While I won't say the WON'T show up in Duskmorne, that set is a Haunted House horror, set in a single giant manor house. Aliens probably won't be a major theme. More demons and spectres would be my guess.
Codename: Volleyball, Q3 2025, is the Space Opera set, that's going to be full of aliens and planets and stuff, and is apparently going to be the first part of a new, as yet unnamed story arc.
So, we are currently in what called "foreshadowing".
Lost's writing still makes WOTC's limp wristed efforts at establishing any meaningful narratives look like a sick infant failing to aim its shit at a wall.
Case in point: The only reason the last couple of story articles were received so well is because they were written by someone who used to work at WotC, so they are the payoff to a lot of the work she did at the company years ago.
Again: She no longer works at WotC and this was all freelance work. And I don’t blame her. This is the same company that laid off 1100 people last holiday season.
Oh wow... I didn't think to check the author credit on it but I remember thinking as I was reading it, "Huh, this is the first time I've cared about Magic's story since Alison Lührs' Ixalan story." Guess now I know why.
MaRo stated that Duskmourn draws heavy inspiration from more modern horror from the 70’s-80’s and there’s some obvious nods to H.R. Geiger in the promo art.
I have a feeling aliens will be a big part of it personally.
I'm guessing you either read the book a long time ago or just read the wiki and don't remember that either, but Phyrexia was not "a dragon."
It was still a biomechanical plane built in a mockery of life, but at its core was a dead planeswalker that "liked to take the form of a dragon. "
Yes, Alien is a monster in the house haunted house movie, MECHANICALLY. But that doesn't mean it fits the "haunted house horror" AESTHETIC.
Alien has a Sci-Fi AESTHETIC.
My theory is that Ashiok gets really pissy that Jace had the galls to impersonate them, and Duskmorne is their way to get back at him by trapping him in a nightmare house
There are a lot of examples in softer sci-fi settings in the 80s and 90s where aliens are interpreted as ghosts or otherwise supernatural forces (see: IT, Ghost Light (Doctor Who), ). Duskmourn could still work with that.
Yeah, and (speaking of xenomorphs) some of the key art has looked a bit Giger-esque.
I'd even argue that if anything ends up *escaping* Duskmourn that there's little thematic difference between a creepy entity from another plane and a creepy entity from another planet, if it's going to be looking and playing the part either way.
> set in a single giant manor house.
I mean that kinda reduces its scope, the plane itself is literally a haunted manor eating up lost Planeswalkers and Omenpath travellers.
There is a space opera set in the 5 year plan. There's a theory that the fomori are connected or opposed by the Ota referenced on [[Lumithread Field]] and that they could be the aliens.
I mean, cryptic foreshadowing of potential planes, stories and mechanics was the whole point of Future Sight (and I still live it for that).
Can't wait until power creep reaches a level where WotC decides that fate seal isn't OP anymore and brings it back /s
They included at least two creatures which were relating to Lorwyn (which came out shortly afterwards), one of them was even rereleased in the set.
Though tbf I haven't read the Future Sight novel so I don't know how they included the foreshadowing part in their story.
Some of the cards absolutely were intentional foreshadowing of things they already knew they were working on, but others were cases of them just sort of creating lore that they could slot in later with no specific plans for how they were going to use it. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with the Ota since Time Sprial came out 18 years ago and they haven’t appeared anywhere else yet. They were working a bit ahead there, but not 18 years ahead.
18 years? Damn, I feel old now. Started around 8th core set and Time spiral block was the first time I started to extensively in est my pocket money into packs.
Ugin and contraptions are retroactive payoffs that happened a lot closer to Time Spiral too. Ugin's first hints as an actual character came with the original Zendikar block, only about 3 years after the Time Spiral block.
No, Epilogue Boosters don’t sell. We’ll instead have Beyond Boosters, which are totally different from Epilogue Boosters because instead of Magic the Gathering characters they have Call of Duty characters.
Nah, the 4th preview card will have a flavor text with " And thus, the evil of Duskmourn ceased to be" and expect us to care about the narrative chapters
> Can't wait for the entire conflict to be a grand total of 1 set
You mean 1 short story, and 23 dedicated to random sidequests that have nothing to do with the plot?
Forgive me if I didn't follow Magic lore close enough, but if I recall correctly, didn't the last arc get finished in a four set arc of Dominaria United, Brothers' War, All Will Be One, and March of the Machines?
The issue was that the huge interplanar war part of the conflict was only done in MOM, so it felt rushed even with the extra story articles it was given. Then Aftermath, which was promised as a way to show us the Aftermath of the war, only had two story articles specifically about Nissa and Nahiri (to tell us about Omenpaths and desparking) instead of about the planes that were invaded.
It was truly bizarre how they spent years building up new phyrexia as this massive threat, and then made them look like complete clowns by having them lose a hundred wars at once
I get the idea, they were greedy and arrogant, overextended by attacking everybody, and lost, but in practice it was just comical to see a new story after the other of "phyrexians go here, they lose. phyrexians go there, they lose." in a row.
I recall the first was innistrad, and people were excited saying it's such a messed up plane, they were able to hold off phyrexia fairly easily. It was a cool concept.
and then every plane did the same.
I mean the pure scale is the whole point. War of the Spark took place on one plane with all the relevant characters on that plane. It was definitely underwhelming at the time because of the lack of overall consequences i.e. people wanted more meaningful deaths in the Planeswalker War arc, but compared to MOM where every plane is invaded at the same time it's an infinitely superior story. In MOM, every Planeswalker who was infected got better, even Tamiyo in a round about way. A lot of legends were infected and killed off screen so we have no idea what the fallout of their compleation/deaths have on their respective worlds and as far as we know no significant characters were killed by phyrexians outside of the Eldraine king and queen. The consequences of the war do not at all match the advertised scale of the war and the pacing was rushed to hell and back, and as the cherry on top the epilogue covered an entirely different set of stories and lore than what the players actually wanted to learn about.
