What The Aftermath Reveals About the Future
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- Опубліковано 13 вер 2024
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March of the Machine: The Aftermath is a special "micro expansion" for Magic: The Gathering, and it gives us 50 additional cards for Standard that also help portray the game's ongoing story.
We've already looked at the cards connected to the set's two story chapters, so today we're covering all the rest and trying to identify where we may end up on future adventures across the multiverse.
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rowan and will are also confirmed desparked i believe
@@elihall6480 That information came out during an early preview of the upcoming Eldraine set, during a recent Magic Con. It's not part of The Aftermath, and not appropriate to cover within this video. I only brought up The Wanderer because her information was shared during a gameplay video featuring decks made from cards appearing in The Aftermath, sponsored by Wizards of the Coast, which means they consider it part of the set's story.
I feel like the writers kinda just… forgot… about Calix after Theros and then just remembered him after they had finished writing all the stuff for Elspeth.
Shame, too; Magali did a fantastic rendition of him!
At least he appeared in the story of THB in some way. Niko on the other hand... like, I think they got a cameo in the Kaldheim story, but that's it. We don't know if they're desparked or not, what's their situation etc. And to add insult to injury, let me remind you that they're not a Kaldheim native but are from Theros...
I think like 90% of us also forgot likewise
Pour one out for Basri Ket.
At least they remembered him, Davios is still buried in his grave with his uncommon war of the spark card
If any plane gets a "we are rebuilding" story, it should be Amonkhet.
Seriously though they should have set Aftermath after a time skip forward of at least 2 years so we can see how each plane was changed after recovery.
I love that idea. Egypt themes also always focus on the past. Why not a thriving modern desert society.
Certainly so for places we're never going to within the next few years anyway.
Man if only there was some kind of structure where you can have a lot of story spread out over many cards, releases in large chunks every so often, typically with mechanical or thematic ties, and things like cycles. Some sort of assemblage of a large...collection of cards to make a brick. Yes! Why not utilize 2 or 3 collections and make a proper brick?
@@lysander3262 your idea sounds dumb and boring, like you are going to tell a good history in the first set but the second and almost everything in the final set is going to be trash, so good we aren't doing that anynore
I would love to know what happened with the zombie gods. "Invasion of Amonkhet" shows that the Locust god and the Scarab god are still around and did help against the invasion.
"Did you get the Gruulfriends back together?"
"Yes."
"What did it cost you?"
"...Dinobots." :(
Hopefully Saheeli will build an interplanar portal to get her wifey back 🥺
Can't have too many queer couples or it won't be as marketable in Asia
Man this one comment and the few comments afterwards are my life. Freakin’ China
@@ThatJakers China has ruined Disney, and now they are coming for Hasbro. World War 3 can't start up soon enough!
I would have preferred to have the Dinobots.
LRR and Rhystic Studies did an amazing job, as per, but my jaw was practically on the floor when it became clear that WotC decided the middle of a commander game was the best place to drop highly relevant, exclusive plot info.
Do you have a timestamp on this? I don’t really watch those videos and was hoping to find info in the comments here.
@@Grendelkin ua-cam.com/video/sImiwohnUYg/v-deo.html
There's a comment fairly high up on the video that timestamps every lore dump.
when they said he was going to be in the video i was hoping he would, like, be in the room playing with them. it feels like they chopped up a normal promotional video inside a gameplay video for no reason
Before yall go on about Khans being better ponder this. We get back a 3 color Tarkir but not by removing Dragonlords but by having Dragonriders. Zurgo and Ojutai already joined forces once. And Dragonriders of Tarkir sounds something that would both appease those that want khans back while maintaing the dragons that many others also like.
Ya had me at Dragonriders
Or the Khans and Dragons "come together" in another way and we get Dragon Khan hybrids
How to Train Your Dragonlord
That sounds like a secret lair waiting to happen
My theory is that a return to Tarkir will fit in a color theme that I don't think we have yet: allied color pairs. When the timeline reset and the Dragons took over, the clans were reduced from three-color wedges to two-color pairs. These color combos just happen to be the opposite to Strixhaven, which uses enemy pairs, and it would help keep Tarkir apart from Ikoria, which uses the wedges now. I know Dragons of Tarkir already kind of did that theme, but I'm not sure it was a big focus, so that's what I would do. They could still have cameos and unique three-color cards, especially if they plan to have a timeline merging story.
