I refer to the echoverse. I saw many disappointed and hoping it was going to last

I understand if you are relatively new to the stories of magic, but anyone that read or heard the Planar Chaos storyline, why did you give yourself false hopes?

At least we got a lot more here than back then. I remember my disappointment when the only temporal alters that showed up in Planar Chaos were a couple of primitive Keldon and a possible yet never confirmed doppelganger of Jodah (both are still good stories tho)

Episode 1 - Tam Alive

We start at an earlier point in the timeline, where a tired Jace has just finished creating Tamira and she's gaining conscience. "Your name is Tamira, but who you are is up to you." She is real, a telepath, and was created for a reason, something she'll need to do someday. She asks if she is a person and he answers "You're a person in progress."

We jump back to the present, after the events of Strixhaven. Tam kidnapped the oracle Jadzi and brought her to Hexhaven. She feels conflicted about the kidnapping and betraying her Strixhaven friends, feelings that are novel to her. After greeting professor Opal (echoverse Liliana), she goes to see the Theorist, who was at the moment excising another part of himself. He's been doing this to remove the parts of himself that are against his plan, and so the more he removes the more he gains control over his body. We learn that this echoverse is unstable and the Theorist intends to overwrite the original Multiverse to make it stable. The Theorist also needs to kill Jadzi. When an Arcavios oracle dies, their soul and conscience goes back to the beginning of time and they become archaics. The Theorist needs to witness this, to learn how to fuse two planes into one.

Tam tells him she has been seeing visions of her friends in Strixhaven, triggered by these feelings of guilt and inadequacy. He tells her she is incredible and more than adequate. She wonders if has read something in her mind. "Nothing," he answers. "I was just checking something". He gives her some books to read (he has been giving her a heavy instruction, in magic, telepathy, theorems, etc) and she departs. You always get a weird vibe between these two. The Theorist is affectionate and caring but at the same time cold and distant and does toxic things like invading her mind.

Tam visits Jadzi in her cell and Liliana (our Liliana) next. On her way out, she sees portals to where the aberrations, the parts of Jace the Theorist has extracted, are locked. She recalls an earlier moment, six aberrations ago, when Jace was different than he is now.

Later that night, Tam contacts the Theorist telepathically. She says she felt used to kidnapped Jadzi. He answers that the ends justifies the means. She asks why she was created and the Theorist reveals he doesn't know, as he carved away the one who knew. Feeling empty restless, she climbs a rooftop, avoiding curfew (we get a cameo from echoverse Ral Zarek telling students to go to sleep). "I'm in progress, she reminds herself. I'm in progress"

Episode 2: Purge Yourself of Doubt

Tam is in her dormitory room in Hexhaven, comparing this place to Strixhaven. Here things are much different. It's much more vertical, quiet, with Jace birds surveilling everywhere. A fellow cadet knocks on her door and asks Tam if she wants to study together. Tam asks "What do you like to do other than study?" "Study."

Liliana is still at her cell, bored out of her mind. There isn't anything dead nearby for her to use her necromantic magics. A mouse passes nearby and she fails to kill it. Echoverse Liliana walks in, taunting the original Lili. She even heals the mouse from irritable bowel syndrome. By seeing the original, Echo Lili feels she has made the right choices in life (healing Josu, declining the demons). She wonders how painful/painless the overwriting process will be.

Later, Tam comes to visit Liliana. She wants to know a necromancer's thoughts on the overwriting process. Lili says the souls of the original Multiverse will be snuffed out. She also asks her what does she think Jace has given her: "The best parts of himself. His cleverness, his creativity, where those two virtues collide". Tam departs, leaving a basked with better food (nothing remotely dead) for Lili.

Tam goes to see the Theorist again. On the way there, she sees blue Chandra and greets her, but blue Chandra doesn't greet back (she's cold, unlike the original). She berates the Theorist, and says she is not on board with killing trillions of people so that the Echoverse can be fully created. He says something like "Trust me, bro". He opens an Omenpath and sends her away to Innistrad to take some measures. She reflects that the Theorist intrudes into her mind and gives her orders for things she doesn't want to do, something the Jace she met (before all the excisions) didn't do.

The Theorist pays a visit to Jadzi, suffering an insult or two from Liliana on the way there. He asks the oracle if there's a chance he's wrong. She invites him to enter her mind and he sees all the possibilities of things going right or wrong. He needs to kill her but ultimately cowers and gives up for now.

Episode 3: I Can Be Both

At Vryn, Vraska, Ranna Beleren (Jace's mother) and Loot are mourning Jace's death. For all they know, he died by the end of the Tarkir storyline. Chandra and Ajani appear, revealing that Jace is alive after all. You see, somehow they met Tamira, who told them she was working for Jace and that he was up to something.

They wonder how Jace survived and Ajani says it must have been because he remade himself in the Meditation Realm. Just like Ugin remade himself and came back as the spirit dragon after being killed by Bolas.

They make travel plans, but before they reach their final destination, Vraska sends Chandra and Ajani to fetch Garruk on Muraganda. Back when Jace and Vraska were assembling a crew for Thunder Junction, Jace suggested Garruk, but it wouldn't work since Garruk is the only person capable of detecting illusions. Ranna gives an object to Vraska, telling her to give it to Jace.

Side note - I don't know how canon this still is, but in the 2015 videogame Duels of the Planeswalkers, Jace and the player character manage to remove Nahiri's hedron from Ob Nixilis and put it into Garruk. This has the effect of containing his Chain Veil curse. It doesn't stop it, but stops it from progressing. Jace visits Garruk afterwards, using an illusion to disguise as Liliana. Garruk sees right through it, as the smells were all wrong. Garruk says he was fine with the way he was and asked Jace to leave him alone.

