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Episode 279: Melthos through the Chaos of the Planes
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Alex is back to discuss Planar Chaos from the Time Spiral Block with a dive into flavor and form with our Melthos Review!
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.
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. ah This week, we are um actually continuing what I believe we'll have got last episode with Malthos card reviews for Time Spiral Block sets.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm going to get into to what that is and and where we're moving in a second, because I just want to cover the fact that unfortunately I am the only one here tonight. Just due to various circumstances, ah both Nether Hobbs nor Taya could make it, so I am recording this episode solo.
Overview of Planar Chaos
00:00:36
Speaker
um So going to be talking about the set Planar Chaos, which is the second set in the Time Spiral block. um Time Spiral block is easily my favorite block in Magic. There's just a lot of cool things that were happening here, which unfortunately also kind of made the block really hard for newer players to understand what was going on. And it was kind of, as a hol on a holistic sense, it was kind of a bad set for Magic. um But it was doing a lot of really cool things that I really like and was excited about, and so I still love it. Fortunately, there there are
00:01:15
Speaker
Some sets more like it these days, they're more in the like modern horizons, um does a lot of what this this block was doing. um And in a product that is more more specifically targeted. Time Star block was, i mean, back in the day, they basically didn't have supplementary sets like that to to an extent. There were some, but... not in the same way that they do now you you kind of have the main three main sets coming out a year one core set every other year and then every other year you kind of stuck something in the core set slot um that could sometimes be a little weird but this unfortunately it was taking up that standards that standard set uh standard block though those the three sets for the standard sets back then uh blocks were three sets and so
00:02:03
Speaker
it's ah It caused some issues there, but now looking at historically, there's a lot of fun and cool things to kind of to
Game Mechanics and Story Integration
00:02:10
Speaker
kind of go look at. So a lot of mechanical and really mechanically interesting stuff was going on. And so as ah as a Mel, as ah as a person who is really interested in kind of the mechanics of the game, and and also as a Vorthos, who's really interested in kind of story, um and in particular as sort of the melding of the two, myself being a a person who really who also really is interested in how the flavor of a card is translated into the mechanics.
00:02:36
Speaker
So that that is the Malthos, the building of those two sort of different ways to enjoy the game beyond just the game itself. ah before i can So yeah I might as well get into that with with just myself. We're not going to do an opening question like we ah normally would.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I am just going to dig right into Planar Chaos.
Drafting Dynamics and Set Challenges
00:02:56
Speaker
um So like said, this was the second set in the block. Back in the day, there would be three sets. If I remember correctly, that there would be a big set, which for this one was Time Spiral, which is the first. It would come out in the fall, and then you'd have the two smaller sets follow it.
00:03:12
Speaker
And then you'd get it something in the summer and then the next big set in the the next fall, starting the next block. um So this Planar Chaos is only like 160 cards, 165 cards, as opposed to Time Spiral, which was three something, I believe. And then had the entire and that time spiral also had the time shifted sheet, which was a whole extra sheet, a bonus sheet where you'd you'd get one card with a purple rarity in every booster pack. and that was a specific time shifted sheet, which also was a big long stretch. There was a ton of cards in time spiral. This set is much smaller, much more contained than that.
00:03:52
Speaker
just based on how they built sets back in the day. um you you would When you would do limited, you would always get some of the big sets. So at this point in time, you would draft like two times Spiral and one Planar Chaos. And so they just needed a smaller set. So it represented a smaller card pool.
00:04:09
Speaker
In any event, um so part of the big thing that Time Spiral Block was doing was fiddling with like the the general overarching theme was sort of this this play on the past, the present, and the future. Sort of as a three triumphant themes, they could stick one set with each of those sort of themes. I'll see Time Spiral Block, like i mentioned, it had the timepi time shifted sheet.
00:04:31
Speaker
That was part of the historic, the past sort of theme going there. And that set also was just, had so many, so many damn mechanics. There was so many different mechanics. so There was there was two primary ones for this block, which continue into this set, which I can cover to cover briefly in a second. And then there was... A whole lot of old ones that came back, sometimes for a few cards, sometimes for a bunch.
