Souls of Magic 2015

Those of you who keep track of the big-picture themes in Magic: The Gathering will know that many expansion sets (or blocks) include what are known as "cycles" - a group of cards, usually one for each color on the color wheel, that are tied together by a common theme. The very first cycles showed up in the very first edition of Magic: 1993's Limited Editions Alpha and Beta (which I just learned actually represent two different printings of the same set and collectively are known as First Edition). One famous cycle is comprised of the three-for-one instants: each of these five spells costs one mana of the appropriate color and provides three of something in return (life for white, cards for blue, mana for black, damage for red, and power/toughness increase for green). Some of these cards are still in print (Giant Growth was active as recently as the last core set) while some of them were deemed too powerful almost from the jump (Ancestral Recall wasn't even printed beyond Unlimited Edition, or Second Edition, and is now banned). Another cycle from First Edition are the Moxes: five artifacts with casting cost zero that tap for one mana of the appropriate color. All five of these were deemed too powerful (they essentially allow a player to drop two lands per turn) and were also discontinued before Third Edition (i.e. Revised Edition) came to light.

First Edition's three-for-one (above) and Mox (below) cycles.

There have been many hundreds of cycles great and small throughout Magic's storied history. One that comes to mind is made up of the Blank-less One's from Onslaught - one uncommon Avatar Creature for each color, whose power and toughness are equal to the number of a specified creature subtype in play: Clerics for white, Wizards for blue, Zombies for black, Goblins for red, and Elves for green. (I'll get into the reason why that particular one came to mind later.) Some cycles span across multiple, unrelated expansions: the Invokers, first seen in Legions, are another creature cycle using the same color-specific subtypes as above, but paired with Mutant instead of Avatar, and each with an activated ability costing eight mana to play. Seven years later, in Rise of the Eldrazi, five more Invokers appeared, each also with an 8-CMC activated ability, just with different creature types.

Not all cycles are limited to the one-per-color format. There are numerous 10-card cycles from both sets that took place in Ravnica with each card representing one of the dual-colored Guilds. Each guild has two Guildmages (one from each Ravnica-set block), one Maze Runner (all from Dragon's Maze), any number of guild leaders (depending on who's in charge at the moment) and three mana related Artifacts (each has a Signet, a Keyrune, and a Cluestone). Cycles are not even limited to spells and artifacts, as there are myriad land cycles too, including dual lands, shock lands, slow lands, pain lands, man lands, fetch lands, scry lands... even the basic lands can be considered to be a cycle of sorts. If you're interested in learning more about cycles, the MTG Salvation Wiki entry for each expansion set lists the cycles for each one in great detail.

These five legendary "Maze Runners" starred in their own Intro Packs from Dragon's Maze.
Spoiler Alert: There are five more not pictured.

But the cycle that most recently drew my attention is one from the as yet unreleased Magic 2015 set, which will become the new official Core Set a week from today. (Those of you who can't wait until then can experience the prerelease events tomorrow and Sunday.) Unlike most cycles, this new one consists of six cards: one for each color and one colorless to represent the Artifact contingent. Each card in this cycle is mythic rare, they're each Creatures with the subtype Avatar (remember the "Ones" from Onslaught?), they each have power and toughness 6/6, they each cost six mana, and they each have an activated ability that can be activated once more from the graveyard with the same mechanic as flashback. But the most important thing that these cards have in common are their names, which follow the format "Soul of {Blank}" where {Blank} is the name of a plane that was recently the setting of a Magic expansion block.

For those of you without Vorthosian tendencies, "plane" refers to a setting where a specific storyline in the Magic multiverse takes place. Every expert level expansion set takes place on one or more planes, which function as something between a planet, a star system, and an individual universe (hence the term multiverse). Certain heroes in the multiverse can travel, or 'walk, between these planes (hence Planeswalker), as can every player who has built a Magic deck or opened a booster pack. Thus, for the first time ever, this cycle of Souls in M15 makes specific reference to the settings in Magic's recent history. In descending order from newest to oldest, these planes are Theros, Ravnica, Innistrad, New Phyrexia, Zendikar, and Shandalar. All of these planes but the last also lend their names to the expansion set in which the storyline takes place.

