Multiverse Set Review: MODERN HORIZONS 2 (PArt 1)
MODERN SENSIBILITIES: White & Blue
JUNE 14, 2021 - By Nicholas Fair
Before we get to the set review, I have a quick story for you.
Once upon a time, a young magic player had a dream to identify every orphaned card in Magic supplemental sets. It was a simpler time, and not such a foolish goal when you realize the most planar orphans you’d get in a year were two or three fun callbacks in a core set, or a new piece of art on a Planechase reprint.
But then, one day, Wizards of the Coast decided to release more supplemental products than standard ones. They released multiple commander decks for every standard set, chocked full of new cards with juicy bits of extra lore and worldbuilding. And they made 2020 '“The Year of Commander” by releasing Commander Legends, JumpStart, Signature Spellbook: Chandra, Mystery Boosters, Double Masters, thirteen Secret Lairs, and dozens of other products. And the glorious overflow of cards buried me alive in the lore and Vorthos glory. That may not have been enough to do me in, but we also had Covid making life very difficult for everyone, and to be honest I also fell a little out of love with Magic after the The Walking Dead fiasco. So although I took a bit of a hiatus after M2021, I’ve now resurfaced and I’m ready to review!
Welcome back, friends.
It’s been a little while since the last Multiverse Set Review, but Modern Horizons 2 has me incredibly excited. It’s end-to-end packed with nuanced lore, visual details, and bizarre easter eggs for the game we all love, and because of that I’m not just doing one review. That’s right: unlike previous reviews, I’m listing and reviewing every single card from MH2 ( that isn’t a reprint with pre-existing art) in order. Because of this, I’m releasing this review in 4 installments: white & blue, black & red, green & gold, and artifacts & land. Tune in for updates over the next week!
For those who are new to the Multiverse Set Reviews, the goal of these are to discuss new cards from the latest Magic release and assign them to known planes in the Magic Multiverse. It starts with a card-by-card review, followed by some discussion of art trends and themes in the set, and will cap off with a final count of planes represented and hopes for the future.
As with the other set reviews, I am only one person, and quite often I miss a thing or two (despite my best efforts!). We also owe an incredible amount to the community for crowdsourcing card origins and lore, so please feel free to send me your feedback or details on anything you think I may have missed at mtgmultiverse.feedback@gmail.com.
Let’s get to it!
MODERN HORIZONS: WHITE
SERRA’S REALM
Although the people of New Benalia have built replicas of Serra’s architecture in her honor, this art depicts the original thing. You can spot Serra’s Sanctum visible on the left there, and the call-back to the Song of All in the flavour text is a delightful reference to many cards from the Urza block.
MIRRODIN
I AM AMPED. Mirrodin was the first set I really played growing up, and the arcbound stuck in my imagination the moment I saw them. Beings made of disembodied metal that was animated and connected by conduits of electricity felt like a unique twist on robots and golems that I had never seen before. Most of the old arcbound were notoriously weak creatures, as they were meant to grow and combine, so it’s great to see them get more support. In addition, this little guy in particular is a super cool reference to Icatian Javelineers from Fallen Empires in both mechanic and artwork composition.
MIRRODIN
More arcbound! This little guy is standing in the glimmervoid, very clearly showing us that Modern Horizons 2 is showing us a window of pre-Phyrexianized Mirrodin. Given that the plane was lost to corruption as of New Phyrexia, the only way we can revisit the past is through supplemental sets like Modern Horizons. The mouser here does bring up the interesting conundrum of Mirran cats, though. Up until now we’d only seen humanoid cats on cards, but this little guy seems to imply there’s normal housecats running around. I wonder how the Lenonin feel about that.
MIRRODIN
Three Arcbound?! What a gift. Reading over all arcbound creatures, this one is the first assembly-worker, and all the justification you need is in the flavour text. This smol builder sheds some light on the origin of the arcbound, but leaves me wanting to learn even more. Was this little guy the first arcbound, or do they simply have a drive to build if they find themselves alone? I hope we keep seeing them in supplemental sets so Arcbound Prototype here doesn’t get too lonely.