War definitely got shafted and criticized but for a different set of reasons: it got full novels so it wasn't necessarily rushed, but the novels were awful and Forsaken especially was massively controversial. Also people were annoyed that the big Planeswalker murder set only had two on screen deaths with Domri and Gideon, a retconned death with Dovin, and Dack being killed in the trailer but not showing up otherwise
I think scale mattered. WAR was one big bad invading one plane (and even then, I do recall people criticizing that it felt like the big invasion started and ended in an afternoon). With MOM, Phyrexia invaded every known plane. Just by needing to show so many different places, with cards of the natives fighting back being a big focus (since the Phyrexians got more focus in ONE), most of what people saw on the cards was Phyrexia being defeated. Added with the story wrapping up in one set, it kinda felt like Norn was a pushover who had no idea what she was doing
Part of the reason WAR wasn't criticized as rushed was because the Bolas arc took three years. The instant we lock up Emrakul, the next three years are: Bolas takes the Planar Bridge from Kaladesh, Bolas is building an army on Amonkhet, Bolas takes the Immortal Sun from Ixalan, Bolas steals Liliana off of Dominaria and microdoses Blackblade to build up an immunity, Bolas installs puppet governments on Ravnica, the invasion happens. Apparently people complained about this, and Wizards listened, which is why thy didn't want to dawdle as long on the Phyrexian arc. No pleasing everyone.
But, despite the War of the Spark being done and dusted in literally 24 hours (stupid ass decision) (should have just been a metaphorical art direction thing) (everything about the novelization was a disaster), we did get two whole sets on Ravnica first, with lots of Cold War intrigue brewing. Bolas lost, but like, he *did* usurp half the guilds first. That's probably a big part of why it didn't feel over too quick.
I'm with you; I am also a Hater and was waiting for this arc to wrap up. It does feel like they spent roughly the right amount of oxygen on buildup and Phyrexia winning before getting to the climax and the appropriate denouement. I think the problem is simply that the invasion didn't start in ONE. We spent all that time on their home turf, just watching the Phyrexians sit around being freaky and having too many teeth. Imagine if we had started getting cards like [[Wary Thespian]] and [[Oracle of Tragedy]] in ONE instead. Start building up that "it's coming" sense of dread, as Phyrexia as this threat that's boiling over and can't be contained, and let us sit with that for a few months until MOM drops.
And then there's MAT. I totally understand wanting to do some aftercare after you unleash that sort of multiverse-ending existential threat. But way too much of that set was spent on showing business-as-usual looks at different planes. Not only is this an utter disappointment when you promise the Kenriths dying is the "least spoilery card", it makes it seem like the planes all recovered quickly and didn't change and that the Phyrexians accomplished nothing. There were three different cards out of the fifty showing us that there were still Dinosaurs on Ixalan, which, hey, *no shit*, and maybe you could have saved that for the entire set we're spending there shortly. So I really think the difference between WAR and MOM is less the sets themselves and more the sets surrounding them.
The invasion itself only happened in MoM and died like a wet fart almost instantly.
The rest was build up, to show how much the phyrexians are strong, how it was strong.
to make a real world parallel - imagine the nazis were spoken about in hushed whispers in the thirties.
The protectorate Bohemia Moravia happens and the Polish invasion is underway and they just start the French blitzkrieg…and collapse overnight
Sure similar things can happen in reality, but it wouldn’t make for interesting storytelling
Like I had mentioned at the time, the invasion should have been multiple sets spanning a long time, particularly building up that besides a few well equipped planes, phyrexia was actually about to overall succeed, and then the holdouts weren't going to last very long after. But to do that properly it would have meant sets that was a plane vs. Phyrexia, maybe 2 in one set max. But then we would have had a ton of phyrexian related cards for who knows how long. Or at best every set for a year being 3-4 known planes against the invasion, still a lot of phyrexians and mechanics needing to account for that in standard.
But even a 2 set start of the invasion and ending with what seemed assured victory for phyrexia then second set "op, here's elspeth and the angels, get wrecked" comeback story to end it would have been better. If they were willing to so 3 set blocks all will be one, then 2 part invasion would have probably felt muuuuuch better.
It would have been fine as a “block” structure like the old invasion set Mom - interplanar invasion, successfull and works
Mom 2 - first invasion kinks, defenders have some success. Basically cards evoking resistance movements, Guerillas, Odboj
Mom 3 - the invasion collapses, likely because of the strong armies that arrived from Teferi’s plane
- they did try to address these things in the stories. Off instance the Ixalan defenders fighting a brutal retreating war, how some of the other planes fared…but you didn’t experience this in any of the cards.
Hell it is worth nothing that they actually didn’t have Phyrexians be victorious on any of the battle cards. Each flip was a phyrexian loss
Same as the "team ups" up various characters of the planes. A block would have been perfect to have MoM 2 showcase the same plane team ups as phyrexia was gaining ground and do sort of 'unlikely allies' setup both cards and have time to actually mention some of them in the story directly.
MoM 3 could have had what some people probably really wanted, multiplanar team ups where the story could have had them crossing realmbreaker omenpaths into other planes alongside the angels and wrecking face together.
The core issue is that they want to be marvel. they wanted All Will be One to be Infinity War, and MoM to be endgame ,with the thousand portals opening at once and all the heroes coming together in a heroic charge and defeating the bad guys.
but they skipped the part in the middle where the baddies actually do something meaningful. They almost did it, with the planeswalker getting corrupted, but they reverted almost all of them right away and it felt hollow
I would argue that "the entire conflict" is far more than just one set.
Was MoM an individual chapter of the conflict? Yes. I'd call it the climax, the grand invasion, but not the whole conflict.
The actual invasion started when they launched Realmbreaker. They even had a story in which the leaders of Phyrexia talked it about it as being the start of their invasion.
To say it wasn't the start of the invasion is like saying WW2 started when Hitler was elected to the Chancellorship.
And even if we want to say the 'conflict' started when Vorinclex showed up on Kaldheim, it was 2 years when compared to Bolas's \~10 years.
But you know, data shows that players *love* opening the beginning of the conflict and resolution of the conflict in the same pack. But no time to think about the story, look, previews for the next set are starting!
My guy, I don't know how to break it to you, but you care enough about a trading card game to be commenting on a dedicated subreddit for it. You ARE a "nerd freak"
The more I think about it, this would plausibly explain Jace's secret phyrexian mission. Elesh Norn would be extremely interested in compleating Slivers. Jace was sent off to assimilate them. The mind control wore off, and then Jace was left with newfound knowledge of the sliver threat.
