Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #695: Core of Planes

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

In this podcast, I examine all of our major planes and talk about the most important part of the plane from a design and flavor perspective.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I dropped my kids off at school. Okay, so today's podcast was the result of somebody on my blog asking me to do this. So, this was from what was suggested. So, the question, we were talking a lot about core identities of planes. And what that means is, when we go to a plane, what exactly is the bare minimum that's expected?

And each world, we have a lot of worlds that magic has made. What is sort of the core of the world? And the idea is, if we go back there, what exactly is expected? Like, what needs to be there?

So I'm going to go through all the planes that have ever been the center of a magic, a standard legal magic set, or standard legal in the early days, I guess wasn't technically standard legal, but anyway, normal sets that came out that are part of our normal release schedule, not supplemental sets necessarily, although if I have time, maybe I'll get to a few of those. So I'm going to talk about chronologically from when we, the first world we visited, talk about what I from when we the first world we visited talk

about what I think the core identity of the world is. I'll be talking more mechanically but I'll mention creative a little bit. Obviously my my area of expertise is the mechanical part but I'll talk a little bit about both. I do think there's some creative conceits that also have to be taken into mind when you talk about the core of the world. So we're going to start with Dominaria. So that's the very first world we ever visited back in Alpha. And for the first 10 years of Magic, it was the vast majority. Most sets were set on Dominaria. Even though we tended to jump all around

the globe showing different kinds of places. I think if we had... Like, for example, I don't think... I think Ice Age would have been Ice World and Mirage would have been Jungle World rather than all of them be just different places in the same world. I don't think we quite got the essence

of planeswalking early on. But anyway, Dominaria, its identity... One of the big problems we had, and we had this going into making Dominaria, the set, one of the big problems we had, and we had this going into making Dominaria, the set, was the set's many things. Like, it's ice world, it's jungle world, it's mutant world, it's post-apocalyptic world, you know. There's a lot of different variants that we've done there.

And one of the things that we tried really hard when we made Dominaria, the set, was to give it an identity. I think we found one. And the idea we really pushed was the idea of it's the history plane. It's the plane where the present is defined by its past. And that it really is a world

where, like, one of the things we did a lot of is showing how the landscape of the world itself has a lot of remnants of the past in it. Like, they fought a Phyrexian war and now there's Phyrexian ships that have crashed, and, like, the world has built themselves around it. And so,

you know, we really like the idea of history. Part of getting that theme was playing up having a legendary theme. I think that's pretty core-identic now to Dominaria. If we went back, I do think we'd have a legendary theme. And this sense of history, I think, is important.

There's a couple different ways to do it. Like, for example, we didn't really mess with the graveyard just because a lot of sets before it had done graveyard stuff. But I do think, for example, it's possible that there could be a graveyard theme to Dominaria because I think the graveyard does a good job of showing the past. I think, in general, artifacts also will play some role. Obviously, there's a lot of... I mean, artifact, the word itself, is sort of an object from the past,

is what artifact technically means. Not that all artifacts are that, but the word does evoke that. And so, I think next time we see Dominaria, and I do believe we'll go back to Dominaria, like I said, I think you will see us trying to play up the history theme in different ways. Oh, the one other thing that I think mechanically is pretty connected is we've used,

we wanted to create a sense of stories in card form. We did that by making sagas. And while I do think sagas will be something you'll see more than just Dominaria, I think they're pretty tied to Dominaria. And Dominaria is the world that has the most stories. And when I say stories, I mean real, like they happened in Magic Timeline.

The audience knows them because they were part of sets. There's more story built in Dominaria than any other world we have. And so I do think Sagas are pretty corally tied to Dominaria. Not that you couldn't see Sagas elsewhere, but I believe that you... I don't think we'd visit Dominaria and not have any Sagas, is my guess. Okay, next is Robia. So Robia is the world that Arabian Nights took place in.

