Multiverse Set Review: MODERN HORIZONS 2 (PArt 2)
MODERN SENSIBILITIES: BLACK & RED
JUNE 17, 2021 - By Nicholas Fair
Hello and welcome to part two of my four-part review of Modern Horizons 2. Today I’m taking on the black and red cards from the set, and seeing just how many stump me as I dig deep into the lore and mechanical backstory of approximately 100 individual cards.
For those that are new to these reviews, the goal is to evaluate and discuss new cards from the latest Magic release and assign them to known planes in the Magic Multiverse if possible. These first three reviews are going to be card-by-card discussions, and Part 4 is going to have a larger discussion of art trends and themes of the set overall before finishing off with a final count of planes represented. Tune in for updates over the next week!
As with the other set reviews, I am only one person, and quite often I miss a thing or two (despite my best efforts!). MtG-Multiverse is also a huge community effort, 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: BLACK
The Abyss (Dominaria?)
The more I look at this Archfiend, the more I’m certain that he’s meant to be an homage to The Abyss, a place that sort-of-is, sort-of-isn’t a plane that may be a part of Dominaria or may not be. The reason for this confusion is because it’s a location only described before the modern concept of ‘Planes’ was defined, so the language around it is decidedly vague (think D&D realms). The composition of the art feels right alongside the Magus of the Abyss, though, and the Abyss itself is mainly a place of darkness and demons, so this Archfiend fits in rather easily. He’s most likely a mechanical reference to the card Infest or even more likely Drown in Sorrow, but otherwise I’m a bit stuck on where to officially place him, if anywhere. We’ll dig more into The Abyss as a location in the multiverse later in this review.
The MEDITATION REALM
I’m convinced that this card exists purely to screw with this project. First off, it’s a black archon, which up until this point have been a species that were always white and sometimes a secondary color. Secondly, you can clearly see giant Bolas horns in the background of the art, which are a motif almost exclusively from Amonkhet. But this is very, very unlikely from Amonkhet: we’ve never seen or heard of an archon on Amonkhet, and this archon has a wolf’s head and a stag’s antlers: two things that are very distant from anything related to the Ancient Egyptian motif of the plane. The only other option for seeing giant Bolas horns is the Meditation Realm, which would match up with the Pools of Becoming. But, even knowing that, I’m still very confused as to what this guy is up to on that plane to begin with.
ALARA: GRIXIS
Kathari are an aven species on Alara’s shard of Grixis, a place of death that lacks any new life energy due to the absence of green and white mana. Instead, mages there recycle the dilute life energy called Vis of the beings that survive, syphoning what they can in the most grotesque ways possible. From the looks of the flavour text, it sounds like this card is depicting where the Kathari drop the remains of their dinners; leaving bones and blood for any brave enough to venture near.
KALDHEIM
I am… not 100% sure what this card is depicting. Large stones coming out of the earth, destroying a mountain range? An elemental? A spiky wurm? It’s certainly destructive and snowy, though, and means it’s from one of two planes if it cares about snow permanents: Dominaria or Kaldheim. You could honestly put it either place and you wouldn’t be off-base, but I’ve decided to put it in Kaldheim for now purely because if WotC made a card about breaking ice and decided not to show Marit Lage breaking out of her icy prison… well I don’t even know what I’d do.
DOMINARIA: OTARIA
Initially the primary villains of the Odyssey block, the Cabal were a cult that worshipped wealth and greed that followed a death mage known as The First. Their patron god was known as Kurberr, though after his death the Cabal fell into disrepair. In recent years, the Cabal was revived by the demon lord Belzenlok and took up residence in the Stronghold. The new Cabal are still pretty similar to the old one, if not into wearing slightly less absurd costumes.
DOMINARIA: Kjeldor
Kjeldor is not a name many of you may know; I didn’t actually know it until my search to find this card a home. The Clattering Augur is a cooi concept: the skeleton with a raven and antlers is throwing the runes using his own finger bones. Runes in this manner are primarily related to Norse mythology in the real world, and so this would initially point us to the plane of Kaldheim. Yet despite the flavour of the Foretell mechanic, there aren’t any cards that reference throwing runes, nor skeletons in anywhere close to this much more “classic norse fantasy” design. Looking back to Magic’s first foray into Norse mythos, though, we can see some references from the Ice Age block that fit the bill.
