March of the Machine is a Massive Disappointment - A Review 

Did the set disappoint you? What was the worst thing about it? Or the best if you're feeling positive

I like the thought that "Krenko" is a different Goblin every time and just claims to be Krenko but the other Goblins are too dumb to see the difference.

Old anti-phyrexian weapons: - nukes. - running Modern anti-phyrexian weapons: - bronze - crack cocaine

The "Destroy the Mother Ship" trope was soooooo disappointing. A drop of oil accidentally smeared on a plane is what started all this, and now there are hordes of oil filled bodies just left sitting around - but don't worry! No mother ship!

For me the biggest let down is just how they did all the praetors dirty. Vorinclex, a monster that is constantly shown to be a pinnacle of evolution, that survived the blind eternities with NO spark, just dies to his head getting cut off. Jin, probably the smartest phyrexian, just gets pushed into a vat of newts and gets eaten alive. Sheoldred literally got to do nothing even though she is a walking apocalypse. Elesh Norn felt like she got character assassinated because everything up to this set was constantly her saying its for her people and she never mentioned only herself and now suddenly its all about her? Atraxa, born of 4 praetors and could be one of the greatest phyrexians ever, gets killed by construction. It sucks man.

Probably the strangest part of the set is: I have *absolutely* no idea how long the events of the story are supposed to be. The fact that it's, you know, an invasion, with all the symbols popping up and being ominous implies it takes place over the course of, like, weeks to months. But if you told me the events of the story articles from the start of All will be One to the end of March of the Machine took place over anything more than 48 hours, I'd call you a liar. There's simply no way. Nahiri gets hit when they first arrive and holds together until they smash through the floor, so that couldn't have taken much more than a few hours, and it's a sprint down to the seedcore from there. And then Realmbreaker does its thing, the compleated walkers leave, the last of the squad escapes their imprisonment (that should be impossible for at least one, possibly two of them), but they all need to, you know, eat and drink, so that can't have been any sort of prolonged stay. And then Chandra and Wrenn show up and get into a fight, and *that* can't have been longer than, like, half an hour. So you add all these things together and you have two sets that take place over, at the absolute most, two days, with no time between them, and that's... enough time for an inter-planar invasion with people developing strategies and feeling the prolonged effects of war? This is like how War of the Spark took place over the span of a single night. It's ridiculous.

The Sorin of sets.

Fun fact about the new Sheoldred art! She's actually attached to Drivnod, Carnage Dominus' eye socket, as if she's riding him into battle!

The worst part is that WOTC literally made a video in response to the backlash that amounted to: - The player-base is too impatient to see the effects of the invasion - The player-base is too dumb to not understand that there were high stakes (they proceeded to name B-list characters that bit the dust)

This would have made for an awesome 3 set block set. Phyrexia prepares in All Will Be One. Phyrexia gets to the precipice of winning in March of the Machine. Phyrexia is defeated in Rise of the Angels(?) Or wins in Triumph of Norn(?) WOTC did not give themselves time to tell the story they wanted to tell, and an end of set cliff hanger would have been awesome

I remember when everyone was brainstorming how to defeat the phyrexians. Would Emrakul be brought in? Would Bolas and Ugin come back? Nope. . . The planes simply just fought back. Huh. Never would have thought of that

If there was ever a time where WOTC needed to do a 3 set block, this was it. Set 1 could have been about the Phyrexians launching the multiversal invasion. Set 2 could show the Phyrexians gaining the upper hand and we see beloved characters completed. Set 3 is were worlds have adapted to the Phyrexians, are now pushing them back, and we get the finale on New Pyrexia that we get in March of the Machine. Such a missed opportunity. 😞

I'm really upset that Phyrexia is just gone. I really liked them in their original incarnations as horrifying antagonists and thought the modern twist with each faction being influenced by their respective color of mana was even better. The idea of each faction striving for perfection in a different way was so interesting and I feel like we never got to see it. I know that the Phyrexian invasion of everything was doomed to fail, but I feel like it could have been the setup to something far more meaningful. Sitting in my armchair I would have liked to have seen the invasion beaten back, Elesh Norn killed and the white faction destroyed, but the other factions succeeding in taking over a new world each. Then we could still have Phyrexia as an antagonist in the future, but they could operate in radically different ways with the Vicious Swarm occasionally launching a horde of monsters at another plane, or learning that the black Phyrexians are behind some intrigue somewhere. Actually, it would have been cool to see the Vicious Swarm stuck on Ikoria and suddenly finding themselves on the bottom of the food chain. Wizards could have written a cool story rehabilitating them with them concluding that predation is not the be-all-end-all to evolution, and instead changing to establish some kind of symbiosis with others. It's just sad to see so many cool ideas and characters come to an end and not feeling like we ever got to see their story fully play out.

