We will have to wait and see (as I say a lot) but it does look like the person Kaito is with has their device seemly plugged into the sword as both are giving off the same electrical field.
When I first heard of Duskmourn, I thought: Nice, an Horror Set, where the whole plane is some kind of wicked manor... awesome. And I still think, that Duskmourn could be an amazing set... but I absolutely hate the design choices.
Is this goddamn Prince? Are those some Ghostbuster-kind of devices? For real? Futuristic Kamigawa was already hard enough, but now this?
I know, this is absolutely personal and there will be enough people who like that kind of stuff. But for me this is just ridiculous.
They have said the set takes inspiration from the "modern horror genre" with 1970/80's time period being said*, so I think thats the best way to set expectation. IMO making it 70's/80's with ghost buster/stranger things like magic-tech helps make the plane stand out from Innistrad which will be the biggest hurdle this plane is gonna face. That said I'll be happy to see some slasher movie stuff used, love them.
*We might see more modern than that since it was vague if they meant all modern horror or modern compared to Innistrad.
Neat that Akul and maybe some other character have named home planes. Even if Gastal isn't explanted into a full set its nice to see small elements and bits of planes like this (ie Gastal having scorpion dragons). Would be cool to see some of the Atiin homeplane.
Like, before the omenpaths, each world needed to have a bit of everything, but now, with the omenpaths, they can create much more specialized worlds, lore-wise. Like, even if Tarkir was the only plane with native dragons, they could still migrate outwards and populate the multiverse. This would allow them to turn planes into <thing>-capitals, like Tarkir becomes the dragon capital.
I wasn't really sure to put this info but, Maro has said they have come up with a bunch of different types of new sets they can now make after the omenpath opened up and are gonna try to make at least one of them a year, with Thunder Junction being what is called a "Showcase" set as it "Showcases" villian from across the multiverse. While "death race" set is the clearer one for next year (called a muti-planar set), we could see two with Tarkir now being a "Showcase" set featuring dragons.
My hope is this transitional period means WOTC is giving the creative team more resources, far as am I aware the legends articles and pw guides are not something wotc gives time or money for, its made by creative team staff when they have the free work time to do so.
If/when I have time and want too I'll spell out why more, but Thunder Junction is definitely not my favorite plane and down there along with Zendikar and Ikoria. TLDR: I feel like the plane needs more of its own identity and its handling of native peoples is mixed, though there are some really fun ideas I hope we can see used better in another set (maybe not a full return but as part of magics catalogue of planes).
Not a big fan of Loot to be honest. I genuinely dislike "aggressively cute" designs. Why does it have to look like a pokemon and can't, you know, look like a real thing?
(Thought I made this reply lol) This actually why I like Loots design, the Fomori have been really feeling like magic take on aliens, with Ixalan having them being a twist on the ancient aliens trope (with space ship feeling vehicle) and the vault feels very much like that trope where the twist near the end showing the macguffin is alien tech, (often seen in weird westerns). So Loot being a child fomori/related to the fomori and being alien like/not something seen in magic imo really fits.
Again its shown 5-6 chapters isn't enough space for the stories to shine and from MKM it shows 10 chapters really should be the minimum for the stories to both let the pacing flow better and to give us more character/ emotional beats. If wotc wants to keep doing these stories with large casts and showcase their characters then they need more space to give us those character moments that make people fall in love with them, which we aren't getting enough of with the word count atm.
That said, I enjoyed Annie and Kellan as our protagonists and I hope to see them pop up again (as I do feel like we seen the last of Kellan for the moment) and Oko was an awful bastard I hate him (aka author did a good job showing hes a scumbag). The plot itself was mostly predicable but the Jace twist made up for it and in theory a simple story would be a good way to show off character moments. Tinybones and Rakdos also stole the show in their ...friendship? Romance? anyways I hope Tinybones and his family get to move to Ravnica and become high ranking Rakdos members ^.^.
The pose was great in of itself, they have really been getting some great writers, they just need more word counts.