UNKNOWN
This card is a super fun mechanical mix illustrating the differences in the color pie between black’s targeted removal and white’s mass removal (yes, black also gets mass removal, I know). That being said, the cards Damnation and Wrath of God are both plane agnostic, and this reference is as well. An eclipse burning away the skin of an army? Could be anywhere, sadly. Damn.
RATH
As a kid I saw the Shadow mechanic and immediately made a shadow tribal deck with a pile of cards I bought for $3 from the local game store. It was insanely weak and non-interactive, and I can only imagine what I’d have thought if I had access to this guy at the time. The Dauthi are horror beings of some kind, trapped in a half-void Shadow Realm on Rath near the Stronghold, along with the Soltari and Thalakos.
DOMINARIA: HELL(?)
Remember when I mentioned the issue with categorizing The Abyss as a location earlier in this review? This is why. The Abyss may or may not be a plane, but it may or may not also be the same place as Hell. Hell, as it is described in early Magic fiction, is a plane with portals to Dominaria and other locations, and is where the Dominarian chef Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar is serving her demonic patron. So this card depicts her, and therefore Hell; but is Hell also The Abyss? Should there be an entry for Hell on the main list of ‘Planes of the Multiverse’?
UNKNOWN
Mechanically, Echoing Return is a reference to a cycle of cards from Darksteel that all cared about doing something to all cards with the same name. Sadly, though, this card is not depicting Mirrodin as these are very normal skeletons and not the Nim we’d see in the Mephidross. So for now it’s just some generic skeletons in a swamp.
UNKNOWN
Does this card look like a monkey with a glowing brain to you? That was my first thought, though it is absolutely not that. A closer look at the art shows it’s a rather odd cobbled-together being that, yes, does have a glowing brain, but also a face made of at least two different beings and a really shiny suit jacket or vest. What the heck is this?
UNKNOWN
I mentioned on Part 1 of this review that Geyadrone is a planeswalker, so her quotes don’t solidify a card’s location, but a lot of her cards have been referencing the Blackblade storyline, which took place on Dominaria. This card feels a lot like Cast Down from Dominaria, but not enough to make the connection.
SOMEWHERE REALLY COOL
Artist Evyn Fong has been knocking illustrations out of the park for a long time, and the card Thieves' Guild Enforcer from M21 is one of my favorite pieces in the currently unknown planes. This card feels like it’s from the same plane; the detailed armor, the flowing purple cloak, it all fits incredibly well. But the aesthetic here doesn’t match any known plane: even the somewhat asian rooftops are a mismatch with the clothes of the figure here for being in a plane like Kamigawa. The name '“Er-Miral” is also a mystery, though it feels somewhat Arabian in nature. I really hope we get answers to this soon.
UNKNOWN
Ah, Grief. When I saw this card as the first part of the cycle, I knew they would be impossible to place. The art here by Svetlin is of course masterful, but it’s a raw, elemental evocation. There’s nothing to grab onto, and no place to put it.
UNKOWN
I can actually really appreciate how well Grief has been stylized here. Somehow it’s a nebulous elemental that feels slick and liquid but not like trash or physical poison. It’s a pollutant of the mind, and for that I think it’s a very cool concept. But, alas, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Dominaria
A double-reference to Wild Mongrel from Odyssey’s “UG Madness” deck of old and its partner Arrogant Wurm, Hell Mongrel is both enabler and payoff for the modern madness deck. That being said, it’s a Nightmare with a very abstracted head made of bubbling red goo and a sideways-shaped mouth, which is most accurately referenced by the nightmare creatures summoned during the same Odyssey block. I briefly considered Ikoria as it does have nightmares as a primary tribe, but they all have a very distinct many-eyed look that this beast doesn’t match. It makes much more sense it was designed to be a three-fold love letter to the Odyssey block. Though maybe it’s in Hell. And maybe that’s a plane… or maybe not.
DOMINARIA: HELL (?)
These little imps are the sous-chefs or assistants to Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, so wherever she is, they are, too. That’s probably Hell, or technically Dominaria, maybe. You can see they’re using Dominarian ingredients, as the Anurid are only found in Krosa, so that clears up any doubt at least that they’re not working in any other hellish kitchen. Kitchen Imp doesn’t seem like any particular callback, though it has the same haste and power/toughness as Deepcavern Imp.