So... like... was there any point to All Will Be One? From what I remember that entire plotline was the Gatewatch fucking with New Phyrexia and getting their asses stomped in but aside from that what was the point? Did any of it matter beyond Elspeth killing herself? It really feels like Elesh Norn went from a serious multiversal threat to... a complete joke in basically 24 hours. Her giant big brained scheme works, manipulating all of New Phyrexia to her bidding and in the process spreading her reach to innumerable worlds, cementing phyrexians as a presence nearly everywhere. Then it almost literally immediately goes to shit and the entire phyrexian hierarchy falls apart to nonsensical infighting before Elspeth returns as an angel and 1-shots Elesh Norn. Somewhere while that's happening a half-dead dryad is thrown at the tree and somehow merges with it without being immediately infected by the oil and somehow swaps New Phyrexia out of the multiverse and all the phyrexians die. Why bother? Totally deflated my sails since phyrexians and New Phyrexia in particular were my favorite parts of MTG lore and the writers took what has been a growing story for more than a decade and slammed it all in the trash... Like, literally, the story of Glissa and Slowbad delving into the core of Mirrodin to take down Memnarch was my introduction to MTG and a really good book I really enjoyed, then the fall of Mirrodin and the phyrexianization of an entire plane. It was so cool and reading the lore as the Praetors battled amongst themselves before Elesh Norn took control, the scheming of Sheoldred and the lurking savior of Urabrask... heck even how Vorinclex was a figurehead for compleated Glissa was badass. And this is the end... this is the literal actual death of my interest in the fandom and worlds. It feels so hollow.

Wrenn just going... "Yeah I can control Realmbreaker" just kind of broke my brain since I'm like "Why the fuck didn't you mention that before everyone decided to go with the nuke plan?" The fact that she succeeded is also kind of wild given what happened when Lukka tried to commune with Phyxian shit.

The fact that they're turning a bunch of Planeswalkers into legendary creatures again makes this whole storyline feel like they were just cynically blitzing through the story to sell more commander products.

I was hoping to see at least one card showing Phyrexia trying to invade the Unglued and Unhinged setting and failing due to the absolute chaos of those sets. Like the Borg trying to assimilate the Loony Tunes.

It would’ve been cool to see urabrask working with the planes walkers against norn but using his furnace host and willingly turned forces. Dwarves, demons and other creatures that willingly joined the furnace host to fight the invasion

So sad how there was that whole setup of Elspeth getting killed by heliod because he heard of a vision of him getting offed by her only for it to not be followed up on at all even though him getting completed was the perfect opportunity to make that happen. Instead, nah, Kaya gets to Fortnite dance on the corpse of a god since she can literally kill whatever WoTC wants dead with no issue at all.

On the point of "what are they rushing to?" and you bring up the Lotr set. I just thought, how amazingly tense and suspenseful would it have been to have march of the machine end with a whole all is lost moment, all the planes on the backfoot, maybe even some fully lost. Then have the lotr set and after that non-canon set we get a third set finishing the phyrexia story. That would have been insane!

This is why the 3-set blocks were great. Because it forces a 3 act structure on the poor writing of wizards, which helps. Phyrexia All Will Be One was Act One. March of the Machine was Act Two and they ended the story in Act Two which resulted in this.

Can we also talk about how badly Atraxa bit it? The personal creation of four Praetors, voice of Elesh Norn... slain by a steel girder because she got angry at some statues.

It just hit me how "toothless" killing Melira off was. Since the Oil was disabled, that means to more infections so Melira literally lost her gimmick of immunity and cure. So she died.

I do love that you completely ignored the fact that Lukka was obliterated out of existence in the Ikoria invasion story when looking at the consequences of March of the Machine. Shows how little Lukka ever mattered to anyone. And sort of serves him right for getting compleated in the stupidest way of all the Planeswalkers that got compleated in All Will Be One.

I agree MOM needed another set. It was Amonkhet with Hour of Devastation briefly tacked on. It also doesn’t help we’ve stopped caring about planes beyond being a set piece for planeswalkers.

Would be nice to see a Free Phyrexia being run by limbless yet wise Urabrask.

