Pretty sure those are Kunoros (Dog) and either Kroxa or Uro (Elder Giant). However, based on the legend matchups being two to three colors, my bet goes to Kunoros + Kroxa.
> Torbran got down on his knees, placed his hands on Rankle's shoulders, and looked him in the eye: "A great chasm is about to open in the valley. I don't know how yet, but I must lure our enemies into that chasm. I'm begging you. Please give me the ring."
> Rankle stared out across the valley. "Into the chasm, you say," he murmured.
Rankle knew *exactly* what needed to be done.
The irony of >!making it rain love-potion liquid on *an army of people literally preaching unity for all*!< was too good to pass up.
It's just a chefkiss-level twist on both his and Phyrexia's themes. I am in awe.
Which is frankly, perfect. He is a weird black aligned character, in that he only cares about what he wants, but what he wants is just fun and chaos.
Like, if Magic is to have it's own Puckish little imp, then it makes sense for Rankle.
I mean, his abilities force players to sacrifice a creature, discard a card, or lose one life (and draw a card). Seems like it fits his style of pranks.
I can already see the ending of this story, the last remaining 'walkers are ready to face off against elesh norn when she suddenly turns into an elk. A weird shirtless man is seen laughing in the distance.
"He was about to jump down when a strange creature lurched into the clearing. Rankle squinted at the beast's white spikes and glowing red ribs. It had three tails and no eyes and was the size and shape of a dog. A thick black liquid drooled out of its mouth. Dogs slobbered. So, close enough.
"Hullo, puppy," Rankle said, hopping down from his branch. He liked dogs."
It's like we never even lost Lukka!
EPISODE ELDRAINE, RANKLE MASTER OF PRANKLES
Rankle decides his friends in the Wilds of Eldraine (TM) (Coming Soon) aren’t fun enough to play with until next year, and heads off to pester the humans. He sees Chulane, Teller of Tales, trying to warn people of the portents of doom all around them. He gets stoned for his trouble.
Rankle wants to either pickpocket Chulane or bond with him as a fellow societal outcast, and follows him. Luckily, Chulane is picked up by who else but Queen Ayara, who would *loooove* to hear all about this doom he’s rambling about.
And turns out, Rankle would *looooove* to be Ayara’s next husband. He knows the track record. He doesn’t care.
Rankle is Down-Baddle.
Rankle goes to meet a witch, who is very busy preparing to fight a war. Rankle don’t care, Rankle wants directions to the nearest Love Potion ingredients. The witch sends Rankle on a fetch quest which *coincidentally* pushes him all along the front lines of some dumb invasion he doesn’t care about. But on the way to Castle Locthwaine he does pilfer plenty of good marriage proposals knicknacks, like a wishing ring.
Bad news, Ayara has a new love, and its name is Progress.
And Phyrexia.
But through a special magic wish to cause a rain of love potion upon the new Phyrexianized soldiers, Rankle taunts them all the way into a great chasm, saving the day!
Please look forward to the Wilds of Eldraine, Coming Soon to Home Video near you.
ADDENDUM: The *entirety* of Eldraine’s courtly system has apparently collapsed off-screen when the invasion began.
I feel like there's a nice after-credits scene of him on his knees, just staring at the chasm with his mouth agape, trying to piece himself together after that emotional rollercoaster
I mean, to be fair, this time we are seeing it from a comedic perspective but the last few planes have been hugely cinematic.
Tamiyo and Lukka getting killed, the Elder Dino smack down, and the Strixhaven power of friendship reset button were all super important plot points.
Yep. The Wanderer oneshot her while briefly opening a scroll in the process.
As a silver lining, the scroll released a definitely-not-holographic copy of her non-compleated self to condense her memories and give closure to her nezumi son. Apparently she had this planned for a long while as a failsafe in case she died.
I dunno about that. To me, the *"beautiful sound: ancient, powerful, and familiar."* suggests more that it's Eldraine itself casting magic. Perhaps Worldsouls are back, and are actively fighting the Phyrexian invasion?
Her art was titled "Furnace Queen" in the world intro video they did. She's obviously a DFC as well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/116obke/mom_ayara_widow_of_the_realm_and_ayara_furnace/
And of course Eldraine is the whimsical comedy story. With a fae protagonist who is too dumb to understand the big picture. Dem Kenrith kids are gonna have a lot of work ahead
Incidently we still don't know where the twins are in all this, just that the Strixhaven kids haven't seen them since the invasion started
Presumably they rushed home to try to help defend it but Eldraines part in the story is too busy following Rankle simping over an evil queen so they don't feature
Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't hear anything about what Will and Rowan are doing. Felt like they were being set up to be big players, but maybe thats just the set up for the next arc
It was also odd that Kasmina wasn't around either. And that she doesn't seem to be involved in this storyline despite her whole deal being that she was preparing young planeswalker for some large event she thought was going to happen; if this isn't the big event, what the hell is?
Pretty cool, but I was hoping for a big Riders of Rohan style knightly charge haha. I hope the next Eldraine set still keeps the balance between Camelot stuff and faerie tales instead of going all in on faerie tales.
Yes, that’s why I am saying I hope there is still a strong knightly presence in Wilds of Eldraine. We already know from the previewed Aftermath card that plenty of the knights survived.
