Ahoy planeswalkers! I’m in the mood to play a fun vorthos game this week. Planeswalkers can travel throughout the multiverse, oftentimes finding new planes that fit them better than their original homes. So, I’d like to take a look at a few planeswalkers and pose a simple question: where do they fit in the known multiverse? This can offer valuable hints about where planeswalkers who have headed off to planes unknown are going to show back up.
We actually know where a surprisingly large portion of the planeswalker pantheon is, but we have still had a few planeswalkers in recent years fade into the air without a forwarding address. One of them is Kaya, who I’ve already written about recently. Today, I have five more planeswalkers who must be somewhere, with my thoughts on where they might best fit into the story and the known multiverse.
Dovin Baan
I think we’re going to see Dovin Baan return very soon. Karn’s return has been laying plot threads pointing to an impending trip to New Phyrexia; and the Kaladeshi Baan, hailing from another artifact-heavy plane, has the perfect skill set to play a major role there. Then there’s the matter of where Baan is emotionally: he has seen the Consulate, to which he was devoted, fall to the Renegades, and left his home plane behind. We’re dealing with someone who has seen that which he believed in fall, and may be in the market for a new cause. Maybe something like the Phyrexian religion of The Machine Orthodoxy? He also has a direct tie to the Phyrexians: he accepted Tezzeret’s authority on Kaladesh, and Tezzeret may easily have suggested that Baan head for New Phyrexia if things were to go south on Kaladesh.
I also can’t shake one particular image of Baan. His chief power as a planeswalker is to see the flaws in anything or anyone he examines. What if he examines the Phyrexians—their approach to organisms as a series of interchangeable parts that can be extracted and reassembled—and sees perfection?
Garruk
Our last glimpse of Garruk was on Shandalar, but it is known that he has moved on from there. So, the key question is: where has Garruk gone? (I’m going to guess not Kylem.) This is the hardest one on this list for me to pin down, as Garruk really could show up anywhere. (You never see a great hunter coming until they strike.) For instance, he could easily turn up in Ravnica, drawn by the critical mass of planeswalkers that Bolas seems to be drawing to that plane, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. Of the planeswalkers here listed, he’s the one I think most likely to show up on a plane we haven’t been introduced to yet.
However, I’m going to make a spicier pick here and go with Theros. There’s a hot, longstanding theory from the Vorthos Cast’s Cary Thomas Barkett that Heliod might be a planeswalker who came to Theros and ascended after The Mending. A planeswalker-god? That seems like prey worthy of Magic’s big game hunter—and a cool, unexpected way to pull Garruk into the Gatewatch narrative when we finally get the return to Theros.
Nahiri
Leaving a vampire stuck in stone,
Nahiri planeswalked to parts unknown.
The obvious place for Nahiri to go after her clash with Sorin was back to Zendikar. But I don’t think that’s where she will go. She carries a great deal of pain from the belief that her home plane is doomed. And if she did, we would miss out on the most interesting potential part of her impending journey: realizing that she was monstrously in the wrong during the events of Shadows Over Innistrad.
More interesting? Tarkir. Ugin may be handing out on Zendikar currently, but he’s going to go home sooner or later. If word gets around that Ugin lives, Nahiri may pay him a secondary visit for having abandoned Zendikar. And, as Ugin very politely informs her that he was in stasis for a millennium and that the Gatewatch stood against two of the titans and apparently managed to defeat them to save Zendikar, we might have a really compelling bridge to a character concept that I call Nahiri, The Penitent. We could see a version of Nahiri striving to recapture her own former heroism and to atone for the massive doom she tried to bring to Innistrad and its people.
Ob Nixilis
Ob Nixilis has been busy for a while, what with being imprisoned on Zendikar and all. He made his name as a planeswalker as a great general, burning plane after plane to ash. I would expect to see this aspect of Ob explored in his next appearance, and there are a few planes that are suitably war-torn for that to make sense. Tarkir, which might be laying the groundwork for Secret Khans Versus Dragons with the tale of an older Yasova Dragonclaw alongside Bolas’s origin story, could be a good fit.
However, I’m going in on a war-torn plane we’ve only glimpsed: Vryn.
Jace’s home plane was beset by eternal war between two factions—a war that Jace, working for Alhammaret, prolonged before he made his way, memory-free, to Ravnica. Ixalan strongly suggested that Jace, who now remembers his mother, wants to go back to Vryn. That sounds like the perfect plot hook for a set or two: Jace goes to his long-lost home to take some “me time” after the battle with Bolas on Ravnica, finds the war ongoing with one side threatening to finally overwhelm the other. The other army is led by a mysterious and terrifying new general whose fortitude in battle and tactical brilliance has allowed them to turn the tide. That general is, of course, Ob Nixilis; who delights (with his incomparable sense of humor) in the opportunity to avenge himself on Jace by burning the latter’s home plane to the ground.
Tibalt
Tibalt fans’ hearts were broken when it was revealed that Angrath was not a strange pirate-captain alter-ego for Magic’s first two-mana planeswalker, but was instead a new character. However, there’s reason to think Tibalt’s day may be coming soon. With Karn’s return in Dominaria, Tibalt now has the second-longest absence since his last planeswalker card, trailing only Koth of the Hammer (RIP Venser). Plus he boasts a devoted fan base in the Magic community. So the questions is, when and where?
A torture artist of his pedigree could be in demand on Fiora, but Daretti has a pretty firm grip on that plane’s black-red planeswalker design space at the moment. (Rakdos is, for Mark Rosewater at least, Tibalt’s most accurate color identity.) A better home for Tibalt may also be closer at hand: Ravnica and its Rakdos guild. Tibalt may be right at home playing the Rakdos’s Slaughter Games. And, he’s a planeswalker with a lot of room for story design who could add an intriguing layer to the impending battle on Ravnica. Would he be on Team Bolas, drawn by the dragon planeswalker’s immense power? Would he be brash enough to stand against Bolas, driven by an anti-authority streak that led him to clash with Sorin on Innistrad (at least as far as their Duel Deck would have us believe)? I’m going with Ravnica for Tibalt’s next appearance—look for him to make his triumphant return to Magic in the next year.
Beck is a financial aid counselor and theatre history Ph.D. student who lives in the greater Boston area. He believes in playing standard like a Johnny, drafting like a Spike, and only playing modern decks that involve the number eight.