Magic History: Ixalan

Magic Untapped takes a look back at Ixalan, a brand-new plane to Magic: The Gathering and the first set in the two-set Ixalan block.

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Video Transcript:

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!  Ixalan, the 76^th expansion for Magic: The Gathering, released on Sept 29, 2017, and brought the collectible card game to a brand new plane featuring pirates, merfolk, conquistadors, and (of course), lots of dinosaurs.

Inspired by Mesoamerican culture, Ixalan features a story about desire -- the desire for approval, the desire for exploration, the desire for power, and the desire for companionship – and everyone seems to be in a race to get what they want before anyone else.

Now, without any further ado, here’s our story summary:

The Gatewatch, having fled from their disastrous battle against Nicol Bolas on the plane of Amonkhet, planeswalk to Dominaria where they had all agreed to go afterwards to reconvene with Ajani.  Problem is, though, that only four of the five who took on Bolas made it there.

Jace, whom, in a jerk, self-defense reaction against Bolas, erased his mind and, instead, traveled to an unknown plane.

He wakes up on some tropical-like island with no knowledge of where he is and no memory of who he is.

He explores the island and, after a while, realizes that he has magical powers.  Testing out these “newfound” powers, he begins to test them to see what he is capable of.  He figures out a few tricks, then ponders if he is able to magically make himself disappear and appear somewhere else.  He attempts this, but finds he is unable to do so despite his feeling that he should be able to.

Exhausted from the attempt, he goes to nap.

Meanwhile, in another not-too-far corner of the map, there is a woman named Huatli.  A dinosaur-knight of the Sun Empire, she yearns for the cherished title of Warrior Poet.  She feels that coming up victorious in just a couple more battles against the various pirates and invading vampire conquistadors might be enough to get her there.

As luck would have it, a battle would find her as a pirate crew led by a minotaur named Angrath came onto the scene. 

Angrath is a planeswalker who appeared in Ixalan while exploring the multiverse only to find that he’s unable to leave no matter what he tries.  He believes that the key to allowing him to depart is a fabled artifact known as the Immortal Sun and that it lies in the Golden City of Orazca.

The minotaur demands to Huatli that she tell him everything she knows about Orazca and the legendary artifact housed there.  The dinosaur-knight refuses to say anything about it at all, which enrages Angrath.

He fights her to within an inch of her life.  That’s when Hualti’s planeswalker spark ignites, transporting her to safety in the plane of Kaladesh (now known as Avishkar) whereupon she views a city seemingly made of gold before being forced back to Ixalan through powers not of her own.

Not understanding what had just happened, the dinosaur-knight thinks she had had a vision – a vision (in her mind) of the golden city of Orazca.  With the momentary blinking of Huatli from and back to Ixalan, Angrath realizes that she is a planeswalker much like him.

Seeing the minotaur as distracted, Huatli flees and heads back to her home base and decides to inform the emperor of the Sun Empire of her supposed vision.

Intrigued by her tale, he gives her his blessing to go out and find Orazca and, if she does, she would be granted the title Warrior Poet in return.

Back on the blasted island, Jace is awakened by voices.  While he slept, a ship had come upon the island and a band of pirates had made shore.  One such pirate is taking to him, stirring him awake.

It’s someone, it seems, who knows him though he, through his self-inflicted amnesia, doesn’t realize that it’s Vraska, a gorgon planeswalker from Ravnica.

Vraska, it turns out, is on Ixalan at the behest of Nicol Bolas whom had hired her to locate a centuries-old artifact known as the Immortal Sun with the help of an enchanted compass he gave her as a tool.  Should she locate it and bring it to him, he would ensure that she is made guildmaster of the Golgari, the Ravnican guild to which Vraska belongs.

Vraska, a skilled assassin, moves to end Jace’s life now that she recognizes who he is, but stops once she realizes that Jace doesn’t even know who he is.  Instead, she brings him aboard her ship, the Belligerent.  They set sail with plans to drop him off at the next port possible.

Before that can even occur, though, the Belligerent is attacked by a dreadnought led by vampire conquistadors.  Jace, through talents he doesn’t currently understand, forms illusions to distract the attackers as Vraska turns the opposing crew to stone.

Jace, upon witnessing the petrifications first-hand, tells Vraska he thinks her ability is rather nifty.  Taken a bit aback from the compliment as it’s something the normal Jace would never have said changes her mind about dropping Jace off at the next port and allows him to join her crew.

As the Belligerent sails Ixalan’s seas in search of their treasure, Vraska and Jace spend a good amount of time around one another – enough time for each of them to find that they think the other to be rather cool.  Together, along with the rest of Vraska’s crew, they hunt for the Immortal Sun.

Elsewhere across the map, though, others are also searching for the Golden City and the treasures that reside there.

