What The Aftermath Reveals About the Future 

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I feel like the writers kinda just… forgot… about Calix after Theros and then just remembered him after they had finished writing all the stuff for Elspeth.

If any plane gets a "we are rebuilding" story, it should be Amonkhet. Seriously though they should have set Aftermath after a time skip forward of at least 2 years so we can see how each plane was changed after recovery.

"Did you get the Gruulfriends back together?" "Yes." "What did it cost you?" "...Dinobots." :(

Since Thassa is likely gone, I'm surprised they didn't have Kiora become the new sea god of Theros.

LRR and Rhystic Studies did an amazing job, as per, but my jaw was practically on the floor when it became clear that WotC decided the middle of a commander game was the best place to drop highly relevant, exclusive plot info.

The concept of an aftermath/consequence set is really good. The execution here was poor. Far too many cards feel like the "aftermath" is basically "these people are rebuilding" (which is an absolute given) and "this character is still alive" (which is nice, but doesn't feel like it is much). We needed more cards like The Kenrith's Royal Funeral. That shows much more true consequences. I'd have liked to see a card showing how some of the Theros gods died and the consequences of that (especially since we didn't really have a Theros side story). One of the New Capenna stories in MOM showed how the Maestros have mostly fallen to the Phyrexians. Maybe a card showing the power vacuum left there (or at least the imbalance it may have created) Hell, if they wanted so many cards about "this plane is rebuilding" they could have shown a conflict between a leader who wants to go back to the way things were and another who wants to build better and to assume there will be more invasions like this coming.

I feel that the novels they wrote for the first Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria (the Invasion block) did a much better job of wrapping things up than Aftermath did for this most recent invasion. Epilogues work much better as a few extra chapters at the end of a book than whatever you want to refer to the Aftermath set as.

Before yall go on about Khans being better ponder this. We get back a 3 color Tarkir but not by removing Dragonlords but by having Dragonriders. Zurgo and Ojutai already joined forces once. And Dragonriders of Tarkir sounds something that would both appease those that want khans back while maintaing the dragons that many others also like.

I actually think that the version of Elspeth that the people on Theros want to see is going to manifest as a god while Elspeth is on other planes. That could lead to Elspeth seeing the “perfect” version of her that the people of Theros have put on an altar and she has to come to grips with the fact that she is not who these people think she is and she has flaws (or views herself as having flaws) that others don’t see

I really liked the emperor's unstable spark, it made her character really interesting with many story potentials. Now, she's just a regular badass in her plane. Atleast she's not stuck in the eternities anymore

As the owner of a Sultai Rat Colony Deck I have to thank WOTC for making a card specifically for me.

Gold-Forged Thopteryx is the most interesting card to me from this set because the flavor text implies that Hualti made it, on her own, based on things she learned from Saheeli. While its been established that Hualti is a poet/warrior scholar, it was never explicitly stated she was that much of a tinkerer outside of building her own armor. If this card is any indication we might get Hualit with a blue pip which Im personally excited to see myself. Love that character.

I agree with your point that Magic needs to narrow the scope of their storytelling. I don't think short web fiction and flavor text on cards is designed to handle MCU-level universal conflicts. Hell, even the MCU can't handle it that well. I really liked the Nissa Aftermath story because of this exact contrast: it's focused on a single character, her trauma of being physically and mentally altered against her will to be a weapon of the enemy, and her and Chandra learning how to effectively (finally!) communicate their feelings to each other. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I wish more Magic stories would focus on these types of story beats rather than "the next evil guys are destroying the universe we gotta do something" kinda stuff.

feast of victorious dead's flavor text isn't literally straight from their mouths, but paraphrased sarcastically by someone else, which is why its my favorite flavor text in the mini-set

You know what would've been really dope? Having a "super duper short story" about one of the cards in each pack taking up the ad card slot. Then, they could give what amounts to longer flavour text to the cards that can't fit them.

I had no idea that the Locust God and Scarab God were helping Hezzoret to some extent until the battle for ahmenket card lol and I'm really interested in how that is playing out

I want a Jace driven expansion about him returning home, highlighting Jace's Dad.