KALADESH
There’s something kind of funny about “spike on the end of a remote control plane” being an equipment you can give to any of your creatures, but I suppose Magic isn’t about making 100% sense, which is why we have this great Twitter account. Barbed Spike showcases the quintessential Kaladeshi thopter on it, so case open-and-closed for where it’s from. What I want to ask, though, is why it gets +1'/+0 when the non-upgraded thopter token already has the spike on it.
DOMINARIA: CORONDOR
Look at the guns on that blacksmith! And that’s no ordinary blacksmith shrouded in darkness, either, but Dakkon, the wielder of the Blackblade, working on creating said famed sword. You can read the history of the blacksmith-turned-planeswalker here, but the summary of events is that the nefarious Geyadrone Dihada offered to make Dakkon a planeswalker if he made a super powerful sword that could drink souls. He agreed, naturally, and crafted the blade over the course of ten years, cooling it after the forging process by killing a slave with the red-hot blade every single day. You might say he’s not a super-great guy.
UNKNOWN
This art is fascinating; the living tattoos, the floral motif, the generally beautiful hood and demeanor of the caster… I want to know more about this world. But alas, nothing has turned up yet.
DOMINARIA
Who’s that in the locket? Why it’s none other than Tolarian Academy power couple Barrin and Rayne! These two were literally genetically engineered to be together by Urza Planeswalker in the bizarre storyline that was the Bloodline Project, but they both played a huge part in the history of Dominaria, as did their daughter Hannah. I guess this card is showing the destruction of history or social bonds, which is white in flavour, but man it’s an odd mish-mash of mechanics.
UNKNOWN
Although Mirrodin has more than its share of artifact creatures weird enough to be goats, none even come close to looking like this hungry little beast. This goat almost resembles a sculpture made of a mix of copper and silver, and I can’t imagine it was commissioned by the art director as anything other than “a weird metal goat that looks like it’s going to chew on your nose.” For now I’ll say it’s homeless, but I’d love to learn otherwise!
FIORA
Fiora has more than a few references “The Realm”, though it’s not the only plane that does. Matching the very Italian garb of the Giant depicted here, however, means that Fiora is by far the best fit as the plane itself is rooted visually in renaissance italy. The plane employs white-aligned Giants as guards with regularity, and this one is no doubt inspired by the outfits of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard, famously designed by Leonardo Da Vinci himself. Cool, right?
UNKNOWN
The mechanics, flavour text, and name of this card are all clearly referencing the card Sun Titan, and in that regard it’s a home run of a callback. The only issue here is that Sun Titan is a plane-agnostic card (except that Therosian promo) and Disciple of the Sun visually matches no world I can find. Especially with the incredibly unique architecture in the background, I feel like I should be able to find something, but no luck. Perhaps it’s a new world we’ve yet to see?
ALARA: ESPER
Look at this dude. This guy just walks around like that all day. Naked and covered in metal. Does he only eat kababs? I guess he is on Esper, and he’s infused with magical etherium, so he probably doesn’t actually need to eat. Etherium is a material that replaces basically anything on your body, and is probably the most powerful material in the multiverse as it generates mana, and this guy used it to make his arms into swords. What a mood. Oh, yeah, for those not in the know: Esper is a shard of Alara, where everyone works really hard to look like this.
KALADESH
“No signs of any suspicious activity. Yet.”
This is a card that depicts the Inventor’s Fair on Kaladesh, right before Tezzeret took control of it and took everyone’s stuff. The thopters on Kaladesh are often used for spying as “eyes in the skies”, so I really like that when the patrol leaves her post a Thopter fills in for her. Also this is low-key one of my favorite pieces of art from the entire set. The perspective and flow of the artwork is just masterful. You go, Sidharth Chaturvedi!
