MTGGoldfish Arcanist. Preview handler, metagame curator, producer, rules advisor, lore repository, and more. French. Custom card creator, character creator, world creator. Always available for questions.
A recent commissioned art by @looceyloo from @socialpoison and myself, featuring his Traenor and my Zarunpel. I've been wanting an official look and reference for Zarunpel for a while, and the piece turned out amazing as both its own thing and as a first official art for her (well, full body).
If you're interested in Zarunpel in specific, a quick sheet for her just went up, I was surprised I didn't have one already. For Traenor, I'm sure @socialpoison will have something linked somewhere, possibly in a comment or reblog!
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I've been working on an update for Rhynn as she looks after living on Ravnica for awhile. I figured as a biomancer she would eventually work on some things for herself. I figured the two things I could see making the most sense are 1: She would give herself some draconic (drake or dragon or perhaps a little in between) scales. The areas that made most sense to me were her shoulders/back. She often takes care of young drakes and they will roost on you with their pointy little baby needle-feets. Might as well have some protection from that! I also figured she would get some spots on her thighs since she frequently flies around on her own drake Zamir, and even if she tries to mostly use a saddle, it will still help. Plus if she tries to wrangle in wild creatures (which would not be unheard of). 2: While not visually obvious I think she would make some internal changes to her vocal cords. She would make it easier for her to make draconic noises so that she could more easily make noises at drakes and other creatures, but also speak Draconic, the language, better as well. I imagine while humans can speak it passably enough to be understood by dragons, they probably can't typically make all the right noises. Now she can!
Anyway, introducing Rhynn's new character/reference sheet! (done by meeeeee, I'm proud of how it turned out but already I'm excited to try to update it again in a year or two xD)
Rhynn Ormanni
Plane of origin: Tarkir, Dromoka clan
First plane after spark: Ravnica
Color identity: green/blue/white
Rhynn grew up sheltered in the Dromoka clan of Tarkir. She was a gifted Sunbringer and her talent as a healer was sought after even over some more experienced healers. She was intensely curious, which would sometimes get her into trouble or leave her unsatisfied when she was denied the ability to learn things or told not to dig into things. She sparked around the age of 15/16 and wound up on Ravnica during a Gruul raid. She rescued a young merfolk girl named Myree. Despite getting injured she managed to get Myree to her father, an elven man named Elrick. Unknown to Rhynn for a long while, Elrick is a former planeswalker himself who had the misfortune of losing his spark. Because she helped Myree (and he really needed a babysitter/nanny) he decided to let Rhynn stay with him basically as cheap labor. Eventually they all grow close and Elrick ends up adopting Rhynn as high daughter as well. Her locket and her sword are both gifts from Elrick (the locket actually used to be his mother's and one of the few things he had left from his homeplane).
On Ravnica, especially amongst the Simic Combine, Rhynn's insatiable curiosity was desirable and valuable rather than discouraged. She was always interested in all sorts of creatures and wanted to write her observations into bestiaries. She finally gets to start working on this and has several bestiaries from the different planes she's visited started. She even has a book on Simic krasises that she helped co-author that is published on Ravnica. While she likes to learn and help out all of the Simic clades, she is only properly a member of the Gyre Clade. She does a lot of work with the Wilds Initiative and has her own inter-guild outreach group. She has a strong belief in community and inter-guild cooperation.
Other than being a healer and having Sunbringer bolster/light magic, Rhynn has discovered she has empath magic as well. Time briefly spent with a secret Temur mage taught her that her ability to interact with creatures was a type of magic where she can bond her spirit to theirs in order to form an empathic bond and communicate. She has cultivated this over many years and can bond with many wild creatures if given time. She has the best ability on creatures that share mana colors with her and especially draconic/avian creatures (drakes, dragons, hydras, wurms, birds, and she'll someday find out dinosaurs as well). Her creature magic also makes her an adept summoner as well, especially for these creature types. Rhynn also has a small amount of ice magic.
Rhynn does not have much from her home on Tarkir but she does have a small buckler-style shield made out of a Dromoka Scalelord scale. It belonged to her mentor, but they lost it in a raid and Rhynn found it. She keeps excellent care of it and it is still sturdy after all this time. She did not receive much martial training on Tarkir but learned a little sword and shield work. Elrick helped her try out many weapons to see what suited her and while at first she thought she'd stick with a scimitar, she ended up favoring a saber instead. Elrick eventually gifts her a fine elven saber that she uses as her main physical weapon (though she will usually rely more on her shield, dodging, and summoning).
Rhynn grew up knowing you always needed to be prepared for everything and she has kept that philosophy. She tries to always wear some kind of cowl or scarf so she can protect her face if needed (growing up with sandstorms as a risk left an impression). She usually has a big pack with her (which many a friend and stranger have roasted her for) with a minimum of healing supplies, rations, repair kits, journals and pens, maps, and animal food. As well as anything else she can fit in there. She makes an effort to learn the stars of any plane she frequents so that she's less likely to get lost. She has an even larger pack with more camping supplies if she is actually planning on planeswalking/traveling.
