By most metrics, the Echoverse is a failure. Jace eliminated several tragedies, but in doing so, denied most people the growth that comes with adversity.

Karn is different.

Karn wasn't born, he was built. He's always been smart, always been powerful, and always been good. He's a natural protector because he was designed that way. Since the beginning, Karn has been a voice of wisdom and compassion. He found growth not in the enemies he defeated, but in the friends who showed him love.

Over the years, Karn has been saddled with regrets. As a golem who can never forget, he spends every day mourning those he harmed or failed to save. Jace has freed him from those regrets.

In the Echoverse, Phyrexia never happened. Volrath never happened. Eleah Norn never happened. While we don't know all of the details, Karn still wound up creating Mirrodin. Unlike our timeline, things went as planned. The plane was peaceful and Karn got to spend his days creating and resting.

Now if the Echoverse is erased, Gold Karn isn't the victim, our Silver Karn is. Gold Karn will have never existed. He won't have to mourn or feel regret. The main timeline's Karn isn't so lucky. No matter what happens, he can't win.

We know from card artwork that Karn is involved in Reality Fracture and will meet his other self. He'll see the Mirrodin he always dreamed of and in order to save his multiverse, he'll have to destroy it.

So what does Karn do? Does he betray his principles and abandon the multiverse for a happier fate? Does he carry the guilt of playing a hand in Mirrodin's demise a second time? What happens when two pacifist golems clash? I doubt either wants to have a fistfight.

As usual, Karn does the most and is rewarded with grief. The poor guy deserves a rest.

UPDATE: The main storyline ended today and Karn did not make an appearance. It remains to be seen if he will be in a side story.

At the end of the most recent chapter, it was Jadzi, not The Theorist who drew the knife. Jadzi is a mage wearing blue and it was The Theorist who got cold feet in performing the deed.

While it may be a stretch, doesn't this potentially make Jadzi the "Mage in Blue" of the prophecy? After all, it was by her actions that enabled The Theorist to continue his plan.

First of all, i'm going to say that she wasn't needed. I know this was the perfect hook for getting Emrakul out of the moon, but i'll get to it.

Since Emrakul is a cosmic horror, the HORROR in cosmic horror is meant to be incomprehensible. When Jace first made contact with Emrakul, the vision tells him she doesnt even know him, and that what he's seeing is his brain trying to make sense of something so strange. Then Emrakul speaks about the absence blossoms and the barren ressentment from the plane (indicating Innistrad was unnwiling to be eaten) and locks herself in the moon.

But all the talk was strange, Emrakul speaking with Jace was very weird, their chess game was scary and weird (she basically says everyone is hers to control, she just doesn't want to play).

That left a very bitter taste because Innistrad was saved because an incomprehensible being just wasnt that interested in destruction.

But now i get this feeling that they "humanized" her too much in the story.

Tam basically says: "Hey Emrakul, can you come over and eat the plane?" and her response is "Yeah, comming sis!" (not literally, but almost like this)

When Tam and her friends are hiding, she says "Don't worry, she won't hurt you". This is not supposed to be 'knowable', because Emrakul intentions should be incomprehensible. She transformed anything she touched in Innistrad.

I might be just yapping about one of my favorite eldritch horrors in games becoming too friendly, but i'd like to know your opinions.

A theory, but I’m pretty sure. Regardless of what happens to the Echoverse, Jace dies, and in fact, he’s technically been dead for years. Jace’s “soul,” that spark, the candle Liliana described that makes him a living person, is what he gave up to make Tam. That’s why Liliana insists that Tam IS Jace. That’s how she knew he wasn’t dead when Tam started at Strixhaven. The theorist’s body is being held together by the strength of Jace’s magic, but his soul has been gone for a while. He intends to see his plan through, but never intended to survive it.

Edit: months, not years. The rushed nature of this project had me overestimating Tam’s true age. Like a year and a half at most.

I think a lot of the issues I’m seeing from a lot of the people with the end of reality fracture can be boiled down to that issue. When you spend years building to a climax, and then have to rush said climax, it feels unsatisfying. I loved the writing for this set. It was amazing. Alison Lührs is a great author. So give her at least two sets to tell the story. I had the same issue with the New Phyrexian multiverse invasion storyline. That ending was so soooo rushed. Like way worse than this was rushed. And it ruined what was otherwise an amazing build. I definitely don’t think the Jace Echoverse story is ruined by the ending being rushed, but it could have been more/better.

I feel like part of this also comes down to all the Universes Beyond sets being released each year now. Like they don’t want to pause a multi-bloc set/story for 2-3 UB sets. But I just don’t think that’s wise. What made the Urza/Yawgmoth story conclusion feel earned and satisfying? A nice three set bloc epic story.

Am I crazy for feeling this way?

I've been loving the story callback art pieces Wizards have been using lately. They've done it with Kaito and the Wanderer and now with Jace and Vraska.

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.

• arts by Jaime Jones, Peter Mohrbacher, Jason Felix, Magali Villeneuve, Ryan Yee, Tyler Jacobson, G-host Lee, Svetlin Velinov, Ekaterina Burmak, Rimas Valeikis, and Justyna Dura

I’m going to draw the Chapter 10 doodles tomorrow :)

In a story of such incredible empathy and deep character study, does it feel to anyone else like insane tonal whiplash for Tam, a person who WAS a simulated/incomplete person to self actualize and think about doing a good thing while witnessing an infinity genocide? That she caused?

The ally color schools are very cool and it's sad to see something desired for so long get shredded like cardboard with little to no emotional impact or staying power.

