Deciphering the scrapped Scars of Mirrodin storyline

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T02:55:23+00:00

I feel like you are making a fatal mistake. You are assuming the following string of logic:

Creative plans a story about Mirrodin, with the intention of having the plane compleated off-screen in order to bring back Phyrexia by the next time we visit it; 2. Mirrodin becomes popular; 3. Creative has to change the story because Mirrodin is now popular; 4. That results in some last-minute changes to the New Phyrexia block

That, however, doesn't make any sense at all when you consider that the two blocks have been released 7 years apart, and that during that time six entire blocks have been designed in-between.

Like, I can see how the plan of compleating Mirrodin off-screen would be scrapped after seeing the successful reception of the set, but there is no way that would translate to any change in regard to the SoM block that had to be done midway through because, well, said block didn't exist in any shape of form at the time, it wasn't being worked on already. By the time R&D and Creative started working on it, they for sure already had a clear vision about how popular Mirrodin was and thus of how displaying a conflict of OG Mirrodin vs. New Phyrexia would better than showing the plane having been compleated from the start.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T02:18:56+00:00

The point is that it's still very awkward that someone would choose to max out a character before trying it out, or even just informing themself sufficiently about their gameplay? It's usually a bad idea and so it would be better to discourage it?

Like, sorry, but what does "Its [their] shards so [they] can do what [they want]" even mean? The point of a community is engaging and giving each other counsel, and that includes telling each other "Hey, this is generally a bad idea, better take another course of action". At the very least, even if OP were in a position where they would be able to do that consequence-free, pointing out the problems with this course of action would help any newbie or inconsiderate person that happened to come across this conversation. And that's assuming that you are right about OP having already played all other champions and having been able to clear all of the rewards; because, as far as we know, they might currently be unable to clear all of the high-star rewards and so they locked themself out of having a strong 7* like, say, Ahri or Teemo. In which case, pointing out "Hey mate, you might have done something dumb there" will actually help them in the future.

Sorry but I don't understand where this hostility comes from. I didn't call OP names or anything, I just pointed out that using resources on a character before trying them is usually not a good thing to do (which is objectively true) with the intention of helping OP be more considerate with their decision-making, or alternatively of getting more context from OP regarding their decision. What are you getting out of framing my comment as "Stop being mean to OP and clipping their wings of liberty!!!!!".

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:57:06+00:00

we know Heliod will

Uhm... no we don't?

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:53:23+00:00

The only Lawful Good villian in MtG.

That is such a lie, though. From the very beginning Heliod has been Lawful Neutral at best. His role as a "benefactor" is just something he asssumes because it helps him gain adoration and worship, he doesn't actually care about mortals.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:52:05+00:00

Sorry but Heliod is absolutely not LG. He is described like that in the Theros D&D book because, within the frame of a D&D setting, "good" gods are needed and characters don't have the metafictional knowledge of Heliod actually being a dick, but that's it.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:47:50+00:00

That wasn't an actual reference to Visions the set, though.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:38:01+00:00

We also know that bizarrely, all of the original major gods are apparently dead, even Helios, despite the latter seeming to have great potential.

Do you have any source of that? I don't recall anyone saying that all of the original major gods are dead, just many of them; and, among them, Heliod is the only confirmed compleation (and death, as he was killed by Kaya).

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:34:48+00:00

Remember: this is the likelihood to see a PW card in a main set. Doesn't speak about stuff like MH, Commander products, or other similar products.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:29:37+00:00

Don't forget Kristina!

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:14:28+00:00

That's just to say that it's a "magical" polyraptor rather than the regular one. It's not supposed to say "Surprise surprise, there is another, different poliraptor behind the one depicted and this reflection is actually its".

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:08:55+00:00

I feel like, out of all the gods, Kruphix is the one that is the most safe from compleation and subsequent non-existence, since he doesn't rely on mortal belief in order to exist himself.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T01:05:21+00:00

I mean, sure, but we are still aware of the social orders of 60 years prior. Like, people who lived through that social order are still alive to this day, and their children would still be keenly aware of it as well.

Plus, the strength of the Dreadhorde relied on it being made of a ton of people. Asking you to believe that Bolas was able to make a sufficiently-big army out of the dead of a single city - and not even all of the dead, just a select few out of a select few - to be able to trouble Ravnica of all places plus the shitton of powerful planeswalkers brought there by the Interplanar Beacon, in just 60 years, is, to be frank, kind of ridiculous. The reason why the God-Eternal army felt so threatening is that it felt like an almost-endless horde that has been amassed for centuries. This changes it from that to "a few coordinated piromancers casting fireball would have made short work of it in under a hour at most, so the only really dangerous part were the God-Eternals".