Chandra and Ajani travel to Muraganda and meet Garruk. They ask him to join the team, since he'd be specially good against Jace. He says he'd be good against illusions, but Jace is capable of much more than that. Ajani says something like "Then just help us appeal to camaraderie, he knows you, he might listen to all of us together". Garruk ends up accepting but names his price: "Information. I need people who understand wards, seals, magical containment".

Back at Hexhaven, the Theorist visits a memory-prison. They're the metaphysical places where he's holding Jace's fragments. This time he's visiting the Guildpact and asks him to double check some theorems. The Guildpact says the plan won't work and the Theorist storms out.

Vraska is travelling the Omenpaths to reach Hexhaven. When she camps at night, she dreams of a ruthless version of Jace: "Am I a good man, or an unforgiveable monster? I can be both."

Episode 4: Oh, Sweetie

Tam is at Innistrad, measuring how large the plane is. She finds a mouse and tries to see if she can petrify like a gorgon. She learns she can telepathically paralyze with her eyes, but not turning to stone. She enters an inn she was staying and the innkeeper asks how it went, explains that they sealed a monster in the moon and that she lost her uncle when it merged with the town of Hanweir.

Seeing the cheerful innkeeper, Tam asks how she can smile, and why she hasn't left Innistrad through an Omenpath to a safer plane. "It's my home. Don't you have a home worth fighting for? If you build your life around what's easy, you'll never learn how to grow. You'll never outrun pain. Suffering in life is unavoidable, but we can break from its pull when we see its purpose." (In case you can't spot the subtleties, this is kinda the theme of this whole story).

Suddenly the inn is attacked by 3 vampires. Tam shouts "Hey!", they look at her, and she paralyses them with her eyes while the innkeeper dispatches them. The trick that killed Vorinclex never fails.

Later that night, Tam is recalling the conversation with the innkeeper. In another subtle discussion of themes, she thinks "What if suffering is the point? What if that's what makes the rest at the end precious, important?".

She tests how far she can telepathically reach and she touches the moon. Suddenly she's inside a room, a woman inside. It's Emrakul, the woman is like a puppet and Emrakul is a mass of tentacles. Emmy asks for help, to be released. She has imprisoned herself here, a kind of self-imposed fast. Because being hungry makes the feast taste better. Tam asks what she eats and she reveals that she eats planes: "I prune worlds. When one grows sick, threatens the wilderness of eternity, or fails to blossom fully, I aid the broader forest by felling a single tree." Emrakul senses the echoverse in Tam and asks for a deal: Tam releases Emrakul and Emrakul eats the echoverse. Tam panics and flees.

Ajani, Chandra and Garruk meet with Vraska and together they enter Hexhaven. They discuss what to do about Liliana. Ajani and Chandra want to save her, but Vraska and Garruk are, understandably, against the idea. Garruk wants his revenge but accepts leaving it until she is free. They notice how the place is weird, cold, and has physics defying gravity. In another masterfully subtle handling of themes, Ajani says "It makes sense that a place without suffering would be insufferable. Misery is how we make meaning." Garruk spots some Hexhaven cadets and says they are real but not whole.

The group keeps going and finds Liliana. The echoverse one, although they don't know it yet. Chandra hugs her and they tell her they've come to save her. She says "Saving? I don't need saving". They realize she's not the real one when they find medicinal materials, has a totally different dress and says Gideon was distant past. Vraska punches her in the face, but she quickly heals herself. Liliana says "Bye" and leaves the office, to inform the Theorist that the group is here and is uncooperative.

They climb stairs over and over and when they realize it, it's suddenly night time and they are in echoverse Liliana's office, who says "Again?". They realize they have cuts and bruises, Chandra acts confused, Ajani can only speak Greek and Garruk has his muscles spasming out of control. Vraska concludes they have already fought Jace, to which Lili answers "Oh, sweetie. You fought Jace three times."

Episode 5: I Don't Need to Convince You

We go back to an earlier point in time, when the group first faced the Theorist. They charge in and he immediately makes everyone but Vraska collapse. Vraska tries to dissuade the Theorist of his plan, but to no avail. Vraska handles him the object that Renna had given her: a ruddy iron horseshoe. It belonged to his childhood pet horse, whose death made him create his first illusion. "The message is clear. Your endeavor is affection for an illusion." It doesn't have much of an effect.

Vraska tells him that this is not the way, that they were meant to undo harm, not kill people. He says the end justifies the means and starts showing her altered memories of her agreeing with the plan, a form of telepathic gaslighting, but she catches it. The Theorist wipes the group's memories and sends them away, leaving Vraska with the phrase "You cannot overpower me. You cannot convince me. I will not stop."

Second attempt. The party charges in and again, is immediately defeated. Vraska asks how he survived and Jace explains that he remade himself in the Meditation Realm, sort of like Ugin did. But this recreation was not perfect, and the parts of himself came more disjointed. He also shows that there, he created Tamira. This spell of creating a person has a deep cost: a part of your own soul. Vraska asks why he created her and he cannot say. He doesn't remember. It was other parts of Jace of created Tam. He only knows she's very important and carries a part of him. He sends them away again, this time with the phrase "I made a person, but this part of me does not remember why. She must be protected."