Rhynn rescued a damaged drake egg and ended up saving the dying baby and biomancing him into a krasis. While still a drake, he is definitely a mutant (4 wings, 4 eyes, stealth camouflage etc.) She puts a lot of effort into saving him and uses a lot of her empathy magic to monitor his health as he grows in an artificial egg and uses his feelings to help shape what changes she makes. She unintentionally forges an extreme bond with him and she and her drake companion, whom she names Zamir (tbh I'm thinking of changing the name but IDK yet), maintain a low-level empathic bond no matter where either of them are on Ravnica. After an eventual trip to Ikoria, Rhynn learns the bond is strong enough for her to summon him to other planes with her and she eventually learns she can planeswalk with him. Both of these actions are highly taxing on her though and she must recover and can't do them frequently in a row.
Planes she frequently visits outside of Ravnica:
-Theros
-Zendikar
-Ikoria
-Arcavios (eventually)
-Perenia (eventually) (fanplane)
I know she's been to others but not enough to have a footing there.
For the curious, I've got the first chapter of her origin story. Check it out if you're interested! https://www.tumblr.com/leafdrake-haven/817907518279942144/the-sunbringer-chapter-one
💬 0 🔁 3 ❤️ 3 · The Sunbringer: Chapter One · After many years, I introduce you to the first chapter in Rhynn's origin story. Please enjoy!
Hey, i opened that pack, i have questions about four cards. I also got a funky one
Anyway, what's these guys' lore?
Also, what are the odds of getting the same card twice in one pack, the cyclops also has a normal, nonshiny version i got from the same pack.
Tatyova hasn't appeared in the main story yet, but we do know a bit about her. For context, she is from the world of Dominaria, the original world Magic (the game) started on, and stayed on for the vast majority of the first ten years of its existence. As a result, it is much more detailed and has had many many more events we know of happen there. In recent years, it has been focused on being the history plane, one with a lot of old relics, scars from many "end of the world" scenarios barely avoided, and complex political relationships. Most of which are actual events and civilizations players know or can learn about since they're from the early days of the game!
Tatyova herself is a merfolk, born in the vast underwater Vodalian empire that controls most of Dominaria's seas and oceans. She didn't stay there, however, going to the magical forest of Yavimaya to learn of their ways.
Yavimaya is your classic fantasy magical forest, mostly populated by elves and an array of beasts and plants, with trees the size of skyscrapers completing the picture. She studied her druidic magic with the elves there, likely with some contribution from Multani, the living elemental avatar of the entire forest, he does like to get involved. After those studies, she returned to Vodalia and became an adviser to the current monarch, Mihail II, which is how we see her on Steward of Tides.
Vodalia in the past has been very isolationist and xenophobic, but it's been getting a bit better about it in recent reigns. Tatyova pushes him to see the world as a whole, beyond his own coasts, as something previous and invaluable.
Anecdotally, Tatyova, Benthic Druid is also a very strong and very popular leader for decks in the Commander format, gameplay-wise, as she rewards the already good strategy of getting more lands into play by getting you more resources... To get more lands into play. She can snowball quite a bit.
This one will be much faster: We don't have much on this guy. It's a new card to the set and nothing in the art is a dead giveaway of which world they belong to, so what you see in the card is about the whole story: a cyclops wielding lightning magic.
If I had to hazard a guess as to origin, I would say Theros, the plane heavily inspired by greek mythology, as some cyclops there seem to share the vertical shape of this one's eye. On Theros, faith can turn myth to reality, and history quickly becomes story. Take that origin with a grain of salt, Crackling Cyclops could easily be from Shandalar, Dominaria or a host of other worlds.
As far as getting multiple copies in a pack, it's technically possible, though they have collation that makes it normally unlikely. Foils (shiny cards) are independent of that though, so it happens more often when you get a foil one and a nonfoil one in the same pack. On one occasion, I've seen one person pull two copies of the same mythic out of a pack close to fifteen years ago, one foil and one not! Generally speaking though, most regular packs don't have duplicates, unless you're opening ones for special small set. March of the Machines: Aftermath was a product infamous for only having 50 cards in it (and only 15 different uncommons!) so duplicates were very common in those packs, despite them only having 5 cards in them.
This one, however, leaves no doubt about where it's from! The armor and style are characteristic of a vampire of the Legion of Dusk, from the continent of Torrezon, on the world of Ixalan. I will give a lot of background on them because they're interesting. The vampires on this world are from an european-inspired continent that got conquered by a small (spanish-inspired) island nation there: it got access to vampirism and used its power to conquer. According to their Church of Dusk, Vampirism is a sacred burden taken on by the nobility (and some commoners who deserve it) to devote themselves to their country and religion. It was brought on by Saint Elenda, returning from a long pilgrimage across the ocean. The huge burden of power and immortality. Unlike some vampires, they don't die from sunlight. Church doctrine dictates vampires cannot feed on regular citizens, only some criminals convicted of specific offenses, and of course foreigners and heretics.
This caused an issue when they finished conquering their home continent, with the Queen now being saddled with an army of immortal, hungry vampires trained and primed for wars and no more nearby "foreigners" or "heretics" for them to drink from with all the nations converted and subjugated. She then turned to this mythical land across the sea, where Saint Elenda went to pilgrimage to, the continent of Ixalan (the world is named after that continent). She declared a Holy War there, to claim it for the church and find the Immortal Sun hidden there, a sacred relic of great power that would free the vampires from needing to drink blood and grant them true immortality! But likely mostly to get rid of that pesky army that was causing trouble inside her own country.