A reason teamups were awkward was that they had to be distributed among planes and amond colors, I think there are 5 wedge mythics and then 10 two color pairs. At some points they ran out of natural pairings so they were like "We need a boros teamup on Amonkhet, sooo Hazoret and... Djeru I guess? He exists?" I agree that it's super underwhelming in some cases tho

Warning: Long comment. Dissected into parts. Initial thoughts, hopes I had for the set. You touch upon many of the points I've seen fans agree on. This event had the DNA to be a great story for the Vorthos community: a feared enemy that's been in our minds for more than a decade (Scars of Mirrodin Block), perhaps one of the biggest callbacks to the older sets (Phyrexia as villains just screams Urza and his legacy), and several sets planting tiny seeds as to what their plan was (Vorinclex in Kaldheim, Jin in Kamigawa, Urabrask in New Capenna and Sheoldred in Dominaria), a pretty kickass starting event (All Will be One) with the good guys on the back pedal. It felt like the build up to War of the Spark, if perhaps less 'legendary' and significantly creepier. All in all, huge stakes and shoes to fill, and I freely admit not everyone would be happy with how the story landed, but there was a lot of good put into it. Pacing: I cannot fathom how they thought one set would be enough. I know MTG has thrown the concept of three part blocks away, and whilst for the card game I can sort of agree it has issues, this is the one place I would have returned to that concept. If they can drip feed praetor tasks, we could linger on an event that encompasses THE ENTIRE MULTIVERSE. Even if it was 'Part 1: the War', and 'Part 2: the Finale', though 3 parts would have been better. Small snippets of the invasion make sense for Elspeth's waiting for the right moment to strike, or the amusing Necrowarfare. But as it stands, we never really felt the loss and grit these people had to go through to survive the threat, and that undermines the feeling. The problematic flavour text: 'Render Inert' similarly took any hopes I had for the set away. The oil has never been terribly consistent (how quick it acts, how much is needed, what it does), but I feel if without masters it could transform Argentum to Mirrodin and then New Phyrexia, it shouldn't just stop working like this. That was a pretty big slap to the face. Consequences: Whilst Aftermath is not out yet, it does not strip away the fact that losses within MotM of characters we follow have been scarce, and even undermine previous sets. We've lost Wrenn, Melira and Karn's spark, meaning the cure of phyresis isn't simple: but we've not only recovered Nissa and Ajani, but even have the will of Tamiyo live on. Card spoilers tell of us even more reversals of compleation, and I really don't like that. New Phyrexia is not killed but yeeted, making sure if need be, WotC can just pick it back up. Just like Bolas. Praetors: Sheoldred, Urabrask and Vorinclex were all done dirty, and don't even know if Urabrask died. Vorinclex should have wrestled with Garruk or met his match with Ikorian behemoths: we were SO close. Jin Gitaxias' falling to his own creation is somewhat neat, fell to his own hubris. This is the one death I can accept. Norn mostly is written well (chapter 1's POV is fantastic) but became a petulant child when faced with Elspeth. This, like the rest, needed time to breathe: we should have seen cracks in Norn's Glorious Facade (maybe seen as cracks in her porcelain?) before then, or otherwise stand resolute to her ideals, but outmatched. The good: The writing for the most part, as well as the art, are both pretty good. I adore Norn's Inquisitor's design most of all, and as mentioned before, chapter 1 is fantastic villain writing I will refer to in the future for d&d purposes. Summary: Great potential to be MTG's best storyline, squandered by giving it no breathing room, no major consequences, and an unsatisfying resolution. Yawgmoth and Urza's direct legacy in MTG is over.

The "Thalia was eaten by the Gitrog Monster" meme has been around since Gitrog came out, it's popular in the Canadian Highlander community. It's super cool to see in subtly referenced

You hit the nail on the head in my opinion, the sucked all the fear they built up of the enemies for a quick end. For "War of the Spark", I wish they let Bolas get his God powers, then have him instantly planeswalk away. You would have Bolas' allies asking, "wait... what? How did he do that, the Immortal Sun is still active." The super friends could ask them, "where did he go? Tell us, he must be stopped." But they don't know since Bolas never told them what would happen after the war. Then leave it there, the mystery of what Bolas could possibly be up to would stew and eat away at the reader. Maybe have small cameos every so often where he does something seemingly unrelated, building the mystery further.