I'm gonna wait for the planeswalker guild to say more but so far I will say I do think Thunder Junction is gonna rank kinda low in my overall favorite planes BUT I did think it work perfectly for the ancient aliens feel the Fomori have going (as aliens often feature in Weird West stories) and ties together nicely with some of the stuff we saw in Ixalan.
Epilogue
Hands down some of the best magic fiction overall with Alison showing she knows and loves these characters so well. The call backs, emotional beats, the humor, all over it was great and I hope they bring her back in when she is able to make it work.
Biggest thought is I do feel like it worked for how the two decompleated themselves. We saw that compleated planeswalkers do have a bit of true selves as they still had souls to hold their sparks and makes sense that Jace as a telepath and Vraska with the "trap door" Jace made her would be able to keep their own minds more. And of big note Jace had the halo from Luxior that help him keep enough of himself together in order to seal off this true mind from corruption (which imo also goes back and makes New Capennas story more important). And I do like that even with this Jace and Vraska still pretty much could not control themselves until (from what I guessed) Phyrexia was phased out/Norn was killed and the signal was lost. Finally while I personally would like to see of most of the post-compleated walkers have more visible showing of what they went through, I felt the use of a phoenix feather as a way to both be a magical organ repalcement as well as the metaphore for what Jace and Vraska have planned works. Honesty now the only compleated walkers I don't like is Nahiri, with Ajani/Nissa and Jace/Vraska making more sense in how they where healed.
And oh boy I do feel like we are heading to Jace and Vraska as antagonists and there are so many way it can go (and even these oculd mix). We could see their plan ultimately hurting many to work, Loot growing dangerous or otherwise becoming a force that Jace and Vraska ended up unleashing or the Fomori being enable to return.
In another place I saw someone say this also could lead to magics version of civil war, with maybe many desparked planewalkers (like Ob and Rowan) joining Jace and Vraska side in hopes that they can regain their sparks while others (like Chandra and Nissa) will stand against them having learned that they need to accept this new multiverse. Would also be a good reason for the desparking to happen since they would do a Wots like set with less planeswalker cards but with the desparked there as legendary creatures.
That said for this moment, the little family of a telepath, a gorgon and a alien GPS is happy and I hope things don't end up too bad for them overall.
The Omenpath Arc aka the Kellan arc
Honesty while there are some weak points, I do think this arc overall worked. Personally I liked Kellan, as Annie said
"The Multiverse is full of people who do bad things for selfish reasons,...But the people who do good and expect nothing in return? I reckon they're worth protecting."
This why I liked Will and Rowan and why I like Ajani, Niko and other similar characters. As a biracial person I really felt Kellans story arc, while I did know my parents and raised in a mixed culture home, my father has passed and I do feel that loss of not being able to just ask him aspect of his side of the families culture.
I do think they need to figure out the balance of "main character/face", the gatewatch leaned a bit into stealing the spotlight while I felt we could have had Kellan more features and showing steps in his character arc during Ixalan. Ravnica was better overall, I do like how we saw him learn to fly I just wish that had been more tied to his own characters growth. I feel like there is a balance there that wotc can get with having recurring characters with Kellan doing a lot better as well being a singel character with a single arc vs the gatewatch each having their own arc that intermixes with other characters.
However the biggest thing positive I felt about this arc was how well it all felt tied together. While Kellan was the front and center character and arc we had Jace and Vraska doing stuff behind the scenes in parallel with Kellan. We had Eldraine introduce Kellan as well as being the first stop Jace as Ashiok made to recruit a person for the heist, Ixalan and Ravnica where steps along the way for Kellan while we saw Vraska reuniting with Breeches and Malcom and Jace learning Profts illusions skills and it all coming to a head in Outlaws. Really good way to let all these stories stand mostly on their own while connectign them all together into an overarching storyline. Makes me really excited to see how the next two arcs shake up and see how all these sets and storylines will ties together.
Anyways until we hopefully get a pw guild and a legends article thats all my thoughts for now.
I thought Viashino were dragonfolk, shockingly close to the dragonborn of D&D.
Never been, they have always been lizardfolk. Even in the D&D guide to Ravnica, it says you should use the lizardfolk stats for them.
