Alara is the setting for the “Alara Block” of sets, containing Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn, which were released from 2008 to 2009. Although it was home to planeswalkers we know well, like Ajani, Tezzeret, Sarkhan, and for a time, Elspeth, we haven’t been back since. 

The most iconic thing from Alara is Etherium of the Esper shard; a magical metal made of aether and crystalized dragon’s blood. It’s a natural magical amplifier, and is what Tezzeret’s arm is made of. It looks like a sharp, somewhat chaotic and hollow filigree pattern, usually seen as augments or replacing limbs. Sadly, we don’t see any of that in March of the Machine; but we do see some of the knights from Bant (including a callback to Ranger of Eos), a viashino from Jund, and a reference to the Maelstrom.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Alara to learn more.

Amonkhet is a dead plane; killed by Nicol Bolas and remade into a factory for creating lazotep zombies. We last saw Amonkhet during the 2-set Amonkhet Block back in 2017, and although bits of lore here and there have hinted at it, we’ve yet to return. You may ask: why on earth would the Phyrexians want to invade a dead world of sand? …I have no idea.

Generally any card depicting deserts and ruins or Egyptian motifs is likely from Amonkhet, but the most iconic element is Lazotep: a blue mineral mined from Amonkhet and used to coat the Bolas’s Eternals in War of the Spark. We get a few nods to the ruins of Amonkhet’s past in the cards in March of the Machine, as well as a nod to Lazotep being resistant to Phyresis, which is a great bit of lore.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Amonkhet to learn more.

Arcavios is the home of Strixhaven, the greatest university in the multiverse and setting of 2021’s Strixhaven set. It’s one of the crop of new planes we’ve been visiting in the past few years, likely setting up stakes for March of the Machine, but it’s a much-beloved setting by much of the Magic fanbase. Visually it’s easy to identify members of the five Strixhaven schools as they have very unique costumes and outfit designs, as well as unique magic systems such as mathematical and scroll-magic and iconic creature types for mascots, like Inklings and Pests.

There are quite a few direct parallel easter eggs in this set, such as Tenured Inkcaster sadly retiring into a Tenured Oilcaster, and Cogwork Archivist literally just adopting a new creature type as Phyrexian Archivist. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Arcavios to learn more.

Azgol is a plane that’s only ever been depicted in Planechase as a single location in “Lair of the Ashen Idol”, so there’s not much to the plane itself as we know it. The flavour text we get on “Volcanic Spite” in this set makes up around 80-90% of the total lore, and it’s so obscure that up until this set I had no reason to have an entry for it in MtG-Multiverse up until now.

So, what have we learned? Azgol’s got angry, sentient volcanoes, ash in the sky, and people are turned into ash zombies in those volcanoes. There’s no way to know if this is a planewide thing or just a location-based thing (for example, Dominaria has dragons in Shiv, but the entire plane isn’t mountains and dragons), but for now we just have to wonder.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Azgol to learn more.

When I made the table at the beginning of this article, I didn’t immediately realize how it would impact the format I had chosen to write it in. With literally half of our visits being “deep cuts” there would be a lot of one-off entries, and Belenon is one of those. We’ve only ever seen the plane on two planechase cards: Windridde Palaces and Edge of Malacol. The two areas depicted here are vastly different, and it seems Wizards has decided to roll with Windriddle as the setting for their sneak peek into Beleon. It seems that the Windridde Palaces being massive instruments that use the wind to create music magic is their main motif; with lots of knights and loxodon that make it seem a lot like Bant in a few ways. It’s still a really cool location I hope we get to see again. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Belenon to learn more about this plane.

Dominaria is, barring New Phyrexia, the plane we’ve been to the most recently. It’s also the plane Magic has been to the most, as the vast majority of sets in Magic’s early life up until the shift in storytelling around Mirrodin took place on Dominaria (barring some exceptions for the Weatherlight Saga). It was, for a large part of Magic’s life, the “home” plane for the game, and it’s also the most visually varied. It’s a hard thing to pin-down a card as cohesively Dominarian from art alone; usually a call-out from a unique creature type (Kavu), a reference to a location (Shiv, Vodalia, Urborg), a reference to the “Coalition”, or mention of one of the plane’s many legendary creatures is needed. 

A few cards in this set were especially difficult to pin down for this reason, and only through some excellent internet sleuthing did cards like Bloodfeather Phoenix find their home. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Dominaria to learn more.

With the next standard set coming after March of the Machine: Aftermath being “The Wilds of Eldraine”, it’s easy to see why we won’t be returning to the castles & courts of our first visit to the plane… they’re all gone. Eldraine looks quite worse-for-wear in the art of cards in this set, but getting to expand upon what we’ve yet to see will no doubt be an adventure. 

