For some of the faerie tales, it's weird when you think about how there already were references to them in the original set (Curious Pair, Trail of Crumbs, Queen of Ice, etc) and now there are new references, just much more "pushed" and over the top. It almost seems like the two Eldraines aren't connected, or that the new Eldraine is a "soft reboot."
They have said since last time that peoples lives and events on Eldraine mimic the events and beats of fairy tales over and over. Witches will often use sweets to lure in children to eat, peasant girls will often be sent to balls by a mysterious and magical benefactor to try and find true love before midnight and royal and nobel blooded scions will find themselves cursed and/or locked away in some tower by a dragon/witch/ect. It's not that uncommon in fairy tale adaptions and I've seen similar ideas from the book versions of the Witcher and Ella Enchanted, the Fables comic books and the tv show Once Upon a Time.
Also, the faerie tales they chose don't really seem to serve any purpose other than being a recognizable thing that people can latch onto (and a base for the ten draft archetypes).
I think this isa great idea for a design point. When looking at cards I know the Snow Queen themed cards are for the WU tap deck ect so its easy to see what cards are meant to be drafted together as they are recognizable.
Granted, that wouldn't bother me as long as WotC did their thing well and used them as inspiration/jumping-off points for building their own stuff. But (especially for Eldraine this time around) WotC doesn't seem interested in building their own world. They just want to take stories that literally everyone knows, throw them all together and go "you recognize this, right? Now buy the product."
A lot of the fairy tales where used in Kellans journey in the main story that where imo was this. His story was a mash up of Sleep Beatuy/Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Snow Queen that mixed magic owns lore into it and both played straight and subverted many fairy tales tropes in them. They likely could have woven more more of the fairy tales but we are where limited to just five stories with him sharing pov stuff with Rowan*.
As someone who reads a lot of fairy tale adaptions I'll also say the mini-stories in the rest of the draft archetypes also are about as different as you find in other adaptions. I don't think I remember a version of Cinderella where her prince is a dragon also in disguise and that they fight goblins who invade the party and most often the pied piper is coded as a child predator where as this he seems to be working together with Eldraines version of the Rat King from the nutcracker.
*Also Will and Rowans half was very much a retelling of Arthur and Morgan La Fey.
So is Oko from Lorwyn? Is that a "land where fae ruled supreme" or someplace entirely new and unseen? I think the latter, given how different he seems from the Lorwyn faeries and all that.
Oko is from a plane ruled by Fey who believe in a unified society, one where the ruling class has decided that for the betterment of all, the natural mischievousness of the Fey has to be suppressed. To the ruling class, they had created a perfect society—but for Oko, who was born with incredibly powerful shapeshifting abilities, this culture went against everything he was and contradicted his deepest, truest self. Styling himself as a speaker of truth, Oko felt he held a mirror to the hypocrisy of his world. The ruling class did not quite see it this way. They subjected him to magical procedures intended to suppress his powers but only succeed in igniting his spark.
Thinking yet again about Wizards's claim in Twitter that Kellan is a "lord of the high fae", maybe the actual point is that Eldraine doesn't natively use the term "high fae", and that is the real tip-off that Kellan has non-Eldraine faerie blood.
I think it was just someone getting Talion and Kellan names mixed up.
Of note; it seems the power to be didn't give extra budget to the creative team for MoM and Aftermath so we aren't getting side stories for this set as they used those resources on MoM /Aftermath instead.
Honesty like all the stories since Zendikar I think we could have split almost each story into 2 with Rowan and Kellans parts getting more time to breath a bit as separate episodes. That said Rivera is really good at getting emotions across, I can really see the mindset Rowan is in and as a red character her need to find some action to take.
I do like they keep the twins birth mother dead and Eriette is their aunt. Also adds to the Arthur side as Morgan La Fey often making her (or Arthurs or both (ew)) heir someone to fight Arthur (who Will is filling in this set) and take the throne, with Rowan also being Morgan La Fey in a way as she's Will's sister.
