"Magic Origins:Starting from the beginning"

"Jace as Anakin Skywalker...."

"Magic Origins:Starting from the beginning"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

In order to move forward one must first understand the past. I kept on thinking about this phrase after I saw the latest announcement that Magic has decided to celebrate the origins of some of the famous planeswalkers in existence in the last official core set.

The excitement level is once again palpable and a lot of magic players are looking forward to July so that they could get their hands on cards that represent the planeswalkers before they got their respective sparks. Many possible card ideas emerge as you go through the forums and one of them is a Legendary Creature Card that has some pretty nifty abilities like Jaya Balard. 

The spoiled planeswalkers in Magic:Origins are as follows ,Liliana for Black , Jace for Blue , Chandra for Red , Gideon for White ,  and Nissa for Green. While the first 3 came as no surprise there was a lot of clamor for the latter two. People argue for the inclusion of Garruk and Ajani who were part of the origin Planeswalkers from Lorwyn and whom have been well known and have several incarnations running around in various formats. I believe that this last reason is why Ajani and Garruk were not included , Ajani has been around in the last few sets and Garruk , Apex Predator is still being talked about because he is gaining some steam in Standard nowadays.

In contrast Gideon made an appearance in Ravnica and he was a very bad card there. Nissa reappeared in M15 and has been pretty awesome. Still not why they were chosen though. The real reason I think Gideon and Nissa were chosen is because I believe they are stronger clues/links that magic is pushing back into Zendikar pretty soon.Maybe even starting with the faster 2 expansion sets. 

"Simple and Sweet and then Deadly..."

The inclusion of Liliana , Jace and Chandra are self explanatory at this point as they are still crowd favorites and remain the icons of their colors. People are wondering how they will be like as normal creatures(if there will be anything normal about them at all).

The tantalizing image of a very innocent looking Pre-Spark Liliana has many fan boys dreaming of putting her on a playmat.(myself included). While there are thoughts about different power levels and if these creatures would have some sort of mechanic all their own or will they be true to the theme of their Planeswalker versions all we can do is wait and speculate like we always do. It really is a great time to be playing Magic.July we eagerly await you.