Since Thassa is likely gone, I'm surprised they didn't have Kiora become the new sea god of Theros.
In fact you could have some of the demigods we last saw ascend with her.
I could see a follow up Theros set about mortal champions taking on trials to ascend to godhood. It would actually be a cool idea that could tie in concepts like the Olympic Games and the story of Diyonisis
@@charleswacker7166 except after MoM, Maro updated his Rabiah scale to put Theros now in the very unlikely to return to planes. I think they've set up Kamigawa now as their enchantments matter world and Eldraine as the mono-color matters.
Green cEDH needs a Kiora's Oracle.
GG
Octopus Wizard
When Kiora's Oracle enters the battlefield look at the top X cards of your library where X is your devotion to Green. Put up to one creature with power less than the number of cards revealed into play and the rest on there bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game.
@@anthonydelfino6171 RIP Theros
The concept of an aftermath/consequence set is really good. The execution here was poor.
Far too many cards feel like the "aftermath" is basically "these people are rebuilding" (which is an absolute given) and "this character is still alive" (which is nice, but doesn't feel like it is much). We needed more cards like The Kenrith's Royal Funeral. That shows much more true consequences.
I'd have liked to see a card showing how some of the Theros gods died and the consequences of that (especially since we didn't really have a Theros side story).
One of the New Capenna stories in MOM showed how the Maestros have mostly fallen to the Phyrexians. Maybe a card showing the power vacuum left there (or at least the imbalance it may have created)
Hell, if they wanted so many cards about "this plane is rebuilding" they could have shown a conflict between a leader who wants to go back to the way things were and another who wants to build better and to assume there will be more invasions like this coming.
Well technically Ob Nixlis will take the power vacom that Maestros left or the angels will take it we shell see
I feel that the novels they wrote for the first Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria (the Invasion block) did a much better job of wrapping things up than Aftermath did for this most recent invasion. Epilogues work much better as a few extra chapters at the end of a book than whatever you want to refer to the Aftermath set as.
It helps that that was THREE sets and books.
also i liked the post-apo continuation with Odyssey. those were the best times mtg had
@@christopherb501 If you include Urza's Block, it consisted of 16 novels and 18 card sets. The Weatherlight Saga itself was 12 novels and 14 card sets.
I actually think that the version of Elspeth that the people on Theros want to see is going to manifest as a god while Elspeth is on other planes. That could lead to Elspeth seeing the “perfect” version of her that the people of Theros have put on an altar and she has to come to grips with the fact that she is not who these people think she is and she has flaws (or views herself as having flaws) that others don’t see
I can see that, also with the way the statue is created, I wonder if we'll see something akin to the real world's rise of Christianity on the plane where the other gods fall and their version of Elspeth becomes a monotheistic god of worship
I was gonna comment something like this. Elspeth is prone to self doubt, and I think it would be interesting to have her see a version of herself that, in her eyes, is stripped of all flaws. It'd also be cool to see a version of Elspeth that was based solely on the songs and epic poems of her, first as a champion and then as an angel.
I think Elspeth would hate to see herself as Goddess because she suffered under so many gods or people who saw themselves as gods.
And to ascened her right after her self-discovery as an angel to god is imho boring. I like the idea of daxos/kytheon(Gideon) taking over the position of a white god on theros - with Elspeth help if needed.
@@Balendilin42 I don’t think it would actually be Elspeth, I think it would be a copy of Elspeth that the people of Theros believe in. Elspeth is out traveling the planes when she returns to Theros to see a copy of her that’s just everything the people of Theros believe that she is which would create that character moment where Elspeth has to reconcile that she doesn’t want to be seen as a god and that she doesn’t feel like she’s everything the people of Theros believe her to be
I really liked the emperor's unstable spark, it made her character really interesting with many story potentials. Now, she's just a regular badass in her plane. Atleast she's not stuck in the eternities anymore
Yeah she's really become one of my favorites in recent years.