Hence the getup. The continent of Ixalan is heavily inspired by latin american societies (but with more dinosaurs) and the Legion of Dusk is our European conquistadors, come to do a colonialism and crusade all in one. The Sun Empire that controls most of that continent is more than ready to fight them back. The Legion of Dusk barely manages to hold a few outposts on the continent, and they launch some expeditions to find the Immortal Sun inside the Golden City. They do manage to find the Golden City, Orazca, but the Immortal Sun gets snagged before they can claim it. What they do find however, sleeping in the Golden City, is Elenda.
The saint that brought vampirism to them and the central figure of their religion, their Jesus equivalent. She does genuinely see vampirism as a burden and wants to use it to better the lives of people, so she's not too keen on learning about crusades, conquest and holy wars waged in her name. She rushes back to Torrezon and is swiftly followed by a defeated Legion of Dusk retreating. There, she decries the actions of the church and legion and reinforces her core tenets. Faced with their jesus-equivalent declaring what they're doing heretical and monstrous, the Church... Has a schism, many in the society content in their power and conquest and would rather reject their own messiah than give that up. That's about where they were at last time we visited this world, with the Queen officially on Elenda's side but trying as much as possible to avoid taking a stance and placating both of them.
The end of the last Ixalan story was marked by the Bat God that is the source of vampirism in the first place traveling towards Torrezon, and he's probably not as opposed to conquest and massacres as she is. This is all mostly background info btw, we haven't had a main story set solely in Torrezon yet!
To bring it all back to the card you opened, Soulcaller uses magic to control a flock of bats, drawing on this antique affinity. We also see him flying by turning his lower body into smoke, an ability only a small number of more powerful and/or older vampires possess. He also appears to be in some cave or underground, which isn't surprising, since our last visit to Ixalan had us explore the many caverns and tunnels between its surface world and its inside world, where gravity is inverted and the sun shines at the center of the planet. Oh, I didn't mention that yet.
This hare is almost assuredly one of the rabbitfolks of Bloomburrow! Bloomburrow is a world we've seen only a small portion of, the land of Valley, but still plenty big for its inhabitants. It has a few peculiarities. First and foremost, it doesn't have humans or elves or most other usual kinds of sapient animals. Instead, it is populated by sapient and talking small animals. On our first visit, we focused on birds, rats, lizards, raccons, rabbits, bats, squirrels, frogs, otters and mice, but we've seen some other species mixed in, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers,... In fact, a visiting human from another world got turned into an otter while he stayed on the plane (he was quite grumpy about it), showing that it's a property of the world itself and not just a coincidence.
Secondly, seasons and natural events on the planes are shaped by larger elemental animals, called Calamity Beasts, though not all of them are detrimental. It is unclear how intelligents these beasts are, but they are quite literal embodiments of forces of natures. They can be fought back, but it's much easier to divert or escape them when necessary.
The trailer for Bloomburrow is really nice, I'd encourage anyone to watch it. As we can see in it, the animalfolks of Bloomburrow live and lean and prosper besides each other. There are general trends to each, but we see in cards all kinds of animals training for all kinds of roles.
The rabbitfolks, to which Hare Apparent belong, are centered in green and white. They are gregarious, tradition-oriented and down to earth. They tend to have large, close-knit families of course, and represent a good chunk of the farmers in Valley. They like simple problems and simple solutions. They are reknowned for their cooking and punctuality. Among more martial lines, they're often healers, warriors or archers.
Today is a momentous day for the workers of Arena! After months of planning, waiting and organizing, our dream is finally a reality; the votes have been counted, and our union of UWOTC-CWA has been officially elected.
From this day forward, we have a union!
To the thousands who signed our petition letter, the journalists who let us tell our own story, every person who reached out with words of encouragement, our stewards at the CWA who helped guide us, we cannot thank you enough for your support.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we can only hope that our victory in turn inspires others to start unionizing at their own workplaces. Change is possible when workers stand together!
We hope to share good news of a ratified contract with all of you soon.
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This is a post I'm interested to be seen by people who either do not play Magic: the Gathering or engage with it rather casually. If that's not you, feel free to reblog to reach a wider audience, but the exercise in here will not be as useful.
A few months back, the game released a new Base Set of cards called Foundations. It is meant to be a new batch of hundreds of cards that will always be available, that are simpler on average (though not necessarily less powerful) to be a point of entry for new players. Something else it does wonderfully is be a palette of the many worlds, aesthetics and vibes within the game. This is where you come in:
This is the important bit below
Take a look at the cards in the set! You don't even have to read them, there are many, many of them. If one of them or more catches your attention, reblog this post with an image of it, and if you want to learn anything more about it! Be it the world it depicts, its history within the game, or even the mechanics if they are what intrigues you.
This is the important bit above
Some of the cards are either generic or from worlds we haven't visited yet, but the vast majority fit within a larger whole, and there might be more like them to point at! I will try to elaborate on what you want to learn, and maybe even point you towards similar cards or entire card sets on the world or subject you took note of.
In case you're totally unfamiliar with the game, I'll put a short summary under the cut:
Magic: the Gathering is a fantasy trading card game that's over thirty years old. People are invited to create their own deck of cards out of a pool of nearly 30,000 different cards at this point. The gameplay has been summed up many times as being something that sits in between Chess and Poker as far as overall appeal, though the actual action-by-action game is unlike both of them. Just like with playing cards, though not as extreme, there are different ways to play with the cards too, varying which are legal, or the exact rules they're played under.
