Lore & Story
MTG Story Arcs, in Order
Thirty years of Magic's story in eleven arcs, from two brothers fighting over artifacts to the Multiverse being rebuilt. In story order, not release order, because those are different and confusing them is most of why the lore looks impenetrable.
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How to Read This
Story order and release order are different chronologies. The Brothers' War is the earliest arc here and it was told in 1994, then told again in 2022. Sets are not published in the order their events happen, and a character's first card is rarely their first appearance. This page is in story order, and each arc says when it was actually published.
Arc 5, the Mending, splits the whole thing in half. Everything before it is a story about beings who were effectively gods. Everything after it is a story about powerful mortals. If the old characters seem to operate at an impossible scale compared to the current cast, that is because they did, and it changed on the page rather than by authorial fiat.
You have to read thirty years of story to follow a new set.
Almost never. Since the Omenpaths opened, sets are deliberately episodic and most are written to be entered cold. The two things genuinely worth knowing before any modern set are what the Mending changed and what the Omenpaths are, and both are one paragraph each.
Older arcs name their sets as plain text rather than links, because this site does not have a guide for every set of the 1990s and 2000s. Where a guide exists, the set is linked. Every set guide on the site →
The Brothers' War
Told in Antiquities (1994) and The Brothers' War (2022)
Two brothers on Dominaria, Urza and Mishra, find Thran artifacts under the desert and spend their lives escalating a war over them. It ends with the Golgothian Sylex, a weapon that scours a continent and throws the plane into an ice age.
It also ends with Urza's spark igniting, which is the moment the rest of Magic's story becomes possible. Nearly every arc below is downstream of this one.
Sets Antiquities·The Brothers' War
The Ice Age and the Thaw
Ice Age, Alliances, Coldsnap
Thousands of years of winter, as the direct consequence of the Sylex. It ends when the elf planeswalker Freyalise casts the World Spell and breaks the ice at the cost of most of her power.
Mostly worth knowing as the bridge between the Brothers' War and everything after it, and as the reason Dominaria keeps being described as a plane that has already been through the apocalypse more than once.
Sets Ice Age·Alliances·Coldsnap
The Weatherlight Saga
Mirage through Urza's Saga, 1996 to 1999
Urza spends three thousand years preparing for a war nobody else knows is coming. He builds the Legacy, a set of artifacts scattered across generations, and the skyship Weatherlight to carry it, and he engineers the bloodline that produces its captain.
This is where Teferi phases Zhalfir out of reality to save it from Phyrexia, and where Rath, Volrath and the Stronghold enter the story. It is the longest and densest stretch of Magic's fiction, and it is the one this site's set guides cannot help you with at all.
Sets Mirage·Visions·Weatherlight·Tempest block·Urza's Saga block·Zhalfir (2027)
Yawgmoth's Invasion of Dominaria
Invasion, Planeshift, Apocalypse, 2000 to 2001
Phyrexia finally arrives, and the plan Urza spent three millennia on gets its one test. Dominaria is overrun, the Weatherlight crew is spent almost to the last person, and Urza himself dies before the end.
It closes with Yawgmoth destroyed and Karn, a silver golem Urza built centuries earlier, becoming a planeswalker and inheriting Phyrexia itself. That inheritance is what arc 8 is about.
Sets Invasion·Planeshift·Apocalypse
The Mending
Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, 2006 to 2007
Dominaria comes apart. Centuries of planeswalker-scale catastrophe have torn time rifts across the plane, and closing them costs a generation of walkers their sparks and several of them their lives.
This is the most important event on the page. Before it, a planeswalker was effectively a god: unaging, near-unkillable, able to reshape a world. After it, a planeswalker is a mortal with a rare talent, who ages and can be killed by an ordinary sword. Everything above is a story about gods with grudges. Everything below is a story about powerful people who can die.
Sets Time Spiral·Planar Chaos·Future Sight
Zendikar and the Eldrazi
Zendikar block, Battle for Zendikar block, Eldritch Moon
Three titans from between the planes, Emrakul, Ulamog and Kozilek, imprisoned on Zendikar by three pre-Mending planeswalkers who could not kill them and settled for a cage. The cage fails.
The Gatewatch forms here, in the aftermath, which makes this the beginning of the modern cast. Nahiri, one of the three jailers, spends the arc betrayed by the other two and takes it out on Innistrad.
Sets Zendikar block·Battle for Zendikar block·Zendikar Rising·Eldritch Moon
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn ↗
The largest of the three, and the one that ends up on Innistrad.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger ↗
Eats matter. Leaves Zendikar's hedron network in ruins.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth ↗
Eats minds. The one whose damage is hardest to see.
Nahiri, the Harbinger ↗
One of the three jailers. Spends eight thousand years imprisoned for her trouble.
New Phyrexia Rises
Mirrodin block, Scars of Mirrodin block
Karn builds a plane of his own, Argentum, and unknowingly seeds it with Phyrexian oil carried on his own body. Centuries later Mirrodin's inhabitants have no idea what is growing under them.
Scars of Mirrodin is the slow-motion answer: the oil wins, the plane falls, and New Phyrexia emerges under five praetors who each want a different Phyrexia. That disagreement is why it takes them another decade to invade anywhere.
Sets Mirrodin block·Scars of Mirrodin block
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ↗
White praetor, and the one who eventually wins the argument.
Sheoldred, Whispering One ↗
Black praetor. Wants Phyrexia to be what it was under Yawgmoth.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger ↗
Green praetor. Growth without direction.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur ↗
Blue praetor. Perfection as an engineering problem.
