genocide happened like all the time everywhere by and to everyone for little if any reason. Oh and plainswalkers are kind of like mutants in x-men in terms of how they “get” their powers, except their powers are godlike instead. I am entirely serious that this is everything I remember, when I try to remember more I just think of character names from dying earth and places in the forgotten realms.
Spice8Rack my themperor I have loved your content ever since I randomly stumbled upon your goblin article, your choice which one and I just have to say thank you for making entertaining content and being a It/Them just like me frfr except the It is a they and the them is them. Point is commander gameplay show when? (The previous thing was a joke I am bad at knowing whether or not people understand when jokes are jokes so sorry for explaining that that was a joke)
I started reading up on a lot of the mtg story in late 2019, and the fact I can keep up with the majority of all these events is pretty wild. For just over an hour, you definitely covered a lot of ground! Just wish the main storyline the last few years has fallen into what it has, though at least some of the side stories still slap
I’m…. Not mad that they god rid of the Phyrexian Oil thing. I’mma be real; thirty years is a long time to keep playing the same tune, and I can’t imagine anyione was looking forward to “uh oh what beloved world is getting ruined by those delightful biomechanical scamps this time?!” in five more expansions. It’s fine to end a plotline. It’s essential, in fact, else you just end up with… uh… remastered sets I guess. Anyway, now it’s time for MOON CTHULHU!
Idk i’m pretty sure Wizards/Hasbro will bring back Phyrexia just for more fanservice and… well… beacuse they are THE VILLAINS of Magic… OR they would print a set about the OutRealm of Jeis Vrooh Ruled by Greedy Omnipotent beings whom wants to own the entire multiverse and create new Twisted Realms with no lore sense like IDK a Barney the Dinosaur Realm or whatever they get the rights for XD
42:45 dont forget that gatewatch inadvertently doomed the multiverse as the eldrazi are actually the gardeners that help new plains grow as they repurpose dying planes… all the death and destruction they cause is because they were baited and lured to zendikar and innastrad… places NOT dying… and on innastrad emerakul just passivly changed the plane… as she is the last part of the eldrazi reformatting process… her life brining powers mutated the current lifeforms on said plane… good work gatewatch… ya doomed the multiverse to a slow heat death…
2:46 “Oh No.” I had to pause the article for a bit as this made me giggle way too much. Dude, this is actually a very well done timeline. I have been a fan and playing magic since 1993, I remember standing outside on that special day when the comics shop opened and just a week or two previous the owner talking about this new card game thing. Some of the regulars who were able to attend GenCon that year had returned with some cards. We wanted it. We waited in the cold for it. Until the last couple years, I have been a huge fan and very interested in the lore. If Hasbro can stop their meddling, I think MtG can be a decent game again.
I feel Greg gets way too much hate for the WotS novels when it was most likely more of a fault with how wiz managed the story and made him do this and that making it less of a greg book and more of a Wiz executive’s book with some words done by greg. Similar to how Marvel Movies are done. I cant see it being Greg mainly bec his past work is very good and stuffs he’s mention outside of ndas seems to allude to wiz just messing everything up.
I have over the years made comments on the MTG youtube website about how we needed actual cards for the big villanous planeswalkers like Yawgmoth and Tevesh Szat…and eventually we got them. But I also said we needed one for Leshrac, but to this day theres still never been one officially. THeres “Minions of Leshrac” from back in Ice Age, and chants or oaths, but thats it. HES STILL SUPPOSEDLY ALIVE TOO! lol Good article and funny way to show the history of MTG. ^~^
I stopped playing Magic juuust as Forsaken launched. …10 bucks says the watchers are Ugin and Bolas, THEY WERE BOTH URZA ALL ALONG SPLIT INTO GOOD AND BAD VERSIONS OF THEMSELVES AND REINCARNATED AS FUCKING DRASGONS BEFORE THE ORIGINALS WERE EVEN BORN FOR SOME REASON BECAUSE THE MAGIC STORY TEAM THESE DAYS IS LIKE THAT, And they team up to fight Emrakul or something when we inevitably go back to innistrad and everyone’s screaming again.
When wizard set out phyrexia to be back i Always thought that they could have used emrakul (the eldrazy connected to biological matter) as She decided to get sealed, so during phyrexia invasion the Moon get cracked and emrakul Is freed and corrupt the robotic part of phyrexia back with biology….now i know i overestimated wizard
Hasbro’s, and WOTC’s quiet compliance to their, demands is why I am giving up on magic. Competitive is nonexistent, casual is basically commander and the never ending cameos of non MTG IPs, I feel like a Star Wars fan who grew up on the originals and despises anything released by the new owning company. However, I feel in this instance it’s allowed.
