"Read all 18 of these stories, but if you absolutely must save time, read 17 of these 18 stories" is prime Kathleen advice.

If I had a nickel for every time innistrad was saved from an extra planar threat by its undead being resistant to mental conversion I’d have 2 nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice

I really love how the surviving planeswalkers at the beginning are mostly black-aligned and show the wide heroic sides of black’s color pie. Liliana is black’s selfish desire to protect what’s hers, the “this is *my* home, you don’t get to control it” sentiment. Tyvar is black’s ambitions to be remembered, to be celebrated, to be the greatest. Kaya is black’s desire to control the outcome, to have a plan to defeat the enemy. And Kaito is black’s evasion, to just be unable to be held down or caught by the bad guys.

Tyvar is the hero we need but don't deserve. Sees a Phyrexianized Giant Ancient Serpent God and just decides to quite literally just fist fight it.

While "tamed giga-chad" is a pretty good description for Tyvar, I've normally just call him a himbo. He is as strong as a bull, dumb as a bag of rocks, and the best guy you've ever met.

I think Koth's discomfort on the softness of the plane of Zalhfir makes sense. He's been stuck in a war for so many years, and finally having that moment of peace and calm knowing it is over makes sense for him to be overloaded/disgusted by it. He has only known the harsh world of metal and oil so being able to relax and breathe easy is a rough thing for someone who probably has oil based ptsd to compute at first.

I would love a Cam and Kathleen lore podcast. I would listen to the hell out of that.

30 minutes in so far, and I unironically love how every part begins with "What's going on on X plane? Well X Plane is pretty fucked up."

for those who like cam wonder planeswalker aging post mending has been kinda said to still happen but is slowed. one of the reasons liliana made her deal with the 4 demons was so she would not age.

I loved the part where Karn said "It's Karning time" and smashed Elesh Norn

Ok but hear me out, Quintorius, on Tarkir, helping the Jeskai rediscover their traditions by using lorehold scroll/archaeology magic on Ojutai's secret archives.

For a little extra context, since it's a Really old plot point: Zhalfir is basically the Sparta of Dominaria, and it was in the path of the original Phyrexian invasion and was meant to take the brunt of the assault. But feeling that this wouldn't be fair to the people of Zhalfir, Teferi phased the whole country away in an incident that led to Time Spiral. Teferi reappeared 300 years later to the Time Spiral crisis, but the rift leading to Zhalfir was improperly sealed and the nation basically presumed lost. After travelling into the past to talk to Urza about the sylex, Teferi woke up in Zhalfir after just 10 years since the phasing happened. So basically Zhalfir is the place full of people who have been armed and ready to fight Phyrexia for a decade, from a time when people really had a lot of hands-on experience fighting Phyrexia, and are now actually getting their shot.

Ral Zarek, known fan of Metalocalypse, listening to Bloodrocuted as he "solves" the phyresis problem on Ravnica.

Cameron, you should write a paper on how trees are a strategy!

I absolutely loved the exploration of mindsets and trauma in this set. With the Vraska story, getting in the mind of a planeswalker being compleated and how a bit of them still lives in there to deal with the horror. Then, with Koth and Teferi especially, you get the trauma of surviving in the face of so many others not. It was very nice really getting in the heads if characters after the big story ends, and I’m sure Aftermath will continue this (along with maybe the next few sets in general).

Jace to Vraska; "You compleat me... no wait, that's not what I meant."

I really think the side story "Tangles" from innistrad midnight hunt should also be read before this. There's a number of things that call back to it from wrenn and it really made wrenn reaching out to find teferi so much more impactful because of how she knows to look for it. Put a big 'ol lump in my throat when I read it at lunch to see how the normally stoic wrenn shows her compassion. Just a beautiful scene when it all ties together

I can't tell if I should congratulate Kathleen for stopping herself from dropping like a dozen "F" bombs, or if it was just editing. 😂 Also Cam, I heard that Gödel's Completeness Theorem reference. Don't worry! It was not a wasted effort.

These story breakdowns are great! I hope that you guys keep these going!