ATM I think Ashiok and Eriette are working together, Ashiok can play around with the dreams of those asleep and Eriette gets a kingdom under the control of her and her chooses group (a very WB and she is said to be a WB character). And while they where harsh, I think it was good for Rowan to hear from Ashiok about the great desparking to know about others sparks being gone.
Just my thoughts over everything after some days to think stuff over (and new job has me extra busy) (Spoilers for length);
Murders at Karlov Manor
On the one hand I like the Ravnica guilds/faction sets and I was hoping we see a Strixhaven style one the next time we hit Ravnica where all the guilds don't have one unique mechanic but instead shares some but uses them in different ways (also how morph/manifest/megamorph was used in Tarkir). That said I love murder mystery stuff so I'm extra excited for the story and flavor of this set and its great to have set on Ravnica that can focus on characters and elements that aren't strictly part of the guilds like we got a bit with War of the Spark. And as most of the golgari where killed/compleated so we could have this set to show them regrouping ect and not having an official guild leader /system set up until the next time they wanna do a guilds ravnica set.
The panel also showed art of Kaya so I we will likely see if she has her spark or not (as well as Ral). I feel like Kaya is 50/50 if she's deparked and I think Ral will defiantly be.
I also would love the idea that all the stuff happens in Teysa family mansion and she isn't aware of it until the end when the killer(s) are caught and she comes in wondering why the **** their are people running around in her Mansion.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
I kinda wish we could just have a wild west plane and a villains set separate but I can see why some of the power that be wouldn't be keen on a Western setting and needing the villains angle to go with it. I'm not a fan of westerns personally but after Kamigawa and New Capenna I welcome magic having more nontraditional fantasy settings and there is a lot of stuff to work with. New character looks cool and wonder if she's meant to be a villian or not.
For the figures outlined my guesses are tiny bones, Vraska, Jace, Oko, the new character and Rakdos. We will see if Vraska, Jace and Oko are still sparked but my guess is maybe all of them are and the new character is a planeswalker. And neat to see the first set that clearly couldn't happen until now with the omen paths letting all the villains. This being Angraths home plane would be cute but I don't see anything outright about Angrath being from western world and is vague enough to work either way.
Also glad they got a consultants on this and hope this will show a bit of diversity in mtg we don't get a lot of.
Bloomburrow
I'm not one of the "too many humans" people as imo diverse human cultures and representation > non-humans in fiction, but as I said with Thunder Junction I'm here to see more nontraditional magic setting and this fits. Plus I always felt it was a mistake to not having talking non-humanoid animals on Eldraine so I'm glad that choice was helpful to make this setting feel different. Wonder if this plane got hit by phrexia or was one of the ones that realmbreaker hadn't reached yet.
It would also be fitting if this was a the homeplane of Grist who would fit here as she is a just an insect and hopefully still has her spark if so. Otherwise I think this would be the first set without a desparked planeswalker (as Grist is the only canon animal planeswalker) and if no Grist as a planeswalker maybe we will get another animal walker on this plane. Also maybe this the home plane of Chatterfang.
Duskmourn
I'm split. On the one hand I love Innistrad I'd kinda just like to keep all the horror tropes and themes there. On the other hand I love the theory that the plane/mansion is some malevolent entity that was once only able to capture planeswalker now getting tons of people now due to the omenpaths which are unstable so likely those people are fully trapped and are not planeswalkers who can just walk away. Its also just a good use of the omethpaths letting them do a setting (a plane all inside a mansion) that couldn't maybe work a living world before now.
While I don't think they would show up as a card I could see this as Ashioks home plane as Ashiok could be seen as magic version of Freddy Krueger. And if the theory is true we could also see a few of desparked characters up now having to deal with a threat unable to just walk away, such as Nissa and Chandra* ending up here looking for Zendikar or Sorin/Arlinn now desparked and once the monsters on their home now victims on this one.
"Death Race"
Not my thing really but I have a vehicles deck so my melvin side will enjoy it and I like seeing set ideas that use the omenpaths. I do agree that one of the death race planes is likely Kaladesh, it fits well and I could see a storyline of Saheeli joining in order to find a pathway to Ixalan/Huatli. I'd be happy if the other returning plane was Alara (its my "lorwyn/Kamigawa") and this would help show the world off without needing to address the issues with the worlds card identity. Not sure on the third personally so really I think with the art the only plane I can think of for this is Kaladesh.
