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Episode 264: You Say You Want an Invasion?
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Before we dive into today's episode we wanted to highlight that September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Hobbes has been continuing to train for the Twin Cities Marathon (running to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) and has released an intro video with Drew from Show and Tell
Taya and Alex are back to talk about the Weatherlight Saga with a focus on the Invasion Block story. The story of the hero Squee and some other people fighting Phyrexia.
link: https://multiverseinreview.blogspot.com/
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources including how to join our Discord
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Recommended
Transcript
Hobbs Q's Marathon and Mental Health Awareness
00:00:00
Speaker
are
00:00:11
Speaker
are
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers. This is Hobbs Q. I haven't seen most of you for a little while as I've been taking a break from the show, as you know, to focus on the Twin Cities Marathon and my training for that.
00:00:41
Speaker
Just really stepping back in some ways from a lot of my relationship with magic, just due to kind of the the speed of product, just kind of focusing on mental health and my own taking care of myself, self-care and self-compassion work.
00:00:55
Speaker
I just wanted to update you all that am raising money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. And I also have a marathon project, the first video of which will be listed in the show notes of today's episode.
00:01:11
Speaker
I know that Taya mentions it during her introduction, but I just wanted to say to everybody because I've missed you all. I am also continuing to raise funds for the Twin Cities Marathon.
00:01:22
Speaker
Well, for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, as September is Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. So I will have the links to all of that in the show notes the description for today's episode.
00:01:33
Speaker
Thank you for allowing me to have some space. Thank you.
Exploring Magic Stories: From Lorwyn to Invasion
00:01:36
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. This is Taya. Taya transcends on Blue Sky, or you can find me on the Goblin Lore Discord.
00:01:47
Speaker
And today we're going to start um doing something we'll be doing probably until Lorwyn comes out and looking back at some old magic story. um But before that, I'll let um Alex introduce himself, and then we've got some more upkeep to do. Yay!
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, I'm Alex. i am My pronouns are he, him. You find me in the Goblin Lord Discord. I am still not really active on other social media things.
00:02:17
Speaker
um The first thing I want to talk about is it's September, which is Suicide ah Prevention Awareness Month, and Hobbs is currently... um preparing for a marathon, uh, which is, uh, and he is running, uh, to support, uh, suicide prevention awareness. Uh, and he's got a fundraiser for that.
00:02:39
Speaker
Um, he'll be, uh, he'll link that in the show notes when he posts the show. Um, but, uh, Yeah, if you can support that, that'd be great. And, you know, we'll be talking a bit about mental health this ah during this month, i have some points that can discuss during today's episode later as we get into the story.
00:03:00
Speaker
But we're going to start with ah since we're going to be discussing it, um we're going to add the today's question is, what's your favorite Weatherlight character or Weatherlight Saga character?
00:03:11
Speaker
ah For me, ah it's hard to choose exactly between Miri and Hannah, but I guess I'm going to have to go with the cat um overall.
00:03:24
Speaker
ah They both get shafted in the story um as female characters tended to do in that era.
00:03:36
Speaker
Um, but, ah I do, um, you know, Miri is a cat warrior from Dominaria. Uh, she joined the Weatherlight crew with her best friend, Gerard.
00:03:49
Speaker
Um, she was the first one to realize Crovax had turned into a vampire uh, gets killed for it, uh, eventually. So, um,
00:04:03
Speaker
But ah i have ah I have a Miri deck. It's cats with swords. ah You know, she's a lot of fun. Miri Weatherlight Duelist was some pretty sweet art.
00:04:15
Speaker
ah yeah But that's my answer for the question. From the commander's step, at least both ah Hannah and Mary did eventually get good cards. Hannah's first card was, I think, was good to start with. miri Mary's first card was okay.
00:04:31
Speaker
It was bad. ah That's fair. it was It was okay for, like I don't know playback then maybe? you know Yeah. yeah But yeah, the the eventually um the green-white, the green white commander one that you use is is a good card.
00:04:47
Speaker
I mean, there's the Plainer Chaos one is is interesting, and I have in one of my Vintage Artist Constructed decks.
00:04:56
Speaker
But for for my answer, dude, I'm going to go with Tengarth. um and for For some reasons that later in, like ah early on, like we'll kind of get into it a little bit, Invasion was one of the first times that when I really was when I was really started to notice and pay attention and care about the story and magic. Before it was like little and know the little comments and things, but the story of magic was essentially and out of the story of Dark Souls. and you You get a little bit in an item description, you get a little bit in flavor text on ah on a card, and it was neat, but it wasn't something I cared about a lot.
00:05:34
Speaker
But the invasion cycle changed that. And I'd say Tengarth was not probably my favorite character early on. um But by the end, I really liked, especially into Apocalypse, there was there was a lot of stuff going on with him that I really liked his character ah by the end.
00:05:53
Speaker
Just, yeah, as as as the sort of forces I get, as as we'll get into as we're talking about the story, these particular sets. But by the end of this, there was a the fight was getting more and more desperate for the Dominarians by the end.
00:06:08
Speaker
and Yeah, yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
Garth plays a big role in sort of one of the story cards that I think had it been... yeah had they had this back then, it would have probably called his story Spotlight card for that set.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, probably. And he's overlooked, largely. he's He's like the forgotten member of the Weatherlight crew.
Attending Command Fest Tacoma
00:06:32
Speaker
um But ah yeah, so um one more thing want to discuss is that Alex and I will both be at Command Fest Tacoma at the end of October.
00:06:44
Speaker
um So if you're going to be there, it'd be great to get some games in. We'll keep talking about it up till then. But I'm very excited i since I won't get to go to Atlanta. um But Tacoma is kind of in my backyard. So we're going to be there for Saturday and Sunday at least.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, i'm I'm really excited. It was fun. Like I have not been able to go to a magic convention since the one that was here a couple of years ago that you came out for, which was great. And then but that you came up for the ah SCG event this year that was in Minneapolis, which was a lot of fun. And that got me looking and realized there was a commander, ah Command Fest in Tacoma. And I've been wanting to go out to that area um for a while. That's just been on my list of places I'd like to visit. So it's worked out really well.
00:07:30
Speaker
It'll be a lot of fun.
Invasion Storyline and Yawgmoth's Experiments
00:07:33
Speaker
Great. So before we get into the main topic of this cast, which is the invasion story, I'm going to go over a little bit of background to how we got there.
00:07:44
Speaker
ah And this really goes all the way back to um the Thrawn story, which is where Yawgmuth originates from ah and the beginning of the Phyrexian corruption.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's really kind of the first story of magic. then Right. To an extent where they even sort of retrofit antiquities. It came out later. Yeah. It came out after the Weatherlight Saga started, but it is kind of the beginning of the main magic storyline.
00:08:20
Speaker
We have events that occur before that, like the Elder Dragon War, but we know almost nothing about it. Yeah. And that that was kind of the one of the first times and they had some books and things that came out before, but it was one of the first times where they're really like, OK, here's a story that ties to the specific sets that are releasing now was around the the Weatherlight Saga.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, to... Which culminates with the invasion cycle. um Yeah, that's the first time we got really cohesive block-to-block
Urza's Battle Against Phyrexians
00:08:50
Speaker
story, um starting with Tempest.
