Magic Untapped takes a look back at Throne of Eldraine as Magic: The Gathering introduces both a new setting and a new story arc.
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Video Transcript:
Throne of Eldraine, the 82nd expansion for Magic: The Gathering, released on Oct. 4, 2019, and launched not only a new setting, but also a whole new story arc for the collectible card game.
Featuring a top-down design, the set draws inspiration from Arthurian legends, Grimms’ fairy tales, and the works of authors such as Hans Christian Andersen (not to mention a few contemporary references here and there).
As for the story of Throne of Eldraine, it was released as an e-book written by Kate Elliot called Throne of Eldraine: The Wildered Quest. And, as we like to do, here is a story summary for you.
Oko, a fae planeswalker from a yet-unknown plane, arrives on Eldraine. Shortly after his arrival, he is attacked the stark-raving-mad elite hunter, Garruk Wildspeaker. The fae transforms himself into a stag and flees, turning the table on the hunter by means of trapping him inside a net of thorn-laced vines.
Garruk now subdued, Oko recognizes the corruptive magic of another planeswalker coursing through the hunter’s veins as well as a small Zendikari hedron embedded in his skin. Angry, Garruk informs Oko that he, too, is a planeswalker and that he can hunt him down anywhere in the multiverse if he so chooses. In response, Oko mesmerizes him into becoming his subservient bodyguard whom he nicknames “dog.”
Elsewhere, at Castle Ardenvale, High King Algenus Kenrith is about to depart on the Grand Procession – a first-harvests tour of all five courts within the Realm. Accompanying him are his twin children, Rowan and Will, who are joining him as his attendants. Rowan is excited to be on the journey – so much so that she can hardly contain her electric powers. Will, however, finds the whole thing a bit of a bore and uses his ice magic to create for himself visions of other worlds.
Distracted, the pair miss their father’s departure and are subsequently left at home with their mother, Linden. While their mother is distracted handling affairs of state, the pair decide to sneak off and catch up with the procession.
To cut down on their travel time, the twins venture through the nearby enchanted forest whereupon they are attacked by redcaps. The twins are able to handle the first wave, but they hear another, much larger contingent closing in on them.
They decide to clear out of the forest, but discover they’re still in the enchanted wilds and find themselves standing above a strange cliff face. The encroaching redcaps close in on the cornered pair, only for them to unexpectantly be saved by Oko and Garruk.
During a respite afterwards, Rowan finds herself swooning over the fae. Will, though, is not so trusting of their saviors – especially Garruk. Oko demands that the twins not harm his “dog” before deciding to accompany them on their way.
On the way, Will tries (but fails) to strike up conversation with the hulking hunter and suspects there’s something not quite right with the man.
In time, the group reach the town of Beckborough just in time to link up with the king’s procession. The twins break from their newfound companions and join back with the procession, whom hadn’t yet noticed their absence.
Oko, though, is up to mischief. He charms Cado, King Kenrith’s most trusted knight companion, and temporarily disguises himself as the man. And, a bit later, Oko abducts the High King.
It’s been three months since the King’s disappearance. The twins are turning 18 and, despite her best efforts to tend to affairs of state and lead Ardenvale, Linden isn’t getting the respect her position deserves from those beneath her. Will and his younger sister, Hazel, notice a faerie within the walls of Ardenvale, implying that the enchanted wilds are encroaching on the court.
The now-adult twins, along with a couple of their friends, decide they need to go out and try to locate their father. Unexpectantly, their protective mother gives them her blessing and sends Cado (the real one) along with them as their protector.
They venture off to Vantress. Once there, they meet with Elowen, the court’s loremage. In her presence, the twins visit the legendary magic mirror, Indrelon. In the mirror, they see a vision of a clearing within the Wilds. In that clearing is a magnificent stag standing before two ivory monuments as if they were giant fangs sticking out of the ground.
“Find the stag and you will find your father,” Indrelon tells them.
Elowen joins the twins’ traveling party and the group travels to Garenbrig with hopes to use the Great Henge and its portal. As they near the Garenbrig, they notice the area’s knights are on edge from the growing incursions by the Wilds.