00:04:55
Speaker
um Slivers were a big thing that goes through the whole block. um And Morph was it was a big one that was historical, that was coming back, wasn't even one of the new ones. So those are two big mechanics that were there alongside everything else, but you'd also get mechanics. Like one card would show up and have this this random old mechanic on it. And that was part of what made it so difficult um for newer players to understand what was going on.
00:05:21
Speaker
There was just so many mechanics, and I think part of it, and and there's a lot of writing, a lot of the Wizards developers and stuff who were around at the time will talk about lessons learned from this block. And one of those was that in their head, these old mechanics were things players already knew, and so they wouldn't take up as much cognitive space to to learn and to play with, is forgetting that not everybody has been around forever, that there's always somebody new.
Lessons from Time Spiral Block
00:05:48
Speaker
or every set was somebody's first set. And so that has kind of changed. It changed a lot of design philosophy moving forward into Magic. um Another reason that this set is sort of a unique thing because it kind of was an issue. there There were issues with how it was done. And so they had to sort of curtail that going forward and kind of change lessons so that sets specifically so that sets didn't get built like this one did.
Mechanics: Suspend and Split Second
00:06:16
Speaker
Anyway, so those those two big mechanics that were introduced, the two new ones in this set, um were suspend, where you would cast a spell early, essentially. um You could cast, the suspend cast would be less than the the casting cost, and then you would put, ah but it didn't actually resolve. You would set it aside, you'd put a certain number of counters on it, you would remove one every upkeep, and when you removed the last one, then you resolved the spell. You cast it at that point in time.
00:06:44
Speaker
um Again, playing with that time theme and then split second was the other one where you'd cast a spell and as long as that spell was on the stack, um nobody else could, like nothing else could be played. You can't respond to it. Nothing can be done until this spell resolves. ah That was a bigger one in Time Spiral. I'm not sure if there's any of those in Plane or Chaos.
00:07:06
Speaker
So Blender Chaos does not, as far as I can tell, introduce new mechanics. Though again, it does play with a lot of older ones. There's a handful of Kicker. There's some Vanishing. um But what I want to get into is, so again, this is about the present. And you could say literally any magic set is current the current present. It is literally the present when it's the current set. And so they trying to to figure out how they were going to represent that in an interesting mechanical way to make this a you know the set sort of unique in its own way.
00:07:34
Speaker
they went with like alternate dimensions or, or, or alternate realities or alternate paths that things could have taken. um And that, that leads to, i think some pretty interesting mechanical things, but it also means that planar chaos, I mean, like the whole block has also created some issues going forward. There's a lot of weird color pie breaks going on here. And a lot of the color pie theory and color pie stuff is, is was less,
00:08:04
Speaker
realized and hammered out at this point in the game, but there was still, it was still an important mechanical piece of the game that not all five, that any given color couldn't do everything.
Color Pie Breaks and Reality Shifts
00:08:14
Speaker
And so that made, did people have to build weaknesses into their deck? If they were a red white deck, there were certain things that those two colors can't do. And that makes their deck inherently weak to certain types of things. And Or you can be greedy and then try to build a bigger color deck, but then of course that then makes you weak to ah you know um a mana base that is less stable. And so that again kind of builds inherent weaknesses into every deck.
00:08:44
Speaker
So that that was that goes back over to Alpha. That's that's a core part of the game. um a lot A lot of the more granular specifics of what goes where has kind of changed and shifted him and worked out over time.
00:08:56
Speaker
But so one of the the things, I guess I'll start with this list. There's a couple of like sort of different ways that idea of an alternate presence showed up um in this. And I think one of the maybe easier examples to start with are these like reality shifted cards. So you had the time shifted sheet in Time Spiral block that had the old frame. They were all cards with the old frame that had a purple rarity symbol that were a bonus sheet. And both Planet of Chaos and Future Sight, the third set that we will cover at some point in the future, had a similar idea. These cards that were sort of bonus cards that had a different frame um that represented either an alternate present in Planet of Chaos or potential futures in Future Sight. But neither of these sets had it had them present as a bonus sheet. So in in these two sets, they actually were these cards were mixed in the booster pack at their normal. So they had normal rarities and they were... found at um those rarities.
00:09:56
Speaker
But so like one real super straightforward example that's great is is brute force. It's a red instant for just red target creature gets plus three plus three until end of turn. And so this is a present shifted card. And if you're looking at the, um like on scryfall where i'm I'm at right now, and you have just the set pulled up, you can tell cause it'll show the the art. When these have been reprinted, they go into the normal frame, but there is a different frame.