UNKNOWN
This is a really cool angel. She’s got spear heads for bracelets and a golden triangle motif working through her outfit that I haven’t been able to place. The sky behind her offers no hints to her location, though it omits any obvious planes like Serra’s Realm or Esper. I’d be very interested in seeing more cards with her mix of “soft, flowing dress, green hair, and literal knife arms” aesthetic, though.
TARKIR
Kirin are only known to three planes, as they are a creature originally from Chinese folklore: Tarkir, Kamigawa, and The Plane of Mountains and Seas. This one in particular is from Tarkir, which we know from the flavour text referencing Ojutai, one of the five Dragonlords from the present dragons timeline of the plane.
UNKNOWN
This card is the second “three of one common stapled together” card that we’ve gotten. Last time we got Llanowar Tribe made from three Llanowar Elves in Modern Horizons 1, and this time we have three Healers Hawks. As Healer’s Hawk was on Ravnica, I’d be keen to place these guys on Ravnica, too, but Ravnica does not have gigantic canyons anywhere as the entire plane is a city. This means that this trio is homeless, and were probably not designed by the artist or art director to fit on any plane in particular.
MIRRODIN
This is such a goofy little card. Mirrodin has nothing even close to resembling the “classic” knight helm on this Myr, but the Myr are literally only found on Mirrodin, and that is unmistakably a razorgrass field he’s in. Maybe one of the leonin dressed it up in the same way humans on earth dress up our pets. On the bright side, the art here does a good job of reminding us that the giant circles on the side of a Myr’s head are not their eyes.
DOMINARIA: KELD
If you’re like me, you looked at this giant, cute, vaguely squirrel-looking beast, and went “wow, weird, there’s never been anything like that before in Magic”, and you’d be wrong! The Colos are from Keld, first seen as Wild Colos and Colos Yearling in Urza’s Destiny. This one looks a lot less like a giant goat than the other two, though, and I am actually really curious why they decided to make this a callback when the art and mechanics don’t really have anything to do with the old cards.
UNKNOWN
Kev Walker never fails to impress, but I have to give major kudos to WotC’s creative team for this one, too. This feels like a scene from an illustrated children’s book I read as a child called The Eleventh Hour. I would absolutely love to know what the origins of this card were, but right now it absolutely fits no world we’ve ever been to… though I may add it to the Victorian-inspired world over on the Unknown Realms page.
UNKNOWN
This is very fun art, but man is it odd to try and place it in the multiverse. There are giant towers in the art that seem to focus the light of the sun into lasers, and they’re standing in a row on the edge of a giant desert shooting at very fast running lizards. Also, this card cares about artifacts for some reason. This feels like it was meant to be a very different card, but development made late changes when trying to give white more artifacts-matters cards that other archtypes wouldn’t pick highly. Of course I’d love to be proven wrong.
DOMINARIA
This card is a direct reference to the card that started this whole Underworld Cookbook business: Granite Gargoyle way back in Alpha. Given that this set is the one that finally pays off the joke of “person with a really long name cooks rock monsters into food for the devil” that started over 25 years ago, it makes sense WotC pulled no punches in referencing it wherever possible.
THEROS
A reference to the god of breakfast himself, a greek helmet, and it’s an enchantment creature from Nyx; you couldn’t make this more Therosian unless you put the set symbol watermark on it.
DOMINARIA: BENALIA
Although the art’s details are somewhat hard to make out at card size, they tell us everything. We’re seeing a group of knights or soldiers charging into a warped bubble of space and time inside a cathedral with beautiful stained glass. Stained glass and knights are the main motif of New Benalia. But not only that, this feels very much like the payoff for Modern Horizons 1’s Knight of Old Benalia, showing a knight taken from the pre-mending world and transplanted in the modern era. This card mechanically teleports all the creatures on the battlefield to the future, and is a super cool blend of mechanics and flavour.
UNKNOWN
How can such beautiful, striking art have such a groan-worthy pun for flavour text? I’m not saying I’m against puns, but wow, it’s like a line from WWE next to a classical painting.