Gold-Forged Thopteryx is the most interesting card to me from this set because the flavor text implies that Hualti made it, on her own, based on things she learned from Saheeli. While its been established that Hualti is a poet/warrior scholar, it was never explicitly stated she was that much of a tinkerer outside of building her own armor.
If this card is any indication we might get Hualit with a blue pip which Im personally excited to see myself. Love that character.
A Jeskai card that cares about artifacts, maybe? I could really use one for my Jeskai artifice cube. lol
@@gamerbear84 I mean I'd be down for that
I agree with your point that Magic needs to narrow the scope of their storytelling. I don't think short web fiction and flavor text on cards is designed to handle MCU-level universal conflicts. Hell, even the MCU can't handle it that well. I really liked the Nissa Aftermath story because of this exact contrast: it's focused on a single character, her trauma of being physically and mentally altered against her will to be a weapon of the enemy, and her and Chandra learning how to effectively (finally!) communicate their feelings to each other. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I wish more Magic stories would focus on these types of story beats rather than "the next evil guys are destroying the universe we gotta do something" kinda stuff.
Luckily the next year or two should be calming down and just focusing on singular planes so
Totally agree with you. Magic stories are really great when they focus on the small-scale stuff. Hell, the best stories they've posted to their website in the past few years have mostly been side stories that focus on non-planeswalkers (or at least non-planeswalkery problems) IMO. I think having this MCU-scale multiversal epic was necessary for ending the story of the phyrexians, but it was done very poorly, and they should have been better prepared for how to tell it than the usual channels (let alone random side updates from UA-camrs).
Personally, I think that this whole thing has certainly had the recipe for a great story, but has been cooked improperly. I think what MTG's story might need at this point is a more highscale medium to deliver established stories and lore, like a Netflix show, but I don't know if that's happening still or not.
As the owner of a Sultai Rat Colony Deck I have to thank WOTC for making a card specifically for me.
Every card is made for someone!
@@MagicArcanum One with Nothing has entered the chat.
The Chosen One!
Good to see you've added my boi Quint to your opening 🥰
We have learned that Will and Rowan lost theirs. This set definitely fell short by a long shot in tying up numerous loose ends. Ixalan was the last and one of the greatest without a doubt
feast of victorious dead's flavor text isn't literally straight from their mouths, but paraphrased sarcastically by someone else, which is why its my favorite flavor text in the mini-set
You know what would've been really dope? Having a "super duper short story" about one of the cards in each pack taking up the ad card slot. Then, they could give what amounts to longer flavour text to the cards that can't fit them.
I agree that Magic stories seem to work a lot better with smaller, more personal stories than multiversal threats. Though I am very curious what happened to Jace and Vraska, especially Jace. He had some job to do and just disappeared from the story, so I think that could definitely be an interesting thread to pull.
For sure, the idea of an evil Jace bopping around messing stuff up throughout the multiverse sounds interesting.
@@Lagdarr I now want to see a set of Jace hiveminding an entire plane
@@Lagdarr Lol... Urza 2.0
I'm betting that Jace has amnesia and is fine and doesn't look any different after he got completed and vraska is dead and we're not going to even see Jace mourn for her. This entire arc feels like a half dozen dropped balls and new balls being quickly introduced to try and hide the fact
Even mere mention of Heroscape makes me irrationality delighted. Thank you for making my day!
I had no idea that the Locust God and Scarab God were helping Hezzoret to some extent until the battle for ahmenket card lol and I'm really interested in how that is playing out
Rocco's card art has an Atraxa kite in the background, which I think is neat
OK, I don't know what to make of it... but did not expect a *HeroScape* reference in an MA video. Props on the shout-out!
I want a Jace driven expansion about him returning home, highlighting Jace's Dad.
Nashi's new card just reminds me that the one thing Neon Dynasty didn't give me that I really wanted was more rat and other tribal pay-offs. Hopefully they'll show up when we revisit.
One day fox tribal will be a viable strategy. :(
I really hoped for more rats too, but all of them are meh at best. The one that that's actually good is from all will be one. This rat being three colors may excite some, but since almost all rats are black anyways means that this has to be either my commander or not in the deck (Wich will be the latter).
Love the Heroscape callout. One of my favorite games ever haha.
