What Happens in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan?
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Vampires, pirates, merfolk, dinosaurs and humans all converge on Ixalan's core, braving dangerous caverns in search of great treasures.
But who are all these people? What do they hope to discover under the surface of this lush jungle plane? ...and what's with all the mushrooms?
Read the official story: bit.ly/MTG_Sto...
My favorite thing about WOTC releasing a new set is getting a new story time video. Love this channel.
Couldn't agree more!!!
But... Dinos....
By a mile and then some
Same
Hey friends! Thanks for stopping by to hear What Happens in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. I just want to let y'all know that I tried my best to use authentic pronunciations for the characters, locations, and items that appear in this set, and even though I know I didn't get it perfect, I hope you can respect the effort and intent behind it.
Thanks again for watching, and I hope you enjoy all the cool vampires, pirates, dinosaurs, and merfolk that come with The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. 😁
Whaaaaat you mean you had trouble pronouncing Axhotilihuaquetzal?
Your pronunciation is better than The Mana Logs trying to pronounce English words lol
Perfectly understandable, dead languages can be hard to work with. I wish the Aztec language was spoken more because the Aztec people have the most awesome legends
I speak Nahuatl and your pronunciations were pretty damn good tbh!
@@quiblydanger427The Aztec language is Náhuatl and it is not a dead language, millions of people speak it
I am hoping the next arc on Ixalan is that Aclazotz and the vampires succeed in stopping the sun on the surface, only to then have to fight off the massive fungal infection that comes to the surface without the sun.
idk, seems like the vampires and aclazotz seemed to be kinda unaligned given the clashing between bartolome and vito
I'm glad I'm not the only one that misses the charm of the original Ixalan setting. An article from wotc described that this set was its own original plane but got switched to ixalan midway in design. And that switch can definitely be felt. Lost caverns seems like an entirely different plane.
These significant mid-way changes, be it the setting or story, seem to be happening quite frequently in the last few years, I legitimately wonder what's causing this?
@@RidleySmash In this case it could be a long-term side effect from Covid. They had the idea for this set, Covid hit early in development - delaying time on every project - and they decided that using Ixalan was more time effective than creating a whole new plane.
Ixalan is my second favorite plane, Tarkir being first, but I think what made them so interesting was that that had multiple sets or blocks to tell their stories. Things didn’t feel rushed, you got to live on the plane for more than a month before planes walking to someplace different. I feel until they get back to multiple sets, stories will suffer.
also the fact that every plane needs to be stiched together to form a story line, taking away from the planes to focus on specific characters that have nothing to do with the plane
So Mark Rosewater mentioned that this set was originally meant to be set on another plane before they decided to move it to Ixalan, and I have a conspiracy theory that it was originally going to be a Universes Beyond set for Minecraft that got canned. Crafting is a mechanic in Minecraft that lines up pretty well with the craft ability in LCI. This stands out to me because artifacts have never been a relevant theme on Ixalan until now. Mining is a prominent theme in LCI that is also a huge part of Minecraft, which also ties in with descend. Exploring could have easily been a mechanic they would have repurposed for a Minecraft set, it's another thing you do in Minecraft. Similarly, the discover mechanic is an easy fit. And just look at some of the cards they printed: Deep-Cavern Bat, Mineshaft Spider, DIAMOND PICKAXE??? I rest my case
If you read the vision design articles Maro posted, it was clearly more just that it was a set on a new plane that was trying to pull some of the resonance of Minecraft in. They didn't have any real ideas for the plane besides that it was an underground world, because they just made it Ixalan after Vision Design handed it off. It's definitely got some Minecraft references for resonance of what the younger generations associate with underground exploration, but it almost assuredly wasn't a Minecraft set.
@@charcharmunrI agree with you. If anything, it was probably a new plane that would've had Minecraft variants like LCI has Jurassic Park variants
They definitely designed cards for Minecraft universes beyond and shopped Microsoft buying in, only to have to throw them into something MtG related instead.
God I wish magic could just be magic
@@NecromancyForKids I again feel like that's a weird conclusion to jump to. Minecraft's just a really massive property that has a lot of popularity among the younger generation so they were aiming for resonance with Minecraft and associated tropes. It's nothing more than that.