It is a deep game that can be enjoyed at many levels of engagement, and will take exactly as much time and money out of you as you're willing to give it. From $0 free to play gaming on arena or occasional board game night engagement, to spending hundreds regularly to keep up with a tournament metagame, to spending thousands if not tens of thousands on super rare collectible cards.
In the past few years, Magic has started collaborating with other franchises to make cards for their properties. Lord of the Rings, Fallout, Doctor Who, and plenty more, though it keeps making cards for its own worlds and lore.
That lore can be summed up as a magical multiverse full of very different worlds, each with their own aesthetics, magics, factions and struggles. They are interconnected by rare mages that are able to travel between them, and a major event recently started connecting them further, allowing the layperson to be able to travel between them using less practical ways to do so. Within those worlds, stories happen, sometimes through the cards themselves, sometimes through written fiction, be them novels, online stories or even comic books. Magic cards are divided into five different colors of magic, each with its own associated philosophy, elemental associations, mechanics, aesthetics. Those five colors can then combine and interact to form complex characters, factions, spells and more.
This is a post I'm interested to be seen by people who either do not play Magic: the Gathering or engage with it rather casually. If that's not you, feel free to reblog to reach a wider audience, but the exercise in here will not be as useful.
A few months back, the game released a new Base Set of cards called Foundations. It is meant to be a new batch of hundreds of cards that will always be available, that are simpler on average (though not necessarily less powerful) to be a point of entry for new players. Something else it does wonderfully is be a palette of the many worlds, aesthetics and vibes within the game. This is where you come in:
This is the important bit below
Take a look at the cards in the set! You don't even have to read them, there are many, many of them. If one of them or more catches your attention, reblog this post with an image of it, and if you want to learn anything more about it! Be it the world it depicts, its history within the game, or even the mechanics if they are what intrigues you.
This is the important bit above
Some of the cards are either generic or from worlds we haven't visited yet, but the vast majority fit within a larger whole, and there might be more like them to point at! I will try to elaborate on what you want to learn, and maybe even point you towards similar cards or entire card sets on the world or subject you took note of.
In case you're totally unfamiliar with the game, I'll put a short summary under the cut:
Magic: the Gathering is a fantasy trading card game that's over thirty years old. People are invited to create their own deck of cards out of a pool of nearly 30,000 different cards at this point. The gameplay has been summed up many times as being something that sits in between Chess and Poker as far as overall appeal, though the actual action-by-action game is unlike both of them. Just like with playing cards, though not as extreme, there are different ways to play with the cards too, varying which are legal, or the exact rules they're played under.
It is a deep game that can be enjoyed at many levels of engagement, and will take exactly as much time and money out of you as you're willing to give it. From $0 free to play gaming on arena or occasional board game night engagement, to spending hundreds regularly to keep up with a tournament metagame, to spending thousands if not tens of thousands on super rare collectible cards.
In the past few years, Magic has started collaborating with other franchises to make cards for their properties. Lord of the Rings, Fallout, Doctor Who, and plenty more, though it keeps making cards for its own worlds and lore.
That lore can be summed up as a magical multiverse full of very different worlds, each with their own aesthetics, magics, factions and struggles. They are interconnected by rare mages that are able to travel between them, and a major event recently started connecting them further, allowing the layperson to be able to travel between them using less practical ways to do so. Within those worlds, stories happen, sometimes through the cards themselves, sometimes through written fiction, be them novels, online stories or even comic books. Magic cards are divided into five different colors of magic, each with its own associated philosophy, elemental associations, mechanics, aesthetics. Those five colors can then combine and interact to form complex characters, factions, spells and more.
Okay, so, i used to be a very casual arena player, and now i hover just outside of knowing what's going on. (Note: "used to" refers to aetherdrift. idk what was going on in regards to the story, i just like the art)
These are the ones that i want to know more about lorewise.
These i want to know more about mechanically.
Question: this card says it cost X less to cast. X Is the total power of creatures you control. 2 questions, could you just cast this for free with a mazillion goblins, because IIRC those are pathetic, but also very cheap?
And this one i just like the art od, it reminds me of the sorcery "zombie horde" card
Alright, so flavorfully, your selection split evenly into two worlds, so let's go one by one.
Homunculus Horde and Consuming Aberration are both from the world of Ravnica, a planet entirely covered by a city that takes some inspirations from Prague for aesthetics. It is ruled over by ten guilds that split responsibilities between each other, and has been for millenia. Magic is a fact of life here, intricately linked with life in the city.
The flavor text on Homunculus Horde is a quote from a member of the Azorius Senate (Blue-White), the guild in charge of lawmaking and general bureaucracy and paperwork. Homunculi are artificial beings across the worlds of the game, their general shape as one-eyed small blue-ish creatures and their vowel-less naming convention solidified after the rise to popularity of Fblthp. Fblthp was a unremarkable homunculus that appeared on Totally Lost, a card from 2013.
Players loved him, so Wizards capitalized on the meme, sneaking him into some other arts, eventually giving him a card (then two, then three) starting in 2019. Fblthp solidified the identity of Homunculi in the game, and they were similar on other worlds we've seen them after... Including on Kylem, where mouthless Homunculi speak using sign language, one of which snuck into Aetherdrift (since you mentioned it) as the race's announcer, Vnwxt.