Eldraine is our faerie-tale plane, home to European-style castles and many faerie tales, and the setting of Throne of Eldraine from 2019. References to their unique goblin redcaps, fox-riding elves, magic mirrors, and unique blue-skinned faeries abound, making the visual style of this idyllic land easy to spot. Wicked Slumber is specifically referenced in the short story “The Adventures of Rankle, Master of Love”, and I doubt I’ll be the first to demand that WotC follow up on the flavour text in Chivalric Alliance by giving us a “Syr Hellraker.”

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Eldraine to learn more.

Only ever seen in the Planechase card “Truga Jungle”, Ergamon is possibly one of the deepest cuts in the entire set. It originates from the very first excerpt of a Planeswalker’s duel in the Alpha and Beta rule book, written by Magic’s creator Richard Garfield. It tells the tale of the planeswalkers Worzel and Thomil as they fight with various summoned demons and bears, and doesn’t do much to describe the plane itself beyond being a nice, exotic setting for the story at hand. Apparently, as we’ve learned from March of the Machine, it has rhino-like beasts. Neat.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Ergamon to learn more.

Fiora is the home plane of the two multiplayer draft-centric sets, “Conspiracy” and “Conspiracy: Take the Crown” from 2014 and 2016 respectively. It’s not incredibly likely we’ll see another Conspiracy-like set, but as I was an incredible fan of them (they’re possibly my favorite draft experiences of all time), I do hope we visit Fiora again someday.

Easily the most standout of the characters from this Renaissance Italy-inspired plane is Queen Marchesa (long may she reign), so it’s great to see her wading into war personally on the back of the Fiora battle card that emulates the “Monarch” mechanic from Conspiracy 2. It’s also great we get to see Fiora’s native tinkerer and robot-legged goblin, Daretti, in a fun call-out. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Fiora to learn more.

Monsters! Giant crystals! Was there a plane Phyrexia was doomed to fail on more than Ikoria? A love-letter to both series with giant creatures like Monster Hunter and creature bonding like Pokemon, Ikoria is one of the most recent planes we’ve gotten to see: back during Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths in 2020. 

The plane is unique in two major ways: the first is the neon-glowing crystals that cover the plane, which inspire the creatures on it to mutate and ever-change into weirder, cooler forms. The other is the creatures: the plane is a mish-mash of Nightmares, Beasts, Dinosaurs, Cats, and Elementals and it looks like the monsters have started growing the crystals in their body for extra measure. The few exceptions, like the Chrome Seedshark down there, which has neither body crystals or a mish-mash of creature types, are because they are a direct homage to a card from Ikoria, such as Shark Typhoon. In addition, check out Orthion; you may know him from the flavour texts of Blazing Volley, Blisterspit Gremlin, and Clash of Titans. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Ikoria to learn more.

Let’s be real. If you’re here, you know about Innistrad. As one of Magic’s most popular planes, and tied for the most revisits (three, or four, depending), we last checked in with Innistrad in the set Crimson Vow at the end of 2021. And for Innistrad, the Phyrexian invasion is just another Tuesday.

Innistrad is the gothic horror plane, and is populated with zombies, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and all the little humans who try really hard not to become their lunch. In finding cards from Innistrad, certain things, like the title of “Skaab” are dead giveaways about the plane. In Skaab’s case, it’s a form of “frankenstein zombie” magic unique to the plane, as are the incredibly common and mischievous Devils that can be found around. Some cards, like Archpriest of Shadows, are more subtle, with a spear referencing the archangel Liesa.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Innistrad to learn more.

Possibly one of the easiest planes for New Phyrexia to invade after Mirrodin, Kaladesh is a filigree-laden, aether-powered world that’s as close to a utopia as Magic has. It’s a brightly-lit plane that’s equal parts artistically creative and fiercely industrious, and is one of my favorite planes in the multiverse. We’ve only been here once; back during the Kaladesh block in 2016-2017, but there have been plenty of nods to the plane since in supplemental products like Modern Horizons. 

Looking for Kaladesh-flavoured cards is fairly easy, as much like Ixalan, the plane has an incredible amount of character and unique qualities. The spiraling, flourished filigree is one, along with the unique four-armed angels, skyships, and Kaladesh-exclusive species of Gremlins and Aetherborn. It’s more  than a little upsetting to see what’s become of Spires of Industry on the card Tangled Skyline, and how Chammi is refusing to give a refund on a now-compleat Filigree Familiar on Etched Familiar, but I suppose that’s the way of invasions.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Kaladesh to learn more.