IXALAN
The Legion from Ixalan are beautifully iconic, with their Spanish conquistador-styled helmets broken in their brim to look like two fangs. They dress in gold and take the curse of vampirism as a holy charge to seize the new world for their monarchy. It also makes them a formidable match for dinosaurs, as we see in this art, and with the great callback use of the explore mechanic.
RAVNICA
Gorgons are a somewhat new thing to Magic, in the grand scheme of things, and because of this they tend to differ pretty vastly from plane to plane. Lucky me: the gorgons of Theros have snake lower bodies, so she’s not from there. The gorgons of Dominaria have rather scaly tendrils rather than the classic ‘smooth’ snake tendrils, so she’s not from there, either. All that’s left is Ravnica, where Vraska is from, and she has the exact same demeanor, if not the great fashion sense.
DOMINARIA
It’s actually really, really hard to see at card size, or even zooming in digitally, but this guy is wearing the same dress as the modern Cabal. Most notably, the very poofy and striped shoulder sleeves, though I still have no idea what’s up with hat. Check out for yourself with the HD art.
DOMINARIA
Every single Lhurgoyf printed has been from Dominaria. Why stop now? It’s fun that they went with the “-goyf” name rather than the “-vore” used for the cycle of the beasts from Odyssey and the call-back from Planar Chaos.
UNKNOWN: LAND OF THE GRAVEWOKEN
This vulture is standing on a necromancer’s ritual table. You’ve got some candles, a skull, and some potions. Other than being a purple spirit, there’s no much to go on with this card. This being said, over on the Unknown Worlds page I have an entry based on the boss Isareth the Awakener: a necromancer with a vulture familiar in her artwork. That/s good enough for me until I see any other vulture familiars in Magic.
DOMINARIA
The only place with squirrels and your classic “full of fungus and rot” zombies, that we know of, is Dominaria. We now know that Theros has squirrels (at least in its underworld) but they have a very different kind of zombie. This card feels like something we’d have seen printed in the early 2000’s during the Onslaught block or something similar, so for now I’ll shove it over there.
INNISTRAD
This is a really sweet re-skin of the original card from Onslaught. Initially a card showing The First reanimating a grave plot, this feels like a very purposeful plug for our next visit to Innistrad. As it’s the primary plane with werewolves, it is worth nothing that Innistrad’s printed werewolf packs are currently all red or green. That being said, there’s a lot out there we haven’t seen on the plane yet, and descriptions of the Leeraug, Vildin and Mondronen howlpacks could easily be black-aligned. Perhaps there’s a dark howlpack, one that is uniting under a powerful Alpha that will threaten the packs we know today. If only we were visiting Innistrad soon with a focus on werewolves specifically, with a name that implies darkness. Oh wait.
LORWYN (Shadowmoor)
This is the second card in MH2 that is named after the keyword it gives, and initially it was suspected to be part of a cycle. Alas, it’s only the two cards, but I’m interested if they follow up with more in the future. The little dude coming out of the ground here is a Kithkin, a species primarily from Lorwyn/Shdowmoor that are part of a creepy little hive-mind when the sun sets. Persist is also from the Shadowmoor block, making this a great unification of art and mechanics.
DOMINARIA
Another story point for the story of the Blackblade, Profane Tutor here depicts the blacksmith Dakkon getting some fairly awful advice from Geyadrone Dihada. The original artist of Dakkon, Richard Kane Ferguson, has come back to doing Magic illustrations whenever Dakkon or the Blackblade is involved, and his unique style really lends a great thematic vibe to the entire story.
UNKNOWN
I’d like to start off by saying that a fanciful artistic vampire that revels in sensory delights is a fantastic concept, and I would love to party with them assuming I was allowed to keep the blood in my veins. That being said, Radiant Epicure here has a pretty unique look, with her golden dress and magenta cloak looking pretty radiant among the church-like place she’s located. The stained glass would initially make me think Dominaria, but the windows in the back depict a vampire queen of some kind, making me think this is in a new location entirely. I feel like we’ll find out where, but for now she’s unknown.
THEROS
Oh no! The waterways of Theros are getting polluted and the Sigiled Starfish are looking pretty gross. Even Netos, a Meletian fisherman, won’t keep them as a catch. Meletis, for those not in the know, is a very prominent mortal city on Theros that’s an analogue for Athens in ancient Greece. Their patron is normally the UW god Ephara.