We still have yet to hear of Kasmina and her shadowy cabal's doings behind the scenes, prolly the next big conflict or the one following it
LOL riiight riiight kasmina... she's definitely gonna be a big player
Hello Ryan, hello Nicole! Hope you're doing great
For the Sarkhan and Narset problem, I love Narset, but I agree with Sarkhan, I love that the Dragonlords are in charge of Tarkir.
Aftermath looks more like a “how do we justify trying to sell less product for more money” and the bandaid of it being a “missing narrative piece” being slapped on it. And while aftermath might have seemed like a good idea to push profits at a board meeting, in actually it’s left MUCH to be desired. The fact that most of the cards don’t even have flavor text shows the true intention of why this product was created. It is a predatory market test.
Ngl, if they were to adapt an MTG block into an animated series, Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan would be perfect. They've got it all: romance, adventure, amnesiac protagonists, lost cities, dinosaurs, (everything's better with) pirates, conquistador vampires, and hints of greater games being played to leave room for a sequel.
With everything going on, I find it both only slightly frustrating that Jace is left without any genuine information as to where he's at, and at the same time terrified.
At first I was bothered they wouldn't share any details that one of Magic's true Faces, well known by just about anyone, was not even so much as mentioned outside of the story to "Elesh Norn tasked him with 'something' and that was it", but the more I've sat on this knowledge, the more terrifying it is to imagine that the only person who is aware of where Nicol Bolas is located, with all of his spellcasting now behind the mindset of someone actually unhinged and prepared to do whatever is necessary, if Jace is still Phyrexian that is? If he is still Compleated, he is about to become one of the most dangerous villains the multiverse has potentially seen due to his power set backing it up.
I'm also interested to see what comes next for Tezzeret now that his body is fixed up, or if he got messed up as well with the events of March of the Machine.
Either way, a bright day today for the multiverse, but I sense this will be a dark future looming ahead as we move forward.
I agree with waht you say in 18:56, but to be fair, Jace and Vraska was part of the Bolas story arc. I think the problem comes with the "climax" story sets. It had issues, but I loved the stories of the Gatewatch, but War of the Spark was a dissapointment. Likewise, I think that the buildup to the phyrexian invasion was good, with some smaller stories in the middle, but March of the Machine and Aftermath lacked impact
Remember Niko? You know, the nice NB that wanted to help people and explore the multiverse after defying their fate on Theros? I don’t think WOTC does. At least Ashiok is gonna be back and hopefully be explained since I was irked by their absence in MOM as well.
I also really really hope to see a set for Zhalfir sooner rather than later. It’s definitely giving us a massive tease with how the plane was changed in MOM. The conflict seems obvious and straightforward given how now that the danger is passed and the people can “appreciate” the situation they’re in, it’s a natural course of action to be quite pissed at Teferi. Imagine being cut off from the rest of the world for what you thought was 10 years, only to find out it was actually 300 and it’s now semi permanent. Throw in a few instigators who are really xenophobic (possibly even Kaervek) towards the Mirran refugees (who might I remind you came from the same plane as the phyrexians, so some of these bigots might go “guilt by association” many bigots in the real world tend to do). It seems like an interesting conflict that a newly desparked Teferi would have to deal with as he tries to prevent a civil war from breaking out on the home he only now just got back. Peace is a fragile thing, after all.
No one cares creep.
A new idea magic could try? Having a cohesive story with good media coverage instead of the varying mess we get every set
And still no hinting at what happened to Jace!
I wish Magic Arcanum would be quality department of wizard's mtg story telling team and review all theirs works. All your videos give great feedback about plotholes and simillar issues which I spotted too.
Definitely agree with your conclusions and reflections in the last part of the video!
That kind of rupture implies soul-tampering power of the absolute highest order. Makes me wonder if we won't end up with a future card that's basically a reconstituted fragment of Yawgmoth or Leshrac, far weaker than their peak power, but not dead and gone either. Either one of them could be the kind of thing that motivates anyone in the area to try and stop them before they can recover their strength and become planeswalkers again, or dark gods again.
Seems like a large scale invasion by phyrexia would provide the connections needed to draw the level of power it would take to give those fallen terrors cpr.
Make Tarkir Khans Again!