DOMINARIA: NEW BENALIA
As I just mentioned with the card Out of Time above, New Benalia is known for its stained glass. The famously white-aligned Benalia is directly opposed to the famously black-aligned Cabal from the continent of Otaria, and the unlucky soul going through the window here has the red robes and black-and-gold armor of a modern cabal supplicant. What a fashionable cult.
THEROS
A greek-style wall sculpture shows us a painting of Thassa, God of the Sea and Iroas, God of Victory, all while mechanically caring about enchantments. This one is a no-brainer. It’s interesting in that it may have fun lore implications: perhaps the mortals’ faith in the gods is returning after Heliod’s defeat?
RATH
Sanctifier en-Vec here is direct reference to Paladin en-Vec from Exodus. The title ‘en-Vec’ means of the Vec tribe, a human tribe trapped on Rath. The tribe may have come from Dominaria initially, and after Rath’s overlay onto Dominaria during the invasion, this sanctifier could belong to either. The abilities don’t tell us much more, but her environment looks like it could be on the edge of Skyshroud forest and a volcano, leading me to place her on Rath.
DOMINARIA: NEW BENALIA
A buy-a-box promo only, Sanctum Prelate was initially printed in Conspiracy: Take the Crown. This art is vastly different than the initial printing, with much more of a religious-fantasy vibe. If you find the HD artwork, you can better tell she’s surrounded by geometric stained glass and has a necklace and diadem adored with a circle divided into four quarters. This feels like it’s most likely Dominarian, and from Benalia, though it’s far from a home-run.
NONE
I absolutely love abstract art pieces that so perfectly capture the mechanic of the card they’re on. They’re notoriously difficult to illustrate, as artist Tyler Wapole tweeted about this piece, but it does mean there’s really no plane this card belongs to in particular. That being said, it would be at home on any plane with deserts: Dominaria, Amonkhet, and many others would fit the bill.
INNISTRAD
Although you can’t count on mechanics informing you of a card’s plane like you used to be able to, Search the Premises screams ‘Innistrad!’ at us from all angles. It’s literally got Thraben Inspector in the art on the right-hand side, and quotes an Inquisitor discussing the Doctor-Frankenstein-analogue Stitcher Geralf.
Serra’s Realm
This card is beautiful. The art is almost impressionist, and artist Nils Hamm once again has created a breathtaking image most of us will only see in a 1-inch box. Serra is, of course, the creator of Serra’s Realm, and although her angels now live on Dominaria, this artwork shows a full and beautifully-lit sky that I’d attribute to her plane. I have a sneaking suspicion, given the protection ability on this card, that it may have been a reference to the Voices of Serra from years ago.
UNKNOWN
Skyblade’s Boon is the kind of card I love because it creates a two-card world with another planeless card: Sephara, Sky’s Blade. Her sword is exactly the same as Sephara’s (if not made of light), and so is her headdress. It’s likely that the art director looked at this card in the design file and said “hey, this reminds me of a fun card people like that’s all about flying” and decided to make this art a callback to Sephara, but it could also be that Sephara and Skyblade’s Boon are referencing a cohesive world we’ve yet to be shown. For now, I’m hoping the latter and will keep my eyes peeled for more references.
Unknown
Solitude is the first of a 5-card cycle of mythic Elemental Incarnations with Evoke and powerful ETB abilities. All of them are elementals, which would most likely make them Lorwyn denizens due to the Evoke ability and plane’s natural affinity for personifying otherwise utterly abstract concepts. I can’t help but feel this art is too primal and cohesive for Lorwyn, though. Lorwyn’s elementals are usually a mish-mash of different animals and plants, almost like a silly storybook collage, and Solitude is so… stoic and beautiful it just doesn’t fit.