NEW PHYREXIA
Skirge Familiar, when first printed, was located on the original Phyrexia. Phyrexia loves imps, however, and when Mirrodin fell we saw new Skirges emerge almost immediately. WotC has taken this reprint as an opportunity to give this card new context and placed it on New Phyrexia as well, with a corrupted harvester in the background of the Mephidross scene. We actually saw Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor quoted in the flavour text, back in Commander Legends.
DOMINARIA: NEW BENALIA
Whispter, quoted in the flavour text, is a member of the Cabal that we first met back in Dominaria. We’re seeing a modern Benalish knight wielding something similar to Forebear’s Blade, cursed and turned to bones and dust in a mere moment. The stained glass look of the sword especially is unmistakable as belonging to New Benalia. The Split second art here is a great callback to the visual cues used during the initial Time Spiral block as well, kudos art team!
THEROS: UNDERWORLD
The first time we heard of Tizerus was in Theros: Beyond Death on the card Fruit of Tizerus. Tizerus is not a person but a place in the Underworld: a bleak realm outside of Erebos’s palace and where the worst of the dead languish in torment. Getting a new card with Escape is always a treat, and seeing it combined with the ability counters we got from Ikoria just last year makes this card feel like a fun and contemporary mash-up compared to many of the more nostalgia-laden cards in the set.
DOMINARIA
I don’t exactly know what I expected from Tourach, but it wasn’t someone wearing cut-off shorts and a cloak of eyeballs. Tourach is initially known from his famed Hymn, but he also had a chant and a gate. You can see that his kicker cost is the equivalent of casting him alongside his Hymn, and his love of discard plays well with the other cards bearing his name.
DOMINARIA
Tourach was the founder of the Ebon Hand on Dominaria as well, and so his power/toughness and protection from white are probably taken from Order of the Ebon Hand, initially printed in Fallen Empires. You can read more about Tourach in this article over on the mothership.
DOMINARIA
Tourach’s Canticle takes the opportunity to give us even more lore about Tourach and flesh out the relationship between him and the Ebon Praetor, a malevolent entity who apparently consorted with human-sized rabbits. I really like the “cloak full of eyes” we’re getting in this piece, and feel like it’s something I’d immediately identify in future sets and callbacks. Maybe on our next Standard-set visit to Dominaria?
Ravnica(?)
Although a Tragic Fall can be just as lethal as a Tragic Slip, this card teaches us that even a normal fall is worse than a normal slip, which I suppose is true when you’re falling off the side of a building like the character in this art. The thematic reference to Innistrad makes me assume this would be staged there, but the figure in the art has a saber and a big, blue coat that feels much more contemporary. I’m not sure if this could be Ravnica, but I’m on the fence. What do you all think?
THEROS: UNDERWORLD
Cracked Greek columns? Check. Overcast night sky with ambient, dusk lighting? Check. This guy died and went to the underworld on Theros, and is spending his afterlife feeding squirrels. This means that Theros has squirrels, or at least had squirrels, because at this point we’ve only seen them in the underworld. Still, not a bad way to spend eternity.
ZENDIKAR
Given how frequently Zendikar shows up on most supplemental products, I was somewhat shocked that it took us this long to get to a reference to it. The title “Expedition Guide” is the primary reason I’ll place this on Zendikar, as the plane is well known for being a place where you need guides to get anywhere without dying. The design and color of the grave itself also echos a few art pieces from Zendikar in the past, however, and seems like a great fit.
INNISTRAD
Someone referred to this card as “Sorin dissing the equivalent of a vampire vegan” and that’s all this card is to me, now. It’s probably meant to be a depiction of how far the regal vampires of Innistrad have fallen since the massacre of the Markov bloodline by Nahiri and the destruction wrought by the Eldrazi, though.
UNKNOWN
It looks like this card is a triple callback to Entomb: check out the hand in the background for the visual nod as well as the name “Entomber” and the similar mechanical ability to bury a creature from your library. That being said, this is a pretty generic necromancer with only ominous red stones as a hint as to his location. For now he’s unknown.
NONE
Similar to Scour the Desert from the first review, World-Weary is a fully abstract/metaphorical piece of artwork. You have some unlucky soul with a melting candle on his head, showing his energy and light is “burning out”, which is a great representation of the card name and effect.