7:44 - the true scriptures are the Phyrexian Scriptures that we got in the card of that name in Domanaria set in 2018. They are basically the scriptures of Yawgmoth, and have been translated by the community, who found that it reads the same as the flavour text on the card Dark Ritual from back in Urza's Saga. It reads: "From void evolved Phyrexia. Great Yawgmoth, Father of Machines, saw its perfection. Thus the Grand Evolution began." You were right in thinking that they're more true to the faith of the original Phyrexia and Yawgmoth's original orthodoxy. The black faction probably considers them to be a truth that is opposed to Norn's Argent Etchings, who in turn probably sees her works as building on top of Yawgmoth's vision. Of course, the true scriptures aren't actually correct either, since the original Phyrexia didn't evolve from the void, but was created from an artificial plane whose owner had died after it was handed over to Yawgmoth by Dyfed. Still it's a really neat callback and I'm glad they included it for my fav Phyrexian faction (Shelly is bae don't @ me).

Honestly part of the issue is that Phyrexia is a bit of a perfect villain, with the mere existence of the oil they can't really be defeated, and it makes it a lot more difficult to satisfyingly defeat them The one I wish they went for was Teferi going back in time to kill Yawgmoth and have a soft reboot of the story

I think the coolest way to end it was always for Urabrask to remain as a significant neutral faction controlling what remained of Phyrexia after the defeat. It’s a shame they didn’t go that way in some form.

I mean there was also Tamiyos death >:/ But nobody remembering her death scene shows how badly it was executed. And it pains me to see that the more interesting characters that are not normal fantasy tropes (especially meaning that they are none violent characters) are thrown away but the standard save choices remain....

This is the set where Toxic Deluge should have been reprinted

Invasion of Segovia is no doubt my favorite card of the set, since I imagined how do a invasion there hould just be... And the card answer perfect. The giant phyrexcian "feeth" inside the water being harassed by tiny fish and worms. A really angry worm that phyrexian can say... And I'm quite sure that Elesh norn looked at the size of the plane and said "Send just one of our regular soldiers, it will be enough" and the guy is being harrassed by a swarm of tine angels unable to properly walk do the worm around is feet and really stuggingle to do anything other than flails is arms around and hoping to it end soon.

Disappointed that we only got about 2 cards referencing lorwyn shadowmoor

I really hate how they dealt with actually defeating the invasion by just killing Norn instead coming up with anything more clever. Just kill the Borg Queen and instant win just feels lame.

Can’t believe Melira fell to the horrifying evil of Septicemia. I wonder if it’s going to be the next big villain 🤔🤔

The thing that disappointed me the most is we heard nothing of garruk. You know the guy that when he got cursed made inastrad tremble in his wake and beat the over loving shit outa chain veiled liliana, and now made it his mission to find and save the kenrith twins. Yeah that guy just doesn't show. Ik they wrote themselves into a corner with his power level but I think it would have been cinematic for him to show up pissed in a needed moment, or at least make a nod to the fact hes probably solo defending a plane out there.

It’s a shame we didn’t get Colossal Dredmaw and Colossal Dredmaw in March of the Machine, most anticipated combo of them all, but I guess it would have been too powerful.

Man remember when Wizards used the multi-set block structure to tell a story about a Phyrexian invasion and managed to hide the outcome of that invasion by teasing two potential names for the third set that determined the outcome God current Magic's structure fucks with how they tell stories now

Agreed... For me, the worst, is that they Did my Gurl Atraxa SOOOO Dirty. She could have been epic, I loved her so much I wrote an Entire Cover of One By Metallica for her. lol Great video, love your channel and insights.

This was so cathartic. I'd love for two-set blocks to come back, and I think two sets would have been enough for this one in particular. ONE was kind of the opening salvo, then the middle set for the low point, then the set for the grand finale

Yeah, I am with you. Somebody else mentioned the idea of making it 3 sets, and I agree with this. One idea I had, was to make hints and signs of defeating the oil earlier by using some actual counter measures, so we will not be forced to end with such a let such a let down. What I mean, would be things like showing the scientists of Kamigawa working on nanomachines that counteract the oil, made as a result of studying oil that remained from when Jin went there, writing a scene on Dominaria showing that many parts of the natural world there are actually resistant to oil based compleation, as a result of contact with earlier, less virulent precursors from the earlier, pre-mending invasions, show a flashback scene of Jace and Vraska(before the assault on New Phyrexia and their compleation of course), were they talk with Simic and Izzet researchers to create countermeasures against the oil, and show those counter measures in the story later, and a scene on Innistrad of Sorin working with some angels and demons to create artificial Halo. If you ask me doing this, combined with showing the wild mana of Shandalar destroying the oil, and the creatures of Ikoria adapting, would have allowed this to deal with the invasion without magically turning the oil inert after they dealt with Elesh Norn.

