Thank you INTO THE AM for these Elevated Everyday Graphic Tees! Get yours now and get 10% off site-wide when you click the link below: intotheam.com/MagicArcanum
I'm just glad that Heliod is gone. That God was a complete jerk, from start to finish, and after what he did to Elspeth, he deserves to cease to function.
@@jacob4920 I actually wanted him to get a redemption story, those are quite rare in magic since the last decade. Everything feels like if it is in a static karma, none of the good guys goes over the edge and none of the villians have a real reveleation over their actions.
@@MrAzulmagia And I just wanted to see comeuppance, which I personally got. Overall, though, your argument is mostly right about Magic's story writing. Although Gideon (ultimate sacrifice) and Liliana (overall character turn) are two notable exceptions to this. We need to see more of that kind of stuff.
@@jacob4920 I love those two examples. Gideon was always the quintessential boyscout and sacrificing himself sooner or later was his inevitable outcome, but he knew that all along. Liliana was an evil(?) mage that did a lot of questionable things in her quest to get away from the consequenses of her own actions. But after WotS, even when she got the freedom she was looking for all this time, seeing someone else willingly take the fall for her actions broke her.
We do actually hear about Sorrin during the Innistrad side story, he is the "very strange man, even by local standards, with white hair and a cold manner" that visited Ludevic. I can only assume he was off by the Markov family manor or wherever Thalia and Gitrog were teaming up.
New Capenna is a favorite plane of mine, but honestly, it featured in the main story. They could have used that slot for another plane as a side story.
It's a crime we got a side story for frickin' New Capenna, which only got 1 set and is probably not that popular in the community, while Theros, a plane we've been to for A WHOLE BLOCK and one SET a few years later (a set with a mess of a story bigger than even MOM, mind you), got only a few glimpses and mentions despite the fact AJANI HIMSELF coordinated the invasion there PLUS the way the plane itself was conquered was unique - they compleated the gods by compleating their followers. And then there was Kaya which out of nowhere appeared there and managed to kill HELIOD HIMSELF... Sorry for this, but it's really mindblowing how bad they screwed this up, even the laughable "rendering inert" part can be somewhat explained... But this?
The whole story about the invasion on Theros is just a giant patchwork. I mean how could Heliod suddenly escape his prison he was sent the last time we were on Theros? And how can Kaya just casually one shot a compleated Heliod, when she struggled to kill Vorinclex, who got killed by a Zylpirian Redshirt without even a card. And yes the plan is great and all that to compleat the followeres and the gods follow because that is how Theros works. But how on earth did nobody try and stop that invasion, especially the gods themselves? Theros is a plane of heroes and the Gods all the time interfere in the mortals lifes but here they just had a day off? I mean Theros is a pretty small plane, so hiding the invasion tree should be impossible. And so on. Yeah Theros got really the short end of the stick in that story.
Cannot put to words how badly New Capenna sucks; it's an absolute flavor dumpster fire, and it has some of the dumbest looking card art I've ever seen.
It genuinely feels like the ending of this storyline was rushed- All these cards that feature things that don't happen... Every plane just winning against the invaders... it feels like there was some sort of interim set that got cut or something honestly. One second Phyrexia was about the invade the multiverse, the next... Elspeth wins?
Spoilers for game of thrones final season Kaya killing heliod had kinda the same energy as arya killing the night king. Some rando who had no prior involvement offing someone who has deep and long story ties to other people who really should have been in front of the line for the kill
Alison _damn_ LÜHRS wrote Vraska's story, and if this is truly her swan song, she hit _every_ note. Seriously, if anyone reads _any_ of these side stories, make it Vraska's.
Not only was the point of view perspective swapping between the version of Vraska a really clever interpretation for how phyrexianizing works in the brain, the attention to detail to actual psychological consciousness is really impressive.
It was my favourite story too, but I get really embarrassed reading any kind of story that uses different font/colour/capitalization to indicate different character/mindsets (In this, Vraska's actual mind fragment and compleated Vraska). I'm not sure why, probably all the Homestuck I've read in the past.
Man, i just wish this was a 2 or even 3 set story. So much more time to actually tell something coherent, build suspense and include these cool moments.
The Vraska story definitely sounds like she woke up and left to me. It didn’t sound like Ral’s weapon vaporized her, just that it killed her. At the very end there’s a bit from Ral’s point of view where it seems that after things calmed down he sent someone to recover Vraska’s body but they couldn’t find anything and arak seemed surprised by that. Why would he send someone to recover her body if he had vaporized it? I’d wager after she “died” the sequestered part of her mind managed to re-exert control and she left, probably to find Jace and find a way to bring him back.
@@keithfilibeck2390 I’m not so sure she spoke to the real Jace, I think it could have been entirely imagined by her, or perhaps it’s a small portion of Jace’s consciousness left behind when he created that partition in her mind.
Yea i dunno how MA got the impression she was vaporized. from what i remember he put some shock like device on her chest and she started to convulse until she apparently died
I’ve gotta say, this story has been a real miss for me. So many details feel underdeveloped or rushed. I really feel this would benefit from a 3 set block, allowing the story to be expanded upon each time. I’m really upset that we never saw some of the compleated creatures, like toski or Koma.
it wasn't even just kaldheim either, Amonkhet literally JUST recovered from the hour of devastation and now they have to deal with a multiversal threat, especially given that innistrad just talked about how phyrexians cannot compleate a dead mind which amonkhet is FULL of thanks to the plane-wide curse of wandering which makes anyone who dies into a zombie. i would think the phyrexians would struggle on amonkhet but we get radio silence. Lorwyn is here but we get nothing on lorwyn's situation at all. Vryn, jace's HOME PLANE is shown to be fighting the phyrexians using the mage ring networks old glitches but no story there despite jace being pretty freaking important. and planes we've never visited show up in this set but we get zero look into how those planes are doing. this set is garbage
I do recall WOTC made a “legends of MoM” page that tells us about some of the team ups and how they came to be, can you in the future look into that? Some of them were really interesting, like Kroxa and Kunoros apparently team up because Athreos noticed Kroxa devoured Phyrexians in the underworld so thoroughly that not even glistening oil remained so he stuck Kunoros on Kroxa to shepherd the elder giant through the underworld and make sure it didn’t escape.
I was waiting for the amonkhet side story. Those guys don't have any rest! XD But i'm happy to see Hazoret teaming with the scarab and locust god. I love how she got a lazotep arm, that one that she lost fighting the Scorpion god.
Yeah, there was lots of cool Amonkhet stuff on the cards, but nothing in the story...bit of a loss if you ask me. I hope we get back to Amonkhet at some point to explore how things have changed now that their society has been revealed as a lie, but Bolas is no longer pulling the strings.
@@Quimusik My opponent in that game had to discard Zetalpa (you know him). And a few turns later, when I transformed Amonkhet's battle card, it becomes an Aura spell that enchants any creatures, in any graveyard. I immediately swiped Zetalpa from the graveyard, for free! That's what I call getting the bang for your buck! lol
I'd really love if we got full blown 250 page books again like what used to come in fat packs. The original ravnica story was great with those books. You got to see way more about what was going on. I'd love to see 1-3 books per set come out. Hell, they could release a book once a month with 3-5 of them just focusing on side stories and building new worlds when we come to them. So much untapped story potential. They have the capital to do it. Cardboard and paper is cheap.
God, I miss the old magic novels. The Ravnica block story was so good, there are *still* characters from those books I would kill to see be made into cards! ...Unfortunately, with how badly War of the Spark got flubbed, a crisp $10 says that Wizards is holding it up as evidence that there's no market for them to publish the full novels anymore.
Well, that should have been at least 2 books, there was still a lot of untold story around all that was happening that could have been fleshed out more.