INNISTRAD
Chandra may have a fanboy cosplayer, but Liliana has two! Her Devotee is more of a nod than a true echo of Young Pyromancer like Young Necromancer here, but I’d love to know if they were designed at the same time by two different design teams or not. The fact that the necromancer in this art is wearing home-made costume pieces inspired by Liliana and resurrecting cats in a pet cemetery is a delight. She even has a photo of Liliana in her locket, and you can see she’s drawn on her tattoos in marker and some of them are rubbing off.
MODERN HORIZONS: RED
MIRRODIN
Part 1 of the review for Modern Horizons focused on the Arcbound of Mirrodin, and it’s pretty great that WotC went ahead and made them a two-color archetype. Red is notoriously the color most antithetical to the Phyrexians, so it could also be cool to see if we get any further Arcbound when we return to New Phyrexia. Of note, Arcbound Slasher here is the pre-compleat version of Slash Panther. It’s a cat, it has 4 power, it has the same mana value, and it can have haste: what a great design.
MIRRODIN
One thing that artist Campbell White has done for the Arcbound this go-around is defining their forms a lot more solid than in previous designs. Initially the Arcbound were made of clearly defined “chunks” with conduits of energy between them, but these designs have the Arcbound as being made of smaller metal fragments, held inside of a creature-shaped field of energy. It’s a really cool approach.
MIRRODIN
Back in Darksteel, the card Furnace Whelp was designed as a nod to the much older card Dragon Whelp. The flavour text was pretty hilarious, and the iconic rocket-jet design of Mirran dragons was in full display. I’m a little bummed that the fully metallic whelp here exists as a nod to Furnace Whelp but has “normal” wings, but that may be part of modern art direction. I’m not too sure the chicken-wing-rockets were a hit with everyone.
DOMINARIA
Initially I had placed this card on Kaldheim, but then I changed my tune after reading a tweet by the artist. My initial consideration was that the art has demonic-looking skulls and what is clearly a norse-ish axe on the table, but after hearing that it’s a visual reference to the original Orcish Oriflamme, it gets put in Dominaria with its predecessor.
DOMINARIA
Only two planes in all of Magic have Rootwallas that we know of: Dominaria and Rath. This little guy is clearly a visual and mechanical callback to Basking Rootwalla from Dominaria, so it’s safe to say he’s a fireproof variant of the species instead of his much spinier, basalisk-looking cousins from Rath.
ALARA: JUND
Although Esper is definitely the most visually iconic shard of Alara, I’m really glad that we get to visit more parts of it in this set. Bloodbraid Marauder calls Jund home, just like their reference callback and fellow braided berserker Bloodbraid Elf. Fun lore tidbit: warriors on Jund braid their hair with the viscera of their slain enemies, and cut them off in defeat. Jund’s most powerful warrior, Kresh, has over 22 braids.
ALARA: ESPER
As part of Commander 2016, a huge update on the status of Alara came to us in the form of Breya, Etherium Shaper. A major plot-point of the original Alara was that the mages of Esper were unable to manufacture new Etherium, instead having to scavenge and recycle it from the dead. This realization caused Tezzeret to spark, and was a very well-kept secret. The reason that new Etherium could not be created was because a crucial ingredient was sangrite: later revealed to be crystalized dragon’s blood and only found on the shard of Jund. Once Alara was reunited, however, it seems that Breya found the recipe to make new Etherium; and has since adopted an apprentice.
RAVNICA
I don’t know what is being blown up, but it looks like it’s consuming an entire city. The joke here about “calibrated” being carefully measured and the card actually dealing an amount of damage that’s fairly unpredictable feels very, very Izzet. The art itself is pretty clearly related back to the vignettes of Ravnica we’ve seen in the past, too.
IXALAN
This year we’ve gotten a great amount of new cards from Ixalan, and the latest legend is the pirate captain Ripley Vance, commander of some gigantic cannons. You do have to wonder if she has any hearing loss from standing so close, though.
Wildfire
We know two things about this card. One is that we don’t know where Desera is from, and in fact she hasn’t been referenced anywhere else that I’ve been able to find. Two is that we don’t know where Yusri is from, either, although he does resemble an Efreet from Tarkir somewhat well. His full art clearly depicts Arabian-inspired architecture, however, so the best guess for him is Wildfire. For now, Chance Encounter is tied to his fate.
DOMINARIA (Hell)
This card depicts the celebrity chef Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar and her Kitchen Imps presenting their latest meal. Looks like a feast fit for… an abomination, I suppose.