Once at court, they meet with the giant King Yorvo as well as the elven Queen Ayara, who was vising from Locthwain, another of Eldrain’s courts. They tell Yorvo and Ayara about Indrelon’s prophetic vision, though Ayara seems distracted. Elowen further informs Yorvo that she has identified the exact time and location of the stag image and requests that he attune the Great Henge to send them to the location that following dawn. Yorvo agrees, stating that the next day is Midwinter’s Day and that it would be a favorable time to enter the Wilds.
The next day, at dawn, the group enters the portal and venture into the heart of the Wilds. Almost as soon as they arrive, they’re attacked first by a drake, then by a lich-lord. Titus, a friend of the twins who was accompanying them, dies by the lich-lord’s hands, but a magnificent stag appears and helps the party defeat their foe. After the encounter, the sound of a hunting party is heard through the wood and the stag flees over a nearby obsidian bridge into the old, ruined capitol of Eldraine’s former elven dominion.
Despite the bridge’s dark reputation, the party feels they have no choice but to follow the stag across.
Within the ruined city, Rowan and Will lose track of their traveling companions. Soon, they encounter a feature from Will’s vision in the magic mirror: two large, ivory monuments rising high in a clearing. These monuments are, in fact, two large teeth that belong to the skull of a large, fallen dragon – long since dead – whose petrified remains have been fashioned into an amphitheater of sorts.
Curious, the twins sneak inside and, to their surprise, witness a meeting between the Council of Druids – the de-facto ruling body of the elves of the Wilds – and Queen Ayara. The queen is arguing for peace between the Wilds and the Realms. While some on the Council agree, others don’t as they’d rather follow the lead of a mysterious stranger who desires war with the Realms instead.
The twins depart unnoticed from the meeting and wander down the road a bit further only to encounter the mysterious stranger some on the Council had mentioned. To their surprise, they recognized him immediately. It’s Oko.
Oko explains to the twins and tells them quite plainly that he sees it as his mission to help those within Eldraine’s Wilds to embrace their freedom and cast away the Realm. Elowen and Cado catch up with the twins. They instantly see through Oko’s charm and distrust him. Feeling the distrust, Oko transfigures Elowen into an eagle, which flies away. He then traps the remaining members of the twins’ party in a faerie ring.
Garruk, meanwhile, had been tracking the stag. He manages to catch it along with Cerise, the twins’ other friend who came along on the quest, and returns to his master. Oko takes ownership of the stag and departs, tossing both Cerise and Garruk into the ring with the rest of them. That’s when Rowan realizes that the stag is their lost father and that Oko means to take it to the Wildwinter Hunt in order to start a war.
Trapped in the faerie ring, Will tries once more to reach out to the hunter and, after addressing hidden feelings about fathers, they find a mutual trust. Will notices the strange implant in the hunter’s skin – the small hedron – and believes it to be the source of his bewitchment. Will has Cerise remove it and, while it has the fortunate effect of Garruk regaining both his memories and his free will, it also brings upon it the full force of the Chained Veil’s curse as placed upon him previously by Liliana from back when he was hunting the necromancer.
Garruk then corrupts Cado’s griffin, only to kill it out of pity before destroying the faerie ring as he departs to take revenge upon Oko.
Now having their own escape, the party splits up. Cado, bereaved from the slaying of his beloved mount, travels with the wounded Cerise back through the portal, returning to the Realms. Will and Rowan, however, head off after Oko to save their father. They arrive just in time to witness the start of the Wild Hunt.
Garruk, on his way after Oko, becomes overwhelmed by his curse. He finds himself being attacked by undies – merfolk native to Eldraine – and drowns. Will, the twins having caught up to the hulking hunter, dives in and attempts to save the man despite the risk to his own life. Will’s act of unselfish persistence summons the legendary Cauldron of Eternity, an artifact that, according to legend, can provide eternal youth and even bring back to life that which has died, though it had been thought forever lost to history.
Garruk’s body is placed within the Cauldon, bringing the man back to life and relieving him of his maddening curse.
Along with Garruk, who is alive and cured, the twins find the Wild Hunt and track down the stag, who is cornered at an abandoned witch’s cottage on the fringe of the Wilds. As the hunters close in, the twins try to intervene. They are simply outnumbered, however.