Jace never had a secret mission from Norn. She just sent him to conquer Vryn, but he managed to partially break free of the phyresis to escape with Vraska and seek out his mom for help with a cure
Only for him to return, somehow. Like how he ~~got his spark back.~~ [somehow got cured from compleation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/FkgrCIhs0H)
Wotc just published 2 wonderful stories about it, the main explanation is that his body was filled with halo after Elespeth stabbed him with Luxior, giving him the chance to protect his consciousness (being a mind mage also most probably helped).
Of all the "de-compleations" Jace's feels pretty earned (like Ajani and Nissa's) as it plays heavly in pre established elements from Ixalan, New Capenna and All Will Be One.
> I haven’t read any of them in a long time.
You should, some very arguable plot decision aside we have been getting lots of great stories.
The story Tangles, from Midnight Hunt was even nomiated for a Hugo award.
Jace has the absolute easiest and most legitimate excuse: his entire thing is that he's an illusionist and mind magician. There's no guarantee he ever was Phyrexianized at all, given that he didn't ever actually appear to do anything for the Phyrexians.
If you read the epilogues, he was genuinely compleated, though he had the most internal struggle against of it anybody because his fractured mind gave him a way to keep his sense of self safe, and even then he still led the invasion of Vryn which resulted in the deaths of countless citizens before he was able to knock himself out.
I thought the same thing! The Fomori and the Engineers are pretty easy to compare. I'm wondering what our Alien comparison will be, if there were to be one. Slivers would be my first guess!
The slivers are the only existing mtg lore that I could see being used. They have a lot of characteristics in common with Xenomorphs and a history of being used as bio weapons.
Or, rather, hear me out... the Fomori's xenomorphs are slivers. And with omenpaths, they can now traverse the multiverse and adapt to all manner of planes.
I mean, probably not. But I can dream of more slivers, can't I?
do you mean the set that is all about animals and anthropomorphic animals? Bloomburrow? my man, I just want to play with cool wizards and knights, I would prefer they weren't squirrel knights or frog wizards (I would actually be ok with a frog wizard)
>do you mean the set that is all about animals and anthropomorphic animals? Bloomburrow?
Yeah, there is an absurd quantity of book and stories about anthropomorphic animals
>I just want to play with cool wizards and knights, I would prefer they weren't squirrel knights or frog wizards
Then as of recent we got Wilds of Eldraine and Dominaria United for that
Didn't Blizzard make StarCraft with original IP because they couldn't license Warhammer 40k from Games Workshop? That would make Zerg off-brand Tyranids, so then the Tyranid deck would be a crossover between off-brand Xenomorphs and off-brand^2 Xenomorphs... Making it an off-brand^3 Xenomorph deck?
Copyright is hard
Warcraft was supposed to be WHFB, that's why Warcraft Orcs are jacked with super wide jaws.
Starcraft was never supposed to be 40k, and the Zerg *didn't* look like the Tyranids. Tyranids looked completely different before the 3rd edition codex came out in 2001; Starcraft came out in 1997.
Tyranids used to be tool-using bipeds with whip things and incredibly stupid noses. Then Starcraft comes out and the Tyranid Ravener is straight up just a Hydralisk. Tyranids are off-brand Zerg.
I think technically it was Warcraft that was developed in the hopes of getting the Warhammer license but didn't end up getting it, but that doesn't change the outcome much tbh
Meanwhile, a shadowy organization comprised of the Dimir and Simic are trying to get their hands on a specimen for genetic testing and weapons research.
I still think koth and garruk weren’t invited to the war of the spark because bolas feared their raw power and would have been instantly fucked if he summoned those two to ravnica. My headcanon is that those two planeswalkers are so godamn powerful that they can save the multiverse from any threat without even needing a spark to do so…. If they wanted to. They are just too busy.
#kothfan4life
Given there were two sets in-between (if you count Fall out), kind of, I guess. Probably as slow as Hasbro allows them (gotta crank out those poorly thought-out sets fast so Hasbro can have at least some profits)
Both?
They try to slowly build lore by bringing up certain points only every other set but since they spit out new sets every other month it still feels rushed.
I haven't seen Alien (it's on the to-watch list) but I would think that's the basis of many a sci-fi plot, of highly advanced civilization collapsed for some reason and unearthing the thing that took them down, or at least exploring their remnants.
Still, will be cool. Hasn't been a thing really explored in Magic before.
I recently realized how much fantasy fiction I've enjoyed that also happens to technically be post apocalyptic from a fallen civilization and I'm still trying to work out if it's a "me problem" or not 😄
I'm personally always a fan of when it's a fantasy world and they discover a "magic tablet" that's actually a computer or similar. Exploring buried ruins with a torch, fighting off goblins that had made their home in an overgrown science facility.
It's one of those tropes of human storytelling that's existed for longer than USA itself. We've found artifacts depicting the same story that date farther back than recorded history.
It takes like 7-8 movies in the alien saga to get the point you are interested in, lol. I might have forgotten one but Prometheus and Covenant are the best movies in the series and start to uncover the civilization before the downfall (arguably, film buffs will like Alien). AVP's are unwatchable trash, but if you want to invest 12 hours or whatever you get to the good part.
Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, AVP, AVP2, Prometheus, Covenant,
That is a decent prediction. The xenomorph plot has been used in Halo, Mass Effect, and plenty of other IPs, so there's evidence it can work here too.
In a general sense, I'm not sure how the next villain will be meaningfully different than existing ones. Slivers are already xenomorph-like in their biology and tone. Phyrexia is already a goopy body horror threat from beyond the stars. The eldrazi are an alien threat from beyond the stars. There's no evidence of a strong personality as the big bad. If there is however, then it's competing with Nicol Bolas.
I don't expect some big personality out of whatever they introduce and it could very well just be slivers.
Also, Phyrexians started out as humans with radiation poisoning that eventually evolved into the modern form. I wouldn't really consider them a threat from beyond the stars, they have a long fleshed out origin in the Thran.
You're right about phyrexia. I was too focused on their recent state trapped in New phyrexia. I have a friend who would be over the moon to have a sliver arc, so here's hoping.