Good to see you've added my boi Quint to your opening 🥰 We have learned that Will and Rowan lost theirs. This set definitely fell short by a long shot in tying up numerous loose ends. Ixalan was the last and one of the greatest without a doubt

I agree that Magic stories seem to work a lot better with smaller, more personal stories than multiversal threats. Though I am very curious what happened to Jace and Vraska, especially Jace. He had some job to do and just disappeared from the story, so I think that could definitely be an interesting thread to pull.

Rocco's card art has an Atraxa kite in the background, which I think is neat

Even mere mention of Heroscape makes me irrationality delighted. Thank you for making my day!

We still have yet to hear of Kasmina and her shadowy cabal's doings behind the scenes, prolly the next big conflict or the one following it

OK, I don't know what to make of it... but did not expect a *HeroScape* reference in an MA video. Props on the shout-out!

Love the Heroscape callout. One of my favorite games ever haha.

Nashi's new card just reminds me that the one thing Neon Dynasty didn't give me that I really wanted was more rat and other tribal pay-offs. Hopefully they'll show up when we revisit.

Hello Ryan, hello Nicole! Hope you're doing great

With everything going on, I find it both only slightly frustrating that Jace is left without any genuine information as to where he's at, and at the same time terrified. At first I was bothered they wouldn't share any details that one of Magic's true Faces, well known by just about anyone, was not even so much as mentioned outside of the story to "Elesh Norn tasked him with 'something' and that was it", but the more I've sat on this knowledge, the more terrifying it is to imagine that the only person who is aware of where Nicol Bolas is located, with all of his spellcasting now behind the mindset of someone actually unhinged and prepared to do whatever is necessary, if Jace is still Phyrexian that is? If he is still Compleated, he is about to become one of the most dangerous villains the multiverse has potentially seen due to his power set backing it up. I'm also interested to see what comes next for Tezzeret now that his body is fixed up, or if he got messed up as well with the events of March of the Machine. Either way, a bright day today for the multiverse, but I sense this will be a dark future looming ahead as we move forward.

For the Sarkhan and Narset problem, I love Narset, but I agree with Sarkhan, I love that the Dragonlords are in charge of Tarkir.

Ngl, if they were to adapt an MTG block into an animated series, Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan would be perfect. They've got it all: romance, adventure, amnesiac protagonists, lost cities, dinosaurs, (everything's better with) pirates, conquistador vampires, and hints of greater games being played to leave room for a sequel.

Definitely agree with your conclusions and reflections in the last part of the video!

I agree with waht you say in 18:56, but to be fair, Jace and Vraska was part of the Bolas story arc. I think the problem comes with the "climax" story sets. It had issues, but I loved the stories of the Gatewatch, but War of the Spark was a dissapointment. Likewise, I think that the buildup to the phyrexian invasion was good, with some smaller stories in the middle, but March of the Machine and Aftermath lacked impact

Guess Kaito is glad to have his childhood friend/emperor back on their home plane

And still no hinting at what happened to Jace!

1:58 ... Hasbro turned MTG into a Sliders TCG

A new idea magic could try? Having a cohesive story with good media coverage instead of the varying mess we get every set

That kind of rupture implies soul-tampering power of the absolute highest order. Makes me wonder if we won't end up with a future card that's basically a reconstituted fragment of Yawgmoth or Leshrac, far weaker than their peak power, but not dead and gone either. Either one of them could be the kind of thing that motivates anyone in the area to try and stop them before they can recover their strength and become planeswalkers again, or dark gods again. Seems like a large scale invasion by phyrexia would provide the connections needed to draw the level of power it would take to give those fallen terrors cpr.

Excellent, as always. Thank you.

I wish Magic Arcanum would be quality department of wizard's mtg story telling team and review all theirs works. All your videos give great feedback about plotholes and simillar issues which I spotted too.

I'm so happy everytime you upload,i really am,thanks Ryan!!!!

I believe that planeswalkers should now become extremely powerful, no like before the mending, but related to it. Because it makes sense that with the omenpaths they're able to draw mana like before.

The concept of a few cards with story implications and mechanical/theme from the year would be neat on a more accesible way. If this new cards would go with a bunch of reprints, like a Core set with a twist for example; could go. Or a not draftable jumpstart like (the new with a few cards from the year)... there are ways to improve it.