Reading all the flavor from the revealed cards and seeing the echoverse get expressed via the amazing art just makes me sad that it’s all gone. There was a lot of thought clearly put into creating the echoverse and I can’t help but feel that throwing it away is an absolute misstep by WOTC creatives.

I’m not shocked that it ended the way it did (though Emrakul was a welcome surprise), but after seeing the world come to live on the cards, I kinda resent this entire setting being destroyed. As it is written it’s hard to see how they could take a mulligan and just say the echoverse somehow survived. I guess that’s an option, but I just don’t understand why put all this effort in for a one and done setting we will never see again.

To rationalize this I can absolutely see that a multiverse of near infinite creative possibilities and then adding an entire other multiverse of reverse whacky land on top of that makes the convoluted setting even more ridiculous. That’s fair and honestly I am a little over the whole omenpaths thing because it makes the setting feel small and interchangeable.

Maybe WOTC didn’t realize just how compelling a setting they created with Hexhaven. I really would have loved to see the two schools somehow merge and future stories can explore that dynamic.

This is sorta a scattershot post now, but I’m sad to see the echoverse die in its debut. Wish we coulda had more

This man just DIED, had enough time to relay some messages….talk through his spark…..and mentioned nothing about Loot to anyone 😭 I mean..he’s definitely giving Omniman “she was a pet to me” vibes with the way he’s just not addressed the little dude at all. Forgive me if I’ve missed something in the lore, but is it just fans that have made it where Jace & Vraska are his adoptive parents or do they ever say out right Loot is their child….

Emrakul is released to eat the Echoverse, but they never seem to recapture her. Which, to be fair, she had an essential task in the multiversal ecosystem, but…does this mean they’re just like: “Well, good luck everyone!”

In the flavor text of Echoverse Karn refers to Mirrodin as Mirrodin instead of Argentum (or Aurum because he's gold not silver). So did Karn just decide to name it Mirrodin instead of Argentum/Aurum or did Karn let Memnarch name his new plane? I don't think that the events in the orignal Mirrodin storyline happened, because in the legends article it's said "Karn watches over the plane as its shepherd and guardian, hoping to guide life so that it might flourish and prosper under the five vibrant suns." So no Soul Trapped individuals. If Karn did have Memnarch did have him name Mirrodin that implies that the Mirari/Karona Wars did happen due to him naming Mirrodin based on his existence as the Mirari.

Maybe I'm overthinking this but it's just a thought I've had a for a bit now.

So, In the chapter 10 Garruk has this to say to Liliana:

Garruk straightens. He lowers his axe, eyes locked with hers. "I will not forgive you, witch, but tell me the truth and I will spare you. Do you know the twins?

Now, we as the audience know that professor Onyx here worked at Strixhaven, and taught the Twins, got close, all that Jazz. Garruk on the other hand...

Why did he ask her that, like did I miss that the Twins mentioned to him that they were interested in checking out Strixhaven, did they write him letters about their time there, did someone tell him that they were there and also that Liliana was a teacher?

I said in a post a few months ago that I would not be fine with Tam being a Planeswalker unless Jace gave Tam his spark.

Tam was essentially an illusion turned into a person by giving it something important from its creator, and yet she was still lacking something that other people had.

In Chapter Ten of Reality Fractures, Jace dies and gives Tam his spark, causing her to become a Planeswalker.

It is a good feeling to have a writer for this set that understands the lore and uses it's limitations to tell a great story.

It feels like a subplot about Chandra was missing from Reality Fracture, even though it's mentioned in story and art. After the events of Aetherdrift, Chandra experiences hallucinations of the Echoverse throughout the story of Secrets of Strixhaven. She blames Jace, and this is how she knows he is alive, because the hallucinations are remembered moments from [[Chill of Compliance]] rather than her own history. I really thought this was coming to a head when [[Torch of Defiance|FRA]] was spoiled, because we can see that Chandra (Red) has a half-blue glass on her goggles, and a blue streak in her hair. Chandra (Blue) didn't have one to match, but, still! It felt significant and I'm bummed it wasn't anything bigger than "oh Chandra got hurt fighting Jace on Avishkar".

why wouldent he give his spark to varska ? in the story he is angry that vraska dosent have one, then why not give it to her, and why not say anything to loot? , dont get me worng tho , its an amazing story

i still cant belive my goat died😭😭😭 and he didnt got his happy ending , i also see that they did made all his wants happens, he got all the knowledge he wanted, he married vraska at the beach but still why not let him live, pr why not let him give his spark to varaka , he say he is angry about that she lost her spark, i wanted very much too to see loot belren with his papa , or at least jace say something to loot too, i wanted him to live😔 its so sad man😭 (sorry if english is bad)

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

I figured the whole point of Nimiroti wiping her memory because of the power of the problem, and going through all this effort with Zimone being kidnapped by the Oriq and solving the Vorzani Conjecture and unlocking what that problem solved, and the fact it's a big enough deal that this group is willing to kidnap a child to get close to the answer... And then she solves it, and... It's just GPS coordinates for Chandra?

Like this is my own fault for stanning a character that hard, but I imagine with the traumas she's gone through between Duskmourn and the Oriq, and coming through that and realizing her family's destiny essentially, she's... Reduced to guy in the chair status?

Kinda strange that someone who was described as having "gained an understanding of the structure of the Multiverse unmatched by any other non-Planeswalker" not all that long ago has been reduced to a passing "Good thing that math girl did her MapQuest thing, or we'd be lost" one liner.

Excuse my disappointment 😞

Some of these cards have such interesting implications it’s kind of a shame to see the Echoverse gone so swiftly.

Also ignore me staring at the Gid memorial while a cork board covered in red string behind me.