I gotta say, the Vraska story had me the most. LIke I love seeing all the other planes dealing with the invasion but something about Vraska's internal struggle on top of that wonderful last day with Jace fantasy really had me in my feels. On top of that, the gruesomeness of what was happening around her, her fantasy turning into a wet dream lol, and the mysterious "is she dead or just gone?" part. Ah, I loved all of it and sad to thnk that, thats the last we may get of her and maybe even Jace.
Ixalan was my absolute favorite side story this set. The 11th hour hero shot was so good and it did a really good job at world building I'm also kinda upset we didn't get a Fynn defeating compleated Koma story tbh
How? the entire story was just the writer ignoring how the Oil works. Zetalpa, Zacama, and Huatli's entire entourage should have been infected. Also, Fynn didn't defeat Koma, Tyvar did.
@@sunstrid3r44 "All elves live in the shadow of Koma. Is there any creature better to emulate than a serpent? That is not true of the serpent he sees now." Tyvar's tattoo starts moving when Koma is nearby so there's about 3 flag markers. Sorry man but they double booked Koma's death.
As much as I loved the Vraska story, one thing that felt weird about this set in general is that somehow, out of all the mentions of ravnica, Niv-Mizzet just... isn't present? Like, the most powerful singular entity on the plane who was reborn to fix it the last time shit hit the fan just isn't mentioned??? Was he fighting on the front lines? Organizing a coordinated defense with the guild leaders? What sorts of cool guildpact powers did he invoke? I'm glad the side story's focus was on Vraska, it's just really weird that Ravnica's strongest defender doesn't show up in any capacity in this set and its story.
Just want to say as an adult with ADHD, I find keeping up with all the lore bits so tedious when watching YT vids, other YT creators that focus on magic lore are either so long in getting to the point or don;t catch every detail that matters! I'm so damn grateful I found Magic Arcanum. I read all the stories I can myself, but I miss the odd side story or detail here and there, and it really helps tie it all together. THANK YOU RYAN AND THANK YOU NICOLE! Keep it up!
So do you think emrakul up in her prison was watching with popcorn or with nachos? Plus do you think her choice of soda might be relevant in future sets??? (great vid man keep it up ❤)
Isn't Sorin described in the Innistrad story: " An old associate of Ludevic came to visit recently. He was a very strange man, even by local standards, with white hair and a cold manner. The two of them fought, at length, before the man departed."
If you want to consider an unnamed cameo an appearance, that's fine, but it doesn't tell us anything meaningful about what Sorrin was doing or how he personally fared in the invasion.
My favorite one was on Ixalan. The way Huatli was hella anxious while ascending the steps and how she prayed for the elder dinos to come was touching. And then the elder dinos came and was the most awesome thing ever. I'm still peeved they completed Etali, but I guess it was necessary. I'm also peeved they gave us NOTHING on Tarkir. Come on guys, it's the plane of DRAGONS! Kaiju battles are always awesome damn it. On that note, the fact that we didn't get mecha fight on Kamigawa seems to me like a massive wasted opportunity. On the other hand, I'm happy at least one of the apexes of Ikoria got some spotlight on it.
Now that the March is over, I think a great video would be a full recap of all known planeswalkers. IE Location, Alive/Dead/Missing, Last thing they were doing is resolved/unresolved, Last card printed
I think it would be more appropriate to do that after The Aftermath expansion, as there is still a bit more story to tell, and the fate of many planeswalkers is still unknown but might be revealed in about a month.
Let’s be honest, phyrexian oil and halo just do whatever the plot need them to. Nahiri gets one scratch on her neck and she’s infected, Ajani is anointing people with it, and constructs on Kaladesh are turning against their creators after getting some of it splashed on them but Zecama takes some bites out of Etali and it’s completely fine somehow.
I think the only way to make that 'mothership down, drones deactivate' thing work at all is to claim that Elesh Norn did something to 'unite' the oil in a way that had this side effect. And that it is *temporary*. Any oil that isn't vaporized after the 'deactivation' should come back later on as it reverts from Elesh Norn's orthodoxy.
2:52 No, Quint took up Rootha's portion of the spell as she defends the team from a phyrexian faculty; since Quint can't read two spells at once, he instead keeps reading his own spell while pouring his raw magic into Rootha's spell, and the stress overloads him.
So combining their magics to cast the spell does lead to Quint's spark igniting. I didn't say anything untrue. Sometimes I have to abbreviate events to keep these videos at a watchable length, but if anyone wants the full experience they can always go read the stories on their own, right?
@@sevranararis7704 Pretty sure that's exactly the problem. He's this random dude that is never relevant to any of the stories he shows up in (even on his home plane), and so each of his cards feels like they would've been better served being just about anything else.
Giada helps Errant in another part of the story, and Anhelo being Errant's father was revealed in the New Capenna side stories (where he almost gets assassinated by the cabbie driver on his way to her wedding)
I think in an earlier version of my script the emphasis was more on "We learn Anhelo, who is Errant's father, was compleated" but over the course of some revisions I lost that thread and forgot we already knew their relation so I reworked it into what I said in this video. My mistake. (Though to be fair I also say I don't really care for New Capenna so it should surprise nobody if I miss a detail from that set's side stories) Where did we see Giada and Errant together, though?
I think there was an implecation that Elspeth transcending into an angel somehow supercharged the halo/angels across the multiverse. Its around the time she makes her decision that all of the angels magic starts hitting harder. They never really explain it, but that was what I infered at the very least
If anything I got the opposite impression. It felt like Serra was telling Elspeth she could pick one place to intervene, and everywhere else would likely suffer for her absence, or at least be forced to fight without her help. If the angels were going to become supercharged anyway, it means Elspeth's choice had a lot less weight to it - she wasn't giving up her worldly desires or putting the good of the multiverse above favored planes like Theros; she got to have it all, without really making any self-sacrifices.
I personally feel like March should have focused on the invasions, the wars, the feeling of fear and hoplessness from the set, and expanded further on that, while the next set before we return to Eldraine, ironically the set that came after the last Endgame equivalent event War of the Spark, could be about the second half of March. Starting with Elspeth's moment and continuing further, and expanding on that as well. It all felt rushed into one set.
While, in the moment, I agree the Tazri and Linvala moment was a little 'what the?' I do feel that the followup with the Archangels of Capenna traveling out into the multiverse and spreading their power was a satisfying answer. It just means these moments were happening concurrent in the story even if the story didn't spell it out. If anything it becomes one of my favored moments of the story because it makes the reader pose a question *and* follows it up within the same arc with a satisfactory answer. Not something we get very often anymore....
My problem here is that Linvala glowed a little bit earlier on, and then much more during the fight with Nahiri. If we take that to mean it was thanks to the angels of New Capenna arriving, then it means the characters fighting Nahiri had basically no agency of their own. The angels didn't even have to be in the room to affect the battle there. I would much prefer it if Linvala and Tazri somehow "dug deep" and found the strength to defeat the planeswalker ruining their home, rather than some off-screen angels giving them the edge they needed as they zip by on their way to the main confrontation on New Phyrexia.
@@MagicArcanum it's less that the angels of Capena directly interfire and more that they teached Linvala how to make and use Halo, knowledge that she used in the battle with Nahiri
When would they have had time to teach her that? And if they did, why was she surprised by the power suddenly radiating from herself? I find it much more likely that the angels arrived on the plane as the group was assaulting the skyclave, and as part of their Surge of Salvation (story spotlight card) it "somehow" unlocked extra powers in Linvala, Tazri, and any other angels/people with a halo on the plane (we just didn't get to see any of them, because we were contained to the room hosting the battle against Nahiri.)