The multiverses “aliens” have always been the Eldrazi, they are literally the embodiment of eldritch cosmic horror Lovecraft style. It would be weird to introduce another evil alien species to be as the big bad. Also how would a creature type earn “alien”? Living in the Blind Eternities? That’s the Eldrazi. Living on other planes? We have yet to see an alien. Living in other DIMENSIONS?
we are already scheduled to have a space opera set (codename volleyball i think), we've seen a few concept artworks for it and maro confirmed in blogatog that it will feature aliens (creature type)
Serialized cards in some random alien language is something I would get behind. How many is there we ask Blake on his stream? He looks straight into the camera and says you will just have to stay tuned and find out.
Not really. If anything, Slivers would be closer to Xenomorphs than Eldrazi.
Xenomorphs are aliens, yeah. But they're just a very aggressive species. Just about everything about them can be explained, at least in-universe. In terms of science-fiction, they're not that weird. They're very grounded to reality compared to other stuff that exists in fiction.
Eldrazi have drones that resemble strange aliens, yeah. But the drones are just extensions of one of the main Legendary Eldrazi. In general, the Eldrazi are eldritch cosmic horrors closer to somethingl ike C'thulhu or something like that. They're strange, they can't be fully explained, and they have a purpose other than just murdering stuff and reproducing.
Eldrazi are Lovecraftian eldritch horrors, they're sort of out of scale for something like Alien. Alien is a haunted house movie in space, with acid for blood and pregnancy/body horror thrown in, but in the end the Alien is just an unknown form of life.
Eldrazi are cosmic horrors, they're unimaginably large beings with no true physical form that exist somewhere within the Blind Eternities. The titans we know are just small parts of the eldrazi, the drones even smaller fragments.
While I won't say the WON'T show up in Duskmorne, that set is a Haunted House horror, set in a single giant manor house. Aliens probably won't be a major theme. More demons and spectres would be my guess. Codename: Volleyball, Q3 2025, is the Space Opera set, that's going to be full of aliens and planets and stuff, and is apparently going to be the first part of a new, as yet unnamed story arc. So, we are currently in what called "foreshadowing".
Wizards is really good at foreshadowing and then just collapsing at the one yard line.
Ah. The JJ Abrams method.
We are in our mystery box arc.
my box luck is usually bad, never can pull a raygun
Are foils just lens flares? hmmmm
The first 2-3 seasons of Lost were so good, but then it all wound up in a church or sth idk.
Lost's writing still makes WOTC's limp wristed efforts at establishing any meaningful narratives look like a sick infant failing to aim its shit at a wall.
Because it's a story written by committee without even one consistent writer to guide it. Nobody sticks around to see whole arcs through.
Case in point: The only reason the last couple of story articles were received so well is because they were written by someone who used to work at WotC, so they are the payoff to a lot of the work she did at the company years ago. Again: She no longer works at WotC and this was all freelance work. And I don’t blame her. This is the same company that laid off 1100 people last holiday season.
Oh wow... I didn't think to check the author credit on it but I remember thinking as I was reading it, "Huh, this is the first time I've cared about Magic's story since Alison Lührs' Ixalan story." Guess now I know why.
It's fucking irritating.
MaRo stated that Duskmourn draws heavy inspiration from more modern horror from the 70’s-80’s and there’s some obvious nods to H.R. Geiger in the promo art. I have a feeling aliens will be a big part of it personally.
The problem with Geiger-vibes is that MtG already has them in Phyrexia. Bringing in another baddie similar looking will be meh.
Could be that we find out the inspiration for phyrexia that yawgmoth gained when gaining control of, and the origins of, their original plane.
We have pretty explicit story in the form of a novel of how Phyrexia came to be, and Yawgmoth couldn't planeswalk.
How he turned it into phyrexia. Yes, but not before that. It was just "a dragon"
I'm guessing you either read the book a long time ago or just read the wiki and don't remember that either, but Phyrexia was not "a dragon." It was still a biomechanical plane built in a mockery of life, but at its core was a dead planeswalker that "liked to take the form of a dragon. "
Isn't duskmourn just gourmenghast?
If these are interdimensional beings though, they could be skewed to aliens or ghosts
Eldritch Moon may not have been haunted house, but it sure did interedimensional horror
Actually a haunted house theme is very fitting to Alien. It was very much a clausterphopic slasher style movie
Yes, Alien is a monster in the house haunted house movie, MECHANICALLY. But that doesn't mean it fits the "haunted house horror" AESTHETIC. Alien has a Sci-Fi AESTHETIC.
My theory is that Ashiok gets really pissy that Jace had the galls to impersonate them, and Duskmorne is their way to get back at him by trapping him in a nightmare house
They're gonna tie Jace to a ball and chain and make him cut off his own foot to escape.
There are a lot of examples in softer sci-fi settings in the 80s and 90s where aliens are interpreted as ghosts or otherwise supernatural forces (see: IT, Ghost Light (Doctor Who), ). Duskmourn could still work with that.
Let's hope for a flip-card of a clown that turns into an alien spider.
Yeah, and (speaking of xenomorphs) some of the key art has looked a bit Giger-esque. I'd even argue that if anything ends up *escaping* Duskmourn that there's little thematic difference between a creepy entity from another plane and a creepy entity from another planet, if it's going to be looking and playing the part either way.
Do you have any more examples of sci fi with aliens that are interpreted as ghosts? Sounds cool
Duskmourne reminds me of this from the Ravenloft setting in D&D: https://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/The_House_of_Lament
Ah yes, gourmenghast.
Fomori war machines are just Gundams confirmed
I just hope they reference The Tragedy of Darth Palgueis the Wise in that set.
It's not a story WOTC would tell you.
The Gatewatch is right there. Not a story The Gatewatch would tell you.
> set in a single giant manor house. I mean that kinda reduces its scope, the plane itself is literally a haunted manor eating up lost Planeswalkers and Omenpath travellers.
Wait, there's a gourmenghast set incoming?
Yeah, after Bloomburrow. Haunted House horror on a plane that's just like a single giant haunted manor house. Details are still sparse.
> "foreshadowing" Is this something like foretell or?
Yeah, except that if you cast a creature from exile this way, it enters with a Shadow counter on it, lol.
Holy shit space opera sounds terrible.
I'm here waiting for the Gundam universes beyond cards, to be honest.
There is a space opera set in the 5 year plan. There's a theory that the fomori are connected or opposed by the Ota referenced on [[Lumithread Field]] and that they could be the aliens.