Thank you so much for these videos. I'm not a fan of WOTCs recent lore, but you make it work and entertaining. Thank you!
Amalia has one of the coolest kinds of magic I have ever seen. The vampires always had a religious aspect to them, so, at least a part of their empire, so that was not really weird, in my opinion. We only saw the pirates of the coalition before, but it was established that they had citys, high and dry comes to mind, so downtown, I love the wordplay, is not really that strange as a concept and a resonable explanation for Malcom and breeches to be there.
I really liked the story and the different factions at play. Was the cast to big? Yes, probably. Was Kellam forced as hell into the story? Definetly. (Sidenote for a little prediction I would like to make. I predict that Kellam will appear in every story until Oko appears again, and potentially afterwords depending on the outcome of that meeting, picking up a native character just like he did with Amalia and forming a sort of traveling group along the way.)
Would be interested in your opinion on the sidestroke, which sets up a really interesting 5, or 6 depending on how the cards fall in the Sun empire, way conflict for torezone.
Couple things to note:
In Admiral Brass’ story summary, it’s revealed that she tried to make a nation of pirates with High and Dry as the capital but the Phyrexians destroyed the city in the invasion.
Oko is confirmed for Thunder Junction which is right after Karlov Manor so we won’t have to wait long for the family reunion presumably
We need a new gatewatch after all 😂
I will say I am very intrigued by the idea that the Fomori are a former race of interplanar Giants that had the means of traveling from Plane to Plane to create this massive empire that was summarily dismantled with the original Mending event. Cause Magic needs more antagonistic forces so this is a step in the right direction.
This is _another_ single set that really feels like it needed a second set to flesh out the story. New Capenna, Kaldheim, Ikoria, and now Ixalan 2 Electric Boogaloo. All great locations with fun lore snippets, dragged down by the fact we didn’t get to spend enough time there to get to know what’s going on. I really would love it if we could go back to two-set blocks to help flesh out things, one set to introduce the main characters and establish the story and the second set to wrap things up.
It still suffers from the same problems Magic's story has suffered from since... Basically since Dominaria, where it feels like the writers are constrained by having to fulfil a sort of checklist of key events and whatnot and it's clear they don't have nearly enough words to tell the story they should be. Quint's fun, Amalia's cute, Huatli sure is still a poet, Malcolm and Breeches were fun, I liked Wayta being this "jaded veteran at like 19" deal but it never felt like anything had room to breathe. Kellan's barely even involved in the story except to leave with Amalia (and make probably the second-funniest joke in the story when he describes a goose as 'like a dinosaur with a grudge') but so much of the story felt like it was basically just a set-up to another thing. Ixalan has Aclazotz and the Mycotyrant set-up as well as this big paradigm shift of "hey the pirates are getting their own nation" and "the people from the Core of the planet have opened up to talking and trading", and then we just leave it and we know we're not going back for at least a good couple years.
@@charcharmunr " it was basically just a set-up to another thing" that is exactely what i feel mtg stories have become. They are just too short and dissatisfying and leading to something else in the future( just consume product) instead of being great in themselves.
Was Saheeli never mentionned at all in the story? Cause like, WOTC established in the Aftermath cards that her and Huatli were PLANES appart without knowning how to find eachother again but then she just like...has a legendary card in this set? So that piece of possible compelling motivation and storytelling is just tossed out the window cause we gotta make more card for commander players or what...?
Lmao I pulled her card the other day and I was like "why is she here?"
Saheeli apperas briefly at the start of the main story and is the main character in the side story. Huatli sends her as the only person she trusts implicitly to negotiate with the Vampires to try and replace the war-like influences on the Emperor with more peaceful ones.
Saheeli got her own entire side story that was way more interesting than the main one! Turns out there's a lot more politics and intrigue than it looks. Oh yeah and Beckett Brass gets a country
So yeah, based on what the above people are saying, they just ignored that plot line and came up with something else.