@@MagicArcanum she has a Halo manifestation before the final battle "With a collective gasp, the elementals stagger back, confused and alarmed. Tazri looks and sees Linvala radiating with light and charging forward" and then she dodges the question of what happend "I glimpsed the exit a mere moment before the elementals arrived," replies Linvala with a sly smile. But that isn't what Tazri was asking. The angel's light . . ." she showed to know what she was doing. Even in the final battle the one surprised is Tazri (who had an anglel halo on her neck) and not Linvala. "Tazri looks down and is stunned to find that she is shining with an incandescent glow, too, the halo about her neck brighter than ever before."
@@pascalsimioli6777 how the hell you came to this conclusion? Linvala got late and was secretive of what took her so long, after that in both situations that she used Halo it was implied to be her conscience choice (see my sencond coment). The story of the march of the machines has several problems but complaining about a moment of 'show not tell' weakens your position.
@@MagicArcanum I mean that is a trivial distinction. They have never done an article like that so it could be treated as side stories with no problem. Is it canon? Yes.
They do articles like that all the time. They often accompany Commander deck releases and give us a little paragraph about the legends who are the face cards for those decks. I will admit these short biographies do count as canon, but they are a far cry from being part of the actual story. They are an admission that they created cards that didn't appear in the story, but had to address it, and so they do with minimal effort.
Invasion of Amonkhet shows Hazoret fighting alongside the Scarab and Locust gods. I have to wonder what exactly is going on there and why we didn’t get anything there. I need me some more Amonkhet.
I wonder if you are going to do a short vid on all the small tidbits of lore we got from wotc like the lore vid on MTG arenas TH-cam page and the article with short 1 paragram stories for each team up card.
I was really invested in the Strixhaven side, cause I was really fond of the atmosphere, and the feeling that the story matters in this part of Invasion. In the set, we saw Liliana has finally changed after decades of mischievous-cliché-wandering around, and now we have one of the best chars who ignites his own spark! Love it, love Quint!
The thing I love about Vadrok melting Lukka is, not only did he melt to nothing, but as the Mythos of Vadrok describes, all MEMORY of Lukka is melted away too. Literally nobody will remember Lukka, the huge fuck up.
Vraska's story was definitely the highlight of this set for me. Her pain and regrets really come through in a touching way. The vague finale is a nice little cherry on top of it all.
A little surprised that for the New Capenna side story, you mention that we learn that Anhelo is Errant's father. We already had learned that from the side stories from New Capenna as Anhelo was preparing for Errant's wedding with Parnesse. I didn't really fully comprehend the ending of Vraska's story. Yes, it was made clear that all that was happening was in the safe zone made by Jace in her mind. But then when it was revealed that there was no body left behind, we can only assume that she had planeswalked away. Perhaps Ral's blood electrifier weapon wasn't able to take her out completely, but perhaps burned away all the oil from her body, effectively curing her. I'm curious if you'll mention the actual legendary pair cards and how they came about since Wizards so kindly gave us a short little 1-2 paragraph explanation for them all.
I think in an earlier version of my script the emphasis was more on "We learn Anhelo, who is Errant's father, was compleated" but over the course of some revisions I lost that thread and forgot we already knew their relation so I reworked it into what I said in this video. My mistake. (Though to be fair I also say I don't really care for New Capenna so it should surprise nobody if I miss a detail from that set's side stories) And yeah, Vraska's ending seems to be intentionally left open so they have the option to bring her back later if they want, but if they don't, then she got a fitting send off. I'm not really going to talk about the legendary pairs. The main objective of this channel is to recap the actual stories and explain how they relate to cards in the set. Those tiny paragraph explanations are just filler; they are technically canon, but they add nothing to the story, and feel like WotC doing the absolutely minimum to justify having certain cards in a set (they also often do this for Commander deck releases, where they give us a tidbit about the face cards for each new deck.)
For one of the biggest events of Magic, in term of set and story, it is really a 3/10 in term of storytelling in my opinion. (Not talking about the set, because I like it)
How about a video that breaks down every Battle card and what happens (or maybe happens?) in it. I'm a limited player, so I interact with most of the set and while there's a few I recognized and chuckled at (Invasion of Segovia), there's a lot I felt lost on
First off love the video! Second I was wondering if you could answer the question, why did the phyrexians attack every plane and loss? Like why not attack one plane at a time and win by accumulating power that way? Like they were so smart to send the praetors to gather what the needed to invade then dropped the ball harder than I deck box. Was there a story reason given? Or just lazy writing from wotc? Thank you again and keep up the great work on the channel
Based on what we know about Elesh Norn, she wanted to strike everywhere once she had access to the Invasion Tree because she couldn't be sure she'd always have it. She was also very confident in her army's strength, and really, you shouldn't need more than a handful of phyrexians per plane anyway, because each time they defeat a defender, they'd end up switching sides. Given enough time, your army would grow to outnumber the defenders. She obviously didn't count on Elspeth showing up, Jin Gitaxias attacking her directly, and Wrenn taking over the tree. Aside from those (arguably unpredictable events) I think her invasion plan was pretty solid and would have been a sucess.
@@MagicArcanum ok thank you for the reply! It just felt so rushed to me that the phyrexians a menace to the multiverse for years were on the rise striking everywhere but then got taken out by a handful of planes walkers and a small army(compared to the new phyrexia) from zhalfirin. Liked the story, it just felt off that it ended so quickly and relatively speaking concisely. But thank you again!
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who read the Vraska story as her dying at the end; I've seen others saying that the bit with Jace was either physical, or mental but he was actually there, or they planeswalked away together, and thought I was going crazy. The way the two flashes of white light happen in the story seemed to deliberately say that those moments with "Jace" were fleeting milliseconds in her mind as she died. Which makes the "But there wasn't a body!" dramatic stinger at the end frustrating. It doesn't feel mysterious so much as "we haven't decided if Vraska's dead or not, so write it like she's dead, but leave room that she's not." Also, very much hoping for some answers regarding where Jace went, where he is now, and whether he's still Phyrexian (which, with Aftermath's cards spoiled, could be explained in a story, but it seems less likely...)
about Vraska is the old tale " no body no death", Nahiri also fall on this category and she survive, so Vraska is probable alive, my guess is that her mind is free from corruption but her body is still phyrexian
Even though I've read all the MOM story, I love recap videos because it's nice to hear what other people picked up or interpreted from the story. I interpreted the end of the Zendikar story as the "arrival" of the Capenna angels empowering the Zendikari - and that Halo operates differently in different planes. Also, I think that you did Quin a disservice in your Strixhaven summary; Rootha got taken out while casting the spell and Quin took ownership of her part of the spell as well so that The Invocation of the Founders _doesn't_ fail. The beauty of the spell combined with him being overwhelmed by trying to dualcast both Lorehold and Prismari segments of the spell is what causes him to Spark which I feel is an important distinction Finally, I am near 100% certain Jace and Vraska's magical mental getaway wasn't her dying thoughts but part of a mental factory reset being performed by Jace
I am torn about Vraska's story. It is both a fitting send off and a convincing cliffhanger at the same time. If we never hear from her again, that would be okay. If she comes back, but is hindered in some way by half her consciousness being "Rendered Inert", I would be okay with that as well.
Sorin is mentioned in the story! He shows up and talks to Geralf. Geralf mentions in one of his letters a pale man with long silver hair showing up and explaining to him what they are fighting.
If you want to consider an unnamed cameo an appearance, that's fine, but it doesn't tell us anything meaningful about what Sorin was doing or how he personally fared in the invasion.
It’s amazing how Wizard’s can hype up the danger of the phyrexian invasion to such a degree that Jace risking several planes across the multiverse to stop them is almost reasonable. And then, when the invasion comes, just have the phyrexians fall flat on their faces when the people on each plane figure out what is going on. WOTC just excels at taking the wind out of their own sails.
The brilliant Alison Lührs wrote this last Vraska’s story. She wrote the stories from which we know and love the character. Overcoming Trauma, strength, but also emotions and vulnerability. An awesome portrayal as always. Go read it!