Ah, Kaldheim; the mini-multiverse within Magic’s multiverse. The great World Tree at the center of this norse-and-viking-inspired plane is also where Pyrexia got the seed for their Realmbreaker tree, and where we first saw true hints of New Phyrexia’s plans when Vorinclex showed up out of nowhere.

We’ve only been to Kaldheim once, in 2021, but the plane was teased back on the card Skybreen from Planechase way back in 2009. Kaldheim is a world with ten distinct realms connected on their world tree, and home to cosmos monsters and Norse-mythology inspired gods. It makes heavy use of Berserker tribal as a means of channeling viking flavour, and is full of elves, dwarves, trolls, demons, giants, and snow-typed cards. Generally if a card fits neatly into one of the ten realms, it’s a Kaldheim slam-dunk. Check out all the world building WotC did for Kaldheim over on our concept art entry, it’s exceptional. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Kaldheim to learn more.

Kamigawa was one of the “new” standout planes from the last year, although it was first visited during the Kamigawa block in a vastly different form back in 2004-2005. The new look of Kamigawa is that of a Japanese-inspired cyberpunk world, although one that is still in touch with its spiritual roots. It’s home to several unique species, such as Nezumi rat-folk and Soratami moon-folk, and the unique type of spirits known as Kami. It’s also the only known plane with Samurai and Ninja, making the majority of cards in March of the Machine set on this plane to be somewhat easy to spot.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Kamigawa to learn more about this plane.

Another Planechase-born plane is Karsus, initially seen on the card “Mirrored Depths”, which shows a giant cave filled with crystals having a skirmish, the plane seems to have been defined by this crystalline magic in March of the Machine. The battle card shows a fairly unique crystalline elemental as well, which, when added to the lore we get from the viashino on Karsus Depthguard, begins to give us an idea of what Karsus is all about. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Karsus to learn more.

Lorwyn is a midsummer plane inspired by European folklore. It’s similar in some ways to Eldraine, except it’s from a time far earlier and far weirder in Magic’s worldbuilding. The Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block was released in 2007 and 2008, and showcased many unique species and mechanics that became beloved.

I, like many fans of Lorwyn, was initially nervous when all I saw was references to Elves at the premiere of the Invasion of Lorwyn. It’s not that the horned elves of the plane aren’t great, but there’s so much to love! Luckily, we got new kithkin AND a call-out for the all-timer Fertilid. The card “Blighted Burgeoning” is the only one that seems a little off in the line-up, but as a Pyrexianized version of Savage Conception, I think it fits nicely.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Lorwyn to learn more about this plane.

Mercadia is a weird plane. It’s similar to Fiora in that it’s a world of commerce, but it’s run by smart goblins and is the unfortunate setting to one of the most dramatically underpowered sets ever printed. Mercadian Masques back in 1999 suffered for Urza’s sins, and so if we never return I don’t think anyone would be surprised. That said, getting a call-out in the Battle card and a sword that references the plane’s central dragon engine Ramos is a great bonus.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Mercadia to learn more.

Ah, Summer. Lovely season. It’s so great that, when Urza was kicked out of Dominaria during the Ice Age and the forming of the Shard, he and his ex-Phyrexian sleeper agent friend Xantcha could get some much needed R&R on the summery plane of Moag. Moag was invented for, and only ever mentioned in, the novel Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey, published in 1998. It received a Planechase Plane titled “Fields of Summer”, and as far as we know, it’s otherwise a vibrant but somewhat unassuming plane on the edge of the multiverse.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Moag to learn more.

The “vanilla creatures matter” plane that is never to be, Muraganda has been referenced a few times, primarily when it was initially created for the Time Spiral Block as a potential future. The design space for “vanilla creatures” and “basic lands matter” is fairly limited, however, making visiting it in earnest very unlikely. It’s great we got a callback to the card Imperiosaur in March of the Machine, though, as this plane is fairly primordial and prehistoric, and home to much more rudimentary dinosaurs than those on Ixalan. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Muraganda to learn more.

I… have questions. Primarily: How do you compleat an angel when the angels are the source of Halo, the anti-Phyrexian serum? Alas, these are not questions for me to answer. New Capenna is one of Magic’s most recent planes, and is an art deco noir supercity. We’ve only been there once, in 2022, but it’s likely to be a recurring plane if it proves popular. It has some fairly unique cat-folk with human hairstyles, its own unique form of Cephalids, and is the only plane with devils in clothing as part of the everyday citizenry. One of the key visual designs that New Capenna adopts, asides from everything to do with shiny cars and pinstripe suits, is the substance known as “halo.” Derived from angels, halo has a beautiful rainbow-chromatic aura to it, and is a great identifier of a card existing on New Capenna. Of course, during March of the Machine, halo was spread across the multiverse, but that’s an issue for another day.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for New Capenna to learn more about this plane.