I find the cat tribe in the caves to be kinda of jarring. They throw the vampires into a sand pit and that's it? How long were they down there? Do they live in the core or the surface? They get introduced, used then pushed to the side. I hope there is a side story about the cat tribes.
I remember seeing the cat cards during previews and wondering if I had just completely forgotten about cats on Ixalan. But no, just a random pull that I can only assume is for Standard synergy later, or maybe for cat tribal commander?
Tysm for these videos man. Mtg stories for some years now are not usually worth the read. Not imo at least. Your videos with ur narration and ofc the mustache minute is the only reason why i am still following the lore.
A few questions though:
1. Did they 'fix' the core being caged by the bat god?
2. What about the door in the city where the core is? Was that sealed again?
3. Do they know that Mycotyrant is still alive?
The core was fixed, as far as I can tell, but they don't really explain how. The door is left open, and the Sun Empire and the Oltec start trading and visiting each other. Nobody realized the Mycotyrant is still out there...yet.
If wotc intend to make more new planeswalkers further down the road (aside from Kellen), I could definitely see Amalia taking Sorin's spot as the vampire walker. Sorin can easily just be desparked and left on Innistrad since his home plane is about the only thing he cares about anymore, no point sending him out into the multiverse just to gripe about being somewhere other than home. Amalia's powerset is incredibly unique and can definitely be spun into some interesting loyalty abilities.
It'll never actually happen, but I'd love to see Amalia learning from Commodore Guff.
@@RibusPQR wait I thought guff was dead?
From Sorin to Amalia, now that would be a downgrade
@@ethansriaphon8787 he is :(
It does become a bit noticeable that this was originally supposed to be a different plane before they skinned it onto Ixalan.
So did you like the story? Is it worth the read? I really liked original Ixalan. In fact, I'd say that period of Shadows over Innistrad, Amonkhet and Ixalan, was the best thing they've done since Origins. Lately I've been very disappointed with the lore.
Despite having so many POVs and threads it still was better told, on a story by story basis, than the Phyrexian invasion arc. I think I liked it better than Eldraine but I'd say the two were on par for overall quality of writing.
I wish they’d go back to set blocks. Give us and the writers lore time to flesh things out instead of rushing through everything. Off the top of my head, since they went to single set stories we havnt had a good story. There was a chance with new phyrexia but nope, resolved that issue in a snap
I want this so bad it isn't looking hopeful with how much WOTC's focus is shifting towards commander content and UB stuff.
The creature in the glass container has big MCU post-credits scene energy
Was waiting for this video!
LCI was basically Wizards version of "Atlantis: The Lost Empire". its not a bad set, it's that it feels different than the original because the OG Ixalan block was basically Pirates of the Caribbean feat Jace and Vraska's love cruise. the story had to go forward both after that set AND March of the Machine invasion so we have a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted out in a proper set but even then we have the steps up for that. the Sun Empire is still throwing out on those plans to do a reverse conquista on Torrezon while Elenda's followers are trying to deal with the schism back in their homeland, and again, the pirates were originally formed out of people that were escaping persecution from the vampires so now that the whole gist of the Golden City is off they can now go back to make a home for themselves, specially now that there is a whole continent available for them to explore and settle. the only people that were left without nothign to do were the River Heralds but perhaps in that lack of purpose they will find something else to do(specially now that the Mycotyrant is out in the surface, they probably have the secret to defeat it)
I think highly-themed deckbuilding in this set is sort of a mess because there are like seven factions and the colors of the existing factions on some cards don't totally match the colors from our last visit to Ixalan. In the previous two Ixalan sets, (especially the first,) there were pretty much only four factions, and the colors of cards almost always lined up with one of these factions. So what I am saying is that the card pool is too small for this many factions. Each faction, theme, mechanic, color, etc. does not have enough cards available to really build a satisfying deck around.
I WAITED FOREVER FOR THIS VIDEO TO DROP! THANK YOU RYAN AND NICOLE!
Why does Quintorius refer to the Formori as the Coin Empire? Are they known on Arcavios only by the coins they left behind?