Tarkir 2
Tarkir was never my favorite set card wise but I do wanna see how things have changed pre-phyrexia. My guess is the clans/khans return and some of the dragons join them (changed to be more pro-humanoid after the phyrexian war) though none of the dragonlord will. Some of the dragonlord I think will be killed off but a few will remain as enemies. We already know Narset (and likely becomes a Khan in this timeline once again) and Sarkhan have been desparked here so only question is if they work in Ugin and if Ugin is still a planeswalker or not. That said I do think it makes more sense that Ugin is still sealed away with Bolas and why Tarkir has been unbalanced by Ugin being dead (khans)/healing coma (dragons).
"Space Opera"
Once again I support magic doing nontraditional fantasy settings and after looking over stuff in Starfinder I would love to see magics take of space fantasy. Only thing I don't care for (which might change) is aliens being used as a creature type vs just making new creature types for each new species. This might be also a good place to reprint some of the Warhammer cards as Universe Within cards. Also would be neat if this was a backdrop set featuring Dominaria as it is canon Dominaria has a full solar system. Be funny to also have (desparked or not) Jace here to make Space Belern canon.
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor 2
I'm not a huge lover of Lowyn/Shadowmoor but I do believe most of magics planes and worlds are returnable in some way and after Kamigawa 2 I'm happy to see Lorwyn is getting a mulligan. Gonna guess day/night will return and fits the flavor of the world changing on the day-night cycle. My personal theory is since we last saw Lowryn the plane will still change from Lorwyn to Shadowmoor and semi-regularly but peoples memories are retained and some elements of Lorwyn are in Shadowmoor and vice-vers such as Kithkin having Shadowmoor like eyes even during Lorwyn. Similar to Kamigawa 2 I don't think most of the old mechincs will show up (though hybrid likley would be cute to use here) though I think there will be a minor Lorwyn creature type matters theme.
Strixhaven 2
The fact we are coming back here right before the capstone set of this story saga really makes me think we will see Kasminas group (maybe now desperate with many members desparked) being a factor in the story either as big bads or trying to stop whatever bad is happening. Like I like Strixhaven but feels kinda soon to return to it. Will confirm if Liliana was depsarked since she was here helping rebuild so this where she would be if desparked. Guessing this will be the Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance of this story saga and be a more traditional Strixhaven return before the next set just uses the plane as a setting.
"Ziplining"
Can't say much except I think this will feature Kasmina cabal. Quint might be a main character as this is his home plane and would maybe play into his arc of being a (desparked) planeswalker.
When Wizards talked about the schedule for sets out to 2026 they also talked on what the story will be doing. We will be seeing three year long story arcs that will make up the next major saga for Magics story; Codename-Metronome*. The three arcs are; The Omenpath Arc (2023-2024), The Dragon Storm Arc (2024-2025) and The CENSORED* arc (2025-2026).
*As many of the sets are still in the very very early processes of being made, some info hasn't been fully given out and code names, ect are used instead.
Omen Path Arc (2023-2024)
Q4- 2023
Wilds of Eldraine
-Return to Eldraine with bigger focus on fairy tale theme
Desparked Planeswalkers- Will and Rowan
planeswalker- Ashiok
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Eriette
Major events (Spoilers for length)
-Rowan "falls to the dark side" in part by being manipulated by Ashiok and Eriette using her trauma of the Phyrexian war, the lost of her parents and her desparking and the friction with Will over the kingdom to get her to work with them.
-We meet Kellan a half fae human teenager who find out through his quest that his father is Oko. He finds an omenpath and starts a muti-planar journey to find his father.
-Ashiok seems to have plans involving gathering powerful individuals and seems to takes Eriette off plane for this reason.