00:08:53
Speaker
ah Before that, story was kind of an add-on, and it was told mostly through supplemental products like comic books and... um And some short story collections and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
ah But Weatherlight started the real story. And you know going back chronologically to the Thrawn heir, Yawgmoth was a self-described eugenicist. So we're off to a really great start with how wonderful this guy is.
00:09:22
Speaker
um ah And he was a medical practitioner who was the Thrawn was a race of artificers. So he was banished from them ah until they started being affected by Phithus, which um they had no cure for. So they brought him back and.
00:09:42
Speaker
he starts kind of taking over society. He he keeps working himself into more and more power. And eventually, uh, they find out he's been doing medical experiments on people. He's, uh,
00:09:56
Speaker
turning, um making the first Phyrexians essentially. And at the end of the story, ah him and his Phyrexian abominations get sealed away on the plane that becomes Phyrexia and locked out of Dominaria for several thousand years until, um you know, best boy Urza and Mishra let him back in or let the Phyrexians back in.
00:10:23
Speaker
So, um, during during the brothers war, which they kind of retrofit the set of antiquities to be about. Yeah.
Weatherlight Crew's Adventures
00:10:32
Speaker
Um, so we get, uh, the Phyrexian, that's when the Phyrexian kind of first invasion starts with Gix, uh, bringing over, um, and taking over Mishra and Urza ends that invasion with the Silex blast, which causes the ice age and all kinds of other wonderful problems for Dominaria,
00:10:52
Speaker
ah It creates the the shard that I mentioned in passing during our Edge of Eternity ah like story coverage. ah So the magic story basically for the next thousand several thousand years is Urza fighting the Phyrexians in various places. ah And while he's doing this, he is also...
00:11:16
Speaker
running the timelines project, which is um selective genetic engineering to modify the perfect soldiers to fight against Phyrexia. Yes, this is, and then he's building like the legacy, which which is part of where I once described Urza as the Bene Gesserit meets Hoarders, Dominaria edition. Yeah.
00:11:38
Speaker
Because he he's kind of running, he's running multiple projects. And as we see, the invasion block is kind of the, a bunch of those come to fruition. This is when he just initiates a bunch of those things. But like you said, they get the bloodline thing where he has this like family breeding, the sorry, the bloodline project.
00:11:56
Speaker
yeah yeah so he's got he's got that nonsense going on and then like the this collection of artifacts that end up becoming like the legacy which is important in like the wrath story at certain points in time car yeah oh and a bit you know the the weatherlight saga really starts with them collecting the bits of the legacy um they don't even know what the legacy is they just know it's the mcguffin they're sent to collect
00:12:25
Speaker
And a lot of Urza's inventions are part of the legacy, including Karn himself. Yeah. and And many of them are like, by and i would a lot of it is either powerful things he just found or experiments he may had that didn't quite succeed.
00:12:43
Speaker
They all just kind of end up in this collection. Yeah. ah In all of his experimentation, mostly it's taking place on Tularia, where he's established a school essentially to train children to fight the Phyrexians. And that gets blown up ah due to during a Phyrexian incursion, Karn tries to go back in time to stop ah Joyra from getting killed. And the whole time thing explodes and...
00:13:13
Speaker
The entire island becomes sea of fast time bubbles and slow time bubbles and just a giant ah a giant mess of reality, essentially.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, and part of the reason that happened is like Karn was part of a was supposed to go back and like this was Karn was part of a different failed project where he was supposed to be sent back in time to prevent the Phyrexians from even happening.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, ah but they could never send him back more than a few hours into the past, no matter what they tried doing. Yeah, and so so then Karn just winds up being the custodian of the legacy because he's the only, I guess as far as we are aware, sapient ah inclusion in that ah bunch of artifacts.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. um So um kind of fast forward from there to the start of the Weatherlight Saga. And we get our our main crew, um which is Gerard, Sisei, Hannah, ah Miri, Crovax, Squee, our good friend Squee.
00:14:17
Speaker
and Irtai are all put together. And the whole story kicks off when Sissé goes missing. She gets kidnapped. She was the captain of the Weatherlight crew.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah. And so they go, ah the Weatherlight is a, um you know, you've probably seen it in the Dominaria story. ah they They did nerf it a bit, but back in its original time, it was a, um it was a fly, an airship that could also ah planes jump.
Phyrexian Invasion and Weatherlight's Return
00:14:49
Speaker
So they took the Weatherlight to Wrath, which was an artificial plane run by Phyrexians,
00:14:59
Speaker
And they go to the stronghold to try and rescue Sissé, which they eventually do, but not before a lot happens. Karn gets captured and tortured ah horribly um by putting him into a tumbling room with a bunch of mogs that he just keeps squiitching squishing, and he's a pacifist, and they basically use him as a giant rock to squish mogs with to torture him.
00:15:26
Speaker
ah Tangreth gets some Phyrexianization, but they rescue him before he's completely converted. Crovax sets off a curse and becomes a vampire and goes a little mad and ends up leading to Miri's death, as I mentioned earlier.
00:15:45
Speaker
ah And at the end of the stronghold story, ah they escape through the portal, um through a portal to Mercadia, leaving behind Urtai because he did not get back onto the ship in time.
00:16:01
Speaker
ah So then we spend some time in Mercadia where nothing really important happens. ah Other than we got our squeak card.
00:16:11
Speaker
We did get our first squeak card. um They find Ramos, who was a dragon engine that had originally been created to transport some of the um some of the survivors of the first um the Brothers' War off of ah Dominaria, and they ended up on Ricadia.
00:16:30
Speaker
And ah so they collect some of the legacy pieces there. ah well What I didn't mention is while they were on the stronghold, they found the invasion plans. ah which was ah showing that the whole idea of Wrath was an artificial plane and the Phyrexians were going to overlay it over Dominaria to basically deliver their entire army at one go.
00:16:54
Speaker
um So they were growing the plane out of this artificial substance called Flowstone so that they could make it big enough to overlay over Dominaria. ah Kind of some cool... ah old school planeswalker bullshit.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yes. There's a lot of that going on in this story. ah So we get through, they, they end up finding what they need on Mercadia and they see that the Phyrexians have also infiltrated Mercadia and are planning Another invasion, ah they get the weather light ah fixed up. you know Just briefly summarizing this, I'm trying to jump to until we get to the start of invasion. ah And they get back to Dominaria just in time for the Phyrexian invasion to begin.
00:17:47
Speaker
And for here, we're going to be referencing a lot from the website Multiverse and Review, which has really good short summaries of all these old books and these blocks. So if you want to check out more about what we're talking about, um check out that website. It's... ah really good for some of these old stories it hasn't been updated in a few years but since it's all old stories anyways you know yeah yeah the there's yeah there's no no updates coming in for invasion but yeah like their their most recent post was it was a couple years ago for alara stuff but there's there's a lot of good old stuff in here and um this site was recommended me from from but my friend reinhardt who
00:18:30
Speaker
has been on the show has done some magic writing, but he said they've, he found there's a lot of old magic story that is really hard to find.
