Well, it surprises me how many cards have absolutely NO story relevance. For a set that boasted that it is story-focused, half of them are random generic things.
It's not that they have no story relevance, but that half of them redundantly have the exact same story to tell: A bunch of planeswalkers become creatures.
Well, that and "things are starting to get rebuilt" but that's really weak as far as story relevance goes. And even then they still found room to include some random dinosaurs.
Is there an album with all the spoiled cards somewhere? I don't want to click through a YT video...
To me it looks like the majority of planeswalkers are going to be desparked (because I see no real reason for only a few of them being affected). However, it also appears that the planes have been brought "closer together" so they can be traversed even by people without working sparks, as many predicted.
I find it pretty lame that they included so many generic "random person/animal from plane X" cards. If you're doing a mini-set that's supposed to be focused on the story, why not fill it to the brim with story relevant stuff?
Very neat designs all in all. It's a bit difficult to gauge the power level on these since no one really knows how easy it is to flip a battle yet. Invasion of Iquatana seemed a bit weak to me at first, but I guess the back half is pretty good in a build-around deck and you can easily trigger it by Lightning Bolting the battle.
Elder Twins’ Ultimatum feels a bit weird to me - can you manifest cards that are already on the battlefield (and have it basically mean "turn them face-down, they are 2/2 creatues")? Afaik all manifest cards so far pull the manifested cards from another zone. Also, the Wit's End part of the effect feels like it could be a bit too strong in addition to a (mostly one-sided) sweeper.
Yeah ... I was kind of excited about Invasion of Belenon at first, but what they've given us is pretty generic. I was expecting a little bit more "out there," something more Kaladesh-esque and futuristic-leaning. Xerex is kind of the same, they have this awesome M.C. Escher plane and they basically went "uhhhm ... they have knights there I guess."
Interestingly both kithkin cards revealed so far have the glowing no-iris eyes from Shadowmoor, but the Billyrider is very clearly in a Lorwyn environment. Maybe the two planes did merge, but rather unevenly, with the elves largely taking after the Lorwyn-aspect and the kithkin taking on slightly more of the shadowmoor-aspect, at least visually.
Same might go for locations as well? Which would explain why there's a Mistmeadow in an otherwise Lorwyn-esque plane?
I was interpreting the eyes on the Billyrider as a visual cue of Thoughtweft magic being "active" (see Thoughtweft Trio). Considering that the dual aspect of the plane is one of Lorwyn's key characteristics that they would probably want to preserve for a return, I can see them going for a setup where there's always a Lorwyn and always a Shadowmoor existing in parallel as mirrors of each other, with some people being able to cross between them.
Path of the Enigma - that's Kasmina, right? Seems like she's not going to be the leader of (or involved with) a league of evil after all. Or maybe it's going to be a "noble cause with negative effects" kind of deal.
The new Lorwyn cards don't really tell us much about how the plane functions now. They're mostly Lorwyn (Invasion of Lorwyn, Kithkin Billyrider, Compleated Huntmaster), but then there's also one Shadowmoor Kithkin in the Commander precons (Mistmeadow Vanisher). I don't think it means much, but if I had to interpret some meaning into this, I'd say that this points to Lorwyn and Shadowmoor existing side-by-side to one another.
If any of the battles see play in constructed, I expect burn spells to play a big role. "Cast this, deal 3 damage to the battle, then swing with these three creatures, one at the battle and two at you." Not sure if that's worth it though. The payoff has to be pretty good.
I'm a big fan of these one-off Planechase cards that show unknown planes. It would be neat if Wizards could use supplemental sets etc. to slowly flesh some of them out over time. I guess the "new lore" here is that Belenon has Loxodon, Aven and Rhox.
I want to think that the event depicted on this card is the entirety of the invasion of Segovia. Some Phyrexian just got his foot stuck in a tiny Realmbreaker portal. That's it.
What if all planeswalkers despark and the only difference between 'walkers and nonwalkers is if they actually leave their plane? Kinda like how they handled planeswalkers in UB?
In this case, it would be kind of weird that they crammed in one final sparking event with Quint before undoing it all ... but it's Wizards, so.
Predictably the trailer is more badass than the actual confrontation
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but even with the trailer looking a bit like a kid's cartoon, its visuals (and the card art that has been spoiled so far) are really making me more excited for this set's story than ... the actual story.