It essentially... it's the first top-down set. Although Richard didn't really build a brand new world as much as he just kind of took the world of A Thousand and One Raby Nights and brought it to life in a card set. There's a little, Richard did a little bit of, on a card-by-card basis, of a little bit of things that are unique to magic that weren't necessarily from the source material, but most of it was straight-lifted from the source material. necessarily from the source material, but most of it was straight lifted from the source material. Also, because it was a very early set, there wasn't any real mechanical theme to Arabian Nights. And while there's definitely a flavor theme, I mean, it's a top-down Arabian, Persian-ish world. I think if we ever went back to Rebiah, it would be a top-down world that rift off of Arabian-Persian influences, but I think that it would build a world. If we ever went back to Rebiah, we'd have to build a brand new, or not build a brand new,

there never was a built world. We'd have to really make a world. And instead of sort of doing straight lifts of, it's exactly Aladdin, we would definitely do things where we're more riffing off the tropes rather than just straight up naming them after the exact thing it is. So I'm not sure if we ever go back to Rebaia, but if we do, there really isn't a world already there. There's kind of a hint of something and a top-down-ness of something, but we'd have to build a brand new world that sort of makes sense there.

Next, Ogrotha. So Ogrotha was the plane of homelands. So what they did, the people who made homelands, is they took a lot that was popular in magic, so really deriving from, like, Alpha, and populated a world. Like, oh, Sarah Angel's popular? Oh, well, let's meet Sarah and learn where she made those angels for the first time. And, oh, you like Sengur Vampire?

Well, let's meet the Sengur family of vampires. Oh, you like Herlu Minotaur? Oh, we have a race of Herlu Minotaur. There's a lot of recognizing what they felt was popular from early magic and building it into a world. what they felt was popular from early magic and building it into a world. Agrotha has the problem of it's a mishmashy world in that they just took a lot of things that people liked and put them all in one world. So the world lacks a little bit

of cohesiveness in that it's sort of like there's components that are all there, but they don't quite connect as much as a normal world we do. There's not as much direct cohesiveness. But there's components that are cool. I think if we had to do Redewel Grotha, we would lean more

toward the Sengur vampire stuff. I think that's the Sengur family. I think that's kind of the coolest stuff. When we were originally making Innistrad, we did toy with the idea very briefly of what if we, this was Ogretha, we went back and we turned Ogretha into our gothic horror set

because it was, there were elements there, you know, definitely like both Innistrad and Ogretha have a vampire family, for example. But we ended up going a different route and Ogretha is tricky. have a vampire family, for example. But we ended up going a different route, and a Grotha is tricky. There's not much mechanical identity to a Grotha. I mean, I think

back mechanically, I'm like, there's not much there that I would latch onto. There's a little bit of flavor. It would require a lot of work, because there's not a huge amount to latch onto. Like I said, there's a few things, like Baron Sanger, the Sanger family that I think people might enjoy. But it is, it's a little bit thin. It would require us doing some world building and really expanding on some stuff and trying to make the world a little more cohesive.

And then it just needs a little bit more. It's a little bit thin for a modern world. And mechanically, there's really nothing, I think, that we would take from it. Wrath. So Wrath was the setting of Tempest Block. It's an artificial plane

made by the Phyrexians so that they could launch an invasion on Dominaria. So it was part of the Brothers War... I'm sorry, part of the Wedlight S I'm sorry, part of the Weblight Saga. It's part of the Weblight Saga. And anyway, Wrath, as part of the invasion, got overlaid onto Dominaria.

So the only way to visit Wrath would be to go in the past, because in the present, it's part of Dominaria. If we went... So let's say we decided to do a flashback set going back in the past. Wrath is where the slivers got introduced and slivers are quite popular,

so I assume there'll be slivers there. There are some other story components, other stuff. Shadow, I guess, is the other big mechanical thing. I guess you'd make some nod towards Shadow, maybe. Although, once again... Well, I guess it's one of the more identical elements of the plane.

Shadow's mechanic has its issues, so you'd have to be careful with that. But Slivers and Shadow are mechanically probably the most definable things about the world. It has a very distinctive physical look. I mean, it's the first world we kind of built.

You know, the first world where we brought in a team and did work on world building and stuff. So it has a more distinctive look than a lot of the earlier worlds I'm talking about. But its mechanical identity is kind of slight, and because it's been combined

with Dominaria, I don't even know, I mean, without going into the past, we can't even visit it. Mercadia. So Mercadia was the world from Mercadian Masks. It is a mercantile world, meaning it's all about salespeople. So it has a city. It's not quite as city-ish as Ravnica. There's more rural stuff there. But there is a lot of the idea that you would come to town and you would trade and get stuff.