UNKNOWN
What I wrote for the full-art Solitude above goes doubly here, except that this art also shows a human, and humans are canonically entirely absent from Lorwyn. These elemental incarnations were likely commissioned plane-agnostic from their artists, but I’d love to be proven wrong. There’s always the original incarnations…
LORWYN
In contrast to Solitude, hey, look! It’s a Lorwyn Elemental! This little dude is the elemental embodiment of migration, and even though it looks like it should be a spirit from Ravnica, I think that’s mainly due to artist Kev Walker’s very iconic take on the spirits from that plane. Lorwyn is a plane of eternal midsummer and Soul of Migration fits right in with the other goofy elementals there.
INNISTRAD
I’m a little torn on where on earth the design for the character’s outfit came from as it looks like nothing I recognize from the plane of Innistrad, but this is absolutely a piece representing a bizarre exorcism. The flavour text informs us a bit of what’s happening and who’s present. Most notably, the speaker is Inquisitor Laerin, first quoted in the red-aligned Inner Struggle from Shadows Over Innistrad. Maybe we’ll see him next time we visit.
INNISTRAD
In contrast to Soul Snare above, Thraben Watcher is a love letter to Innistrad’s lore. Thraben is, of course, one of the largest human settlements in Innistrad, and the mechanic here is a direct reference to Always Watching from Shadows Over Innistrad, which in turn was a riff on the card Intangible Virtue from Innistrad. Because the quote in the flavour text sounds like it’s from a time when the angels were a comforting force and not a malevolent one, I imagine this card takes place when Nahiri began to pull Emrakul to Innistrad and Avancyn began to go mad.
UNKNOWN (AMONKHET?)
I know exactly what Timeless Dragon is, and it’s a perfect example of why not every Magic Card has a planar home. This card is exactly like a similar card later in this set named Timeless Witness, where an old but iconic card had “Eternal” in its name and the designers at WotC decided to give it Eternalize. In this case, Eternal Dragon is the card referenced here, a Dominarian spirit dragon. The artist has beautifully referenced that dragon’s art in this piece, but Eternalize is a process of creating an Eternal: something that requires Lazotep (only found on Amonkhet) and a process that, as far as we know, was invented by Nicol Bolas. If the dragon or the token looked like any of the species found on Amonkhet I’d be more likely to consider it, but for now it feels like it goes to the unknowns.
DOMINARIA
The image of the pure-white pegasus being ridden by an armored knight is incredibly iconic in fantasy that it’s almost odd to realize that Magic hasn’t had one in ages. They’re always depicted on a Roc, or a flying lion, or a gryphon, or a giant songbird, or a dinosaur. The Selesnya of Ravnica do have a group of pegasus riders called Equenauts, though they are usually dressed in guild armor, and Theros has lots of pegasi, though they have a fairly iconic mottled pattern and Grecian mane. The best fit I could find was during the Dominarian ice age, and with its Norse-inspired motifs, that matches the art here as well.
MODERN HORIZONS: BLUE
DOMINARIA
Did you notice this dude is a Manatee? Victor Adame may be the first artist to render a fantasy manatee; he’s certainly the first to do one for Magic. Aeromoeba is a callback to the madness-enabling Aquamoeba from Torment, and I’ve no reason to believe they’re not related.
IXALAN
Where else do we have sky pirates? Well, Dominaria, technically, and Kaladesh, but the kitesail design and giant hat are all I need to know it’s one of our treasure-loving pirates from Ixalan.
UNKNOWN
Looking at the beautiful HD art for Ryan Yee’s Counterspell gives me a much better appreciation for the skill and detail, but doesn’t shed any light on where this card might take place.
UNKNOWN
It’s a soldier, in his underwear, with his shining armor removed magically. The art is as funny as it is excellently lit, but there’s no background to go by, and the armor is pretty generic as things go. I can’t place this fun little card.
ALARA: ESPER
It’s confirmed: Esper has thopter hipsters. They grind their own coffee and ride filigree bikes, and they never buy off-the-rack thopters.
For reference, etherium is currently only found on Esper, a shard/part of the plane Alara.
ALARA: ESPER
The flavour mentions Coruk, Esper artificer, so this seems pretty open-and-shut. It’s really interesting to see that the homunculus style from past visits to Alara has changed from being tiny and adorable to slightly more unnerving and uncanny, though.
