#ixalan

Here’s our MTGinktober for “Sweep,“ starring Amalia Benavides Aguirre. ¡Oye, you vatos are really starting to miff me off, wey!

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Walk the Plank

When Captain Thorn adds a new ship to his fleet, he gives the crew a simple choice: follow me, or fall in the sea.

“Henri, you traitor!”

The well-dressed, well-armed pirate scoffed at his former captain. “Sorry, Admiral Brass. But it’s nothing personal. I’ve just found someone who, shall we say, aligns better with my interests.”

“Everyone else has left the city to us!” Beckett Brass bellowed. “We are sitting on riches beyond our wildest imagination. Who could possibly be offering you more money?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I meant my interests, as a poet!”

“…A poet,” Brass echoed, incredulous.

“Yeah! There’s a woman from the Sun Empire who’s some kind of…warrior poet? I’m going to join her.”

Brass’s hand impacted against her face with an audible slap. “You mean Huatli.”

“And what of it? She’s a fighter, just like me. And she’s got an artistry to match my own!”

“But you’re a terrible poet.”

“You take that back!” Henri spat. “I had that one the other day. ‘A bolt to the eye, a blade to the neck. That’s the way to clear the deck!’ I think that was my best work yet!”

“…It was a single rhyme.”

“Sometimes less is more!”

“Indeed. Now leave him alone, Admiral.”

The third voice earned an annoyed eye roll from Brass. She turned to see a Sun Empire woman standing off to the side. Henri waved, and ran to her.

“Huatli!” The pirate greeted his supposed mortal enemy with surprising joviality. “Need my assistance, I take it?”

The planeswalker nodded. “You are indeed needed for battle, at my side. And don’t let your former friend faze you. The cause of artistry is a just one. And one that crosses faction lines at that.”

Brass blew a raspberry at the notion. Huatli merely smirked at the dismissal and continued speaking.

“And, Henri? I like your poems.”

The swashbuckler grinned over his shoulder at his former captain.

“No accounting for taste, I suppose,” Brass grumbled.

[Gishath, Sun's Avatar]

[Ixalan Battlemap]Temple of Aclazotz 32x56

The Temple of Aclazotz stands as a forbidden sanctuary to the Great Betrayer—the bat god of night, death, and eternal hunger. Though once bound deep beneath Ixalan, his presence lingers here, where desperate followers raised shrines to earn his favor. Skull-lined corridors, gilded-winged statues, and blood-stained altars fill the crumbling halls, while faded carvings recount his rise from mortal to god through betrayal and slaughter, and the dark promise of immortality he offers in return for devotion. Even now, whispers echo through the temple, and the boundary between life and death feels dangerously thin, as if something beneath the stone still listens.

More variations of this map:

Forest (Ixalan) - Raoul Vitale

Thundering Spineback

"It appears that nature has risen against us." —Captain Brinely Rage