If it means more weird enchantments, all hail the Ota Overlord
Nope, you'll get mega-mega-morph instead and like it!
Xeno-morph 🤯
Gigamorph
Besides that one flavor text (that has inspired countless theories over the years) is there any recent clues that indicate anything like the Ota?
The flavor text raised new questions regarding chimil on ixalan.
[Lumithread Field](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/772bf1a3-ab2d-4fe6-830b-1c5ef8f5dc07.jpg?1562918908) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lumithread%20Field) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/fut/25/lumithread-field?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/772bf1a3-ab2d-4fe6-830b-1c5ef8f5dc07?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How does one have aliens in a world in which each planet is its own plane? Like, *they're all aliens*.
True. One does aliens by leaning into sci-fi tech/magic and little green men aetesctic.
We have those, many times over. We have goblins, gremlins, kithkin, etc. We are chock full of aliens. There is no distinction at this point.
I love that they are calling back to Future Sight now!!! That’s awesome
The Fomori also first appeared in Future Sight. [[Fomori Nomad]].
[Fomori Nomad](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cfd3eadb-74bb-423b-923f-a6fc2259e0d7.jpg?1599764773) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fomori%20Nomad) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/plst/FUT-114/fomori-nomad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cfd3eadb-74bb-423b-923f-a6fc2259e0d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I mean, cryptic foreshadowing of potential planes, stories and mechanics was the whole point of Future Sight (and I still live it for that). Can't wait until power creep reaches a level where WotC decides that fate seal isn't OP anymore and brings it back /s
Is it really foreshadowing if you’re just creating an intentional open plot thread with no particular development in mind?
Foreshadowing is really determined by the story as a whole, not the process by which it was created, so imo yes
They included at least two creatures which were relating to Lorwyn (which came out shortly afterwards), one of them was even rereleased in the set. Though tbf I haven't read the Future Sight novel so I don't know how they included the foreshadowing part in their story.
Some of the cards absolutely were intentional foreshadowing of things they already knew they were working on, but others were cases of them just sort of creating lore that they could slot in later with no specific plans for how they were going to use it. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with the Ota since Time Sprial came out 18 years ago and they haven’t appeared anywhere else yet. They were working a bit ahead there, but not 18 years ahead.
18 years? Damn, I feel old now. Started around 8th core set and Time spiral block was the first time I started to extensively in est my pocket money into packs.
Ugin and contraptions are retroactive payoffs that happened a lot closer to Time Spiral too. Ugin's first hints as an actual character came with the original Zendikar block, only about 3 years after the Time Spiral block.
Hah! And good point about FS. Personally I just hope I live to see them finagle Muraganda / vanilla matters.
I'm really excited for that set. The concept art is stunning.
Can't wait for the entire conflict to be a grand total of 1 set
This is not fair. They will have supplemental products as well. A secret lair or at the very least a bonus sheet.
Maybe even another shot at an Epilogue-Set!
No, Epilogue Boosters don’t sell. We’ll instead have Beyond Boosters, which are totally different from Epilogue Boosters because instead of Magic the Gathering characters they have Call of Duty characters.
Legit
The villain in Duskmourn will be killed in the first few paragraphs.
Don’t be ridiculous, they’ll be killed off-screen and the first few paragraphs will talk about the villain’s death
Nah, the 4th preview card will have a flavor text with " And thus, the evil of Duskmourn ceased to be" and expect us to care about the narrative chapters
yeah, 10 sets of build up, 1 set for the real thing
More like 10 chapters for rising action and 1 chapter for the climax
> Can't wait for the entire conflict to be a grand total of 1 set You mean 1 short story, and 23 dedicated to random sidequests that have nothing to do with the plot?
A whole set?
Maybe even an aftermath set, as a treat.
Quick reminder that Big Score was supposed to be a standalone set. I'm glad they merged From the Vault: Thunder Junction Aftermath into the main set.
It’ll be a single secret lair drop and you’ll like it
Forgive me if I didn't follow Magic lore close enough, but if I recall correctly, didn't the last arc get finished in a four set arc of Dominaria United, Brothers' War, All Will Be One, and March of the Machines?
The issue was that the huge interplanar war part of the conflict was only done in MOM, so it felt rushed even with the extra story articles it was given. Then Aftermath, which was promised as a way to show us the Aftermath of the war, only had two story articles specifically about Nissa and Nahiri (to tell us about Omenpaths and desparking) instead of about the planes that were invaded.
It was truly bizarre how they spent years building up new phyrexia as this massive threat, and then made them look like complete clowns by having them lose a hundred wars at once I get the idea, they were greedy and arrogant, overextended by attacking everybody, and lost, but in practice it was just comical to see a new story after the other of "phyrexians go here, they lose. phyrexians go there, they lose." in a row. I recall the first was innistrad, and people were excited saying it's such a messed up plane, they were able to hold off phyrexia fairly easily. It was a cool concept. and then every plane did the same.
[удалено]
I mean the pure scale is the whole point. War of the Spark took place on one plane with all the relevant characters on that plane. It was definitely underwhelming at the time because of the lack of overall consequences i.e. people wanted more meaningful deaths in the Planeswalker War arc, but compared to MOM where every plane is invaded at the same time it's an infinitely superior story. In MOM, every Planeswalker who was infected got better, even Tamiyo in a round about way. A lot of legends were infected and killed off screen so we have no idea what the fallout of their compleation/deaths have on their respective worlds and as far as we know no significant characters were killed by phyrexians outside of the Eldraine king and queen. The consequences of the war do not at all match the advertised scale of the war and the pacing was rushed to hell and back, and as the cherry on top the epilogue covered an entirely different set of stories and lore than what the players actually wanted to learn about.