00:10:23
Speaker
for these you know alternate reality shifted cards where the color has different mixture to it. um The, the little box where the title is and a little box where the spell type And rarity is the colors are are different. So rather than having, let's say, I i don't know enough about color things to try to explain it. It's it's super obvious. If you you look at them, you can see that they are different. um The actual frame is a little different too. So like every color kind of has its own frame. Like I'm looking at one of the just normal black cards here. There's a little bit of bubbles, like it's a swamp.
00:11:00
Speaker
um But the the black future shifted cards, that frame is just a little bit different. It doesn't have those same types of bubbles. It's a little different there. So it it was obvious when you look at them that they're a little different. But any in any event, what these these this particular thing is, is these are unlike the rest, the normal cards in the set, which are brand new cards that try to, in some different way, evoke the alternate present or alternate realities theme.
00:11:27
Speaker
these reality shifted cards with this different frame are literally a past card for magic, 100% mechanically with maybe like a color mana shift or activation shift if it fits what's going on.
Shifted Cards and Design Innovation
00:11:44
Speaker
And I can cover all those in a second to explain that, to give an example of that. But brute force, instead red instant, target creature gets plus three, plus three, is literally giant growth from alpha.
00:11:55
Speaker
Green instant for one green. Target creature gets plus three, plus three. And so this is that card shifted into red and kind of the point of the present shifted cards. And I think a lot of them fit the This is a card that could have been printed in this color, but got printed in a different one when it originally showed up. Some were a little bit of a stretch. um One of the more famous, I think, of these cards, at least in like commander group play that I like to play myself, is Damnation. Two black black for sorcery destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated. Like that was the first big black board wipe like this. Well, not the first. I suppose there were a few other big ones that play Gwyn from Prophecy, but...
00:12:37
Speaker
this this is literally wrath of god um wrath of god was printed in alpha damnation wrath of god very thematically similar um they both have the destroy all creatures they can't be regenerated the the mana cost is two color color of whatever color they are white or black so it's it's literally the it is the same card just shifted and then due to the way his magic rules work they need to come up with a new name for it because otherwise it is the same card that that kind of breaks the rules and so it The only difference here is the mana cost, the color, and then the name, but it is thus the mechanics of that card just pulled into another color.
00:13:15
Speaker
um another Another fun one. So like I said, the you know brute force is giant growth. There's also um Healing Leaves, which is a another of the boon cycles. So the the boon cycle from Alpha being the one cost um in cards, I think they're all instants, that do three of something. And they are wildly different, wildly divergent in their power level. You have you have Ancestor Recall, which is a power nine card that is blue. Target player draws three cards. And then you have what is...
00:13:50
Speaker
Definitely the weakest of them, Healing Salve, or in this set, shifted into green, Healing Leaves, which is green for an instant. Choose one, target player gains three life, or prevent the next three damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn.
00:14:07
Speaker
So again, it's it's that same card, though this is fun because it templated it a little different. And Alpha Healing Solve was a little different. They didn't have like the choose. it It did these same two effects that either gave a player three life or prevented three damage to a creature or player.
00:14:23
Speaker
But it's a little a little weird. um Sedge Troll is another one of these. This is one where I said where they changed it slightly to make it mechanically fit.
00:14:36
Speaker
or Sorry, Hedge Troll is um the card. So it is a 2-2 troll cleric for 2 and a green. it gets plus and plus 1 as long as you control a plains and then has the activation white regenerate hedge troll. Well, this is the card sedge troll, um which was printed in alpha.
00:15:01
Speaker
The sedge troll is 2 and a red and then gets a plus and plus 1 as long as you have a swamp. and then has a black mana activation to regenerate itself. And so again, shift it into another color it to to make it sort of fit mechanically or or fit its its sort of theme and its flavor. This is, you know, the original one was a red creature, but that is friendly with one of red's allies. And so it gets more powerful in the swamp and it can regenerate.