The plane it all started on! New Phyrexia was once Mirrodin, which was once Argentum, and is where Realmbreaker and this entire invasion stems from. We first saw Mirrodin back in 2003, but literally just revisited it in the set-up for this set during Phyrexia: All Will Be One earlier this year. There’s going to be bits of New Phyrexian imagery across basically every card in this set, as part of its visual motif is what happens when a machine hell invades all of the non-machine-hells of the multiverse, but the “already compleat” nature of cards on New Phyrexia makes it fairly simple to place cards there. Asides from obvious story notes that take place on the plane, like Elspeth arriving to kick butt, we’ve really only got the five Praetors here, direct references to Mirrans and Realmbreaker as both are known to exist on the plane, and a handfull of cards that are visually nothing but Phyrexian in nature.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entries for New Phyrexia and for Mirrodin to learn more about this plane.

Pyrulea is another in the series of deep cuts from March of the Machine. It’s a world that’s also a dyson sphere, and although not functionally gigantic in scale, home to absolutely the most massive natural flora and fauna this side of the multiverse. We saw Pyrulea mentioned back in the novel The Thran when it was briefly visited by Yawgmoth and the planeswalker Dyfed, but beyond two cards from Future Sight in 2007 and a single plane card, we’ve yet to truly visit. The most iconic aspect of Pyrulea is the enormous trees and leaves of the plant’s gigantic trees, showcased best on Horizon Canopy. It’s fun to see the flavour text of Gargantuan Slabhorn reference this directly in the flavour text, giving some much-needed texture to the somewhat unknown plane.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Pyrulea to learn more.

Ravnica ranks up with Innistrad as one of Magic’s most popular planes: possibly THE most popular, so it’s no surprise it was invaded by the naturally jealous Phyrexians.

The first visit to Ravnica took place during the Ravnica Block in 2005, with a return in 2012 for the Return to Ravnica Block, and again in 2018 in the Guilds of Ravnica lead-up to War of the Spark in 2019. The ten two-color-pair guilds of Ravnica are easily its most identifiable aspect, with the Guildpact, a magical law that keeps the guilds in balance, being core to the identity to the plane itself. There is enough history on Ravnica that most cards are easily identified, either by their proper name call-outs (such as the Conclave/Mat’Selesnya), by their unique creature typing (it’s the only plane with Weirds!), or by the visual iconography that’s become synonymous with the guilds (check out the Azorious armor-orbs on Protocol Knight.) I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we visit Ravnica again in a full set, and I’m looking forward to what history of the plane we may be able to learn next.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Ravnica to learn more.

Regatha is a plane that’s known almost entirely for its association with the fantastic Chandra Nalaar. It’s not her home plane (that’s Kaladesh), but it’s the first place she planeswalked and where she met fellow fire-mage planeswalker Jaya Ballard. Chandra trained under Jaya until she inherited Jaya’s iconic goggles, a very passing-of-the-torch moment for fans of either character. The only location on Regatha that’s really been explored in any detail is Keral Keep, and the vast majority of the cards there are from when we got a brief visit during Magic: Origins. There’s certainly more to the plane than fire monks, fire elementals, and fire cats, but we have yet to see it! 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Regatha to learn more.

Some planes, like Dominaria, have vast, expansive worlds and lore that borders on confusing in its complexity. Others, like Segovia, have a single thing that defines them. In Segovia’s case, it’s that Segovia is small. Not tiny in terms of little landmass, literally tiny: it’s a plane that’s out-of-scale with the rest of the multiverse. This is sort of a joke as there’s little else to define the world, but the mechanics of it do yield interesting questions.

It’s known that, by nature of the planeswalkers spark and planeswalking naturally, anyone who planeswalks to Segovia is naturally shrunk down to-scale. It’s also known that items taken from the plane remain at their small scale (Vraska has a tiny Segovian chariot she took with her on her desk on Ravnica in a jar). But it seems the Phyrexians, having ripped open a hole in space itself, bypassed the nature of the plane, and arrived at full size. Canonically, only two foot solders were able to fit on Segovia; and they were promptly tripped by the planes’ teeny-tiny sea monsters all working together. Cute. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Segovia to learn more.

