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War of the Spark
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Also, @iplaypokemongo
I'm not sure how closely you're following the story, but all the planeswalkers are gathering because they were called by a beacon Ral Zarek devised, AKA Project Lightning Bug.
Nicol Bolas: A legendary Elder Dragon from Dominaria and one of Magic's most long time villains. He once had almost limitless powers before an event called the Mending (Time Spiral block). He is extremely smart and cunning.
Ravnica before these standard sets: Ral Zerek develops project lightning bug which can be used as a beacon for planeswalkers.
Kaladesh Block:
After Oath of the Gatewatch and the Shadows Over Innistrad block, the Gatewatch (Currently Jace, Liliana, Gideon, Nissa and Chandra) are chilling out on Ravnica after defeating Emrakul. While there, they are approached by a planeswalker from the steampunk land of Kaladesh, Dovin Baan is an order-obsessed bureaucrat, and he wants the Gatewatch’s help in putting down a rebellion that sprang up. The Gatewatch refuses to help him, but Chandra is reminded that Kaladesh is her home, and she follows him.
They arrive on the plane at the height of the Inventors’ Fair, a grand event where the artificers of the plane showcase their crafts. Among the participants are Saheeli, a talented metalsmith and secret planeswalker; and Rashmi, a brilliant elf who thinks she’s cracked the code to crossing dimensions. The fair is being overseen by a mysterious “guest judge…”
Chandra quickly discover that Dovin’s government is up to no good, culminating with the arrest of Renegade Prime—aka Pia, her mother. This pits the Gatewatch against Dovin and his “guest judge:” Tezzeret, an artificer planeswalker from the fractured plane of Alara, and known crony of Nicol Bolas.
As renegade activity reaches a fever pitch, Tezzeret authorizes a coup of the city, confiscating all of the artificer’s inventions. As the renegades fight the Consulate, Liliana trails Tezzeret and forces him to reveal his plan: to capture the Planar Bridge, Rashmi’s invention which enables non-planeswalkers to cross planes. She forces him to reveal Bolas’s location, but when Chandra and Gideon crash into the Bridge, Tezzeret escapes with the bits of it that weren’t destroyed.
While on Kaladesh, Ajani, an old ally from Alara who’s also a lion, joins the Gatewatch.
Amonkhet Block:
Lead by Liliana with the information she gleaned from Tezzeret, the Gatewatch decides to strike at the heart of Bolas’s power, and planeswalk to the Egyptian plane of Amonkhet. (Minus Ajani, who tells them it’s a foolish endeavor.)
n Amonkhet’s lore, the ominous God-Pharaoh will one day return and return the worthy to new life. Until then, the inhabitants of the plane compete in tough physical trials overseen by five animal-headed gods: the losers die, the winners… well, they die too, but they “die with glory” and are promised eternal life. One of these inhabitants, Samut, doesn’t believe most of this baloney.
While Gideon runs the trials, Samut and the rest of the Gatewatch dig into Amonkhet’s history. Spoilers: it’s not all what they believe. It becomes increasingly clear that the God-Pharaoh wasn’t native to Amonkhet, instead reshaping the plane in his image… which also explains why everyone on the plane was so young: everyone above a certain age was killed when he arrived.
Shortly after Gideon completes his trial (he doesn’t die, being McBeefSlab and all), the Accounting of the Hours arrives. In short: things go to shit. The Gate to the Afterlife opens, revealing Razaketh, Liliana’s third demonic creditor (who she quickly kills).
(Pause: Liliana killed Razaketh because of a pact she made. Liliana was promised power and eternal youth by four demons, so like any good black mage, she’s looking to kill them and void the contract. Okay? Good.)
Razaketh is followed by three insectoid gods, who kill four of the five benevolent gods. Samut saves the last one, Hazoret, and sparks in the process. They proceed tear down the magical barrier that’s protecting humanity, and reveal just what happens when you pass the trials: you turn into an Eternal, a magical blue super soldier zombie who’s sworn to do Bolas’s bidding.
The Gatewatch charge at Bolas, but just as Ajani predicted, it was foolish. Bolas beats the five of them to within an inch of their lives, and they each planeswalk away to avoid death. Amonkhet falls.
Ixalan Block:
ace wakes up on a deserted tropical island on the Mesoamerican adventure plane of Ixalan, his memory fully wiped. Trying to escape his circumstances and remember who he is, he falls into the grasp of a pirate ship helmed by a familiar figure.
Vraska, a gorgon assassin from Ravnica, is captaining the ship—and she recognizes Jace, but not vice versa. She explains that a shadowy benefactor (i.e. Bolas: who else?) gave her the tools and abilities to explore the plane to find the Immortal Sun, an artifact of immense power that also prevents planeswalkers from leaving the plane. In exchange, Vraska is promised control over the Golgari, her native guild.
Jace and Vraska team up to delve the depths of the plane, running into two other trapped ‘walkers: Huatli, a native dinosaur-riding knight whose spark only recently ignited; and Angrath, a minotaur blacksmith who only wants to leave so he can see his family again. They and many other factions compete to find Orazca, the city of gold in which the Sun dwells.
