New Set ‘Alara Reborn’ to Feature a Cataclysm

Posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 by paz
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In a stunning announcement today, Wizards of the Coast announced that the next Magic: The Gathering expansion set, called “Alara Reborn,” will conclude the story of Alara with an earth-shattering apocalypse.

Nearly every Magic block, from Invasion onward, has ended with armageddon.

“To be honest, I was looking forward to developing the plane of Alara further, perhaps integrating a continuous adventure into a progressive development of lore,” said Aaron Forsythe, lead designer of the new set. “Unfortunately, we have Miles Peterson in our office,” he continued, turning his head and glaring in the direction of an unkempt dork, giggling in his cubicle.

Miles Peterson was the lead story consultant hired immediately after Wizards of the Coast was acquired by Hasbro in September of 1999. One year later, the Invasion block began.

“Aaron always wants boring CRAP like that!” Peterson told us, reminiscient of Beavis from MTV’s “Beavis & Butthead.” “No!!! Kill ’em!! BOOM! DIE DIE DIE!!! hehe hehe hehe.”

“Kill ’em all! RAWR!! Hahahaha,” he added.

Peterson was hired directly by Hasbro, a Japanese company, and given ultimate authority over the overall direction of story development. For the Japanese have a proverb, as manifested in such Japanese blockbusters as “Akira,” “Princess Mononoke,” and “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”:

“A story that ends not with a world-rending cataclysm
is no story at all.”

“Like, for the next five sets we could have emphasized the colors of each shard, like Torment did with Black,” Forsythe explained. “And THEN armageddon or whatever. But with Peterson in the office, we barely get started on a new plane before he insists on a plane-annihilating ragnarok.”

Across the way, Peterson screamed “DIE SUPERMAN!! ARRRGH!!” and smashed two action figures together repeatedly in a wild-eyed fury.