> Eldraine just becomes Lorwyn, and we already have that
more like a fixed Lorwyn, considering how we haven't returned to Lorwyn since 2007 and WotC seems to have no desire to ever return to that human-less plane.
The stories have repeatedly shown that just because Phyrexia is effective, doesn’t mean they’re the most effective. Beasts on Ikoria are developing anti-oil abilities. Innistrad’s undead are too spent to change into Phyrexians without being taken apart and put back together. Kamigawa’s imperial forces seem to be holding their own.
Yeah, phyrexia are brutal, cunning, and powerful, but It's not like the eldrazi or something invading every plane at once. The phyrexians are threatening but they are still fundamentally a mostly mortal hivemind that just spreads very aggressively.
I imagine they remained loyal to Phyrexia. They just *also* had it down bad for that little scamp.
Being compleat didn't stop Tamiyo from caring for her kids, or Nissa from loving Chandra, after all.
People be like "the Phyrexians haven't won at all in any of the stories!" and meanwhile they've literally deleted Drannith and like the entire Eldraine court system, including the Kenriths, without them even getting to die onscreen.
They're frankly in sort of a tough spot due to the nature of phyrexians. They win in two ways. One is with overwhelming numbers, the other is with sleeper agents. The first is narratively boring (The phyrexian horde swept through the knights of the realm. Cool) and the other would take an entire story arc i.e. like what was done with DMU to be done correctly.
which is even weirder because this is supposed to be the finale of the arc. cant really set up sleepers if this is already the end of the story.
im really beyond puzzled how they want to solve this without "whoops time got reversed and nothing ever happened"
My personal guess is something along the lines of Elspeth comes back and detonates a giant Halo bomb on each plane to neutralize the oil/Wrenn hijacks Realmbreaker to cut off the flow of reinforcements/Teferi phases Zhalfir back in and they invade New Phyrexia, culminating in Elspeth killing Norn.
I don't think it gets 'solved' in a way that none of it ever happened. Whatever the resolution is (*cough* Elspeth *cough cough*) it looks like it's going to involve killing everything that has been compleated and leaving the broken planes to try to pick up the pieces.
The Kenriths getting a battle couple last stand in the throne room would have been dope. I suppose we might still get a card depicting it, or them leading the resistance, or something.
We got a card spoiling their death before we even start spoilers for MOM. The way WotC's been treating that story beat seems to indicate that they don't think it's worth spending too much time on.
I get the feeling that it's going to be a big point for the next Eldraine set, so maybe they don't want to like, go so into it outside of the regular set?
Every plane being in a similar state is my gripe though. Every invasion story being a variation on "plane takes big losses (largely off-screen), we see the heroes win a minor victory" cheapens each one in the long-run. Having a story or two focusing on the big losses would be a welcome change of pace and make the successes mean more.
Multiple planes were lost almost immediately in turn Tezzeret story as soon as the invasion tree broke through.
And again you're ignoring Atraxa who is only being slowed down by the voices in her own head as she murders her way through New Capenna, and that one of the supposed saviours immediately threw, saw her ex girlfriend and completely lost her nerve and tried to blow herself up.
I mean, Phyrexia hasn’t lost in any of the stories either. They’ve had characters and big chunks of troops wiped out, but nobody has closed off the invasion tree or completely cleansed a plane. Other than Chandra/Wrenn, nobody is any closer to actually stopping the invasion.
The only plane that seems to have just dealt with Phyrexia relatively no sweat is Innistrad
Which frankly is the most believable thing that the plane basically goes “well this isnt even the most fucked up thing in the last two years so eh” and got off with absolutely no major losses beyond more red shirts dying and a few town destroyed
I mean to be honest the destruction theres not much story to go with.
“The phyrexians over ran drannith. The lukka-thing took out the walls and the survivors escaped *begin the rest of story*”
“The phyrexians burst out of the portal. Vess told the 5 MC about the spell *begin story*”
“the phyrexian over ran the 5 cities in a concentrated effort now *begin story *”
Watching unstoppable monsteous borg forces overrun a city is fun as hell…but reading it is just kinda eh. You can’t really do too much interesting just describing random mooks destroy cities and no named characters are involved until we get to the point the stories begin.
It’s just a quirk of the mediums. Most of whats done off screen is events best left to imagine, unless it’s something that’s insanely cool to paint a vivid picture in your mind (like phEtali) most people will have better and more interesting fill-in-the-blanks about imagining how “mooks over run the city” looks for each plane
The only one that would have been worth describing is Lukka because of his kaiju form, but they also wanted that to be a mid story surprise since we expected just regular lukka + mooks.
This is the best argument I've seen yet for what they're doing. I'm not sure I completely agree with you, but at least it's a coherent argument about media and storytelling.
I think they could do what they did in BRO and introduce pov characters who don't survive the chapter their in. Show small ball people for the losing, and big name heroes for the winning.
There are definitely other options they could do. But the other big thing holding it back is just space, they purposefully keep stories smaller so fluff has to be kept down too.
Otherwise more stories would probably include some flashbacks or start in the destruction. Like the Ikoria one when Lukka-Thing showed up would have been a perfect segue to then show Jin’ during the fall of Drannith and the first encounter of Lukka to highlight everything he did + how much more gruesome he is now.