Metathron Project and Baron's Sacrifice
00:18:37
Speaker
And he was able to get some references to it through this site. So if you're interested in digging in deep, um, I'll, I'll throw a link to Hobbs and we get it in the show notes too.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah. Um, So the Weatherlight gets back to Dominaria. um They're trying to get back to Benalia, but um some Phyrexian portals appear and the Phyrexians start invading with their giant um plague ships. And the they jump back to Wrath to try and take out the portals at the source.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, and they think that Because theyre they end up in Benalia to begin with. Yeah, and then take a few out, but there's just so many. They just keep kind of popping up throughout this story as we go to different places.
00:19:31
Speaker
um And at some point ah you know here, when when they're in Benalia, they're arrested because Gerard technically went AWOL on the Benalan military.
00:19:43
Speaker
um But the city gets sacked by Phyrexians while they're in prison. And so they managed to escape. ah But at some point around here, Hannah gets infected by the Phyrexian plague, ah which will be pretty important later. um As I mentioned, they had a real habit of killing off all the female characters of note early in Magic Story. Yeah.
00:20:10
Speaker
And they once again, you know, they kill her off basically to make, um they fridge her to ah trigger Gerard who had fallen in love with her and Baron's stories. So, uh,
00:20:26
Speaker
But ah we pick up with Urza and um we we also meet Baron, who is basically Urza's head wizard on Tellaria. He's been working with Urza for centuries, doing all this research, and they start um implementing their plans that they've been building over these centuries for the invasion.
00:20:50
Speaker
And one of the things they do is wake up the Metathron, which is another one of Urza's projects where they, ah where he genetically engineered a warrior race based off of some Thrawn DNA, ah except they're blue. And ah um you can kind of see this in the card Urza's Incubator. If you look at it, that's why it gives a discount to type old cards is because he was making his own creature types.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yep. Yep. and And in weird, there's a thing too, like from what I recall, they are unable to have children. So this within a generation of the invasion, this species that he essentially creates just ceases to exist.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah. Because Ursa. Ursa is such a good guy. Oh God. um yeah So we jump around Dominaria a bit where the invasion is going on. And one of the really cool areas is Yavah Maya, the giant forest.
00:21:57
Speaker
um And the forest fights back by converting the Phyrexians to wood and then basically turns them into their own soldiers. Yes, which I'd never put together, but it is a um unnerving ah mirror maybe to something that happens in recent. Um, what was the, what was the haunted house set?
00:22:21
Speaker
Uh, Dusk Morn. Dusk Morn. with the Wicker folk. Cause the Wicker folk do that. Yeah. Um, and we fight, we have some fighting in Llanowar with the elves and we see Eldamari and, uh, Lin Sivvy and Takara, which are some of the characters from the stronghold,
00:22:41
Speaker
ah Um, and Tempest stories show up to fight the Phyrexians there. ah and the Phyrexians bomb the hell out of the forest.
00:22:52
Speaker
Uh,
00:22:54
Speaker
So yeah, and we we have Teferi too in Zulfir, like fairly early. the The story that becomes relevant back in in Dominaria and actually Time Spiral too, but more recently in Dominaria.
00:23:08
Speaker
and and And especially during the Phyrexian invasion. And the Phyrexian invasion, that's right. Yeah. That he phases out. Yeah, the most recent invasion.
00:23:19
Speaker
Urza had basically been prepping Teferi. Teferi was the planeswalker from the um from ah ah very technically advanced society. Yeah.
00:23:33
Speaker
Zalfir, and Urza had been counting on them to basically be frontline soldiers and defend against the Phraxians, and Teferi says, nope, I'm not sacrificing my people for your ridiculous plans, and phases out Shiv and Zalfir, and then pieces out himself. so Yep, so those lands are not...
00:23:59
Speaker
in danger, but also now that creates a bunch of others. She's a, those, those people are not defending like Urza was intended. Of course, those people are safe now, but then it it creates other weird complications like sudden create some tides that destroy some areas or in sort of the next phase of the war.
00:24:20
Speaker
There's a bunch of Phyrexian troops that expect there to be islands in places where there aren't. Yeah. Uh, And then we get... um ah So another member of the Weatherlight crew, Orym, who is the ship's healer, um finally develops a vaccine for the plague, but not before Hannah um kicks it from the plague so that they off another ah character. And Urza, in the meantime, is putting together his
00:24:51
Speaker
um his Plan B, essentially, which is to collect a bunch of planeswalkers, put them in mechs, and attack Phyrexia while Phyrexia is invading Dominaria.
00:25:04
Speaker
Plan A. yeah Or like a like sub A or something. Yeah, true. ah So he gathers what is called the Nine Titans.
00:25:17
Speaker
They're all planeswalkers in what they call Titan engines, which are planeswalker-powered mechs. ah which I... There is a card called Void, which pictures a Titan engine, but we still have not gotten a Titan engine, and I wanted one since vehicles were introduced in the game.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, that would be great. I'm hoping we get one in a supplemental set at some point. That would be great. In a supplemental set, especially if they could like template it so that Planeswalkers could power it instead of creatures.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, they did that essentially with the Heart of Kieran, I think. The one that you can remove loyalty to crew instead of... If I remember correctly, that's... so I know there is a vehicle you can crew by removing a loyalty counter rather than... Yeah, Void is a good... root cross theres There's a few cards that have these on them, but Void is a good call-out too because it is the most Terminator card that Magic has seen.
00:26:12
Speaker
like Like the movie Terminator. Yeah. It's like mounted laser gun shooting. It's a whole thing. Yeah. And then we go we we go back to our friend Baron, who has already lost his wife ah to this fight again, this long fight. ah She dies during the um prophecy set, I think, which we kind of skipped over because it's a you know not really important to the story.
00:26:47
Speaker
Uh, we do in our backlog, if you're interested, have a story, have an episode about prophecy though. A, a friend of mine was like really passionate about that set. And I'm like, sweet, let's talk about it. So he came out and, and talked about the prophecy set.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah. So, um, Urza and Baron are fighting in Urborg and things aren't going well. And Baron's like, you know, I'm going to take off and go find my daughter. ah and, um,
00:27:16
Speaker
You know, do what we can together. And that's when Urza springs out. Hannah is Baron's daughter, by the way. I didn't say that. But Urza's like, oh, by the way, she's dead.
00:27:28
Speaker
ah Just just like like it's not a big deal. ah You know, Baron served him for centuries and now his whole family is gone. ah So Baron.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah. ah So to quote that this review, i think is is he puts it perfectly. This finally breaks the long suffering wizard. who recovers his diet but his daughter's body and teleports it to Talaria.