Yes, exactly. I'm not clear how big these coins are, though. You'd think if they belonged to giants, they'd be big coins, but Quint never really describes them that way (and seems genuinely surprised by all the big furniture and then the huge creature in the tank).
It's because there's a recurring motif in ruins and such Quint keeps finding that resembles a coin.
Wonderful. Thank you.
Amalia is the new best girl, and I'm looking forward to her and Kellan's multiverse shenanigans.
Also, Quintorius is my new favorite Planeswalker. This set has awakened my inner childhood and has reminded me why I love Magic's setting.
I totally wish the story cards were more numerous, like 15-20 so you actually get a taste of the story from the cards as well!
Ixalan is the pinnacle of Magic plane design imo. It's inspired by real world Mezo-America and colonialism, but still has its unique identity and puts a twist on everything. It's the perfect middle ground between something like Theros (just Greece) and Ravnica (totally original), giving us touchstones without feeling lazy or played out. I love it.
The plane and design? Amazing. The story this time was very disappointing to me. But top tier plane design. Up there with tarkir and innistrad for me. I just wish they would leave innistrad alone, lol.
Imo Ixalan’s dinosaurs are amazing. They are super unique and aren’t a generic scaly monster.
Prison is basically timeout and the same goes for gimmick quicksand. At this point, I wish magic would go a bit more serious and gritty and leave the timout prison for universe beyond stuff. It would really flesh out things
The red god is such badass looking card. Shame they didn't do much.
It really feels like a big step back from eldraine. With woe, we got a comparatively smaller story that felt more focused. With LCI, it just feels they tried to fit a 3 block set into one massive story with way too many characters. I will never understand why they ditched the 3 block format. It was perfect for telling stories.
except more and more they seem to value story less?
@goncaloferreira6429 absolutely. The story of mtg has felt like an afterthought for like 10 years, imo. They have fumbled really interesting planes, like new capenna and relied way too heavily on old planes like innistrad and ravnica. They are extremely inconsistent in character development and plot points. Their story spotlight cards are always hit or miss and there are so many moments where characters demonstrate their abilities or make calculated decisions that would make excellent story spotlights but it feels like they pick some random moments sometimes. It's dissapointing as a fan of the story of mtg for over 20 years.
@@calebperrin8270 with hasbro wanting profits mtg´s growth went in a bad direction. Even if we considern the record profits of the last couple of years they could have invested some money back to the game. they could have
1- solved the card quality once and for all, placing mtg, the best game, on par with much smaller japanese games.
2- they dropped the ball when they did Brandon sanderson ( a great fan) dirty. That partnership could have brough many new players to the community and ensure quality stories/novels for years
So great to find your channel! I'm new to magic and will certainly be sticking around. I love Quintorius, and I love this set! I agree with all your points, I think WotC's writing team is brilliant but given far too few resources and is just shunted along between sets too fast to really finish with what they're doing. It's a case of there being too much, so cutting something would in theory improve the story, but I like each element too much to cut. I think if they had more opportunity to write a longer story, it would have suited the magnitude of the set. Honestly I think having two connected stories, one above with the old factions and one below with the new, but related and tied together with characters somehow able to communicate might have been preferable, it wouldn't stretch the pirates into miners for example. It's an idea.
I personally was very bummed that neither Jace or Vraska were here, Planeswalker or not, still corrupted or not, whatever, it’s such a key and iconic plane for them that I could see either or both of them having come to Ixalan either during the invasion or afterwards to hide away from the atrocities they surely committed offscreen, so the fact that neither returned to lead the Belligerent’s faction to be, I don’t know, cleansed by Chimil or something, was genuinely disappointing
Imagine going from this adventure to ravnican dinner theater, that's what's happening with kellan
Going from making map tokens to making clue tokens
I really like how the story is now constrained to a limited location due to planeswalking being more rare. It makes the setting much more relevant, rather than just the characters. I hope they keep the stakes at this level for a while.
And yet, they spent way more time with each setting and the characters in the set block era, where now they zip past each story with only a single set. I think they have moved in the completely wrong direction there.
@@jakemaxwell3810 totally agree this would have been a lot better as three novels rather than one.