When they find it, a near-death situation causes Jace’s memories to return: although he’s reminded of his history with Vraska, the two make up (or make out, idk) due to the friendship that had developed. They also encounter a surprising figure in the Sun’s resting place: Azor, a sphinx from Ravnica who wrote the original Guildpact (i.e. Ravnica’s magical code of law) and who sacrificed his planeswalker spark to create the artifact. Jace banishes the sphinx for his haughtiness, being the new Guildpact and all.
Vraska triggers her beacon to alert her benefactor to collect his prize. Tezzeret arrives, and uses the Planar Bridge to swipe the Sun, lifting the barrier. Connecting the dots, Jace wipes Vraska’s memories of him before Bolas can probe her, promising that he’ll restore them once it’s safe and they can fight Bolas as a team. With the barrier gone, all the walkers leave.
The Gatewatch (or most of them) ends up on Dominaria, a plane of immense history and the site of many of the game’s conflicts. Nissa announces that she can’t bear to leave her home plane (Zendikar, which was devastated near the peak of the Eldrazi arc), and breaks her pact with the Gatewatch, turning the Gang of Five into a Gang of Four as she retreats.
The rest of the ‘Watch (i.e. Liliana, Chandra and Gideon—Jace is still stuck on Ixalan during most of this set) faff around Dominaria, reuniting with many key figures from the game’s storied past. Three are planeswalkers: Teferi, a time mage who sealed his entire home continent into a time rift—it’s a long story; Jaya, a skilled fire mage who unwittingly founded a monastic order that Chandra was once a part of; and Karn, a silver golem who was granted another dead planeswalker’s spark (again, long story).
They, alongside others, have joined up to fight the Cabal, an evil cult from Dominaria’s past that was resurrected by a demon who claims to have had a hand in literally every event in the plane’s history. Said demon, Belzenlok, is also the last of Liliana’s creditors.
The gang fights into the heart of the Cabal’s stronghold, culminating with Liliana killing Belzenlok. This causes Nicol Bolas to appear on Dominaria, saying that Liliana’s contract is now in default—and she is now Bolas’s property. Unable to resist, the two of them planeswalk away.
It’s not all hopeless, though. Gideon now has in his possession the Blackblade, the one artifact known to have grievously wounded Bolas. Also, Teferi joins the Gatewatch, so that’s cool… right?
Core 2019:
This set mostly delves into Bolas’s past. He had five siblings growing up, four of whom he killed in the Elder Dragon Wars. The only one to survive was his twin, Ugin, a “spirit dragon” of colorless mana who in many ways is Bolas’s antithesis. The two would come into conflict many times over Magic’s history, with Ugin co-creating the Immortal Sun in a ploy to trap Bolas and render him powerless. It failed, and Bolas would eventually kill Ugin… although that too wouldn’t last. (Read up on the Tarkir storyline if you want to know how that came to pass.)
Unrelatedly, we’re introduced to Vivien. Part ranger, part ecoterrorist, her entire home plane was destroyed by Bolas, with its only remains being the spirits of its animals she carries in her magical longbow. She’s a bit of a jerk, tbqh.
Guilds of Ravnica Block:
We return to Ravnica, city of guilds and Jace’s adoptive home plane. Five of the ten guilds have been usurped by Bolas, with planeswalker pawns put into place under his control. You’ve met two of them already—Dovin and Vraska. The other three are Domri, a Gruul punk and anarchist who wants to see the city burn; Ral, an Izzet scientist who is working on research to attract planeswalkers to the plane; and Kaya, an otherworldly assassin who has the unique ability to kill ghosts. Which is very handy when taking down a ghost mafia.
Much of the block’s story catalogues the day-to-day tensions between the guilds. All that changes when Dovin alerts Bolas to arrive. He has three tools at his disposal: the Immortal Sun to trap planeswalkers, the Dreadhorde (helmed by Liliana) that is undyingly loyal to him, and the Planar Bridge to move the two. Bolas uses Project Lightning Bug, Ral’s research, to draw many planeswalkers to the plane, then summons the Dreadhorde to kill them all. His hope is that by channeling their planeswalking sparks, he can cast the Elder Spell, an immense magical spell to make him omnipotent
TL;DR for Bolas's Plan:
Project Lightning Bug acts a a beacon to bring the Planeswalkers to Ravnica. The Immortal Sun makes it so they can't leave. The Dreadhorde is the army of eternals (Military trained zombies) Bolas brought from Amonkhet. Bolas uses the Planar Bridge to bring the Dreadhorde to Ravnica. The Dreadhorde is led by Liliana and planned to kill all the Planeswalkers so Bolas can steal their sparks and cast a spell to return him to Pre-Mending power.
Also:
Watch the Trailers:
Look at the Spoilers:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/spoilers/233-war-of-the-spark
Preorder WAR:
https://www.coolstuffinc.com/page/5161
But I have to admit that the flavor of Sorin and Nahiri seeing each other and being like "Imma kill you even though the entire Multiverse is about to be destroyed" is lowkey kinda my favorite thing in this entire set hahaha
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_novels
Huge spoilers today. God-Eternals maybe confirmed too
Watch this video for lore
Hmm I guess this was known previously? I had thought that Ral had activated project lightning bug at the behest of Bolas, not in order to stop him, but I like ral being an okay guy