00:15:31
Speaker
Hedge troll is a green creature that again, gets more powerful. with one of its allies ah being white in this case gets so you get plus and plus one if there's a planes and it regenerates with a white activation so these are these are a lot of fun um there's some weird ones like ah primal plasma is one i like a lot because i always like sort of shape shifters and things and this is actually shifted from an artifact um from i want to say antiquities so primal plasma is an elemental shape shifter for three in the blue
00:16:04
Speaker
um As it comes into play, you choose if it is a 3-3 creature or a 2-2 creature with flying or a 1-6 creature with defender. um that is like there There is an artifact that <unk> an artifact creature that does that. Primal clay.
00:16:25
Speaker
That is originally... oh this might have been an alpha. Yeah. No, this was in Antiquities. Yep, this was an in Antiquities. i I'm familiar with it from from Revised because Revised is actually pulled on some Antiquities and and and other cards from other sets into some of the Alpha, Beta, Unlimited stuff. So that's, I think, the only one that was shifted from an artifact to a color. Most of these were shifted from one color to another.
00:16:56
Speaker
Revere Dead is a ah One in a white for a spirit soldier. It's 1-1 that has white regenerated. That's george skeletons from Alpha. Again, there they are skeletons that require black mana to regenerate. This is still an undead, but in white, you know there's this this idea of the the ghosts that sometimes are you know helping out
Unique Card Depictions and Themes
00:17:21
Speaker
the revered dead. And so in this case, you have a white, mono-white ghost.
00:17:25
Speaker
Still has that same mechanic, though, of regenerating. So these are these are fun. um one i The last one I want to talk about is also kind of interesting. i
00:17:37
Speaker
Malak of the Dawn. Two white-white for a 2-4 angel ah with flying and has white-white-white regenerate Malak of the Dawn. Off top of my head, i am not I cannot remember what this is. a version of This might be...
00:17:56
Speaker
but But one of the interesting things about this is in Magic, um I don't know why, it's just part of how they've they've decided to like flavor the game. Angels are always female. like like Angels are all women. um the the The two exceptions that I'm aware of, one was a Legends card called Gabriel Angel Fire that kind of predates that rule. like yeah Legends is...
00:18:24
Speaker
Magic has some weird things if you go far enough back. And and and also you go back to to that far. Gabriel Angel Fire isn't wasn't actually an angel initially. Back then, Legend was a creature type in and of itself.
00:18:38
Speaker
um Later, they added creature types to these creatures. And the of the creature has angel in his name. has wings. He's clearly an angel. So they made him an angel. Um, and then other than that, Malak of the dawn is the only other angel in magic, um, that is male. And I think that part of that is the, the alternate reality, um, Nis of it. I think they decided to give that, um,
00:19:04
Speaker
allow it to then be female. And then I did find the the card that Malak of the Dawn was shifted from is actually Ghost Ship, um which is a two spirit, two blue blue for two four flying, blue blue blue regenerated, which funnily enough, I probably intentional Ghost Ship was in the time shifted sheet. So you actually had Ghost Ship printed in the previous set and then shifted into white and becoming an angel in Planar Chaos.
00:19:34
Speaker
So then to to kind of go back to like the core, the main set, sort of the cards without this extra shifting on here, one of the other things that they sort of did, and I don't know, not quite knowledgeable enough to to know if they've done this for all of the colors, but one thing I think is interesting is that there's a couple of black cards that where they allowed Black to do things that it doesn't normally get to do, um but they have some severe limitations, which does sort of theoretically or in can conceptually
00:20:14
Speaker
fit into black's normal color pie. That part of black's color pie is power at all costs. And so they, black is often allowed as a color to do things that the other, that it normally aren't in its color pie, if there is a high enough cost for it. um And so one of those that I always think is interesting, but I don't know that it it's a good card necessarily is dash hopes black black for an instant when you play dash hopes any player may pay five life if they do counter dash hopes and then the actual mechanic of the spell itself is counter target spell and so dash hopes is black black for a counter spell which is like literally a blue card blue blue counter target spell but in this case um
00:21:06
Speaker
you have the severe downside of anything you counter. Someone can pay five life to prevent you from countering it. So ultimately you can't like stop the biggest things. This may just be a black, black to five damage to somebody um spell. And so because the player, you're not making the choice, your opponents are making the choice. And it's also any player, which is interesting too. And in a multiplayer, it creates some, some interesting potential politicking.
