My remaining thought at the close of the story, and I say this unflatteringly as possible, was "I bet Rona has a Twitter account where she just spouts this garbage all day. She sounds like she's terminally connected to Twitter."

Sand in the Hourglass

This finally settles the question as to whether planeswalkers can planeswalk on the same plane, without stopping on another plane, for me. I was leaning toward no, with the examples we have being exceptions (Nissa on Zendikar, but she is uniquely bound to Zendikar's worldsoul, and the Wanderer on Kamigawa, but she had the kami of Kamigawa's help and she had the Reality Chip at the time), but they all seem to be teleporting around Dominaria here without a problem.

Lim-Dul is show at last to be the Raven man and a 10+ year mystery is finally confirmed.

*squeezes past the elephant in the room*

So, those, er, stories are going to wrap up on 18th August, yes? That means WotC has five days left to explain* why Karn thinks that old salad bowl he's carrying around could possibly be the Golgothian Sylex, and why all the other characters are playing along. I see little point in talking about anything else before I have that info (although believe me, I'd have a couple of things to say about the material we're being served here...).

I mean, the Dominaria story called the thing a "Cylix" and claimed it had been made by Urza to destroy the Phyrexians (and yes, I'm aware they just secretly changed the spelling to "Sylex" in the original stoy, which is just one more reason why we should reject online stories and keep demanding novels instead), so the bottom line is, I have no idea what the hell is even going on in any of those stories anymore. Call me old-fashioned, but the central premise a story is built around should be something that makes sense and is understood by the audiene.

*The art on the new Jared Commander card already makes it look like they are now pretending Wayfarer never happened, so who knows what nasty surprises we might be in for...

God I've been so busy, I didn't even know the story was out! Will post my thoughts later

I'm really digging the pulp fiction elements and body horror. Old Magic being referenced only makes me smile so much more

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-08-12

Loved this story. Liliana remaining balck aligned and heroic while LIM-DUL is revealed. Elas is also a cool new phyrexian villain

Ertai is back!

I have to say, they absolutely did everything they could to make Phyrexia the stuff of nightmares this time around.

>sigh<
As this goes on, I'm ultimately left feeling nothing about this.* The individual stories are well constructed, but this is just the phyrexian invasion. Again. And it all feels so perfunctory besides, with none of the build up of the weatherlight or Urza's saga behind it. It feels like a sideshow in it's own story, but being that I kind of just don't care. It's kicking the old characters that have all the investment attached to them and it's killing the new characters that I actually like, leaving us mostly with the refuse they are unwilling to give struggles to or develop. So, even if I approve of the individual stories, I'm so detached from the conflict that... I just don't care.

I guess I'll check out the individual legendary cards, but the phyrexian threat isn't one. There are only two ways this ends and they both look like season 8 of game of thrones.

*I'm far more interested in the Warhammer 40k crossover. Let that sink in, I'm more interested in what they can do with someone else's property than I am with what they're doing with their own. Sad days.

I disagree. The cult of Gix had been foreshadowed before with Rona, and I like that instead of open battle we get a massive infestation.

Sure, now there there are open battles it takes away that element, but for the first three stories it was novel and engaging.

Not really.
Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey did that already.

Yeah the paranoia and body horror is really getting to me this time around (in a good way). I also really am enjoying Karn as a protagonists and really hope the golem catches a break soon.

And this has been building up since Kaldheim and we got Vorinclex, I'd will say the pacing been fast but this been an issues with the story needing more room to breath.

I don't feel like this had been specifically building, because there was nothing that pointed their target to be Dominaria specifically. We saw them appear on multiple planes, sure, but the only reason they seem to have any interest in invading Dominaria first is....?

Because it's been done before. That's all I can think of.

I think the nature of the webfiction being that a set's story is going to be contained within half a dozen chapters at most means the story is necessarily going to feel truncated or faster than ideal. I kinda just shrug at that because they have attempted other alternatives and people didn't like it. People want fiction and they want relatively quality fiction, but they also don't want to pay for it.

I also have never thought that if what I really wanted was good genre fiction, fiction whose main purpose is to drive a card game that is on a pretty fast pace that cannot slow is where it is. I've been trying to catch up on some N.K. Jemisin recently.

I've been mostly enjoying these stories so far. I was not expecting the Ertai return at all, and we've seen Braids on the packaging. MaRo's hint includes a Phyrexian Merfolk Wizard, so I am wondering if that is not Ambassador Laquatus. (Also a legendary Frog Beast may be related to Turg?) Sheoldred may just be doing a Greatest Hits Legion of Dominarian Doom.

I like how this story is about diplomacy, building a coalition, and uncovering spies. It's kinda like what GRN/RNA was supposed to be but didn't show that well through the cards.

Off the top of my head Sheoldred talking having plans for Karn (and being immune not sure if it just compleation) and they seem to have been digging up and repurposing/ riving old phyrexian remains on the plane but ultimately we gonna have to wait and see if they provide a real reason.

That said we also don't know much about the grand plan of Phyrexia anyways, all we have is Jin figuring out how to compleat planeswalkers and stuff from the leaks but outside that we don't know what they been building too yet and similar to the Bolas arc, just getting pieces.

I suppose I just don't feel it's wise to use a mimic of your biggest story arc as a building piece for the shadow of that arc. I fully acknowledge others might feel differently, but I've only been this disinterested in the story twice before (Eldraine and Strixhaven) and that's a bad bad sign when we're taking about the hallmark setting of the franchise.

THEY COMPLEATED SQUEE

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-08-16

This was a fun story. Not really a fan of how handwavy Ertai's presence here is though.

I find it very interesting that they keep talking about super old Artifacts, before Dominaria and being from other "Worlds". My theory/Fanfic is that both the Sphere of Salvation(Squee's Toy) and Sylex came from Equilor. Equilor is a super old plane and it kind of rejects Artifacts pretty hard. It could have been a Old highly technologically advanced world, but one that was almost completely destroyed by the power of its Artifacts. I'm enjoying the stories, even though they are being told very quickly. This is the first time that SideLores are much more interesting than the MainLore. I just hope that that Phyrexian Weatherlight art, shown in today's You Tube video, is just an idea and that it didn't come to fruition.

That would be a step too far, for sure
An utter slap in the face.