Speculation time: I think that since the 5 gods of Theros are gone it wouldn’t shock me to see the 5 Demigods that we got from Beyond Death ascending to Godhood perhaps

I'm new to magic. I've had bad experiences in the past with players who felt the best way to teach was to mock and curb stomp (it happened 3 times in different states & different people so I assumed it was normal for the fandom), but I started picking it up during AFR due to a friend explaining it to me. All through 2021 I could keep up with sets and the story and it was a good pace. Last year it seemed a new line released MONTHLY and the bump in prices and I couldn't keep up. Excluding Universes Beyond, I would prefer less big sets during the year with smaller sets tying up lose ends or bridging the stories. Give me time to process the story and see what cards I like instead of the rapid-fire approch of Dominaria United-> MOM (Or double sets similar to MID & VOW. My partner, who stopped playing around Invasion, said it reminded him of the old blocks) (Also, I have to depends on target or walmart for cards & the venders have told me they limited the orders on magic because there's been so much lately. The ENTIRE section in my local stores is 80% pokemon, 15% Yugioh, and 5% random (dbz, digimon, ect) - magic gets a couple bundles and maybe a peg or two of boosters and thats IT until the next set.

Deification is probably how we see Callix face to face with Elspeth. Elspeth should go find Daxos too.

Hope Niambi gets to see Zhalfir

It's so weird that lore tidbits are in a Commander gameplay video not in the official RU-vid channel of the company,,,

LRR did a story bit on the wandering emperor? I watch them regularly (but not everything obviously) and didn't realize they had done this. Guess it shows how well it was advertised? Or maybe I just missed it

There were a lot of "Siege of" cards that were planes that no one has ever heard of.

The demons on Kamigawa aren't like the typical demons we know from Dom, New Capenna etc They are essentially just spirits that consume other spirits *at least that's what I read, back in the og kamigawa novels. I believe our recent fav neon city plane would face other problems instead; - the ongoing Traditionalist vs Techno-revolutionist is still unresolved - the merging of the spirit realm and the mortal realm (collusion of two world eques) Either way, I'm definitely looking forward to future stories, we are blessed with many talented writers.

ok so i could be massively off base here but i felt the "render inert" part of the ending was more that phyerexia was being "phased out" and less "elesh norn biting the dust". because in my head it makes a bit of sense that the sorta "hivemind" that they have been pushing the last couple of set that is the phyrxians are would stop working on all the other plans with phyrexia being in time out. at least that was the take i got from the cards/story bits i read.

Cálix got the Vivien Treatment, haha

I *love* the idea of mini-sets, but this was handled in such a way to bungle everything. It would be cool if it were offered in LGS-es as a full set, not just the sad excuse for having booster packs that we got.

Make Tarkir Khans Again!

Was the teacher phyrexian before or after the "reset" spell went off? I can't recall.

Wow desparking the Emperor is crazy. One of the more interesting new walker whose story has so much more potential

I think the problem is they hire too many writers and then don't have anty of them communicate with each other causing.... Whatever MoM was. If they hired a lore master/editor to direct the flow of the story itd probably make way more sense

"Were the khans more interesting? Let us know down in the...khanments." I heard what you did there at 4:42.

See, and here i thought i was the only one who had a problem with Feast of the Glorious Dead's flavor text

Maybe I’m still new to the game, but Nashi caring about stuff in the graveyard while having Black and Green in his colors checks out for me. That’s the Golgari’s whole thing. Not that he’s affiliated with the Golgari, just, you know, mechanically.

I can hear commentary from Statler and Waldorf about this set: "'Aftermath'? More like 'Afterthought'!"

Remember Niko? You know, the nice NB that wanted to help people and explore the multiverse after defying their fate on Theros? I don’t think WOTC does. At least Ashiok is gonna be back and hopefully be explained since I was irked by their absence in MOM as well. I also really really hope to see a set for Zhalfir sooner rather than later. It’s definitely giving us a massive tease with how the plane was changed in MOM. The conflict seems obvious and straightforward given how now that the danger is passed and the people can “appreciate” the situation they’re in, it’s a natural course of action to be quite pissed at Teferi. Imagine being cut off from the rest of the world for what you thought was 10 years, only to find out it was actually 300 and it’s now semi permanent. Throw in a few instigators who are really xenophobic (possibly even Kaervek) towards the Mirran refugees (who might I remind you came from the same plane as the phyrexians, so some of these bigots might go “guilt by association” many bigots in the real world tend to do). It seems like an interesting conflict that a newly desparked Teferi would have to deal with as he tries to prevent a civil war from breaking out on the home he only now just got back. Peace is a fragile thing, after all.