Really hard to dislike anything concerning Phyrexia; theyve always been my favorite. I started playing in zendikar, so Scars was the first set i got to experience fresh. I love seeing my favorite protagonists and Big Evil Group tm, but i agree that it needed like a whole block to itself. Honestly, I wanted to see Phyrexia on top.

In regards to invasion of Innistrad, during the innistrad side story which took the perspective of gissa and geralf, the oil could still “infect” the zombies but gissa could still control with a little more effort. Also phyrexia reanimation I like to think of them having to go through a whole process to turn to their side. Think venser, corpse puppet, wasn’t killed while he was infected so they had to modify the body themselves

I thought the praetor cards in MOM were meant to represent their beginnings, kinda like the flip planeswalkers from Origins. Vorinclex especially seemed much younger here than on his other cards, and I assumed the Sheoldred card was showing us what she was like before she got grafted onto a big bug.

So I've been playing magic for a long time now, and I can't help but make a certain comparison with MOM. And that's the three block Invasion cycle which was just...so much more impactful. The culmination of threads in the MtG storyline going back to Antiquities, an increased focus on multi-color cards, what I'm pretty sure was the fist instance of the wedges showing up in Apocalypse. The whole thing was a spectacle that really sold the dire straits our heroes were in. And MOM falls so short. I agree with you that it's not really the writing so much as the pacing, and that bringing back at least the two set blocks (I'd love a return to three myself, but I can understand how that might stretch ideas thin) would really, REALLY help the storyline a ton.

WOTC never fails at poor story writing. Nothing like building another ultimate bolas level story then just ending it abruptly with no pay-off. It's like no one at WOTC has ever seen a slasher movie so they think it's appropriate to kill the villain off in the first 20 minutes then just have the rest of the characters walk away and leave the film running for another hour.

I actually think it could've been a cool callback to the /original/ Phyrexia block if it was indeed split up in 3 arcs, and All will be One set up a little bit more of the invasion aspect - and also introduced the battles, where Phyrexia won all of them to secure their foothold in the Multiverse - then the second set would depict them having some /major/ wins, but also be equally interspersed with successful comebacks - and then the /last/ set would be the one where they were being greatly driven back. Kind of to echo how in this place's first appearance, we saw Mirrodin gradually convert into New Phyrexia - and here, we'd see things gradually convert back.

MTG story: Phyrexia is invading the entire multiverse, every day more and more ground is lost to those rotters, we can only achieve little victories and just making it to another day is the best we can do. MTG cards (esp. Battles): Lol get wrecked Phyrexia, get gud. Like, come on not even one plane fell to Phyrexia? No other planeswalkers? Basically WotC fumbled most of the whole storyline. At least with Spark War I could fool myself into believing it could happen in like a day or two, but MoM feels like it takes place both over a month and three days. No real sense of time as the set needed to both have the invasion and the finale in the same set.

It was very disappointing that it's over with so fast. You got all my thoughts about it

It's so weird, considering they could've milked it for years.

It feels like the Phyrexians were done dirty when this was supposed to be their big moment. All of this setup, grand plans, years of preparation by a planar faction that’s SUPPOSED to be hyper-intelligent, unstoppable, big and scary bad guys...and they’ve lost every single major war they’ve ever fought. If Phyrexia’s war record was 0-2 before, and they’ve just now failed to invade literally every plane in existence, that makes them 0-1,000,000 Gee, that sure is an intelligent and powerful villain

Its a small note, but Karn asked Teferi for a time bubble, and uses it to put his body back together- basically a few seconds pass for us but Karn gets some decent time to get the job done. Not sure why it had to be Karn and not someone else...

Wotc and ruining their own products, a truly iconic duo. This needed to be a multi set arc to truly finish. And I don't mean including dominaria united, and then brothers war setting up teferi and zhalfir. This needed to be stretched out so the story could breathe. And we needed actual stakes or deaths or something that matters going forward. Not just oh the oil is inert, phyrexia is locked away for later use teehee teehee, that they did, so that it can be brought back. There was a big deal, 30 years of build up! And it was finished in like 3 paragraphs. It was such an incredible let down.

