MTG concept art hints at the future with ancient aliens

MTG The Lost Caverns of Ixalan may hold the key to Magic’s next story arc.

Magic: The Gathering has been growing and growing lately, and fans have a clearer idea than ever about which sets and planes will be coming up next. Thanks to Wizards’ unprecedented announcement at GenCon 2023, we know what the major set releases are going to look like for the next three years of MTG.

While 2024’s releases are all firmly locked in and detailed – from Murders at Karlov Manor to Duskmourn: House of Horror – the announcements for further in the future are thinly sketched at best.

Now, MTG fans may be able to fill in some of those blanks, as a piece of unearthed concept art for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan has provided a tantalizing hint at where MTG’s overarching story may be heading next.

MTG, the Fomori, and Outer Space

Jehan Choo

Recent concept art designs for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan have been unearthed, specifically focusing on Fomori spacesuits as designed by Jehan Choo.

The Fomori are an incredibly obscure species in MTG, featuring only in glimpses through a Time Spiral Timeshifted card and Planechase.

The concept of Timeshifted cards is that they are designs from a speculative future for MTG. Many Timeshift designs have since come to pass in the game proper, and the Fomori may be next on the list.

The Fomori and MTG’s future

While previous depictions of the Fomori may have cast them as more musclebound warriors, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan’s story reveals them as being surprisingly advanced. The Fomori have crossed between planes in the past, serving as a kind of precursor race on Ixalan, going as far as to convert the plane’s inner sun into a Dyson Sphere.

Now that Planeswalker sparks are significantly rarer in MTG, and the Omenpaths have made planar travel more widely available, perhaps we might see more of the Fomori and the echoes of their interplanar journeys.

Thanks to the extensive glimpse at MTG’s future that Wizards provided at GenCon we know that an upcoming set in 2025 will be a full-blown space opera! If there was ever a set for the Fomori to reappear in a major way, that could be the one.