This article is really amazing. Understood and Love Mtg way more now. And i can understand more why most Mtg fans hate the constant Universes Beyond Crossovers. I do agree now that Wizards of the Coast or even Hasbro needs to slow down these sets and start the more Original story driven ones again. Though i still do really love the Crossovers, i get it from here now too.
MTG went from Historical Mythology to Horrid Loner Edgelord to ‘My 9 year old wrote this!’ Everything post Edgelord (Legacy Weapon) is kind of bland, uninspired and carries almost no ‘through threads’ just random Mary Sues and pedantic humor. As for the Tardis joke about the Weatherlight; it was actually supposed to be able to travel through time, and erase an event. (Gerrard’s Hourglass Pendant that he gave to Pol Cordel) Legacy items also have better names in Italian. Skyshaper -> Skyshifter Null Rod -> Rod of Nullification Weakstone -> Stone of Debilitation Mightstone -> Stone of Vigor
Such a brilliant article! Thank you so much for this magnificent deep dive you’ve absorbed me in for a few minutes (wait, more than an hour you say? Shit! My diner might be as burnt as it could be if Chandra cooked it xD). Let’s hope for the best for Magic’s lore future…even though, as always, the “Mow-nee” Demon is sneaking around, ready to f*** things up… Anyway, congratulations for the 100k, keep up the awesome content, and wish you the best! 🤗
Somewhere in the late 99s/early 00s I picked up Francis Leberon’s Mercadian Masques novel. I always thought that novel painted a cool, new world to explore. I never went back to any more books (wasn’t as easy to find them back in the day). This was fun to listen to. Thanks and I’ll check out more of your stuff
I enjoyed this article a lot but I will say the one thing I was surprised at (given the multiple completely justified asides about “Wow WotC just doesn’t fucking care about narrative consistency or established in-world rules at all anymore do they?”) was an absence of absolutely roasting WotC and their writers for how the glistening oil and phyresis have just been inconsistent deus ex plot devices since the end of the Invasion block. How the oil works is changed whenever necessary to facilitate the next bit of plot involving Phyrexia being the comic book villain that’s never allowed to die because they’re too hard to replace. The Phyrexian Oil, the Plague, and Phyresis have been some of the single most infuriating narratively inconsistent and incoherent things in Magic lore since the original Mirrodin block. How does the oil work? Why however this writer needs it to work in this story for it to progress the meta-arc in a ways that leads to Phyrexia winning and being generally unstoppable. What if the way it works in this story is the opposite of how it worked in a previous story and if it worked back then like it does now, the stuff that happened back then literally wouldn’t have happened? DON’T ASK QUESTION BUY PACKS! CONSUME! Does oil turn metal to flesh and flesh to metal or turn all flesh to metal? Don’t ask questions. Man Karn was a non-walker for, like, a long time before he was a walker. Xantcha’s powerstone was in him for a long time but it started dripping just after he became a walker?
In regard to the shutdown of phyresis when phyrexia is no longer in the multiverse, it has happened before. It happened once at the end of the thran war, it happened again when The shard of the 12 realms was created at the end of the Brothers war. At both of those points in history, any phyresis on those realms became inert. This is referenced on many occasions in the novels. This is why the dragon engines were inert when Mishra found them. I theorize that the effect happens at the moment of the event, in the event of the end of the thran war, it only affected dominrea because dominarea was the only place that had phyresis at the time of that event. Whereas, at the moment of the 12 shards event, they were probably on multiple realms and stopped functioning. Since phyrexia was connected to the entire multiverse via realm breaker, they were all present during the event, thus, rendered inert. This is doubly so due to elish norn being killed And phyrexia being exiled from the multiverse. The connection was completely severed. An additional note is that most of the phyrexians are just mindless drones. There is a possibility of a higher functioning or fully sentient being still being alive/ functional. Something I forgot on my first run on this, there was a third time, when yogmoth died. Just my personal head Cannon on this.
Just finished perusal this all, Love your approach to telling the story of magic. going to share it with a few people. Your lack of Slivers being mention however displeases me… but you did mention my beloved MTG waifu emrakul, so Ill call it even. And really? did they really completely forget the mirari?