That’s when the siblings receive some unexpected aid by means of not just Elowen arriving on scene, having been changed back into human form, but also of Queen Linden and a small army of Ardenvale knights. In the ensuing fight, the stag is shot with an arrow by a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Queen Ayara, mortally wounding the beast.
The murderer, as it turns out, is Oko in disguise. Garruk captures him and moves to slay him, but Will intervenes, stating that, by law, he must be forced to face justice. Oko takes the opportunity to planeswalk away to safety.
The elves, meanwhile, lay claim to their hunted prey. As is custom, each hunter takes a taste of the dying stag’s blood, then departs. As the elves leave, Queen Linden sends her griffin-riding knights back to Ardenvale, leaving her along with the twins, Elowen, and Garruk there to witness the stag’s final breaths.
As it dies, it transforms back into the form of Algenus Kenrith.
In front of her fallen husband, Queen Linden reveals to the twins that the ruined cottage nearby where they stand was once the home of their birth mother. She was a witch who had given Algenus a love potion that stole both his memory and his heart. Then, when Linden had found the King a year later, the twins had been born and subsequently killed by their mother whom desired their innocent blood to brew a life-extending elixir.
Using true love’s kiss, she was able to break the spell on Algenus, then used the life within her enchanted sword to revive the twins. The King, having returned to his senses, ran the witch’s skull through with his sword and dumped the body in the house’s well, his sword still embedded in her eye socket. He then went mad with rage and shame and, taking Linden’s sword with him, rode out into the Wilds alone to try to regain his honor, leaving Linden alone with the twins.
Now, Linden fishes Algenus’ sword from the well – still impaled on the skull of the long-dead witch – and uses what power it has left to return the King to life.
Rowen, still processing all that the Queen had told her and her brother, along with witnessing her father’s revival, feels the stress of it all. Her hidden planeswalker spark ignites and, as it does, so does the one in her brother – the twins forever linked to one another with not just a shared past, but a shared spark as well. The two disappear in a shower of sparks and ice.
The King and Queen realize the twins’ sudden disappearance and Garruk, ever the hunter, pledges to locate and protect them.
And, with that, the story of Throne of Eldraine comes to an end.
As for the set in card form, of course, there’s more to tell.
The base set consists of 269 cards, but that number balloons to nearly 400 once you add in all of the additional card treatments such as borderless cards, showcase cards, and more. This is the first fully-released set to feature the now-commonplace practice of including alternate card treatments as a fully realized extension of the set – something that was experimented with in previous sets, but never before employed at such a scale.
The set was sold in regular booster packs, five mono-colored theme boosters, a bundle containing a bunch of goodies such as booster packs and a spindown life counter die, and two planeswalker decks featuring the cards Rowan, Fearless Sparkmage and Oko, the Trickster as their face cards. Collector Boosters, which were introduced as a test product with Ravnica Allegiance got a full release this time around, though only for English and Japanese languages.
New with Throne of Eldrane are Brawl Decks. In part to promote and support the new Brawl format, which is essentially a 60-card Commander format that uses only Standard-legal cards, these four decks include cards from Guilds of Ravnica up through Throne of Eldraine. The decks reportedly sold well, but were often taken apart and used in Commander rather than used in the new format. As such, aside from digital platforms where Brawl had a better following, no new Brawl decks were released after Throne of Eldraine.
Wizards of the Coast also released a limited-run Throne of Eldraine Deluxe Collection. Selling online for $449.99, it was an evolution of the Mythic Editions seen over the past three expansions and contained 16 Throne of Eldraine collector boosters, a foil Garruk, Cursed Huntsman borderless card, an art print of the card, a non-foil version of the set’s buy-a-box promo, Kenrith, the Returned King, a 3x3 section of an otherwise uncut sheet of foil Throne of Eldraine cards, and a set-themed binder. It also came with a code for Magic: The Gathering – Arena that contained a number of goodies for the online computer game.
According to Wizards of the Coast, all 10,000-11,000 units were sold out in just under 2 hours.
Wizards also released a Throne of Eldraine Gift Edition in November of 2019 just in time for the holidays, which was essentially a deluxe version of the bundle and is now known as the Gift Bundle.
In terms of themes and mechanics, Throne of Eldraine had a focus on humans and non-humans as the main faction groups as well as knights appearing in all five of the set’s colors.