UNKNOWN
We’re all going to collectively call this little guy Blue’s Clues, right? Okay, cool. Other than that, though, I have no clue where he’s actually from. Water elementals are found essentially on every plane, and the castle in the back is interesting but doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in particular.
INNISTRAD
Storm Crow rises once again: this time from a really bad dream. Foul Watcher is a nightmare bird with at least six eyes and who makes its home in an eastern-european-style city. My initial thought was that our latest return to Ravnica had a few random nightmare creatures, including a hound, a sphinx, a beast, and a demon. This bird has surveil, too, though a few cards in Modern Horizons have surveil, so that’s not a big selling point. The more I thought about it and considered the environment, though, the more I think this little guy calls Innistrad home, and that he’s actually a hint at what’s to come for our next visit. Surveil would be a great mechanic on the plane, and with the effects of Emrakul still present in some capacity, nightmare creatures that aren’t full eldrazi would be in abundance.
INNISTRAD
Speaking of Emrakul, though, this feels like a much more obvious of a nod to her. Last seen Imprisoned in the Moon on Innistrad, Emrakul still exerts a maddening, eldritch force from her silver prison, and the composition of this piece feels like someone gazing up from a meadow at the Alpine Moon and feeling the madness from within the moon as a tentacled, abstract horror.
KAMIGAWA
If this set didn’t have a single reference to Kamigawa I’d consider it a major oversight. But worry not! This cool ghost comes with the Channel ability, rewarding you for discarding it and helping you achieve delirium in your limited games. Ghost-Lit Drifter is a continuation of a cycle from Saviors of Kamigawa, and probably one of the cooler spirits to have the iconic floating spirit fish.
INNISTRAD
Detective crab is my favorite detective, and if he doesn’t get a legendary 1-mana 0/3 in the next set I’m going to riot. He’s the long arm of the claw. Nothing about this card tells me it is or isn’t on Innistrad, of course, but another card down on this list does: Scuttletide. I love mini stories told on multiple cards like this.
RABIAH
This card hit me with a strange sense of Deja Vu, and I realized why the other night: it’s reminiscent of the poster for the made-for-TV movie Arabian Nights. Although the card is a mechanical reference to Bribery, the art clearly depicts (a depiction of) Aladdin’s Lamp and a Djinn, both cards from Arabian Nights that takes place on Rabiah.
UNKNOWN
Junk Winder is such a weird, cool card. It has the art of something commissioned well after the set was designed: it’s a serpent that’s playing with gold, food, and squirrels, after all. But there’s nowhere I could find with slimy gold-diving serpents with mutton chops, so right now he’s left in the unknown pile. I would love to see more of this plane, though, whatever it is.
Ravnica
I spent a long time looking for hints in the art to this card for where it’s from. The art is abstract somewhat; though two main things have made me settle on Ravnica for now. One is the mechanic: replicate is from the first visit to Ravnica, though I’ve said before that mechanics in a set like this don’t matter too much. The other hint was the clothing of the main figure. The blue-grey cloak of Dimir operatives on Ravnica matches quite closely.
NONE
I love the look of cards like this. This is clearly meant to be an abstract piece that shows someone dreaming, but shaping the dream from the bad (tentacles on the horizon) to the good (beautiful fish in the sky). Modern Horizons had a few cards with similar aesthetics, and this falls in the same group. That is, until we get to visit a rainbow dream world.
UNKNOWN
Another abstract piece, Mental Journey is one that I feel can be solved similarly to Lose Focus above. The arcane halo is the most telling clue, as the background of doors is visually inspiring but otherwise very unhelpful, and I have yet to place it. In all likelihood it’s another piece designed to be evocative of a mood and feeling, not a specific person, place, or thing, and I’m very glad we get both in Magic.
Tarkir(?)