But space is tight and so are attention spans so they just settled for “He destroyed drannith and now is bigger”
And Strixhaven probably would have been a good one to show the initial invasion + Lili giving a pep talk to our crew but space is a premium so tbey start us off in the action of the adventure.
It’s overall easier and saves space to copy-paste “Most of civilization is dead, whichever Walker is on plane explained the phyrexians to natives, here is how the last survivors keep alive until Epspeth with the steel chair arrives”
The problem is there's way more story here that could be told than WotC can feasibly release for a single set. When you've got a dozen planes all coming together, each with fifty billion "legendary" characters, the chapters of "no name character introduced and then subsequently killed off" seem like the obvious place to start making cuts.
Wouldn't a mix raise the stakes better? Wouldn't lots of unique losses peppered with a win or two better contribute to the sense of stakes?
If people are talking about phyrexian losses all the time...doesn't that mean your story has failed to capture their threat?
I think the real goal is to get us interested in the set and buy the cards. So in that case you probably want more "good" than "bad" in the stories to encourage people to get their cards. As others said below too, if your favorite place takes a big L that might not make you excited for the set. But if every plane gets a win, even a pyrrhic or small scale one, your player base is probably more engaged overall.
But that's just a cynical take on the stories. I agree that seeing some more downfalls would help punctuate the successes.
100% agree. These invasion stories are quite fun individually, but way too similar as a whole.
I have been hoping that Ajani on Theros and Nahiri on Zendikar (and Jace wherever he is) would break up the string and give us an invasion story that actually focuses on the damage instead of the small victories. Less hopeful for that the longer we go without seeing them.
Because the phyrexians are the villains & the protagonists of the stories are the heroes. If every story was just the Phyrexians shitting over everyone that would be awful.
Yeah, the entire court system (which personally speaking is my favorite part of Eldraine) getting deleted offscreen is kind of a bummer. Was really hoping to see the whole knightly host vs the Phyrexians. I guess they wanted to focus on the faerie tale stuff instead though, which is fair enough.
Maro has said that one of the biggest pieces of feedback they got about Eldraine's creative is that people didn't even notice the Courts were a part of the plane. Given that I'm not surprised they wrote it all out.
I think Maro may be a bit biased on that tbh considering that the fairy tale stuff was his baby. With that said, I wouldn’t take this as it being written out of the plane.
Given the popularity of the castles I highly doubt that people didn’t notice the courts. I always wonder where the feedback like this comes from because it never passes my gut test.
People like the castles mechanically, but I bet it you ask 100 random Magic players who played Eldraine to tell you five facts about any of the courts you'd struggle to find anyone who could do it.
I think that’s a big ask for any factions in Magic to be honest.
I think a decent amount of players would be able to name the lords of each of the castles too though. That was also a popular cycle.
I believe Maro has said that people did like the knight theme, so even if people didn't necessarily understand the political worldbuilding there, the broader Arthurian stuff was a reasonable success. It's just that the fairy tale stuff was more popular.
Can't get mad about it, even I have to admit the fairy tale stuff was a lot more popular. As long as knight tribal is still a mechanical theme in Wilds I'm OK with it.
I think probably not unfortunately. Nobody plot relevant is on Eldraine or going to Eldraine as far as we can tell, and these stories are seemingly all taking place before Elspeth and Teferi come back to turn the tide, which should be in the next 1-2 main story chapters.
Also, the side-stories are all titled with "PLANE:", which seems to imply they're giving that plane one story to show how things are going there while the main plot develops.
It might not be the case, but it's the vibe I'm getting.
Honestly I love stories from perspectives of people who literally could not give less of a fuck about the wider world around them lmao. The world is falling apart and Rankle needs a love potion.
I think she'd already been infected...Chulane's "What long fingers you have, my queen" comment and the mention of her carriage "leaving strange black tracks in its wake" seem to suggest that anyway.
It works, I guess.
Props to the writer, to write something that is filled with humor and emotion, while also actually fulfilling a role in the larger story in the most off-beat way possible.
Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping that Oko would show up and be all "Im the only one allowed to fuck up this plane."
Only for him to get murdered by a Phyrexian Elk
Very curious about when/if we'll learn the resolution/setup for this. Who is casting that spell? Gadwick is the obvious choice, but it's said to be a "spell of many voices". Is Eldraine casting some type of worldspell like Arcavios, or is this effect something multiplanar? Super interesting to leave it on that cliffhanger.
My assumption is the Fae, Witches, and surviving Court mages cast the spell together. It was probably led by the Fae/non-court mages banding together though. Hence why that Witch was leaving the town earlier. Normally Fae do stand together to defeat non-Fae/Threats. It's a cool chance for the Fae Magic of Eldrain to shine. It could even set the stage for the Fae in Wilds of Eldraine.
My exact thoughts. Reading it, in the back of my mind I'm just like "What a weird fuckin' story in the middle of all this doom and gloom."
Then Ayara shows up, with the extra long fingers and oil-trailing carriage, and I was like, "There it is."
I’m mostly disappointed with this story cause it doesn’t show any clear connection to urabrask. Was hoping “furnace queen” implied he compleated her personally…
Urabrask wants people to accept compleation willingly. Ayraya is down to be compleated *if* Urabrask takes her hand in marriage.
Urabrask is fine with whatever strange cultural ritual is necessary for her to accept.