Theros was modeled after the world of Ancient Greek Mythology in top-down fashion. Heroic phalanxes defend their cities from the threat of monstrous Hydras, brutal Minotaurs, enticing Sirens and other creatures of myth, while a pantheon of Gods rules from their realm of Enchantment in the night sky. The Soul of Theros is white-aligned, which, along with the card art, represents the soldier motif. Ravnica, the plane composed entirely of a sprawling cityscape, has been the setting of two expansion blocks, each one built around the 10 above-mentioned dual-colored guilds. When last we left the plane, the previously-dissolved agreement whereby the guilds peacefully coexist was put back into existence by one of those famous Planeswalkers, who not only gets a new card in M15, but is also the namesake for the new font making its debut in this set. That Planeswalker happens to be blue-aligned, so it makes sense that Ravnica's soul is also blue.

Innistrad was the first top-down designed plane in the multiverse, this one based on the 19th Century gothic horror genre. Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies beset the terrified villagers while beautiful Angels fight to stem the tide of Demons and Devils. As befits the horror motif, the Soul of Innistrad is black-aligned. New Phyrexia was once known as Mirrodin, the purely metal plane that was besieged and subsequently dominated by one of the multiverse's oldest antagonists. Having been thwarted by Urza and the Coalition on Dominaria, the Phyrexians turned their attention to Mirrodin, corrupting the Artifact-haven right down to its core. It should be obvious what color (or lack thereof) New Phyrexia's soul is. Then we have Zendikar, one of my absolute favorite expansions, and not just because it was the newest set when I first started playing. The world of Zendikar is marked by abundant yet volatile mana (which explains its green-aligned Soul) and the inhabitants of Zendikar are filled with a yearning for adventure - or at least they were until the plane came under threat of annihilation by the kaiju-like Eldrazi.

As I mentioned, these last five Souls are named after previous expansion sets, but that's not the case for Shandalar, the plane with the red Soul. The name Shandalar only appears once in the Magic universe: in the flavor text of the Magic 2013 card Talrand's Invocation, which in turn references the Legendary leader of one of the M13 intro packs. Why does this little-referenced plane get such a high place of honor among the most recent game-defining settings? To answer that question, I'll need to go into the history of MTG's core sets. Through Tenth Edition, the only place you could find new Magic cards was in the expert level expansions, which all took place on a particular plane. The core sets, printed once every two years, consisted only of reprints from past expansions - except, of course, for the first edition, in which all the cards were obviously first printings. Thus in terms of storyline, the core sets were at once tied to every plane and no plane.

This arrangement all changed in 2009 when Wizards abandoned the numbered core sets and started printing one every year. Not only did they change the names to reflect the current year (actually, the year AFTER the current year, like car models), they also started printing new cards in core sets (including Planeswalkers) for the first time. Some of these new cards referenced familiar planes in the multiverse, but some of them introduced us to new never-before-seen locations and characters. The majority of these new additions take place on the plane of Shandalar. To get an idea of some of the main locations on that plane, one only has to look to another cycle from M13: the Rings. Thune, Kalonia, Xathrid, Valkas, and Evos Isle are all Shandalarian locations of great power that lend their names to powerful creatures as well.

So whichever plane to which you choose to 'walk for your next adventures in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse, keep in mind that there were many that came before it and many that will come after it. (The next expansion after M15 is slated to take place on Tarkir, the Dragon-infested homeworld of Planeswalker Sarkhan Vol... but don't even get me started.) All of these planes are inexorably linked, not only through the marketing campaigns of Wizards of the Coast, but through the decks that Magic players build, combining creatures and spells from all sorts of different and varied worlds. So instead of just "casting a creature card," take a moment to reflect on the particular plane from whence he/she/it was summoned. Don't just toss your spells into the graveyard after reading and following the rules text; give a little thought to the type of mana that first produced it and the mage who first thought of it. And above all, don't just PLAY the game of Magic; EXPERIENCE the game of Magic. It's what Jimi Hendrix would have wanted...