You know more then 6 stories would be nice heck Grimm captain feels like a cool side story like not all factions need to be a main story like a few side stories would have helped
Starting with a mysterious locked door? Story aproved by J.J. Abrams
Edit: To be fair, Ixalan vampires were always religious zealots, so a pilgrimage is on brand
Also, giving some "context" to the Fomori seems like the type of hook old mtg would use for its story, so I'm surprised to see so few discussions about it
Yet another story that proves that a single set is not enough for each plane.
That said, I think the story itself was just a bad fit. Literally all four factions needed to be warped to make it work, so it's not even really a problem with having too many factions. They could at least have had a couple of them working within their established lore, but the story demanded otherwise.
You said you didn't like much the new direction for vampires (not conquistadors but pilgrims), pirates (not sailors but miners) and merfolk (just sorta there). But if you take into acount that the hunt after the golden city is over... I mean the merfolk have nothing to protect anymore, the pirates aren't sailing at sea looking for stuff and Elenda came back and put the vampires back in order... things needed to change on the plane. This is just the natural progression of the narrative
The vampires are currently fractured. Elenda is preaching compassion and restraint, while fanatics like Vito seek to maintain vampire dominance. Focusing on just a small group of vampires underground and away from anyone challenging their position felt weak. Rather than bring Vito's group to the caves, I would have preferred the story split itself across maybe the caves and developments in Torrezon.
Even without a golden city to chase after, pirates still have plenty to steal and there are other smaller treasures on the surface for them to plunder. Running an entire mining operation and then (presumably) trading those resources for goods and services dramatically changes things to the point where I wouldn't even call this faction "pirates" anymore; they're basically regular merchants.
And the merfolk weren't all underground. It was just a group who was sitting there patiently waiting for someone to come along and open their mysterious locked door. They were basically NPCs, standing around until the hero party with Huatli showed up and moved their plot forward.
I agree things needed to change on the plane with Orazca already discovered, but I don't think forcing everyone down into the caves was a logical (or even exciting) advancement for Ixalan, overall.
Fantastic recap of the story! Well done.
Always a pleasure listening to your vids. Id like to see wizards produce a story that answers more questions then it asks....maybe one day.
As a Mexican, I applaud the effort you put in the correct pronunciation of the words in Spanish and in the prehispanic-like syllable sounds. Aside from the word Bartolomé, I think you nailed it! I guess the Gomez in you had something to do?
Coooooool Runnings!
There was so much to cover that you did not even mention that Saheeli was here. And by implication (I did not read the story so correct me if i am wrong about this) she must have come here by an Omenpath.
Saheeli did appear for a moment in the first chapter, basically wishing Huatli good luck as she went off to explore beyond the Puzzle Door, and she is featured in a side-story (the only one we got for this set) and I might cover that in a separate video. But yeah for the most part she had very little impact on the main events of The Lost Caverns.
I think story wise these guys need to do better and i feel like a way they could do this is INTRODUCE NEW PLANSWALKERS!! Like wtf a lot of the planswalkers that we care and love can’t planeswalk anymore for no reason wtf. Like it feels like March of the Machine was Avengers Endgame and now just like Marvel right now, the magic story is going downhill too. Like we need more than Quint to carry the story man. But as for Ixalan i think they could’ve come up with a better idea to do for Ixalan. Like Lost Caverns? Really? I mean i guess they didn’t want to do the Jungle of Ixalan cuz they just did Wilds of Eldraine but cmon man
I got the best God for the Pirates next time around… find a way to get.. “captain…Jack Sparrow” into the fold and make him Pirate God 😂😂😂
….. no seriously…magic needs to get it done that’ll be cool as hell. 😂
Kind of a missed opportunity. Kellen takes a vampire girl he practically just met, but leaves Ruby behind, who he had an entire adventures length of time to get to know. All well, maybe he’ll come back for Ruby?
Can't Help but Feel like Aclazotz sneaking onto a Ship on it's way to the Vampire's Country where he plans to make power moves being a homage or inspired by the Dracula Novel, where Dracula very much does the same.