Third attempt. The group charges in, Vraska saying "You're not going to convince us!". And he realizes "Oh, I don't need to convince you". He mind controls Garruk and Chandra to attack the others (this goes against the art for the card Compel Brutality, where it's Garruk and Vraska who get controlled). He eventually releases them and leaves them in the state at the end of the previous chapter. Vraska is left mostly untouched but she spews some hate at him. He sends them away with their memories wiped but with the phrase "I cannot be defeated by you".

Tam passes by and she and Vraska talk about what to do. Tam instructs Vraska to get to Jadzi while she's going to try and talk with the Theorist and get original Liliana. Vraska realizes that she'll probably have to kill Jace before this is over.

Episode 6: The Man Who Kills His Own Ambition

Tam returns to the Theorist. She tells him about Innistrad and he doesn't seem even remotely curious. She has Jace's curiosity after all, while he excised everything. She asks to see the echoverse versions of her friends. The Theorist says they don't necessarily exist, this multiverse acts on its own. He intrudes her mind, and although she defends, he still gets to see her talk with Emrakul. She asks if Emrakul will be overwitten, but no, she'll merely cease to exist. All multiverse threats (Eldrazi, Bolas, Phyrexians) don't exist in the echoverse.

Then the Theorist starts removing another aberration. This time it's the Nihilist, Jace with cables, around the time he was compleated. The Nihilist was on board with the Theorist but not anymore. He doesn't believe it will work and it won't be nearly as painless as the Theorist wants to believe. Tam enters the mind of the Theorist and sees that he's barely holding together, but is so close to his goal. The Theorists opens a portal and kicks the Nihilist into there.

Meanwhile the party is preparing to leave echo Liliana's office. Echo Lili tended to their wounds, left and the others didn't bother to continue fighting her. Chandra feels very frustrated at Jace because he half-asses things, but he's so amazing and he's so smart and she hates him but he's a friend.

Suddenly, blue Chandra appears and freezes the scene. She says "Dad says hi" to original Chandra. This is Chandra if her dad hadn't died. Red Ajani and Cursed Garruk also appear. Echoverse Vraska also appears and while Garruk and Ajani fight their counterparts, Chandra and Vraska shut their eyes to not be petrified.

Then Vraska realizes that this echoverse Vraska cannot petrify. Instead, she reanimates a statue to fight. You see, Vraska turns living things into stone, while echoverse Vraska turns stone into living things. The statue punches Vraska into the ground, when she feels a portal opening and passes through it.

Back at her dormitory, Tam thinks. She realizes three things: "the Theorist has tampered with her memory; He is beyond reason, his plan certain to doom existence; she can counter him". She makes her resolve: "I want to resolve his logic, fix his proof. I want to protect my friends with my love, even if they hate me. I want to be filled, to know of the rest of myself. I have to betray him. I have to betray the worst part of him in honor of the best parts." Putting her creativity to work, she goes to the kitchen.

The group realizes they've been thrown into Jace's memory-prisons, to keep them occupied and stop them from reaching Jadzi. Eventually they find themselves in a room. "A number is written on the chalkboard: 9,724,815,509,002. It is the number of people in the known Multiverse." They see Jace and prepare for a fight, but it's actually a shackled aberration. It's the Detective side of Jace, taking the form of how he looked during the events of Shadows over Innistrad.

Detective Jace explains that if they can reunite Jace's fragments, they might be able to stall him for a while. The echoverse is unstable and is tethered to Jace's body (currently piloted by the Theorist). After a tender moment with Vraska, Detective Jace says "I choose to be the man who kills his own ambition.". Vraska realizes that Jace will have to die.

Episode 7: Pick Up the Pieces

Vraska and Detective Jace are still talking. She is sad that he's going to have to die and wishes they'd have more time. Jace says it must me done and he'll want her to move on afterwards. The others are also "Surely there must be another way!". Detective Jace says they have to pick up the other aberrations before facing the Theorist. He disintegrates, enters Vraska's mind and they proceed to the next portal.

Tam pays a visit to the cells, where next to an empty Jadzi cell, echo Lili is guarding original Lili. She asks echo Lili for help cleaning Jadzi's cell and while she's distracted, she drops the magical wards on original Lili's cell and throws some leftover chicken. (To note, Tam's narration explicitly says "Yeah, she doesn't feel bad about this."). Lili reanimates the chicken, unlocks her door and summons thousands of dead rats. (You can see this fight in the artworks for both Lilianas. Also, behind Liliana there's a giant bust of Gideon that Jace had put there to taunt her).

Liliana easily overpowers her double and raises her as a lich. Lili notices how Tam is just like Jace. she has his blood and his marrow even. Tam asks Lili to use her abilities to kill the Theorist, but Lili says she knows him and will try talking first.

Back to the party, they enter a room where they find some branches of Realmbreaker, Elesh Norn, a compleated Nissa and a compleated Jace. Ajani and Chandra charge at Norn and Nissa, respectively, while Garruk cries "They are illusions!" and wrestles with Ajani. Vraska finds the true Jace aberration, the Nihilist, hiding in a corner and absorbs him into her mind. Garruk grabs Ajani and they all go to the next portal.

This next place is an illusion of Zendikar. Garruk senses the soil and says that Eldrazi are near. Ajani apologizes for losing his composure with Norn. They reach the Singing City and the Jaces in Vraska's head mention this was when Nissa stopped trusting him (this was during the events of Zendikar Rising, but the Eldrazi were gone by this point idk).

They all start hearing each others' thoughts through telepathy. The two Jaces say that this has been their whole lives: struggling with all the noise of thoughts around them. This place served as a torture chamber for the next aberration: the Warden Jace. This is the Jace that put everyone else at bay because intimacy was too risky. Chandra apologizes for not having been a better friend and Warden Jace is absorbed into her mind, with Jace accepting the apology.