Last Caverns of Ixalan
-A return to Ixalan but with it as a backdrop for "Underground world"
Desparked Planeswalkers- Huatli and Saheeli
Planeswalker- Quint
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Amalia
Major events
-Saheeli has moved to Ixalan via Omenpath usage
-We learn that the Fomori (seen a few times in flavor text and card) were a mutiplanar colonizing empire, nicknamed the Coin Empire by Quint, that at one time tried to take over the core of Ixalan.
-The Mycotyrant and Aclazotz are freed on Ixalan and possibly the rest of the multiverse.
-Amalia, a vampire disillusioned by her faith after meeting Aclazotz, joins Kellan traveling the planes.
2024
Murders at Karlov Manor
-Ravnica 4 but with it as a backdrop for a "Whodunnit" top down set.
Desparked Planeswalkers- N/A
Planeswalker- Kaya (card) Ral (story)
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan, Alquist Proft, Etrata
- Several murders happened on Ravnica and the detective team of Alquist Proft, Ravnicnas greatest sleuth, Kellan, Kaya and Etrata join together to figure out whodunnit with several guilds leadership and status quo shakened up.
-A powerful telepath/mental-mind mage appeared as a hooded figure in Proft memory palace and takes something from the detectives mind. No gender was hinted.
-Niv was show to be tracking and planning on taking control of the omenpaths popping up over Ravnica and make the plane the center/hub of the newly united multiverse.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
-A "villains" set that mixes in elements of the Western/ Cowboy genre
Desparked Planeswalkers- Vraska
planeswalker- Oko, Ral (story) and Ashiok (story)
but really Jace who got a card
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan, Annie Flash, Tiny Bones, Rakdos and the other members of Okos gang, Akul
-We enter on Thunder Junction, a midway plane that many omenpaths open into and where settlers of all kinds from all different planes have set up home.
-We end Kellans storyline as he finds his father Oko who has been recruited by Ashiok, along with several other villains to rob a vault on the plane of Thunder Junction. Father and son morals conflict as Kellan learns his father is nowhere the hero Kellan is.
-We find that this whole story Ashiok had been Jace in disguise who betrays Oko and he and Vraska take the true treasure, a child from an alien looking speices that has a living map of the mutiverse in his mind,
-In Epilogues we find out what happend to Jace and Vraska. Jace was able to keep more of his true self using his telepathy put his unphyrexian self aided by the halo that poured out of Luxior when Elspeth stabbed him. While unable to full keep in control enough of Jace was left to trick his mind and thus body into rejecting phyrexia as a virus.
-Finally either through this and/or Phyrexia being phased out/ Norn dying Jace as able to regain his mind and went looking for Vraska. Jace redid what he did on her to him and put mental shields around her mind to let her regain control of her mind and ordered her body to reject the oil and metal in her. Knowing its not enough and scared Jace goes the one place he can think of most for help and take Vraska and himself to his mom Ranna Beleren.
-Ranna is able to heal Jace and Vraska, taking months to do so but only able too due Jace's mental command to their bodies to reject phyrexia as well as Ranna having learned how to use phoenix feathers as a way to replace organs and body parts by using its fire to burn way the infection and then having the reminding flesh as a base to regrow new organs and limbs.
-Jace and Vraska heal and learn of the omenpaths and desparking and believing they need to fix the multiverse, taking the phoenix metaphor of death and rebirth they set out on an yet told plan to heal what phyrexia took. To this end Jace would hide himself as Ashiok first doing so at the end of WOE where it was him who freed Eriette after Ashiok fled and get the crew together to rob the vault and freeing the child, Loot. Now with a living map to the mutiverse in real time, the family of a telepath, a gorgon and their adopted child head out to fix what phyrexia broke.
The Dragon Storm Arc (2024-2025)
Bloomburrow
- A "Funny Animal" trope themed plane (see Redwall) with no humanoid beings and all animals are to scope
Duskmourn: House of Horror
- A new Horror plane thats much more modern horror (with 70's/80's horror period being mentioned) and the whole plane is set within a singel haunted Manor
2025 (The rest of sets are being worked on and such we only have codenames for the sets and will be updated as we know info)
Tennis
-A "Death race" set across three planes now connected by the Omenpaths. Two of the planes are planes that have been visited in a premier-set but not returned to and the third is a plane that we have seen on cards, but it hasn't been the main setting of a premier set yet.