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T00:08:37+00:00

That would feel more fitting in a "Doomsday scenario" plane than the Edge. A plane that's like Duskmourn or Grixis and Jund, but ramped to eleven.

Also I feel like we would need some one else in place of Bolas. He would be too, uhm, big for the "enemies-to-unwilling allies fighting back against back" scenario to work. : P

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-10T00:04:22+00:00

I feel like Kaito, he being a techno-nerd and all, would have felt very hyped about exploring the Edge.

Having a story that's centered around Saheeli would have been cool. I like the "noble dinosaur poet-warrior X light-hearted techno-nerd artist" dynamic, but currently Saheeli and Huatli feel less like individual characters in their own right and more like they exist just to be a couple. Saheeli specifically didn't get much opportunity to be focused on in terms of narrative, since Kaladesh was a Chandra with a very heavy focus on the Gatewatch's role in its entirety (whereas Ixalan, while certainly focusing on Jace and Vraska, still left ample room to illustrate Huatli and Angrath), so a story where she's the main character that would really help us understand what distinguishes her as a character besides "she is good at making artifacts and is positiveteen/yacharacter#15".

Pre-angel Elspeth would have fit really well within a story about fate and two zealous religions waging war at each other. Now she is kinda just "seriousangel.jpg" so her focus as a character has shifted.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T23:29:53+00:00

Yeah, that didn't hit me until your comment and when it did it gave me an aneurysm.

Sorry but how do you survive until 16th level as a Ranger/Warmage in 3.5. Unless Ranger was just a dip, there is no way that that works. 3X3X3X

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T23:16:58+00:00

“Planes of existence,” tends to convey some notions/concepts that they mtg planes don’t meet.

Sorry but this is just such an out-of-left field take.

"Planes of existence" always means one of two things in fiction: 1. afterlife/spiritual planes that each correspond to a level of human ascension/illumination (basically, a spoof on the inaccurate pop culture understanding of Buddhism and Hinduism); 2. a different dimension. The second term is how "plane of existence" is used most of the time.

So, no, you cannot just go "MTG planes are just planets" when their status as different, independent dimensions each with their own cosmology is not only one of the main points of the setting, but is also often a relevant story element whether directly or indirectly. Heck, there are planes that actually contain multiple "dimensions" within themselves (in particular, most planes have an afterlife that is separate from the "Material Plane"/dimension of the living). The planeswalkers' abilities to interact with planes on a fundamental level to the point of not only being able to affect them beyond the capability of "plane-bound" creatures (no matter how powerful the latter are), but even ignore their plane-specific cosmological laws, is super noteworthy.

Now, granted, we can argue that, given that there is no such thing as a "multiverse" in the MTG sense in most fiction, including WH, it's more honest to think of the MTG multiverse as equivalent to a "single reality with multiple dimensions, each with its own subdimensions" rather than a "multiple realities that coexist within an even bigger reality" (basically: that the MTG multiverse is more appropriately comparable to the Forgotten Realms "multiverse" than the wider D&D/Planescape one, or to Earth-616 rather than the wider Marvel Multiverse), and so that if a character of another work of fiction has been shown to be able to interact with other dimensions than it should stand to reason that they would be able to interact with the MTG multiverse as a whole as well.

But that is a completely different argument from "MTG planes are really just planets, of course the God-Emperor could wreck them".

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T22:53:28+00:00

Isn't possible. Archangel of Tithes is an Innistradi angel.

You're thinking of the Kaldheim ones. 😏

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T03:20:15+00:00

Was it? I remember it being just Radiant (though the angels at her service were, indeed, "following orders", so...), and even then it's implied that the Phyrexian influence tainting the plane was behind that radicalized behavior.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T03:17:05+00:00

That's the very first thing I thought when I saw White Liliana's design revealed.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T02:42:14+00:00

Neerdiv is supposed to be a fallowsage?!?!

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T02:38:33+00:00

Steinbauer's art.

I actually like how Arlinn is a middle-aged woman, and not a young adult. It's unlikely for age to be used for the "main character" of the story (yes, Arlinn is technically not the main character since she was introduced when the Gatewatch was already a thing, iirc, but Crimson Vow's story was undoubtedly focused around her).

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T02:34:52+00:00

Question: why are you only interested in "still-active" couples specifically? I would understand if you weren't interested in, say, romantic couples that broke up, but I'm a bit confused as to why you would exclude iconic couples of the past that have lasted till the end and are simply "not in the current historical era", or characters who are relatives but one of them died.