00:21:35
Speaker
It, It creates... um it's It's not that great of a spell, ultimately, I think, but it is very mechanically interesting, I think. Another one of these is called Imp's Mischief. It's an instant for one and a black. Change the target of target's spell with a single target. You lose life equal to the spell's converted mana cost.
00:21:56
Speaker
So this is a mechanic that normally like normally was in blue and a red has had it some. like These days it's basically blue-red and I can't remember ah how much of which where it was back in the day.
00:22:09
Speaker
But here it is in black. But again, you have to pay life to change this and ostensibly the more powerful the spell, the more you know likely it's expensive and you are the more life you are probably paying for it.
00:22:28
Speaker
And then the the last of these i want to talk about is called Temporal Extortion. This is a sorcery for black, black, black, black. So that is no zero generic for black mana.
00:22:45
Speaker
And this says, when you play Temporal Extortion, any player may pay half of his or her life rounded up. If they do, counter Temporal Extortion.
00:22:56
Speaker
take an extra turn after this one. And so it's a it's a black spell that gives you an extra turn, which is just a kind of wild. um But again, sort of like Dash Hopes, this is a spell that if you're going to win with it,
00:23:12
Speaker
no, you aren't because somebody could just stop you. Now, someone paying half their life is a much larger cost than five, usually, not always. um But especially this being half, being a percentage like that, I think it's probably intentional so that even if someone was at a low life total,
00:23:30
Speaker
Basically, as long as they're at two, they can counter this spell. They can stop you from taking an extra turn if if they need to, if that would end the game for them. And so, again, those are three spells where black is is doing things black is different. Like, that's the kind of the most aggressive I've ever really seen, that piece of the the color pie, where they get to do what they want as long as the cost is high enough.
00:23:53
Speaker
um But then, in addition to that, you have cards, um sort of one-off cards, that are similar in concept to the, so the alternate reality thing, but they weren't quite there. So torchling, um, is, is a good example of this. There was a card called morphling that, um, was printed earlier, in magic, but, Was a big, got a lot of play in mono blue control because it is hard to nail down. It was a 3-3 that had a bunch of abilities. It had four or five. God, it had five abilities. So for three, blue, blue. Morphling has blue, untap it. Blue, it gains Flying.
00:24:37
Speaker
Blue, it gains Shroud. So it cannot be the target of spells or abilities. And then one generic, it gets plus one, minus one end of turn. One generic, it gets minus one, plus one until the end turn. So this is printed in Urza's Saga. It was played in a lot of control decks back then. Because it had Shroud, it was...
00:24:53
Speaker
hard to nail down so it was it was kind of though finisher for control decks so in planar chaos we get torchling also a three three also three red red so for the same colors um but the abilities are tweaked a little bit And so it has red, untap it, like Morphling, but then it also has red, target creature blocks Morphling this turn if able.
00:25:17
Speaker
Red, change the target of target spell that targets only Torch Sling. So it's not not quite as good as ah Shroud in most cases, probably. but also not too bad. If someone tries to kill spell it, you can shift it to somewhere else, um potentially even someone else, one of your opponent's creatures. um And then it also has the two same generic activations that Morphling has, either plus one, minus one, or minus one, plus one. And so in this case, it's
00:25:49
Speaker
ah does similar things. like It's not all of the same. um like Instead of getting flying to be you know less likely to be blocked, it has target creature must block torchling. So sort of inverting that, and then it has kind of a different iteration of shroud mechanic that's very similar, but not the same. So on corner cases, it's going to work differently.
00:26:13
Speaker
and So there's there's a bunch of of things like that um in this set. ah You have Ana Battlemage, which of course is a card I love because I'm i' a weirdo and I'm also a big fan of the original Invasion block back in the day. So Ana Battlemage is two and a green for 2-2 Human Wizard with two kicker abilities, one for two blue, two and a blue,
00:26:36
Speaker
and one for one in a black. The two in a blue, if you paint target player discards three cards. The one in a black says target tap target, untap creature. It deals damage equal to its power to its controller.