There's not a lot of mechanics. Probably spell shapers is the one thing that I might, because spell shaping was playing into the idea that they were selling things. Spell shaper was a mechanic where there were creatures where you could spend a certain amount of mana, tap them, discard a card from your hand, and generate an effect. So the idea essentially is you can turn any card in your hand into this certain effect. And it represents the salesman, represents the salesman of things. So probably spell shapers, let's go back to Mercadia. Mercadia is another one where when they built the world,

the people who built it were really into doing weird things. Like one of the definitions of the world was, physics don't work here like they do in normal worlds. That thing that looks like a tornado on the plains is an upside-down mountain. Well, how does that work? How is a mountain upside-down? Eh, things are weird here. It just was kind of built without any logical consistency to it. Like, gravity works on the upside-down mountain somehow differently than gravity works in time. Anyway. And there's a lot of, like, weirdness or, like, here, goblins are super smart.

Like, okay. It would be a tricky world to do. If we did it, I think the mercantile part of it is the most interesting thing. Maybe you could do a mechanic. You could play into about playing with resources or something. But I do think Mercadia is a tricky thing to do. Mirrodin. So Mirrodin was also an artificial plane, kind of like Wrath,

made by Karn using the Mirari, I believe. And it was designed as a world. We had planned to bring back the Phyrexians, and it was designed from the get-go, like it was designed from the minute we made it that it was going to turn into New Phyrexia, which I will get to in a second, later on. But Mirrodin itself, so we can't go back to Mirrodin proper

only because it became New Phyrexia. But if we went back in time or something, Mirrodin is very much an artifact world and an artifact matters world. Artifacts are a very strong component of it. I think if we went back, we would start weaving in artifacts into colors, which is ironically what I did originally when I made Mirrodin,

but I got pulled out during development. But I mean, it would have to be very artifact-centric and probably with today's guidelines, it would have to be very artifact-centric and probably, with today's guidelines, it would have to have a big... Wait a second. Sorry. Sorry. Good night to me. It would have to have an artifact component

that's really tied to Mirrodin. Okay, next. Kamigawa. So Kamigawa was a top-down world built on Japanese mythology. The biggest problem we had with it was while we were faithful to Japanese mythology we played into a lot of things that the average person just doesn't know about Japanese

so it was kind of a top down world but it wasn't very resonant so it ended up feeling more weird than resonant so if we went back to Kamigawa I I mean, the core of Kamigawa is top-down Japan. I think we would have to really figure out how to make it a little more resonant and a little less sort of weird, if you will. There are a lot of races and things that players like that I assume we would tap into. We know Tamio is from Kamigawa.

Oh, Dominaria, by the way, I didn't mention this, but there's a bunch of planeswalkers from Dominaria. Liliane is from Dominaria. Jai is from Dominaria. Tveri is from Dominaria. Karn is from Dominaria. I think Nicole Bowles is from Dominaria. I guess Ugin, technically, is from Dominaria.

So there are a bunch of planeswalker characters from Dominaria for Urbaya, Elgrotha Sarah was not from Elgrotha but Sarah and Faraz were both planeswalkers lived in Elgrotha Wrath had no planeswalkers, Mercata had no planeswalkers Myrddin Koth is from Myrddin

is that it? Koth is from Myrdin. Um, is that it? Koth is from Mirrodin. Uh, I don't know if there's other, I mean, like, Elsteth visited Mirrodin, but she wasn't from Mirrodin. Um, anyway, Tommy is from Kamigawa. Um, I don't think there's a lot of mechanical identity I'm particularly excited about. It was super parasitic. Um, we messed around with Splice with Splice in the Izzet when we went back in

Guild of Ravnica, and we made a Splice on Instant card in Modern Horizons. There's not a lot of space on Splice, even Splice on Instant. It's not that easy mechanic to use. I mean, the one other mechanic

that had some success was ninjutsu, but ninjutsu is pretty limiting, and we've really maxed out a lot of the ninjutsu space. So we went back to Kamigawa. I mean, we definitely were playing to top-down Japanese flavor. I think there's some elements

of the creative that, I mean, be aware, by the way, that I think Kamigawa took place like 1,500 years ago in story. So if we went back to Kamigawa, it would be, a lot of it could be quite different. It's later. I think there's some elements that we like from the original Kamigawa that we might keep, but there's a lot of stuff we wouldn't. There's not a lot of mechanical that I would keep from that place. Like I said, even something like ninjutsu, which is one of

