Arriving in February of next year, Aetherdrift is a racing themed Magic: The Gathering release which takes place across multiple worlds. Last month, when artwork for Aetherdrift was shown off, fans immediately sussed out two of these pit stops, but the third, a jungle plane covered in plants, proved more challenging. Now, the game’s head designer has more-or-less confirmed its identity: the prehistoric plane of Muraganda.
Replying to a request to see more of this minor MTG plane on November 22, Mark Rosewater cheekily hinted that “it would be pretty cool to visit Muraganda, even if it wasn’t for all of a set.” Aetherdrift is the only set on next year’s Magic: The Gathering release schedule that takes place on multiple planes, so unless this was idle chatter or a deliberate trick, he’s pretty much confirmed the identity of Plane 3.
First appearing in a piece of flavor text for the Future Sight card Imperiosaur, Muraganda is a Land That Time Forgot-style world unmarred by technology and full of lush forests, dinosaurs, and druids.
To represent the plane’s primitive state, cards set on Muraganda have typically been tied to a lack of complex mechanics. Imperiosaur, for instance, can only be cast with mana from basic lands, while Muraganda Petroglyphs gives vanilla creatures that have no abilities a power boost. Primordial Plasm, similarly, removes abilities from creatures but gives them better stats.
This mechanical theme obviously makes Muraganda pretty unsuitable for a full Magic: The Gathering set. There’s only so much design space you can fill with cards that lack or remove abilities, and stripping this theme away would mean scrapping the only unique element of this world. If you did that, we might as well go somewhere else. Furthermore, we now have Ixalan, which has muscled in on Muraganda’s territory to establish itself as the premier dino plane.
Wizards has previously taken opportunities to show off problem planes like Muraganda through Planechase products, or recently through March of the Machine’s Battle cards, which also included the miniature world of Segovia, and Xerex, home of non-Euclidian geometry.
In the past couple of years, Rosewater has spoken about how the Omenpaths story arc allows Wizards of the Coast to tell stories that it wouldn’t ordinarily be able to within the constraints of a regular Magic: The Gathering set. Now it’s letting it show off worlds we wouldn’t normally be able to visit.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guides to the best MTG Arena decks, or the best MTG commanders.
Source: Wargamer