00:27:56
Speaker
He also, in in this blog, links some cards that are specific from that set. So Recover is a card that, again, would probably be a story spotlight card if they did this back then, that is Baron recovering her body. And I think the the flavor text is is ah is relevant here. It says, as Baron exhumed his daughter's body, he finally realized the full price of his faith in Urza.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, that is some good flavor text. Um, so, ah he brings Hannah's body back to Teleria where his wife Rain is buried and buries Hannah besides her. But Phyrexia has completely overrun Teleria at this point.
00:28:37
Speaker
And Baron has just had enough. So Baron sets off a miniature version of the Silex Blast, which is a spell he learned from Urza. ah And it's represented in the card Obliterate, which is a ah six red, red sorcery that can't be countered. It destroys all artifacts, creatures, and lands. They can't be regenerated.
00:29:01
Speaker
ah It does exactly what it says on the tin. And the flavor text is, for his family, Baron made a funeral pyre of Teleria. Also a really good flavor text. Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and so Baron goes out like that, which, you know, this is the point where I mentioned we'd have some talk later in the story, you know, related to Suicide Awareness Month.
Weatherlight Crew's Internal Conflicts
00:29:26
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, so this is kind of where we see someone who's been tolling away for centuries just hit his breaking point. And, um... you know, he he's had enough. He doesn't know how to go on living without his wife and daughter.
00:29:44
Speaker
ah and he's kind of lost all hope. So he um does, you know, the the classic heroic sacrifice thing, which we've talked about a lot on this channel, although in his case, he wasn't doing it to be heroic. He was doing this out of pure.
00:30:00
Speaker
you know frustration and anger and and just loss. He had experienced so much loss, but he was also lost himself yeah because of that.
00:30:14
Speaker
um And so he destroys all of Teleria, including all the Phyrexians that were there. So probably made Urza's day in the end, in the last thing he wanted to do.
00:30:27
Speaker
Um, but, uh, that's kind of, that's where Baron's story comes to an end. Um, yeah. And it's, it's, I don't know.
00:30:38
Speaker
It's tough. Like there there was some fun things that we i really liked the story. Like I said, was first time I really got into it, but also it's been so long. I'm, I'm not sure how they handled this, but I think it was probably just a quick, Oh, and then he went and did this and sacrificed himself to strike back or whatever. And,
00:30:58
Speaker
it's probably wasn't handled super well would be my guess. I haven't read in a while. Maybe it's handled better than I was. know you pretty much summed up exactly how it was handled. Yeah. And, and that's kind of unfortunate that it, and like like you said, ta like it is a thing we've talked about on this channel. I know we go back to it every, every so often, and we'll come back to it again, because I think it's relevant and I want to say plane shift.
00:31:21
Speaker
But yeah, but that that just the idea, and I think in Plane Shift, it's a little more classic heroic sacrifice, but I don't know. That that whole thing is is just, it comes up so much culturally in our culture and is sort of not given weight and things that it really should, that people just make that choice and then it's, end and and then we're all, you know, it's great that they make this sacrifice to help, and it's good that people want to help others and make sacrifices to help others, but
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, Baron was definitely not intending it to be a heroic sacrifice in this case. he He was just, it was pure grief for him. he was, um he probably wouldn't have cared if he took out the whole world in the blast.
00:32:13
Speaker
Yeah, but but, you know, to to your point, and just happens that we're recording this in September now too, which is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, but it's just an important thing to
00:32:26
Speaker
to keep in mind that there is that there is resources, that there is help if if you need that. And so we get to the climax of the invasion story, which is back to Coleus, where this whole thing began. That is where, um that is basically the ruins of the Thrawn City Glaceon. That is where the portal to Phyrexia was sealed.
00:32:47
Speaker
um Sabo, who is the general leading the ah assault, ah the invasion, um briefly mind controls Gerard by using Hannah's grief and Karn breaks his vow of pacifism to become a distraction for Swee to hand a sword to Gerard and Gerard almost kills Sabo but ah They escape through the portal.
Nine Titans and Phyrexian Battle
00:33:16
Speaker
And then this character we haven't mentioned, the Blind Seer, they had been um popping in and out of the story for a couple of sets, ah shows up and reveals himself to be Urza. Surprise! um He's been manipulating the Weatherlight crew the whole time.
00:33:31
Speaker
yeah from From multiple ankles, both as himself and as this alter ego. Yeah. Though, from a game design standpoint, it's interesting, too, because at this point in time, Planeswalker cards didn't exist because the characters were so obscenely powerful in-universe, you couldn't really represent a card that way.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah. But... yeah There was a card for the Blind Seer because it was, you know, this alter ego of Urza's. It wasn't actually represented as Urza.
00:34:07
Speaker
easy And so we actually sort of got a Planeswalker printed in this in a set. Yeah. ah And that, um um so the coalition is victorious and think that everything is great. And then the overlay starts, which is when we move into plane, the plane shift story. Yep.
00:34:32
Speaker
Which is, as as you're saying, part of the, the plans that the Weatherlight crew learned about before the whole invasion kicked off. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:44
Speaker
So Plane Shift has, ah besides the Phyrexian invasion, also has this weird side story about the five primordial dragons.
00:34:56
Speaker
ah which I think is there just to sell dragons. I don't know. I have no idea. i yeah I think you're right. I think it was just we have this big multicolor set the last time.
00:35:07
Speaker
And one of the one of the things with the invasion cycle that was really cool from a gameplay standpoint, this was the first time they had had a multicolored themed set since Legends.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And there were a handful of multicolored cards in different sets, but this is the first one that was themed around it with a lot of multicolored cards. Yeah, and they were still they were um largely themed around the ally colors still, though. They didn't really do enemy colors as a thing at the time.
00:35:36
Speaker
No, not really. and so like Because that was all how how Legends was, was all allied colors and some shards, because there were some three-color, if I remember. Because, yeah, the dragons were shards.
00:35:47
Speaker
But so I, I, I think this whole dragon sub theme was in part so that they could print dragons to sort of mirror the elder dragons from legends. Yeah. We got the wedge dragons, uh,
00:36:00
Speaker
Well, these were two colors here. I think the wedge came later. Okay. maybe i'm yeah I'm mistaking them. But I'm not going to go into the dragon story because it was basically the the evil planeswalker, Sevis Shot, who was part of the Nine Titans because Urza recruited anybody who he could, even this guy who's a total dirtbag.
00:36:23
Speaker
Urza had a... had a just a very Urza 4D chess reason to invite this obvious villain. Yeah. Which we will get to.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. He shows up and gets, convinces the dragons to like make hell and, At a time that they really shouldn't have been doing. Yeah, so you know the Coalition ends up fighting a two-pronged battle for a while.
00:36:53
Speaker
And as long as all five dragons are alive, they're all invincible. So the the one dragon that is ah actually somewhat good-aligned, Dragas, tosses himself into no volcano to take the invulnerability away from all the other dragons.
00:37:08
Speaker
Yes. and ah Which is illustrated on Terminate, ah the the original art for Terminate. Yeah. Yeah. the And that is that heroic sacrifice thing. i I mentioned that we, I think I, and this was several years ago now, because we were talking mostly about, um oh my God, ah kind of Gideon. We were talking mostly about Gideon because this was shortly after that, but I want to say Dergaz came up as a um in that conversation as well.