At Adanto, a conquistador fort, a brutal vampire knight named Vona looks forward to her next conquest in the name of the Church of Dusk, a church that places a heavy emphases on the hunt for immortality.  She’s approached by a clergyman named Mavren who informs her of a snake-haired woman who possesses a magical compass and that the compass can lead its user to the Golden City of Orazco – a city that, according to the order’s leader, Elenda, can grant immortality thanks to a fabled relic called the Immortal Sun.

Meanwhile, another of Ixalan’s cultures have heard rumors of the snake-haired lady and her magic compass.  These are the river merfolk known as River Heralds and, traditionally, they’re the protectors of Orazca.  Problem is, they have no idea where the city actually is.

Kumena, one of the River Heralds’ leaders, tells the other two in the council – Kopala and Tishana – that it’s probably best that they find this snake-haired lady and take them out for attempting to invade Orazca (wherever it might be).  Tishana disagrees, stating that whether or not the city is found is irrelevant so long as the Immortal Sun is left alone.  Either way, the merfolk feel that something is approaching in the waves.  Kumena and Tishana venture down to the beach and are greeted with the view of not just one ship, but two.

The Belligerent is nearing landfall, as is a ship belonging to the conquistadors of the Legion of Dusk.

In defense of Orazca, Tishana summons forth an enormous wave that scuttles both ships, wrecking them in the surf.  Kumena, in response, knocks his councilmate out cold.

A short while later, Jace and Vraska find their way out of the wreckage and, using the magical compass, begin to navigate the land.  Vona follows just far enough behind to be unnoticed.

Shortly thereafter, Huatli arrives on the beach.  She notices the knocked-out merfolk and brings her to, checking to see if she is alright.  Despite her reservations against the Sun Empire, Tishana agrees to team up with Huatli and go off in the same direction as the others.

Meanwhile, Vona sneaks up and attacks Jace and Vraska.  She steals away the compass as Tishana and Huatli arrive.  They, in turn, attack Vona and steal the compass away from her and, as soon as they do, Tishana takes the device and tries to flee off on her own.  At this point, Jace and Vraska had gotten back up and chased after the merfolk, tackling her and taking the compass back for themselves.

That’s when Angrath arrives and confronts Huatli to speak about being a planeswalker despite Huatli not wanting to talk about it because (A) she doesn’t know what he’s talking about and (B) the compass, gosh darn it!

Through the distraction, Vraska and Jace are able to get away and follow the compass until they can see golden spires peaking out through the forest canopy.  At they approach the area near the edge of a waterfall, earthquakes shake the region as the City of Orazca seems to rise all on its own.

The quaking earth causes Jace to lose his footing and he goes plummeting down the cliff towards the violent confluence below.  In shock, Vraska reaches out and tries to catch the falling mind mage, only to fall as well.  As she does, she gets flashes of memories from Ravnica.

The shock and stress of falling down a cliff, being swept down a waterfall, and striking his head upon landing in the pool of water below had unlocked the suppressed memories in Jace’s mind.  Each thought and each memory flooded him all at once and overflowed to nearby Vraska.

The gorgon then realizes that Jace is soon to remember that, on Ravnica, the two of them were enemies.  At this point, though, she cares to much for him to allow any of that to matter, though she fears for the friendship the two now share.

And that’s where we’ll leave the story of Ixalan for now.  Of course, there’s still much more to say in terms of the actual Magic set.

Design for Ixalan was co-led by Mark Rosewater and Ken Nagle.  Development was co-led by Erik Lauer and Sam Stoddard.  Cynthia Sheppard led art direction.

The 279-card set (plus ten cards exclusive to the set’s Planeswalker Decks) was available in traditional booster packs, a bundle, a Booster Battle Pack containing two 30-card 2017 Welcome Decks along with a pair of Ixalan booster packs, and a Deckbuilder’s Toolkit designed to assist newer players with deck construction.  Also available was the aforementioned Planeswalker Decks, each of which containing a read-to-play 60 card deck with one of two specific planeswalkers at the helm:  Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage and Hualti, Dinosaur Knight.

Ixalan is a typal set with four main factions:  U/G merfolk, W/B vampires, U/B/R pirates, and W/R/G dinosaurs.  These factions represent, in order, the River Heralds, the Legion of Dusk, the Brazen Coalition, and the Sun Empire.

The Brazen Coalition itself is further split between four two-color pairs representing the four fleets of ships that make up the Coalition:

• B/U Deadeye Fleet, headed by Deadeye Quartermaster;
• B/R Dire Fleet, headed by Dire Fleet Captain;
• B/R/ Fathom Fleet, headed by Fathom Fleet Captain, and;
• U/R Storm Fleet, headed by Captain Lannery Storm.

The set features three returning mechanics as well as two new ones.

Returning in Ixalan is Raid, which made its debut in Khans of Tarkir, Crew, which debuted in Kaladesh, and Transform, which made its debut in Innistrad along with the concept of double-faced cards.  All of the set’s double-faced cards have a land on the backside along with a special map-inspired card frame meant to symbolize the spirit of discovery.

