Speculation Time: What the Hell is happening in Kaldheim?

Booyah and Welcome, all lovers of deep-delves into the Vorthos of Magic the Gathering. This is BDC and it’s been far too long since we published a speculation of any sort and I have to beg your forgiveness.  The last week has been a daunting endeavor indeed.  Been far too busy ‘raisin’ the axe’ and building Kaldheim decks on Arena.  First of all, a GREAT set.  Loads of fun are going to be had online and on dinner tables all over the world in the coming weeks.  But I have been remiss in my duties as a researcher and studier of all things MTG.  And I’ve been especially remiss in my duties to bring to you all of the up-to-date info and speculate about where in the world all of this nonsense in Kaldheim is going.

First of all, the PLAYERS.

Tibalt is the instigator of the story in Kaldheim.  He is the ‘distraction’.  He is shining brighter than he ever has in his planeswalking career and has the best card he has had to date.  But that’s not the story here.  The story is, as always, the story.  For those who do not know, Tibalt is an agent of chaos.  And, in Kaldheim, much like the name of the ill-fated card from last year, he is an AGENT OF TRECHERY.

But Tyvar may just teach Kaya something about what being a planeswalker ought to be about.

Kaya is well known in MTG stories.  She’s been an assassin and a loner most of her existence.  But, much like her participation in the War of the Spark, she had invested interest and most of those invested interests were financial.  This time, she’s being paid by an extraplaner patron (more than likely another planeswalker) to track down what is happening in Kaldheim and who’s to blame.  And, although Tibalt is the linchpin, he’s not the mastermind.

More about that in a moment.

But this is Kaya’s moment.  This is her story. She has been brought to this moment in time and planes to find out who she is.  Much like the heroes’ story of Joseph Campbell fame, she is being pushed out of her comfort zone time and time again and being forced to make hard choices.  She faced it in War of the Spark.  She made tough, character building decisions while chasing down Liliana Vess.  And, now, she takes another job only to find it’s not as simple as it looks.

In fact, this job may be Kaya’s last:

If I need to say SPOILERS, now’s the time.

She has her showdown with the Phyrexian nightmare, Vorinclex (once again. More later), finds herself face to face with the devil, Tibalt, and teams up with the Elvish powerhouse in the Realm of blood thirsty demons.  All of this leading to her discovery that all hope is lost.  Everything Tibalt has proposed to do, has come to place after a culmination of some well planned, hard work.  Let’s look at the list of sins.

1. First, he plotted to capture and chain up one of Kaldheim’s gods!  Valki, god of lies, fell victim to Tibalt’s literally forked tongue and is now kept on literal ice in Karfell in the palace of Narfi, the betrayer and guarded by a vast army of undead.
2. He, then, went about impersonating Valki influencing chaos and destruction.
3. He attempted to steal the newly forged, Sword of the Realms, impersonating another god of Kaldheim, Halvar, god of Battle.
4. When that didn’t go his way, he killed the Dwarf forgemaster, Koll, tossed him into his own forge and took the sword anyway.
5. Tibalt instigated Harald, the king of the united elves, to return to war with the gods of Kaldheim. (It was the Scoti (the present gods) that routed the elves godly ancestors, the Einir, to take control)
6. He’s rallied the most powerful Trolls and set them in action.
7. The planeswalking devil took the Sword of the realms and tore through what seperates the realms in Kaldheim.  This causes what they call a DOOMSCAR.  And, if you can’t tell, it ain’t good.  Basically, it means that the realm of Bretagard and Immersturm are about to collide.
8. AND, on top of that, since Tibalt couldn’t successfully lie to the Valkerie of Starnheim, he tore open a hole big enough for the ancient Cosmos Serpent, KOMA, to get through and keep them busy.

Whew!  Let me take a breath.  Tibalt’s been busy.

But all of the above, is simply a distraction.  That’s right.  All of that action is NOT what’s really going on.  Because I left out Tibalt’s most heinous crime to date.  The horned planeswalker is now in league with the most insidious, dangerous creatures in the known multiverse: The Phyrexians.

And when I say ‘in league’, what I mean to say is he is being coerced.  Apparently, the predator praetor, Vorinclex, got the drop on him and infected him with a poison; a seed.  And the price for being freed of it is causing chaos in Kaldheim.  TIbalt is being made to be a distraction.  A distraction for WHAT?

The write up for Vorinclex on Wotc’s website mentions the White Monarch of the Phyrexians: Elesh Norn.  It says:

“She Knew Vorinclex would be the easiest to influence as his desires were the basest of the praetors.”

Ok.  So, this answers my first question right out of the chute.  I never thought of a creature of pure instinct like Vorinclex as a criminal mastermind.  And, it looks like he still isn’t.  He is being instigated from beyond by Elesh Norn, his superior.  How she got him to Kaldheim and for what reasons remain a mystery.  But what we do know is that Elesh Norn is pulling the strings.

But, WHY?

Known as the ‘Praetor of Unity’, Elesh Norn has worked to ‘unify’ all Phyrexians under her control.  She has attempted to place a figure head at the center of all this, beginning with Karn unsuccessfully.  She, then, saw it as more of a figurehead; a puppet that she could control.  Not sure if she still wishes to achieve this now, though.  But she does seek to indoctrinate all beings everywhere to the beliefs of the ‘Father of Machines’ which references their creator, Yawgmoth.

It’s all about assimilation.  Every creature.  Every world.  Every plane.  It all must be assimilated into the WHOLE.  It must all be COMPLETED.  PERFECTED.  And Kaldheim is no different.  It is imperfect.  It is ‘Not-whole’.  And the only reason Elesh Norn would send Vorinclex to Kaldheim was to be her scout.  Somehow, the portals are open; open enough to get one very dangerous Phyrexian to Kaldheim.  But where there’s one Phyrexian, there’s an army.  And that army is more like an unending swarm.

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So, are the portals operational?  Was it a small portal drop ship? Or is it something far more sinister?

In the final battle to save Dominaria, Urza sacrificed himself activating the LEGACY creating a ‘sentient light’ that apparently vaporized the original ‘Father of Machines’, Yawgmoth.  Kind of reminds us of Urza’s story.  The savior of Dominaria had died in the war against the Phyrexians before.  “Dying in the blast” only to be ‘reborn’ a planeswalker.    Yawgmoth coveted the power of the spark and studied how to achieve it.  Maybe (and I just say MAYBE) it is possible that the ‘Father of Machines’, in his final hour, achieved his spark.  Possibly, Urza, by destroying Yawgmoth, may have caused the coming of the most powerful planeswalker ever.

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What do you think?  Anything I’m missing?  Let me know in the comments.  Or come on over to our Facebook page and give us a like and tag a friend to win some Zendikar Rising Foil Promo packs and get in on some Arena codes for Kaldheim.