I went to a pre-release blind, exited to see what cool Phyrexia cards there will be and see all the cool compleated cards. Then I opened my first pack and the first card I see is Mirrodin Avenged, a common and fairly bad card. All my excitement was immediately drained. Aside that I hate that all the Praetors just like, die? There wasn't much build up and they are just dead now...? Urabrask is "alive" still but like, Vorinclex gets decapitated by Named_Knight_32? It so underwhelming. I also don't understand where the mass amounts of Pryrexians came from? Like, it took *all* of Amonkhet's eternals to invade one other plane. But somehow Phyrexia is physically able to invade *ALL* other planes? Like Realmbreaker can do whatever, but the physical army to invade them? I don't see it. I guess that's why there is only one dude on Shandalar lmao

I will say I think the angels of the multiverse do have an explanation thanks to Serra's involvement. My theory is that as Serra's Realm was sundered by Yawgmoth, she used her Pre-Mending powers to bless angelkind with the power to rebuke Glistening Oil as a 5D chess move to prepare for the return of Yawgmoth in the form of Halo. It was a cool parallels to me. Still wish that we had more sets to show off Phyrexia compleating ass and taking planes

I feel like the legendary pairings did their best to add a color that at least one of the individuals in it wouldn’t normally have to make their unlikely cooperation flavourful

between Urabrask and Ixchel amongst other phyrexians, as well as the bits we get from the inner thoughts of the compleated walkers I kept thinking that they'd actually solve the phyrexian plot by usurping elesh norn and replacing her with a coalition lead by koth and urabrask, it felt like a bit of a nobrainner to me but now I see that was mostly wishful thinking. What gets to me about it I think is just how frequently we get told that the phyrexians are a mechanical parody of life, and clearly one that wants desperately to become life, to exist naturally, but because of how they were created initially it's been an uphill process, but we see more and more that with the help of the ambient energy that gifted them the four missing colours of mana and created that diversity of thought within them that they are starting to really come together as beings. I really think it would have been a lot more interesting if the phyrexians had been given the chance to grow and rehabilitate, with the compleated walkers having to carve their individually back out of the hardened dogma norn had forced on them

This could have been a years long event that changed the way we looked at Magic as a whole but no . Hey look over here another crossover event!!

While I’m definitely not as much of a magic story kind of person, I do agree. This would have been a perfect set to go “oh shit, everything awful is happening all at once. The Simic are the new overlords of Ravnica except they are more evil than ever, Kaladesh just got Mirrodin’d, and the Phyriexans are attempting to compleat the Moon on Innistrad.” And instead it just feels like they just lose everywhere immediately. I think the payoff was… okay-ish, but the leadup makes it feel like none of the big planeswalker action moments were even necessary because the Phyrexians were apparently just losing anyway.

I know it's disappointing... but I'm happy to see you if that helps!

The last time we had invasion of Dominaria it was set from Weatherlight to Apocalypse (with a short detour for Urza's Saga). It was 4 years, and after that we had aftermath in additional błock with Karona the False God. The story was complete. Now it is rushed, while it could last for 2 years.

As someone who started playing in 1995, I've almost away tried to piece together the story from the flavor text and art on the cards, even on sets that had published stories. You get this hazy picture, an incomplete story where you have to sort of fill in the blanks of what happened. I think it's far more satisfying to experience the lore that way rather than the novels or web releases, which have always been sub-par.

A single drop of oil from Karn created all this mess on Mirrodin to begin with, now it's inert because Iron Man blew up the ship? I mean Elspeth kills Elesh Norn...

Fellas remember that if you ever want to invade the multiverse, don't invade it all simultaneously. Gotta be a bit more patient than that

There was a Gisa and Geralf story from when the Eldrazi invaded Innistrad. I wonder if it was the same story with a few words changed.

It feels very much like more was initially planned for the set but then someone much higher up the ladder said it needed to be done quick for some reason, like maybe because WotC isn't being so great for Hasbro lately or because a LotR set was suddenly on the table...

Phyrexia losing on every plane not only makes them look like trash villains but it also makes our PW “heroes” (main characters) look like a bunch of clowns who can’t do anything right. Now that the multiverse is open for any character to travel, every plane should blacklist the Jacetice league from helping with any conflict since they can’t do anything besides make the situation worse

I've said it before, but if they really wanted some more emotional impact with their cards they could have made "Fblthp, forever lost" a compleated Fblthp. But people would legit riot. As it stands that lore of basically using Fblthp as a spider sense is fucking hilarious and so endearing. But yeah the story as a whole was a major disappointment. Especially annoying seeing the dissonance between cards and story. Like, the praetors got their a full cycle of their biggest best and last cards in the set, and glissa got a new card for the 2nd set in a row, and heliod got a compleated card. Yet in the story Elesh was the only one that did FUCKING ANYTHING, and they were all killed unceremoniously all in the span of less than a paragraph. AAAAAAAAAAA.

Your honest thoughts are so refreshing to hear. I have no drive to play this set at all...