<MARO DTW IXALAN 1 22:15-22:27 “One of the things…bunch of design.” 23:20-24:06 “Then we came…the land on the back.”>

The two new named mechanics found in Ixalan are:

• Enrage, which is an ability word that cares about damage being dealt to something.  When that happens, a triggered effect goes off.  This is the signature mechanic of the set’s dinosaurs.
  <MARO DTW IXALAN 3 09:35-10:02 “We liked the idea…some cool things.”>
• Explore, an ability that allows the player to reveal the top card of their library.  If that card is a land, it’s put into the player’s hand.  If it isn’t a land, the player instead puts a +1/+1 counter on the exploring creature and can decide whether to put that card back on top of their library or simply toss it into the graveyard.
  <MARO DTW IXALAN 2 26:00-26:20 “And so the idea…the exploration theme.”>

Ixalan also introduced the now-popular and prolific treasure artifact subtype and marked the return of vehicles to Magic for the first time since Aether Revolt, this time in the form of sailing ships.

With the release of Ixalan also came a rule change.  Starting with the set, all planeswalker cards gained the legendary supertype.  This includes previously-printed planeswalkers which received the subtype via an errata.  As such, they became subject to the game’s “legend rule,” supplanting the “planeswalker uniqueness rule,” which was immediately removed from the game.  This allowed players, for example, to have multiple Jace planeswalkers in play at one time so long as they had different card names.

In terms of card cycles, Ixalan has just a couple worth mentioning:

• Legendary transform cards at rare, each of which can flip into a powerful legendary land once a specific condition is met, and;
• Keepers at common.  These cards each have an activated ability that costs eight mana (seven generic plus one of that card’s color) along with sacrificing that creature.  They can be a good mana sink late in the game – especially in limited play.

The set even has a cycle of four cards – one for each of Ixalan’s factions – at mythic rare:

• Gishath, Sun’s Avatar for the Sun Empire;
• Tishana, Voice of Thunder for the River Heralds;
• Admiral Beckett Brass for the Brazen Coalition, and;
• Vona, Butcher of Magan for the Legion of Dusk.

In terms of notable single cards that can be found in the set, there are a handful starting with…

• Arcane Adaptation, an enchantment that makes not just all creatures you control, but also all creature spells and creature cards you own that aren’t on the battlefield the same creature type;
• Colossal Dreadmaw, the best creature ever printed in Magic.  Just kidding!  In all honestly, the card’s just kind of a meme due to it being printed in three consecutive sets: Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, and Core Set 2021.
• Field of Ruin, a popular land-destruction card that supplanted Ghost Quarter as the go-to land-hoser in Standard, Modern, and Pioneer;
• Hostage Taker, a card that had to be errata’d after printing but before release as it created an infinite loop as printed.  All future printings of the card would feature the eratta’d text, specifying that the card must exile another target creature or artifact rather than counting itself as a possible target as per its original wording;
• Rampaging Ferocidon, a popular card in the era’s Red Deck Winds Standard decks.  It was banned from Standard alongside Ramunap Ruins as a means to weaken the very popular and powerful deck;
• Revel in Riches, an alternate-win card that cares about the number of treasure tokens you control;
• Settle the Wreckage, a staple boardwipe in white at instant speed that has the potential of taking out all of an opponent’s creatures all at once;
• Shapers' Sanctuary, a sideboard staple in green creature-based decks that helps add extra value against opponents’ removal and control spells;
• Siren Stormtamer, a one-drop flyer that helps add an element of control to blue aggro decks;
• Star of Extinction, a sorcery that deals 20 damage to each creature and planeswalker (which is the highest pre-set amount of damage by any one spell in the game);
• Tocatli Honor Guard, a sideboard card that stops creature enter-the-battlefield abilities from triggering, and;
• Unclaimed Territory, a land that can tap for any color of mana for typal decks.

Ixalan, of course, included a number of promotional cards including (among others) a date stamped rare or mythic rare that was included in each prerelease kit, Burning Sun’s Avatar as a buy-a-box promo, a Bishop of Rebirth for Draft Weekend, a foil Unclaimed Territory as a Magic League prize, and a full-art foil Walk the Plank for Magic Open House participants.

Something else of note worth mentioning are the back-sides of the various transform cards as many of them pull inspiration from popular or powerful land cards from Magic’s past, such as:

• Adanto, the First Fort pulling inspiration from Alliance’s Kjeldoran Outpost;
• Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun paying homage to Urza Saga’s Gaea’s Cradle, and;
• Spires of Orazca pulling inspiration from Maze of Ith from The Dark.

And, for some final thoughts on Ixalan, here again is Magic: The Gathering Head Designer, Mark Rosewater.

<MARO DTW IX LL 36:25-50 “My takeaway from…we need to fix.”>

So, where does Ixalan rank amongst Magic: The Gathering sets in your mind?  Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.

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