Referee Squad ... I might have already found my favourite art from this set. Love me some funny little guys being all badass. Essence of Orthodoxy looks pretty neat as well.
As usual, looking at the card art and the flavor text is hyping me up more for the story of the set than reading the actual story.
All of the commanders seem very mediocre, esp. the Kitsune and the Angel.
Also today I learned that the plane Ergamon existed, at first I thought it was neat hint at an upcoming new plane. But WotC doesn't do cool things like that anymore...
Well, no surprises here. I expected the ending to be weird and rushed, and lo and behold - it is. They really went with the "if you kill the alien matriarch, all of her brood dies too" route. And they waited for the final episode to provide the reader with an explanation for why this totally makes sense, actually (I don't think we've ever heard of the oil being used as a "signal" before this). I'm no writer, but isn't this one of the things you'd would want to set up? Together with ONE, they had 15 main stories to work with. Why is all of this crammed in the last episode? idk, maybe it's too much to ask to have stuff set up 3-4 sets in advance and have everything be connected consistently, but surely a setup in the set before or even at the beginning of the same set's story should be possible, no?
Overall, the ending was ... OK I guess. The one part that I really liked about the story was Wrenn fusing with Realmbreaker, even though this bit of plot falls apart somewhat if think too much about it (as Flisch laid out). I agree that they should've let Ajani and Nissa die. Zhalfir coming back is nice, I guess ... but its return didn't really have an impact on me. Wrenn swapping it with NP was a neat solution, and I know Zhalfir matters to Teferi, but apart from that, idk. Again, could have used some more setup. Maybe some Teferi POV story chapters in between ONE and MOM showing us how Zhalfir would help with the battle against NP. As-is, you have to go with base assumptions like "well, they were preparing to battle old Phyrexia..." and that just feels a bit stale.
The promo art for MOM was apparently just that - marketing material with no story significance. I kind of get it and don't get it at the same time. They probably wanted to show that this set is a cross-planaer conflict. But then I don't know why they choose the characters they chose. My best guess is the promo art was made early, when the story was still being concepted/written (if that's the case, it sure would be nice they could get their storyline-production workflow in line).
Is there an album with all the spoiled cards somewhere? I don't want to click through a YT video...
I find it pretty lame that they included so many generic "random person/animal from plane X" cards. If you're doing a mini-set that's supposed to be focused on the story, why not fill it to the brim with story relevant stuff?
Elder Twins’ Ultimatum feels a bit weird to me - can you manifest cards that are already on the battlefield (and have it basically mean "turn them face-down, they are 2/2 creatues")? Afaik all manifest cards so far pull the manifested cards from another zone. Also, the Wit's End part of the effect feels like it could be a bit too strong in addition to a (mostly one-sided) sweeper.
The new Lorwyn cards don't really tell us much about how the plane functions now. They're mostly Lorwyn (Invasion of Lorwyn, Kithkin Billyrider, Compleated Huntmaster), but then there's also one Shadowmoor Kithkin in the Commander precons (Mistmeadow Vanisher). I don't think it means much, but if I had to interpret some meaning into this, I'd say that this points to Lorwyn and Shadowmoor existing side-by-side to one another.
As usual, looking at the card art and the flavor text is hyping me up more for the story of the set than reading the actual story.
Also today I learned that the plane Ergamon existed, at first I thought it was neat hint at an upcoming new plane. But WotC doesn't do cool things like that anymore...
Overall, the ending was ... OK I guess. The one part that I really liked about the story was Wrenn fusing with Realmbreaker, even though this bit of plot falls apart somewhat if think too much about it (as Flisch laid out). I agree that they should've let Ajani and Nissa die. Zhalfir coming back is nice, I guess ... but its return didn't really have an impact on me. Wrenn swapping it with NP was a neat solution, and I know Zhalfir matters to Teferi, but apart from that, idk. Again, could have used some more setup. Maybe some Teferi POV story chapters in between ONE and MOM showing us how Zhalfir would help with the battle against NP. As-is, you have to go with base assumptions like "well, they were preparing to battle old Phyrexia..." and that just feels a bit stale.
The promo art for MOM was apparently just that - marketing material with no story significance. I kind of get it and don't get it at the same time. They probably wanted to show that this set is a cross-planaer conflict. But then I don't know why they choose the characters they chose. My best guess is the promo art was made early, when the story was still being concepted/written (if that's the case, it sure would be nice they could get their storyline-production workflow in line).