There are a few draconic Regents in magic, but of the seven, five are from Tarkir. The plane has five very specific dragon broods, however, and Murktide here doesn’t directly relate to one of the five. It’s closest to the brood of Silumgar, but the fins and serrated wings are very unique. It almost reminds me of the Amphin, but that’s likely just the environment. It also has Delve, a mechanic found on Tarkir, but I’m still not sold. There could be another brood beneath the surface of Tarkir, but that seems somewhat unlikely. What do you think?
RAVNICA
If you ever see a Magic card depicting beautiful hands, odds are good Donato Giancola drew it. Mystic Redaction is no exception, although it’s too close-up to really give us many hints. Blue rune and law magic is very Azorious, though, as is the flavour text depicting censorship. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good fit.
MIRRODIN
Oh no, Kara Vrist, what are you going to do to him?! Look out, little guy!
Like all Myr, Parcel Myr here is from Mirrodin, and because the flavour text references the Mirran resistance but shows a beautiful sky and pure quicksilver sea, it very likely takes place during the initial Phyrexian breach of the surface during Scars of Mirrodin or Mirrodin Besieged.
IXALAN
You thought the meme of Colossal Dradmaw was over? Think again! I’ve no idea where such a massive illusion could come from on Ixalan, but I would love to find out. Given that this is the latest in a series of Phantasmal iconic creatures, I’m glad Captain Lannery Storm has brought us this one. Right into my illusion tribal deck you go, Phantasmal Dreadmaw.
THEROS
One of the things I missed from the latest visit to Theros was that we didn’t get to spend enough time there to see disciples of the secondary pantheon. I’ve always loved the world building the creative team did for Keranos especially: a god of lightning and oracles, of overwhelming truths and insight that could just as easily fry your mind as enlighten it. It’s a great take on UR with some very fun motifs, and Raving Visionary is a very cool addition to the world.
RAVNICA
The flavour text references the Izzet, so Recalibrate is one of the many additions to Ravnica in Modern Horizons 2. Even if it hadn’t, I can’t think of another plane with such cool gadgetry, and if you look closely, you can see a weird inside the machine, a species only found alongside Izzet experimentation.
ELDRAINE
Eldraine is, asides from Aurtherian, a storybook world that takes inspiration from faerie tales. The animating of toys and everyday objects is common in the works of Disney animation precisely because it was so commonly used in the folklore source material they reference, and so it makes perfect sense for Eldraine. We can see Eldraine’s animated brooms and animated armor, and it’s likely the fault of faeries or talented toymakers.
MERCADIA
Rishadan Dockhand is a great callback to Rishadan Port from Mercadian Masques, and very clearly is meant to take place on the same plane. Given how unpopular the plane (and set) were, it’s unlikely we’ll ever really return there, and there’s not a lot it has going for it that’s unique beyond smart goblins, but I do appreciate the occasional card like the dockhand here.
ELDRAINE
Split cards are very good at telling a story by showing a before-and-after. Said is showing us a young prince asking for a wish, in this case the return of a spell, and Done is showing the two exhausted faeries who worked tirelessly to grant it.
INNISTRAD
Ghoulcaller Gisa is always shown to be a bit deranged whenever she’s quoted in flavour text, and seems like exactly the kind of person to decide that an endless swarm of madness crabs means a free buffet.
UNKNOWN
Because she’s a pre-revisionist character, we’re not sure where Geyadrone Dihada is from, but we do know she’s a planeswalker and so this very abstract piece doesn’t give us much to go on. The composition of nested figures and blue energy in concentric rings reminds me of Scour All Possibilities, but that’s certainly a coincidence.
UNKNOWN
Squirrels can be found all over the multiverse, so this card gets to be homeless for now, though I’m still going to enjoy playing it.
RAVNICA
The Vedalken of Ravnica primarily work in the guilds Azorius and Simic, and one thing that the Simic are known for is splicing genetics. They often give the gift of crab claws, but it seems like we might get crab-squirrel Krasis hybrids in the future.
uNKNOWN
I’ve mentioned before how much I love Mirrodin. and I think I’ll really enjoy a visit to wherever this whale is from. The idea of a much more nuanced blend of metal and flesh is one I’m keen on, as Mirrodin could be a little on-the-nose on occasion and very much had beings that looked a lot more comic-esque and mechanical. More obviously though, the sea of Mirrodin is quicksilver, and these guys are floating in water.