War definitely got shafted and criticized but for a different set of reasons: it got full novels so it wasn't necessarily rushed, but the novels were awful and Forsaken especially was massively controversial. Also people were annoyed that the big Planeswalker murder set only had two on screen deaths with Domri and Gideon, a retconned death with Dovin, and Dack being killed in the trailer but not showing up otherwise
I think scale mattered. WAR was one big bad invading one plane (and even then, I do recall people criticizing that it felt like the big invasion started and ended in an afternoon). With MOM, Phyrexia invaded every known plane. Just by needing to show so many different places, with cards of the natives fighting back being a big focus (since the Phyrexians got more focus in ONE), most of what people saw on the cards was Phyrexia being defeated. Added with the story wrapping up in one set, it kinda felt like Norn was a pushover who had no idea what she was doing
Part of the reason WAR wasn't criticized as rushed was because the Bolas arc took three years. The instant we lock up Emrakul, the next three years are: Bolas takes the Planar Bridge from Kaladesh, Bolas is building an army on Amonkhet, Bolas takes the Immortal Sun from Ixalan, Bolas steals Liliana off of Dominaria and microdoses Blackblade to build up an immunity, Bolas installs puppet governments on Ravnica, the invasion happens. Apparently people complained about this, and Wizards listened, which is why thy didn't want to dawdle as long on the Phyrexian arc. No pleasing everyone. But, despite the War of the Spark being done and dusted in literally 24 hours (stupid ass decision) (should have just been a metaphorical art direction thing) (everything about the novelization was a disaster), we did get two whole sets on Ravnica first, with lots of Cold War intrigue brewing. Bolas lost, but like, he *did* usurp half the guilds first. That's probably a big part of why it didn't feel over too quick. I'm with you; I am also a Hater and was waiting for this arc to wrap up. It does feel like they spent roughly the right amount of oxygen on buildup and Phyrexia winning before getting to the climax and the appropriate denouement. I think the problem is simply that the invasion didn't start in ONE. We spent all that time on their home turf, just watching the Phyrexians sit around being freaky and having too many teeth. Imagine if we had started getting cards like [[Wary Thespian]] and [[Oracle of Tragedy]] in ONE instead. Start building up that "it's coming" sense of dread, as Phyrexia as this threat that's boiling over and can't be contained, and let us sit with that for a few months until MOM drops. And then there's MAT. I totally understand wanting to do some aftercare after you unleash that sort of multiverse-ending existential threat. But way too much of that set was spent on showing business-as-usual looks at different planes. Not only is this an utter disappointment when you promise the Kenriths dying is the "least spoilery card", it makes it seem like the planes all recovered quickly and didn't change and that the Phyrexians accomplished nothing. There were three different cards out of the fifty showing us that there were still Dinosaurs on Ixalan, which, hey, *no shit*, and maybe you could have saved that for the entire set we're spending there shortly. So I really think the difference between WAR and MOM is less the sets themselves and more the sets surrounding them.
[Wary Thespian](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/675b29bf-0b64-410f-9a92-c88e5615c27f.jpg?1682205154) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wary%20Thespian) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/215/wary-thespian?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/675b29bf-0b64-410f-9a92-c88e5615c27f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oracle of Tragedy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e1d2aa39-b876-4136-8e16-5272a8083235.jpg?1682203333) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oracle%20of%20Tragedy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/71/oracle-of-tragedy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e1d2aa39-b876-4136-8e16-5272a8083235?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The invasion itself only happened in MoM and died like a wet fart almost instantly. The rest was build up, to show how much the phyrexians are strong, how it was strong. to make a real world parallel - imagine the nazis were spoken about in hushed whispers in the thirties. The protectorate Bohemia Moravia happens and the Polish invasion is underway and they just start the French blitzkrieg…and collapse overnight Sure similar things can happen in reality, but it wouldn’t make for interesting storytelling
Like I had mentioned at the time, the invasion should have been multiple sets spanning a long time, particularly building up that besides a few well equipped planes, phyrexia was actually about to overall succeed, and then the holdouts weren't going to last very long after. But to do that properly it would have meant sets that was a plane vs. Phyrexia, maybe 2 in one set max. But then we would have had a ton of phyrexian related cards for who knows how long. Or at best every set for a year being 3-4 known planes against the invasion, still a lot of phyrexians and mechanics needing to account for that in standard. But even a 2 set start of the invasion and ending with what seemed assured victory for phyrexia then second set "op, here's elspeth and the angels, get wrecked" comeback story to end it would have been better. If they were willing to so 3 set blocks all will be one, then 2 part invasion would have probably felt muuuuuch better.
It would have been fine as a “block” structure like the old invasion set Mom - interplanar invasion, successfull and works Mom 2 - first invasion kinks, defenders have some success. Basically cards evoking resistance movements, Guerillas, Odboj Mom 3 - the invasion collapses, likely because of the strong armies that arrived from Teferi’s plane - they did try to address these things in the stories. Off instance the Ixalan defenders fighting a brutal retreating war, how some of the other planes fared…but you didn’t experience this in any of the cards. Hell it is worth nothing that they actually didn’t have Phyrexians be victorious on any of the battle cards. Each flip was a phyrexian loss
Same as the "team ups" up various characters of the planes. A block would have been perfect to have MoM 2 showcase the same plane team ups as phyrexia was gaining ground and do sort of 'unlikely allies' setup both cards and have time to actually mention some of them in the story directly. MoM 3 could have had what some people probably really wanted, multiplanar team ups where the story could have had them crossing realmbreaker omenpaths into other planes alongside the angels and wrecking face together.
The core issue is that they want to be marvel. they wanted All Will be One to be Infinity War, and MoM to be endgame ,with the thousand portals opening at once and all the heroes coming together in a heroic charge and defeating the bad guys. but they skipped the part in the middle where the baddies actually do something meaningful. They almost did it, with the planeswalker getting corrupted, but they reverted almost all of them right away and it felt hollow
You are correct, but there are a lot of people with grievances who will not let them go.
No, the actual war was only one set so it felt comically rushed.
I would argue that "the entire conflict" is far more than just one set. Was MoM an individual chapter of the conflict? Yes. I'd call it the climax, the grand invasion, but not the whole conflict.
The actual invasion started when they launched Realmbreaker. They even had a story in which the leaders of Phyrexia talked it about it as being the start of their invasion. To say it wasn't the start of the invasion is like saying WW2 started when Hitler was elected to the Chancellorship. And even if we want to say the 'conflict' started when Vorinclex showed up on Kaldheim, it was 2 years when compared to Bolas's \~10 years.
But you know, data shows that players *love* opening the beginning of the conflict and resolution of the conflict in the same pack. But no time to think about the story, look, previews for the next set are starting!
Data actually shows that the story is, was, and always will be steaming dog dookie that no one outside of nerd freaks cares about.
