Favorite plane and why?
Lore forum
Posted on March 3, 2025, 12:31 a.m. by TypicalTimmy
We have a lot of new members of this site, a lot of fresh faces to the MTG community as a whole and many new planes to explore.
What's your favorite plane and why?
Mine is Tarkir. Truthfully it's mostly because of the vibrant expression of all five colors, the colossal dragons, the beautiful Chinese inspired artwork, the vivid imagination of the lore with its temporal nature and the revelation that the plane would actually die off without the Khan / Dragon wars, etc.
I find the plane as a whole so rich and compelling, and it gave way to two of my favorite Planeswalkers; Sarkhan and Narset (Angrath is still #1).
It gave us the completion of the fetch lands, it gave us the complementary wedge cycle to finish off the shards from Alara, it gave us powerful spells and creatures and it was the last (If I recall) of the three set blocks;
- Khans of Tarkir
- Fate Reforged
- Dragons of Tarkir
I am absolutely pumped for Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but this isn't a thread to discuss that set. It is instead the basis to discuss our own individual beloved worlds.
Edit: I think it was fetch lands, not shock lands.
So please, what is your favorite plane and why? :)
Sliverguy420 says... #3
the shock lands had already been completed in ravnica, which coincidentally is my own favorite plane. shocklands were part of the reason why, especially when used with Farseek which was also printed in that set. Gruul will always be my favorite guild.
March 3, 2025 1:41 a.m.
Rincewind23 says... #4
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is definitely my faa as favourite plane. I love the concept of a plane stuck in an eternal cycle of two distinct worlds. The elves not just being straight up goodie goodies is such a cool idea, it makes them so distinct from other elves from across the multiverse. Sadly Lorwyn released many years before my spark ignited, but I am still super hyped for the return (as long as we don’t go back to find them all racing on motorbikes). My other favourites include Ravnica and Zendikar
March 3, 2025 2:48 a.m.
Rincewind23 says... #5
EDIT: I also like Tarkir, but this is the first set based their to release since I started playing MTG in 2020.
March 3, 2025 1:17 p.m.
Amonkhet hands down. Tarkir tied with Innistrad for second.
When my spark first ignited it took me to the Dark Ascension of Innistrad. I met Sorin and fell in love but my truest love was yet to be discovered.
I love the Elderdragon twins. The plots and stories between them were so good. Over a thousand years ago Ugin and Azor plotted to stop Bolas by trapping him on Ixalan using Azor's spark to power a device called The Immortal Sun. Ugin and Bolas got into a fight on Tarkir leaving the fate of the plane in the balance.(If he dies, the dragon tempests stop and no more dragons spawn, Khans take over the plane, but if not the tempests continue and the Dragons dominate) It was at this time Bolas gleemed those plans, and spent ages planning how to use that to his benefit.
How long he had Amonkhet under his thrall is unknown but the rhetoric he established and the way of the trials was fascinating. Each of which was not malevolent on the surface but the truth behind them was amazingly evil. He produced the coolest army to ever march into the Multiverse. Lazotep even outclassed Phyrexia freeing those bound in the magical mineral from the call of Norn. The curse of Wandering predated Bolas' arrival and is one of the most interesting characteristics any plane has. The gods there intrigue the hell out of me. Who were they before Bolas? How did Oketra know the name 'Kitheon'? Do all the gods know all the gods? Do they have chats about their planes and people? Are gods truly that omnipotent? These questions and more about this plane's past are what keeps me here.
I wish mtg stories were about the plane still, and less about people. Now that i have lost my spark I find myself less interested in hopping from world to world and just want to stop and learn about the one I currently inhabit.
March 3, 2025 2:32 p.m.
Alara. I really dug into the game with that block, and it's been my favorite ever since. It's mechanically and thematically unique, and I consider it a huge shame that it hasn't been revisited in 15+ years.