A player’s love of Shandalar is predictably linked to how likely they were to have access to a PC in 1997 (and also if they were even alive at that point.) Shandaar is the setting of the 1997 Magic the Gathering video game developed by Micropose studios, and is a vibrant world of rich mana and fairly generic world-building. Named the “core set world” at one point by head Magic designer Mark Rosewater, Shandalar used to be a dumping ground for core set cards with fairly generic fantasy tropes, with one of the only unique things about it being the Onakke. The Onakke are an advanced civilization of ogres that all vanished in one night, their souls now stored in the powerful artifact known as The Chain Veil, which was famously wielded by Liliana before her retirement. The fact that, according to the card Onnake Javelener from March of the Machine, they seem to be getting out of the veil? Probably totally fine. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Shandalar to learn more.

Dragon world! Tarkir is a plane that was once famous for having absolutely no dragons, but, after the meddling of planeswalker Sarkhan Vol, is now famous for having so many dragons. Only visited once, during the Tarkir Block back in 2014, the block was a high watermark of limited design and was praised by spikey players and fans of lore alike.

The world itself had a great amount of design done to differentiate the five main human clans and the five dragon clans from elsewhere in the multiverse, so it’s fairly straightforward to find a card from Tarkir if you’re looking. The five types of dragons from each brood, being Atarka, Dromoka, Silumgar, Ojutai, and Kolaghan (RIP), each resemble their elder dragon progenitor, and the five human clans each echo a different Eastern culture that was the basis for their visual DNA. Tarkir, in addition, was the plane with easily the most Orc cards in modern memory, and although not relevant during this set, was heavily associated with the five color “wedges”, those being Abzan (WBG), Jeskai (URW), Sultai (BGU), Temur (GUR), and Mardu (RWB). 

For a fun bit of trivia, you can see on the card Death Greeter’s Champion that it’s a call-back to Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, magic’s first canon trans character. The secret lair drop variant of the card shows Alesha connecting with a character who is very similar to the art on Death Greeter, and wearing a chest-binder.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Tarkir to learn more.

The home plane of the planeswalker Kaya, we learned Tolvada’s name only a little while back, in the novel War of the Spark: Forsaken. The plane is said to have a broken sky and that Kaya considers it Nicol Bolas’ doing, but we know precious little more than that. It’s great to see how they managed to design a battle that somehow captures that exactly and ties it to Kaya without calling her out by name. If this set does anything well, it’s these individual card designs that go deep. 

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Tolvada to learn more.

The home plane of planeswalker Jace Beleren, we’ve never actually been to Vryn, barring the brief glimpses we got of it during the core set Magic: Origins back in 2015. The biggest thing that Vryn has going for it, and basically the only thing that makes it visually distinct is the mage-rings: massive technological superstructures used to bolster the plane’s leylines and direct mana across its surface. You could argue the runes on Jace’s clothing are from his home plane as well, although besides from being somewhat graphic in nature, it’s hard to define what a similar but not exact pattern would look like. Interestingly, it seems we have one of Jace’s relatives named Gav (brother? father?) in the flavour text of Overloaded Mage-Ring as someone working on one of the mage-rings. Maybe the added lore is a hint that we will eventually get to visit after all.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Vryn to learn more about this plane.

Xerex can be considered the kaleidoscope-meets-M.C. Escher plane. Only ever seen on the Planechase card “Stairs to Infinity” which, clearly, is a reference to artist M.C. Escher’s surreal masterpiece “Relativity”, we now know from March of the Machine that Xerex is more than a little odd, and that it has a fairly mutable sense of reality. This, although unlikely to be a plane we visit for a full set, has me absolutely excited to search for more nods and easter eggs in future sets. 

I can only imagine Xerex would have been much more easily defeated if the Phyrexians had ever gone to Burning Man.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Xerex to learn more.

Zendikar is another one of Magic’s “big” planes; we’ve been back multiple times and it’s been the centerpiece of major story events, including the formation of the Gatewatch and the unleashing of the Eldrazi. We first visited Zendikar back in 2009 during the Zendikar Block, again in 2015 for the Battle for Zendikar Block, and most recently in 2020 for Zendikar Rising. The plane was initially conceptualized as “adventure world” but it has some iconic elements that are very useful for ID’ing cards from the plane.

The first, and most obvious, is hedrons: these are diamond-shaped rock structures covered in runes that float around all of Zendikar, and were part of the the trap for the Eldrazi. Second, Zendikar is mechanically closely tied with both Landfall as a mechanic (usually referencing the “Roil”), and Ally as a creature type. It also has a heavy presence of Kor, and two native planeswalkers: Nahiri and Nissa.

Check out the full MtG-Multiverse planar entry for Zendikar to learn more about this plane.