00:26:51
Speaker
And so a couple of fun little things there. That blue target player discards three card fits in blue a little bit, but is much more of a black effect. Whereas that black effect tapping a creature down generally more of a blue effect but here they give it a little black flare by also having it like hit its uh its controller um but one of the other sort of interesting things about this this very specifically and this is where i it goes back to i believe this was planescape um in the airplane shift which was part of the invasion block uh
00:27:33
Speaker
the um ah let me pull up the invasion block so there was a bunch of cycles in the invasion block you had battle mages like this that all had there were monocolor um and then had kicker activations and the uh Well, sort of. The Ana was from... so in In Planescape, you had the... be or or play Sorry.
00:28:05
Speaker
Plane Shift. Plane Shift and Planar Chaos throw me off a lot. So, of course, I'm talking about both sets in the same episode. um So, in Plane Shift... you had battle mages that were two twos for two in a blue or two in a color and then had two kickers, one from each of their allies. The blue one would have had an activation from a a kicker from white and a kicker from black.
00:28:29
Speaker
In this case, this is ah kind of referencing that with the Apocalypse, which instead went with the Volvers that were the same thing, color,
00:28:42
Speaker
this case green, and then had activations from its two enemies. Because that was kind of the whole thing with the invasion block and then invasion, the first set, and then plane shift were about, or multicolored sets were about allied colors. Apocalypse was the first time in Magic's history where there was a lot of emphasis on enemy color pairs doing things together. Because was a whole thing about enemy colors shouldn't be able to work together as easily. that they sort of decided to it's just a more fun game if you can just kind of play the colors that you want to play together but initially they tried to have that sort of represented in the mechanics that these colors don't play well together um well so then they sort of came up with a term like well we have now the shard names like bant and We have the guild names, you know, like the Boros or, you know, all these different groups, the clans from Tarkir and whatever that we kind of use to reference, to refer to the three
Dragon Cycle and Alternate Legends
00:29:36
Speaker
color combinations. Well, they kind of came up with their own names for these shards and wedges. And the wedge, the green with its two enemies, blue and black, were the Anna's was Anna Volver and a disciple and a sanctuary. And so this Anna battle mage, like there was never a battle mage cycle for those wedges.
00:29:59
Speaker
And so this is like the one of those that exists. And that's just me being a weird nerd for like cycles like this. And I love that this is the singular card sort of out of that cycle that just never existed. And we get one of the four or one of the five with, with four that just never show up. And,
00:30:17
Speaker
and Some other weird mechanical things that I think are fun. You have body double, ah four to blue for a shapeshifter. As it comes into play, you may choose a creature card in a graveyard. If you do, it comes into play as a copy of that card.
00:30:31
Speaker
To twist, you know, on on the classic clone, which was in alpha, um a little more expensive clone was three and a blue copy to creature that was in play.
00:30:41
Speaker
But here, you know, then they I love the the flavor text, when the dead outnumbered the living, mimics scavenged faces from the fallen. So it kind of fits into the the whole theme of the, up you know, post-apocalypse sort of theme of of the block.
00:30:55
Speaker
But it also, again, was sort of is taking a mechanic that exists, pulling it in and do using it in a different way. um this This set, we also got a cycle of dragons. um ten can Kind of going back to the invasion block, there was a cycle of five legendary dragons that all had, that were all shards. So at that point it was a color and its two allies. So you'd have like a white, green, red dragon.
00:31:25
Speaker
um I believe they were all six, six flyers and then have a, had a mechanic when they did combat damage, there was an activation kind of for their primary color that did some effect. Well, in this block, we got the wedge versions of those. So for instance, in intent, the dreamer,
00:31:40
Speaker
is three blue red green for a six six flyer uh when intent the dreamer deals combat damage to a player you may pay two in a blue if you do remove the top card of your library from the game face down you can look at it for as long as it remains are removed you may play that card without paying its mana cost as long as in intent isn't remains in play and so but there was a whole cycle of these there were five these are nice legendary dragons which is a cool thing Much cooler now.
00:32:10
Speaker
Commander didn't exist as a format, so the legends were there there were... There were fewer legends, but it was still kind of fun to have these five dragons in color combos that, again, didn't really have a lot of cards in these three color combos because...
00:32:24
Speaker
Magic just didn't do a lot of wedge or enemy color sort of things. Speaking of about legends, one of the other things they did, ah there are a number, most of the legends in this set, not all, because you like the dragons are a little different. You had Radha who was a character in the story. So she showed up too.