1:58 ... Hasbro turned MTG into a Sliders TCG
Excellent, as always. Thank you.
I'm new to magic. I've had bad experiences in the past with players who felt the best way to teach was to mock and curb stomp (it happened 3 times in different states & different people so I assumed it was normal for the fandom), but I started picking it up during AFR due to a friend explaining it to me.
All through 2021 I could keep up with sets and the story and it was a good pace. Last year it seemed a new line released MONTHLY and the bump in prices and I couldn't keep up.
Excluding Universes Beyond, I would prefer less big sets during the year with smaller sets tying up lose ends or bridging the stories. Give me time to process the story and see what cards I like instead of the rapid-fire approch of Dominaria United-> MOM
(Or double sets similar to MID & VOW. My partner, who stopped playing around Invasion, said it reminded him of the old blocks)
(Also, I have to depends on target or walmart for cards & the venders have told me they limited the orders on magic because there's been so much lately. The ENTIRE section in my local stores is 80% pokemon, 15% Yugioh, and 5% random (dbz, digimon, ect) - magic gets a couple bundles and maybe a peg or two of boosters and thats IT until the next set.
The demons on Kamigawa aren't like the typical demons we know from Dom, New Capenna etc
They are essentially just spirits that consume other spirits *at least that's what I read, back in the og kamigawa novels.
I believe our recent fav neon city plane would face other problems instead;
- the ongoing Traditionalist vs Techno-revolutionist is still unresolved
- the merging of the spirit realm and the mortal realm (collusion of two world eques)
Either way, I'm definitely looking forward to future stories, we are blessed with many talented writers.
My personal favorite stories are ones that are self contained A plots with an ongoing B plot leading to a massive climax like MOM and WAR. Kaladesh, Ixalan, and Amonkhet had their main stories, but all ended up tied to Nicol Bolas, through the Planar Bridge, Immortal Sun, and Eternal Army and the capabilities of Lazotep.
Speculation time: I think that since the 5 gods of Theros are gone it wouldn’t shock me to see the 5 Demigods that we got from Beyond Death ascending to Godhood perhaps
I believe that planeswalkers should now become extremely powerful, no like before the mending, but related to it. Because it makes sense that with the omenpaths they're able to draw mana like before.
ok so i could be massively off base here but i felt the "render inert" part of the ending was more that phyerexia was being "phased out" and less "elesh norn biting the dust". because in my head it makes a bit of sense that the sorta "hivemind" that they have been pushing the last couple of set that is the phyrxians are would stop working on all the other plans with phyrexia being in time out. at least that was the take i got from the cards/story bits i read.
I think the problem is they hire too many writers and then don't have anty of them communicate with each other causing.... Whatever MoM was. If they hired a lore master/editor to direct the flow of the story itd probably make way more sense
Never go MCU without your own Feige.
Maybe I’m still new to the game, but Nashi caring about stuff in the graveyard while having Black and Green in his colors checks out for me. That’s the Golgari’s whole thing.
Not that he’s affiliated with the Golgari, just, you know, mechanically.
Black typically cares about creatures in the graveyard, and green usually cares about lands (and sometimes permanents) but it's usually white that cares about legendary cards, and Lorehold (red white) is the color combination most closely associated with history right now, hence the misalignment with a black/blue/green character caring about legendary cards in the graveyard.
I *love* the idea of mini-sets, but this was handled in such a way to bungle everything. It would be cool if it were offered in LGS-es as a full set, not just the sad excuse for having booster packs that we got.
Guess Kaito is glad to have his childhood friend/emperor back on their home plane
There were a lot of "Siege of" cards that were planes that no one has ever heard of.
The concept of a few cards with story implications and mechanical/theme from the year would be neat on a more accesible way. If this new cards would go with a bunch of reprints, like a Core set with a twist for example; could go. Or a not draftable jumpstart like (the new with a few cards from the year)... there are ways to improve it.
Deification is probably how we see Callix face to face with Elspeth. Elspeth should go find Daxos too.
LRR did a story bit on the wandering emperor? I watch them regularly (but not everything obviously) and didn't realize they had done this. Guess it shows how well it was advertised? Or maybe I just missed it
It was embedded within a live stream where they played Commander with the new legends from Aftermath. I don't think they told anyone ahead of time it would contain significant pieces of lore, it was more of a surprise bonus for anyone who caught the stream.