Homunculus Horde reinforces that on Ravnica, Homunculi are artificial servants, created to order. While the Azorius have their own weird servants (like long-sleeved ghosts), the creation of homunculi on Ravnica is likely the domain of the Simic Combine (Blue-Green). Another of the ten Guilds, the Simic are the biologists of Ravnica, providing primarily healing and healthcare, but also bioengineering. Be it people who want to modify their body, or creating new species or hybrids of animals or plants to perform particular tasks in the city.
While Consuming Aberration may or may not have been a result of Simic Bioengineering at some point, it is mainly tied to another guild, House Dimir (Blue-Black). Publicly, House Dimir is in charge of information on Ravnica. Postal work, libraries, delivering news are their purview. Unofficially (but basically known by everyone despite public denial), House Dimir is also the guild of spies, thieves, assassins. Gathering information about the other guilds and trying to nudge them where they want them. As such, a lot of their work happens in secret, and in the Undercity, where Consuming Aberration is set.
The Undercity is exactly what its name suggests. After it covered the entire world, and over the course of millenia, Ravnica built upwards. There are multiple layers of city still existing under what is considered "ground level." They form the Undercity, so deep under buildings and skyways sunlight scarcely reaches it. Two guilds primarily dwell in the Undercity: the Dimir's most covert operations, and the Golgari Swarm (Green-Black) who farm mainly mushrooms and insects (in ways most people prefer not to know the details of) to provide sustenance to the city's vast population.
At multiple occasions, House Dimir has pretended to have been eradicated and not to exist anymore. Always to survive and focus on their covert work. The longest of these periods lasted near a thousand years and ended less than a century ago. They've since been publicly out, and have recently tried to go underground and pretend they don't exist anymore. With their reputation, it'll take a while before they can convince the population that it's true.
With that context, we can return to Consuming Aberration. We do not have much information on these creatures' specific role, but we can speculate. It is set in the Undercity, and its mechanics of milling are tied to memory and mind magic, which the Dimir excel at. It is likely they are deployed in areas the Dimir would rather keep secret, or to themselves, to dispatch intruders. Either by killing them, if it wouldn't attract attention... Or by eating or changing their memory, to consider the area unremarkable.
Darksteel Colossus and Massacre Wurm are from another world, but the same one! Sort of.
The world commonly known as Mirrodin (it has had others) didn't develop naturally: it was created wholesale by an incredibly powerful self-aware golem named Karn, who wanted to explore both his new (at the time) powers and his identity as an artificial lifeform. As such, he created an entire world made of metal, with for only population golems like himself. The five colors of mana of magic are, on this metallic world, tied to five metals: Gold for White, Silver for Blue, Lead for Black, Iron for Red and Copper for Green. But those metals weren't the only ones included. Mirrodin is also the only known world to feature a metal known as "Darksteel". It has a dark gray to black color, and is seemingly spontaneously surrounded by (typically yellow) motes of energy. Its most famous property is that it is impossible to alter by conventional means. It doesn't chip, it doesn't break, it doesn't rust, it doesn't dull, it cannot be melted or bent. As such, every card in magic that is made of darksteel comes with the "Indestructible" keyword. It must be possible to shape through some magical means (in fact a Darksteel Forge exists that seems to both be made of Darksteel and used to craft items out of it) but the exact details are unknown.
Darksteel Colossus, up there, embodies this. It might have been one of the original inhabitants of this world, created by Karn in the early days.
Enduring forever unchanged.
As Karn had other things to do than babysit his world, he left another of his creations to watch it. Long story short, that watcher may have gone made with and for power, and started kidnapping life from other worlds and bringing it to Mirrodin. The plane gained biological life from the first time, though notably getting warped by the metallic nature of the plane. Most of the biological life on Mirrodin soon evolved (or were changed) to include metal in them, be it hair made out of metal, plates or spikes through their skin, or other such adaptations.
Most notably for our story, that's when wurms were introduced to the world. Wurms are a staple of magic worlds. According to legends, born from dragons that lost a magical war and had their wings taken away from them, wurms are giant magical predators without limbs, often burrowing, emerging only to eat their prey alive.
The Watcher left behind by Karn was eventually defeated, though biological life remained on Mirrodin after his death. It wasn't Karn's only creation to have an issue though. Karn's own creation had involved a Phyrexian artifact to bring him to consciousness as his own person, and from that creation he'd unknowingly carried a trace of to the world he had created, just a little Glistening Oil, also known as Phyrexian Oil.
Phyrexia and its oil come with a whole lot of baggage in magic story, so I'll give the short version. Glistening Oil is a magical black liquid that's alive by some definitions. It has been described as magical nanomachines, though how accurate that is isn't known. It is intricately tied to a type of life called phyrexians, which has for philosophy to use whatever it takes to make the most "perfect" forms possible. Using metal where you need strength, flesh where you need give, necromancy where life might hinder, machinery where it works the best. Efficient, effective. One of the fundamental properties of Glistening Oil is that it carries its own instructions, memories and view of the world, and can turn flesh to metal and metal to flesh.
A world like Mirrodin, with biological life already partly metallic, was a perfect opportunity for it.