I’m disappointed there were no fungus zombie dinosaurs
As well as the lack of elder dinos and the gods
Like seriously? No reference to losing Etali? Cmon Wotc haha
The problem I have with the magic story as a whole at the moment is, that they in the last few years do dungeon crawls again and again as there main story.
We had Zendikar Rising (which in my opinion stared all of this trend), then we had the D&D set which didn't really have a story and only featured dungeons, than Phyrexia: All will be one which was also a dungeon crawl at it's core, than parts of Wilds of Eldrain and now Lost Caverns of Ixalan. That are 5 out of 15. A third of all sets. Why?
Ever since “War of the Spark” everything has been a “short story” so they can do a one shot set. It just shows that they just wanna pump out product & then be like oh dart board throws for a story. It’s a shame
Love how lengthy this video is. Always great to have more Story Time!
I feel like this set should have focused on the Vampires vs The Sun Empire on this quest, and have Merfolk & Pirates in the background, then next time were on this plane, reverse it & do a Pirates vs Merfolk on the same quest as that set's theme.
Some cards depict that Saheeli brought an industrial revolution to Ixalan, so the story just decided to avoid all that and go underground?!
200+ card set & only 9 spot lights. Proves even more LAZY story writing.
So the other gods of Ixalan didn't do anything when the bat god was going nuts? Seems weird.
What about Saheeli? Wasn't there a card showing her being all romantic with Huatli? Where does that fit into the story, if at all?
Kinda not loving this as a ixalan story mark rosewater has mentioned it was originally not going to be ixalan it was supposed to be a new plane then they changed it because they felt it was more ixalan
My Dinobots are together, it's the more important 🥺❤️
18:15 a surprise retroactive merfolk city. What is this, Ravnica?
Amalia can just EDIT REALITY. what the heck, that's so strong. Like end the world, wipe out eldrazi strong. If she got a map of the multiversal map could she wipe out entire planes?
The story really doesn't give us limits, but I suspect there is a finite range to her power. Sort of like how Nightcrawler has to be able to see where he's teleporting to, I think Amalia has to be able to touch a map and be able to see what she's editing. She never changes anything more than a few dozen feet away from her own position, even during the final battle, when she created a chasm to try and isolate the mycoids (they just stretched across with a fungus bridge)
This is also one of those things she might need to learn how to use more creatively, and will get better at over time. (Kellan could be a big help here).
These videos are the only way I keep up with the MTG lore
My man u try so hard to make this good. But they gave u a convoluted mess to work with.
The Coin Empire is going to be the story for next year or the year after, right? So I don't think we'll go back to Ixalan by then, except maybe as part of a multi-plane set like March of the Machine
The general theory I've seen is that they're gonna come to a head in the Space Opera set.
It make sense for the mycotytant want to keep spreading. If they’ve only ever seen caves. The concept of sky, sun, surface, ocean etc. would be incomprehensible to them.
That would have actually been a hilarious way to end the fungi story. The bad guy wins and achieves his evil goal only to discover sunlight and die
If I don't remember wrong the Enigma Jewel was presented as "a key element of the story" during the preview stream, so I was very surprised when the artifact wasn't featured in any of the stories. I enjoyed the setting, but I think this plot really suffered from the fast pace. A long, tortuous journey through the caves of Ixalan would've fit more the aesthetic of the set and this felt really rushed.
Likely it was in an early draft of the story and then got cut as the story got rewritten but it was too late to cut the card out of the set or reskinned It. Happends sometimes.
Yeah it's missing one or two more sets.
Lost caverns should've been spelunking and cave stuff, second expansions should've been exploring and fighting over the core.
Can't wait for the next set. I love murder mystery
When I first started listening to the video I thought of what I might say in a comment describing my displeasement with wizards, but then I thought this guy doesn't want me to complain in the comments on his nice video. Then I get to the end of the video and there is talk about what wizards has done wrong lol. Glad we can talk about it. It's not just complaining it's spreading awareness. The first set was really great and it's one thing not to have as high expectations, but it's a whole different thing when they deviate from what work. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Whoever is leading the charge over at the magic headquarters are pushing agendas and not doing a good job if they couldn't realize all the potential they had and what they succeeded at in the past. Terrible management. Great reading tho!