The Ravnica story was definitely my favorite. I got the sense that rather than boiling away, the device Ral used functioned like a localized EM pulse that disrupted the oil. Also, the last scene with Vraska has her buried under rubble, a solid callback to her state the first time she planewalked, iirc.
From what's been leaked of Aftermath, I think there's very very strong reason to believe Theros, Kaldheim, and Tarkir will get stories, if that's any consolation.
Ixalan, Ikoria and Innistrad have to easily be my favorite stories to have come out of this set. Admittedly the Ikoria story was a bit hit or miss, but man the way they described the like body horror-y monster Lukka became, especially the scene with the vantasaur just stuck with me. Such a cool tidbit.
7:50 so wait a hot Minute? Zombies are immune to both Emrakul and the Phyrexian Oil? Zombies are becomming the instafix for every problem in the multiverse.
I really wish we had a plane actually fall to Phyrexia. The stories just make the built up threat of the phyrexians seem weak, yeah there were casualties, but overall it felt like all the planes just casually shrugged off the phyrexians in the end.
Thanks for the video. This is a great channel, and I'm happy to have stumbled across it in my TH-cam suggestions. As for the MoM story, I really feel like MTG needs a showrunner and a series bible at this point. Too often the potential of the narrative seems unrealized, and too many plot threads either come to nothing or end up contradicting themselves.
Personally, I found myself enjoying the Ixalan and Strixhaven side stories the most; I really enjoy Quint as a character & genuinely enjoyed seeing Huatli working to summon the other Elder Dinosaurs. My least favorite, I'm sorry to say, was "Rankle, the Master of Love." I just didn't think much of consequence happened - & given that Eldraine is the setting for the next proper Magic set after Lord of the Rings - I feel the space could have been used to show at least one plane that we hadn't seen in a while, like Fiora or Lorwyn.
Also gotta love: Vraska: Presumably KIA, but no-one can find her body... nothing further. Naheri: Squashed like a bug under a falling skyclave... completely fine and uncompleated in Aftermath.
I just discovered your channel and i have to say that you help me to catch up with the main story as i am only interested in Innistrad, a plane that brought me back to Magic. (my last expansion before Innistrad and its 7 sets was Nemesis). I read the Innistrad side story and i have to say that was fun to read how Gisa and Geralf interacted with each other. On the other hand we don't know what happened in others areas but maybe we will have clues in Aftermath or another Innistrad expansion.
There are so many questions from the earlier sets that never got a resolution in MOM. What was the point of The Raven Man/Liliana story or what happened to Jared Carthalion? There’s just so much that WotC doesn’t provide answers for.
These side stories were really enjoyable. The Innistrad is my favorite. Reminds me of the little arguments and competitions I'd get in with my sister, minus the corpses.
My main question is what's gonna happen to the planeswalkers that weren't cured, are they gonna fall dead? Remain loyal to phyrexia somehow? I don't see a third outcome since it took Karn and Melira to cure Ajani and Nissa
Post-mending planeswalkers are probably equal to regular people, so they were all sadly rendered inert by Teferi (presumably). The main counterargument to this point is that Jace one of the game's most profitable icons, but then again Wizards abandoned Jace for Chandra a long time ago in my opinion. It's also not the first time a big mascot character has been straight up written out (*cough* Gideon and Bolas *cough). If this route is taken, there are a bunch of other questions to ask. What is Theros gonna do without three of it's gods? If Omnath is rendered inert, does that mean the Roil goes with him? How is Ravnica going to feed itself when most of the Golgari (if not the entire guild) is gone?
Lukka finally dying because of his arrogance and stupidety was by far my favorite part of the entire story. I hate that character so much. But otherwise, yeah there is so much missing. And yeah Nahiri being crushed under some rocks are not something that implies her being dead enough, as that character survived much worse than that.
i wouldnt survive the hellvault, just to get hit by some stupid rocks. so i also think that she cant be dead. would be rly bad writing if that was the case.
I almost feel like Jace was going to be going after Tezzeret under Norn's orders, but I wouldn't be too certain about that. As for Emrakul, I hardly believe that it would be able to break out of the moon that Tamiyo sealed it in. Also, I doubt the Phyrexians would have much interest in going after something that wouldn't logically have an ounce of life living on it. Of course, Tamiyo may have warned Norn about Emrakul to begin with, and possibly advised to not go after such a creature for her army.
Thank you INTO THE AM for these Elevated Everyday Graphic Tees! Get yours now and get 10% off site-wide when you click the link below:
intotheam.com/MagicArcanum
You dare shit talk -Fantasy New York- New Capana!
Unsub! Down Vote! *Screech!!!*
Ah yes, a classic magic tradition, trying as hard as possible not to write stories on Theros
I'm just glad that Heliod is gone. That God was a complete jerk, from start to finish, and after what he did to Elspeth, he deserves to cease to function.
@@jacob4920 hes going to be back and dab on elsbeth again. cant wait.
@@jacob4920
I actually wanted him to get a redemption story, those are quite rare in magic since the last decade.
Everything feels like if it is in a static karma, none of the good guys goes over the edge and none of the villians have a real reveleation over their actions.
@@MrAzulmagia And I just wanted to see comeuppance, which I personally got. Overall, though, your argument is mostly right about Magic's story writing. Although Gideon (ultimate sacrifice) and Liliana (overall character turn) are two notable exceptions to this. We need to see more of that kind of stuff.
@@jacob4920 I love those two examples.
Gideon was always the quintessential boyscout and sacrificing himself sooner or later was his inevitable outcome, but he knew that all along.
Liliana was an evil(?) mage that did a lot of questionable things in her quest to get away from the consequenses of her own actions. But after WotS, even when she got the freedom she was looking for all this time, seeing someone else willingly take the fall for her actions broke her.
Thank goodness for this channel. All other MTG story channels drone on endlessly. Magic Arcanum is the saving grace of magic lore!
I only watch magic arcanum for story I don't even bother with other channels. Also Ryan just tells the story do well.
Not only drone on and on, but some of them just read the story verbatim from the WotC site. I appreciate Ryan's approach.
This.
We do actually hear about Sorrin during the Innistrad side story, he is the "very strange man, even by local standards, with white hair and a cold manner" that visited Ludevic. I can only assume he was off by the Markov family manor or wherever Thalia and Gitrog were teaming up.
New Capenna is a favorite plane of mine, but honestly, it featured in the main story. They could have used that slot for another plane as a side story.
It's a crime we got a side story for frickin' New Capenna, which only got 1 set and is probably not that popular in the community, while Theros, a plane we've been to for A WHOLE BLOCK and one SET a few years later (a set with a mess of a story bigger than even MOM, mind you), got only a few glimpses and mentions despite the fact AJANI HIMSELF coordinated the invasion there PLUS the way the plane itself was conquered was unique - they compleated the gods by compleating their followers. And then there was Kaya which out of nowhere appeared there and managed to kill HELIOD HIMSELF... Sorry for this, but it's really mindblowing how bad they screwed this up, even the laughable "rendering inert" part can be somewhat explained... But this?
The whole story about the invasion on Theros is just a giant patchwork. I mean how could Heliod suddenly escape his prison he was sent the last time we were on Theros? And how can Kaya just casually one shot a compleated Heliod, when she struggled to kill Vorinclex, who got killed by a Zylpirian Redshirt without even a card.
And yes the plan is great and all that to compleat the followeres and the gods follow because that is how Theros works. But how on earth did nobody try and stop that invasion, especially the gods themselves? Theros is a plane of heroes and the Gods all the time interfere in the mortals lifes but here they just had a day off?
I mean Theros is a pretty small plane, so hiding the invasion tree should be impossible.