the better mechanics, I guess, it just is really pigeon-holed ninjas. Like, ninjas, there's a lot more interesting things about ninjas than just, ha-ha, they attack when you don't expect them to. And I feel like I would want to sort of be able to do more with ninjas, same with samurai. Samurai all had bushido in the original. But I feel like if you're going to do samurai ninjas,

you want to really do them. They're part of the resident part of Japanese, a lot of the top-down Japanese flavor, and I would want to be able to do more with them than sort of lock them into one mechanic. Okay, next is Ravnica. So Ravnica, one of our most popular places, it has a very strong identity. It is the guild plane. It is about two color pairs. So much so we visit there, like, we don't even

visit Ravnica for one set. Like, we have to visit Ravnica for at least two sets and sometimes more because we've got to get all the guilds in and we know we can't get them all in on one set. As Dragon Maze kind of demonstrated, it's a little much to put ten different guilds in one set. And there's certain, because it's so

tied, things like hybrid mana or split cards, there's even cycles that people come to expect, like guild mages, guild champions, I think there's some expectations for shock lands. Because Ravnica, other than Dominaria, Ravnica is the world we visited the most times. In Dominaria, in a lot of ways, we didn't really revisit the same world as Dominaria.

We visited... We just pretended that we were going to a new plane, but said we didn't leave the plane. So Ravnica is the defined sort of... It has a defined set we visited the most. And that is very mechanically and creatively... Now, people have asked, would we go to Ravnica and just not do the guilds?

And I'm like, well, in something like War of the Spark where we set up first and did the guilds, okay, maybe. But I think Ravnica is so about the guilds, I think people just would be upset if we went to Ravnica and go, oh, no, no, it's not a guild set. It's something completely different. I think that would fly in the face

of what people like about Ravnica. Next, Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Okay, so Lorwyn had a strong tribal theme. Shadowmoor had a strong hybrid theme. And they were... The big shtick of the world is it's the same world. One is a light version and one is a dark version. And the world changes between its two states.

As is normal dark version, and the world changes between its two states. As is normal for us, I think in the story sometimes we're like, oh, they solved the Aurora, but I assume we went back. You need the Aurora. The thing about Lorwyn and Shadowmoor is that it's one of the sets that most lets you make two sets

because you can make parallel sets. It's the Lorwyn set, it's the Shadowmoor set. That's something we could do again. The thing to me that's the most defining about Lorwyn, really, is this contrast between the light and the dark. That, to me, is one of the most interesting things about the world. And I know a lot of people, when we made Eldraine, said, oh, is it just Lorwyn?

I'm like, no, no, no. Lorwyn's not about top-down anything. Yes, there's a little bit of Celtic mythology woven into it, but it's not top-down Celtic mythology world. Celtic mythology is the flavoring. The world was built as having two components that mix with each other. That's why we did tribal and hybrid, because those components are, you know,

as long as you put the tribes in Stratomor and obviously all the colors in Lorwyn, then they work with each other. I think if we went back, I think you'd have some, there'd have to be some amount of tribal and some amount of hybrid, just because I think those, there's some identity there. I don't think we would do as much, I think we did too much tribal and we did too much hybrid. I think both Lorwyn and Shadowmoor overshot on what they were doing, so I think we'd ratchet down some. I think if we went to Lorwyn, there we did too much hybrid. I think both Lorwyn and Shaddamore overshot on what they were doing, so I think we'd ratchet down some. I think if it went to Lorwyn, there would be some tribal component. I think if it went to Shaddamore, there would be some hybrid component, but not at the level

that it was. Also, Shaddamore also had a color-mattered slaver to it, which was tied into the hybrid, which I assume we'd probably do if we went back to Shaddamore. But anyway, I do think that Lorwyn and Shattamore have a lot of flavor and mechanical identity that we can play off of. One of the things that I know we'd have to work with is, at the time Lorwyn came out, the thought process, at least from the feedback we got, was it was a little too light.

Now, since then, we've grown bigger. The audience has changed some. We have a lot more casual players. Eldraine's doing really well, and I think Eldraine sort of shows that you can have some lightness. Maybe the idea is having a little more Jeopardy if it's on Lorwyn, but anyway, I do think that the playing of the light and darkness and figuring out how to have parallel components or something, I do think would be important to returning to Lorwyn.

Next is Alara. So Alara was a world that was split in five, in five shards. Shards of Alara. And each one had a color and its two allies. So Alara is defined as a three-color faction world. There's five factions, each a shard, or we also call them arcs. If we went back to Alara, we'd have to do that.