So the real hero of the multiverse is actually Baron Sengir as he was the one who manipulated Serra to lose hope and to martyr herself allowing her power to enter the multiverse which allowed it to fight the phyrexian infection. Now for a fanfic. Baron Sengir is roaming the multiverse searching for Serras spark, essence, whatever helped Elspeth to prevent her from truly being reborn. Kasmina is currently looking for planeswalkers that may be the reincarnation of Serra and Feroz to fight Sengir. We find out the twins are the reincarnation/descendents and they only have 1 spark between them because they currently share Feroz's spark when they were supposed to get both but couldn't because Serra spread hers to the multiverse

Some others have talked a bit but I'll throw my hat in the ring too. Post mending planeswalkers age normally. Liliana nearly died of old age before making her contract which you can read in her origins story; before she died, Jaya was aging normally; and during (I want to say some point during the core 19 story?) Bolas mentioned he was also aging just at the scale that dragons age; last long lived walker of note would be teferi, who ages at an extremely slowed rate since the mending due to time magic and time magic accidents from his past. Tamiyo being a moonfolk would have been extremely long living normally, but like Kathleen, I read her comment to be more about the situation surrounding her demise rather than her dying in and of itself. Outside of that we've seen and heard of a number of planeswalkers aging, especially amongst the gate watch due to spending so much time with them, but also during Eldraine we have Garruk reflecting on the time he lost being overtaken by the chainveil curse. (About 10 years of his life iirc) Talking about losing the entirety of his 20's.

I would love to hear the Liliana podcast. I would also love to read Cameron's paper about trees.

Norn before Elspeth returns: "All will be one" Norn after Elspeth returns: "RANDOM BULLSHIT GO"

Tyvar is just built different. He is him. An absolute unit. Giga Chad.

I'm so glad Chandra and Nissa finally got to have their moment

Lovely breakdown by lovely people, and just what I needed after just skimming over the stories. One side note - I think it would be worth mentioning in the breakdown of the first story the whole thing Elesh had with "I need Ajani to do more than I told him, but I don't want him to know" as it spoke a lot about her paranoia previously planted by Ashiok.

Oh thank everything, some sensible people explaining me what the hell is going on!

I heard "Meliria" so many times that I actually doubted myself for a second on whether her name was actually "Melira". But no, it's Melira. That aside, really enjoy these story breakdowns!

Guess it's my time to be the person typing in the comments. First off love the synopsis and your passion for the lore. On the topic of planeswalker ages. Old walkers were ageless and extremely hard to kill. Since the mending planeswalkers age according to their species. This is central to the starting motivations of both Lilliana (who made her deal to regain immortality) and Nicol Bolas (who was aging for basically the first time and literally could not contain all of his memories in his now fleshy brain). Tamiyo was an old-walker but lost that immortality after the mending. Interestingly she is not the only old-walker who created a spirit or avatar to cover their interests post-mending. Lord Windgrace did something very similar with Urborg. Regarding Tamiyo's specific lifespan post mending I have no idea how long moonkin live naturally.

I think overall while the March of the Machine story still has the still unresolved issue of main stories needing to do way too much in too little time, I enjoyed this one overall. The ending came too quickly, and the Praetors that weren't Norn got far too little before getting unceremoniously removed, but we did get a number of good moments. I particularly enjoyed Atraxa's meltdown upon contemplating art, Family Game Night, Vraska's side story, and pretty much anything to do with Wrenn. This does continue the trend of side stories often being better than the main story. I think Cam summed up why pretty well: short, mostly self-contained stories feel like a more comfortable medium within the confines of the resources the writers are given. Meanwhile the main stories just have too many plot beats they have to hit, so sometimes when too much is happening and there's only so much space to go through it, things can devolve into a list of "and then this happened and then that happened." Edit: Quick addendum regarding Cam's question on Tamiyo, I took her statement of "I hoped this day would never come" to mean she hoped she wouldn't die prematurely in a way that left her family behind. Whatever Tamiyo's natural lifespan was, she hoped to die after a full life in such a way and time that her family could come to accept the natural cycle of life. This was in case a tragedy cut her life short, to help the family that still needs her.

Oh look, new lore related content from LoredingReadyRun. Perfect to listen to while lazing about.