Story was a let down.. I wanted better world building
I just wish they'd go back to having actual books instead of these segmented mini-stories. Reading everything on a screen doesn't compare to the feel of a physical book in hand, at least in my opinion.
They're even scaling back on side stories. Pretty soon I feel like they're just gonna scrap the story entirely
I'm pretty sure the day they get rid of the storyline for Magic is the day I'll stop playing
man.... was it just too on the nose to reprint Caged Sun as the story spotlight card instead of Malicious Eclipse? I know the card isn't exactly high price, but seems perfect.
also not sure how I feel about leaving the whole story of the plane on a cliffhanger like this. how many years till we know about the success or failure of the mycotyrant or aclazotz? and as to Kellan and Amalia, I have a suspicion they're trying to build a new core set of characters to follow like the Gatewatch or Weatherlight crew, and at this point I'm willing to bet money that the omenpath they went through will drop them in Ravnica where they will show up in the murders of karlov manor set, especially with Amalia being a white-black vampire who was curious about interacting with different vampires on other worlds, and Ravnica is one of the only other worlds with white-aligned vampires.
I'm also predicing well ahead of time that her ability to change the shape of the world with her maps will be part of the plot both in Karlov manor with creating passages for them to get around the manor in secret, but also in Duskmourn.
Quint found Bolas' secret study. We know Bolas used Ixalan as a kind of Planeswalker jail, so he likely had a base of his own deep in the world so he could monitor and experiment. Bolas will be back, guaranteed.
Personally, I hope that isn't the case. Coming right off of the Phyrexian arc, I'd rather not see them reuse another old fan favorite. I want to see what new big bad they can come up with. I remember at the end of MOM there was a mysterious group observing what was happening, I feel like that was a setup for the Fomori.
Dude, it wasn't Bolas who made Ixalan a planeswalker jail. Ugin and Azor made the Immortal Sun and put it on Ixalan specifically to TRAP Bolas there.
I feel very similarly. It feels like the story is just a bunch of plot points of things happening, but it feels like nothing happened because the characters are just there, they do a thing, and then they're done.
Would be cool if Kellan creates a non-Planeswalker Gatewatch-like group along the way
I bet aclazotz will be leading an interplanar vampire invasion using the omenpaths
Imagine Elenda sacrificing herself to kill him and then taking his place as the new mono-black god, kind of like what Aclazotz did to the Ancient One
It's my favorite time of each set.
STORYTIIIIIME!
When I saw the chapters i was like "I AINT READ'N ALL THAT" so thank you so much
New to Magic. I always enjoyed the art and such. Been enjoying learning how to play. Now knowing that there is actual story too, I'm even more invested. I'm a sucker for a good story
Good story. I still miss the podcast you two had. You had the special coffees. It was fun to listen to
The flavor text of Huatli's Final Strike is giving HUGE Tyvar's Stand vibes!!
If I had a nickel for every Green Story Spotlight Instant that has flavour text about how the villain won't be remembered...
Moving away from blocks to single sets made storytelling in MtG a disaster. They never have time to tell a proper or even compelling story :/
It's so sad quint is the only planeswalker on arena that doesn't have voice lines.
They did him dirty
They should just throw in some stock elephant noises
I've heard that lines were written for him and possibly recorded, so they might show up later. Not sure why they wouldn't be part of the set release, though.
What will happen next? Easy.
Great Meteor comming, killing the Dinosaurs, only in caverns survive, fight mushroom, loose, all mushroom, world ends.
Eldraine had some really cool stories to it (though the main one felt lackluster, with a witch half-heartedly helping her sisters), but I feel the stories on most recent sets feel like filler stories you'd see in american action movies. Every element introduced to a story only serves to justify the next conflict. I mean... just play any Mortal Kombat campaign and you'll see what I mean. But MK is an action franchise. They don't try to be something else. MTG lore is vast, complex and, IMO, rather unique and special. If you just keep rewriting action movies into it, it gets really repetitive really quickly. I mean... March of the Machine was just Avengers: Endgame done in Fantasy. I love the card set, but the story itself... omg, was it bad...