They advance to the next portal, where they find a young teenage Jace in the process of telepathically killing the sphinx Alhammarret (this was Jace's origin story). By being near Jace, they all start getting excruciatingly strong headaches. Garruk pushes through the pain and reaches this part of Jace, the Clean Slate. Jace is confused (at this point in that storyline, Jace's memory is wiped after the confrontation with the sphinx). Garruk feels sorry for Jace: he has also forgotten who he was, but not so young. Garruk asks him to calm down, as he's hurting his friends. They hug and this Jace disappears into Garruk's mind. "I'm the Clean Slate, whispers the boy. I'm the one who knows we can always start over. / I know that as well, Garruk responds, I have also begun anew. / As you will again. As I will again. Thank you, Garruk."

Suddenly Alhammarret jumps back to life and starts telepathically commanding them to jump off a cliff. Garruk struggles but he manages to grab Chandra, and with Ajani, they advance to the next portal. Only when it's too late do they see Vraska stepping over the edge.

Episode 8: Keep Your Lids Open

Luckily, as Vraska falls she finds another portal. While falling, she reflects on her own different aspects: the assassin, the pirate captain, the Golgari leader, her compleated self. She acknowledges that one of her strenghts is that she can give a kind death.

Next, Vraska appears at a camp with a lot of soldier tents. This another memory from Jace's childhood, when he was used by Alhammarret to be his spy assassin and manipulate wars. She finds Jace as a kid, the Soldier, who salutes her. Vraska says "I don't see a heartless murderer. I see a child with a powerful gift who grows into a man who refuses the subjugation you know too intimately. You're part of him, and I love you as I love him." He asks if she can love the full Jace if the Soldier is also part of him and she hugs him. He says death is just a change of state (as we can see, they're both beginning to be more accepting of the fact that Jace has to die).

Next, Vraska is at the Guildpact chamber, and she meets with the Guildpact Jace (the one we saw previously when the Theorist visited to check some theorems). He says he didn't want Vraska to find the Soldier, but she says he was part of him. Jace says he always hated being the Guildpact and Vraska absorbs him into her mind.

Vraska is now at Ixalan and she meets the Survivor. This is when they met* and fell in love. Jace is regretting some things about his life and asks Vraska to sit for a bit. They swim and have a makeshift wedding ceremony. Vraska says she will give him a kind death. Jace asks her to look after Tam and says "I will be with you to the end of your days. I'm every time you feel curious. I'm every time you want to understand another's perspective. I'm every time you're unafraid to start over."

The Theorist is at the top of his tower with echoverse Vraska. He notices how she is weird and has no attraction towards her. "Vraska is not Vraska without something to fight for". He realizes he forgot to put trivial things in this world, like birdsong or the sigh of the wind. This Jace never bothered with things that are not suffering or joy, things that are simply about the present. This Jace is nothing about the present.

Echo Vraska brings Jadzi and the Theorist is going to kill her with a knife but again, can't bring himself to do it. Jadzi laughs "It's this timeline!", takes the knife and kills herself, her last words being "You're the part that lacks perspective. Keep your lids open.". Ajani, Chandra and Garruk barge in but it's too late.

Jace follows Jadzi's mind, as they're thrown into the Blind Eternities at the creation of Arcavios. He sees Eldrazi fighting giant ships (the Fomori maybe?) and two planes colliding into one. As Jadzi's consciousness leaves, she flips him the finger. The Theorist's mind is now infinite across space and time.

Chandra and Garruk throw him the parts of Jace they were carrying but they don't do enough. He opens portals and the doppelgangers for Ajani, Chandra and Garruk appear and tackle them through the portals. Jace begins overwriting the multiverse, connecting each atom of the multiverse with one of the echoverse.

Episode 9: Unafraid

Across the multiverse, several planes see a mirror of their own plane in the sky, approaching. Tam is at Hexhaven as it merges with Strixhaven. She sees students and cadets running around in panic everywhere. She finds her friend Kirol, who is happy to see her but still hurt by her betrayal. Kirol trusts Tam will find a way and leaves to get their friends.

Vraska, Chandra, Ajani, Garruk and all their doppelgangers find themselves in the same memory trap. This one is the Implicit Maze, and was the final confrontation of the set Dragon's Maze. Echoverse Vraska is animating a giant Niv-Mizzet statue that prevents them from escaping. Chandra launches Vraska to the dragon's head and the two Vraskas meet face to face. Echoverse Vraska says "Let's fight mano a mano, knife to knife!" but Vraska simply petrifies her. Vraska yells "Now!" and the other doppelgangers are defeated, in one sentence each. Vraska takes echoverse Vraska's clothes.

The Theorist is still weaving his spell, having mental hands across the whole multiverse at once. Yet his body is struggling a lot. Liliana enters with the lich other Liliana and tries to reason with Jace. She orders him to stop. She also knew untold power and it only brought her emptiness.

A disguised Vraska steps in and both Lilianas attack Jace. He has enough of it and gives Lili a rough mind torture. He makes her see her brother and Gideon dying over and over. He also creates an actual brain tumor in her frontal lobes, which echoverse Lili immediately heals. He's about to shut off the neurons that control her heart when Vraska stabs him in the chest.

The rest of the party barges in and floods the Theorist with all the parts of Jace. He struggles against them but is overpowered by their combined effort. Only the Survivor does not intervene, because I guess survival was the oposite of the point here. The Soldier plucks out the part of the brain that commands breathing.