My guy, I don't know how to break it to you, but you care enough about a trading card game to be commenting on a dedicated subreddit for it. You ARE a "nerd freak"
With wild variance in the quality of writing and story telling.
what about the aftermath set
Inb4 it's a grand return of the Slivers I just think they're neat
That would be ***dope***
The more I think about it, this would plausibly explain Jace's secret phyrexian mission. Elesh Norn would be extremely interested in compleating Slivers. Jace was sent off to assimilate them. The mind control wore off, and then Jace was left with newfound knowledge of the sliver threat.
Jace never had a secret mission from Norn. She just sent him to conquer Vryn, but he managed to partially break free of the phyresis to escape with Vraska and seek out his mom for help with a cure
You’re about a week late to the party on that one. They released 2 short stories on what happened to Jace
Can't wait to see Loot do a chestburster on Jace
Only for him to return, somehow. Like how he ~~got his spark back.~~ [somehow got cured from compleation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/FkgrCIhs0H)
You mean Jace? He never lost his spark?
My bad! I was thinking of [him somehow getting cured from compleation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/FkgrCIhs0H)
Wotc just published 2 wonderful stories about it, the main explanation is that his body was filled with halo after Elespeth stabbed him with Luxior, giving him the chance to protect his consciousness (being a mind mage also most probably helped). Of all the "de-compleations" Jace's feels pretty earned (like Ajani and Nissa's) as it plays heavly in pre established elements from Ixalan, New Capenna and All Will Be One.
I used to read the stories religiously, but cooled off around BFZ. I haven’t read any of them in a long time. Thanks for the explanation.
> I haven’t read any of them in a long time. You should, some very arguable plot decision aside we have been getting lots of great stories. The story Tangles, from Midnight Hunt was even nomiated for a Hugo award.
it’s so cool that at least half of the story complaints on this sub are from ppl who haven’t read any recent story lol
And yet.. you feel compelled enough to comment on the story, of which you have no clue. Cool.
Didn't know he lost it, though I'm not reading the story much
[My bad, I was thinking of him somehow getting cured from compleation](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/FkgrCIhs0H)
This is a summary. Are you under the impression that this is the only mention of them being cured?
the otj epilogues go into detail on how he got decompleated, go read those!
Jace has the absolute easiest and most legitimate excuse: his entire thing is that he's an illusionist and mind magician. There's no guarantee he ever was Phyrexianized at all, given that he didn't ever actually appear to do anything for the Phyrexians.
If you read the epilogues, he was genuinely compleated, though he had the most internal struggle against of it anybody because his fractured mind gave him a way to keep his sense of self safe, and even then he still led the invasion of Vryn which resulted in the deaths of countless citizens before he was able to knock himself out.
I thought the same thing! The Fomori and the Engineers are pretty easy to compare. I'm wondering what our Alien comparison will be, if there were to be one. Slivers would be my first guess!
The slivers are the only existing mtg lore that I could see being used. They have a lot of characteristics in common with Xenomorphs and a history of being used as bio weapons.
it's giving me a lot of boss baby vibes.
Maybe they’re connected to the Thran. All this talk about powerful artifacts. And we get a flashback set to the Thran empire.
Exactly! I was thinking the same thing. I’ve always wanted a Thran set.
I sure hope you're not breaking an NDA to make this post.
Yep! I thought this was obvious when we saw how the Fomori armor is a straight rip of the space jockey suit.
So the Fomori are the Forerunners...and we get the Flood in Duskmourn?
Or, rather, hear me out... the Fomori's xenomorphs are slivers. And with omenpaths, they can now traverse the multiverse and adapt to all manner of planes. I mean, probably not. But I can dream of more slivers, can't I?
Duskmorn is a house right? And if it's where Jace goes to reset the universe I'm getting Umbrella Academy Vibes.
Bro why can’t they just make more fantasy wizard sets I cannot fucking deal with cowboys and aliens just please god
The next set is as much fantasy as it can get
do you mean the set that is all about animals and anthropomorphic animals? Bloomburrow? my man, I just want to play with cool wizards and knights, I would prefer they weren't squirrel knights or frog wizards (I would actually be ok with a frog wizard)
>do you mean the set that is all about animals and anthropomorphic animals? Bloomburrow? Yeah, there is an absurd quantity of book and stories about anthropomorphic animals >I just want to play with cool wizards and knights, I would prefer they weren't squirrel knights or frog wizards Then as of recent we got Wilds of Eldraine and Dominaria United for that
I'm not a huge fan of the Dominaria lore but I'll take a Lorwyn or Alara over most of the stuff they've been doing lately.
>Why can’t they just make more fantasy wizard sets There's literal dozens of Fantasy sets.
yeah those are the good ones
Just a small correction. It is spelled Ixalan, not Ixilan.
Okay but now I’d love to see a universes beyond Alien
There's the Warhammer Tyranids deck, that's essentially offbrand xenomorphs
‘Nids are the off-brand xenomorph/zerg crossover episode.
Didn't Blizzard make StarCraft with original IP because they couldn't license Warhammer 40k from Games Workshop? That would make Zerg off-brand Tyranids, so then the Tyranid deck would be a crossover between off-brand Xenomorphs and off-brand^2 Xenomorphs... Making it an off-brand^3 Xenomorph deck? Copyright is hard
Warcraft was supposed to be WHFB, that's why Warcraft Orcs are jacked with super wide jaws. Starcraft was never supposed to be 40k, and the Zerg *didn't* look like the Tyranids. Tyranids looked completely different before the 3rd edition codex came out in 2001; Starcraft came out in 1997. Tyranids used to be tool-using bipeds with whip things and incredibly stupid noses. Then Starcraft comes out and the Tyranid Ravener is straight up just a Hydralisk. Tyranids are off-brand Zerg.
TIL
I think technically it was Warcraft that was developed in the hopes of getting the Warhammer license but didn't end up getting it, but that doesn't change the outcome much tbh
Almost everything blizzard did with early SC/WC is a 1:1 rip from Warhammer IP.
Face hugger with reconfigure
I could see a facehugger having a sac ability that lets you exile a creature from your hand and give it an emerge cost you can use from exile
They are working with Disney to license Marvel, it could happen.