UNKNOWN
I’m going to chock this art up to ‘abstract’ for now, as it’s a giant door to another world in the middle of a beach, though I am interested in the blue crystals here. Nothing about it, even the carvings on the door, have given up any leads. For now, let’s say that it comes from wherever Vedalken Aethermage calls home.
UNKNOWN
These full-art incarnations are a beautiful series. I’m seeing them as “flashes” of the elemental when it’s being evoked; rather than letting it coalesce into a more solid form. But that doesn’t do much to help find them a home.
UNKNOWN
What I said for Solitude above stands for Subtlety, too. This winged drake-looking wave is gorgeous, but it could really come from anywhere.
UNKNOWN
I hate putting so many ‘unknowns’ in a row, but sometimes it’s what you have to do. Suspend is the first of two cards named after the mechanics they bestow in this set, the latter being Persist, but unlike Persist, Suspend doesn’t seem tied to any particular plane. The art is showing someone falling from outside of space and time and into a watery scene, and likely is not meant to be anywhere or anyone in particular.
DOMINARIA
Modern Horizons 2 has quite a few deep cuts, and Svyelun is one of them. Referenced twice in Fallen Empires, she is a god who some Dominarian merfolk call the creator of their race. It’s odd seeing a creature type like ‘Merfolk’ on a God, but I’m sure it’s for mechanical reasons.
DOMINARIA
Read more about Svyelun in “The Returning Legends of Horizons 2” over on the mothership.
UNKNOWN
Magic has given us quite a few visual designs for Thopters, but these crystal-winged, dragonfly-inspired ones are fairly unique. The background makes me think of Ravnica, but Thopters only came to the plane with the rise of Dovin to guildmaster of the Azorius, and his Thopters were a beautiful design that merged Kaladesh aesthetics with Ravnican ones.They’re very different from these fairly ornate little guys, but I’d love to see them again.
MIRRODIN
The retro look that artist Martina Pilcerova brings to Thought Monitor is a perfect callback to the original Mirrodin, with a very vintage airbrush style to the chrome of the construct here. Not only that, but it’s a mechanical callback to the card Thoughtcast, which also had affinity for artifacts and drew two cards.
IXALAN
The River Heralds of Ixalan have a wonderfully vibrant design that’s inspired by tropical fish, and their jade armor is a wonderful design choice to not only place them in the mesoamerican-inspired plane, but to show that they cross over into green unlike the merfolk of most other planes.
ALARA: ESPER
The vedalken are one of the Magic’s unique fantasy races, and there are three planes with artifact themes that they’re found on: Mirrodin, Alara, and Kaladesh. Kaladesh vedalken have six fingers, and Mirrodin vedalken all look like this because they’ve drunk too much blinkmoth serum, so that only leaves Alara. On Esper, etherium is the beautiful, spiraling metal that they use to replace flesh parts, but given how magical it is I find it sort of hilarious that she’s decided to shape it all into lockpicks in this art. Unless, that is, that her fingertips are just able to transform at will… now that’s a cool skillset to have as a thief and spy.
UNKNOWN
I was ready to label this card as belonging to “plane with a confused fisherman” but I decided against it. This could easily still be a Dominarian card given that it’s still a bird-looking incarnation like the original, but new art could have meant a new plane, just like what happened with its red brother Anger. Sadly, none of the motifs or visual cues I see here remind me of any particular plane, so for now we’re left wondering where it’s from.
UNTIL NEXT TIME
So there you have it; my review of the white and blue cards of Modern Horizons 2. I’ll be posting Part 2 later this week, and once all four parts are live you’ll be able to find all the cards on their home planes as part of the MtG-Multiverse. See you next time, friends. And as always, let me know your thoughts.
-Nick