And so on. Yeah Theros got really the short end of the stick in that story.
Cannot put to words how badly New Capenna sucks; it's an absolute flavor dumpster fire, and it has some of the dumbest looking card art I've ever seen.
It genuinely feels like the ending of this storyline was rushed- All these cards that feature things that don't happen... Every plane just winning against the invaders... it feels like there was some sort of interim set that got cut or something honestly. One second Phyrexia was about the invade the multiverse, the next... Elspeth wins?
I felt like New Capenna had better potential, considering that was where Urabrask was held up, and the constant talks on Halo research.
Spoilers for game of thrones final season
Kaya killing heliod had kinda the same energy as arya killing the night king. Some rando who had no prior involvement offing someone who has deep and long story ties to other people who really should have been in front of the line for the kill
Alison _damn_ LÜHRS wrote Vraska's story, and if this is truly her swan song, she hit _every_ note. Seriously, if anyone reads _any_ of these side stories, make it Vraska's.
Fr, loved it. People need to read it themselves so wizards knows that really good writing is wanted by the mtg audience
Not my flavor of monster girl erotica
Yea that eyes comment was perfect for setting the tone for both inner vraska and the viewer.
Not only was the point of view perspective swapping between the version of Vraska a really clever interpretation for how phyrexianizing works in the brain, the attention to detail to actual psychological consciousness is really impressive.
It was my favourite story too, but I get really embarrassed reading any kind of story that uses different font/colour/capitalization to indicate different character/mindsets (In this, Vraska's actual mind fragment and compleated Vraska). I'm not sure why, probably all the Homestuck I've read in the past.
Man, i just wish this was a 2 or even 3 set story. So much more time to actually tell something coherent, build suspense and include these cool moments.
Considering the first Invasion "event" was a full block, and that was WITH build-up prior (INCLUDING a BLOCK of prequel), hard ditto.
the thing that annoys me the most is that they claim the story started in DMU which is such bs
The Vraska story definitely sounds like she woke up and left to me. It didn’t sound like Ral’s weapon vaporized her, just that it killed her. At the very end there’s a bit from Ral’s point of view where it seems that after things calmed down he sent someone to recover Vraska’s body but they couldn’t find anything and arak seemed surprised by that. Why would he send someone to recover her body if he had vaporized it? I’d wager after she “died” the sequestered part of her mind managed to re-exert control and she left, probably to find Jace and find a way to bring him back.
Jace's line "This part hurts the most," definitely gives the impression that Vraska survives.
Further I think she actually talks to Jace, and that he himself evaded being fully compleated using his mind magic
@@keithfilibeck2390 I’m not so sure she spoke to the real Jace, I think it could have been entirely imagined by her, or perhaps it’s a small portion of Jace’s consciousness left behind when he created that partition in her mind.
Yea i dunno how MA got the impression she was vaporized. from what i remember he put some shock like device on her chest and she started to convulse until she apparently died
I’ve gotta say, this story has been a real miss for me. So many details feel underdeveloped or rushed. I really feel this would benefit from a 3 set block, allowing the story to be expanded upon each time. I’m really upset that we never saw some of the compleated creatures, like toski or Koma.
Yeah, I'm totally baffled how they basically completely glossed over Kaldheim and NONE of the cosmos beasts got cards...
it wasn't even just kaldheim either, Amonkhet literally JUST recovered from the hour of devastation and now they have to deal with a multiversal threat, especially given that innistrad just talked about how phyrexians cannot compleate a dead mind which amonkhet is FULL of thanks to the plane-wide curse of wandering which makes anyone who dies into a zombie. i would think the phyrexians would struggle on amonkhet but we get radio silence.
Lorwyn is here but we get nothing on lorwyn's situation at all. Vryn, jace's HOME PLANE is shown to be fighting the phyrexians using the mage ring networks old glitches but no story there despite jace being pretty freaking important. and planes we've never visited show up in this set but we get zero look into how those planes are doing.
this set is garbage
Holy shit, Toski and Koma both got compleated and we didn't get a card for them? Bogus, man.
@@MTGDuelist8870 actully it implied the innistrad zombies are special because of the planes magic
@@PrettierNPastel you are aware that amonkhet has a plane-wide curse that turns everyone that dies there into a raving zombie right?.
I do recall WOTC made a “legends of MoM” page that tells us about some of the team ups and how they came to be, can you in the future look into that? Some of them were really interesting, like Kroxa and Kunoros apparently team up because Athreos noticed Kroxa devoured Phyrexians in the underworld so thoroughly that not even glistening oil remained so he stuck Kunoros on Kroxa to shepherd the elder giant through the underworld and make sure it didn’t escape.
I was waiting for the amonkhet side story. Those guys don't have any rest! XD
But i'm happy to see Hazoret teaming with the scarab and locust god. I love how she got a lazotep arm, that one that she lost fighting the Scorpion god.
Amonkhet's battle card is one of the coolest of the entire set, too. I used it just the other day to great effect!
@@jacob4920 really? I can't wait to test it :3
Yeah, there was lots of cool Amonkhet stuff on the cards, but nothing in the story...bit of a loss if you ask me. I hope we get back to Amonkhet at some point to explore how things have changed now that their society has been revealed as a lie, but Bolas is no longer pulling the strings.
@@Quimusik My opponent in that game had to discard Zetalpa (you know him). And a few turns later, when I transformed Amonkhet's battle card, it becomes an Aura spell that enchants any creatures, in any graveyard. I immediately swiped Zetalpa from the graveyard, for free! That's what I call getting the bang for your buck! lol
@@jacob4920 Yeah its one of the most broken uncommons in draft
Endless appreciation for summarizing all of this for us!
I'd really love if we got full blown 250 page books again like what used to come in fat packs. The original ravnica story was great with those books. You got to see way more about what was going on. I'd love to see 1-3 books per set come out. Hell, they could release a book once a month with 3-5 of them just focusing on side stories and building new worlds when we come to them. So much untapped story potential. They have the capital to do it. Cardboard and paper is cheap.
God, I miss the old magic novels. The Ravnica block story was so good, there are *still* characters from those books I would kill to see be made into cards!
...Unfortunately, with how badly War of the Spark got flubbed, a crisp $10 says that Wizards is holding it up as evidence that there's no market for them to publish the full novels anymore.
Well, that should have been at least 2 books, there was still a lot of untold story around all that was happening that could have been fleshed out more.
I gotta say, the Vraska story had me the most. LIke I love seeing all the other planes dealing with the invasion but something about Vraska's internal struggle on top of that wonderful last day with Jace fantasy really had me in my feels. On top of that, the gruesomeness of what was happening around her, her fantasy turning into a wet dream lol, and the mysterious "is she dead or just gone?" part. Ah, I loved all of it and sad to thnk that, thats the last we may get of her and maybe even Jace.
I was hoping to learn where Jace went, since he's, you know, holding on to Ugin and Bolas post war of the spark.
That just gives me hope for the return of the dragon bros!
Ixalan was my absolute favorite side story this set. The 11th hour hero shot was so good and it did a really good job at world building
I'm also kinda upset we didn't get a Fynn defeating compleated Koma story tbh
How? the entire story was just the writer ignoring how the Oil works. Zetalpa, Zacama, and Huatli's entire entourage should have been infected.
Also, Fynn didn't defeat Koma, Tyvar did.
@@Enja_Near fynn's card is literally him after killing koma and the flavor text confirms it. tyvar fought a compleated serpent, but that wasnt koma
@@sunstrid3r44 "All elves live in the shadow of Koma. Is there any creature better to emulate than a serpent? That is not true of the serpent he sees now."
Tyvar's tattoo starts moving when Koma is nearby so there's about 3 flag markers. Sorry man but they double booked Koma's death.
@@Enja_Near yes, but this part just shows koma appearing, not tyvar fighting it, the part where tyvar fights a serpent is later in the story.