Bolas's Long Game
Shards of Alara through War of the Spark, 2008 to 2019
Nicol Bolas, an Elder Dragon who was ancient before the Mending and was cut down to size by it, spends a decade of sets trying to get his old power back. Alara, Amonkhet and finally Ravnica are all steps in one plan.
It ends at the War of the Spark, where the Immortal Sun traps every planeswalker on Ravnica so Bolas can harvest their sparks. Gideon dies. Bolas loses, and it takes his brother Ugin to finish it.
Sets Shards of Alara block·Amonkhet·Hour of Devastation·Guilds of Ravnica·Ravnica Allegiance·War of the Spark
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker ↗
The villain the modern story is built around.
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God ↗
Bolas at his peak, holding the sparks of everyone trapped on Ravnica.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon ↗
His brother, and the only one who can actually stop him.
Gideon Jura ↗
Dies here, and it is the death the modern cast never quite recovers from.
The Phyrexian Invasion of the Multiverse
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty through The Aftermath, 2022 to 2023
Not to be confused with arc 4. That was Yawgmoth invading one plane; this is Elesh Norn invading all of them at once, twenty years of real-world publishing later.
Compleation is what makes it possible: a planeswalker turned Phyrexian keeps their spark, so Phyrexia gains the ability to travel. Realmbreaker, a tree grown through the Blind Eternities, is how the invasion arrives everywhere simultaneously.
They lose, and the Multiverse does not go back to normal. Realmbreaker's collapse opens the Omenpaths, permanent passages between planes that anyone can walk. That single consequence defines everything after it.
Sets Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty·Dominaria United·The Brothers' War·Phyrexia: All Will Be One·March of the Machine·March of the Machine: The Aftermath
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ↗
Runs the whole invasion, having spent a decade winning the argument at home.
Tamiyo, Compleated Sage ↗
The first walker shown compleated, on Kamigawa, before anyone understood what it meant.
Ajani, Sleeper Agent ↗
Compleated quietly and sent back to his friends. The name is the plot.
Nissa, Ascended Animist ↗
Turned against the plane-life she spent her entire arc protecting.
The Omenpath Era
Wilds of Eldraine through Edge of Eternities, 2023 to 2025
The present, and a genuine change in how Magic tells stories. With the Omenpaths open, travel between planes no longer requires a spark, so a set no longer needs a planeswalker to justify visiting somewhere.
The result is deliberately episodic: a fairy tale plane, a heist, a murder mystery, a western, a world of animals, a haunted house, a road race. There is no single villain and no single cast, which is why this arc gets set guides rather than a card grid. The throughline is the Omenpaths themselves.
Sets Wilds of Eldraine·The Lost Caverns of Ixalan·Murders at Karlov Manor·Outlaws of Thunder Junction·Bloomburrow·Duskmourn: House of Horror·Aetherdrift·Tarkir: Dragonstorm·Edge of Eternities
The Echoverse
Secrets of Strixhaven, Lorwyn Eclipsed, Reality Fracture, 2026
The arc now beginning, and the first in years with a single figure at the centre of it: Jace Beleren, rebuilding the Multiverse into something called the Echoverse. Hexhaven arrives as a corrupted mirror of Strixhaven, reusing its mechanics against it.
This is preview coverage rather than history. Reality Fracture has not released yet, so treat this section as the shape of the arc rather than its account, and expect it to be the first thing on this page that needs revising.
FAQ
What order should I read Magic's story in?
Story order and release order are not the same, so pick one deliberately. For the story as a story, start at the Brothers' War and read forward, which is the order this page is in. For the story as it was published, start at the Weatherlight Saga in 1996, which is where the modern continuity really begins, and accept that the Brothers' War gets told to you in flashback. Most people are better served by story order.
What is the Mending in MTG?
The event at the end of the Time Spiral story that closed Dominaria's time rifts and permanently changed what a planeswalker is. Before it, planeswalkers were near-immortal beings who could reshape worlds; afterwards they are mortal, they age, and they can be killed by ordinary means. It is the single most useful thing to know when the older characters seem impossibly more powerful than the current cast, because they were.
What are the Omenpaths?
Permanent passages between planes, opened when Realmbreaker collapsed at the end of the Phyrexian invasion. Before them, only planeswalkers could travel between worlds. Afterwards anyone can, which is why sets from Wilds of Eldraine onwards no longer need a planeswalker as a point-of-view character and have become far more episodic.
Which sets tell the main story?
Premier sets, mostly. Universes Beyond releases like Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, Avatar and Star Trek are set outside Magic's continuity entirely and do not advance it, and reprint sets and masters sets tell no story at all. Everything on this page is a premier set or a block of them.
Why is the Phyrexian Invasion listed twice?
Because there were two, and they are commonly confused. Yawgmoth's invasion of Dominaria happened in the Invasion block in 2000 and was defeated at enormous cost. Elesh Norn's invasion of the entire Multiverse happened across 2022 and 2023, used compleated planeswalkers to travel, and is the one that opened the Omenpaths. Same enemy faction, twenty years and one dead god apart.
Where these arcs happened is its own question, and the plane is usually the more useful handle: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker matters on Alara, Amonkhet and Ravnica for different reasons each time. Every plane in Magic, and its sets →
Story current through Lorwyn Eclipsed. Magic's story is revised as new sets are published, and the Echoverse arc is preview coverage rather than history.
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