I will need to wait after work to finish the final story but I have to say, while it could have gotten more, by giving this set 10 chapters really allowed the stories to breath better and not have to fight with plot vs characters.
On a slightly unrelated note, the story keeps mentioning that the Dimir are nonfunctional like the Golgari. Do we know why? I can't remember what happened to the Dimir during the march of the machine.
Nothing stated out right but as the non-public main hubs and areas of the Dimir are in the undercity it can be guessed many of them where destroyed or where the first parts the compleated golgari started to spread too. Lazav seems to also be missing but unknown what that is about, conveniently the only Dimir character we have, Etrata, is similar to Judith in that she wants to replace her guild leader so if Lazav is secertly up to something he likely wouldn't have Etrata in on it.
Given what we know, he most probably did NOT have any progeny Can be a relative, though, a grand-grand-grand....grand-niece or something.
Eh not even that many greats as Ravnica humans are naturally longer living and its been maybe less then a 100 or so years since the first Ravnica block story.
Actually enjoying this story a lot. Much better than the ones we had before. I just hope it has a satisfying conclusion.
A bit confused about the part with the moss. The attackers were simic (supposedly) but the magic involved seems more golgari? Unless the sprout didn't kill them but literally transmuted them into moss to reform later. But it looked more like "rapid decomposition" like we know from golgari.
It also raises the question why they'd do it. The whole "kill yourself before you're captured" only really works in extreme conditions, like an assassin trained only for one purpose their entire life, and these were just some common mooks; or when you fear the interrogation process to be worse than death, and neither really applied here.
Also, looks like Proft and Kaya will come to the same conclusion independently.
yea that’s what it looks like is gonna happen to me
both Teams unite and tell each other they figured out the same theory of who the killer(s) are
Oh and if infact vraska. First will Jace be involved of this? Second how does this cause Rakdos to go to thunder junction? (Only thing I can think of is to go after the killer for revenge of being framed.)
I'm actually thinking that Aurelia might actually go through with declaring war on the Rakdos Cult after all (note that the card art implies she gives the "you have one day" directive to Proft, but the story indicates she gives the directive to the seemingly less competent detective pair of Kaya and Kellan), and Rakdos figures the easiest way his guild gets out of the war is that he leaves the plane (probably via omenpath) to declare his non-participation.
Both card arts show her telling her ultimatum to Kellan and Kaya tho.
Yeah we're gonna get more and more. See you for ravnica remastered 2 and 3 where they remaster the cards they didn't remaster before. Excited for Ravnica Returns, the 4th remaster in the new card frame coming 2026.
Sweet, hopefully this brings shocklands under $10 USD then
Man, just straight up reprinting old sets and slotting them in the schedule feels more dangerous to the health of this game than any of the secret lair stuff. I know it's just following suit from game companies re-releasing old games in HD but it's just as clearly like, "we cannot devote enough resources to fit the release schedule we have and we need money now so here's a quick uplift of an old game" sort of stuff, coming from a hasbro that just laid off hella people to cut costs in one of their biggest years ever.
God forbid this set sells well or else we're getting one or two of them a year.
We have had all-reprint sets going on for years, hello older core sets, so not really sure why this one is suddenly causing the sky to fall. IMO reprint sets are need for the health of the game to keep cards affordable*.
We are also getting one next year, Innstrad Remastered and Ravnica Remastered followed Dominaria Remaster we had at the start of this year.
Kind of weird that Kaya's artwork is creature-sized but the story explicitly states she still has her spark.
That is interesting... could they have cropped it to conceal that fact, not realizing the story would reveal it the same day? Or is Kaya for some reason getting a creature card?
A while ago they posted art descriptions for cards and a note was going forward they wanted artists doing planeswalker art to keep in mind the art would be often shown cropped in the same sizes of creatures. Not sure if due to them updating the mothership recently or them knowing the Desparking was gonna happened and wanted to keep it hidden when showing art who has a spark still or not.
First look tomorrow so starting this up and will update as we learn stuff;
Murders at Karlov Manor is a top down Murder Mystery Set and a backdrop set on Ravnnica focusing on the murder mysteries vs the guilds. We also open up after the Phyrexian war with the Golgari nearly wipped out from Vraska compleating many of them as well as the many of the Izzet and Simic having willingly joined.
Some Murders and attempted murders are happening at Karlov Manor during a fancy party held by Teysa and the Ravnican Agency of Magicological Investigations is here to help solve the case
Our lead detective is Alquist Proft who is joined by Kaya (still a planeswalkers) and Kellan
Our high profile character and suspects are; Massacre Girl, Etrata, Krenko, Izoni, Judith, Kylox (the izzet Viashino), Tolsimir, BR Rakdos and RW Aurelia.
As for the guide itself: I liked it, it was very thorough. Can we pretty please get this quality for all sets going forward?
Chances are no. Miguel Lopez put in extra hours from his non-work free time for no extra pay to write this. As a Latino he wanted to give Ixalan as much love and exposure as he could give it for other Lantine folks as we are very underrepresented in the fantasy genre.
