The Magic: The Gathering Plane You Didn't Know Was Like Star Wars' Coruscant
As a foundational collectible card game, Magic has always been a dominant entity in the hobbyist community, but with a new Magic: The Gathering animated series in the works at Netflix, the Magic multiverse is finding all-new audiences. For new fans of the game, merely skimming a deck of Magic cards might give off a pretty straightforward, Tolkien-esque fantasy vibe. While that kind of read on Magic isn't necessarily wrong — as the game owes a thematic debt to franchises such as The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons — there is also a much deeper level to the universe. The core conflict of Magic: the Gathering occurs across different planes of existence and is fought between the Planeswalkers. Some of these planes use established genre tropes like the horror-themed Innistrad, where vampires hunt humans for sport, while other use abstract concepts, such as The Meditation Realm.
However, these planes are not restrained by old-world fantasy settings. One of Magic's most famous planes sounds more like something out of a sci-fi universe than anything found in Middle-earth. Here is the Magic: The Gathering plane consisting of a city that spans an entire world — just like Star Wars' Coruscant.
The Magic The Gathering plane Ravnica is laid out like a steampunk Coruscant
In 2005, Magic The Gathering introduced a new set of cards that introduced Ravnica, an urban plane covered in one expansive cityscape. Ravnica's streets run into one another pretty much forever and cover the entire world. This description should sound familiar to Star Wars fans, as it could easily be uses to describe Coruscant. Just like Ravinica, Coruscant, the seat of the Galactic Empire, is a planet that's 100 % developed and comprised of a single city. Unlike Coruscant, you won't find a Jedi Temple on Ravnica.
Instead, one of the critical elements of both Ravnica's lore and its impact on the actual gameplay of Magic: The Gathering are the mana color combination guilds that run the city. Each of the city's ten guilds is considered the master of two of the five different mana colors, which influences the cards they might contribute to the game and the services they provide for Ravnica. For instance, the Izzet guild utilizes blue and red elemental magic and technology, which helps it provide electricity to power the cities lights. Meanwhile, the Azorius Senate are masters of white and blue magic and control the cities laws and justice system (via Magic).
Of course, Ravnica is just one of the realms that Magic: The Gathering fans have been exploring for decades. Fans, both new and old, will have a fresh opportunity to delve into the multiverse when Netflix's animated series premieres. We'll get to see if the duo's adaptation of Magic: The Gathering features Easter Eggs like the brothers' MCU fare.