As is the case, we started blending together the worlds, which is really not what makes the world a cool place. I think we'd really focus on the five shards. I mean, maybe there'd be some component where they mix, but I really think the uniqueness and the definition of the shards is really what makes that place cool. And the three color element of it, I think is, like, I don't think you go to Alara and not have three color arms. I think it's pretty tied to what Alara is. Zendikar. So Zendikar is both land-centric world

and adventure world. So from a flavor standpoint, we definitely make sure there's adventure tropes going on. You know, original Zendikar did traps and quests. I'm not sure we would do specifically those, but I do think we need to tap into

I guess allies are also part of that flavor. I think that we would need to make sure that there's an adventure, top-down adventure feel. I mean, the set is mostly bottoms-up because it's land matters. I think landfall is pretty tied to Zendikar.

I described that we didn't do landfall when we went to Zendikar, but it's not landfall. Something very, very land-centric. Because I do think that Zendikar is very much tied to lands thematically and mechanically, and that would be true. So I think it's a combination

of finding cool things to do with lands and then finding neat, top-down adventure flavor stuff for the rest of the mechanics. So that's what I assume we do in Zendikar. New Phyrexia. So New Phyrexia is what Mirrodin became when the Phyrexians took over.

Scars and Mirrodin did a lot to sort of identify some New Phyrexian stuff. The Phyrexians also showed up before. The Phyrexians have an artifact component to them, and both Mirrodin and New Phyrexia thus have an artifact component, so New Phyrexia would need to have some amount of artifacts in it.

But an artifact component, so Nufrexia would need to have some amount of artifacts in it. But I really think the main thing about Nufrexia is it feels Nufrexian. Because it's Nufrexia. I think there's a decent chance. I think Poison would, I mean, I think if Poison's ever going to show up, Nufrexia's where

I expect Poison to show up. And stuff like Nufrexian Mana, there's a lot of iconic stuff tied to Phyrexia. I'm not sure what we would use or wouldn't use, but I think we'd go back and look at a lot of the iconically Phyrexian things. A lot of those are very polarizing. If you look at Fact or Phyrexian Mana and stuff,

that set was made to be... The design of the Phyrexians was to be a bit invasive. And the side effect of that is some people... It makes them feel uncomfortable and they don't like it. So there's some... New Phyrexia has some of that challenge of how to play into what people liked about Phyrexia because you want to deliver that for people that liked Phyrexia. But also make sure there's some counterbalance to that.

Next is Innistrad. So Innistrad's our gothic horror world. It's a top-down world really playing in the genre of horror. There's monsters there. I think monster tribal is, you know, we have ally, there's sort of monster factions, if you will. And I think if you went to Indusrod, you would have to play into the monsters. I think monster tribals is part of that. I think there is a death-slash-graveyard component that you have to deal with that the world very much is about things dying, caring about things dying, and there's got to be some point there. I think double-faced cards are just tied to Indusrod.

The idea of dark transformation is just core to its identity, so I don't think you'd go to Indusrod and not have double-faced cards are just tied to Innistrad. The idea of dark transformation is just core to its identity. So I don't think you go to Innistrad and not have double-faced cards. I think that would defy expectation of the audience. But yeah, I mean, I think that you have to gothic horror. You do top-down gothic horror. You do monsters with some tribal component. You do double-faced cards. You do some Death Graveyard Matters thing.

And that's what I expect you to try to be. Theros. Okay, so Theros is a top-down Greek mythology set. And it has an enchantment component. So I think if we went back to Theros, you would have to have a lot of the top-down stuff. People would expect gods. They would expect the

Minotaurs, the Hydras, the Gorgons, the Pegasists. They would expect the things that you would expect to see from Greek mythology. And I also think that the enchantment, it really is the world most defined as the enchantment world.

I think we sort of played, we built as the enchantment world. I think we sort of played, we built up the enchantment more at the end of the block, but it really connected, so I think a world, I think when you go to Theros you have to have the top-down Greek mythology stuff, you have to have enchantments. Those are the two core things to Theros.

Tarkir. Okay, so Tarkir was our warlord plane that started as a dragonless plane that thinks the shenanigans by Sarkin ended up as the dragon plane. So, I believe Tarkir is very wedge-defined. I understand that when Sarkin went back

in time, the dragon Sarkir was more ally-connected. I believe if we went back to Tarkir, we'd have to figure out how to get back to wedge. I believe we went back to Tarkir. We'd have to figure out how to get back to Wedge. I think the identity of the world is Wedge. We actually did, if you read the story, the knowledge of the clans is built into the new timeline.