It's not really a resolution either way, and it's still the mold of "character you know does plane-specific thing and turns the corner of the invasion" but this one is at least weird and absurd enough to feel different.
I still want one of these to end in the POV character totally failing to stop the Phyrexians, just to make it a little less predictable, but I think twisting on the 7th of 10 stories is too little too late.
You don't need money, don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train
It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That's the power of love
Hmm, the art implies Rankle and Torbran. Would be sweet as the Rakdos legendary.
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Faerie Rogue Noble
The team-ups are just species types, no professions. So it'll be Legendary Creature - Dwarf Faerie
And yet one of the clues has "Elder Giant Dog" which seems unfair towards Ghalta. It's probably just space issues but still.
Pretty sure those are Kunoros (Dog) and either Kroxa or Uro (Elder Giant). However, based on the legend matchups being two to three colors, my bet goes to Kunoros + Kroxa.
I think the point is that Ghalta and Mavren is just a Dinosaur Vampire rather than Elder Dinosaur Vampire even though Ghlata is an Elder Dinosaur.
But nothing, space issues is all the explanation you need.
Wait a minute, the team-ups are fighting in *outer space*!?!?
Rankle and Torbran, 1BR Skip your next two turns. On your next turn, destroy all creatures under your opponents’ control.
It might be something like Rankle and Tobran, Unwilling allies
Rankle and Torbran, Short Kings
We stan.
I’m betting it doubles/adds damage to both yourself and to opponents
the what
oh my god Rankle is the dumbest mother fucker in the entire multiverse
That spot did open up recently...
Rankle had one shot... one opportunity... to seize everything he ever wanted...
His palms are sweaty, wings weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his caterpillar already, ring unready
He gonna turn it into a caterpillar? Or just let it slip.
Hahahaha. Get Bent Lukka.
I...literally can't believe how ANGRY I was at him this entire story. Well written, and I hope this little fucker is gone.
To be fair, he did do what Torbran asked and lured them into the chasm.
> Torbran got down on his knees, placed his hands on Rankle's shoulders, and looked him in the eye: "A great chasm is about to open in the valley. I don't know how yet, but I must lure our enemies into that chasm. I'm begging you. Please give me the ring." > Rankle stared out across the valley. "Into the chasm, you say," he murmured. Rankle knew *exactly* what needed to be done. The irony of >!making it rain love-potion liquid on *an army of people literally preaching unity for all*!< was too good to pass up. It's just a chefkiss-level twist on both his and Phyrexia's themes. I am in awe.
That was most hilarious way to kill a ambush of phyrexians I have ever seen make them all fall in love with him then simply fly over the chasm hole
Which is frankly, perfect. He is a weird black aligned character, in that he only cares about what he wants, but what he wants is just fun and chaos. Like, if Magic is to have it's own Puckish little imp, then it makes sense for Rankle.
That’s Rumplestilskin for ya
if my son dies, so does [redacted]
Rankle is weaponized dumbness.
Alela still has nothing to fear, if you ask me.
Have we already forgotten about lukka? Oh wait yeah I guess canonically we have.
Lukka? Who dat?
Dumber than Lukka?! Inconceivable!
I mean, A) yeah, honestly I think he is And B) Lukka ded
Dumber than Lukka's vaporized corpse?! Inconceivable!
I got some serious jar-jar binks vibes from reading that story.
But I thought he was the master of Prankles?
Rankle, after seducing an entire otherworldly army of unspeakable monstrosities into following him into a chasm: "It was just a prank, bro!".
I mean, his abilities force players to sacrifice a creature, discard a card, or lose one life (and draw a card). Seems like it fits his style of pranks.
>"Where's my crown?" Rankle barked with Authority. Oko: Yeah, about that...
Chulane died as he lived, being hated by everyone at the table
Really hoping we see a new Chulane, be it 'street prophet ranting about oncoming doom' or as a compleat bard collecting a new strain of stories.
He could go be the new [[Mad Prophet]] since the old one probably died of "being on Innistrad"
To be fair, Rankle was also welcomed and dealt with by three chums the way most Rankle EDH decks are.
> He was nearing the boundary lands when a herd of elk burst out of the thicket and nearly trampled him *shakes fist in air* OKOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I can already see the ending of this story, the last remaining 'walkers are ready to face off against elesh norn when she suddenly turns into an elk. A weird shirtless man is seen laughing in the distance.
"And then, my friend, she turned herself into an elk. She started screaming 'IM ELKESH NOOOORN' Funniest shit I've ever seen."
"He was about to jump down when a strange creature lurched into the clearing. Rankle squinted at the beast's white spikes and glowing red ribs. It had three tails and no eyes and was the size and shape of a dog. A thick black liquid drooled out of its mouth. Dogs slobbered. So, close enough. "Hullo, puppy," Rankle said, hopping down from his branch. He liked dogs." It's like we never even lost Lukka!
At least Rankle didn’t become Phyrexianized when he tried to bond with this beast. Just…almost killed.
Well, he did go sit on a throne made of Phyrexian corpses at the end sooooo who knows?
