Yeah, good catch. I mean, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Fomori are gonna show up again after being mentioned in Caverns of Ixalan, but I didn't expect it to happen on Thunder Junction. I assume the vault is from the Fomori, maybe its actually a crash-buried ship.
I assume Ziplining, the last set of the Metronome story arc will involve the Fomori as the big bad somehow.
what the hell mean "protection from spells and permanents that were cast this turn"? is this a weird way to say the Emrakul can't be countered and got hexproof until the end of turn?
It also can't be damaged by damage based sweepers, and blocked by flash creatures.
I don't think Jace is going to end up in the main set. His art was displayed below the fictional "What if these characters ended up on Bloomburrow" art treatment section.
Crime is gonna lead to very weird gameplay with spells you usually target on your own stuff, like giant growth.
Buffing your creatures, like a real hardened criminal.
Not entirely sure what to make of the mechanic. Targeting stuff is so common it feels like any deck built around crime will just... be a deck.
Targeting opponents and their stuff is pretty common...targeting them every turn is not, and it's prone to getting you hosed by Leyline of Sanctity and the latest craze in Modern, Hexproof granters.
Yeah, you'll play some more targeting stuff, but like, ok? You're not fundamentally doing anything different. You're not constructing your deck for synergy. You just slap cards together you always slap together, just with slightly different ratios.
It's like the color matters theme in Shadowmoor. It didn't lead to interesting deck building, because barring exceptions most decks play a very limited number of colours anyway (outside of multicolor formats).
And a single card shutting down an entire deck is not a point in favour of the mechanic, or Wizard's design philosophy in general.
And finally, the Imagine: Courageous Critters showcase treatment invites you to envision renowned Planeswalkers and creatures were they to visit the plane of Bloomburrow!
So, it's not canon. Just an art treatment. Ral is still human. Which... if everyone on bloomburrow is the size of the real animal, then Ral is a giant among those. It's possible Ral knows an izzet spell that shrinks him though, or shall I say downsizes him.
My theory is that Jace is not on the plane because his artwork didn't come with a name, so he's likely a reprint.
Along the way, they'll be joined by a remarkable companion from a faraway land.
...with the Ral Zarek as Otter picture just below.
So planeswalkers get turned into talking animals upon entry, and Ral Zarek is likely the only planeswalker who actually visits Bloomburrow.
Ahh, upon rereading I think I get it now. That's the real Ral's artwork, but the Jace one is a hypothetical "if Jace came to Bloomburrow, how would the (canonical) magic affect him" art treatment. Makes sense.
So, Bloomburrow does turn everyone into their fursona.
Oh my god, now I want to see furry phyrexians invading Bloomburrow.
* * *
Also, we know that there are ten tribes or animal races inhabiting bloomburrow. Here's my list. (Confirmed color/race pairs in bold, my predictions in non-bold)
Birds / Storks, commander of the RWU deck and RW is mice and UR is otters Foxes? Depends on whether Jace turned into a native animal or if the special what-ifs treatments can be any animal. Lizards Badgers, Hugs has a red glowing gauntlet, and he seems to be the msucle of the group. Making the biggest animals in Bloomburrow RG makes sense, but they compete for the slot with raccoons... Rabbits, GW legend in starter pack Bats, most bats have been printed in WB recently and they have been described as Squirrels, Commander of BG commander deck Frogs, makes the most sense, I'd almost put it in as confirmed Otters, UR legend in starter pack Mice, confirmed in panel
Special mentions of creature types not confirmed for Bloomburrow but that were printed recently:
- Foxes, mostly printed in white and green but Jace's card would be blue, but both WU and GU are already taken unless Frogs are... UB?
- Raccoons. There's a commander on the RG deck, but due to the Hedron in his staff he might be a planeswalker. However, one of the special basic lands arts shows a raccoon planeswalker who might not be that character (different staff). Plus, there have been quite a few raccoons printed recently which would line up well with Bloomburrow tribal support, even Coati Scavenger has been made a raccoon. Problem is, if Raccoons are RG, then there's no room for badgers unless they are GU or UB...
- Turtle, quite a few turtles in standard, but they don't fit anywhere
And finally, the Imagine: Courageous Critters showcase treatment invites you to envision renowned Planeswalkers and creatures were they to visit the plane of Bloomburrow!
So, it's not canon. Just an art treatment. Ral is still human. Which... if everyone on bloomburrow is the size of the real animal, then Ral is a giant among those. It's possible Ral knows an izzet spell that shrinks him though, or shall I say downsizes him.
My theory is that Jace is not on the plane because his artwork didn't come with a name, so he's likely a reprint.
OK, so Ral's known to still be a planeswalker, meaning Jace sruvived, but presumably lost his spark.
Edit: Oh, it's a showcase alternate thing, never mind.
Note how for Ral it has a name that doesn't exist yet, while the name for the Jace artwork wasn't revealed. I think Ral shows up in Bloomburrow, but Jace doesn't. Whether or not Ral is still a planeswalker remains to be seen. Omenpaths are a thing now, remember.
the collector booster box art looked to have kellan and oko about to do the Iconic quickdraw dual
The question for that is kellan aware that’s his father? or did he learn he’s a bad guy and just taking him on?
Given that Kellan worked as a detective on Ravnica, it could be that he gets hired by a local sheriff to help out with a criminal that's been making the rounds. Eventually he finds Oko, confronts him and then during their duel it turns out that Kellan is Oko's son, much to the surprise of both.