So there's means and ways for us to get there. But I do think we went to Tarkir. The Wedge identity is a big part of Tarkir. I also think that the Warlord quality means it's going to be more combat-centric, as first Tarkir was, so I do think it plays up a little of the Warlord feel, and so that means it's a little more combat-centric. The big question mark for me is, does Morph show up? Morph obviously played a role in that block, but there was a lot going on, and I don't know.

That's the big question mark for me, whether Morph should be there or not be there. There are strong reasons to not want it, because there's a lot going on, and there's some interesting reasons to want it. It does help you with three-color. So anyway, I'm not quite sure whether Morph shows up on Tarkir or not,

but it's an interesting question. Kaladesh. So Kaladesh is our inventor's world, so it clearly has an artifact component. I would expect vehicles to show up in higher volume. Like, vehicles started there and then became deciduous. They show up a lot of the time. I expect vehicles here would show up in larger volume.

I think the set would have more artifact components to it. But once again it plays more in the Johnny Jenny space of weird and quirky artifacts that you do neat things with that combine in fun and interesting ways, more so than just kind of play lots of artifacts

like Mirrodin does. I expect we would keep that in Venture feel. I think energy is pretty tightly tied to the world of Kaladesh. I think it would be hard to go back to Kaladesh and not have energy. So I expect energy to be there and vehicles to be there. I expect artifacts to play a big role. I think we would, once again, push in a lot more color into it.

Obviously, the Gearhulks originally had color in them, but we would have to push more. I think we can do that in the world and feel pretty natural. It also has the sort of Indian flavor to it that obviously would keep. And it has a lot of the bright artisanal quality to it, that the artifacts here are inventions and

aren't, you know, it's... We did steampunk, but we did kind of our own version of it, which was bright and happy, rather than kind of gritty and dark, which is often how steampunk is done. And I assumed that the Kaladesh would maintain that. Amonkhet. So Amonkhet is our Egyptian top-down world.

It had a lot of Egyptian tropes. It also had this bolus feel to it that was pretty harsh. I think if we went back to Amonkhet, we would have to keep some of the harshness to it, and we would keep a lot of the top-down Egyptian to it, but a lot of the first visit, one of the big things we built into it was this disconnect between how the world saw itself

and how you, the player, saw the world, meaning everything mechanically said this was a harsh and mean world, but the creative said it was a happy world. And that disconnect was something we really played into in the design. With the blowing up of the city, another chance of us blowing stuff up, I'm not quite sure how we capture Amonkhet. I mean, we'd have to have that top-down Egyptian feel.

It's kind of like, oh, we probably want some'd have to have that top-down Egyptian feel. It's the kind of thing like, oh, we probably want some kind of gods, or the gods died. I mean, Amonkhet has a lot of big question marks. I do know the core of the set is the feel of Egyptian, and sort of I think it has a little more of a meaner feel. It's got minus one, minus one counters.

I think we'd probably keep that. That is a pretty harsh place. I think the idea to sort of keep it off of Theros, because Theros is another top-down mythological set with gods and stuff. So I like the idea that Theros is a little bit happier and a little more about, you know, become a hero. And Amiket's a little darker and a little more like the world's come out to get you sort of feel.

Next, Ixalan. Oh, Ixalan's another one where I think the creative was a lot of fun. It was a Mesoamerican-flavored world. It obviously had a strong tribal component. There were dinosaurs and pirates and conquistador vampires and merfolk.

I think if we went back, there would be some tribal component, only because I think players would be unhappy if there were no dinosaurs or pirates, for example. But one of the problems we had with the original Ixalan is we didn't put the glue in. One of the things about tribal

sets is you need to be able to mix and match the tribal components, and we made the choice at the time for creative reasons not to do that, but it really caused a lot of problems with the way it played, especially how it drafted. A return to Ixalan has to solve that problem, so I caused a lot of problems with the way it played, especially how it drafted. A return to Ixalan has to solve that problem, so I think there would be a tribal component.