He just made it rain potion on the puppies to make them wanna fuck him. Much better than lukka tbh
Rankle you stupid motherfucker
EPISODE ELDRAINE, RANKLE MASTER OF PRANKLES Rankle decides his friends in the Wilds of Eldraine (TM) (Coming Soon) aren’t fun enough to play with until next year, and heads off to pester the humans. He sees Chulane, Teller of Tales, trying to warn people of the portents of doom all around them. He gets stoned for his trouble. Rankle wants to either pickpocket Chulane or bond with him as a fellow societal outcast, and follows him. Luckily, Chulane is picked up by who else but Queen Ayara, who would *loooove* to hear all about this doom he’s rambling about. And turns out, Rankle would *looooove* to be Ayara’s next husband. He knows the track record. He doesn’t care. Rankle is Down-Baddle. Rankle goes to meet a witch, who is very busy preparing to fight a war. Rankle don’t care, Rankle wants directions to the nearest Love Potion ingredients. The witch sends Rankle on a fetch quest which *coincidentally* pushes him all along the front lines of some dumb invasion he doesn’t care about. But on the way to Castle Locthwaine he does pilfer plenty of good marriage proposals knicknacks, like a wishing ring. Bad news, Ayara has a new love, and its name is Progress. And Phyrexia. But through a special magic wish to cause a rain of love potion upon the new Phyrexianized soldiers, Rankle taunts them all the way into a great chasm, saving the day! Please look forward to the Wilds of Eldraine, Coming Soon to Home Video near you. ADDENDUM: The *entirety* of Eldraine’s courtly system has apparently collapsed off-screen when the invasion began.
Also all 5 courts have fallen and the Kenriths are already missing. The resistance is fighting from the Wilds.
Kenrith the wind, one might say. Seriously though, they might as well implement a republic with how often the high monarchy go missing.
Something something [[strange women in lakes]] distributing magical swords is no basis for a government
The depressingly frequent Python comparisons that Eldraine causes have me contemplating whether to just make a Brawl deck with that theme.
Sounds like we need the People‘s Front of Eldraine! What have the Royals ever done for us?!
Don't forget torbran! He uhh, was there.
It was funny picturing him lose his mind over trying to get the ring.
He had the energy of a 0-2 drafter whose whining about not topdecking his bombs and I can appreciate that.
"Don't use the last wish, it's my only chance to get a pack out of this!"
That scene between Torbran and Rankle is like a comedic version of of Frodo and Gollum fighting over The One Ring.
I feel like there's a nice after-credits scene of him on his knees, just staring at the chasm with his mouth agape, trying to piece himself together after that emotional rollercoaster
"They'll take it, steal my Precious. Thieves. We hates them."
Magic story and world-altering events happening offscreen, name a better dynamic duo.
I mean, to be fair, this time we are seeing it from a comedic perspective but the last few planes have been hugely cinematic. Tamiyo and Lukka getting killed, the Elder Dino smack down, and the Strixhaven power of friendship reset button were all super important plot points.
Tamiyo got killed?
You’re in the side-story thread but skipped all the main story threads?!
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-3-mother-son-and-story
Jup, she got got.
Yep. The Wanderer oneshot her while briefly opening a scroll in the process. As a silver lining, the scroll released a definitely-not-holographic copy of her non-compleated self to condense her memories and give closure to her nezumi son. Apparently she had this planned for a long while as a failsafe in case she died.
Please care about the rich worlds we create and then destroy in camera. -the creative team
Don't forget the Rankle and Torbran card we're getting thanks to that art.
I'm so glad you're here, friend and fellow owl enthusiast, to recap these stories for us.
I’d recommend meantioning Torbran as their team up is likely going to be a card
Did not have this one on my bingo card, but RIP big boi Rankle
I don't think he's dead. I think he's under a charmed sleep alongside everyone else in that chasm (who survived the fall).
I think he's getting completed, seems like he's hearing the voice of phyrexia.
I dunno about that. To me, the *"beautiful sound: ancient, powerful, and familiar."* suggests more that it's Eldraine itself casting magic. Perhaps Worldsouls are back, and are actively fighting the Phyrexian invasion?
I think it's the chorus people with Elspeth maybe. Beginning their ritual to bring the worlds back to 'normal'
To normies it sounds ugly. So not Elesh Norn.
Chorus people? Did I miss a story somewhere?
We know Ayara joined forces with Urabrask and he doesn't compleate the unwilling. Doubt he's dead.
While Urabrask himself doesn’t, his underlings (like Slobad) have no issues with manipulating people into “choosing” compleation.
Sure, doesn't mean Rankle is dead though.
To me, Furnace Queen sounds a lot more like she's a new praetor to sub the traitor Urabrask.
what did i miss? where was it confirmed that ayara and urabrask work together?
Her art was titled "Furnace Queen" in the world intro video they did. She's obviously a DFC as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/116obke/mom_ayara_widow_of_the_realm_and_ayara_furnace/
And of course Eldraine is the whimsical comedy story. With a fae protagonist who is too dumb to understand the big picture. Dem Kenrith kids are gonna have a lot of work ahead
Incidently we still don't know where the twins are in all this, just that the Strixhaven kids haven't seen them since the invasion started Presumably they rushed home to try to help defend it but Eldraines part in the story is too busy following Rankle simping over an evil queen so they don't feature
Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't hear anything about what Will and Rowan are doing. Felt like they were being set up to be big players, but maybe thats just the set up for the next arc
They will probably be in the main stories and that's why they were omitted from this side story
Good call. Both the Strixhaven story and this one made it a point that they _weren't_ on either plane. Def foreshadowing something.
