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When Teferi visits Zhalfir in MOM story, he finds only a decade has passed. Yesterday’s reveal seemed to say hundreds of years had, though, like they effectively developed in real time while phased out.

I want to be careful with this because I’m still incredibly excited for Zhalfir and don’t want to dampen anyone else’s excitement, but… am I missing something?

I wouldn't put much importance on broad story overviews delivered live at conventions.

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I am hyped for the giant mechas of Kamigawa: Titanbreach, and I want more. Are there other Magic planes which are likely to build their own giant robots?

Almost any plane is capable of building mechs, but only a few come to mind as sufficiently technologically advanced to build a mech suit rather than, say, a large magically animated artifact. The difference between the two should be obvious, I think.

The sufficiently technologically advanced (major) planes are:

Alara (Esper has the tech)

Arcavios (Has the tech to do it, but doesn't build war weapons anymore)

Avishkar (Peacewalker Colossus)

Capenna (Hasn't built one yet, but has the tech level)

Dominaria (Power Armor)

Duskmourn (Had the tech level pre-collapse)

Kamigawa

Kylem (Based on their Aetherdrift tech)

Phyrexia/New Phyrexia

Ravnica (Izzet Tech)

The Edge

Vryn (The tech is probably lost, like the mage rings)

Zhalfir (Same history as Dominaria)

So the Keelhaulers from Aetherdrift are clearly from Nauctis, right?

Nauctis does appear to also have chordatans.

Which of the three 2027 sets announced today are you most excited for?

Kamigawa Titanbreach is the only MIP set I worked on coming out next year, it's definitely the one I'm most excited for as a fan of the kaiju and mech genres.

But that's like, the best of a lot of good. It's easily the most stacked slate we've had in years.

A bit out of your ballpark, but any reason as to why light-related characters in Marvel sets and Final Fantasy tend to skew towards red over white?

Universes Beyond color pie is definitely not my thing, no.

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I just noticed that there's a kithkin in Strixhaven's Alchemy set! Do we know if Head of the Class is from Arcavios, or is she a transplant from somewhere else?

Given the imagery of the magic my assumption was Lorwyn Kithkin.

Hello Jay, I've always wondered why phyrexians aren't typed as artifact creatures, despite being made of metal. The precedent of creatures from Esper being artifact creatures would imply these mechanical creatures would be artifacts more so than those with an etherium limb or two. Thanks!

Esper’s colored artifacts was actually meant to be the New Phyrexia mechanic. The reality is that design limitations keep that from being so. In-universe it’s best explained by them being zombie cyborgs, with the as much flesh as machine except of the ones that skew artifact.

vorthosjay

Hello, Jay! So, that's actually counts as a Siren in the Multiverse? So far we've seen bird-people, water maidens and even the ripoff of Ursula from "The Little Mermaid". What they have in common? Why are they all classified as such?

A siren is about bring a sea spirit with an alluring call, not a specific form. The most common we’ve seen are the Theros and Ixalan ones, which are based on a certain kind of siren myth (the winged one).

loreleywrites

OK so they are all based on the actual history of siren mythology in Europe.

Sirens are first seen in the Odyssey, where Homer never describes them physically but instead focuses on their song. This song is seductive not for any reason of sex appeal, but because the sirens know everything that has ever happened. The allure of the sirens is secret information, which is why Odysseus gets lashed to the mast to he can hear their song.

Later Greek depictions show them as bird people (potential Egyptian influence), so Magic's many depictions of sirens as beople (bird people) is rooted in these original Greek works:

Obviously, they are beople on Theros because that is their culture of origin, but they're also beople on Ixalan because merfolk already have the feople (fish people) thing covered.

Some feople sirens do exist in ancient Greek art, as they are beings always associated with the ocean. But the popularized image of sirens as seductive mermaids is from medieval bestiaries and a result of Christian Nonsense (TM) about women. This image gets reinforced again and again as European sailing quests go global, and now the modern conception of the siren is heavily entangled with mermaid folklore.

There are also medieval depictions that have fish tails AND wings, which is neat! Ultimately, they're two different depictions of a creature that was undescribed in its original stories. Over time, without a wiki to reference, lots of stories got remixed, and different cultures highlighted different aspects of the siren in ways that were resonant with the people redepicting them in their respective times.

Art and culture are messy and complicated when stretched accross millennia! It's fun!

Hello, Jay! So, that's actually counts as a Siren in the Multiverse? So far we've seen bird-people, water maidens and even the ripoff of Ursula from "The Little Mermaid". What they have in common? Why are they all classified as such?

A siren is about bring a sea spirit with an alluring call, not a specific form. The most common we’ve seen are the Theros and Ixalan ones, which are based on a certain kind of siren myth (the winged one).

Hi Jay, I was wondering if you could share anything you know about Plagon, Lord of the Beach? I love the little guy and have been trying to find a bit more about his lore, plane, etc and the only thing I can find is that Jesper Ejsing came up with him and did the original concept art for him.

There is, unfortunately, no lore to most Jumpstart Legends.

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How canonical the Untold Stories cycle actually is? The Jace's seriers has some strange stuff going on...

They’re all canon

Hi Jay! How you're doing? Are the gods theros as good as shapeshifting as the greek gods who inspired them?

They can shapeshift, in both size and form, yes.

Is Mica named after the mineral, or it's just a coincidence? :)

Likely intentional

Hello Jay! 👋 The size of a plane has been discussed in the lore several times now. For example, Theros is said to be only as large as a single continent, and Zhalfir is only as big as its eponymous landmass.

My question is, what happens if one were to hit the "edge" of these planes? Do they always loop back around like a spherical planet? Is there some sort of magic wall at the edge of the world? Or am I just misunderstanding the nature of all this?

It varies. Many of them it’ll never come up, others are spheres, Theros you can fall off into nothing.

>> "Venser was the first “Post”-Mending planeswalker" -- but his case (and Radha's) was kinda unique; they were born before the Mending, their Sparks affected by the rifts. Meanwhile, all the post-Mending PWs are as they are because Jeska desided to make them so while closing the Otarian rift with the power of Karona.

This is what the quotations were intended to denote.

In the end, they were all the same kind of planeswalker, even if Venser's route was unique.

Radha was never a planeswalker, she had a spark but it never ignited for her like Venser's did. She and Glissa share that distinction of being main characters with the potential but never planeswalking themselves.

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So, as far as I get it, there're three kinds of Planeswalker: the old-walkers (immortal, powerful, basically gods), the post-mending-walkers (mere mortal mages able to walk the planes), and Venser, who was "the first of a new breed of Planeswalker" and should be something in between, as he was clearly not a god, but somehow managed to live for about 60 years and hasn't aged a month. Am I correct?

Venser was the first “Post”-Mending planeswalker. What happened to him is what happened to everyone else after.

Wizards on Dominaria can just live long pretty easy. Maybe he got some of that time water. Maybe it was a continuity error they just went with.

Regarding Phyrexian spirits, were the Pneumagogs not compleated then?

Pneumagogs were a weird thing on Phyrexia but notably physical on the upper spheres.

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