As such, the little oil inside Mirrodin's core slowly replicated and spread over a couple centuries. Turning more and more of the life and machinery of the world Phyrexian. Eventually, it wasn't just repair drones and structures. Animals too. Even big ones like wurms.
This one looks like it's in the Mephidross, an area primarily aligned with Lead/black mana. Its compleation (the process to be changed into a phyrexian) seems to have kept the base structure, but added a lot more metal, primarily in the spines. There isn't much more to say about the wurm in specific. Other than it has (had?) a really cool animation on magic arena where it burrowed under the opponent's board and let its spine break out of the ground to cut at the opponents' creatures when it entered, as the flavor for the -2/-2.
Of course, Glistening Oil kept going. People were transformed or created. People who's transformation convinced of the righteousness of a perfect world, an efficient world, one where everything would be optimized and Phyrexian. What was a slow corruption became an active war. One where the Mirrans who wanted to stay un-Phyrexian slowly saw their numbers converted.
The Mirrans weren't helpless. They had weapons, numbers, technology. Even Darksteel! Darksteel cannot be altered...
... By mundane means.
Mirrodin became known as New Phyrexia.
(Eventually, the leader of New Phyrexia would get delusions of grandeur and try to invade dozens of other worlds at once. It didn't go well, and these days New Phyrexia got unphased with regular time and is drifting in atemporal nothingness. Also Blightsteel Colossus doesn't have "phyrexian" on its typeline in this image because it hasn't received a proper printing since the Phyrexian type was properly added to the game, but rest assured it technically has it)
As far the mechanical ones:
Question: this card says it cost X less to cast. X Is the total power of creatures you control. 2 questions, could you just cast this for free with a mazillion goblins, because IIRC those are pathetic, but also very cheap?
What's the second question?
To answer the first one: Sort of! Since X is in a gray generic mana bubble here, Ghalta's effect can only reduce the generic mana cost on her. So, if you had a ton of power on board, either a mazillion goblins or a couple 5/5s, you could at most reduce her cost by {10} to two green mana. Still a pretty good deal for a 12/12, but that does mean you have to be running green, can't just use her in a mono-red goblin deck. You can reduce the cost more than 10, but it does nothing unless there are extra costs while casting her. Like an effect that says "creatures cost 1 more", she'd be able to reduce by 11 in that case if you had enough power.
As far as the hungry ghoul, I can say that as far as the art, there are plenty of zombies in magic, alone or as hordes.
Some of them even can't block like the Sorcery card!
As far as mechanically because it might be in that section, Hungry Ghoul is a sacrifice outlet, something that allows you to kill your own creature on command for a benefit. Because getting your things to die whenever you want them to is really powerful for some synergies, in the past ten or so years, sacrifice outlet have had higher cost or restrictions to prevent abuse. Either a mana cost associated to the sacrifice like Hungry Ghoul, a restriction to only use it once per turn, only able to work on your turn, or something similar. As of the last couple years, we've started seeing some stronger ones again though.
Hello! In the EoE story, the characters use Weft Travel, which I found quite clever. However, the mechanic is Warp, the opposite of Weft. Why is that?
Does this suggest that the Edge at least has 5 dimensions in space and two in time?
I think warp was just a more resonant name that could be reused in the future.
Still makes me sad that this wasn't a concern at all in translation. Unless they worked backwards from the star trek set if it features there. The translation for Warp in French is "Hyperspace" which is, uh, much less reusable in different context than Warp is.
In the Invasion novels, there is glistening/ Phyrexian oil all over the place, and it's just oil.
When did they distinction get made that there is just regular "car oil" in Phyrexian creations and "magic oil" with some kind of conversion power? I have assumed it was a retcon since Mirrodin block, seeing as, again, spilling oil from the Weatherlight crew in battle was frequent.
Thank you, have a great day tomorrow and everyday!
Phyrexian Oil is shown to have almost an intelligence of its own and a distinct “scent” pretty early on. It’s also hinted to be nanomachines early on. There is also just regular machine oil, iirc, but it’s all sort of conflated because the distinction wasn’t relevant.
The idea of it as an infection began with the first Mirrodin novel, true. But it’s also indicated to be a distinct type of oil, the stuff left behind on Dominaria and perhaps Capenna was different.
Even back in The Thran, Yawgmoth talks up the properties of the oil mentioning that those that bath in it become stronger and more resilient. Nowhere near as virulent as we've seen it recently, but still something similar.
As far as theories, Phyrexian oil carries information, direction and some intelligence. For Old Phyrexia, that direction and intelligence all went back to Yawgmoth, which is how the deactivation of Phyrexians upon his death is explained after all. Yawgmoth saw completion as a reward for loyal services as much as a means to get assets under his control. That attitude is in turn reflected in old Phyrexia, Crovax's compleation is a reward, Davvol awaits his, even Gerrard gets "improved" as a reward by Yawgmoth after decapitating Urza. As such, the oil at that point might not have wanted to compleat anything it touched left and right, only when directed to do so.
After Yawgmoth's death, it might have reverted to base precepts prior to him, or went into a mode to preserve Phyrexia and its ideas, or become invigorated by Karn's spark, or something like that, and become a bit more active on Mirrodin. Either way, it makes some sense to have a big shift after Yawgmoth is out of the picture and no longer dominating the shared information and direction of the oil.