At this point in time and with info we have I think this is very likely and have three things swimming in my head about it;
1- The Fomori in Ixalan are a subversion of the Ancient Aliens/Ancient Astronauts trope*, with the Fomori being colonizers who where pushed out after some time. As KavuMonarch pointed out in the Ixalan 2 thread, with their "space ship" and alien like tech, the Fomori would fit in perfectly in the space set, which is the start of the CENSORED* arc and fits with them being set up as evil ancient aliens.
*Ancient Astronauts a trope of a high advance alien species influences the culture of Ancient human (often co-opted into racist theories to discredit non-white cultures feats).
2- Mythologically the Fomori are beings from Irish mythology and not friendly to the human and the other magical beings Tuatha Dé Danann. This would make them fit right into Lorwyn's Celtic mythology base (from which Irish mythology is descended from) and Lorwyn is the second set in this arc. Could be fitting of the myths if return to Lorwyn feature a conflict with the peoples of Lorwyn and the Fomori and/or end up being where we lean the origins of the Fomori.
3- As I said above I do think the return to Strixhaven right before the capstone set makes me think this will include the story thread of Kasmina and her group. I also feel the fact its Quint home and Quint is the one looking into the Fomori at the moment, it would circle back nicely to Ixalan.
Its an Edgar Allen Poe reference.
Nothing stated out right but as the non-public main hubs and areas of the Dimir are in the undercity it can be guessed many of them where destroyed or where the first parts the compleated golgari started to spread too. Lazav seems to also be missing but unknown what that is about, conveniently the only Dimir character we have, Etrata, is similar to Judith in that she wants to replace her guild leader so if Lazav is secertly up to something he likely wouldn't have Etrata in on it.
Eh not even that many greats as Ravnica humans are naturally longer living and its been maybe less then a 100 or so years since the first Ravnica block story.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-7-rot-before-recovery
Both card arts show her telling her ultimatum to Kellan and Kaya tho.
Sweet, hopefully this brings shocklands under $10 USD then
We have had all-reprint sets going on for years, hello older core sets, so not really sure why this one is suddenly causing the sky to fall. IMO reprint sets are need for the health of the game to keep cards affordable*.
We are also getting one next year, Innstrad Remastered and Ravnica Remastered followed Dominaria Remaster we had at the start of this year.
The artist posted the full art and its planeswalker sized;
https://x.com/Cathaoir1/status/1732132874952872016?s=20
A while ago they posted art descriptions for cards and a note was going forward they wanted artists doing planeswalker art to keep in mind the art would be often shown cropped in the same sizes of creatures. Not sure if due to them updating the mothership recently or them knowing the Desparking was gonna happened and wanted to keep it hidden when showing art who has a spark still or not.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-ghosts-of-our-past
Murders at Karlov Manor is a top down Murder Mystery Set and a backdrop set on Ravnnica focusing on the murder mysteries vs the guilds. We also open up after the Phyrexian war with the Golgari nearly wipped out from Vraska compleating many of them as well as the many of the Izzet and Simic having willingly joined.
Some Murders and attempted murders are happening at Karlov Manor during a fancy party held by Teysa and the Ravnican Agency of Magicological Investigations is here to help solve the case
Our lead detective is Alquist Proft who is joined by Kaya (still a planeswalkers) and Kellan
Our high profile character and suspects are; Massacre Girl, Etrata, Krenko, Izoni, Judith, Kylox (the izzet Viashino), Tolsimir, BR Rakdos and RW Aurelia.
Remaining Story Episodes: January 8–18
Likely Fifteen as Gavin said they had plans for Fifteen and Fourteen to get cards.
Chances are no. Miguel Lopez put in extra hours from his non-work free time for no extra pay to write this. As a Latino he wanted to give Ixalan as much love and exposure as he could give it for other Lantine folks as we are very underrepresented in the fantasy genre.
At this point in time and with info we have I think this is very likely and have three things swimming in my head about it;
1- The Fomori in Ixalan are a subversion of the Ancient Aliens/Ancient Astronauts trope*, with the Fomori being colonizers who where pushed out after some time. As KavuMonarch pointed out in the Ixalan 2 thread, with their "space ship" and alien like tech, the Fomori would fit in perfectly in the space set, which is the start of the CENSORED* arc and fits with them being set up as evil ancient aliens.
*Ancient Astronauts a trope of a high advance alien species influences the culture of Ancient human (often co-opted into racist theories to discredit non-white cultures feats).
2- Mythologically the Fomori are beings from Irish mythology and not friendly to the human and the other magical beings Tuatha Dé Danann. This would make them fit right into Lorwyn's Celtic mythology base (from which Irish mythology is descended from) and Lorwyn is the second set in this arc. Could be fitting of the myths if return to Lorwyn feature a conflict with the peoples of Lorwyn and the Fomori and/or end up being where we lean the origins of the Fomori.
3- As I said above I do think the return to Strixhaven right before the capstone set makes me think this will include the story thread of Kasmina and her group. I also feel the fact its Quint home and Quint is the one looking into the Fomori at the moment, it would circle back nicely to Ixalan.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgvorthos/comments/17r5s5z/lci_mtg_discord_qa_worldbuilding_the_lost_caverns/
Glad to see we are getting a planeswalker guide and hopefully a legends article again this set.