the story said that plainswalkers that where "infected" & cured lost a spark, there for having a card that removes the spark from any/all plainswalkers dose not fit the story but fits with the fact that sparks where removed. Not so much in consistent as we are missing part of the story as to how they are connected in lor

As an UN-set lover I don't mind tiny sets, but this seemed kinda tacked on at the end in a rush--after what seemed a like a year or more of rush with no real support game-wise (you can't really draft 5-card packs) or story-wise (I could very easily have seen 20-ish short stories/vignettes featuring the resolutions and futures of various people and planes). More flavor text could have helped as well.

@13:35 what is their INT?

Was really hoping for a BIT more on Alara. I get it isn’t one of the big popular areas, but we got a nice little tease before so I expected somethin’ somethin’ to build on it.

It's interesting to see that even the old walkers like nahiri can be affected by the sudden spark loss, I'm really curious to see how Sorin and Liliana end up

I feel like Spark Rupture was supposed to represent the new Mending, but interestingly enough, the Mending didn't depower existing "God Tier" planeswalkers much, only the newly born or those who performed The Mending rituals. Nichols was an exception cause he was imprisoned at that time and his prison was contingent on his Spark, so they used it as a means of Deus Ex Dragonica for him. Plus, even if I hate The Mending story aspects, it actually was a story. The Spark Rupture didn't even get said to have truly happened besides those who openly sacrificed their Sparks for others/the worlds they hailed from. I wonder if, mechanically, they are trying to move away from the constant Planeswalker drops in the game, and turning them into what they used to be, hyper rares, and this was a story reason to get them numerically lowered. As The Mending (Time Spiral trilogy) was the start of them playing with adding Planeswalker cards or should say, the initial iterations of their playtest into the game, before the full formal addition. That canonical depowering allowed the players (who are Planeswalkers) to summon other Planeswalkers. I would like state that Wizard's can make those grand multiversal spanning stories by raising you the entirety of the Thran Epoch (Urza's Saga Trilogy + the Dominarian side stories + Weatherlight Saga.) Though we know some of the novels that encompassed everything from Ice Age to Time Spiral were bad, when it hit, they hit and they hit hard. The story of the crew of the Weatherlight, Barren and Urza, Karn and Xantcha, even Yawgmoth and Gix, were better and lasted longer than War of the Spark and The New Phyrexian Invasion, combined. WotC can tell those stories, they just don't because they believe in the current mindset of pump out set after set after set faster than they can give their writing staff time to create a coherent, cohesive, and capable story. If they returned to set blocks, I think they would have a better time with keeping on task and making good stories to go with their game. It has been the lack of good story that has kept me from caring about the game, as I don't get to play, I tend to just collect. I was super excited to see the return to Dominari, the Brother's War... and then saw the atrocity of the stories and the shitty cards, and just threw my hands up in the air.

I'm hoping the paths give us a chance for slivers to apear in the story. Like imagine we finally learn about the where they're originally from

I love lrr but a commander game with lore put into it was wild I wonder if that was a wotc mandate

And Ugin and Bolas are ... where right now, i don't think we saw Jace die, so he's likely the next leader for phyrexia, post preators. But really, did he put the meditation gem in a box somewhere and write a letter in case he died, does he still have it, have the writers forgotten it exists like they did with Ashiok's involvement in the second half of this ark, who knows?

Aftermath looks more like a “how do we justify trying to sell less product for more money” and the bandaid of it being a “missing narrative piece” being slapped on it. And while aftermath might have seemed like a good idea to push profits at a board meeting, in actually it’s left MUCH to be desired. The fact that most of the cards don’t even have flavor text shows the true intention of why this product was created. It is a predatory market test.

I have a hard time figuring out how long this war went on. THe story seemed to imply it raged forever, but everything happened ne after another on new Phyrexia, so did it last hours or days or weeks?

I'm here for the end of the planeswalker super type.

The Niv Mizzet Taco Bell joke made pause the video because I couldn't stop laughing. Nice one!

While it would be unsatisfying I still wish they would have given us at least a throw away line about halo nullifying the oil or something

I think this could have been a good idea, but it was poorly executed, for the same reason you mentioned. I do hope they return to Tarkir soon, I miss the setting.