New phyrexia and its new leaders were very interested in growing and fighting its war against Mirrodin and conquering/compleating the plane. So the oil became more virulent. Jin studied how to complete planeswalkers, and communicated that through the oil at large from what we see in All Will Be One, so that might have pushed it further in that direction. We know it was getting worse because Melira mentions at some point even her magic is having more and more issues staving off compleation.
Finally, Norn takes the role of Yawgmoth leading all of New Phyrexia, and wants an army, fast, on all of the many worlds she invades. She wants soldiers fast and dirty, in and out of incubators and compleated. The oil complies, though once again it puts her in a similar position to Yawgmoth, central to all this oil and the ones it courses through. And just like his, her death deactivates it in her rushed compleations at least. We'll see whether or how it reactivates when WotC brings back Phyrexians in a decade.
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Finally received my copy of Omens of Chaos by @seananmcguire (over a month after my order due to delays from both the sender and the shipping company) and gave it a read. I was pleasantly surprised to find a command tower promo inside, as this was advertised as a NA-exclusive promotion and I'm not there.
What follows is a brief review/impressions without spoilers for the actual story of the book.
Overall, I found it good. Excellent when compared to the worst magic fiction has to offer, but that's not a very useful barometer. It takes a while to get going, the entire first half of the book is establishing the character into the routine the Plot will disrupt.
But it's also clearly trying to lay the foundations for people who would read the book unfamiliar with the Magic multiverse. Or as is more likely, familiar enough with the cards, but not with previous stories. For a complete layperson, the deluge of worlds, places, factions and characters the beginning of the book chains together might be overwhelming, even a bit above what Fantasy usually does, but then it aligns with the story of the book: young people being exposed to that amount of unfamiliar experiences and names, trying to make sense of it and not be overwhelmed. For someone just familiar with the card game who remembers the various factions and some important legendary creatures, it would likely work even better.
The book isn't without reference to existing lore, of course, if you're someone familiar with them, but it doesn't linger on them. Having someone who knows and cares about the Multiverse and its characters shows in the writing, with passing references to plenty of stuff that doesn't distract from the story, but enhances the texture for people who are familiar. It also has occasional interesting worldbuilding snippets I saved in case they are useful to me later.
One thing that I didn't like as much is how exaggerated and one note the portrayal of Fiora was at first impression. Though the book does do a decent job of deconstructing that a bit later on as a cursory impression of only one aspect of Fiora, the nobility more likely to interact with outsiders, and even then obeying its own rules. But it still felt a bit over-the-top by the end, and I do like myself some good Fioran intrigue and have experimented in the space myself.
The main cast of the book is on its face 5 characters because it's Magic and gotta keep things color-balanced, though it grounds itself in a single point of view character for the vast majority of the book, and we see much more of what feels like 3 characters out of the 5. The other two are important too but not as much of a focus.
The romance(s), as it was, felt natural and like they didn't take detract or distract from the story.
New characters to magic lore are also introduced with deftness that makes them potential candidates for future magic stories, ones I'd be glad to see again, without trying to force it. It is revealed around a quarter through the book why these students were picked to be invited to Strixhaven, and it offers an opportunity for future writers and stories if they (and wotc) wants it realized.
As a conclusion, I'd recommend it to any Vorthos, many magic players, and maybe a few people beside. Compared to the free online story, this book has more room to establish itself and resolve things at a more sedate pace, and as such feels much less rushed than those. It gets time to establish a norm firmly before disrupting it.
Alright, a lot going on there, I'll start with some info on me relating to Spider-Man. I've been a magic player for decades at this point. I have read Spider-Man comics borrowed from my local library plenty of time growing up, I wouldn't consider myself a Spider-Man or Marvel fan or anything, but I came into this knowing likely a bit more than the average magic player about Spidey, and less than the average spider-man afficionado.
I'll start with what I liked most: the special treatments! Most of the special treatments for the set were great and did an incredible job paying homage to comics. In particular, the paneled Sagas are the high point of the set for me, bridging together mechanics, art, and what makes comics comics all in one.
The Source Material cards aren't universally great, but out of all the Source Material bonus sheets we've seen before or since, this one works the best for me, particularly using the comic book covers already intended for print and being readable at a glance on shelves, it translates better to magic cards than most.
Mechanically, Mayhem is a nice and reusable simplification of Madness. It feels like a cleaner design of it. Villains Conniving was also a neat touch. There are a lot of interesting designs, particularly at higher rarity.
Through the Omenpaths' arts and reflavoring is pretty neat and does a good job into translating designs into their Multiversal counterparts overall. There are a few vestigial weirdness like the Hero or Villain types that feel arbitrary (particularly annoying in limited if one tries to build around either type on Arena,) but other than that it makes it feel at home (if very spidery) into Magic.
It also allows me to pivot neatly into what I didn't like about the Spider-Man set.
Through the Omenpaths existing is BAD. Bad enough I'd prefer not having a set at all if the alternative is doing this (though I wouldn't prefer having the set only in paper, which I assume is why this choice was made.) As someone who plays both in paper and on Arena, having two different set of cards with different arts and names be functionally the same is bad enough for a handful of cards like a secret lair. It should be disqualifying for a set with hundreds of cards. It makes talking about the set and following talk about it almost impossible. Not only when it released but with even more confusions now, months later. I look back and I see a bunch of cards I do not recognize, both in paper and arena.