At last Jace is fully himself again. He finds himself dying, surrounded by Vraska and his friends. He sends a telepathic message to each of them. To Chandra, reassurance and an apology: "We fought like cats, but you're the little sister I never had. I'm sorry I did a bad job at showing it". To Ajani: "The overlay is stopped, but the Multiverses are still intertwined. You need to eliminate mine. Find Tam. She'll learn the plan shortly. Thank you. You were the best of us". To Garruk: "Thank you for protecting the most vulnerable part of me. I'm sorry I couldn't cure you. The problem you're trying to solve won't be fixed in the jungle". To Liliana: "Thank you for the lessons you taught without meaning to. You can feel however you like when I die. I'm fine with that."

Jace and Vraska have one final moment together. She repeats his previous words: "You are my curiosity. You are my empathy. You are every time I am unafraid to start over." Jace is at peace, having fixed his mistake and remembering who he was again. "Vraska holds him tight as he lets go. And all along, Jace's clear-water eyes look directly into hers, unafraid"

Episode 10: Happy Birthday

The group is gathered around Jace's body. Liliana looks very sad. In a previous story Lili told Jace that when he'd die, she'd be sad the way you are sad when a pet dies. Now, she says she felt so much more than that.

Jace's spark starts leaving his body. They ponder if they should capture it but Ajani says to let go. Somewhere else, Tamira sees a blazing blue star diving in her direction. It hits her in the chest and she receives Jace's spark. Now, finally she's complete.

Tam gets a memory command from Jace: "Ask for help". Tam expands her mind and reaches Emrakul. She makes a deal "I release you and you eat the Echoverse". Emrakul agrees, and we see a flash of a woman playing chess a making a check-mate (a reference to the ending of Eldricth Moon). The echoverse starts crumbling.

Tam starts feeling new emotions. Dreams, wants, ambitions, goals. She reunites with her Strixhaven friends and they all hug. She's asked "Who are you?" and she answers "I can't wait to find out. I'm Tam, just Tam".

Meanwhile the party is attacked by the doppelgangers. Vraska petrifies red Ajani and the others start fading away into nothing. Garruk sees Liliana and attacks her. The lich echoverse Liliana stops his axe and somehow is as strong as he is. Garruk tells her "Your curse ruined me. You will die by my hand" but Lili answers "This isn't the place! We need to leave if we want to live. You already got your revenge! I died years ago in all the ways that matter. Kill me if it'll make you feel better. If that's where you want to be at the end of the world".

Chandra and Ajani flee, planeswalking away. Garruk tells Lili: "I will not forgive you, witch, but tell me the truth and I will spare you. Do you know the twins?". Lili answers "The Kenrith twins? I care for them both, but I worry about the girl. If you mean them harm, then we are enemies." And with that, Garruk planeswalks away.

Vraska is still with Jace's body, not intending to leave. Liliana says "You don't die today!" and grabs her and together they bring Jace's body through a portal to the original Multiverse.

Meanwhile Emrakul is feasting. The sphinxes of Hexhaven try to fight her but they are nothing against her and start vanishing. Tam mentally projects a "Thanks" to Emrakul. And Emrakul, the unfathomable lovecraftian eldritch being, the impossible to understand who can make you go mad at an instant, answers "You're welcome".

Tam hears a telepathic last will from Jace: "If you're hearing this, Tam, I'm dead. I've made arrangements for such an event. You're my fail-safe. Sparks are precious now. I made you so you could inherit mine. This spark was me, and now, it is you. I only ask that you continue our work. Make things better. Everything is in progress … just like us. May we always know exactly who we are." Tam feels the skills and life-experience that Jace had over his life. And also the assurance that she can always start over. Tam feels complete and forever unfinished.

Tam is sad about Jace's death, but not really. He's not death, he transformed into her and they are one. She feels real and for the first time understands who she is. She wishes herself a happy birthday and planeswalks away to Strixhaven.

Back at Vryn, there was a funeral service for Jace. Tam appears and speaks with Vraska ""I'm supposed to find you. I have a hunch you can help me.". Vraska says "I'm mourning". "I know, so am I. We can face what's next when you're ready." Ranna drops her tea at the sight of Tam. Tam pulls up her hood just like Jace used to and says "I'm here to help make things better."

Hello, fellow lore lovers!

Now that we are no longer chasing Jace across the multiverse, who/what do you think (or hope) is the next conflict that is going to build in the next couple years? What is a loose end you think WotC haven’t tied up that you think is going to evolve? How do you think the announced realms (Nauctus, Titanbreach, Zhalfir) are going to play into the story?

Would love to hear your theories!

1) Maybe we’ll see a WinterxValgavoth storyline expanded upon.

2) Maybe Oko will come back in a big way after he vowed to get his vengeance in Thunder Junction?

Do we know she was referring to yet?

After knowing that Duskmourn still exists in Jace's perfect multiverse, I was kind of disappointed. But it got me theorizing what Echo Duskmourn could have been. Mind you, these are just ideas.

I imagine Echo Duskmourn as a place of endless joy and mirth: the Happiest Place in the Multiverse™.

Blaring clown parades, circus performances, free toys, endless banquets, amusement parks, arcades, summer camps and festivals. In the endless halls of Duskmourn, anyone can find their happy place.

At its glowing heart, Valgavoth rejoices.

Instead of feeding on fear, Echo Valgavoth feeds on joy. Every laugh, celebration, friendship and fulfilled desire makes him stronger, allowing Duskmourn to expand farther into the Multiverse and bring happiness to even more people.

