I cannot take credit for realizing this, but the "XLVIII" is probably not arbitrary or a good indicator of how many generations have passed since the Ice Age.
Because it is an inside joke: The Seattle Seahawks (WotC's home American football team) won Super Bowl XLVIII. And Cassius Marsh - who previewed this card - was originally drafted by the Seahawks in 2014, the same year they won Super Bowl XLVIII.
I'll bet the Frog Samurai is the "Frog twenty-six years in the making" - because it is probably a callback to Chub Toad, which is kinda sorta the original "Bushido" card.
This is an amazing first impression. I'd like to point out that our diligent speculators on the other threat collectively nailed the enemy-color theming (which has been long-overdue) and got the names correct, except I think transposing Prismari and Quandrix.
I agree with everyone who thinks Jin-Gitaxias is likely to appear. I know it would be utterly absurd, but a small part of me just really wants him to be one of the professors at Strixhaven, hiding in plain sight. Can you imagine the classes he would teach? (Maybe that would be more appropriate for the next Un-set?)
On Nahiri and kor nationalism, her Arena quotes pretty much confirm she wants to restore the kor empire.
In potential spoiler territory, if the Arena quotes can be trusted, it seems both Nissa and Nahiri will go too far in their attempts to defend their vision of Zendikar (Nissa embracing her B side, and possibly channeling the blight) and both will regret what they have done.
If this is accurate, this could represent a surprising level of nuance we haven't seen in the story in many years, provided it is handled well. (We've had too many mustache-twirling villains for too long. As story where everyone is somewhat right, somewhat wrong, and blind certainty is the real enemy would be a nice palate cleanser.)
And if it's handled poorly, it will further twist the knife in everyone already angry about Nissa+Chandra and undo what little character development Nissa has actually gotten while presenting a false moral equivalence with someone who effectively attempted to cause a genocide on Innistrad.
But I will give WotC the benefit of the doubt. For now.
With what little we have to go on right now, based on the art and the formal invitations, I'm guessing an Arthurian / Chivalric Romance traditional High Fantasy set, and that it will be Kasmina's home plane. (She is a wizard who trains other wizards, so she could easily be the world's Merlin analogue.)
While I agree a Viking / Norse plane (probably Kaldheim, Valla, or a renamed-for-trademark-reasons version of one of those two) seems most likely, I just heard another theory today about the Fall set: a true Dungeons & Dragons crossover set.
Last fall, WotC published the Guildmaster's Guild to Ravnica for D&D 5th Edition. D&D is huge right now, including streaming D&D games, and WotC is clearly looking to bring the Twitch crowd to Magic and especially Arena. So maybe it's time for MtG to return the favor and visit a D&D plane (such as Faerûn)? We've been promised a new plane, but that could just mean new to Magic.
Greg Weisman writing the novel is legitimately exciting to me - he's very good at writing multifaceted characters with layers of nuance.
And I cannot believe I did not expect Kaya being called in to deal with the Ghost Council - in retrospect, it's such an obvious match-up.
Edit - I don't believe Izzit is pro-Bolas yet, although Bolas clearly intends for Ral to take it over. My half-baked theory is that Aurelia is under Bolas's control (explaining why Lazav sent Krenko to free Feather) and the Boros Legion will betray the anti-Bolas alliance to Bolas. And that we will see Feather finally get a card in the unnamed third set.
"A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness."
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
As printed, Really Epic Punch (which is an awesome mash-up of the art for Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation, for those that missed Khans and Dragons) has no duration on its pump effect. Is that an oversight, or is the punch really just that epic?
As I recall, they tried to do these cards - without the humorous flavor, of course - in Future Sight, but couldn't. I'm glad to finally see them.
I think what keeps "Last Strike" from being a black-bordered keyword is that it is explicitly a drawback keyword, and (if memory serves), Wizards has backed away from doing those (other than Defender, which is basically grandfathered in) for a variety of reasons.
1
Because it is an inside joke: The Seattle Seahawks (WotC's home American football team) won Super Bowl XLVIII. And Cassius Marsh - who previewed this card - was originally drafted by the Seahawks in 2014, the same year they won Super Bowl XLVIII.
1
1
I agree with everyone who thinks Jin-Gitaxias is likely to appear. I know it would be utterly absurd, but a small part of me just really wants him to be one of the professors at Strixhaven, hiding in plain sight. Can you imagine the classes he would teach? (Maybe that would be more appropriate for the next Un-set?)
2
In potential spoiler territory, if the Arena quotes can be trusted, it seems both Nissa and Nahiri will go too far in their attempts to defend their vision of Zendikar (Nissa embracing her B side, and possibly channeling the blight) and both will regret what they have done.
If this is accurate, this could represent a surprising level of nuance we haven't seen in the story in many years, provided it is handled well. (We've had too many mustache-twirling villains for too long. As story where everyone is somewhat right, somewhat wrong, and blind certainty is the real enemy would be a nice palate cleanser.)
And if it's handled poorly, it will further twist the knife in everyone already angry about Nissa+Chandra and undo what little character development Nissa has actually gotten while presenting a false moral equivalence with someone who effectively attempted to cause a genocide on Innistrad.
But I will give WotC the benefit of the doubt. For now.
2
2
Last fall, WotC published the Guildmaster's Guild to Ravnica for D&D 5th Edition. D&D is huge right now, including streaming D&D games, and WotC is clearly looking to bring the Twitch crowd to Magic and especially Arena. So maybe it's time for MtG to return the favor and visit a D&D plane (such as Faerûn)? We've been promised a new plane, but that could just mean new to Magic.
Any thoughts?
1
And I cannot believe I did not expect Kaya being called in to deal with the Ghost Council - in retrospect, it's such an obvious match-up.
Edit - I don't believe Izzit is pro-Bolas yet, although Bolas clearly intends for Ral to take it over. My half-baked theory is that Aurelia is under Bolas's control (explaining why Lazav sent Krenko to free Feather) and the Boros Legion will betray the anti-Bolas alliance to Bolas. And that we will see Feather finally get a card in the unnamed third set.
3
In "The Hand That Moves" from Amonkhet (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/hand-moves-2017-04-26), one of Nissa's visions is as follows:
"A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness."
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
3
1
I think what keeps "Last Strike" from being a black-bordered keyword is that it is explicitly a drawback keyword, and (if memory serves), Wizards has backed away from doing those (other than Defender, which is basically grandfathered in) for a variety of reasons.