I realy appreciate these videos, they are super fun to watch and allow me to catch up on the story ^^

Thanks for summarizing this whole plot and giving your insights into it! I don't have the time at hand to read it but I am happy to getting caught up by you guys

The thing about Vraska... Jace calling her "Captain" is the keyword for Vraska to regain her mind. Remember when they set this up before fighting Bolas? There was a reason it wasn't used then.

I think in regards to Tamiyo, it's that in Japanese myth, the moon people, specifically, are long lived or immortal. If I recall, they are often depicted as neither aging, dying or rotting. Also, the moon god; Tsukuyomi, is either said to be in possession or have created the 'waters of rejuvenation'.

I love these story spotlights guys seriously as a person who hates reading digitally having someone summarize it is fantastic thank you both!

Great! Was hoping we'd get another LoRRCast for MoM!

I loved this! Ty for doing it

Thanks Kathleen and Cameron for running through all of the stories! Kept me sane during a long work project😅.

Listened to this episode on a long drive, definitely my favourite way to learn the lore!

"The Cassandra of Marvel Movies" is such a good line!

There was a time when I used to enjoy keeping up with the Magic storyline. Now I'm an old man that can't find the time. Thank you for producing a video that I can semi-listen to while formatting documents. I (literally) can't think of a duo that I'd rather hear explain MTG lore than the two of you. Thanks, again.

Petition to rename the hybrid plane “Zhalfirrodin”

Lovely summary, as usual. I do think the Ixalan story has a couple things worth mentioning. For one, this is the first time we see the Phyrexians defeated militarily. That shows us that the war will be won because of the struggles everywhere, not just by a deus ex machina on New Phyrexia. Also there is a lovely scene between Huatli and Saheeli.

The way you mention Quintorius right after talking about Jace and Vraska made me imagine like his first planeswalk interupting them

As a veeeery casual story enjoyer, I was waiting for this one!

yall are FAST! This keeps beign my favourtie way to enjoy magic story after the cards

Really loved these lore breakdowns the last couple sets. Kathleen and Cameron have some great insight as well read folks who are themselves quite good at writing and analyzing, hope to see more in the future!

i love your enthusiasm for the story.

Good recap! I haven’t read through everything yet but i very much enjoyed your review.

As it comes to the story itself - the culmination points for most of the characters felt a bit rushed, I hoped for a little bit more epic downfall of the Praetori, than e.g. "Teferi said >look, behind you< and then suddenly Vorinclex got his head cut off", that felt really anti-climatic, even if it rightfully shown that a Praetor is no deity. And having more irreversible consequences for main character would be better. I also wish Teferi got retired in Zhalfir, we don't need more planeswalker cards with him :P

Tamiyo was a soratami who are mostly ageless. They live like lotr elves

Cam "I could write a paper" I would read that! Love these story episodes so much 😊

Writing this at the warning: I haven’t read it, was planning on reading it. Still going to watch this and then read it. 😊

As for liliana being a teacher, i dont know much about the story other than the early liliana stories, but black is the most common tutor color so *shrugs* maybe some connection?

"What does this mean for Rankle?" is such a funny insight to your world being invaded by techno-zombies

Now I want to see a Discworld universes beyond set.

LOVE these Lore episodes

Others have already said it, but, well, he who controls the algorithm controls the galaxy. Anyway, pre-mending the spark granted immortality and shapeshifting, so nobody aged, but post-mending all oldwalkers started aging normally. Sorin, Ugin, Karn, and Bolas have innate immortality from their species, so it doesn't affect them, Teferi slowed his aging with his time magic, and Nahiri was in the Helvault for most of the post-mending timeline, so her age hasn't caught up to her yet. The main Oldwalkers we've seen who were actually affected by aging are Jaya, who fully embraced the opportunity to be a cool old lady, and Liliana, whose entire backstory was about making Demonic pacts to reverse sixty years of aging and stay young forever. Mostly unrelated, I think it is worth mentioning that Tamiyo actually had three scrolls that she always kept locked. One, which tells the story of the destruction of Serra's realm and is implied to be apocalyptic, was modified by Emrakul to provide the energy needed to bind her in the moon. We now know that the other two were the story of the Phyrexian invasion of Mirrodin (which spreads glistening oil, explaining her keeping it locked away forever until she switched sides) and her failsafe ghost-mode scroll, both of which were used in this story. Also, I think a key part of Tyvar's story is that after he went underwater fighting a Compleated version of an apocalyptic world-eating snake that his people sort of worship and whose presence against you in-universe and in-game means that you lose immediately, exactly five minutes and thirteen seconds later (Harald counted) he resurfaces holding its severed head, and Harald's reaction was just, "I have never been happier to be the second most awesome person in the room".