There are a few planes the Viashino are somewhat dragonic (new capenna) but ya as ilovesaprolings said the default for Viashino are lizardfolk not dragonborn.
Of note: This isn't a change to the 1 planeswalker per set design. The Jace card was originally made for the Epilogue mini-set for Outlaws that was planned and was cut and they decided it would fit best in the main set vs on the BIG bonus sheet.
So, Rakdos' motivation was that he was wanting to brawl with someone? What about the PHYREXIANS less than 2 years ago?
Thats the point, from the legends bio for MKM;
Rakdos is the demonic head of the Rakdos Cult. Since the glorious carnage and destruction of the invasion, none of the usual amusements staged by his followers have managed to rouse his interest. Plagued with boredom, he allowed himself to fall into a deep slumber, where he relives the chaos of the invasion while he waits for something new to pique his interest.
and here we go, Oko or Ashiok/Jace promised him something different/fun to fight on Thunder Junction.
And why the hell Geralf is fighting hand-to-hand with scalpels? He is a stitcher! He BUILDS stuff to fight for him!
The story points out a few times he is out of viscus vitae which lets him built his zombies.
They have said the set takes inspiration from the "modern horror genre" with 1970/80's time period being said*, so I think thats the best way to set expectation. IMO making it 70's/80's with ghost buster/stranger things like magic-tech helps make the plane stand out from Innistrad which will be the biggest hurdle this plane is gonna face. That said I'll be happy to see some slasher movie stuff used, love them.
*We might see more modern than that since it was vague if they meant all modern horror or modern compared to Innistrad.
https://twitter.com/playmtg/status/1780645932809253304?s=46&t=x_VapuyZfltPQdsgBdtt7A
Kaito, with Pompon, will be here, as a planeswalker or omenpath traveler we will see.
I wasn't really sure to put this info but, Maro has said they have come up with a bunch of different types of new sets they can now make after the omenpath opened up and are gonna try to make at least one of them a year, with Thunder Junction being what is called a "Showcase" set as it "Showcases" villian from across the multiverse. While "death race" set is the clearer one for next year (called a muti-planar set), we could see two with Tarkir now being a "Showcase" set featuring dragons.
https://twitter.com/grayhaem/status/1778488487035158733?s=46&t=wmxsjIipP-s-yfuczeFMug
My hope is this transitional period means WOTC is giving the creative team more resources, far as am I aware the legends articles and pw guides are not something wotc gives time or money for, its made by creative team staff when they have the free work time to do so.
If/when I have time and want too I'll spell out why more, but Thunder Junction is definitely not my favorite plane and down there along with Zendikar and Ikoria. TLDR: I feel like the plane needs more of its own identity and its handling of native peoples is mixed, though there are some really fun ideas I hope we can see used better in another set (maybe not a full return but as part of magics catalogue of planes).
(Thought I made this reply lol) This actually why I like Loots design, the Fomori have been really feeling like magic take on aliens, with Ixalan having them being a twist on the ancient aliens trope (with space ship feeling vehicle) and the vault feels very much like that trope where the twist near the end showing the macguffin is alien tech, (often seen in weird westerns). So Loot being a child fomori/related to the fomori and being alien like/not something seen in magic imo really fits.
Legends article, sadly they only feature the crew and the face commanders.
The main stories
That said, I enjoyed Annie and Kellan as our protagonists and I hope to see them pop up again (as I do feel like we seen the last of Kellan for the moment) and Oko was an awful bastard I hate him (aka author did a good job showing hes a scumbag). The plot itself was mostly predicable but the Jace twist made up for it and in theory a simple story would be a good way to show off character moments. Tinybones and Rakdos also stole the show in their ...friendship? Romance? anyways I hope Tinybones and his family get to move to Ravnica and become high ranking Rakdos members ^.^.
The pose was great in of itself, they have really been getting some great writers, they just need more word counts.