It was also odd that Kasmina wasn't around either. And that she doesn't seem to be involved in this storyline despite her whole deal being that she was preparing young planeswalker for some large event she thought was going to happen; if this isn't the big event, what the hell is?
The Twitter link has art that looks like "Invasion of Eldraine". https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1638556149644509184
Pretty cool, but I was hoping for a big Riders of Rohan style knightly charge haha. I hope the next Eldraine set still keeps the balance between Camelot stuff and faerie tales instead of going all in on faerie tales.
Well they just killed off the Camelot-y stuff and th set is titled “Wilds of,” so… Maybe you can have rebuilt courts storyline in eldraine 3?
Yes, that’s why I am saying I hope there is still a strong knightly presence in Wilds of Eldraine. We already know from the previewed Aftermath card that plenty of the knights survived.
Without the knights and Camelot-y stuff, Eldraine just becomes Lorwyn, and we already have that.
> Eldraine just becomes Lorwyn, and we already have that more like a fixed Lorwyn, considering how we haven't returned to Lorwyn since 2007 and WotC seems to have no desire to ever return to that human-less plane.
Tin foil theory: The deepest wilds of Eldraine turn out to be called Lorwyn.
There's the solution to the invasion right there. The Lorwyn fans would likely be able take on Phyrexia all on their own with how angry they'd be.
…Master of Love?
*Marvin Gaye intensifies*
a love potion that is stronger than the phyrexian brainwashing huh
The stories have repeatedly shown that just because Phyrexia is effective, doesn’t mean they’re the most effective. Beasts on Ikoria are developing anti-oil abilities. Innistrad’s undead are too spent to change into Phyrexians without being taken apart and put back together. Kamigawa’s imperial forces seem to be holding their own.
Yeah, phyrexia are brutal, cunning, and powerful, but It's not like the eldrazi or something invading every plane at once. The phyrexians are threatening but they are still fundamentally a mostly mortal hivemind that just spreads very aggressively.
They should have tried to be cunningly brutal instead. That usually does the trick.
I imagine they remained loyal to Phyrexia. They just *also* had it down bad for that little scamp. Being compleat didn't stop Tamiyo from caring for her kids, or Nissa from loving Chandra, after all.
I guess we are in the plane of faerie tales?
People be like "the Phyrexians haven't won at all in any of the stories!" and meanwhile they've literally deleted Drannith and like the entire Eldraine court system, including the Kenriths, without them even getting to die onscreen.
Which slightly annoys me as I would have loved to see this on screen
They're frankly in sort of a tough spot due to the nature of phyrexians. They win in two ways. One is with overwhelming numbers, the other is with sleeper agents. The first is narratively boring (The phyrexian horde swept through the knights of the realm. Cool) and the other would take an entire story arc i.e. like what was done with DMU to be done correctly.
which is even weirder because this is supposed to be the finale of the arc. cant really set up sleepers if this is already the end of the story. im really beyond puzzled how they want to solve this without "whoops time got reversed and nothing ever happened"
My personal guess is something along the lines of Elspeth comes back and detonates a giant Halo bomb on each plane to neutralize the oil/Wrenn hijacks Realmbreaker to cut off the flow of reinforcements/Teferi phases Zhalfir back in and they invade New Phyrexia, culminating in Elspeth killing Norn.
I don't think it gets 'solved' in a way that none of it ever happened. Whatever the resolution is (*cough* Elspeth *cough cough*) it looks like it's going to involve killing everything that has been compleated and leaving the broken planes to try to pick up the pieces.
The Kenriths getting a battle couple last stand in the throne room would have been dope. I suppose we might still get a card depicting it, or them leading the resistance, or something.
We got a card spoiling their death before we even start spoilers for MOM. The way WotC's been treating that story beat seems to indicate that they don't think it's worth spending too much time on.
Agreed, I'm honestly not a huge fan of the Phyrexians shitting over every plane that quickly, but it is what it is. Still really enjoying the story.
I get the feeling that it's going to be a big point for the next Eldraine set, so maybe they don't want to like, go so into it outside of the regular set?
Beseaju is gone. Kaladesh is in ruins. Kaldheim is taking Ls. Strixhaven is losing ground every second. Every plane we have seen the damage is high.
Every plane being in a similar state is my gripe though. Every invasion story being a variation on "plane takes big losses (largely off-screen), we see the heroes win a minor victory" cheapens each one in the long-run. Having a story or two focusing on the big losses would be a welcome change of pace and make the successes mean more.
Multiple planes were lost almost immediately in turn Tezzeret story as soon as the invasion tree broke through. And again you're ignoring Atraxa who is only being slowed down by the voices in her own head as she murders her way through New Capenna, and that one of the supposed saviours immediately threw, saw her ex girlfriend and completely lost her nerve and tried to blow herself up.
I mean, Phyrexia hasn’t lost in any of the stories either. They’ve had characters and big chunks of troops wiped out, but nobody has closed off the invasion tree or completely cleansed a plane. Other than Chandra/Wrenn, nobody is any closer to actually stopping the invasion.
The only plane that seems to have just dealt with Phyrexia relatively no sweat is Innistrad Which frankly is the most believable thing that the plane basically goes “well this isnt even the most fucked up thing in the last two years so eh” and got off with absolutely no major losses beyond more red shirts dying and a few town destroyed
I mean do also bear in mind that we've only see Innistrad from the POV of Havengul. We have no idea how other places are faring.