It makes it worse that future Marvel sets are already announced and more of this can be expected for them.
It being a small set brought up painfully to a small-but-not-tiny size partway through hurts it as well. The limited wasn't great, but I'm only an occasional limited player so I'll leave people more experienced talk on that. But it was felt even in constructed. As someone who plays a fair amount of standard, it didn't have enough meat to really build any deck around the set themes. Web-slinging has maybe ten cards in the entire main set, most of which are aimed towards limited. Mayhem had barely more. We have a dedicated self-discard deck in current Standard in Rakdos and it typically doesn't even use any Mayhem cards. Villains had some typal synergy, but not enough for a constructed deck. Not even necessarily a tier 1 deck, just one that could compete. Maybe spiders?
Maybe spiders, indeed, but then again, that was also an issue. Spider-Man is the central character of Spider-Man, yes, but there is such a concept as too much of a good thing. Just in the main set, over 20 cards in the 200 card set start their name with "Spider-", and there are 40 if we expand beyond just the first word. One card in five. It makes both discussing and remembering the set much harder. This only makes the Through the Omenpaths issue worse. I know Kavaero is really strong in Standard and beyond, I think he's a Spider-Man in paper. But which one? Something like "S... Spider-Man" I'm pretty sure. Is it Spectacular? Supreme? Sensational?
Flavor-wise, I'm not the staunchest opponent of Universes Beyond, but some of the more mundane elements of the set do feel a bit out of place in this fantasy card game. This isn't a problem unique to Universes Beyond, I've had issues with it in other sets before, but some notable offenders from this set range from the Passenger Ferry to Rent is Due.
Mechanically and as far as individual designs, the Soul Stone feels pretty egregious at Mythic. It was stated by WotC designers before that purposefully printing generic staples for commander made the format worse, with Arcane Signet being paraded as an example. Arcane Signet was a common. The Soul Stone doesn't go in every deck of every color, but it seems pretty purposefully aimed at the same area of design, and it has much more limited distribution as a mythic that is unlikely to see nearly as widespread reprints in the future. Just like Through the Omenpaths, it is made worse by knowing it is likely part of a tight cycle with other upcoming Infinity Stones in future Marvel sets.
More of a peeve than an actual complaint, but for the sake of mentioning everything I remember: Spectacular Spider-Man not appearing in non-borderless version in the main set unlike literally every other card is weird and I would rather have a normal version available.
We're starting a new project on Goldfish on Monday I'm excited about. Every week, two of our players will battle 2 of the 64 best Standard decks across the history of magic in a best of five, along a single-elimination bracket that will take us over a year to complete.
The first match airs on Monday: Vivi Cauldron from 2025 against the infamous Caw Blade deck from 2011, two decks that required some pretty severe bannings to stop them.
We're starting a new project on Goldfish on Monday I'm excited about. Every week, two of our players will battle 2 of the 64 best Standard decks across the history of magic in a best of five, along a single-elimination bracket that will take us over a year to complete.
The first match airs on Monday: Vivi Cauldron from 2025 against the infamous Caw Blade deck from 2011, two decks that required some pretty severe bannings to stop them.
We're starting a new project on Goldfish on Monday I'm excited about. Every week, two of our players will battle 2 of the 64 best Standard decks across the history of magic in a best of five, along a single-elimination bracket that will take us over a year to complete.
The first match airs on Monday: Vivi Cauldron from 2025 against the infamous Caw Blade deck from 2011, two decks that required some pretty severe bannings to stop them.
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I had a hypothetical come into my mind, and I'm curious what other people think about it. (The poll is here for easy initial response, but if it's closed by the time you find this post, don't hesitate to answer anyway.)
Right before you die, you're given a magical opportunity. You are transported in time and space and get to live One More Day (24 hours) sometime in the future
In that day, you're in your prime and free of any illness, injury or weakness that came with age or accident. You are not a ghost then, you can act as normal. After that day, you will be returned to the moment of your death in the same condition you were before leaving and have no opportunity to do anything before it takes you. Geographically, you're put Somewhere Reasonable for the time you arrive, likely not at the bottom of the sea, in deep space or in a restricted area, unless it's far enough in a future when that's where people live and you can survive it. You can speak, read and understand the local language or typical means of communication.
You have one important decision: WHEN are you gonna live that extra day in the future?
(It is a magical gift, and cannot be cheated on. No future medicine or operation can save you past the time limit. Your consciousness cannot be transferred, cloned or altered enough to save you. Time dilation, physical, digital or otherwise, won't help you, neither will a partial or full stasis. After 24 hours of subjective or "objective" time, whichever is the shortest, that extra day will end.)
When do you want to live that day?
The next day (Say goodbye, do one more thing,...)
In a week to a year (See how people react to your death,...)
In 1 to 10 years (See the results of a decision or current event,...)
In 10 to 100 years (See how the world evolves in the near future,...)
In 500 years or more (See how the world will change on a longer term,...)
In 1 million years or more (Longer than humanity has been around)
In 1 billion years or more (See the world changed on a geological timescale)
Sometime specific in between the other options (Please specify when and why!)
Voting ended onJan 23
I'd be delighted to read what you picked, why and what you intend to do with that day in comments, reblogs or tags, even if you pick one of the main options! I've highlighted the more obvious reasons I could personally think of for the various options, but I'm sure there are plenty more I didn't think of.