That's basically what I assumed until a Wizards employee outright said he's dead. Unfortunately I didn't bother keeping the source. Might have been a miscommunication either internally (not everyone will be kept updated on story plans) or by the employee at the time, but it wasn't a phrasing of the "looks like he's dead" kind.
As a "never found the body" situation the scene is far less awful, but as a final send-off it was severely lacking since Tibalt didn't even got to be a particular prominent Phyrexian 'walker throughout the rest of the final.
If he shows up here that will resolve one of the twenty things wrong with the MOM story.
Wizards employee writing Karlov Manor didn't know the existance of Amalia. I guess it's not to far fetched to think that miscommunication happened again and the guys making Thunder Junction didn't know Tibalt was dead.
Amalia was mentioned, but it was said she was busy elsewhere. Why they decided to have her tag along just to then not show up again (and it doesn't look like she'll be part of the gang in Thunder Junction either) is anyone's guess.
Honestly, the whole omenpath idea is such a mess. The idea of having characters show up on different planes would be absolutely radical if it wasn't for the fact that we already had planeswalkers?
It also doesn't help that Kellan's involvement in Ixalan and Ravnica was completely irrelevant. If only he was at least an interesting character.
So Wizards really is trying to make Ravnica into the hub of the Multiverse huh?
On the one hand it makes sense to have the metropolitan plane into a hub, but on the other hand... What happens to the guilds? If Ravnica's identity is "cosmopolitan hub" then there really isn't going to be much space for the ten guilds which already kinda have barely any room in the modern one-set-per-world paradigm.
I do wonder if the Omenpaths are going to stay with MtG permanently, or if they are just a thing for the Omenpath arc.
I assume Ziplining, the last set of the Metronome story arc will involve the Fomori as the big bad somehow.
Yeah, you'll play some more targeting stuff, but like, ok? You're not fundamentally doing anything different. You're not constructing your deck for synergy. You just slap cards together you always slap together, just with slightly different ratios.
It's like the color matters theme in Shadowmoor. It didn't lead to interesting deck building, because barring exceptions most decks play a very limited number of colours anyway (outside of multicolor formats).
And a single card shutting down an entire deck is not a point in favour of the mechanic, or Wizard's design philosophy in general.
Ahh, upon rereading I think I get it now. That's the real Ral's artwork, but the Jace one is a hypothetical "if Jace came to Bloomburrow, how would the (canonical) magic affect him" art treatment. Makes sense.
So, Bloomburrow does turn everyone into their fursona.
Oh my god, now I want to see furry phyrexians invading Bloomburrow.
* * *
Also, we know that there are ten tribes or animal races inhabiting bloomburrow. Here's my list. (Confirmed color/race pairs in bold, my predictions in non-bold)
Special mentions of creature types not confirmed for Bloomburrow but that were printed recently:
- Foxes, mostly printed in white and green but Jace's card would be blue, but both WU and GU are already taken unless Frogs are... UB?
- Raccoons. There's a commander on the RG deck, but due to the Hedron in his staff he might be a planeswalker. However, one of the special basic lands arts shows a raccoon planeswalker who might not be that character (different staff). Plus, there have been quite a few raccoons printed recently which would line up well with Bloomburrow tribal support, even Coati Scavenger has been made a raccoon. Problem is, if Raccoons are RG, then there's no room for badgers unless they are GU or UB...
- Turtle, quite a few turtles in standard, but they don't fit anywhere
So, it's not canon. Just an art treatment. Ral is still human. Which... if everyone on bloomburrow is the size of the real animal, then Ral is a giant among those. It's possible Ral knows an izzet spell that shrinks him though, or shall I say downsizes him.
My theory is that Jace is not on the plane because his artwork didn't come with a name, so he's likely a reprint.
Oh, possible. I don't remember, haha.
Buffing your creatures, like a real hardened criminal.
Not entirely sure what to make of the mechanic. Targeting stuff is so common it feels like any deck built around crime will just... be a deck.
Note how for Ral it has a name that doesn't exist yet, while the name for the Jace artwork wasn't revealed. I think Ral shows up in Bloomburrow, but Jace doesn't. Whether or not Ral is still a planeswalker remains to be seen. Omenpaths are a thing now, remember.
Given that Kellan worked as a detective on Ravnica, it could be that he gets hired by a local sheriff to help out with a criminal that's been making the rounds. Eventually he finds Oko, confronts him and then during their duel it turns out that Kellan is Oko's son, much to the surprise of both.
Amalia was mentioned, but it was said she was busy elsewhere. Why they decided to have her tag along just to then not show up again (and it doesn't look like she'll be part of the gang in Thunder Junction either) is anyone's guess.
Honestly, the whole omenpath idea is such a mess. The idea of having characters show up on different planes would be absolutely radical if it wasn't for the fact that we already had planeswalkers?
It also doesn't help that Kellan's involvement in Ixalan and Ravnica was completely irrelevant. If only he was at least an interesting character.
I'm done ranting. [/grump] (For now)
On the one hand it makes sense to have the metropolitan plane into a hub, but on the other hand... What happens to the guilds? If Ravnica's identity is "cosmopolitan hub" then there really isn't going to be much space for the ten guilds which already kinda have barely any room in the modern one-set-per-world paradigm.
I do wonder if the Omenpaths are going to stay with MtG permanently, or if they are just a thing for the Omenpath arc.