After literal years of anticipation and almost a dozen sets, the Phyrexian Arc is finally over. Throughout this story, MTG players have witnessed beloved Planeswalkers dying and others losing their spark, all while planes were ravaged. Thankfully, in the end, Magic’s heroes emerged victorious, however not without consequences.
Like the Bolas Arc before it, the Phyrexian Arc has certainly been a big deal. Threatening to change Magic’s multiverse forever, players have understandably been on the edge of their seats. Following the launch of March of the Machine, however, that anticipation was seemingly all for naught. As the story ended without much consequence to speak of, MTG players were left wondering what was going on.
Thankfully, while March of the Machine’s story might have been a bit of a letdown, another set was waiting in the wings. Aptly titled March of the Machine: The Aftermath, this Standard legal supplemental set with chockablock with reveals and, more importantly, consequences. While these weren’t entirely evident while the set was leaked in its entirety, thankfully, recent story chapters have revealed all.
As if these compelling stories setting up the future weren’t enough already, MTG’s Lead Designer has also recently provided clarification. Laying out exactly how MTG’s multiverse has changed forever, it’s safe to say the Phyrexian Arc was a big deal.
Everyone Can Planeswalk! (Kind of)
The consequences listed in Rosewater’s introduction to the March of the Machine: The Aftermath product were numerous, but the most significant change, by far, is the change in Planeswalking. We recently discussed that many Planeswalkers seemed to be losing their sparks. While not everyone has been affected by this, there is a much bigger parallel change that Rosewater covered in his article titled “Doing the Aftermath:” the introduction of the Omenpaths.
The Omenpaths already appeared in the MTG Aftermath story. While March of the Machine: The Aftermath’s first chapter focused a lot on how the events of March of the Machine affected Nissa in particular, a Steam Elemental from a different plane also appeared on Zhalfir.
Previously only a feature of the Kaldheim plane, the Omenpaths are, basically, random sort of Planar Portals (that existed before the mending) that can randomly transfer any creature between planes. Rosewater has stressed that the factor to these Omenpaths, besides granting non-Planeswalkers the ability to traverse planes, is that they are incredibly dangerous because of how inconsistent they are:
“Now, the Omenpaths can vary quite a bit. Some can be tiny, some huge. Some permanent, some temporary. Some stable, some moving. They present a great risk for non-Planeswalkers, as there’s no promise of a way back. And not every plane is connected to every other plane, so some trips can be quite a journey. All that said, traveling between planes is no longer limited to Planeswalkers.”
Mark Rosewater
In other words, these new Omenpaths are up to interpretation case-by-case. The one that appears on Zhalfir seems to both be tiny and fleeting – threatening to disappear at any moment. Notably, Rosewater also mentions that there could be some very stable Omenpaths between planes that will remain there permanently. This could create some incredibly interesting crossover sets – having two planes permanently connected for a set, for example.
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Literally Infinite Possibilities
The lore-based flexibility that these new Omenpaths provide can create a limitless amount of scenarios for future MTG sets to explore. Rosewater himself mentions that these Omenpaths have a massive impact in future settings that Wizards of the Coast is planning to explore in MTG:
“While I can’t give you details, this is going to have huge ramifications on the stories and the sets we build. There are numerous sets in design right now, for example, that we couldn’t have made prior to this change, so this cosmological shake-up is going have a huge impact on the narrative Multiverse and the game.”
Mark Rosewater
Now that almost anything can happen in terms of MTG lore crossovers, players have taken to Reddit to discuss some cherished planar crossovers that were too unrealistic before this development:
“Tolarian Academy and Strixhaven exchange program.
Ixilan (white-aligned) and Innstrad (black-aligned) vampires meet (and immediately agree to never do so again).
Tyvar goes to Ikoria to find and punch the biggest creatures they have.”
DislocatedLocation
“All I want is a Weatherlight story and a Strixhaven field trip.
It would be interesting if we started seeing planar embassies and things, though. I don’t want Kaladesh to stop being Kaladesh, but what if the next Inventor’s Fair had a Kamigawan Mech exhibit and a shady New Capenna booth?”
EmTeeEm
“The Guilds of Ravnica are gonna love this new expansion, especially the Simic (new creatures to fuse with), the Gruul (new faces to smash), the Orzhov (new populations to exploit), and the Rakdos (new arts to perform to brand new audiences).”
ericwashere15
Lore-wise, the opportunities that this change creates are endless and capitalizes spectacularly on the profound lore that 30 years of Magic has helped create. Hopefully, this idea is introduced in a way that gets as much of the community on board as possible because the in-universe crossovers this can create have players excited.
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Are Epilogue Boosters Here to Stay?
Omenpaths aren’t the only change that Rosewater has highlighted in our official introduction of the March of the Machine: The Aftermath. As seen in Nissa’s mental state highlighted in the first chapter, characters and planes both have deep and lasting impressions as a result of the Phyrexian War. That said, the most significant change of all may be that the new Epilogue Boosters presented in MTG’s first miniset may be sticking around permanently.
While this possibility was suggested by Rosewater, it’s important to note the return of Epilogue Boosters isn’t a guaranteed thing. Even if they do return in the future, they’ll likely be tweaked following the already expensive player feedback. At the end of the day, however, the future of Epilogue Boosters and mini-sets depends on one core factor: how successful they are.
“We’re going to start by seeing how this one goes. The ongoing theme here is that we’re playing in new space, something we don’t have 30 years of history iterating on, so we want to see what players think of it.”
Mark Rosewater
First looks at the new five-card Booster Packs have not been the kindest. As outlined by Tolarian Community College’s take on the matter on YouTube, some MTG players aren’t convinced that a new type of set was needed to solely highlight the consequences of the March of the Machine story:
“Aftermath as a needed Epilogue is so strange to me because the Phyrexian invasion of the multiverse is a story that had a beginning set, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, but the middle and end of that story were both combined into a single set: March of the Machine. () “I believe strongly that a story of this scope needed three sets and the fact that there’s apparently a need for an epilogue set, well, that leaves a certain credence to my belief.”
Tolarian Community College
In other words, if spread between three sets, The Professor believes that the Phyrexian invasion could have easily had all the time needed to tell a detailed and fulfilling story with a beginning, middle, and end. As a result, the move to sell the consequences of the invasion as an epilogue product may have little to do with the story, but more to do with the product itself. This just skims the surface of the argument presented in the linked video.
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The Aftermath Will Not Reveal Everything
As was mentioned multiple times in Rosewater’s article, many Planeswalkers (but not all of them) have been desparked, and many characters have died due to the Phyrexian Invasion. While, according to Rosewater, March of the Machine: The Aftermath will reveal ten of the desparked Planeswalkers, that is not the entire list of characters affected:
“This set tells of ten that have been de-sparked. Future sets will nod to those who aren’t de-sparked by having them on planeswalker cards and those who are de-sparked by having them on legendary creature cards. We like the idea that the players will slowly learn this over time, and we think it will spawn much discussion.”
Mark Rosewater
As Rosewater mentions, this Aftermath set exists as a way to “hit the highlights of what we just laid out.” March of the Machine really wanted to be about the climax of the Phyrexian Invasion. Still, the consequences of the Invasion were so drastic that, in Rosewater’s words, MTG needed “to convey the events of the war and the impact it had on the Multiverse,” but they could not do this and conclude the events of the invasion in one set. Whether players agree or not is a different story.
It’s too early to tell how this new idea will go down with players product-wise, but, hopefully, the March of the Machine: The Aftermath product gives a strong foundation to what will be a new era of MTG lore.
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