When you said Dean Embrose, I heard Dean Ambrose and I wondered why it sounded familiar.... I think in Kayfabe Dean Ambrose wouldn't survive the New Phyrexian Invasion, but Jon Moxley would.

I loved the Innovation of the Founders. It fight the idea is a school so perfectly, they are taking knowledge and definition and imposing it upon reality.

thank you for this, video quality seems to be down, seems very "gray" - maybe that's just the weather in BC

As far as I can tell, the Mending of Dominaria got rid of built-in planeswalker immortality alongside the limitless power of being able to create personal planes. That isn't to say that there were other ways for planeswalkers to gain those abilities back, see Nicol Bolas spending 60 years to bending Amonkhet to his will to get Hour of Devastation to go off without a hitch.

Anyone else remember when Penny Arcade did the reality tv show comic artist challenge,and they made the MtG skateboards, and one of the best comic artists on the shows design was poopooed by the wotc rep for making chandra look angry and she said chandra wasn’t an angry character? I remember

I think it was the Ixalan story where we have Huatli reminiscing about her relationship with Sahili Rai; which before then, I didn't realize was a thing. And I'm very happy with that, as I adore both of those characters and want them to be happy. But it makes me wonder if that may be some compensating on WotC's part over the "War of the Spark" debacle. #gruulfriends4ever.

I love these episodes

You guys have any thoughts on the stuff they showed off in reveal stream or will you be talking about it next week?

If I could listen to Cameron and Kathleen every morning while I open my works store it would be so relaxing

Cameron please write that paper and post it I would love to read your thoughts on trees in literature/mtg

Something I have latched onto is the presence of mirroden's 5 suns on Zalfhir - not as a harbinger of Phyrexia rising again, but like, hoping that it'll change the direction of Zalfhirin growth as there's now 5 mana rich suns, at least 2 of which we haven't really had associated with characters from the region. Also it kinda implies that the 5 mana suns are extraplanar which is dope

there is just one thing i need clarified to me, i got that the roots of realmbreaker receded when wrenn did the thing but are the portals gone? is the multiverse forever connected now?

I feel like Ikoria's resistance to Phyrexia is also because the two are opposites. Ikoria is all about change, about the ever evolving diversity of life. Phyrexia is about unchanging unity, about everything being the same, both as each other and unchanging over time.

I was disappointed that they took Phyrexia, this weird faction propelled by the glistening oil, an undescribed substance with the powers to corrupt things into twisted metal versions of themselves but wholly devoted to Phyrexia and just basically turned it into nanomachine wielding fascists you can punch. Let me elaborate. In ONE they were so powerful and infectious just being around them or getting the smallest cut could turn your most trusted ally into your worst enemy and it was tense and horror-ish atmosphere. They worked like an infection and no one was safe from the inevitability of this proliferating oil. Then in MOM they just start attacking everything with no plan, no finesse, no slow corruption just violence. And like I get why, I don't even think it was poorly written, I just think you could have done so much more interesting things with this concept than "War for the spark 2". And Elesh Norn just being a fascist with a god complex was foretold and done okay, I was just hoping for something more interesting cause the "turn you into a robot" faction always just boils down to fascism. I was hoping that she honestly cared for everyone and was trying to help in a weird distorted way. Again, it's not bad, I was just personally disappointed. And the ending is kinda lame, the oil stops working because it has no signal and then we don't have to worry about it. So Elesh Norn controlled the signal of the oil? How? Did she take control of it at some point? I know this is sort of nitpicky, it just feels like hand waving like the oil works across planes (New Phyrexia - Dominaria) but not from where it is now? But this is just me, I really like the Phyrexian aesthetic and flavor, and I just feel they could have done more interesting weird existential/body horror-stuff with it. But I guess that's not as marketable to Hasbro.