I think the flavor was very strong, and I think we went back. There is another continent on the World Tour Zone, which is where the vampires came from. There's some chance we could go there, although you kind of want dinosaurs. Maybe there are dinosaurs there, I don't know

but anyway Ixalan, there's definitely some tricky things about Ixalan but there's a lot of fun flavor, you want to kind of capture that flavor which brings us to Eldraine, so Eldraine is obviously a top-down set with Arthurian

legend and fairy tales I think the courts are a big part of it Eldraine is obviously a top-down set with Arthurian legend and fairy tales. I think the courts are a big part of it. I think the identity of the world through the lens of the courts is pretty big. I think that would happen. I think a return to Eldraine would definitely have us take some mechanic that we could push through the different courts to show each court does it differently.

There will obviously be more top-down fairy tales. I think the modular nature of the fairy tales would stay, I think that's a pretty big part of what makes Eldraine Eldraine is you get to mix and match all the fairy tale components and to some extent the Arthurian components biggest problem with the Arthurian side of things is we did most of the obvious stuff, all the low-hanging fruit

there's a few things like we didn't do sword and stone really, and maybe we could revisit a few things, maybe do a round table that's clearly a table that's round, since the Circle of Loyalty didn't really read to a lot of players as a round table sort of thing. But there's a lot of fairytale stuff. I mean, I know this from just working on articles about Eldraine.

There's a lot we left on the table. There's a lot of... And there are also... One of the fun things is you can do reinterpretations of things. So I also think, going back, that we could take other takes on some of the fun things is you can do reinterpretations of things so I also think going back that we could take other takes on some of the archetypes. The thing about the stories is because the fairy tales are so well known

that even if we choose different facets of the, like even though we touched upon a lot of the stories, there are different facets we didn't touch upon and so maybe the golden goose is in the first one and the self-playing lyre, you know, there's a or a harp it varies on how the story is told, but there's a lyre or harp that plays itself,

like we didn't do that one, stuff like that. But I do think that Eldraine is... I mean, I think that it has a pretty strong mechanical and flavorful identity that we could follow up. Also, it would be monochord. It would have a monochord theme. I think that's very baked in. Part of that's the quartz,

but it's really baked in to the way Eldrin is made. Okay, let me quickly run through a few other worlds that were in supplemental products because I'm almost at work. Fiora is kind of our medieval Italy kind of inflavored world.

The nature of it, it's very much tied to scheming and politics and stuff. It's where we place our conspiracy, conspiracy to take the crown. If we ever brought that into a standard legal set, I think we'd play into the intrigue part of it. You know, I think that there's...

FIAR has a very strong feel to it, and we'd want to sort of capture that feel, the idea of all the intrigue and the fighting and stuff and the politics. I think we tried to bring that in. So Vryn and Ragatha were the two other worlds that I haven't mentioned yet from Magic Origins. Vryn being

Jace's home world, and Ragatha being the volcanic world that Chandra first traveled to when she planeswiped for the first time. Neither of those two worlds is particularly spelled out. Vryn has the mage rings. Ragatha has volcanoes.

So neither of those worlds have all that much identity we have to follow. I mean, obviously we'd have to have mage rings and volcanoes accordingly if we went to those worlds. But I think they're open enough that we have a lot of room for interpretation. Kylum was

the world of Battlebond. Mostly on Kylum, though, all we ever saw was Vower's Reach, which was the auditorium where all the fights took place. So we don't know much of that world other than they love their sports and it

takes place at Towerowers Reef. So there's not a lot of world built there to build on. So I'm not quite sure if we went back there. It does have kind of a sports motif to the world. But, you know, I'm not quite sure what we do with that. And Bablovia is the home world or the home plane of Unstable. But that's in a completely different universe. or the home plane of Unstable.

But that's in a completely different universe. The Silver Border universe, what we call the Un-iverse, is in its own separate multiverse. So that is never coming. Although people keep saying, ah, but if it's a parallel universe, then there must be a Black Border version of Babylonia.

But I don't expect to see that in the standard legal set. But anyway, obviously that has a mechanical identity. It has definitely contraptions and host-augment tie to it, so if we ever went back to Bobolivia, I assume you would expect to see those two things. Okay, guys, that is my walk through all the planes. I mean, there's a lot of little, like, Segovia

and stuff like that that are little things we've mentioned in passing. So I didn't get to every possible plane, but I got to all the major ones. So hopefully that was interesting, gave you a little insight of what I consider the core of each plane to be, creatively and mechanically.

So I forgot who asked for this, but thank you to the person who suggested this on my blog. And anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.