Ultimate
-A return to Tarkir that will feature elements from both Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir
The CENSORED Arc (2024-2025)
Volleyball
- A top down Space Opera fantasy set
Wrestling
- A return to Lorwyn (and likely Shadowmoor )
2026
Yachting - A return to Strixhaven
Ziplining
- A capstone set (Ie War of the Spark and March of the Machine) of this story Saga.
Stories start August 8th and the Author is K. Arsenault Rivera and only 5 chapters again. I really hope they start letting the fiction have more chapters to breath, 5 just isn't enough unless they give the author a higher word count. On the postive I think Rivera has wonderful when it comes to the prose and is a a fellow vorthos so I'm looking forward to see her work again. Wonder if she will get another wedding story, it is a fairy tale themed after all.
Maro and Roy Graham (the new story leader) have given a few reasons for the desparking that relates to the 1 planeswalker planeswalkers per set;
-Yes and no to planeswalkers running out of design space. What it really is, is that planewwalkers card space is shallow. They are limited by what kinds effects they can do and how much room each ability can have. Then you add in that each card is meant to be flavored as a certain character and then has to be balanced for whatever format the card is being put into and they need to be somewhat playable, which can make planeswalker cards harder to design. And since they been trying to give each planeswalker a "gimmick" some planeswalkers started running out of good design space depending on the gimmick.
-On that note planeswalkers are tricky to balance which is why development also has rough a color balance with the planeswalkers in standard (which was a way to predict who might show up in upcoming sets). This would also lead to creative having to figure out why certain characters would on certain planes or what character shift would change a walkers colors when the biggest reason to do so was development needed a walker of certain color(s) to balance out standard. This also why it took years for them to make another BR planeswalker between Sarkhan and Angrath in standard or why a lot of walkers color identifies changed between different cards a lot.
-They want planeswalkers to feel more special again as cards and as characters and want to really give better story reasons for why planeswalker would want to planeswalk.
-And as noted they really really made a lot of planeswalker cards within the last eight years and I can see why they wanna step back a bit from them. That said I wish they just been more conservative about the number of walker cards.
I think Saga are kinda replacing the PW design space somehow. They have similar functions but seems Sagas have much more design spaces, it's also more difficult they warp standard around them since they don't stick around a lot for their nature. The fact that they are putting almost 20 new sagas only for Dr.Who Commander decks is really telling.
Nah, Maro has always noted saga are just super popular whenever they do them. They would be an every set thing but are held back by wanting to be related to some sort of strong flavor or well know story events to up tie together the abilities of the saga. Universe Beyound work well as they have stories and events that lend well to sagas.
Per Maro there are a lot of ideas/requests for planes that they felt couldn't make a full plane on its own and have decided to try adding these ideas to existing planes. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is the first of these experments with planes with "Underground world" being added to Ixalan.
So it's not "Lost Caverns of Ixalan", it's "Lost Cavern of Ixalan", got it.
Not sure why they decide to expand on the world this way instead of, like, visiting the other continent(s) we've been teased about, but I don't understand most creative decisions from WotC anymore.
Ixalan is a Mesoamerican flavored plane, you'd lose some of that if you go to the other continent(s) and this also gives the plane a soft reboot with the elements (like the gods and angels) without retcons.
Also, did I see that right? "Lord" has been reinstated as a creature type? Does that mean old lords that were errata'd to not be lords are lords again?
And Time is now a creature type for reasons. Cool. I guess Time Elemental is now a proper Time Elemental, eh?
Time Lord is one creature type with two words, this isn't a thing they want to do going forward just the best way to express it for this set.