I'm still wondering what happenned to the myrs/urtet, I really hope they havent been banished with the rest of the Phyrexians....

Always love your vids! I will drop a word of apology for Feast of the Victorious Dead, I'd say the flavor text sounds rather like a comment one of our mopey planeswalkers would say to complain about these dead being annoying : )

Were Plargg and/or Nassari compleated? I know Shaile was chased the kids, but I don't recall those two being mentioned.

Ixalan story was so funny, just charming characters in a wacky race, one could easily forget it was still a tie in to the Bolas arc. Magic's Big Bads perform so much better in the background. The buildups to WAR and MOM were cool. Conclusions and epilogues were… questionable. Let's hope the next arc does NOT lead to another "war". Small scale favors character development, world building and overall more engaging narratives.

DID YOU JUST SAY HEROSCAPE?!?!? 20:47

Why did Ob-Nixillis go back to Capena? He forgot his keys.

I think there's a middle ground here. There can be build up across multiple sets to a "Big Bad" and a final showdown, but it probably just needs to be on a smaller scale than MOM, and maybe even a bit smaller than WAR. They are trying to bring together every thread they have in the game, and it's not feasible, and someone will always end up disappointed.

A team Narset versus Team Sarkhanset would be amazing. Dragons vs Khans Natural story telling right there

*adjusts monocle and gestures with cane*: in my day...planeswalkers were un-aging godlike beings who wielded great power and commanded creatures, armies, and lands...now they are just a bunch of random mages or whatever.

I liked MOM and Aftermath. Looking forward to more stories

So Calix is the MCU Adam Warlock of MTG universe? 😂

Speaking of odd flavor text anyone going to mention the flavor text of teysa karlov from March of the machine?

I liked the idea of the aftermath since the phyrexian invasion and phyrexia itself was a massive event rooted at the start of magic itself. But they did it no good. It was alright to see how some planes ended up but it sounds pretty similar all over. I expected in the upcuming sets to see how each plane handled the remnants of the phyrexian invasion and fights the oil on their way. But I also wanted epic fights on different planes for each preator (or mabye some plotting to rebuild phyrexia in the shadows being smashed by chance). In the end I have to agree: pls dont show us how each plane rebuilds!

My personal favorite stories are ones that are self contained A plots with an ongoing B plot leading to a massive climax like MOM and WAR. Kaladesh, Ixalan, and Amonkhet had their main stories, but all ended up tied to Nicol Bolas, through the Planar Bridge, Immortal Sun, and Eternal Army and the capabilities of Lazotep.

Did they ever cross into the Homelands plane? It would have been cool to see Baron Sengir lead a vampire army or something.

Great content.

Were the fudge is tezzeret!

Aftermath had the potential to be better, if they treated it more like a premium product. Cards that would be highly sought after, flavorful reprints in new contexts (like Training Grounds), and there should be no "bad" cards, seeing as this is not a draft product. If they had made each pack a small treasure trove, it would've been perfect.

I am a pretty big fan of the site. obviously wouldn’t be sad if it was cheaper than it is, but already it’s cheaper than normal magic and it only removed the cards I would probably toss anyway. And obviously I want more stories, but I was a big fan of the two we got. I would say very good all around. Could always be better but I’m very happy with it.

I’m a bit annoyed that simply displacing New Phyrexia and Elesh Norn just “turned off” all the Phyrexians. I get that they were commanding all of it, but originally it was the oil itself that slowly corrupted planes and caused things to turn, yeah? It shouldn’t just “go inert”. At best it’s having some kind of shock from being cut off from the intelligence guiding it, but I will be disappointed if Phyrexians don’t rise again, slowly corrupting every plane the oil remains on.

I think if they get a good leader writer to bring the team of writers together they could do wonders. Hopefully the listen to the fan base about how this story wasn’t that good and improve and do it again.

you forgot the meta lore of the set: the pinkertons

Personally, I felt that the Aftermath should be a main set with the amount of story telling power it has. I’m left with so many questions, and I find it hard to see where we go from here, which is unfortunate. My thought was that if they merged the Present Timeline story of Brothers War with the Dominaria United set, they could make ONE and MOM main sets still, then make Aftermath a main set, and have The recap of the Brothers War as an “epilogue” set. This gives writers a chance to explore the story of Aftermath more while also reminding us about the brothers war and how that matters to present day.