00:37:39
Speaker
But yeah, these these five dragons are are all shards as well. So the same color combos as the Elder Dragons. Yeah. Okay. ah So um then we go we go back to the story with the Nine Titans, and this is when they actually go to Phyrexia finally. They've done a little bit of fighting on Dominaria, and then they're going after their main mission.
00:38:02
Speaker
And almost immediately after they get there, Teva's shot kills, uh, Christina and Daria, uh, two planeswalkers. We have never gotten cards for, um, it'd be nice to get cards for them someday.
00:38:15
Speaker
ah and, um Then Urza reveals, oh, I knew Tavishot would betray um us, but that's okay because he needed souls to charge the bombs that would destroy Phyrexia. So he, um using the mechanisms built into the mechs, sucks Tavishot's soul out and makes a bomb out of it.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yes. And in justifying, and I can't remember exactly how this is worded, but this has stuck with me for a while in, in justifying this to the other horrified survivors, the other planes, workers who were not killed by, by Zot.
00:38:50
Speaker
um And who are not Zot was about to die. He, he explains that what he is doing in. So like full understanding is horribly immoral. And it's like, so like no mortal crime would justify this treatment.
00:39:07
Speaker
But because he betrayed immoros immortals, that is an immortal crime. And therefore, I am justified in a in doing this punishment to him. And so he brings him along knowing he will betray them so that he can use his betrayal to justify this horrible act.
00:39:27
Speaker
Versa logic. This is why we say he is the worst. And I like this line from the Multiverse Inheritory article. Upon the revelation, the other planeswalkers just stare at Urza in silence, realizing just how far gone he really is.
00:39:42
Speaker
Yes. Yep.
00:39:45
Speaker
Oh, man. So... um Then we cut back to some fighting in Urborg. We get some more of the Metathron, who aren't terribly important, but the the remaining Metathron, General Agnate, teams up with Dranu, the Lich Lord, for a while, ah because even Liches don't like Phyrexians.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, and this is kind of building towards what I was talking about with Tengarth 2, where you start to see, and these are more so ah much more the sub-story of like subsub story what's happening, beside the dragons, beside the actual main narrative with Gerard and Urza and all the Planeswalkers, you have these these stories of these like people on ah Dominaria who are like coming together in ways and in groups that they wouldn't have. So you have the...
00:40:44
Speaker
the this Lich Lord teaming up with the Metathron, they're kind of blue and black. Then you have, I think, Tangarth shows up and starts fighting with... Yeah, the Hurlun are getting converted to Phyrexians, and they show up and free the remaining Hurluns, who Tangarth has been afraid to show his face to since he was partially Phyrexianized.
00:41:06
Speaker
Yeah. um because it basically he thought he lost all of his honor on the Hurlun, a very proud um species of Minotaur. ah But then he's treated as a hero because um you know he saves the rest of them.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah. and So you're starting to have just sort of the the stories, these smaller stories on the ground of these different groups sort of coming together to fight the invasion. Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker
which again, leads, builds into some stuff in apocalypse as well. That, that sort of builds through this whole trilogy of just these different groups fighting by themselves, then finding each other and going, well, let's just work together.
00:41:46
Speaker
Let's just work together and kind of building. Yeah. ah And then we get something again, that ties back to our prophecy. Yeah. um where the fight in keld is not going well uh the elves are losing a sky shroud got teleported to the same region as keld so this whole um the whole uh forest area is basically tossed into a very cold area um but the elves join up with the uh kelds uh and are fighting the phyrexians and the um
00:42:21
Speaker
Keldon Twilight prophecy, comes true and all of their honored dead rise, uh, to fight on the side of Phyrexia because of course the undead would, uh, side with the, um, uh, living dead essentially.
00:42:37
Speaker
uh, so that the prophecy doesn't quite go as planned for the Keld.
00:42:45
Speaker
Uh, and, um, whole bunch of guys die, including a bunch of the... um
00:42:55
Speaker
Including a bunch of their allies. And then the rest are saved on a ship, the Golden Argosy. It is weird.
00:43:04
Speaker
ah Which was the ship belonging to Cradoc, the founder of Keld. And ah the Argosy takes Eldamari and his troops to the fight going on in Urborg.
00:43:17
Speaker
ah when And then then we go back to Urborg where Agne discovers that Dranlu has actually infected him with a wasting disease because liches will still witch.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah. And so then he signs over his army to Grizzlegob, who I realized we've never had a guard for. Because I thought it honestly, it's been long enough. I thought it was Tengarth, but I forgot Tengarth is elsewhere at this point.
00:43:47
Speaker
And so Grizzlegom, who is the commander of the Hurlun forces, and then yeah the the combined Minotaur and Metathron troops destroyed Drellnu and is his undead for that treachery. And then this is another like these armies were fighting together, and now they are merged, like the Hurlun and Metathron.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so now, uh, we get, uh, and I haven't mentioned this before, but there's the ship called the predator, which is basically the Phyrexian, um, the Phyrexian mirror of the weather light. Uh, they've been fighting back and forth this whole time since, um, the start of the stronghold, um, story.
00:44:29
Speaker
and the, the, uh, predator is, um, captained by Greven Ilvek.
00:44:36
Speaker
Uh, which, um, they have is been basically been a thorn in the side of the weather, like crew, um, since the start of the weather, like saga. ah he's also got a really good commander card.
00:44:50
Speaker
Um, took him a long time to get a good card, but, uh, it's a pretty sweet one. Uh, Tangworth finally manages to kill him and, uh, um, dump the, uh, dump the predator into the stronghold volcano, which, um,
00:45:08
Speaker
Also, it's kind of important because the stronghold was the basically the center of power on Wrath. That is where the flowstone was created and pumped out to the plane. That is where the slivers were holed up. They were in the basement of the stronghold, basically.
00:45:22
Speaker
um But when the overlay happened, the stronghold got plopped right in the middle of a volcano in Urborg.
00:45:31
Speaker
ah which immediately killed all the slivers, sadly. My poor little huggy babies did not make it to the invasion because they were all dropped in the lava.
Weatherlight's Sentience and Yawgmoth's Defeat
00:45:42
Speaker
Yes, and too quickly to learn to adapt because slivers. Probably could have figured it out if given a little bit of time. Yeah, um but ah ah during this fight with the Predator, Gerard and Squee are captured by Urtai, who has now been Phyrexianized after being left behind.
00:46:00
Speaker
ah and um they are brought to Crovax's throne room, who is now taken over as the Envikar of Wrath. ah So Crovax is the one in charge of the Wrathian invasion at this point.