For gameplay, it introduced the Cascade mechanic, spread the idea of colored artifacts, and expanded Planeswalkers from a novelty to a core game piece. Cruel Control, Jund Midrange, and Zoo had their foundations set, with Cruel Ultimatum, Bloodbraid Elf, Maelstrom Pulse, Wild Nacatl, Path to Exile... Most of these have fallen off since then, but they still make me happy. Ad Nauseam, Noble Hierarch, Ethersworn Canonist, and Relic of Progenitus are all still viable in one form or another.
For storytelling, Nicol Bolas is shown to actually be as powerful, manipulative, intelligent, and terrifying as he's continually described to be. Ajani, Tezzeret, and Elspeth, three very important characters, are developed. The story unfortunately leaves off on a major point for the Shards themselves--after they rejoin into New Alara, we only get the lightest taste of what they're like now in Alara Reborn, along with a couple of random snippets (demon cults spreading in regions of former Bant?), and I really want to know how it's developed culturally, geographically, and magically.
And for me personally, I got a Progenitus from a booster that has a place of honor in my collection. "Protection from everything" will never not be awesome.
March 3, 2025 6:37 p.m.
DeinoStinkus says... #9
I really like Zendikar, though I do see how that could potentially be an unpopular pick due to the mixed reactions the plane seems to get, especially with half of its sets being centered around the Eldrazi.
But Zendikar is so engrossing for me because of the elementals. Other planes have elementals, but the elementals of Zendikar stand apart due to their ferocity and personality - Omnath with his explosive, borderline tyrannical rage; Yarok with his sulking, creeping demeanor; and Ashaya with her graceful, blooming presence. The only other plane to have this kind of expressiveness and internal diversity within a singular species would be Kamigawa with the kami, and while I LOVE modern Kamigawa and the kami as a whole, old Kamigawa is just so miserable that it really sinks the average for me well below Zendikar's.
I am a huge fan of Landfall, Allies, and all the Eldrazi mechanics, and while I think Party is a mid mechanic I still enjoy it personally in some cases.
I hope that Zendikar gets some new and interesting stories soon. I'd love a new Yarok card.
March 3, 2025 9:40 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #10
After reading DeinoStinkus's comment, I'd have to bump Zendikar up to my 2nd favorite plane of all time. When I was first getting into MtG, my best friend gifted me a bunch of draft chaff which mostly contained stuff from Innistrad, Mirrordin, Zendikar, and Shards of Alara. He really hyped up how fun and exciting Zendikar, an adventure world with Eldritch horrors was at the time it dropped.
The Ally mechanic was one of my first favorites, alongside stuff like Heroic, and Auras in general. At the time my friends and I mostly played 60 card table kitchen jank, so getting extra synergy from stuff like Allies felt busted to a bunch of broke college students.
I do enjoy the creature type batching mechanics like Party & Outlaws as an evolution of the Allies. It feels less parasitic than what Allies are, and ensures that those batches will basically have new creature options with almost any new set that drops.
March 3, 2025 10:44 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #11
I mostly enjoy all of the planes, and M:tG in general, so I was going to point out the biggest tipping point for me regarding a plane: I want a plane that has a varied range of places and things in it. Basically all of them meet this requirement, to accommodate the five colors, but the really good ones can have seriously oddball cards that sort of stand out on their own. I don’t generally want planeswalker-specific items and creatures… I’ll take some weird not-plot-sensitive moss-covered monolith over “the sword planeswalker X used to slay superbeast Y” every single time. This means I mostly like the older planes more because they were less organized and more “here’s a cool card I want to make.” There was a lot of cool plot points and characters in Tarkir… but I remember Siege Rhino better than whoever was engaging in dialogue and plotting behind their teammate’s back. (Note: I sincerely hope I’m remembering this correctly lol)
March 4, 2025 2:52 p.m.
DeinoStinkus says... #12
FormOverFunction I agree in general with what you're saying; I'd also like to add on the stipulation that I greatly prefer planeswalkers and legendary creatures to showcase their planes rather than just cobbled together - a big reason of why sets like Aetherdrift and Thunder Junction didn't hit for me.
