Kaldheim, Episode 1 Story Review

 Kaldheim, Episode 1: Travelers Review

Magic the Gathering Story Review by a Casual Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reader

On January 7, 2021 WoTC released the first free web-based story article for its upcoming Magic set, Kaldheim. Click this link to read the story for yourself before reading on here as spoilers wait ahead! 

Summary

    The TLDR of the first chapter of the Kaldheim story is that Kaya, the Ghost Assassin is now on the plane of Kaldheim completing contract killings for an unknown entity. The entity apparently pays her in advance in a variety of currencies from across the Multiverse to kill difficult or dangerous foes. Kaya has been hunting a monster with a clan of explorers called the Omenseekers who are led by a blind female mage called Inga who is assisted by a seemingly old, raven-loving man, named Asi. Kaya and the group learn that a local fishing village has had several villagers kidnapped and killed by this monster that they have been tracking. 

    They continue to track the monster into a cave in the forest. Upon entering the cave, Kaya notices that the walls of the cave are covered in a metal-like "fungus" and instructs her crew not to touch it. Then, they see the monster who is none other that Vorinclex, the green-aligned Phyrexian Praetor from the plane of New Phyrexia (although Kaya does not know this or what Phyrexians are). Immediately, Vorinclex kills two of Kaya's friends as the fight breaks out. Kaya activates her ghost-killing daggers and slices off one of Vorinclex's arms which he quickly grows back. Kaya dodges Vorinclex's attacks, and at one point cut off one of his legs, but as she does so, she notices that Vorinclex's attacks were made with purpose and strategy to trap her between himself and a wall. Inga uses her magic to hold Vorinclex in place for a second giving Kaya the opportunity to cut his throat. Before she can, Asi joins the fight but as Alrund, the God of the Cosmos on Kaldheim. Alrund creates a magical barrier between Kaya and the surviving crew and Vorinclex. Vorinclex, seeing that he may be overpowered, runs away much to Kaya's dismay. Alrund tells Kaya that if she must continue to track and kill Vorinclex, she will have to sail between the layers of the cosmos of Kaldheim on a fabled ship called the Cosima which she plans to do to fulfill the job that she was contracted for.  

Criticisms 

    I want to preface this section with two points: I love that WoTC has returned to publishing weekly web articles for the story of each set, and I enjoyed reading this story and I will articulate why in the next section. Here I want to discuss what I did not like about this article. 

1. At the beginning of the article, the author seemingly switches from writing in 3rd person omniscient to 3rd person limited from Kaya's point of view. I believe that this was done to hype up Kaya's appearance in the article which is successful, but it felt abrupt and off-putting to go from the world-building narrator's perspective to Kaya's almost joking and flippant perspective. 
2. Kaya made it a point multiple times to herself and her group not to touch the metal-like fungus (presumably Phyrexian oil) or Vorinclex without knowing why. She just knew not to touch it. This felt like a cop-out. Kaya is intelligent and intuitive; have her notice something in the fungus that disturbs her and describe the feeling that she has about it better than "just a hunch" not to touch it. 

What I Liked

1. The author's detailed description of Vorinclex was so good that the reader could get a mental picture of what Vorinclex looked like without having to see his card beforehand. This made him a genuinely scary enemy right from his introduction in the first article which sets up future articles.
2. The way that Kaya was written as a joking yet competent character balanced out the seriousness of Kaldheim. Yet she did have a few 80's action movie one-liners that felt a bit corny. 

Predictions

Before more preview cards and the next chapter of the story come out, here are my predictions for where the story of Kaldheim is headed:

1. Vorinclex will be the only Praetor that we see on this plane. I believe that Vorinclex was sent to Kaldheim as a scout of sorts to corrupt as much of the plane as he could without showing the plane the full power of Phyrexia (at least not yet). I think that Vorinclex is also absorbing the genes and abilities of the beings on Kaldheim after he kills them. There is a description of Vorinclex in the article absorbing the corpses of the slain Omenseekers into his chest; he did this to steal their genes.
2. Alrund let Vorinclex get away on purpose. Alrund's magical barrier deterred Vorinclex and forced him to flee, but Kaya made a point of how she could have killed him. I believe that Alrund wanted Vorinclex to get away, possibly to force Kaya to go to the World Tree, for what reason I am not yet sure.