-The set will be a lot more fairy tale themed this time vs Arthurian
-We meet the other two witch sisters to Eriette of the Charmed Apple, Hylda of the Icy Crown and Agatha of the Vile Cauldron
-Each two color pair will be based on a fairy tale; UB-Sleeping Beauty (which is also a general motif of the story), WU- The Snow Queen, BG- Hansel and Gretel, WB- Snow White, GR- Little Red Riding Hood, UG- Jack and the Beanstalk
-On the note of Jack we have a Trojan a vedalken with a few people saying he traveled through an omenpath and ended up in Eldraine
-Kellan is a lord of the high fey tasked to break the slumbering curse, we are told to keep an eye on him
They have said since last time that peoples lives and events on Eldraine mimic the events and beats of fairy tales over and over. Witches will often use sweets to lure in children to eat, peasant girls will often be sent to balls by a mysterious and magical benefactor to try and find true love before midnight and royal and nobel blooded scions will find themselves cursed and/or locked away in some tower by a dragon/witch/ect. It's not that uncommon in fairy tale adaptions and I've seen similar ideas from the book versions of the Witcher and Ella Enchanted, the Fables comic books and the tv show Once Upon a Time.
I think this isa great idea for a design point. When looking at cards I know the Snow Queen themed cards are for the WU tap deck ect so its easy to see what cards are meant to be drafted together as they are recognizable.
A lot of the fairy tales where used in Kellans journey in the main story that where imo was this. His story was a mash up of Sleep Beatuy/Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Snow Queen that mixed magic owns lore into it and both played straight and subverted many fairy tales tropes in them. They likely could have woven more more of the fairy tales but we are where limited to just five stories with him sharing pov stuff with Rowan*.
As someone who reads a lot of fairy tale adaptions I'll also say the mini-stories in the rest of the draft archetypes also are about as different as you find in other adaptions. I don't think I remember a version of Cinderella where her prince is a dragon also in disguise and that they fight goblins who invade the party and most often the pied piper is coded as a child predator where as this he seems to be working together with Eldraines version of the Rat King from the nutcracker.
*Also Will and Rowans half was very much a retelling of Arthur and Morgan La Fey.
New and unseen, we got a little look at it when he was introduced;
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2019/08/28/exclusive-meet-oko-the-magic-the-gathering-multiverses-newest-planeswalker/?sh=68f6b271b1ae
I think it was just someone getting Talion and Kellan names mixed up.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-5-broken-oaths
Of note; it seems the power to be didn't give extra budget to the creative team for MoM and Aftermath so we aren't getting side stories for this set as they used those resources on MoM /Aftermath instead.
I do like they keep the twins birth mother dead and Eriette is their aunt. Also adds to the Arthur side as Morgan La Fey often making her (or Arthurs or both (ew)) heir someone to fight Arthur (who Will is filling in this set) and take the throne, with Rowan also being Morgan La Fey in a way as she's Will's sister.
ATM I think Ashiok and Eriette are working together, Ashiok can play around with the dreams of those asleep and Eriette gets a kingdom under the control of her and her chooses group (a very WB and she is said to be a WB character). And while they where harsh, I think it was good for Rowan to hear from Ashiok about the great desparking to know about others sparks being gone.
Murders at Karlov Manor
The panel also showed art of Kaya so I we will likely see if she has her spark or not (as well as Ral). I feel like Kaya is 50/50 if she's deparked and I think Ral will defiantly be.
I also would love the idea that all the stuff happens in Teysa family mansion and she isn't aware of it until the end when the killer(s) are caught and she comes in wondering why the **** their are people running around in her Mansion.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
For the figures outlined my guesses are tiny bones, Vraska, Jace, Oko, the new character and Rakdos. We will see if Vraska, Jace and Oko are still sparked but my guess is maybe all of them are and the new character is a planeswalker. And neat to see the first set that clearly couldn't happen until now with the omen paths letting all the villains. This being Angraths home plane would be cute but I don't see anything outright about Angrath being from western world and is vague enough to work either way.
Also glad they got a consultants on this and hope this will show a bit of diversity in mtg we don't get a lot of.
Bloomburrow
It would also be fitting if this was a the homeplane of Grist who would fit here as she is a just an insect and hopefully still has her spark if so. Otherwise I think this would be the first set without a desparked planeswalker (as Grist is the only canon animal planeswalker) and if no Grist as a planeswalker maybe we will get another animal walker on this plane. Also maybe this the home plane of Chatterfang.