@@sunstrid3r44 Tyvar literally jumps in to the sea to fight said serpent in the story the paragraph after what I quoted.
Honestly I'm rather disappointed that we didn't see Amonkhet.
Same!
Especially since the article on how the planes are doing implies the scarab and locust gods were helping Hazoret fight off the phyrexians
My manz is the goat for sayin “convoke some drip” with a straight face 😂 saffron olive could never 🤣🤣🤣
That sponsored bit was amazing. You make them fun with the puns. Love your stuff, as always! Cheers, to my favorite loremaster!
Glad you enjoyed it! ...now go buy something! 😅
As much as I loved the Vraska story, one thing that felt weird about this set in general is that somehow, out of all the mentions of ravnica, Niv-Mizzet just... isn't present? Like, the most powerful singular entity on the plane who was reborn to fix it the last time shit hit the fan just isn't mentioned??? Was he fighting on the front lines? Organizing a coordinated defense with the guild leaders? What sorts of cool guildpact powers did he invoke?
I'm glad the side story's focus was on Vraska, it's just really weird that Ravnica's strongest defender doesn't show up in any capacity in this set and its story.
I alwais read all the stories but Ryan alwais make them so much better! Thank you!!!
Just want to say as an adult with ADHD, I find keeping up with all the lore bits so tedious when watching YT vids, other YT creators that focus on magic lore are either so long in getting to the point or don;t catch every detail that matters!
I'm so damn grateful I found Magic Arcanum. I read all the stories I can myself, but I miss the odd side story or detail here and there, and it really helps tie it all together.
THANK YOU RYAN AND THANK YOU NICOLE! Keep it up!
“Dear Gisa,
It’s on.
- Geralf”
That’s the best writing in MtG
For a seemingly important moment in magic story, Wizards took as little risks as possible.
So do you think emrakul up in her prison was watching with popcorn or with nachos? Plus do you think her choice of soda might be relevant in future sets??? (great vid man keep it up ❤)
You have one of if not thee most majestic mustaches I have ever seen
I would like to see a video looking at each of the other planes invaded on the Battle cards and telling what they are, and when we last visited them.
I was considering doing something like that in the next few weeks!
Isn't Sorin described in the Innistrad story:
" An old associate of Ludevic came to visit recently. He was a very strange man, even by local standards, with white hair and a cold manner. The two of them fought, at length, before the man departed."
If you want to consider an unnamed cameo an appearance, that's fine, but it doesn't tell us anything meaningful about what Sorrin was doing or how he personally fared in the invasion.
My favorite one was on Ixalan. The way Huatli was hella anxious while ascending the steps and how she prayed for the elder dinos to come was touching. And then the elder dinos came and was the most awesome thing ever. I'm still peeved they completed Etali, but I guess it was necessary. I'm also peeved they gave us NOTHING on Tarkir. Come on guys, it's the plane of DRAGONS! Kaiju battles are always awesome damn it.
On that note, the fact that we didn't get mecha fight on Kamigawa seems to me like a massive wasted opportunity. On the other hand, I'm happy at least one of the apexes of Ikoria got some spotlight on it.
I was really hoping to hear more about the plane of Segovia (as I'm from that region in Spain so it made me giddy)
TEZZERET the man has shown he can control Phyrexian's in the past... Perhaps he can Inherit the mantle of "Father of Machines"
Thanks for filling in the sides!
Now that the March is over, I think a great video would be a full recap of all known planeswalkers.
IE Location, Alive/Dead/Missing, Last thing they were doing is resolved/unresolved, Last card printed
I think it would be more appropriate to do that after The Aftermath expansion, as there is still a bit more story to tell, and the fate of many planeswalkers is still unknown but might be revealed in about a month.
Let’s be honest, phyrexian oil and halo just do whatever the plot need them to. Nahiri gets one scratch on her neck and she’s infected, Ajani is anointing people with it, and constructs on Kaladesh are turning against their creators after getting some of it splashed on them but Zecama takes some bites out of Etali and it’s completely fine somehow.
I think the only way to make that 'mothership down, drones deactivate' thing work at all is to claim that Elesh Norn did something to 'unite' the oil in a way that had this side effect. And that it is *temporary*. Any oil that isn't vaporized after the 'deactivation' should come back later on as it reverts from Elesh Norn's orthodoxy.
2:52 No, Quint took up Rootha's portion of the spell as she defends the team from a phyrexian faculty; since Quint can't read two spells at once, he instead keeps reading his own spell while pouring his raw magic into Rootha's spell, and the stress overloads him.
So combining their magics to cast the spell does lead to Quint's spark igniting. I didn't say anything untrue. Sometimes I have to abbreviate events to keep these videos at a watchable length, but if anyone wants the full experience they can always go read the stories on their own, right?
Can we all agree that the best thing to ever happened to Ikoria in the MOM story is that Lukka is finally gone? lol
Yes as we have plenty of low tier villians for lackeys. Like tibalt...
Oh wait
Bro didn't even have a character. I don't get why folks hate him so much.
@@sevranararis7704 Pretty sure that's exactly the problem. He's this random dude that is never relevant to any of the stories he shows up in (even on his home plane), and so each of his cards feels like they would've been better served being just about anything else.
where did Lukka touch you?
Did the bad. Never explained why he did the bad. He is part of the group now? Yea...not a popular dude.
A great way to start my day! Thanks Ryan and Nicole!
Hell yeah, we got my boy Ral Zarek back in the game and of course he is l kicking ass in unique ways as is tradition
Giada helps Errant in another part of the story, and Anhelo being Errant's father was revealed in the New Capenna side stories (where he almost gets assassinated by the cabbie driver on his way to her wedding)
I think in an earlier version of my script the emphasis was more on "We learn Anhelo, who is Errant's father, was compleated" but over the course of some revisions I lost that thread and forgot we already knew their relation so I reworked it into what I said in this video. My mistake. (Though to be fair I also say I don't really care for New Capenna so it should surprise nobody if I miss a detail from that set's side stories)
Where did we see Giada and Errant together, though?
@@MagicArcanum Huh, I can't find that bit. might have gotten confused by the Legendary Team-Ups write up.
I just woke up from a bad night sleep and this is the kind of coffee I need. Thanks so much again Ryan and Nicole!
I think there was an implecation that Elspeth transcending into an angel somehow supercharged the halo/angels across the multiverse. Its around the time she makes her decision that all of the angels magic starts hitting harder. They never really explain it, but that was what I infered at the very least
If anything I got the opposite impression. It felt like Serra was telling Elspeth she could pick one place to intervene, and everywhere else would likely suffer for her absence, or at least be forced to fight without her help. If the angels were going to become supercharged anyway, it means Elspeth's choice had a lot less weight to it - she wasn't giving up her worldly desires or putting the good of the multiverse above favored planes like Theros; she got to have it all, without really making any self-sacrifices.
Why am I always disappointed rather than impressed by how well the cards fit the story.
Yeah! My elephant boy got some upgrades!
I personally feel like March should have focused on the invasions, the wars, the feeling of fear and hoplessness from the set, and expanded further on that, while the next set before we return to Eldraine, ironically the set that came after the last Endgame equivalent event War of the Spark, could be about the second half of March. Starting with Elspeth's moment and continuing further, and expanding on that as well. It all felt rushed into one set.
While, in the moment, I agree the Tazri and Linvala moment was a little 'what the?' I do feel that the followup with the Archangels of Capenna traveling out into the multiverse and spreading their power was a satisfying answer. It just means these moments were happening concurrent in the story even if the story didn't spell it out. If anything it becomes one of my favored moments of the story because it makes the reader pose a question *and* follows it up within the same arc with a satisfactory answer. Not something we get very often anymore....