To bring up Zendikar again, for instance, I'll always love how Nissa and Nahiri encapsulate the plane over Jace randomly appearing in Zendikar Rising to fill a planeswalker slot.
March 4, 2025 3:20 p.m.
Noire_Samhain says... #13
I'd say it's a tie between Bloomburrow and New Capenna.
I adore the aesthetics and the factions of New Capenna, and Bloomburrow's aesthetics and world building brought me out of a funk that an uninterest in Junction and Murders left me in (unfortunately I in the middle of an unrelated funk relating to that).
I also like Ravnica, but that's bias towards the Ravnica novels, for sure. That, and I find the guilds really cool thematically, even though the society feels like it would fall apart barely after being created by Azor.
March 4, 2025 6:23 p.m. Edited.
I am gonna say Alara for this one.
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It introduced the mythic rarity (which is just neat trivia)
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mechanically it was a multi colored set and I really love those and I absolutely loved Wild Nacatl and the big splashy ultimatum cycle Cruel Ultimatum.
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had really cool character moments for lore and Ajani was particularly interesting here.
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the art was pretty awesome feeling like is was multiple planes in one feeling similar and yest very contrasting between Bant, Grixis, Esper, Naya and jund.
March 5, 2025 8:48 a.m.
MindBoogaloo says... #15
Mercadia is currently my favorite plane. I like the theme of a "reverse" world in which goblins are tall and smart (albeit highly corrupt). I didn't play back when the set was released, so I can't comment on the game play, but I really enjoy the Rebels and Mercenaries and their tutor abilities.
March 5, 2025 1:08 p.m.
Zendikar and Innistrad will always have a special place in my heart. I played mtg when I was a young kid, and due to some rough circumstances I wasn't able to play again until I was a senior in high school. And lucky for me, I had a friend who let me build decks with allof their leftover cards from drafting etc. So I had the chance to fall in love with mtg again, and Zendikar really had it all - Eldritch gods? Abominations? Physical Manifestations of the Blind Eternities? Or my personal favorite conspiracy theory, made by Urza to combat Phyrexians? We still don't know what the eldrazi are!
Not to mention Zendikar gave us Nissa, one of my all time favorite planeswalkers and one of our first canon queer characters. Zendkiar also had a very positive take on an apocalypse world in essentially - everyone comes together as allies and chooses survival as a community. We got Allies, traps, and one of the best mechanics ever IMHO - Landfall!
And this isn't even getting into the Roil and the very cool premise that planes have something akin to an immune system to detect and fight off foreign/harmful entities.
We meet Sorin, my other love, and then we go right from Zendikar to OG Innistrad where we get to meet hot goth dommy mommy Archangel, pathetic wet dad Sorin, Liliana in her most idgaf era, just a wonderful time in MTG all around.
Also love Kamigawa and Tarkir. Sucker for any set that let's us choose factions/groups.
March 6, 2025 11:47 a.m.
Andramalech says... #17
I have love for several different planes.
Mirrodin/Argentum - Karn is one of the oldest characters that I associate myself with, and I happen to really love who and what Karn has become to the world of MTG, since Urza (imo) after encapsulating his character, wasn't someone worth keeping up with. Karn seems timeless and like someone who can be revisited over and over again with new relevance. Mirrodin developed this great butterfly effect where "the actions you didn't even realize you were taking shaped an entire civilization in your absence."
Kamigawa - a typically over-looked plane and set respectfully due to how over-nerfed everything needed to be in Karn's power-hungry wake (i Joke). but some of my favorite characters like Tetsuo Umezawa can be associated to this plane. Not only that but the lineage traces and it just tethers so many different parts of magic together. I am infatuated with the original artwork for Sensei's Divining Top. Much like I am for Mox Opal.
Kiora - relatively un-discovered but I theorize that I could see some developement for Nekusar, the Mindrazer if they ever confirm his home-plane.
Muraganda - I love the general energy of the plane and after Aetherdrift recently, I want to revisit for more development.
Amonkhet - Hazoret is a total baddie and I'm still a bit heartbroken over the death of Oketra, but I like how the plane generally shapes out it's higher-tiered characters such as Hazoret, Oketra, Bontu, Ketramose, etc.