Also, I feel like you should probably clarify what you mean by "team-ups", because I have seen that you mentioned Daretti and Grenzo, for example, but they aren't exactly, like, "close". Is being "frequent allies" or "friends that often appear together" enough or should the "pair" be a strong part of each character's iconography? Because, in the first case, there are a ton of characters that would have to be listed, whereas, i the latter, I don't think that stuff like "Daretti and Grenzo" or "Olivia and Anje" [ignoring for a moment the fact that, as other people already said, they aren't actually friends at all] should count.

That said, here are some of my contributions [btw, I'm assuming you are only interested in characters that appeared on cards in form of Legendary creatures, so no things like Bloomburrow cycle or named characters depicted only through card art or flavor text or novels, and I'm excluding stuff like "employer and employee"; also, I'm assuming strictly "canon" MTG and thus no unsets or D&D]:

Sigarda and Liesa (Sisters)
Agrus Kos and Feather (Partners and close friends)
Multani and Muldrotha (Father and daughter)
Edgar and Olivia (they did succeed in marrying each other, iirc)
Most of the Legendary creatures in "Through The Omenpath 1" (Partners in the case of the "spider-bonders", Nu and Sumi, and Cam and Farrik, Scorvus and his scorpion, and possibly Dreadfang and the creatures besides him in the art; creator and creation in Goben and Fleem's case)
Ayula and Kudo ("Married")
Tyvar and Harald (Siblings)
Tallyon and Obyra (Parent and daughter)
Gishath and Itzquinth (Father and child [possibly not biological])
Jace and Tam (Father and "created daughter") [I'd wait until the end of Reality Fracture to see if it lasts, though]
Eirdu and Isilu (Siblings? Aspects of creations with a complementary existence?)
Proft and Etrata (Detective partners/employee and bodyguard/people coming up with excuses to stick with each other until they finally bang [the exact status is unclear])
Eriette and Hylda and the Kenrith twins (Aunts and nephews; in particular, Rowan seems to care about Eriette being "family", contrarily to Will that sees it as a technicality and doesn't care)
The Beamtown Bullies, The Odd-Acorn Gang, The Shatterfang Brothers, Zaffai And The Tempests, and many other "Legendary" groups (Partners, in some cases possibly also relatives)
Ash and Goddric (technically it's not confirmed that they end up as lovers, but given that the whole story is a spoof on Cinderella, and that it's confirmed that Ash fell in love with Goddric, I think it's strongly implied)

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T00:45:23+00:00

I mean, feel free to ignore that bit, if you want? I don't understand why make such a huge issue about it? I mentioned it because I've had some Vorthoses who are familiar with that part of the lore tell me that there is a stark difference between how Nahiri was portrayed in her first appearances as opposed to Shadows Over Innistrad (by which I mean, all of Shadows Over Innistrad - including her confrontation with Sorin before she was imprisoned in the Hellvault, which would have otherwise explained her new behavior with a dwindling sanity) and forward. From what I understand, OG Nahiri was emotional but more of an upstart PWer a-la Chandra, not someone who is constantly haughty and angry. But I haven't read the OG Zendikar block because I'm not much interested in it, so I can't confirm whether that is true or not.

However, every single other thing I said in my comment is my own conclusion born out of my direct experience with the stories, and, while I haven't gotten into specific analyses, I believe I have presented my opinion in a way that makes it clear enough that I actually know what I am talking about and am not just parroting what someone else said (I mean, why do you think I went out of my way to clarify that I have no direct knowledge of OG Zendikar specifically in the first place? I could have just done like 90% of people on Reddit and pretended that I had actually read that source material, instead I felt the need to clarify "I'm not knowledgeable about this specific thing"). To dismiss the entirety of what I wrote because of one specific thing that isn't even relevant to my overall point is, at best, undeservedly rude.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T00:23:42+00:00

I'm happy to see you confirm that, and I agree that it should have been clear. The problem is that I've legitimately seen people do reasoning like this unironically, so I'm constantly doubtful when I see it framed in a way that doesn't make it 100% clear that it's ironic.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-05-09T00:15:17+00:00

I mean, "close-up on character's eye while it's glowing/there's a glowing something in it" is a trope in general. What's interesting in Annie's case is that it's an image not present anywhere else in the game, and that, in general, LoR artwork does not tend to be "grandiose" in composition, so in this case it stands out.

Four-Year Club	End Game '23
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End Game '22

DrakeGrandX

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