My problem here is that Linvala glowed a little bit earlier on, and then much more during the fight with Nahiri. If we take that to mean it was thanks to the angels of New Capenna arriving, then it means the characters fighting Nahiri had basically no agency of their own. The angels didn't even have to be in the room to affect the battle there. I would much prefer it if Linvala and Tazri somehow "dug deep" and found the strength to defeat the planeswalker ruining their home, rather than some off-screen angels giving them the edge they needed as they zip by on their way to the main confrontation on New Phyrexia.
@@MagicArcanum it's less that the angels of Capena directly interfire and more that they teached Linvala how to make and use Halo, knowledge that she used in the battle with Nahiri
When would they have had time to teach her that? And if they did, why was she surprised by the power suddenly radiating from herself? I find it much more likely that the angels arrived on the plane as the group was assaulting the skyclave, and as part of their Surge of Salvation (story spotlight card) it "somehow" unlocked extra powers in Linvala, Tazri, and any other angels/people with a halo on the plane (we just didn't get to see any of them, because we were contained to the room hosting the battle against Nahiri.)
@@MagicArcanum she has a Halo manifestation before the final battle
"With a collective gasp, the elementals stagger back, confused and alarmed. Tazri looks and sees Linvala radiating with light and charging forward"
and then she dodges the question of what happend
"I glimpsed the exit a mere moment before the elementals arrived," replies Linvala with a sly smile. But that isn't what Tazri was asking. The angel's light . . ."
she showed to know what she was doing. Even in the final battle the one surprised is Tazri (who had an anglel halo on her neck) and not Linvala.
"Tazri looks down and is stunned to find that she is shining with an incandescent glow, too, the halo about her neck brighter than ever before."
@@pascalsimioli6777 how the hell you came to this conclusion? Linvala got late and was secretive of what took her so long, after that in both situations that she used Halo it was implied to be her conscience choice (see my sencond coment).
The story of the march of the machines has several problems but complaining about a moment of 'show not tell' weakens your position.
there is a short paragraph or two from Gitrogs perspective. It was published in the article about teamups.
That's not the same as appearing in the main story or side stories.
@@MagicArcanum I mean that is a trivial distinction. They have never done an article like that so it could be treated as side stories with no problem.
Is it canon? Yes.
They do articles like that all the time. They often accompany Commander deck releases and give us a little paragraph about the legends who are the face cards for those decks. I will admit these short biographies do count as canon, but they are a far cry from being part of the actual story. They are an admission that they created cards that didn't appear in the story, but had to address it, and so they do with minimal effort.
Holy shit a short paragraph!? 🤯🤯🤯
So Emrakul slept through the whole thing or what?
Cards: Cool team-ups and scenarios that make you excited to read the story.
Story: A wet fart of disappointment.
The WotC tradition continues strong.
Invasion of Amonkhet shows Hazoret fighting alongside the Scarab and Locust gods. I have to wonder what exactly is going on there and why we didn’t get anything there. I need me some more Amonkhet.
I wonder if you are going to do a short vid on all the small tidbits of lore we got from wotc like the lore vid on MTG arenas TH-cam page and the article with short 1 paragram stories for each team up card.
I was really invested in the Strixhaven side, cause I was really fond of the atmosphere, and the feeling that the story matters in this part of Invasion. In the set, we saw Liliana has finally changed after decades of mischievous-cliché-wandering around, and now we have one of the best chars who ignites his own spark! Love it, love Quint!
The thing I love about Vadrok melting Lukka is, not only did he melt to nothing, but as the Mythos of Vadrok describes, all MEMORY of Lukka is melted away too. Literally nobody will remember Lukka, the huge fuck up.
Vraska's story was definitely the highlight of this set for me. Her pain and regrets really come through in a touching way.
The vague finale is a nice little cherry on top of it all.
I love Rankle so much
A little surprised that for the New Capenna side story, you mention that we learn that Anhelo is Errant's father. We already had learned that from the side stories from New Capenna as Anhelo was preparing for Errant's wedding with Parnesse.
I didn't really fully comprehend the ending of Vraska's story. Yes, it was made clear that all that was happening was in the safe zone made by Jace in her mind. But then when it was revealed that there was no body left behind, we can only assume that she had planeswalked away. Perhaps Ral's blood electrifier weapon wasn't able to take her out completely, but perhaps burned away all the oil from her body, effectively curing her.
I'm curious if you'll mention the actual legendary pair cards and how they came about since Wizards so kindly gave us a short little 1-2 paragraph explanation for them all.
I think in an earlier version of my script the emphasis was more on "We learn Anhelo, who is Errant's father, was compleated" but over the course of some revisions I lost that thread and forgot we already knew their relation so I reworked it into what I said in this video. My mistake. (Though to be fair I also say I don't really care for New Capenna so it should surprise nobody if I miss a detail from that set's side stories)
And yeah, Vraska's ending seems to be intentionally left open so they have the option to bring her back later if they want, but if they don't, then she got a fitting send off.
I'm not really going to talk about the legendary pairs. The main objective of this channel is to recap the actual stories and explain how they relate to cards in the set. Those tiny paragraph explanations are just filler; they are technically canon, but they add nothing to the story, and feel like WotC doing the absolutely minimum to justify having certain cards in a set (they also often do this for Commander deck releases, where they give us a tidbit about the face cards for each new deck.)
For one of the biggest events of Magic, in term of set and story, it is really a 3/10 in term of storytelling in my opinion. (Not talking about the set, because I like it)
Great recapitulation.
I think Jace was called by Nicol Bolas who was able to strike a mind connection to Jace because the tree had breached Ugins realm.
How about a video that breaks down every Battle card and what happens (or maybe happens?) in it. I'm a limited player, so I interact with most of the set and while there's a few I recognized and chuckled at (Invasion of Segovia), there's a lot I felt lost on
That's actually on my "To Do" and I should have it ready in another couple of weeks 😁
@@MagicArcanum Awesome, looking forward to it!
First off love the video! Second I was wondering if you could answer the question, why did the phyrexians attack every plane and loss? Like why not attack one plane at a time and win by accumulating power that way? Like they were so smart to send the praetors to gather what the needed to invade then dropped the ball harder than I deck box. Was there a story reason given? Or just lazy writing from wotc? Thank you again and keep up the great work on the channel
Based on what we know about Elesh Norn, she wanted to strike everywhere once she had access to the Invasion Tree because she couldn't be sure she'd always have it. She was also very confident in her army's strength, and really, you shouldn't need more than a handful of phyrexians per plane anyway, because each time they defeat a defender, they'd end up switching sides. Given enough time, your army would grow to outnumber the defenders.
She obviously didn't count on Elspeth showing up, Jin Gitaxias attacking her directly, and Wrenn taking over the tree. Aside from those (arguably unpredictable events) I think her invasion plan was pretty solid and would have been a sucess.
@@MagicArcanum ok thank you for the reply! It just felt so rushed to me that the phyrexians a menace to the multiverse for years were on the rise striking everywhere but then got taken out by a handful of planes walkers and a small army(compared to the new phyrexia) from zhalfirin. Liked the story, it just felt off that it ended so quickly and relatively speaking concisely. But thank you again!
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who read the Vraska story as her dying at the end; I've seen others saying that the bit with Jace was either physical, or mental but he was actually there, or they planeswalked away together, and thought I was going crazy. The way the two flashes of white light happen in the story seemed to deliberately say that those moments with "Jace" were fleeting milliseconds in her mind as she died.
Which makes the "But there wasn't a body!" dramatic stinger at the end frustrating. It doesn't feel mysterious so much as "we haven't decided if Vraska's dead or not, so write it like she's dead, but leave room that she's not."