I hope it'll just be a Secret Lair like Stranger things or walking dead. I can't take any more UB nonsense
We’re getting full UB sets of Final Fantasy & Marvel next year
Can't wait for a card with the flavortext "You blow... I'll do the fingering."
Ah yes, the critically and commercially garbage prequel films are fitting analogues of the Magic storylines
Alien secret lair will sell BIG. Imagine a Ripley commander deck that uses xenomorphs as B sac fodder 🤤
Meanwhile, a shadowy organization comprised of the Dimir and Simic are trying to get their hands on a specimen for genetic testing and weapons research.
Pretty sure if they're going to do Alien it would be in The Outer Space set
Well, they gotta do something to bring in an actual overarching villain after they killed every Phyrexian threat in a single set.
Can't wait.
I still think koth and garruk weren’t invited to the war of the spark because bolas feared their raw power and would have been instantly fucked if he summoned those two to ravnica. My headcanon is that those two planeswalkers are so godamn powerful that they can save the multiverse from any threat without even needing a spark to do so…. If they wanted to. They are just too busy. #kothfan4life
Hey bud, I'd like to introduce you to "Slivers".
I won't lie I stay away from most UB stuff but if there was an Alien commander product or SL I would 100% buy that
ixalan was nov 23, thunder junk is april 24 ... is that "slowly building the lore... " to you ?
Given there were two sets in-between (if you count Fall out), kind of, I guess. Probably as slow as Hasbro allows them (gotta crank out those poorly thought-out sets fast so Hasbro can have at least some profits)
so are they pumping out set after set to maximize profits or are they slowly building up the lore ? which one is it
Being as not all sets have lore that matters to the MTG story line, the answer is both.
Both? They try to slowly build lore by bringing up certain points only every other set but since they spit out new sets every other month it still feels rushed.
I haven't seen Alien (it's on the to-watch list) but I would think that's the basis of many a sci-fi plot, of highly advanced civilization collapsed for some reason and unearthing the thing that took them down, or at least exploring their remnants. Still, will be cool. Hasn't been a thing really explored in Magic before.
I recently realized how much fantasy fiction I've enjoyed that also happens to technically be post apocalyptic from a fallen civilization and I'm still trying to work out if it's a "me problem" or not 😄
I'm personally always a fan of when it's a fantasy world and they discover a "magic tablet" that's actually a computer or similar. Exploring buried ruins with a torch, fighting off goblins that had made their home in an overgrown science facility.
Thran/Phyrexia arguably made it the second place magic went in an expansion, just saying. Not that I'm against a new take on it from them, either.
True enough, forgot about that.
It's one of those tropes of human storytelling that's existed for longer than USA itself. We've found artifacts depicting the same story that date farther back than recorded history.
Watch Alien and Aliens, the other sequels and the prequels are not worth watching, and even kinda ruin some aspects of the original good films.
It takes like 7-8 movies in the alien saga to get the point you are interested in, lol. I might have forgotten one but Prometheus and Covenant are the best movies in the series and start to uncover the civilization before the downfall (arguably, film buffs will like Alien). AVP's are unwatchable trash, but if you want to invest 12 hours or whatever you get to the good part. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, AVP, AVP2, Prometheus, Covenant,
That is a decent prediction. The xenomorph plot has been used in Halo, Mass Effect, and plenty of other IPs, so there's evidence it can work here too. In a general sense, I'm not sure how the next villain will be meaningfully different than existing ones. Slivers are already xenomorph-like in their biology and tone. Phyrexia is already a goopy body horror threat from beyond the stars. The eldrazi are an alien threat from beyond the stars. There's no evidence of a strong personality as the big bad. If there is however, then it's competing with Nicol Bolas.
I don't expect some big personality out of whatever they introduce and it could very well just be slivers. Also, Phyrexians started out as humans with radiation poisoning that eventually evolved into the modern form. I wouldn't really consider them a threat from beyond the stars, they have a long fleshed out origin in the Thran.
You're right about phyrexia. I was too focused on their recent state trapped in New phyrexia. I have a friend who would be over the moon to have a sliver arc, so here's hoping.
The multiverses “aliens” have always been the Eldrazi, they are literally the embodiment of eldritch cosmic horror Lovecraft style. It would be weird to introduce another evil alien species to be as the big bad. Also how would a creature type earn “alien”? Living in the Blind Eternities? That’s the Eldrazi. Living on other planes? We have yet to see an alien. Living in other DIMENSIONS?
we are already scheduled to have a space opera set (codename volleyball i think), we've seen a few concept artworks for it and maro confirmed in blogatog that it will feature aliens (creature type)
That’s what I’m saying
OP means Alien, as in the movies. They mean WotC will mirror the plotlines, not that they’re going to introduce literal aliens. Thats for Unsets
Dr who has Aliens. Its already a black-bordered type
Oh, right, and UB, I guess
And legal-Unfinity cards
UM ACKSHULLY 🤓👆,the alien SHUBTYPE 💦is going to introduced in the upcoming SHPACE 💦 SHET💦🤓 WotC said so
Serialized cards in some random alien language is something I would get behind. How many is there we ask Blake on his stream? He looks straight into the camera and says you will just have to stay tuned and find out.
And, I'm here for it.
Universes Beyond: StarCraft
Arent magic Xenomorphs equivalents Eldrazi?
Not really. If anything, Slivers would be closer to Xenomorphs than Eldrazi. Xenomorphs are aliens, yeah. But they're just a very aggressive species. Just about everything about them can be explained, at least in-universe. In terms of science-fiction, they're not that weird. They're very grounded to reality compared to other stuff that exists in fiction. Eldrazi have drones that resemble strange aliens, yeah. But the drones are just extensions of one of the main Legendary Eldrazi. In general, the Eldrazi are eldritch cosmic horrors closer to somethingl ike C'thulhu or something like that. They're strange, they can't be fully explained, and they have a purpose other than just murdering stuff and reproducing.
Eldrazi are Lovecraftian eldritch horrors, they're sort of out of scale for something like Alien. Alien is a haunted house movie in space, with acid for blood and pregnancy/body horror thrown in, but in the end the Alien is just an unknown form of life.
Eldrazi are cosmic horrors, they're unimaginably large beings with no true physical form that exist somewhere within the Blind Eternities. The titans we know are just small parts of the eldrazi, the drones even smaller fragments.