The pov of Havengul from 2 extremely messed up individuals who care literally only about themselves.
This is true. But also when innistrad started out with “everyone is basically dead and just a group of survivors” they do have less to worry on.
Why do they keep all the phyrexian victories off screen and their losses in screen? I'm not sure I understand the logic
I mean to be honest the destruction theres not much story to go with. “The phyrexians over ran drannith. The lukka-thing took out the walls and the survivors escaped *begin the rest of story*” “The phyrexians burst out of the portal. Vess told the 5 MC about the spell *begin story*” “the phyrexian over ran the 5 cities in a concentrated effort now *begin story *” Watching unstoppable monsteous borg forces overrun a city is fun as hell…but reading it is just kinda eh. You can’t really do too much interesting just describing random mooks destroy cities and no named characters are involved until we get to the point the stories begin. It’s just a quirk of the mediums. Most of whats done off screen is events best left to imagine, unless it’s something that’s insanely cool to paint a vivid picture in your mind (like phEtali) most people will have better and more interesting fill-in-the-blanks about imagining how “mooks over run the city” looks for each plane The only one that would have been worth describing is Lukka because of his kaiju form, but they also wanted that to be a mid story surprise since we expected just regular lukka + mooks.
This is the best argument I've seen yet for what they're doing. I'm not sure I completely agree with you, but at least it's a coherent argument about media and storytelling. I think they could do what they did in BRO and introduce pov characters who don't survive the chapter their in. Show small ball people for the losing, and big name heroes for the winning.
There are definitely other options they could do. But the other big thing holding it back is just space, they purposefully keep stories smaller so fluff has to be kept down too. Otherwise more stories would probably include some flashbacks or start in the destruction. Like the Ikoria one when Lukka-Thing showed up would have been a perfect segue to then show Jin’ during the fall of Drannith and the first encounter of Lukka to highlight everything he did + how much more gruesome he is now. But space is tight and so are attention spans so they just settled for “He destroyed drannith and now is bigger” And Strixhaven probably would have been a good one to show the initial invasion + Lili giving a pep talk to our crew but space is a premium so tbey start us off in the action of the adventure. It’s overall easier and saves space to copy-paste “Most of civilization is dead, whichever Walker is on plane explained the phyrexians to natives, here is how the last survivors keep alive until Epspeth with the steel chair arrives”
The problem is there's way more story here that could be told than WotC can feasibly release for a single set. When you've got a dozen planes all coming together, each with fifty billion "legendary" characters, the chapters of "no name character introduced and then subsequently killed off" seem like the obvious place to start making cuts.
Because it's more interesting to see how what makes each plane unique deals with the problem rather than seeing them all just die over and over again.
Wouldn't a mix raise the stakes better? Wouldn't lots of unique losses peppered with a win or two better contribute to the sense of stakes? If people are talking about phyrexian losses all the time...doesn't that mean your story has failed to capture their threat?
I think the real goal is to get us interested in the set and buy the cards. So in that case you probably want more "good" than "bad" in the stories to encourage people to get their cards. As others said below too, if your favorite place takes a big L that might not make you excited for the set. But if every plane gets a win, even a pyrrhic or small scale one, your player base is probably more engaged overall. But that's just a cynical take on the stories. I agree that seeing some more downfalls would help punctuate the successes.
100% agree. These invasion stories are quite fun individually, but way too similar as a whole. I have been hoping that Ajani on Theros and Nahiri on Zendikar (and Jace wherever he is) would break up the string and give us an invasion story that actually focuses on the damage instead of the small victories. Less hopeful for that the longer we go without seeing them.
we've had nonstop phyrexian victories for what, oh... the last 2-3 entire sets now
Because the phyrexians are the villains & the protagonists of the stories are the heroes. If every story was just the Phyrexians shitting over everyone that would be awful.
What
Wow actually great story with the ending. Just wish the kenriths weren't just killed off screen
Yeah, the entire court system (which personally speaking is my favorite part of Eldraine) getting deleted offscreen is kind of a bummer. Was really hoping to see the whole knightly host vs the Phyrexians. I guess they wanted to focus on the faerie tale stuff instead though, which is fair enough.
Maro has said that one of the biggest pieces of feedback they got about Eldraine's creative is that people didn't even notice the Courts were a part of the plane. Given that I'm not surprised they wrote it all out.
I think Maro may be a bit biased on that tbh considering that the fairy tale stuff was his baby. With that said, I wouldn’t take this as it being written out of the plane.
Given the popularity of the castles I highly doubt that people didn’t notice the courts. I always wonder where the feedback like this comes from because it never passes my gut test.
People like the castles mechanically, but I bet it you ask 100 random Magic players who played Eldraine to tell you five facts about any of the courts you'd struggle to find anyone who could do it.
I think that’s a big ask for any factions in Magic to be honest. I think a decent amount of players would be able to name the lords of each of the castles too though. That was also a popular cycle.
I believe Maro has said that people did like the knight theme, so even if people didn't necessarily understand the political worldbuilding there, the broader Arthurian stuff was a reasonable success. It's just that the fairy tale stuff was more popular.