I'm so happy everytime you upload,i really am,thanks Ryan!!!!
Hope Niambi gets to see Zhalfir
I hope Niambi can still meet her dad
Always love your vids! I will drop a word of apology for Feast of the Victorious Dead, I'd say the flavor text sounds rather like a comment one of our mopey planeswalkers would say to complain about these dead being annoying : )
the story said that plainswalkers that where "infected" & cured lost a spark, there for having a card that removes the spark from any/all plainswalkers dose not fit the story but fits with the fact that sparks where removed. Not so much in consistent as we are missing part of the story as to how they are connected in lor
The story never said that infected planeswalkers were cured and lost their sparks. Ajani and Nissa were the only two cured on screen, and it took the combined efforts of Teferi, Karn, and Melira to do it. Karn used his own spark to purify that of Ajani and Nissa, while Melira healed their bodies. Nissa's spark looked liked it was crumbling as they put it back inside her, but that might have been related to the same mysterious force that robbed so many others of their sparks.
Also, note that it's not just cured characters who have lost their spark. The Wanderer and Tyvar were never infected, but still lost theirs, for example. So the Spark Rupture was caused by something else.
I feel like Spark Rupture was supposed to represent the new Mending, but interestingly enough, the Mending didn't depower existing "God Tier" planeswalkers much, only the newly born or those who performed The Mending rituals. Nichols was an exception cause he was imprisoned at that time and his prison was contingent on his Spark, so they used it as a means of Deus Ex Dragonica for him. Plus, even if I hate The Mending story aspects, it actually was a story. The Spark Rupture didn't even get said to have truly happened besides those who openly sacrificed their Sparks for others/the worlds they hailed from.
I wonder if, mechanically, they are trying to move away from the constant Planeswalker drops in the game, and turning them into what they used to be, hyper rares, and this was a story reason to get them numerically lowered. As The Mending (Time Spiral trilogy) was the start of them playing with adding Planeswalker cards or should say, the initial iterations of their playtest into the game, before the full formal addition. That canonical depowering allowed the players (who are Planeswalkers) to summon other Planeswalkers.
I would like state that Wizard's can make those grand multiversal spanning stories by raising you the entirety of the Thran Epoch (Urza's Saga Trilogy + the Dominarian side stories + Weatherlight Saga.) Though we know some of the novels that encompassed everything from Ice Age to Time Spiral were bad, when it hit, they hit and they hit hard. The story of the crew of the Weatherlight, Barren and Urza, Karn and Xantcha, even Yawgmoth and Gix, were better and lasted longer than War of the Spark and The New Phyrexian Invasion, combined. WotC can tell those stories, they just don't because they believe in the current mindset of pump out set after set after set faster than they can give their writing staff time to create a coherent, cohesive, and capable story. If they returned to set blocks, I think they would have a better time with keeping on task and making good stories to go with their game. It has been the lack of good story that has kept me from caring about the game, as I don't get to play, I tend to just collect. I was super excited to see the return to Dominari, the Brother's War... and then saw the atrocity of the stories and the shitty cards, and just threw my hands up in the air.
Ixalan story was so funny, just charming characters in a wacky race, one could easily forget it was still a tie in to the Bolas arc. Magic's Big Bads perform so much better in the background. The buildups to WAR and MOM were cool. Conclusions and epilogues were… questionable. Let's hope the next arc does NOT lead to another "war". Small scale favors character development, world building and overall more engaging narratives.
I can hear commentary from Statler and Waldorf about this set: "'Aftermath'? More like 'Afterthought'!"
It's so weird that lore tidbits are in a Commander gameplay video not in the official UA-cam channel of the company,,,
I think this could have been a good idea, but it was poorly executed, for the same reason you mentioned. I do hope they return to Tarkir soon, I miss the setting.
"Were the khans more interesting? Let us know down in the...khanments."
I heard what you did there at 4:42.