Duskmourn
While I don't think they would show up as a card I could see this as Ashioks home plane as Ashiok could be seen as magic version of Freddy Krueger. And if the theory is true we could also see a few of desparked characters up now having to deal with a threat unable to just walk away, such as Nissa and Chandra* ending up here looking for Zendikar or Sorin/Arlinn now desparked and once the monsters on their home now victims on this one.
"Death Race"
Tarkir 2
"Space Opera"
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor 2
Strixhaven 2
"Ziplining"
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-2-wandering-knight-budding-hero
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-pure-of-heart
*As many of the sets are still in the very very early processes of being made, some info hasn't been fully given out and code names, ect are used instead.
Omen Path Arc (2023-2024)
Q4- 2023
Wilds of Eldraine
-Return to Eldraine with bigger focus on fairy tale theme
Desparked Planeswalkers- Will and Rowan
planeswalker- Ashiok
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Eriette
Major events (Spoilers for length)
-We meet Kellan a half fae human teenager who find out through his quest that his father is Oko. He finds an omenpath and starts a muti-planar journey to find his father.
-Ashiok seems to have plans involving gathering powerful individuals and seems to takes Eriette off plane for this reason.
Last Caverns of Ixalan
-A return to Ixalan but with it as a backdrop for "Underground world"
Desparked Planeswalkers- Huatli and Saheeli
Planeswalker- Quint
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Amalia
Major events
-We learn that the Fomori (seen a few times in flavor text and card) were a mutiplanar colonizing empire, nicknamed the Coin Empire by Quint, that at one time tried to take over the core of Ixalan.
-The Mycotyrant and Aclazotz are freed on Ixalan and possibly the rest of the multiverse.
-Amalia, a vampire disillusioned by her faith after meeting Aclazotz, joins Kellan traveling the planes.
2024
Murders at Karlov Manor
-Ravnica 4 but with it as a backdrop for a "Whodunnit" top down set.
Desparked Planeswalkers- N/A
Planeswalker- Kaya (card) Ral (story)
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan, Alquist Proft, Etrata
-A powerful telepath/mental-mind mage appeared as a hooded figure in Proft memory palace and takes something from the detectives mind. No gender was hinted.
-Niv was show to be tracking and planning on taking control of the omenpaths popping up over Ravnica and make the plane the center/hub of the newly united multiverse.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
-A "villains" set that mixes in elements of the Western/ Cowboy genre
Desparked Planeswalkers- Vraska
planeswalker- Oko, Ral (story) and Ashiok (story)
-We end Kellans storyline as he finds his father Oko who has been recruited by Ashiok, along with several other villains to rob a vault on the plane of Thunder Junction. Father and son morals conflict as Kellan learns his father is nowhere the hero Kellan is.
-We find that this whole story Ashiok had been Jace in disguise who betrays Oko and he and Vraska take the true treasure, a child from an alien looking speices that has a living map of the mutiverse in his mind,
-In Epilogues we find out what happend to Jace and Vraska. Jace was able to keep more of his true self using his telepathy put his unphyrexian self aided by the halo that poured out of Luxior when Elspeth stabbed him. While unable to full keep in control enough of Jace was left to trick his mind and thus body into rejecting phyrexia as a virus.
-Finally either through this and/or Phyrexia being phased out/ Norn dying Jace as able to regain his mind and went looking for Vraska. Jace redid what he did on her to him and put mental shields around her mind to let her regain control of her mind and ordered her body to reject the oil and metal in her. Knowing its not enough and scared Jace goes the one place he can think of most for help and take Vraska and himself to his mom Ranna Beleren.
-Ranna is able to heal Jace and Vraska, taking months to do so but only able too due Jace's mental command to their bodies to reject phyrexia as well as Ranna having learned how to use phoenix feathers as a way to replace organs and body parts by using its fire to burn way the infection and then having the reminding flesh as a base to regrow new organs and limbs.