Definitely feeling what Cameron and Kathleen have mentioned about, just, how much Has To Happen - a lot of the Praetors especially end up getting slammed through without a definite arc (and, tbh, playing Norn as just a megalomaniac feels very trite compared to what the Machine Orthodoxy had going on). Either way, definitely looking forward to going back to sets with Less Marvel plots to them.

Ashiok's plans seeded way back when have developed most wonderfully... Muaha

The reverse Rath with Zhalfir was nice. The one disappointment with this story is they didn’t bring back the Mirari in some form. Like, after Memnarch was unmade, it went back to being the Mirari and was given to Glissa. Would’ve been cool if it made some sort of appearance, even if in a failed attempt to uncompleat someone or being corrupted by Norn or Gin-Giraxias or something

The difference clearly is that Melira was stabbed in a cutscene while everyone else was just injured in normal combat :P

I chortle a little bit with joy every time it is mentioned that Card Kingdom is now a Union shop

To answer Cam's question about Planeswalkers, they were immortal. They didn't need to drink, sleep, or eat until, The Mending happened and change the nature of the spark. Now all of them has been brought down to mortal and they die, however most of them are immortal due to their race. For example Bolas, Ugin, Karn, and Sorin are immortal due to being dragons, a robot and a vampire respectively. While I assume that Kor, Soratami, and other non-human races have a longer life expectancy like Elves do. While there are humans who are around after The Mending, the only humans who have a longer life expectancy are due to special circumstances like Teferi (who's using time to slow down his age), Liliana (who is immortal or age slowed due to contract, though I'm not sure if that's in play anymore), and Ob (who got cursed into a demon).

I love lore episodes!

Yea, the Innistrad and Eldraine side stories are the most fun and honestly, light hearted and hilarious to boot.

I still wish that the Ur-Dragon made an appearance. It would be cool if the Elder Dragons from Strixhaven communed with the Ur-Dragon in some way. But I dig the story and glad Chandra and Nissa are together finally.

Rankle and Torbjorn's excellent adventure. Love it Cam

My guess is that Quint will primary Red and sub Blue/White. He comes from Lorehold, but having to share Rootha’s part in the invocation leads me to believe he’ll dip into blue.

Cam, please write the Tree Strategy Paper.

Absolutely love the use of Lord Vetinari as an example of a thoroughly black-aligned character who does genuinely seem to care about the good of his city (emphasis on *his*)

I am commenting to engage with the algorithm because I like this content.

Jace and Vraska (and maybe a 3rd, younger entity) visiting the theme park of Unfinity would be a lot of fun.

My only concern is: what about the myrs?!? We just got Urtet! D:

I'm just going to say that the Strixhaven story was my fave overall and the cards from arcavios all look great

"They compleat each other." I MEAN... LITERALLY. lol

All I'm saying is that Nicol Bolas never would have let this happen if he was in charge.

Man. It was so awesome that Zalfir finally got out, sadly as its own plane now and not on dominara, but it's no longer cut off at least. Awesome note that it was also to fight the phyrexians like they should have in the invasion block, before Teferi selfishly phased them out for 100 years instead of just to keep them as an amush force. I have mixed feelings about it being Wren to get them free though. It kinda felt like wizards stole the thunder of one of their longest running and most beloved black characters.

This story was absolute hype. Could've been a tad better edited but I loved all of it. Love these episodes!!!

Loved this story. Also INTERACTION

As sad as I was to see Ajani and Tamiyo get compleated... I'm not thrilled they're saving Ajani. I'd rather he just get the axe. Regardless, thanks so much for summarizing these! I very much enjoyed it. :)

On the note of plainswalkers aging, remember liana made deals with demons to not age

Ok, what do I have to do to get my hands on that unopened box of Jyhad. So jealous.

I WOULD LIKE TO READ CAM'S TREE PAPER.

Giving engagement for good story content 🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️