ALARA: JUND
In another delightful return to Alara, Dragon’s Rage Channeler is a disciple of the dragons from the shard of Jund. Jund was a world cut off from blue and white mana: one of primal fury and where dragons ruled and everyone else was food. The shamans of Jund have a pretty iconic style visually to hammer it home; with wrapped leathers, flowing earth-tone fabrics, and blood-painted bone decor for good measure.
INNISTRAD
When Avacyn “abandoned” the people of Innistrad by being stuck in the Helvault, we saw it manifest as the card Faithless Looting. After everything the plane went though afterwards, though, with the angels of the plane turning on the people they used to protect and eldritch monsters arising out of nowhere, it’s sad to see that the people of the plane are just barely picking up the pieces. I love that this is essentially you taking your time to sift through the rubble of the top of your deck for two turns, hopeful to find something to help.
THEROS
The look of this Minotaur fits pretty nicely with the ones of Theros, but even more obvious is the phalanx of soldiers around him, about to get cooked.
UNKNOWN
The planeswalker getting utterly destroyed here is the world’s unluckiest planeswalker. We don’t know his name, but we have seen him fall into a tough spot every time we’ve seen him. Knowing his luck, this depicts him on a plane of constant, never-ending explosions.
DOMINARIA
This is a great example of a reprint taking an old card and using the story of the name and art to give it new context and meaning. The original was meant to be a “flame rift” where the Stronghold on Rath shot enough power into the sky to fill it with fire and break the cloud line. In this card we see a Dominarian time rift from the Time Spiral block, except it’s one that opens to a time of flame. A flame rift.
DOMINARIA
Kavu are one of the few species found exclusively on Dominaria. They’re actually beings spawned from the world soul Gaia in response to the Phyrexian invasion, similar to the Roil on Zendikar, but with more teeth. The art of the yearling is a direct reference to the most famous Kavu, Flametongue Kavu, except smaller and cuter.
UNKNOWN
And we’ve reached Incarnation #4. I can begin to list the places where we know Fury isn’t: Mirrodin, Kaladesh, Zendikar, Innistrad… but the list goes on for a long, long time. For now, I’ll just enjoy casting this guy, forgetting he doesn’t have flash, and asking my opponent if I can undo my last move.
UNKNOWN
This variant of Fury has horns for eyes and gigantic, three-fingered hands. He’s made of spikes and is glowing from the inside-out, and is surrounded by an abstract background made of clouds and smoke. For now, he’s one of the many planeless cards of the set, and certainly not the last.
INNISTRAD
There are quite a few similarities between the red-aligned “mad scientists” of Ravnica and Innistrad, as I’ve noted in past reviews. There is a lot to be said for the harnessing of lightning in a giant, European(ish) tower: be it to charge a lightning glove, make zombies come to life, or send a message. So when looking at a card like this, the details are going to tell us everything. In this case, the mood of the piece is very dark and dreary: a point for Innistrad as the Ravnican Izzet league is usually much more bombastic. Even more telling is the alpine forest in the background: Ravnica has no natural forests at all, and I’m not sure a tree has been seen within 50 miles of an Izzet experiment in a millennia. You’ll also note that “galvanic” is language used to describe lightning magic in general, and not tied to any one plane.
DOMINARIA
At first, back in Prophecy, the Keldons had Lesser Gargadons to ride into war. Then, during Time Spiral, Greater Gargadons emerged from the time rifts. One was a 4-mana 6/4, one was a 10-mana 9/7. So now that we’ve finally gotten to Modern Horizons 2, we get to meet a regular Gargadon, a 7-mana 7/5, with suspend like his older cousin.
UNKNOWN
The art of this card uses an oval “window to another time” motif that was employed for 4/5 of the Suspend cycle in this set. I believe it’s inspired by the art of Ancestral Vision from Iconic Monsters, an art which I found to be distracting: you don’t need to make really small art even smaller by putting a frame in it. That being said, this is very pretty to look at on a larger scale. It’s a personal Warp World, initially from Ravnica, though if this is meant to show us Ravnica before it was overrun with cities or if it’s just meant to be a generic “old city, new city” motif, I can’t tell.