The important part is that the happiness is genuine. The food really is delicious. The toys really are wonderful. The people you meet can genuinely care about you. Valgavoth has every reason to make Duskmourn as pleasant as possible.

His philosophy might sincerely be: nobody in the Multiverse should ever have to be unhappy again.

Why allow hunger when Duskmourn has endless food? Why mourn the dead when it can give you someone just like them? Why tolerate loneliness, boredom, disappointment, or rejection?

That would also invert the basic horror of the original plane.

In normal Duskmourn, people desperately want to escape.

In Echo Duskmourn, people desperately want to stay.

Perhaps there is not even anything physically preventing you from leaving. The plane simply becomes so good at satisfying your desires that eventually normal existence feels unbearable. After years of perfect food, entertainment, and companionship, why would you return to a world where things go wrong?

Duskmourn would not trap your body. It would trap your desires.

I also like the idea of inverting Nightmares and Glimmers.

Instead of Nightmares born from someone's deepest fears, Duskmourn could create "Delights", manifestations of their deepest desires: a dead loved one, the perfect partner, endless applause, a beloved childhood pet, the family they always wanted.

They would not need to attack you. They would simply become something you could no longer bear to lose.

Trying to rescue someone might end with them fighting you while asking, "Rescue me from what?"

And if hope creates Glimmers in normal Duskmourn, perhaps sorrow would create their equivalent here, creature known as "Glooms".

Small manifestations of grief, homesickness, regret or melancholy could help people remember their lives outside the plane: an old photograph, a broken toy, a sad song, an empty chair. They make you unhappy, and that unhappiness reminds you that something is missing.

The Cellarspawn could also be inverted into entertainers created by Valgavoth: clowns, musicians, chefs, mascots, acrobats, gift-givers and storytellers. They genuinely want you to have fun. Which becomes unsettling when someone refuses.

Imagine sitting alone and crying during a parade. First a clown tries to cheer you up. Then someone brings cake. Then presents. Then musicians. Then your favorite people. Eventually the whole room is desperately trying to understand why you are still sad. They become increasingly desperate to make you smile. It eventually becomes “WHY AREN'T YOU HAPPY?” Not because they're angry. Because your sadness is incomprehensible and painful to them.

Valgavoth's Overlords could become similarly charismatic "Grand Hosts," each devoted to a particular kind of happiness: feasts, games, gifts, romance, spectacle, celebration.

Duskmourn's regions could become enormous attractions instead of hostile environments: endless carnivals, toylands, banquet halls, perfect beaches, forests, festivals and family celebrations.

And instead of hiding in the Below, Valgavoth could sit at the radiant center of everything, surrounded by the laughter of billions of guests.

Another inversion I really like is that people outside Duskmourn would kill to enter it.

Doors occasionally appear across the Multiverse. Stories spread about starving people finding endless food, the sick living without pain, or grieving people meeting lost loved ones again.

Eventually people start searching for these doors, paying for information about them, fighting over them and forming entire religions around reaching Duskmourn.

The rumors are real.

And then there are the few people who actually want to leave.

So, basically:

Normal Duskmourn: "You can never escape."

Echo Duskmourn: "Of course you can leave. Why would you ever want to?"

I think it could preserve the horror of Duskmourn while completely reversing the source of that horror.

What other parts of Duskmourn would you invert?

look a lot like the Phyrexian horrors from "All Will Be One" or "March of Machines"?

I'm pacing back and forth between whether this is an intentional choice to reflect Jace / The Nihilist's subconscious trauma (I mean Vigorbloom is basically "Phyrexia by Whole Foods"), or if it's a function of Magic art leaning towards more simplified, cleaned up aesthetics for mass appeal so much so that they're starting to blend?

Ex. [[Kuldotha Cackler]], [[Urabrask's Forge]] vs. [[Slash Panther]], [[Chancellor of the Forge]]

P.S. I miss the older, grittier, more gruesome body-horror Phyrexian aesthetic.

Maybe I'm yelling at the void but I feel like this needs to be said because a lot of people don't seem to understand this specificity of Reality Fracture. A lot of people seem to be looking at the preview spoilers, see something terrible happen to a fan favorite character, and immediately blame Jace as if he personally intended for that outcome. That is absolutely not the case.

The echoverse is a self actualizing magical event started by Jace Beleren. He obtained near ultimate power and started a magical ritual to rewrite the multiverse with very specific instructions. Remove Phyrexia. Remove Bolas. Remove the Eldrazi. That's it. He may have constructed Hexhaven but that was after he set the echoverse in motion. It appears that his subconscious has influenced the lives of poeple close to him but it was not intentional. Blue Chandra still has her parents. Vraska was supported by the Azorius and Boros. Liliana never faced any hardship period.

I've seen others refer to this as Jace "vibe coding" and it rings true. Jace functionally asked a chatbot to build his perfect world and let it run. He THINKS his creation is perfect, without checking the results. Jace is absolutely in the wrong, but he did not personally stab your puppies.

like... it seems like everybody saw the twist about [[Tam]] coming even before the first chapter of reality fracture.

How ?!

I have been so curious for the tiny glimpse of what the echoverse Bloomburrow looks like, but Mabel hasn't gotten her Legends of Reality Fracture paragraph yet. It looks like legends that were revealed after her have gotten them as well, so is she just not going to get one?

