It appears that Magic 2014 is finally around the corner, and we need a quick primer on the new setting of our core set: Shandalar. Core sets have finally changed from the default Dominaria, yet the new setting is a familiar one. Let’s find out why!

1. At Least Five Planeswalkers Are on Shandalar.

Chandra and Garruk are new cards, with Chandra being the central focus of the branding efforts. We know them, and they aren’t new, but what they’re up to currently is a bit unknown. Is Jace still on Ravnica? Garruk is cured—is he still hunting Liliana? What is Chandra doing now? Is Ajani holding a grudge against Nicol Bolas? Time will tell.

2. Shandalar Has Been Depicted Twice in MTG with Planechase.

The Onakke Catacomb is where Liliana found the Chain Veil and battled Garruk in the process. The comics are still online in case you didn’t know they’re up there and that they’re still free!

3. Magic 2014 – Duels of the Planeswalkers Has a Full Campaign Pit Stop on Shandalar.

I won’t go into breaking spoilers and such, but this screenshot I took is quite findable online, so there you go.

4. Shandalar Is the Setting and Plane of the 1997 Microprose Magic game.

Arguably one of the largest time-sinks compared to Magic Online, it still holds up, but the rules differences will throw you off.

Whipping out the Juggernaut-with-Invisibility combo was just brutal, as were first-turn Hypnotic Specters. Just gross. The game is fun, too, and cheap! You’ll need some updates to get it working on modern-day machines, but I’ve heard some rumors of porting it to iPad.

How does this relate to M14? Nothing much, sadly. The game was a small map with all the colors, basically depicting a Fourth Edition Magic world.

5. Challenges Feel Very Microprose-Beat-the-Wizard-esque.

Thanks to MTGEEZER for the wizards-of-Shandalar image.

With Duels of the Planeswalkers mini challenges, such as beating each individual wizard in a random order of your choice, it isn’t directly analogous, but it’s pretty close. Duels 2014 isn’t entirely groundbreaking, it’s just solidly made as an introductory piece of entertainment into cardboard Magic or like crack to Magic Online. I won’t get into the other MTG games because, well, they didn’t fare as well, such as Battlegrounds.

6. The New World Order of Magic Design Is to Reinvoke Nostalgia and Do So Often.

Advertising to new consumers is silly-difficult. (Have you seen your local church?) It’s far easier to recruit former users to jump back in and give it a try again. I’ll have a whole article on this soon. We went from the Scars of Mirrodin block to the Return to Ravnica block, and now Slivers are back. C’mon now.

If you want to dive into why Slivers are on Shandalar, this Reddit post and this blog post will give you plenty to ponder.

7. The Slivers’ Return Was Trailblazed More by Tribal Than by the Actual Slivers.

As we know, Slivers were reintroduced to fill a need that “felt” Slivery. Old-school Slivers, I’m sure, are often added into design folders but quickly dismissed. By showing mechanics that span colors, tribes, races, and more, Slivers are back in. Nostalgia-check, mechanically tested, mother-approved, and Slivers make it back into Magic at the very core.

8. We Don’t Have a Big Bad in M14—or Do We?

It was nice to have a central bad guy. Whether it was Phyrexia, demons and the night of Innistrad, or Nicol Bolas, we as humans like to line up the good guys versus the bad guys. For the last year, we haven’t had a man behind the curtain orchestrating evil acts. Ravnica had a maze—not exactly evil—and M14 doesn’t have bad guys per se—other than Slivers. Are Slivers evil? Are bugs evil? We hope that come Theros, there will be a conflict again—as history tells us, wars define history and culture.

9. Scouring M14 for Roman and Greek References, and Then Moving Backward.

Just as Krenko foretold the Ravnica set’s coming—written by Jenna Helland being, well, awesome—there are deliberate cards that fit into Theros, the next expansion set in the fall. Above are two possibly reprints I’ve seen thrown around and the logical cheap buy for any future Greek or Roman Commander deck of course. I’m sure my boy Ryan Bushard has a ton of them already, speculating and such.

Apparently, Slivers could be in Theros. Would be crazy indeed.

10. Shandalar Is Where Lim-Dûl, Leshrac, and Tevesh Szat spent some time in the Ice Age Comics.

If you want to read them, they were briefly online and archived on this page prior to Coldsnap’s release. Not sure of the legality of it, but if you feel odd about just reading them, they’re around $1 to $3 each on eBay or at most comic shops. Also, there are counters inside!

11. The Sliver Cave Is Plato’s Cave.

Image via a great little blog

In case you missed it, Creative Team writer Jennifer Clarke Wilkes wrote on the Slivers in the cave. If you don’t know the allegory of the cave by Plato, you need to watch this video right away; it explains Plato’s Cave pretty well. It’s cheesy but short enough to be thorough.

The Creative Team is highly educated, and references will abound in the next block. Seeing a few hints early is just gravy to skip the core set to a story that is coming. I love this concept and feel the weeks between can allow a player to reenter the game and prep him- or herself for Theros. It’s actually quite brilliant. This example is just pretty elevated compared to showing Phyrexians for a Scars block, for example. I hope they do things like this more often. I don’t need a Baudrillard reference constantly shown, but I can see what they did there.

Magic 2014 feels very much like a work in process to perfect the core set as summarization of the next year—offering tidbits of things to come and nostalgia to bring players back into the fold. I feel that WotC is coming closer to an ideal core set, and this is very much a step forward. Let’s just hope the under-the-hood changes affect gameplay, flavor, and storytelling smoothly.