Is it just me, or are they attempting to retread the old Weatherlight crew? Spunky young kid with a power planeswalker father, who has a deep sense of honor and loyalty, a capable but slightly impulsive companion that has known the male protag who follows them mostly because of friendship (this character is generally female,) with a cursed companion who is either a vampire or vampire adjacent... Do I need to continue? Ruby is either Hannah or Sisay, though I am leaning towards Sisay, Kellan is Gerard, Amalia is a mixed Hannah and Crovax, so, are we gonna get Karn returned? New Karn? Will we see another cute cat girl finally in the spotlight?! We will see, on the next episode of, WOTC has no spark!
For the record, the whole "Abuelo" thing was a mess.
Why does a he use a Spanish word for himself when he's from a culture that's a stand-in for Mesomericans? The stand-ins for Spanish Conquistadors are the vampires. The official far-fetched explanation is that the language development don't parallel the real-life process, so the word "abuelo" makes sense.
So the Malamet didn't really show up than? That's disappointing.
Yeah they were really just there to stop the vampires and toss them into a pit, which barely slowed them down.
I'm really disappointed they aren't getting a side story, especially when two legendary creatures from the set are Malamet. I wouldn't have minded them having a small role in the main story if that were the case.
Well, I liked the story. (disclaimer: this is my first time in Ixalan)
I found interesting than kellan tagged along the vampires, as in the pre-release I made a WB dusk Legion deck with kellan 😂
I agree Vito could have been killed many times along the way...
Ancient evil, brooding and planning for eons, bested in 30 minutes by a bumbling buddy brigade that just found out they existed? Yep. Sounds like a modern WOTC story to me.
Yay! It's story time! 💚
The lore of this game has really lost its way but I still appreciate your videos. Like you said, the creativity of this game/setting is creatively potent and the ~premise~ is great, but they keep falling into the same tacky (maybe even cheap) tropes, leave wayyy too many loose threads, and ultimately aren’t doing much to advance the feeling of a greater arc.
Personally it feels so watered down.
Kudos on the pronunciations!
1- this one was kind of bad
2- it is filled with nonsensical elements something i fear is in the future of magic and something that i very much dislike.
3- Why is kellan here? dont force your heroes into the story...
4- story has just to many elements, characters and factions to fit in a single block.
5- is it time to drop the story spotlight cards? they dont seem to cover enough of the story.
To me, it seems like WOTC creates these shallow and full of holes stories just as a backdrop for what we see on the cards and isn't too concerned if most of the cards don't appear in the story or what happened to the characters and what they are or their deep motivations for getting there.
Unfortunately, I think we all realize that most MTG players aren't interested in the lore, only in playing and winning. And perhaps this is WOTC's own fault for not creating more elaborate and interesting stories than these clichéd plots.
I liked that we had a lot of tribal cards, but I really don't like those cave settings. It was much prettier when Ixalan was all about those jaw-droppingly beautiful, rugged landscapes. I hope we can go back to more of that not too far into the future.
so the Ojer god's aren't major parts of the story of LCI?
Nope!
I like the set a lot. It’s great. I don’t want to know the story. Too complicated and silly all at once. It’s like when you like a song a lot but don’t want to know what the lyrics are saying because it might ruin it for you. I play with the Ixalan cards and make up my own story in my head, okay! It involves gnomes.
So, Amalia is to geography what Guff was to canon.
BRING ON THE RETCONS, I SAY!
the story just felt kinda bland and generic for me, like whoa the vampires are actually evil and theyre gonna release their black demon bat god who's just super evil and of course just wants to do evil and nefarious stuff, what happened to nuance
Why Aclazotz is a bat god and the rest of the monocolour gods are just gods?
This story seems weak to me, but I'm glad to hear it here.Thanks.
Bringing in a late-stage progenitor race *for the entire universe* after defeating the initial Big Bad is giving me visions of Halo 4 (even using the same root name - Fomori, from Fomorian), and that's *probably* not a good thing...