00:46:16
Speaker
And there's another good flavor text here on the spell called Urkai's Trickery, and it's like, don't worry, Gerard, said Urkai, I'm sure that you're the crew will come to your rescue as quickly as they came to mine.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yep. Great flavor text. Card is mostly unplayable. Yeah. ah Counter target spell if a kicker was paid for it.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. for it Very limited counter spell. ah Even though kicker was in this set, that's still a pretty limited. yeah Because it's not even a spell with kicker. It has to be a spell with kicker that was then paid.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So then we cut back, uh, um, we we go back to the primordial story for a little bit, uh, who are fighting the Phyrexians and the coalition. Um, Karn manages to get through to Daragaz, uh, who's the dragon who kills himself to, um, make the other dragons vulnerable.
00:47:23
Speaker
Um, and, uh, They managed to deal with the other dragons at that point, ah but the weatherlight crashes after the fight with Krosis.
00:47:35
Speaker
um And Treva and Drogmar are killed by the Dragon Nations ah because they'd been wiping out the dragons for power. And then we switch back to, we switch to Gerard, who is now in the stronghold with Crovax.
00:47:50
Speaker
ah And Crovax is telling Gerard how wonderful Yawgmoth is, and he has the power over life and death, and promises the rebirth of Hannah if Gerard joins the Phyrexians.
00:48:03
Speaker
And to prove this, he kills Squee, who is then resurrected.
00:48:09
Speaker
ah And ah Gerard, ah he continues ah demoralizing Gerard by showing him how Agnate and Daragaz both fell to evil temptations, then reveals the bombshell that so did Urza.
00:48:22
Speaker
And then we get a little bit of Urza's story. While going through Phyrexia, Urza starts getting more and more paranoid. He's shaken by Baron's death. He's enamored by Phyrexian's beauty and dismayed by the glee which his companions would destroy that beauty.
00:48:37
Speaker
ah So he kills Tessir, another one of the planeswalkers, and um then he even ah walks away from the final test Yawgmoth gave him by walking away when he was shown Mishra, who had apparently been tortured for millennia in the depths of Phyrexia.
00:48:57
Speaker
Uh, I don't think, I don't know if it's canon that was actually Mishra just a... ah vision? A vision or a simulacrum of Mishra. I don't know if that's ever been established.
00:49:09
Speaker
Uh, because it seemed him weird that they would have had him on Phyrexia when Urza blew the entire place to hell. Um, so I don't know how he would have gotten back to Phyrexia, but...
00:49:20
Speaker
ah so uh gerard steps into the um through a portal that carlovax is open to the knight's ear phyrexia where he and urzid both battle before yawgmoth yep um a oh was it yawgmoth's bargain was that the legendary sorcery from dominaria yeah uh that depicts this scene Yeah, Yagmoth's Bargain, yeah. I think that's that's the one that the one that lets you replace stuff from your graveyard. Yeah, no, that's not the one I'm thinking of.
00:49:56
Speaker
is Maybe Yagmoth's name isn't in. Oh, Yagmoth's Vile Offering. but There it is. Okay, the the reprint one. Alright. Yeah. this I guess that actually happens later. this is the the The scene, those two stepping through sets up Yagmoth trying to get those two to come to his side, essentially. I believe this scene is depicted in this card here. but um So that brings us to the end of the Plane Shift ah story, and then we go on to Apocalypse.
00:50:32
Speaker
ah Apocalypse is the finale of the entire Weatherlight saga, so we're talking several years of sets. ah Mm-hmm.
00:50:45
Speaker
um And from the gameplay standpoint, for me, like one of the exciting things, one of the reasons why this was probably my favorite set until Time Star Block is that this was the first set where they had enemy colored, like lots of enemy colored stuff for gold guards and for lands because enemy color land stuff.
00:51:07
Speaker
was bad in early magic. for Just like intentionally from a flavor standpoint, they thought the allied colors should have better lands, like the easier to get their mana than the ally or than the enemies. And so you'll see like there's cycles of ally color lands that you can tap and like you maybe you take a damage or something, but then the enemy ones have depletion counters so you can only tap them for mana every other turn or something that they're just worse.
00:51:37
Speaker
Apocalypse is one of the first sets where we got actually good fixing for with with enemy color lands. Yeah. ah And so um part of the story going on throughout Apocalypse is ah continuing the Gerard versus Urza episode.
00:51:56
Speaker
fighte And Yawgmoth is essentially having them fight ah in his ah arena to prove which one loves Yawgmoth more and will get their reward. Either Urza will get to study under Yawgmoth or Gerard will get um ah get Hannah back.
00:52:14
Speaker
And got to remember, Urza is an old school planeswalker at this point. So he should easily be able to defeat Gerard. But Yawgmoth keeps coming up for reasons why those fights don't count.
00:52:26
Speaker
ah And eventually Gerard learns how to manipulate the flow stone and decapitates Urza. So this is why we have like the the Urza, um ah the uncards with Urza's head in the hot tub and yeah the Urza planeswalker or the Urza un planeswalker card ah because ah he was ah decapitated head.
00:52:52
Speaker
And after Gerard finally succeeds, Yawgmoth basically makes him super powerful. ah But Gerard has also managed to shake off the command of Yawgmoth at the time. And when ah ah when Hannah comes forward to collect Urza's head, ah Gerard strikes her down, realizing that it was just um a similar acronym. And that's where Yawgmoth was actually hiding Yawgmoth.
00:53:16
Speaker
his essence. Uh, but before he can kill Yawgmoth, Yawgmoth ejects him out of Phyrexian back to the stronghold. Uh, and this is depicted on the card Phyrexian arena, uh, which shows Gerard just about to execute or decapitate Urza. Uh, and it says an audience of one with the malice of thousands is the plain text on the original Phyrexian arena.
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah. Good, good flavor text. Yeah.
00:53:43
Speaker
Uh, So back on Dominaria, Karn has um gotten all of his memories back. His memory had been continually wiped because he was essentially out of RAM or out of hard disk space. So Urza had set it up where we're continually wiped his memory ah over time. So he didn't fill up on ah memory or space. And then heat so he's now realized how to work the legacy, ah which is something Urza never bothered to tell them.
00:54:17
Speaker
yeah ah Urza is always so helpful.
00:54:22
Speaker
um yeah and I believe at this point too, where he realizes, maybe the group told, maybe I just didn't realize this, but like the weather light is part of the legacy.
00:54:36
Speaker
And so he like uses the, the Thrawn tome to like activate the legacy and act and the weather light. And then the ship starts to repair itself and. Yeah.
00:54:48
Speaker
And the weather light is actually a living being itself. Uh, it was made from the heartwood. and this is when he kind of realizes that, that, um, and Maltani has been, ah the, uh, avatar of Yama Maya Maltani has been kind of hanging out in the weather like wood.
00:55:09
Speaker
and so, um, now that the ship is, sentient, Maltani can no longer live in its wood. ah as he's been doing since the, they, uh, at the start of invasion. So he goes back to Yavamiya and finds out that it's been completely spared this whole time. Yavamiya, after they, uh, turned all the Phyrexians to wood, managed to, um, not get attacked at all during the Wrathy overlay. Uh, and Maltani decides to teleport because the battle in Urborg is going so poorly. He teleports part of the forest to Urborg, uh, to help fight the Phyrexians there.