As an UN-set lover I don't mind tiny sets, but this seemed kinda tacked on at the end in a rush--after what seemed a like a year or more of rush with no real support game-wise (you can't really draft 5-card packs) or story-wise (I could very easily have seen 20-ish short stories/vignettes featuring the resolutions and futures of various people and planes). More flavor text could have helped as well.
See, and here i thought i was the only one who had a problem with Feast of the Glorious Dead's flavor text
Cálix got the Vivien Treatment, haha
I'm hoping the paths give us a chance for slivers to apear in the story. Like imagine we finally learn about the where they're originally from
I'm still wondering what happenned to the myrs/urtet, I really hope they havent been banished with the rest of the Phyrexians....
I think there's a middle ground here. There can be build up across multiple sets to a "Big Bad" and a final showdown, but it probably just needs to be on a smaller scale than MOM, and maybe even a bit smaller than WAR. They are trying to bring together every thread they have in the game, and it's not feasible, and someone will always end up disappointed.
And Ugin and Bolas are ... where right now, i don't think we saw Jace die, so he's likely the next leader for phyrexia, post preators.
But really, did he put the meditation gem in a box somewhere and write a letter in case he died, does he still have it, have the writers forgotten it exists like they did with Ashiok's involvement in the second half of this ark, who knows?
Aftermath had the potential to be better, if they treated it more like a premium product. Cards that would be highly sought after, flavorful reprints in new contexts (like Training Grounds), and there should be no "bad" cards, seeing as this is not a draft product. If they had made each pack a small treasure trove, it would've been perfect.
The Niv Mizzet Taco Bell joke made pause the video because I couldn't stop laughing. Nice one!
I am a pretty big fan of the site. obviously wouldn’t be sad if it was cheaper than it is, but already it’s cheaper than normal magic and it only removed the cards I would probably toss anyway. And obviously I want more stories, but I was a big fan of the two we got. I would say very good all around. Could always be better but I’m very happy with it.
DID YOU JUST SAY HEROSCAPE?!?!? 20:47
I think if they get a good leader writer to bring the team of writers together they could do wonders. Hopefully the listen to the fan base about how this story wasn’t that good and improve and do it again.
While it would be unsatisfying I still wish they would have given us at least a throw away line about halo nullifying the oil or something
Was the teacher phyrexian before or after the "reset" spell went off? I can't recall.
I'm here for the end of the planeswalker super type.
Did they ever cross into the Homelands plane? It would have been cool to see Baron Sengir lead a vampire army or something.
We don't go there in the story, but March of the Machine contains a battle card called Invasion of Ulgrotha which does reference the Sengir family...
@@MagicArcanum oh cool! I guess I can imagine it then. Also, I can just see Autumn Willow smiling peacefully as the Phyrexians try to compleat her and they just... can't. Jin Gitaxias just throwing a huge frustrated fit. "Why won't you just be processed?!!" "You didn't say the magic word, my dear" :)
I liked the idea of the aftermath since the phyrexian invasion and phyrexia itself was a massive event rooted at the start of magic itself. But they did it no good.
It was alright to see how some planes ended up but it sounds pretty similar all over.
I expected in the upcuming sets to see how each plane handled the remnants of the phyrexian invasion and fights the oil on their way. But I also wanted epic fights on different planes for each preator (or mabye some plotting to rebuild phyrexia in the shadows being smashed by chance).
In the end I have to agree: pls dont show us how each plane rebuilds!
It's weird that a company that made D&D, a game about story telling and roleplay. Kinda forgot how to tell a story. I do hope WOTC does learn from this and tries to spread out their stories a little longer and not rush the ending or the conflict of the story again
I could not care less about the story of this set, they've disappointed at literally every turn. That doesn't change the fact that I was still grinning like an idiot excited to watch another video from this lovely channel.
I liked MOM and Aftermath. Looking forward to more stories
It's interesting to see that even the old walkers like nahiri can be affected by the sudden spark loss, I'm really curious to see how Sorin and Liliana end up
I'm curious what even caused the sparks to... disappear? malfuntion? break? lose connection? whatever the hell has happened to them lol. This story has been so shitty and unexplained. It's like they wanted to make a big story and skipped all the details that would make anyone care
@@jakemaxwell3810 If I recall the explanation was essentially a second mending. The damage cause by realmbreaker caused a kneejerk reaction from the multiverse and powered down many planeswalkers in the process
A team Narset versus Team Sarkhanset would be amazing.
