Oh, and of course these new art books are just going to keep being a thing it seems.

I will consider Kaladesh a success if (and possibly only if) Chandra goes nuts and burninates at least 51% of the plane.

I absolutely love the artifact elephant on the front of that book and I NEED it to have its own card.

New walker is cool, can't wait to see what she does. Stylistically liking the plane already.

I am worried that the new 'Walker lady is going to be red, blue, or red/blue because those are the colors that dabble in aether the most. I don't think she can be mono-red because she'll be n the same block as Chandra. I would like to see her in mon-blue, but aether in mono-blue is pretty much just bounce and creature-counterspell oriented. We have more than enough red/blue 'Walkers.

Kaladesh looks whimsical. Esper looks more utilitarian in comparison.

the art style is not exactly what i associate with steampunk, it's more art nouveau. that's not bad, just different.

in my head, i like the idea of developing kaladesh in the direction of taking steampunk as an imagination of an alternate victorian england and then twisting that by pulling in victorian imperialism, since kaladesh is this multiethnic plane where there is an oppressive government and rebellious movement. but i also don't think magic is a good place to tell that story well without being overly simplistic and anvilicious.

That's mana alright.

So I'm not reading the whole thread, but that looks a LOT like Etherium.

and then it's revealed the secret of etherium wasn't sangrite, but just red mana!

I wouldn't hate that, to be honest.

I like the aesthetic of Kaladesh so far and it looks colorful and fun. Fantasy could use colorful and fun. The only thing I'm skeptical about is how far you can take that aesthetic without it becoming boring. Esper, for example, worked because it was contrasted by the other Shards, but I think all-gold-cogwork all the time is going to be stale pretty quickly. I love what were seeing right now, but I'm not sure I can handle 400 cards of art with this.

(And yes, I know there are rural parts of the plane. I'm not convinced that Wizards does.)

Mostly, I'm sitting here wondering what besides humans is going to populate things.

Elves, Goblins, Vedalken, Vampires, and Catfolk, probably styled as tigers. Also, whatever that Lemur thing is on that woman's shoulder.

Naga.
There's literally nothing that they could say that would justify leaving out naga.

What do you think the odds are of them revisiting the "god" creature type?

In Kaladesh? I'd hazard pretty poor honestly.
This strides me add taking as lot of cultural cues from the India that started to develop in the mid twentieth century.

Courtesy of "theartofmtg.tumblr.com":





Its good to see close-ups of the art, to analyze further. So far everything looks very...positive on Kaladesh, which I kinda like. Magic is usually so dark fantasy, which it more or less has to be, as it is a game about people fighting each other. This'll be a nice break.

It seems like almost everybody has some sort of thopter-like mechanical aid with them, which points interestingly to the culture of the world. The fourth image down has a picture of a dude on it and he seems to have a mechanical arm-I wonder if its just over his real arm, or if it replaces it Etherium-style.

On the style getting boring after a while: I doubt it'll fully continue into the second set, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Wait, didn't they say the next block would be something people have been asking for for a long time? We didn't even know Kaladesh before Magic Origins . There I was looking forward to Egypt land or Viking land (Valla!)... The general tone and aesthetics look nice, and I'm mildly interested in seeing how anything outside of and is going to be handled. But I agree I can only look at golden cogwork and filigree on so many cards, and I'm also pretty miffed (though not genuinely surprised) that there's another native 'walker. Seems like every plane has to have at least two native 'walkers now. I should have got used to it by now, but meh. Or maybe I'm just biased because I don't want another planewalker from Kaladesh running around the multiverse as the worldbuilding has zero to do with how it's described in The Purifying Fire.

As I've said before, I'm still too offended by literally everything they did to Chandra in Magic Origins to give a damn about Kaladesh. Looks like my Tarkir-Origins-Zendikar induced hiatus is going to continue after Innistrad block is over. I hope they'll seize the opportunity to cram as much Gatewatch stuff as possible into this block, because that would save me some more instances of not giving a damn in the future.

Edit: I guess it will also reduce our chances of returning to Alara in the foreseeable future because it looks like it's competing for mechanical and creative space with Esper pretty hard. I disapprove.

Well creatures we do know live there are:

Other than that it looks like it's pretty much humans and robots as far as the eye can see.

Steampunk

Edit: Steampunk is traditionally -punk, as in it's about disparity and high tech/low people, so a happy bright hopeful Kaladesh is an interesting take. I think it will be put forward as this bright happy utopia, as pushed by the fascist government, with hints of the underbelly, which will then be ripped open for Aether Revolt.

Sort of how Harry Potter shows the wizarding world as bright and happy and full of wonder only for the darkness and corruption to come to light as Harry Potter (and the reader) grows up.

We do have a good feeling on how things are in and . The former is aesthetically similar to the things in , while the latter is composed of bizarre looking beasts.

As to the SAPIENT inhabittants, it's probably going to be primarily human. Literally nothing so far even implies the existence of elves and goblins, two creatures would would look very odd in a Vedic plane. Nagas could feature, however.