I'm gonna wait for the planeswalker guild to say more but so far I will say I do think Thunder Junction is gonna rank kinda low in my overall favorite planes BUT I did think it work perfectly for the ancient aliens feel the Fomori have going (as aliens often feature in Weird West stories) and ties together nicely with some of the stuff we saw in Ixalan.
Epilogue
Biggest thought is I do feel like it worked for how the two decompleated themselves. We saw that compleated planeswalkers do have a bit of true selves as they still had souls to hold their sparks and makes sense that Jace as a telepath and Vraska with the "trap door" Jace made her would be able to keep their own minds more. And of big note Jace had the halo from Luxior that help him keep enough of himself together in order to seal off this true mind from corruption (which imo also goes back and makes New Capennas story more important). And I do like that even with this Jace and Vraska still pretty much could not control themselves until (from what I guessed) Phyrexia was phased out/Norn was killed and the signal was lost. Finally while I personally would like to see of most of the post-compleated walkers have more visible showing of what they went through, I felt the use of a phoenix feather as a way to both be a magical organ repalcement as well as the metaphore for what Jace and Vraska have planned works. Honesty now the only compleated walkers I don't like is Nahiri, with Ajani/Nissa and Jace/Vraska making more sense in how they where healed.
And oh boy I do feel like we are heading to Jace and Vraska as antagonists and there are so many way it can go (and even these oculd mix). We could see their plan ultimately hurting many to work, Loot growing dangerous or otherwise becoming a force that Jace and Vraska ended up unleashing or the Fomori being enable to return.
In another place I saw someone say this also could lead to magics version of civil war, with maybe many desparked planewalkers (like Ob and Rowan) joining Jace and Vraska side in hopes that they can regain their sparks while others (like Chandra and Nissa) will stand against them having learned that they need to accept this new multiverse. Would also be a good reason for the desparking to happen since they would do a Wots like set with less planeswalker cards but with the desparked there as legendary creatures.
That said for this moment, the little family of a telepath, a gorgon and a alien GPS is happy and I hope things don't end up too bad for them overall.
The Omenpath Arc aka the Kellan arc
This why I liked Will and Rowan and why I like Ajani, Niko and other similar characters. As a biracial person I really felt Kellans story arc, while I did know my parents and raised in a mixed culture home, my father has passed and I do feel that loss of not being able to just ask him aspect of his side of the families culture.
I do think they need to figure out the balance of "main character/face", the gatewatch leaned a bit into stealing the spotlight while I felt we could have had Kellan more features and showing steps in his character arc during Ixalan. Ravnica was better overall, I do like how we saw him learn to fly I just wish that had been more tied to his own characters growth. I feel like there is a balance there that wotc can get with having recurring characters with Kellan doing a lot better as well being a singel character with a single arc vs the gatewatch each having their own arc that intermixes with other characters.
However the biggest thing positive I felt about this arc was how well it all felt tied together. While Kellan was the front and center character and arc we had Jace and Vraska doing stuff behind the scenes in parallel with Kellan. We had Eldraine introduce Kellan as well as being the first stop Jace as Ashiok made to recruit a person for the heist, Ixalan and Ravnica where steps along the way for Kellan while we saw Vraska reuniting with Breeches and Malcom and Jace learning Profts illusions skills and it all coming to a head in Outlaws. Really good way to let all these stories stand mostly on their own while connectign them all together into an overarching storyline. Makes me really excited to see how the next two arcs shake up and see how all these sets and storylines will ties together.
Anyways until we hopefully get a pw guild and a legends article thats all my thoughts for now.
Sobbing as I read this story, like damn Alison.
He needed someone who was still a planeswalker after the Great Desparking whose powers he could easily copy.
There are a few planes the Viashino are somewhat dragonic (new capenna) but ya as ilovesaprolings said the default for Viashino are lizardfolk not dragonborn.
An elf from New Capenna.
Seems the Vault has treasure from Ixalan the Fomori had taken and seemly re-create beings as artifacts.
Thats the point, from the legends bio for MKM;
and here we go, Oko or Ashiok/Jace promised him something different/fun to fight on Thunder Junction.
The story points out a few times he is out of viscus vitae which lets him built his zombies.