00:55:50
Speaker
um And the plan is to send in some dwarves to that are going into they they are going to activate the vol Volcano to blow up the Phyrexian Command Tower. ah
00:56:05
Speaker
So that is definitely one way to deal with a bunch of Phyrexians. Yep. Yeah. Volcano. It's a good option. Yeah.
00:56:17
Speaker
Uh, so Gerard's back, get you know, back in the stronghold, uh, chases Urtai away and is reunited with Squee, who is now effectively immortal. Uh, we love Squee. Um, we've talked about Squee so much. We know, uh, but this is, um he,
00:56:40
Speaker
is ah lovely guy. And now he is immortal, uh, which he will be for about 300 years. Um, and who knows how many times he dies during that, uh, timeframe because he's a goblin.
00:56:57
Speaker
ah um irtai has retreated to his rejuvenation chamber but squee follows him and fiddles with the controls killing the wizard uh i believe that's squeeze revenge yep squeeze revenge um just just did incredible artwork Yeah. ah And this is this is one of the things that always upset me, though, is how we got Urtai back during, i think it's in Dominar United when he shows up again. Urtai was very dead. there was no He was not coming back 300 years later. ah That was one of my biggest complaints with the story there, is that they brought Urtai back for no apparent reason.
00:57:39
Speaker
ah Gerard finally kills Crovax, getting revenge from Miri. Um, and Urza's head springs to life, uh, and kills a bunch of people with laser beams from his eyes.
00:57:52
Speaker
Uh, one thing we haven't mentioned is, uh, Urza's eyes are the might, uh, might and meek stone. They have been since the, uh, Silex explosion. Uh, Which kind of goes back to, there's no confirmation whether Urza actually was a planeswalker himself, or if he just inherited the spark from the Might and Meek stone.
00:58:12
Speaker
ah That was actually Glaceon's spark to begin with. Yeah, split split in half to the two stones. Which were also part of the controls that had kept Phyrexia portals sealed in the Caves of Koelos, if I remember correctly.
00:58:29
Speaker
Yeah. Um, that's correct. Uh, so, um, everybody gets together and hightails it out of the stronghold right before the dwarfs, uh, light the place up. Uh, then we cut back to Phyrexia where, um, the remaining Titans, Freilis, Lord Windgrace, Bolivar, and Commander Guff have been going around manually detonating the bombs because, of course, Urza destroyed the master switch when he switched sides.
00:58:54
Speaker
Uh, because Urza, once again, ah ah So they succeed and they watch Phyrexia collapse in on itself. But then Gulfur Bees, he knows the future because he edited the story and let it slip that none of this matters because Yawgmoth is moving into Dominaria anyways.
00:59:12
Speaker
ah Just before the lava consumes it, he emerges from the stronghold in the form of a giant cloud that kills whatever it touches and resurrects the dead. Yeah. Yep, we literally get ah Commodore Guff, which we didn't get a Planeswalker card for him until Commander of Legends, I think, is when he had his Planeswalker deck.
00:59:33
Speaker
ah But bola Bolivar convinces Guff to erase the story he approved and leave the ending open. And just after he does that, the Death Cloud eats him. Bye-bye. Commodore Guff, ah who literally had the power to rewrite history and could have prevented this whole damn thing from happening.
00:59:53
Speaker
Yeah, for some reason. Yeah. ah LeVar sacrifices himself to save a Merfolk artist colony, which is weird.
01:00:05
Speaker
um I don't know why Merfolk had an artist colony, but ah they do. ah we still haven't gotten Planeswalker card for Bolivar either. Freyrelys has back to Skyshroud, Windgrace goes back to, or sets up with the Herloon army for one last fight in Urborg, and the Coalition army is almost completely destroyed from the, ah by the Cloud and Yawgmoth resurrecting the dead in Urborg.
01:00:38
Speaker
ah
01:00:40
Speaker
And then Eldamari and Lincevi both commit suicide by jumping off of a tree folk as a last act of defying Yawgmoth. more This is like totally pointless suicide. There is no reason why these two characters off themselves at all.
01:00:59
Speaker
um Not that I feel bad about Eldamari going. He was a freaking jerk for the most part. Yeah. ah you know, good riddance to Eldamari, but um that that just, it made no sense.
01:01:15
Speaker
A lot of the end of Apocalypse makes no sense. Yes. And that that's, there's yeah just here, he threw this in. I just want to mention before we get into the actual ending, that doesn't make a lot of sense. There is the card last stand is one of my favorite cards from this set, which was a card kind of what I was referencing with Tangarth where you, you,
01:01:36
Speaker
you get a bunch of stuff based on how many basic lands you control of each type, but it's supposed to be like the, the, there was the coalition victory, which I think was in invasion or yeah, it was in invasion.
01:01:49
Speaker
This is kind of a parallel of that where you're just getting stuff for everything, everything. And it's represented, especially in the art, you've got the, mer you've you've got a Metatron, you've got ah a, a mandatory, you've got some elves, you've got just all these final forces coming together to make a last stand.
01:02:05
Speaker
And also it was really cool to just have a card that was five color, one of each color. Sorcerer. Yeah. And it's not really a good card, but the are the art kicks ass on this card. Yeah. It isn't a good card, but it is a really exciting card.
01:02:20
Speaker
Yeah. fraud You know, when it was printed 20, 30 years ago. Yeah. And that, that Ron Spencer art goes so hard though. I, I forgot about this card to be honest. And as I'm looking at this, I'm like, I would totally have a print of that art.
01:02:35
Speaker
Yeah. I saw like on ah on a Discord server I'm in recently, they they've been talking about some magic art and they're like, you know what? Forget like I remember what they were talking about, like some level of of what makes a good art. They're like, I want to see the art that would look good on, like spray painted on the side of a van.
01:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, so this is definitely that. This is some heavy metal art right here. Yeah, and that's that's exactly what I think. Looking at this last stand art from Ron Spencer is, yep. Yeah. ah And um then we basically get a whole bunch of failed plans to defeat yeah yard and This is kind of just Urza using everything he has left until something works.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. ah And then Urza suggests a really bizarre plan. This is this is direct quote from the multi-ridden group, saying the legacy artifacts contain many worlds wide ju while Gerard somehow contains many heroes, and he wants to crack them both open.
01:03:37
Speaker
destroying half the Dominaria by letting out those planes, and then having the army of heroes that would spring forth from Gerard's head reconquer the other hemisphere.
01:03:48
Speaker
And Sensei is just like, that's all nonsense, Urza just came up with another Silex blast.
Evolution of Magic's Storytelling
01:03:55
Speaker
ah So instead they come up with another plan, which involves cracking the Null Moon, ah which is a Thrawn artifact. It was a fake moon that is in orbit around Dominaria.
01:04:09
Speaker
ah And it has been collecting white mana ever since the Thrawn time. So about 5,000, 6,000 years, it has just been collecting white mana. So they're goingnna they're going to try to pull off the biggest board white possible here.