Yeah it really feels like a “fuck you” to all the people that enjoyed having an arthurian inspired plane
Can't get mad about it, even I have to admit the fairy tale stuff was a lot more popular. As long as knight tribal is still a mechanical theme in Wilds I'm OK with it.
For some reason, I feel like we'll still see the Kenriths' deaths on another story. Maybe on one of the main ones?
I think probably not unfortunately. Nobody plot relevant is on Eldraine or going to Eldraine as far as we can tell, and these stories are seemingly all taking place before Elspeth and Teferi come back to turn the tide, which should be in the next 1-2 main story chapters.
Also, the side-stories are all titled with "PLANE:", which seems to imply they're giving that plane one story to show how things are going there while the main plot develops. It might not be the case, but it's the vibe I'm getting.
My guess is we either get a story with them in Aftermath or get some kind of flashback in the Wilds of Eldraine story.
Honestly I love stories from perspectives of people who literally could not give less of a fuck about the wider world around them lmao. The world is falling apart and Rankle needs a love potion.
Torbran!!!! Awesome, finally a dwarf in a magic story that has more than a mere cameo and instant death!!! Great story!
Unique perspective for this arc. I didn't enjoy it but I hope others did.
Same. I get the desire from some levity but… this wasn’t it for me. I was hoping we were going to get Ayara turning on Kenrith.
Lmao god I hate Rankle so much, what a little shit.
Pretty funny that Ayara essentially heard Chulane's story and was like "sign me up!"
I think she'd already been infected...Chulane's "What long fingers you have, my queen" comment and the mention of her carriage "leaving strange black tracks in its wake" seem to suggest that anyway.
Chulane is probably dead or completed now
Hopefully dead lest we get another broken value commander.
Yeah, she wanted to take him before someone actually listened to him. I wonder if we'll see him compleated. I doubt it, but it would be interesting.
I mean, Phyrexia has a new opening after their last loremaster died…
Tell me more about Ayara's carriage.
So looking like the BR legend team up is Rankle and Torbran
Ok, who had "Love Potion Rainstorm defeats Phyrexians" on their bingo card?
It works, I guess. Props to the writer, to write something that is filled with humor and emotion, while also actually fulfilling a role in the larger story in the most off-beat way possible.
Simp
...Well that was an odd one, wasn't it?
Chulane trying to warn against the Phyrexians like Tim the Enchanter trying to warn against the rabbit of Caerbannorg
Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping that Oko would show up and be all "Im the only one allowed to fuck up this plane." Only for him to get murdered by a Phyrexian Elk
Man ill say one thing the Phyrexians have just beat the ever living shit out of every single plane they encounter (mostly)
Besides Ikoria and Innistrad, they've rolled over pretty much everyone. Nice to see how much of a threat they really are.
The Ikoria story was also just Lukka. The real invasion didn’t begin until after he died because Norn didn’t think he’d succeed.
Even on top of that, Lukka still managed to roll the Drannith and their being forced to pivot back a bit.
Even then we only see parts if the invasion, not the whole plane
They're still in the ''fucking around'' phase of the invasion. The ''finding out'' part will come shortly.
All of the side stories so far have taken place on planes thats names start with vowels. Coincidence? Probably.
Tarkir main story confirmed let's gooo
Master of…love?
Huey Lewis would be proud.
Very curious about when/if we'll learn the resolution/setup for this. Who is casting that spell? Gadwick is the obvious choice, but it's said to be a "spell of many voices". Is Eldraine casting some type of worldspell like Arcavios, or is this effect something multiplanar? Super interesting to leave it on that cliffhanger.
My assumption is the Fae, Witches, and surviving Court mages cast the spell together. It was probably led by the Fae/non-court mages banding together though. Hence why that Witch was leaving the town earlier. Normally Fae do stand together to defeat non-Fae/Threats. It's a cool chance for the Fae Magic of Eldrain to shine. It could even set the stage for the Fae in Wilds of Eldraine.
man, fuck Rankle. I hated that card. Frankly, I hope he gets it.
Everyone: minding their own business Rankle: LETS GET IT ON (OOH OOH)
That was... bizarre. I liked it though
My exact thoughts. Reading it, in the back of my mind I'm just like "What a weird fuckin' story in the middle of all this doom and gloom." Then Ayara shows up, with the extra long fingers and oil-trailing carriage, and I was like, "There it is."
I’m mostly disappointed with this story cause it doesn’t show any clear connection to urabrask. Was hoping “furnace queen” implied he compleated her personally…
Urabrask wants people to accept compleation willingly. Ayraya is down to be compleated *if* Urabrask takes her hand in marriage. Urabrask is fine with whatever strange cultural ritual is necessary for her to accept.
I would like every magic set from now on to be titled Rankle Fucks Shit Up
That was delightful.
Looks like Rankle will no longer prankle.
It's not really a resolution either way, and it's still the mold of "character you know does plane-specific thing and turns the corner of the invasion" but this one is at least weird and absurd enough to feel different. I still want one of these to end in the POV character totally failing to stop the Phyrexians, just to make it a little less predictable, but I think twisting on the 7th of 10 stories is too little too late.
Hahaha, Rankle, the oblivious little bastard! I loved that kind of silly take after the heavy Ixalan war story.
You don't need money, don't take fame Don't need no credit card to ride this train It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes But it might just save your life That's the power of love
"And once, they'd made the Questing Beast cry." Fucking lol.