DOMINARIA
What a great mystery this card was! If we’re going by name, there’s only one other Traprunner in Magic, and it’s from Mercadia: home to a smart goblin aristocracy. So we can look at the details of the Goblins in the art for hints. Goblins on each plane have fairly unique characteristics, more so than almost any other race. They’re usually the comedy relief characters, so they get more exaggerated noses, ears, and generally anything small and angry can be defined as a goblin on the right world. Dominaria was home to the most generic goblins for a time (I still love them so much), though they received a bit of a facelift after the Rathi overlay and bred with the local Moggs. We see the result in the set Dominaria, where they now have head crests similar to their Mogg invaders. Goblin Traprunner here is wearing a hat, as are his compatriots, but they still visually reference Dominarian goblins more than any other kind.
DOMINARIA
This art is actually from MtGO, and was published a few years ago. The original was from the set Alliances, which took place on Dominaria, so this isn’t a new context for our gorilla friend and he won’t get added to the MTG-Multiverse page, but I thought it’d make a good entry here regardless. Dominaria is the only known plane with races of sapient gorillas, with much of earlier sets full of references to their mysterious cultures. The design on Gorilla Shaman here looks like it might be inspired by Gorilla Chieftain.
UNKNOWN
Every world has its zealots, but Gouged Zealot here leaves me feeling like I’m missing an obvious reference because of how odd of a card he is. He’s a blind cyclops who looks like he’s keeping his eye in a locket around his neck, covered in spikes. He’s running through a maze of floating stones that look like they’re adorned with teeth. This is such a specific scene that makes me want to know so much more. I suppose he could be from Theros, the aftermath of an Eye Gouge attempt, but it really doesn’t look like it.
UNKNOWN
A few years ago, I made a list of all of the artists in Magic. There were maybe a handfull: a few musicians, a sculptor, and two or three visual artists. After WotC heard fans cry out for more references to red’s ownership of “creativity” in the color pie, we’ve seen a lot more artists represented in the cards, and I love it! Harmonic Prodigy here is clearly a music mage who inspires or amplifies fellow magi with their song, though despite how cool their guzheng is, I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like it before in the game.
NONE: META
This is a weird one for me. The Imperial Recruiter here has a design that follows with his previous printing fairly closely. But this art has him depicted as summoning two creatures: notably Kiki-Jiki of Kamigawa and a Pestermite of Lorwyn. These, asides from being from two different planes, are a two-card combo that generates infinite flying faeries with haste, and both pieces can be searched up with the Imperial Recruiter. I like what the art direction was going for here, but it does feel very on-the-nose, even for Magic, and shows that this isn’t happening on any known world and instead meant to be a more literal depiction of in-game actions.
UNKNOWN
Death by a prismatic laser. What a way to go. Converge was a mechanic that was a fun re-skin/mechanical broadening of Sunburst, but still didn’t give us much when we first saw it in Battle for Zendikar. As action-packed as this artwork by artist Andrew Mar is, there’s no obvious setting to be found, and a snake is just a snake.
UNKNOWN
Lightning Spear is a double-callback that’s entirely mechanical in nature. It’s designed to reference two 2-mana burn spells that deal 3 damage: Lightning Strike and Searing Spear. It’s a really fun card to play with, and feels like a great design for a weapon for any hero to wield, but we can’t get much lore from the art or flavour text alone.
Dominaria
Think this one was going in the ‘Unknown’ pile? I did, for a while, until I thought to search and see if we’d heard from Rhirhok before. It turns out that we have, four other times, where he turns out to be a goblin archer who doesn’t know how to swim and who loves to use Rock Slides as weapons. This card looks like it takes place just before the aforementioned Rock Slide, too, which is a fun bit of continuity.
THEROS
Mount Velus is a mountain on Theros where the forge of the God Purphoros burns. It is home to both dragons and manticores, and if we didn’t already have extensive lore on it you could tell fairly easily this guy was from Theros by the ‘Nyx-Effect’ on his body. Nyx is a sub-plane of Theros where the Gods live, and beings made from their magic or who emerge from their realm appear to be partially made of starlight wherever they would normally have ‘shadow’.
ZENDIKAR
Although Magic generally does an excellent job at making the iconic creatures of each plane they visit feel unique, it took a little bit for them to get everything right. I was initially ready to call this guy a generic dragon, but after hunting through all the dragons in magic, I realized that the Deathwing-esque chest hot-spot this guy has and the cracked skin that shows through glowing red flesh is found on most of the Zendikari dragons. He cares about lands, too, which is a mechanic-flavour win if ever there was one.