Dragons vs Khans
Natural story telling right there
Was really hoping for a BIT more on Alara. I get it isn’t one of the big popular areas, but we got a nice little tease before so I expected somethin’ somethin’ to build on it.
I think what makes Alara hard to write for is that the plane just doesn't really have much of an identity now that it's unified, and when people do try to point to an identity, it's usually just Esper.
@@anthonydelfino6171 I mean, it's not like the shards ceased to exist, they're just connected at the edges now and able to come into direct conflict.
@@gamerbear84 I'm fully aware of that, but Esper is not Alara. And Alara in some of it's other shards is pretty generic. It doesn't have the same kind of marketable identity other worlds have, which is why I don't think they're very keen on a return there.
Personally, I felt that the Aftermath should be a main set with the amount of story telling power it has. I’m left with so many questions, and I find it hard to see where we go from here, which is unfortunate. My thought was that if they merged the Present Timeline story of Brothers War with the Dominaria United set, they could make ONE and MOM main sets still, then make Aftermath a main set, and have The recap of the Brothers War as an “epilogue” set. This gives writers a chance to explore the story of Aftermath more while also reminding us about the brothers war and how that matters to present day.
RE Elesh Norn defeat causing inertness of rest of Phyrexia I disagree that lone reason. I think it was the death of EVERY Praetor and the swapping of NP with Tolaria that caused everything to freeze.
Yeah it wasn't enjoyable but more intracacies than what so many say...
The planeswalkers (mostly Saheeli) theorize that Elesh Norn programmed the oil to only respond to her own signal, so that nobody could take control of her armies out from under her. When she was defeated, the signal stopped, and anyone left alive to reprogram it was phased out along with the rest of New Phyrexia. So it is a little bit of a combination of factors, but the deciding one (as far as we can tell) was just the death of Elesh Norn herself.
*adjusts monocle and gestures with cane*:
in my day...planeswalkers were un-aging godlike beings who wielded great power and commanded creatures, armies, and lands...now they are just a bunch of random mages or whatever.
I love lrr but a commander game with lore put into it was wild I wonder if that was a wotc mandate
@13:35 what is their INT?
Why did Ob-Nixillis go back to Capena? He forgot his keys.
I have a hard time figuring out how long this war went on. THe story seemed to imply it raged forever, but everything happened ne after another on new Phyrexia, so did it last hours or days or weeks?
When it comes to the Khans v Dragons situation, paradoxically I think the clans were more unique than the broods, or at least were way more three-dimensional and interesting. It might be the big softie biasing my opinion, but thinking about how Abzan was a big family based on endurance, their faith in their ancestors and was generally more the defenders than the aggressors, compared to the way they look now, where those who still revere the Kin-Tree are persecuted, and the family aspects were turned up to 11 making them like a mindless cult in service of Dromoka, being an extreme version of Selesnya in a way (at least that's my impression from what I read), it's just sad. Or when Mardu became Kolaghan's brood, they lost all their honour and are now mindless battle-obsessed raiders. Then there are the Temur, who are a reverse to Abzan despite starting similarly, as they stayed kind of independent, but at the cost of the family aspects, the appreciation of the ainok and being forced to constantly feed the dragons so as not to awake they rage.
Sorry for this stream of sorrows or whatnot, but like... Man, they felt much more nuanced, much more human (which was probably the point of the change, but still) compared to the broods. Then there's the aspect of nature which also paradoxically is in a worse state than in the OG timeline, like, look at Temur/Atarka terrains.
You absolutely nailed why this set fell on its face and why the Phyrexian "grand storyline" just didn't feel well done. You're right let's get back to character driven, simpler stories
Were the fudge is tezzeret!
Chilling out at his home base in his new darksteel body. Didn't you read the stories?
Allison Lurhs going to write stories for Destiny 2 instead of Magic makes me sad for Magic, but I have like 9 years of playing Destiny so I'm looking forward to her work in that series solely off of the back of Ixalan's story
Wait, is Kaervek a controversial card/character? Why? Did I miss something?
Yeah i have no idea