-Jace and Vraska heal and learn of the omenpaths and desparking and believing they need to fix the multiverse, taking the phoenix metaphor of death and rebirth they set out on an yet told plan to heal what phyrexia took. To this end Jace would hide himself as Ashiok first doing so at the end of WOE where it was him who freed Eriette after Ashiok fled and get the crew together to rob the vault and freeing the child, Loot. Now with a living map to the mutiverse in real time, the family of a telepath, a gorgon and their adopted child head out to fix what phyrexia broke.
The Dragon Storm Arc (2024-2025)
Bloomburrow
- A "Funny Animal" trope themed plane (see Redwall) with no humanoid beings and all animals are to scope
Duskmourn: House of Horror
- A new Horror plane thats much more modern horror (with 70's/80's horror period being mentioned) and the whole plane is set within a singel haunted Manor
2025 (The rest of sets are being worked on and such we only have codenames for the sets and will be updated as we know info)
Tennis
-A "Death race" set across three planes now connected by the Omenpaths. Two of the planes are planes that have been visited in a premier-set but not returned to and the third is a plane that we have seen on cards, but it hasn't been the main setting of a premier set yet.
Ultimate
-A return to Tarkir that will feature elements from both Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir
The CENSORED Arc (2024-2025)
Volleyball
- A top down Space Opera fantasy set
Wrestling
- A return to Lorwyn (and likely Shadowmoor )
2026
Yachting
- A return to Strixhaven
Ziplining
- A capstone set (Ie War of the Spark and March of the Machine) of this story Saga.
-Yes and no to planeswalkers running out of design space. What it really is, is that planewwalkers card space is shallow. They are limited by what kinds effects they can do and how much room each ability can have. Then you add in that each card is meant to be flavored as a certain character and then has to be balanced for whatever format the card is being put into and they need to be somewhat playable, which can make planeswalker cards harder to design. And since they been trying to give each planeswalker a "gimmick" some planeswalkers started running out of good design space depending on the gimmick.
-On that note planeswalkers are tricky to balance which is why development also has rough a color balance with the planeswalkers in standard (which was a way to predict who might show up in upcoming sets). This would also lead to creative having to figure out why certain characters would on certain planes or what character shift would change a walkers colors when the biggest reason to do so was development needed a walker of certain color(s) to balance out standard. This also why it took years for them to make another BR planeswalker between Sarkhan and Angrath in standard or why a lot of walkers color identifies changed between different cards a lot.
-They want planeswalkers to feel more special again as cards and as characters and want to really give better story reasons for why planeswalker would want to planeswalk.
-And as noted they really really made a lot of planeswalker cards within the last eight years and I can see why they wanna step back a bit from them. That said I wish they just been more conservative about the number of walker cards.
Nah, Maro has always noted saga are just super popular whenever they do them. They would be an every set thing but are held back by wanting to be related to some sort of strong flavor or well know story events to up tie together the abilities of the saga. Universe Beyound work well as they have stories and events that lend well to sagas.
Per Maro there are a lot of ideas/requests for planes that they felt couldn't make a full plane on its own and have decided to try adding these ideas to existing planes. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is the first of these experments with planes with "Underground world" being added to Ixalan.
Ixalan is a Mesoamerican flavored plane, you'd lose some of that if you go to the other continent(s) and this also gives the plane a soft reboot with the elements (like the gods and angels) without retcons.
Time Lord is one creature type with two words, this isn't a thing they want to do going forward just the best way to express it for this set.
-The set will be a lot more fairy tale themed this time vs Arthurian
-We meet the other two witch sisters to Eriette of the Charmed Apple, Hylda of the Icy Crown and Agatha of the Vile Cauldron
-Each two color pair will be based on a fairy tale; UB-Sleeping Beauty (which is also a general motif of the story), WU- The Snow Queen, BG- Hansel and Gretel, WB- Snow White, GR- Little Red Riding Hood, UG- Jack and the Beanstalk
-On the note of Jack we have a Trojan a vedalken with a few people saying he traveled through an omenpath and ended up in Eldraine
-Kellan is a lord of the high fey tasked to break the slumbering curse, we are told to keep an eye on him