01:04:25
Speaker
Uh, so they fly through it, sacrificing the weatherlight to channel the energy into Yawgmoth killing blasts, only for that to barely make a dent on him. ah And so they come up, Gerard and Urza come up with the one last-ditch idea. They rip Urza's eyes out, the Meekstone and Meekstone, put them in Karn, which results in a big light, and thus Yawgmoth is defeated.
01:04:47
Speaker
ah And somehow, all over Dominaria, the Phyrexian forces go catatonic after the death of their leader, allowing even children to kill them. So we get almost the same the same stupid ending we got from the Phyrexian arc after Elish Norn is killed and all the Phyrexians just go into hibernation.
01:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. And we this is kind of kind of represented in the legacy weapon card. Yeah, because it is. Yeah, because it it it exiles permanence. But you have it's interesting. So the original Apocalypse version actually has what looks like the no moon out there, even though the no moon didn't really help.
01:05:22
Speaker
um You have, oh, I love the 10th edition legacy weapon art is great because it has just a picture of all of the legacy pieces, including Urza's head, which is really funny. But I just noticed, I just looked this up, the Dominaria Remastered, actually, well, I guess there's two different flavor texts depending on which version, but the the normal booster version has the flavor text, in a single blinding flash, Yagmoth was obliterated and Urza could finally rest.
01:05:49
Speaker
which is kind of nice flavor text. The original version didn't have room for flavor text the way they templated it. And what was the other flavor text? You said they had different ones? Yeah. The um one of the the promo printing says whether lives or precious artifacts, no price was too high to stop the Phyrexian invasion. Yeah. ah And so we get, um we get cut to ah seen a scene year later um Back on your board where there are Freilies is unveiling a monument to the fallen. ah This is. ah
01:06:24
Speaker
ah There is a card depicting. I forget exactly what the. This is, yeah. And then there's also Monument to Folly ah with Urza on it later.
01:06:37
Speaker
Yes, in ah in Dominaria. Yeah, in Dominaria. um But ah so Karn shows up for a bit to have a chat. And it says here, Karn has merged with Urza, Gerard, and the entire legacy and become a planeswalker. So...
01:06:53
Speaker
um but again this is just speculation since uh that karn is basically the third person to have glacian spark uh since uh urza um probably had it too from the mitestone meek stone and then karn gets it uh um oran uh or Karn takes Orym back to Markadia so she can marry Chomanu, who was the leader of the rebels on Markadia. Uh, and Orym had fallen in love with him during the story there, which was totally irrelevant to the plot. So I didn't mention it earlier.
01:07:29
Speaker
ah and, uh, to say Tangreth and Swee all start a new ship. They got a, just a basic old sailing ship they call victory. um And that is the end of the Weatherlight Saga and the end of Urza.
01:07:46
Speaker
um I wanted to mention it before when we were talking about the history of Yawgmoth, but there is... Spice8Rack has a fantastic hour and a half long video about Yawgmoth and basically the whole Thrawn story. I highly recommend reading it.
01:08:08
Speaker
It really goes into just how awful of a person Yawgmoth is before he became essentially a deity. um Yeah, and like super jealous of planeswalkers.
01:08:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Part of his early research was trying to figure out how to like get himself a spark. Yeah, which he did by, um because planeswalkers were essentially invulnerable and immortal, um he just kept scrambling Difed's brain so she couldn't regenerate herself and planeswalk away.
01:08:42
Speaker
ah He literally, physically was scrambling her brain so she couldn't escape.
01:08:51
Speaker
Uh... But um so that is the invasion um block. ah You know, let us know what you think of us covering these old stories. ah There's a lot of them to cover. Yeah.
01:09:06
Speaker
Yeah. And that I was thinking we do maybe, don't know if you think maybe this is good for next week, but we wanted to go through some of these old sets too and do some like Malthos.
01:09:17
Speaker
Yeah. You know, that's what we'll do next time. We've got, and we we mentioned some of them this ah during this set, but we can go through in more detail. There's a lot of good ones.
01:09:28
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, and so especially like this set for me was was a big deal because I'd been playing for years before this, but again, I love the multicolor stuff. This was the first time it was a big theme since it was created in Legends. And so there's just there's just a lot of cool mechanical things that they're doing, but also a lot of cool flavor stuff representing a lot of different things with the Phyrexian invasion and Dominarian pushback that just kind of didn't show up in the story or even this shorter, briefly, us trying to summarize the story and talk through the the major events.
01:10:07
Speaker
Yeah. So I had been, when I had first been playing I had been deep into the story when the Weatherlight Fogas started. Um, I loved it when they started having regular magic story. I had read all the old terrible novels like Arena, which really had nothing to do with the story of magic. They were just standalone novels that took place in a vaguely magic world. Yeah. Uh,
01:10:38
Speaker
um And one of the first things I did when I started playing again was go back and read all these books for the, through the conclusion of the Weatherlight arc. ah And um yeah, ah you know, let us know what you think about us covering these old stories. We don't have new story until Lorwyn, which is five months away still.
01:11:02
Speaker
um thanks wizards yeah so yeah I think this will be fun yeah and if you've got other suggestions let us know yeah I should mention that Invasion was a suggestion on Blue Sky when I asked what you'd like us to talk about ah I don't have that skeet handy to credit the exact person who suggested it but I thank you for the suggestion because Invasion was a really good place to start because it was the <unk>ation of the first major magic story arc.
01:11:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and said for for me, it it was nice too, just because this is where I really started paying attention to story. I went backwards and read some other stories after this. Some of the Wrath stories, the the previous block, I read the Prophecy, and some of the others. I think I went and read the the Ice Age trilogy too.
01:11:54
Speaker
But this is really where I got started with Magic Story was Invasion. Yeah, and if you want to read some of these old stories, Thrawn is a really good book. yeah um the artifact cycle uh which is the story of the brothers war essentially is a good set of books um you know the the apocalypse or the invasion cycle is all right the um the block books were mostly okay uh i've read most of them uh don't read the mirrored in one that was there was a reason that was the uh
01:12:35
Speaker
they stopped doing block books in Zendikar. Uh, they released one bad book for Zendikar and then released an even worse one for, um, Yardin to Siege block, uh, the quest for Karn, which is one of the worst magic books that has ever been written. So don't recommend going and reading those.
01:12:52
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, I have to, we have it good with magic story nowadays. ah um we get it We get it for free. We get some extremely high quality, well-known writers ah like Sean and McGuire.
01:13:12
Speaker
um you ah we wish you know We often wish there was more story. It was nice for Edge of Eternity to have such a big story. you know it was If you put it all together, it is novella-sized.
01:13:28
Speaker
ah um But yeah, so and hope you enjoyed this. Yep, and we'll we'll keep doing some other stuff well until we get some new story to talk about.
01:13:41
Speaker
Goblin Lore Podcast. Thank you for listening. We can be found both on Twitter and Blue Sky at GoblinLorePod. Check out our link tree for our Discord and our discounts. We appreciate you listening and welcome feedback via social media or Discord.
01:13:56
Speaker
Until next time, Podwalkers, remember that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.