One thing to note about the angels Atraxa was compleated by a combination of 4 of the praetors, I think it might have been the case that while the oil corrupts compleation still required surgery

I am surprised they didn't split the invasions into different sets like March of Machine: The Invasion of the Multiverse beings then it ended where Elash Norn opens the portals. I have listened the story it has so many plot holes that can't shrug it, I can't ignore it because I am a type of person that isn't bother by plot holes if it's hard to notice from the start. Anyways they could split like this March of the Machine: Invasion of Theros, Invasion of Eldraine, Ixalan while making Battles for each different places on for each of the planes. I wanted Urabrask to be in the story a lot more what they did, he could have been anti-hero than later on have sort of hero redemption that's what see him as a chaotic natural antihero in the story. What if the planeswalkers didn't straight up win? What if Urabrask started to show empathy toward the multiverse then putting his own plans on hold and getting his domain back while forming bounds with others and what if planeswalkers still exist form a brand-new team, sort of like the gatewatch but temporally then have the final climb climax. I don't know fleshing out Urabrask that way would make it interesting and make sense after we all know what he is, and I am not sure he still can be trusted to the multiverse. I wish he hasn't got taken down like Vegeta he is a twisted mind character but likeable one and I wish at the end he earns to be spare then be part of the multiverse and have a side story showing his empathy nature to the world. It would be sweet if he shows empathy toward an orphanage and now his daughter later on willing to be complete. I don't know I am not a writer of magic the gathering.

"I'm pissed off.. I'm pissed off.. it's such a letdown" me too buddy, me too, and that frustration and disappointment are well more than justified. Idk how they thought this was going to turn out well or what they were even thinking beyond trying to build enough completely hollow hype to maximize sales. I really didn't think it was even possible, but somehow they managed to mishandled this worse than Magic 30. 🤦🏽

It would have been really cool if instead of executing two of the praetors basically unrelated to the invasion and having the other two killed in an aside, the praetors sans Elesh Norn launched their own invasion to one plane each, then when the Zalfiri overlay happens back on New Phyrexia and Norn gets her comeuppance, the praetors are cut off but remain an active threat on those planes. Then the next time those planes are visited, the praetor can be either the antagonist or work with the antagonist of that set. Yes we got to meet the praetors on previous sets as individuals, but save for Sheoldred on Dominaria, their presence had to take a back seat to the introduction to the plane. Pretty much all of the Phyrexia forces we see in MoM and a lot in All Will be One were part of the Machine Orthodoxy so we didn't get that much of a chance to explore the other factions. Idk, just another possible missed opportunity in this whole mess

Those last fwe chapters almost felt like bullet points and I was pretty disappointed. Thankfully the limited environment's gameplay is fun is I can pretend I stopped after Vraska's chapter.

I think the Praetors are in their combat/invasion forms in the set. Drana and Linvala are Roommates. Baral and Kari i ship them both.

Let me fix this lore for you Wizards: Krenko is a title, not the name of the orc. I will be waiting for my check on the mail.

Yooo, Mr.Myr is back! I just found your content about 2 months ago and binged damn near everything in like 5 days :)

For me the biggest issue with the fact that the Phyrexians being so easy defeated is the fact that in my head canon the glistining oil was Yawgmoth's last gift/curse to the Multiverse that even if someone would have been able to defeat or destroy him his idea of perfection would forever be a curse that would spread across the Multiverse. If i would have been able to choose an ending i would have New Phyrexia lose but have the cost be much much higher and to close the story with the multiverse reeling from the conflict and on a spotlight card or chapter you end with a unknown far flung plane where the oil has allready started to infect a native lifeform to start to whole proces and then while everyone is celebrating Karn is by himself thinking about the endless war that has begon because Yawgmoth got his wish now even more planes have been infected and wonders if there is even a point to keep fighting but he chooses to fight on if only to protect the ones he cares for.

Phyrexians made such great antagonists. They could play "cunning manipulator" a la Bolas but were also this fundamentally eldritch force like Eldrazi. Instead they became... faceless robots to kill? *Innistrad got two sets for a wedding* but the culmination of one of MTG's original & most unique villains got one set - two if you count ONE, but narratively that focused more on PWers. Edit: I definitely agree that the "omens" card art was an incredible idea & would've been a cool hook for the first set of the invasion *block*

The Ikoria frame is supposed to be mix between old monster movie posters and comics iirc.