The set introduced only one new ability word in adamant. Spells with adamant have an additional or different effect if you cast the spell with three or more mana of one color.
Adament wasn’t the only new mechanic introduced, however, as the set also marked the debut of food tokens and the food artifact subtype as well as the concept of adventure.
Adventure is a new subtype seen exclusively as instants and sorceries tacked onto creature cards. While the creature could be cast as normal, the instant or sorcery tacked onto that creature’s text box could also be cast instead, exiling the card upon resolution as if sending that creature off on an adventure. The creature could then be cast at a later time from exile.
In terms of card cycles, Throne of Eldraine features 14. This includes (among others):
· Paladins at common, which are knights with adamant that get a +1/+1 counter if the adamant cost is paid;
· Syrs at uncommon, which are legendary human knights that act as signposts for each of the set’s monocolored limited archetypes;
· Castles of the Realm, which is a cycle of five rare lands that represent each of the Realm’s courts. They each tap for a single color of mana, have an activated ability, and come into play tapped unless you control a land of each’s specific type;
· Legendary leaders, which are the leaders of each of Eldraine’s five Realms. Each of these rare legendary creatures cost three of a single mana to cast, and;
· Mythic artifacts, one for each Realm that all have a cost-reduction effect of some sort.
In terms of single cards, ones of note within Throne of Eldraine include:
· Cauldron Familiar, a 1/1 with a life-draining enter the battlefield ability paired with a recursion mechanic that can be used to bring it back from the dead. The card combo’d cleanly with Witch’s Oven, also in Throne of Eldraine, with which players can form a small, annoying loop;
· Fervent Champion, which is a Player Spotlight card that bares the resemblance of Javier Dominguez, 2018’s Magic World Champion;
· Fires of Invention, a key combo piece in competitive decks that gained popularity a few sets later when Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths released;
· Mystic Sanctuary, a land that has the ability to return an instant or sorcery card from one’s graveyard to the top of their deck;
· Oko, Thief of Crowns, a card that proved to be absurdly powerful due to its ability to generate artifacts and permanently invalidate opposing creatures and artifacts while increasing his loyalty. After dominating the Magic scene in October 2019, nicknamed Oko-tober due to the card’s impact across multiple formats, the card was banned in Brawl, Standard, and Pioneer, followed a few months later with bans in Modern and Historic. In February 2021, the card was even banned in Legacy;
· Once Upon a Time, a card that can be cast for free that works very well in midrange-combo decks. Like Oko, it too received bans in multiple formats including Standard, Historic, Pioneer, and Modern;
· Questing Beast, an aggressively costed 4/4 for four (two generic plus two green) with vigilance, deathtouch, and haste. It also cannot be blocked by creatures with power of two or less, prevents combat damage from you from being prevented, and also duplicates the damage it deals to an opponent onto a planeswalker that opponent controls. It’s a formidable creature card, to be sure;
· Righteousness, a card first printed all the way back in Magic’s original set, Alpha, and gives a blocking creature a whopping +7/+7 until end of turn at a cost of a single white mana;
· The Great Henge, a mana- and life-producing artifact that also reduces its own casting cost while, at the same time, putting +1/+1 counters on your creatures and also letting you draw cards. To say the card was pushed is an understatement
· The Royal Scions, the first planeswalker card in Magic to have two planeswalker types. As a result, it’s also the first not to mention those types in the card name.
In terms of promotional cards, prerelease players (as is typical) received a date-stamped foil rare or mythic rare. The buy-a-box promo was a foil Kenrith, the Returned King, a card that was also available via collector boosters. An alternate art Piper of the Swarm was the bundle promo.
Throne of Eldraine also employed the universal promo pack, something Wizards of the Coast introduced with Core Set 2020 earlier that year and still employs today as event prize support. These packs include one promo-stamped rare or mythic rare from the most recent set, one curated promo-stamped standard-legal rare card, one season-specific card with a special frame treatment, and a redeemable code to be used on MTG Arena.
Now, for some final thoughts on Throne of Eldraine, here once again is Magic: The Gathering head designer, Mark Rosewater.
So, is Throne of Eldraine one of your favorite Magic: The Gathering set? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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