Also, very much hoping for some answers regarding where Jace went, where he is now, and whether he's still Phyrexian (which, with Aftermath's cards spoiled, could be explained in a story, but it seems less likely...)
nah ur wrong lol that’s not how storytelling works
about Vraska is the old tale " no body no death", Nahiri also fall on this category and she survive, so Vraska is probable alive, my guess is that her mind is free from corruption but her body is still phyrexian
The twins are out here hunting Phyrexia for sport.
Even though I've read all the MOM story, I love recap videos because it's nice to hear what other people picked up or interpreted from the story.
I interpreted the end of the Zendikar story as the "arrival" of the Capenna angels empowering the Zendikari - and that Halo operates differently in different planes.
Also, I think that you did Quin a disservice in your Strixhaven summary; Rootha got taken out while casting the spell and Quin took ownership of her part of the spell as well so that The Invocation of the Founders _doesn't_ fail. The beauty of the spell combined with him being overwhelmed by trying to dualcast both Lorehold and Prismari segments of the spell is what causes him to Spark which I feel is an important distinction
Finally, I am near 100% certain Jace and Vraska's magical mental getaway wasn't her dying thoughts but part of a mental factory reset being performed by Jace
Jace in happier times probably means Pirate Jace
"Melted into nothing, so there's no chance of him coming back"
Ertai would like a word with you
The set feels like it should have been 3 sets... so much happens so fast
The all caps ELSE make me thing of a parent saying " What else have you done"
No omnath had me so upset. I need them to explain that. I was looking forward to it
I am torn about Vraska's story. It is both a fitting send off and a convincing cliffhanger at the same time. If we never hear from her again, that would be okay. If she comes back, but is hindered in some way by half her consciousness being "Rendered Inert", I would be okay with that as well.
Sorin is mentioned in the story! He shows up and talks to Geralf. Geralf mentions in one of his letters a pale man with long silver hair showing up and explaining to him what they are fighting.
If you want to consider an unnamed cameo an appearance, that's fine, but it doesn't tell us anything meaningful about what Sorin was doing or how he personally fared in the invasion.
It’s amazing how Wizard’s can hype up the danger of the phyrexian invasion to such a degree that Jace risking several planes across the multiverse to stop them is almost reasonable. And then, when the invasion comes, just have the phyrexians fall flat on their faces when the people on each plane figure out what is going on. WOTC just excels at taking the wind out of their own sails.
The brilliant Alison Lührs wrote this last Vraska’s story. She wrote the stories from which we know and love the character. Overcoming Trauma, strength, but also emotions and vulnerability. An awesome portrayal as always. Go read it!
The Ravnica story was definitely my favorite. I got the sense that rather than boiling away, the device Ral used functioned like a localized EM pulse that disrupted the oil. Also, the last scene with Vraska has her buried under rubble, a solid callback to her state the first time she planewalked, iirc.
From what's been leaked of Aftermath, I think there's very very strong reason to believe Theros, Kaldheim, and Tarkir will get stories, if that's any consolation.
I find no consolation in leaked cards, actually. I haven't looked at them, and this isn't an appropriate place to discuss them.
I love that the invasion of almost any plane really amounted to the Phyrexians being toyed with and butchered.
Family Game Night was by far the best for me. It was an absolute blast.
Ixalan, Ikoria and Innistrad have to easily be my favorite stories to have come out of this set. Admittedly the Ikoria story was a bit hit or miss, but man the way they described the like body horror-y monster Lukka became, especially the scene with the vantasaur just stuck with me. Such a cool tidbit.
7:50 so wait a hot Minute? Zombies are immune to both Emrakul and the Phyrexian Oil? Zombies are becomming the instafix for every problem in the multiverse.
I really wish we had a plane actually fall to Phyrexia. The stories just make the built up threat of the phyrexians seem weak, yeah there were casualties, but overall it felt like all the planes just casually shrugged off the phyrexians in the end.
Nicely put as always! Yup, it's bad, as expected, but let's laugh together at it.
Thanks for the video. This is a great channel, and I'm happy to have stumbled across it in my TH-cam suggestions. As for the MoM story, I really feel like MTG needs a showrunner and a series bible at this point. Too often the potential of the narrative seems unrealized, and too many plot threads either come to nothing or end up contradicting themselves.
Glad you found us!
I loved the way they did Ravnica. It was absolutely amazing.
So you are saying it was Emrakul all along? Wow
Thank you so much for what you do. I find these stories recaps helps me understand what is happening in the game.
Highlight of the whole story:RAL ZAREK just wants to go to bed and take a nap.
That part in the Ravnica story made me laugh so much
Personally, I found myself enjoying the Ixalan and Strixhaven side stories the most; I really enjoy Quint as a character & genuinely enjoyed seeing Huatli working to summon the other Elder Dinosaurs.
My least favorite, I'm sorry to say, was "Rankle, the Master of Love." I just didn't think much of consequence happened - & given that Eldraine is the setting for the next proper Magic set after Lord of the Rings - I feel the space could have been used to show at least one plane that we hadn't seen in a while, like Fiora or Lorwyn.
YAY STORY TIME
Also gotta love:
Vraska: Presumably KIA, but no-one can find her body... nothing further.
Naheri: Squashed like a bug under a falling skyclave... completely fine and uncompleated in Aftermath.
This is not an appropriate place to discuss leaked cards, or what we think we know about Aftermath.
@@MagicArcanum Fair enough.
11:16 Our 'Twins' are de-sparked.
I always enjoy reading stories of Gisa living her best life.
I just discovered your channel and i have to say that you help me to catch up with the main story as i am only interested in Innistrad, a plane that brought me back to Magic.
(my last expansion before Innistrad and its 7 sets was Nemesis).
I read the Innistrad side story and i have to say that was fun to read how Gisa and Geralf interacted with each other.
On the other hand we don't know what happened in others areas but maybe we will have clues in Aftermath or another Innistrad expansion.
Glad you found us!
There are so many questions from the earlier sets that never got a resolution in MOM. What was the point of The Raven Man/Liliana story or what happened to Jared Carthalion? There’s just so much that WotC doesn’t provide answers for.
vraska and jace might reappear on ixalan as pirates
These side stories were really enjoyable. The Innistrad is my favorite. Reminds me of the little arguments and competitions I'd get in with my sister, minus the corpses.
My main question is what's gonna happen to the planeswalkers that weren't cured, are they gonna fall dead? Remain loyal to phyrexia somehow? I don't see a third outcome since it took Karn and Melira to cure Ajani and Nissa
Post-mending planeswalkers are probably equal to regular people, so they were all sadly rendered inert by Teferi (presumably). The main counterargument to this point is that Jace one of the game's most profitable icons, but then again Wizards abandoned Jace for Chandra a long time ago in my opinion. It's also not the first time a big mascot character has been straight up written out (*cough* Gideon and Bolas *cough).
If this route is taken, there are a bunch of other questions to ask. What is Theros gonna do without three of it's gods? If Omnath is rendered inert, does that mean the Roil goes with him? How is Ravnica going to feed itself when most of the Golgari (if not the entire guild) is gone?
Lukka finally dying because of his arrogance and stupidety was by far my favorite part of the entire story. I hate that character so much.
But otherwise, yeah there is so much missing. And yeah Nahiri being crushed under some rocks are not something that implies her being dead enough, as that character survived much worse than that.
i wouldnt survive the hellvault, just to get hit by some stupid rocks. so i also think that she cant be dead. would be rly bad writing if that was the case.
I almost feel like Jace was going to be going after Tezzeret under Norn's orders, but I wouldn't be too certain about that. As for Emrakul, I hardly believe that it would be able to break out of the moon that Tamiyo sealed it in. Also, I doubt the Phyrexians would have much interest in going after something that wouldn't logically have an ounce of life living on it. Of course, Tamiyo may have warned Norn about Emrakul to begin with, and possibly advised to not go after such a creature for her army.