Lore: Top Five Most Striking Moments in 2023

In 2023, five Magic: The Gathering sets were released. They affected the lore directly, showing the fall of ancient enemies and presenting new charismatic characters that will star in the next adventures.

In this article, we listed the top 5 most striking moments from the Multiverse's storylines this year so you can remember everything that happened or just get to know what happened.

We'll list these moments according to the order of releases we had this year. For this reason, we'll start in a place no visitor wants to return to: New Phyrexia.

The first set of the year came to us on January 17th, and left lore fans thirsty for each chapter and spoiler published by Wizards.

The focus of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One set is the phyrexian invasion and its ambition of transforming all planes according to the phyrexian ideals of perfection. With the future of the Multiverse on the line, this set brought several characters beloved by players and put them in risky situations to save their home planes and their own lives.

Painful Moment: Vraska and Jace

After planeswalking to New Phyrexia, many planeswalkers fell on different parts of this plane, and those who managed to regroup decided to face the challenges of that place while they nurtured the hope that they would find the companions they had lost safe and sound.

During this adventure, Jace heard his loved partner calling him, and decided to stray away from the path to find her, not realizing he was being led directly into Sheoldred's Coliseum.

Unfortunately, this group of heroes found her too late, and Jace found Vraska already infected with Phyrexis. As a final act of love to his loved one, Jace projected onto this Gorgon's mind a perfect day in which they strolled through the streets of Ravnica, visited guild rooms and even museums.

Even though Vraska warned him to let her go, Jace remained by her side. Unfortunately, Vraska was overpowered by the Phyrexis and took advantage of the fact Jace had his guard down to infect him as well.

In All Will Be One, we saw the planeswalker invasion, but it was in the March of the Machine set, released on April 21st, that we really saw the war to fight against the New Phyrexia Invasion.

Among so many emotional moments, we chose to highlight that particular moment that changed the course of this story.

Heroic Moment: Wrenn

As a Dryad, Wrenn felt at home in any plane, but New Phyrexia was different. In her core, she knew that place shouldn't exist.

The plan created by the planeswalkers and the rebels was to take her to Realmbreaker so that she could unite her strength with Chandra and end that invasion, but Nissa showed up in their path. Our pyromancer hero then abandoned Wrenn with the Mirrans so she could deal with the phyresis-ridden Elf.

Very few rebels who fought for Mirrodin had survived thus far, but, when it became clear that Chandra wouldn't be able to escape from this fight, all soldiers there got together to keep Wrenn moving.

The plan was successful, and, with the help of Eight, Wrenn managed to find Teferi in Zhalfir and asked him to come with his warrior companions. Teferi knew that the effort to bring them there would be too much for Wrenn, but he respected his friend's wishes and promised to remember her forever.

March of the Machine: The Aftermath was a miniset that brought a few extra chapters for this story.

Decisive Moment: Nahiri

Imagine being transformed into a being without a will of its own, and having your mind controlled by someone with distorted ideas of perfection who uses you to destroy your home, the place you'll always protect at any cost.

To make matters worse, imagine going through this, and losing your spark and ability to planeswalk, which has always been very present and dear to you in your life.

Nahiri went through this. Knowing she had been responsible for the suffering of Zendikar's people made her isolate herself in the depths of this plane, gathering all the last glimpses of Phyrexia that were there, so she could destroy them later.

This Kor found a hedron, and was sure her spark was inside it. More hopeful, Nahiri decided to leave the depths, but she was soon found by Ajani, and they argued.

After their discussion, Nahiri found something to direct the anger she felt inside her to: planeswalkers. To protect Zendikar, this Kor is willing to face them and ban them from her home one by one.

After many years, on September 8th, we returned to Eldraine with the set Wilds of Eldraine. With it, we had the first glimpse of the consequences of the developments in MOM and Aftermath.

Just like other planes, our fairy tale plane suffered after the phyrexian invasion, losing its two biggest heroes in battle: Kenrith, the Returned King and Linden, the Steadfast Queen.

Family Moment: Will and Rowan

In the absence of their parents, the twins Will and Rowan had to figure out how to deal with their grief.

Whereas Will dedicated himself to fill the role left by his dad, leading Eldraine and mediating conflicts in a non-violent manner, Rowan struggled silently and convinced herself there was no way to unit Eldraine again. She believed only strength was true power.

Rowan became her aunt's, Eriette of the Charmed Apple, right hand, and fought against her own brother to defend this witch, who intended to use a curse to save Eldraine's Kingdom.

During the fight, Will finally understood the feelings Rowan was hiding, and how hurt his sister was.

Even though it isn't 100% faithful to the text that was published, this fight was the focal point of the set's trailer (probably one of the most beautiful trailers released in the last few years), which is available on YouTube.

If you would like to know more about this set's story, you can access our article, Summarized Lore: Wilds of Eldraine.

Released on November 17th and known for exploring the favorite plane of Ixalan Dinosaur fans, Lost Caverns of Ixalan shows that the marks left by the New Phyrexian invasion in this plane have long been forgotten and a new conflict involving unknown enemies is taking shape.

Revenge Moment: Huatli and Vito

At this point in the story, Vampires have managed to free Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal, the god, which transformed them into Demon Vampires, and they are fighting to protect the Bat-God as he gathers the Chimil, the Inner Sun pieces to permanently destroy the light that shone upon the underground city they were in. In the middle of the battle, Vito and Clavileño joined forces and killed Inti, Huatli's cousin.

After witnessing her cousin's end, Huatli goes to Vito looking for revenge. The vampire then takes the opportunity to attack her and gloat about what he had done with her warrior cousin and what he would do to her, the warrior-poet.

Huatli gathered forces and called all the Dinosaurs she could to attack Vito. The vampire resisted the Dinosaurs, but Huatli used his own spear to give the final blow and kill him.

If you would like to know more about this set's story, access our article, Summarized Lore: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.

Wow, this year had a lot going on!

2024 will start us with a mystery to solve in one of our favorite cities from the Murders at Karlov Manor set, but we'll also be taken to new planes that promise great adventures, such as Bloomburrow, a world without Humans, Duskmourn, a haunted house inspired by 1980s horror movies, and a plane inspired in the Wild West, which will be introduced in Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

With so many things announced, all that is left for us is to wait for the thrilling chapters of the Multiverse story and for the new colors that Kellan will get in the next sets.

Tell us which lore moment stood out the most to you in the comment section!

See you in the next article!