March 13, 2025 7:04 p.m.
Sliverguy420 says... #18
Andramalech: i'd wanted a return to kamigawa ever since return to ravnica, when i first realized wotc could/would revisit old planes. for years i had to listen to people say "it'll never happen because kamigawa was a dud block". shame we couldn't get playable samurai though.
March 13, 2025 8:01 p.m.
Andramalech says... #19
Sliverguy420 my hope is for new planes as of yet unexplored like Fiora, and Muraganda, and maybe places mostly unexplored like Archavios and Dominaria. Toshiro Umezawa supposedly came to Dominaria. My big thing is we don't need one big plane to represent each sub-culture we explore (amonkhet/egyptian;kamigawa/japanese;avishkar/middle-eastern, etc.) As much anymore. We could explore mixed-influenced environments or time-shifted environments. We're headed to space so idk, Space Samurai isn't a Longshot anymore. Explore a completely different plane where we see a familiar species of creature from another plane,exploring via an omenpath or whatever. The Seshiro traverse to Muraganda for whatever reason and take up residence as a Nomadic, Samurai-influenced peoples. Just spitballing an idea, but yeah. I still believe we have tons of ground to cover.
March 13, 2025 8:46 p.m.
Andramalech says... #20
Small Addendum, I can't NOT mention my literal favorite character from Amonkhet, and the only reason Hazoret wins out is because they survived.
Rhonas the Indomitable was an absolute shock of a death- in the story at the time, it came with such virulence and horror that it really had me out here like "OH SH@#$%T!"
Amonkhet is a plane of interest to me because death isn't the end of the story for any character.
A plane I didn't mention yet really worth revisiting is Kylem- Battlebond brings a bunch of small batched love, but we should explore Kylem if not for its own lineage, as a grounds to explore individual character spotlights, maybe new characters that potentially open up a new plane.
We've seen Innistrad. And Zendikar. Let's do something new. If we're getting half the content, then chop it up to one new plane. One revisited, and one.. mixed. I guess. Too many ideas, I guess, lol.
I wanna know more about the plane that the battle quoting a Beleren mentioned.
March 13, 2025 8:55 p.m.
Andramalech I completely agree. I have to give a shout out to Hazoret the Fervent
as my favorite of all Gods, Amonkhet's pantheon following right behind but when Rhonas stepped out as the strongest off the Amonkhet Gods and proceeded to get murdered by the Scorpion was a traumatic shock. I knew it was the Hour of Devastation but to see a God fall filled me with fret that Hazoret was going to be on that list. When Bontu beat her and turned her over to Bolas my heart sank, then the God-Pharaoh surprised even me, for he too loved Hazoret and took out Bontu for her Ambition. The Fury of the Survivor is strong and I hope to see more of her again soon.
March 13, 2025 9:19 p.m.
Phyrexia. Just got a thing for Phyrexians, Infect and Toxic. They remind me of the Borg from Star Trek.
Crow_Umbra says... #2
Tarkir is definitely up there for my favorite planes. I think it's a toss up between Tarkir and Theros for me, mostly because those were the two newest planes when I first started playing around 2013.
I'll give the edge to Tarkir, mostly because at the time I was bummed out that I missed out on Kamigawa, and Shards of Alara seemed really cool as a three color set, so Tarkir was like a combination of aesthetics and concepts that I missed out on.
One of my key MtG related memories from that time was the day that Tarkir was spoiled by WotC. My best friend and I were still in college. We bought and devoured an entire Costco pizza between the two of us as we watched the Tarkir reveal. Mardu's key art from Mardu Ascendancy stood out to me most from the reveal, and I knew that was the faction that I wanted to play most.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was one of my favorite characters from Khan block, and would go on to be one of my first favorite commanders a few years later. Her story is one of my favorites from MtG, so I was glad when she returned in Foundations.
Overall, I'm pretty excited for Dragonstorm on the horizon.
March 3, 2025 1:27 a.m.