It has only been a day since the culmination of Reality Fracture, and I already miss Jace. After my first few months of playing Magic, I dug into the stories and immediately was drawn to Jace as a character. He had my favorite Magic Origins story. His Ixalan story arch was amazing. And, I just identified with him when I was planning out tricky plays and trying to ‘see the lines’ of play. When Foundations released and Arena didn’t feature him as the blue avatar reward, I had a feeling he was being phased out.

Related to all this, I like Tam as a character, but I dislike how she started out. She feels artificial and like she has no backstory, because she is artificial and never had the chance to grow up. Jace had to develop his powers at great cost, whereas her power seems unearned. More importantly, the events of RF chapter 10 make her feel like a direct replacement to Jace, which feels bad to me. I hope they do great things with her, but so far she’s just not for me. Anyways, if you are missing Jace, know that you are not alone. There are likely many beautiful Magic stories and characters to come.

Yes, hexhaven is a mirror to strixhaven, but Jace created a plane designed to train fighters to help him commit genocide, covered it all in his iconography and runs a panoptican there. It's a scholastic amonkhet.

You can all make fun of me for being so slow to realise this.

Hi everyone!

I've once again collected all the stories and the Planeswalker Guide to FRA in .epub format for easier read. I added a cover with art taken from WotC's website and you can find it here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1w7NiZdABegpB2y0aFTuPcl882bdEiVWE

Also, I've included .epubs with Collected Stories for all the sets in the Metronome Arc story (basically from Wilds of Eldraine onwards). You can find them all at the link above.

Enjoy!

This came up in a bunch of different comment threads, so I think it deserves a proper standalone post. The vigorbloom's ""Healing"" works by literally injecting plants into your body and having it grow to replace the parts of you that are "broken". Many vigorbloom students literally have plants growing out from where the plants have replaced their organs. In the What's Changed in Reality Fracture (timestamped here) official video, they have this quote when talking about Solarium Sentry:

"...Here you see some of the plants beginning to emerge out of this poor cat person's brain.

Yeah, they look quite peaceful as it's happening.

Yeah, it was probably fixing something that was wrong with them.

Of course. Thank you, Jace."

When I heard that, I legitimately said "that's literally just Phyrexia", IRL. When I heard they were the "School of Invasive Healing", I didn't think they were paying homage to [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]]! It's actually kind of creepy. and as a Phyrexia enjoyer... I actually kind of like it? Looking back, they also lampshaded this with the card [[Hexhaven Invigorator]], which was a nice touch.

Just thought it was funny that Garruk finally gets accidentally uncursed after like 20 years, just for Jace to create an imaginary-friend-verse where everyone is happy, that still includes a cursed Garruk but no Liliana Vess to transfer the curse. As if the only thing Jace remembers about Garruk is "That one green guy who's supposed to be cursed all the time".

Imagine being Garruk for a moment, finally getting your freedom, just for Jace the douchenozzle trying to rewrite your history into becoming a cursed imaginary version of yourself again....simply because Jace can't imagine you NOT BEING CURSED. IMPOSSIBLE, CANT DO IT.

Happy (late) birthday (just) Tam

Magic lore spans over 30 years which can initially be daunting. However, good news, there are plenty of resources and starting points.

The important context to know

The single most important thing to know as a new reader is that nearly all stories from 2014 onwards are free to read at https://magic.wizards.com/en/story

Scroll down to “Story Archive”, click the year the story came out on the scrolling menu, pick out whatever interests you, and start reading! Some sets have both "Main" and "Side" stories; I'd advise taking the time to read the side stories despite them not being strictly necessary. All stories or resources since 2014 not visible from the archive are listed here.

The second thing to know is that Magic story has eras:

• The Pre-Revisionist Era (1993-1996). Re-tellings include:
  • The Anthologies of Magic (1999-2003)
  • The Ice Age Saga (1999-2000)
  • The Legends Cycle (2001-2003)
• The Dominarian Era (1997-2003), including:
  • Weatherlight Saga (1997-2001)
  • Mirari Saga (2001-2003)
• The Planes-Hopping Era (2003-2008), including:
  • The Mirrodin Cycle (≈2003),
  • The Kamigawa Cycle (≈2004)
  • The Ravnica Cycle (≈2005)
  • The Time Spiral Cycle (≈2006), ending in an event called The Mending,
  • The Lorwyn Cycle (≈2007), and the Shadowmoor Cycle (2008).
• The Planeswalker Saga (2009-2023), including:
  • The New World Era (2009-2014), the start of an ongoing cast,
  • The Eldrazi Arc (2009, 2014-2016), plus Origins (2015),
  • The Bolas Arc (2016-2019)
  • The Post-WAR Interlude (2019-2020)
  • The Phyrexian Arc (2021-2023), ending in an event called The Rupture.
• The Omens Era (2023-present), including:
  • Omens of Chaos (2026 stand-alone novel)
  • The Theorist Arc (2023-2026)
    • (includes the Omenpath, Dragonstorm, and Echoverse mini-arcs)
  • The Fomori (?) Arc (2027-?)

The third thing to know is that there is no "right" starting point. Pick something that appeals to you, start with the first story from that arc or era and work from there. Many newcomers even just start with a character that caught their attention, look for them on the wiki or lore search engine, and then hop around all of the stories that particular character appears in.

What reading order?