00:32:45
Speaker
um But some of these other legends are like alternate reality versions of existing legends. you had Akroma, Angel of Fury. who is a red-shifted, sort of, like a red version of Akroma Angel of Wrath. Again, the mechanics aren't exactly the same, so these aren't the shifted cards, but they are the same character represented in a different way. And so Akroma Angel of Fury is five red, red, red.
00:33:11
Speaker
Six, six Angel. um Akroma Angel of Fury can't be countered. Has flying trample, protection from white, protection from blue. ah red activation, Akroma Angel of Fury gets plus one plus zero until end of turn, and also has Morph.
00:33:26
Speaker
So again, like Akroma Angel of Wrath, kind of a keyword suit, just a bunch of different mechanics, but one shifted to make more sense for a red character from this but set too. So you got Morph, which is kind of present in this set, you have the can't be counter mechanic,
00:33:41
Speaker
um It has fire breathing. The protections shifted instead of red and black. It turned to white and blue again. it's This creature's two enemies, the enemy colors. ah There was also what I think were kind of the coolest is actually two kind of a set of three cards that tell a different alternate story. And so part of the Weatherlight Saga...
00:34:05
Speaker
And when back to literally the set Weather Light and Tempest, some of the sets that followed it, there's the story of one of the, two two of the, crew members of the weatherlight. One was Crovax and one was Miri. In the story of the weatherlight, in the story as it happened in Normal Magic, you had Crovax, there was a vampire, had like a family curse that eventually sort of overtook him.
00:34:34
Speaker
And then he became the Invicar of Wrath and worked with Phyrexia and was part of the invasion plan. to invade Dominaria. I believe he betrayed the group, all of this. And the in this old, you know,
00:34:54
Speaker
believe Mary was killed. And then in this set, you have an alternate Crovax ascended hero where um ah even the flavor text sort of explains this. Crovax was destined for an angel's curse, but one warped timeline saw the noble redeemed.
00:35:13
Speaker
So he's a human lord. It's a 4-4 for 4 white white. Other white creatures get plus and plus 1. Non-white creatures get minus 1, minus 1. Pay 2 life, return Provax to its owner's hand.
00:35:25
Speaker
um But then you also paired in this same set, you have Miri the Cursed to Black Black. Again, the flavor text here sort of explaining hero fall a hero fails, a murder falls, time twists, and destinies interchange. So in this alternate reality, Miri somehow ends up taking on the curse that claimed Crovax previously.
00:35:48
Speaker
And this version of Miri is a 3-2 vampire cat with flying first strike haste. And whenever Miri the Cursed deals combat damage to a creature, put a plus one, plus one counter on Miri the Cursed. Which I think is cool enough that you have these two, but then you also have... um Keen Sense, which is an aura for green. Enchanted creature, whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. But the art shows Crovax on a rope ladder reaching down to Miri, who is on the ground.
00:36:21
Speaker
um And then the flavor text says, Crovax sensed that Mary wasn't ready for the curse taking hold of her. Weeping in his heart, he fled. Sort of telling that story that alternate version of this story where somehow she wound up cursed. He fled with the rest of the weather light and then was redeemed himself. And so it's like a cool, again, it's like a few cards that if you haven't been playing magic for a long time, aren't going to mean anything to you. um But it's a really cool, I think it's a really cool sort of alternate take on that story and sort of give them a little taste of what could have been in a different reality.
00:36:58
Speaker
And then you have even like Core Dirge, which I'm just seeing now as a card sitting next to Keen Sense. ah two and a black for an instant, all damage that would be dealt this turn to target creature. You control by a source of your choice is dealt to another target creature instead.
00:37:13
Speaker
um But the the flavor text here is must be referencing Miri becoming the Envikar. It says, Wrath's new Envikar eliminated the brutish Moggs and took a new slave race, one more reminiscent of her own feline
Magus Cycle and Unique Mechanics
00:37:25
Speaker
grace. I don't know exactly what's being depicted in this arc, but again, it's referencing this sort of alternate timeline that could have existed.