KALADESH
Ragavan is perfect. I mean, he’s a monkey pirate who steals stuff from other players and finds treasure. What more do you want?! We first saw Ragavan, sans his pirate subtype, as a token in Aether Revolt. He and his pirate captain/owner, Kari Zev, helped take down the gigantic consulate flagship Skysovreign.
KALADESH
This piece of art most likely shows Ragavan sitting atop looted spoils on board of Kari’s skyship, The Dragon's Smile, a vehicle I hope we see next time we visit Kaladesh.
RATH
Revolutionist here is a mechanical and visual call-back to another card from the Odyssey block, when Madness was first introduced to the game. Initially the card Anarchist was printed as a 2/2 for 4R from Exodus, and very unique pallor-skin, red-haired guy from that artwork has found its way onto Revolutionist here. Exodus was a set that primarily took place on Rath, and the general rebellion being had was against the Stronghold, so it’s fair to say that his ancestor is following in his footsteps.
THEROS
It’s jarring to see FULL CAPITAL LETTERS in flavour text, but it absolutely elicited a chuckle from me. This is a minotaur who is so amped to kill for his chaotic murder god that he’s screaming about how much he loves it while he’s killing. Makes sense for a card that gets buffed when attacking and has madness. We can see some references in this card pretty easily, too. Thanks to the granddady of all minotaurs, Hurloon Minotaur, the base size of one is a 2/3 for 3 mana value, and the +2/+0 is most likely a reference to fellow Therosian Minotaur Skullcleaver.
Artist Andrew Mar is somewhat new to Magic art, but I’ve loved the sense of depth he’s brought to his illustrations so far, and I can’t wait to see more from him in the future.
UNKNOWN
The concept behind Slag Strider is an interesting one, and I tried pretty hard to get it to fit into a specific world, but alas, no luck. Affinity doesn’t give us much as this is clearly not Mirrodin given the fairly colonial look of the blacksmith’s shop, and it’s not going to be somewhere like Innistrad or Ravnica, either. It’s still a fun idea, though.
IXALAN
This card is a direct visual and mechanical reference to the EDH-all-star Insurrection that was originally printed in Onslaught. Hell, even the flavour text is a call-back. But the art itself is decidedly on Ixalan. What we see here is a few dinosaurs, perhaps a ferocidon and a horncrest (the sunset coloration of the frill is especially iconic), and a member of the Sun Empire pulled into fighting one of their own: you.
UNKNOWN
Remember what I said about Mystic Redaction on the last review? Well artist Volkan Baga also draws some amazing hands, so you can consider the two of them the best in the business when it comes to rendering phalanges. Strike It Rich here is a pretty generic card visually, sadly, in terms of having no real planar identity. It’s a lot of gold, jewels, and pearls, which although related to the pirates of Ixalan, could really exist anywhere.
RAVNICA
Tavern Scoundrel is one of those cards that looks visually distinctive enough to feel like he should be from somewhere specific, and after some digging it turns out he does! This guy is designed to be a mechanical reference to another coin flip card: Tavern Swindler from Return to Ravnica. While she’s playing with life and cards, he’s playing with treasure and permanents, and they both have the same cloak and star-shaped silver pin in the center. Even more, you can see the same lamp in the background of each scene. That’s enough of a connection for me.
INNISTRAD
If we start with the card’s flavour text, we are pointed in one direction immediately, as Devils are hardly referenced on any plane besides Innistrad. If we investigate further, you can see that the art is very clearly depicting a thermo-alchemist from Innistrad, as their mad scientists tend to be a little bit different than the ones we see on Ravnica. That being said, they both have glowy tubes and knobs galore, so maybe they’d get along and work on an unreasonably dangerous science project together.
DOMINARIA
Looking at this guy, I’d have sworn he was from Jund at first glance, with those giant tusks on his shoulders. But in actuality he’s from Dominaria. You can tell because of his flavour text: “So sayeth the bey” is a line from many, many viashino cards on Dominaria over the years. I still don’t really know what the “bey” is, but check out all the things they say.
TUNE IN FOR PART 3 LATER THIS WEEK
Voila! Part two of the four-part series for my take on the lore and planes of Modern Horizons 2. Part 3 will come in the next few days, likely after the set releases this weekend. If you’re picking up cards or playing at your LGS, I hope you take a closer look at cards you open and enjoy seeing all the connections and worldbuilding that went into making this fantastic set. Until next time, have fun! And as always, let me know your thoughts.
-Nick