We wanted it and waited for so long.. and it arrived like a wet fart (story-wise). Like most, it's a fun set to Draft. The overhyped Battles are just transforming Planeswalkers with ETBs and no Loyalty abilities, that turn into normal stuff.. so cards with extra steps and giant walls of text. It's hard to take these 1-Sets seriously, when the story stinks.. and it affects everyone's enjoyment of the cards as well. To me, the worse one is Kamigawa, it places Stun Counters.. a mechanic NOT present in the plane. As with everything new-Kamigawa, they just don't understand it.

The problem was killing urabrask. He was the most interesting praetor and held the possibility of a new new phyrexia which wasn't all about just assimilating everything in the multiverse. The essence of phyresis is progressive evolution and improvement thru iteration. It would have been such a resonant thematic statement for phyrexians to change from the black aligned origins under yogmawth, to the 5 color aligned new phyrexia held together by elesh norn, to finally a stable iteration of red aligned phyrexians who share their plane with non-phyrexians, guided by urabrask. Then you can, instead of killing all the phyrexians, recontextualize them as a new species of the multiverse which can coexist within it. And phyresis becoming more of a voluntary undertaking rather than a borg style hivemind.

I definitely agree that this should have been two sets; WOTC seems to be afraid of having more than two sets dealing with one plot line. Instead of one big killswitch of making the plane go "poof," they could have used the fact that Shandalar seemed to purify the Phyrexians as their way of defeating them.

Imagine if the phyrexians just won. And then the next few planes are stories of how that plane fights off the phyrexians individually! Praetors are disposed of in the same order they arrive. That would work!

Just really wished Phyrexia had longer to flesh out (no pun intended). It's been Magic's big bad since Yawgmoth. I wanted to see even more development of each of the praetors, their societies, and just have them take more time to breathe and expand. Yeah, we had some huge stakes like several of our planeswalkers losing their spark, but like, Nahiri, for example just kinda woke up back in her body and is just chillin'? Either give them more time staying compleated to help build up more drama over more sets, or have something more than just, "Poof, she's just ok now." Idk. Just feels the Praetors got done dirty too soon. Would have been neat to see the entire MTG universe submit to the big bad for a while and seeing some of the remaining planeswalkers / other universes suffer prolonged challenges before striking back.

I feel the way the Phyrexians went out here can only be summed up with a modified DBZA quote: "When you go to stop the Phyrexians, tell them I said, like a b*tch"

The best thing is that yargle is back

I think that it made sense that the Phyrexians didn't make a successful invasion because most of the Preators fought against each other rather than working together. I think they would have won if they did. But what sucks is even if you compare this to the Eldrazi, this threat had no stakes and was virtually nothing in comparison. Then again I might be biased because I was hoping the Phyrexians would win and then the multiverses would have to live in hiding or something.

I believe the Tarkir art is supposed to be parchment depictions. When I saw the Goreclaw one, it struck me as a cave painting.

Honestly I wish Magic story came out bit by bit every week. 50~ chapters a year would afford each premiere set 12~ chapters to tell its story, or a bit less if sets like Conspiracy took up some weeks. This way we would "remain" on the world for a couple months more than waiting for a set and its story to come out, have it come out, and immediately have it done with in some 2-3 weeks. Maybe I'm quite wrong here but it seems like the most you can do without set blocks.

Krenko got turned into Shrek’s younger cousin.

Wrenn, Melira, & Halo coming together to make some sort of reverse phyresis infection of realm breaker would have been so much more cool to me. Maybe it could even forcibly turn phyrexians into something they view as horrifying in the way normal people are scared of phyresis & you could have a story of Elesh Norn trying to rip away the normal bits as her porcelain shatters?

They also did the same thing with strixhaven frames that they did on kaladesh. Where you now have creatures in the mystical archive spell frame.

I'm upset all my favorite planeswalkers were just forgotten basically in the story as a whole or got super minor roles when I feel they could have been better utilized. Like if I add up all my favorite planeswalkers "screentime" in this story its like maybe a page at best. Which is super dishearten to the point I don't even feel like buying singles and just want to quit the game as a whole.

You are my favorite MTG RU-vidr and every time you release a new video it makes my whole week. I agree that this set could have benefited from being a 2 or 3 set block, BUT I truly loved the “Wrenn and Eight” story and I will never not adore the image of a bunch of Mirrans tossing Wrenn back and forth like a football trying to get her to Realmbreaker. Keep it up!

Had the story been better paced, it could have followed a traditional 3 act structure. P1 - All Will Be One P2 - March of the Machines P3 - Zhalfir Returns (And honestly, they could have made some marketing spins at Newer players that don't know much about Old Walker Lore to imply Zhalfir was a person only until the last moment reveal Zhalfir is a Grand Kingdom & had an Elite Army ready in reserve for battle.)