00:37:34
Speaker
This set So you kind of transition and into a different cycle. Tayan and I talked about the Magus cycle in Time Spiral, who were all human wizards that had activated abilities of artifacts. There is a Magus cycle in all three sets of this block. The Magus cycle in this set, in Planar Chaos, are the land cycle. And so you have Magus of the Arena, who is red, does the mechanics from the arena cycle,
00:38:05
Speaker
the land, literally the arena that makes creatures fight each other. i think of the first, which was originally a book promo. It so it was a weird, weird card. Megas of the Bazaar, which Bazaar Magdad. Tap, draw two cards, and discard three three cards. Megas of the Coffers does the... does the um up all coffers. Mechanic 2, tap, add one, add black mana to your mana pool for each swamp you control.
00:38:30
Speaker
Magus of the Library, which is the Library variety of alex Alexandria. Tap, add a colorless to your mana pool. Tap, draw card. Play this ability only if you have exactly seven cards in your hand. And then Magus of the Tabernacle has all creatures have at the beginning of your upkeep.
00:38:45
Speaker
Sacrifice this creature unless you pay one, which was the Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale. A lot of these reference their lands in the flavor text. ah Megas of the Tabernacle, I think, is the most direct, where it says, The Tabernacle's disciples channeled the emanations from Pendrel Vale, spreading its paradoxical demand to be both worshipped and left alone.
00:39:08
Speaker
oh have, you know, Megas of the Bazaar, some trade in goods, some trade in secrets. My soul has walked the future and I offer the rare coin of possibility. So fun, a fun cycle that I love. I love these Megas cycles. I know they they eventually started doing some in like commander decks and things with instants and sorceries, which is fun too.
00:39:27
Speaker
um And then that I think that kind of wraps it up. up theres That's right. There's one more weird card that I've never really saw before until i was going through this. I'll wrap this up with one one more strange card that I found um while I was going through this set this time, kind of preparing for this episode. There is a green aura called u ah u Utopia utopia vow One and a green, Enchant Creature.
00:39:53
Speaker
Enchanted Creature can't attack or block. And Enchanted Creature has, tap, add one mana of any color to your mana pool. So like I think this is really interesting mechanically because um obviously this is ah like it's a pacifism effect. That's a thing that's been in white for a long time. Enchanted Creature can't attack or block. Very straightforward there. um You use pacifism effects on your opponent's creatures.
00:40:17
Speaker
that's how you that's That's the point of them. um Except this one has the added, now now that would turn them into a bird of paradise, which is a very green thing. And so it's an interesting sort of tug there.
00:40:30
Speaker
Do you cast it on your own creature to get access to the mana, or do you cast it on your opponent's creature to stop them from fighting, but also accelerate them and possibly color fix for them because it's any color.
00:40:41
Speaker
um And so I think that's an interesting sort of play that doesn't – these are both mechanics that sort of exist in green, though of course pacifism is more more a white effect. But I think it's a fun sort of alternate look at a way you could do this where you you kind of – you're doing a pacifism effect but also creates a little bit of an incentive to – to use it on your own thing, causing you to take the damage of, take the hit of that, making a creature unable to attack or block, but giving you that benefit.
00:41:16
Speaker
Or it's a little bit like what happens in white, where you have like sword to plowshears and path to exile, where some of white's best like targeted, their targeted destruction, like their pacifism effects are not permanent. So they, they get to exist in white.
00:41:32
Speaker
but if they do target an exile it has to give something to your opponent as ah as an ex in an in exchange for you know taking out this creature they're getting life from sorts to flowers or they're getting a basic land from path to exile this is kind of playing with that same concept um Only again in green, which is kind of the point of this this set where you have things sort of shifted around a little bit, which looking back on it 20 years later, I think is interesting.
Conclusion and Personal Reflection
00:42:05
Speaker
Had you been playing at the time, it makes things weird. So that um is the planner chaos. Talked about a lot more cards than I was kind of expecting. There's a lot of other really cool cards in the set. I mean, this is the set that Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth comes from where lands become swamps. It's a cool, interesting card though, less fitting sort of the specific theme of the, the alternate present thing.
00:42:30
Speaker
um i just, I love this set. I love this block. So at some point I'll definitely be back to talk future site. That is the weirdest. of these sets and the the first two are pretty weird on their own.
00:42:45
Speaker
um But yeah, I'll just leave it there. Thank you for, for listening and, and everyone just, you know, do, i don't know, stay safe and take care of yourself. Things are not ah the best right now and lots of things are going on, but take care of yourself and we'll be back.