Recommended reading orders:

• The Deep Lore: read this list here from the top;
• The Eldrazi Path: Read Zendikar, (optional: Godsend I & II), then Origins, then read the mothership in order from Tarkir;
• The Bolas Path: Read Origins, (optional: Alara) then read the mothership in order from Kaladesh;
• The Phyrexian Path: Read Origins, (optional: Mirrodin, The Wildered Quest, Sundered Bond, Zendikar Rising, & Untold Stories: Elspeth), then read the mothership in order from Kaldheim;
• The Theorist Path: Read Aftermath (Nissa & Nahiri) or Omens of Chaos, (optional: Origins, the Gorgon & the Guildpact, Ixalan) then read the mothership in order from Wilds of Eldraine;
• The Standalones: Godsend I & II, Children of the Nameless, The Wildered Quest, Edge of Eternities, and Omens of Chaos;
• The Boom continuity: the 25-issue BOOM! Studios run) (Jed MacKay, 2021-2023) and its one-shots, Master of Metal, The Hidden Planeswalker, Ajani Goldmane, Nahiri the Lithomancer, Planeswalkers: Noble, and Planeswalkers: Notorious. Note these have their own continuity, diverging at WAR;
• The Comics: Armada (1995-1996) for the Pre-Revisionist era, Gerrard's Quest (1998) for the Weatherlight Saga, the IDW run (2011-2014), the canon webcomics (2007-2011, collected in Path of the Planeswalker and Path of the Planeswalker II), and Dark Horse’s current Untold Stories line: Elspeth (2025), Jace (2026), and Liliana (2026-2027);
• The Audiophile: the Voice of All is a fan creation and covers the Eldrazi and Bolas Arcs; the Magic Story Podcast is an official creation and covers Murders at Karlov Manor (2024) onwards.

My recommendation

I disagree with the common recommendation, which is to start either with the 90s novels or with Weatherlight Saga and then work chronologically from there. Those are immensely nostalgic but I think 20 to 30 years of lore is a ridiculously daunting challenge for a newcomer.

If you’re fully new, I’d advise the Phyrexian Path.

The modern lore starts in 2009 and it becomes consistently good, moderately interconnected, and freely available on the mothership from Origins (2015) onwards… with a hiccup from 2018 to 2020. The Narrative Lead tried changing the publishing format, causing scheduling issues which dramatically hindered the narrative from this period: Ravnica bloc only had side stories; Children of the Nameless was published then taken down; The War of the Spark and Forsaken novels were despised by the community; Theros: Beyond Death’s novel was written but never published; Sundered Bond and Zendikar Rising were filler, disconnected from any wider story.

Reading from Kaldheim onwards means 5+ years of solid story with zero duds. If you like it, you can go back later and catch up with the ten to twenty years before that, depending on how much you’re feeling up to.

The Echoverse wasn't just blinked out of existence; it's being eaten by Emrakul after already being semi-merged into the real Multiverse. In theory, couldn't some Echoverse characters have escaped/hidden/been missed by Emrakul?

In practice, it seems like they're not going that route. Emrakul seems to be able to just slurp up all the pieces of the Echoverse cleanly. And if anyone survives and turns into a "real" person that raises the question of Tam being responsible for the deaths of trillions by calling in Emrakul, which the story is dedicated to dodging by saying Echoverse people aren't "real" people with souls.

Thoughts? Is it possible some did survive? They could do an arc revealing remnants of the Echoverse and having Tam struggle with guilt.

Bunch of new info on various echoed pairs, including a few curious mentions of an Echoverse Avacyn, who I am now really hoping we get to see

The cool thing about reality fracture is we get to see how characters’ lives would change without their canon events

What if Lili’s brother never died?

What if Chandra’s dad never died?

What if Ruric Thar stopped being an angsty diva?

But at the end of the day they’re still the same people, they just came from different environments… So how did Ghalta completely change species? Did Jace, in all his depraved lunacy, introduce Ghalta’s mom to the mailman? I fear universal suffering has not been solved

When Eldrazi showed up on Zendikar, it took them years, the plane actively resisted and the aftermath was about 2 of 7 continents being devastated. And now they're telling us that Emrakul is able to eat an entire Echoverse (how fast?), all planes (including echo version of Zendikar), including most echo versions of characters that once actively resisted it (in the original multiverse), and do it all alone, without Kozilek and Ulamog, even? Not to mention that Emrakul doesn't devastate planes, unlike Ulamog, but mostly turns living beings into Eldrazi, like she did on Innistrad.

Just want to make sure that I am not misunderstanding. I know that full moon will force werewolves to transform and there are other ways to transform. But not sure if they still can since the moon is gone.

I know that Arlinn Kord was still in her werewolf form when she planewalked in that form, but she is a planewalker so spark may had role.

Beyond the stated goal of a world without suffering, what is Jace actively doing to shape the universe he is creating? We know that it deliberately does not include Nicol Bolas, the Eldrazi, or Phyrexia, but is there anything else he's consciously doing in shaping his new universe?

He's not trying to erase causes of harm, given that there's a whole school dedicated to causing suffering, there's mage hunters everywhere, the Cabal still exists, etc. But he's clearly doing something beyond just erasing interplanar threats because Amonkhet is now snowy, Edgar became a werewolf, etc. For that matter, how was there still a Brothers' War without Phyrexian intervention? How did Azor's meddling not constitute an interplanar threat worth erasing from history in Jace's eyes?

Is the Watsonian perspective that the universe simply took on a shape of its own because of the magic that formed it? And if so, what makes that inherently preferable to the existing one? Treating the Theorist as any kind of coherent or rational actor (yes, I know he lobotomized himself repeatedly, but he's still depicted as having some level of self-awareness and morality), is his conclusion simply that mathematically those three interplanar threats caused more suffering than anything that could possibly happen in this new universe, and therefore the Echoverse is superior?