10 Great Magic Short Stories
10 Underappreciated Gems of Magic Fiction
Magic Story has been many different things since 1993, but it's been a free, online article form for just over ten years now (barring a very brief hiatus in 2020). In that time, most sets have had a main story which tie into a larger, ongoing narrative.
That ongoing narrative has a lot of moving parts to it and needs to be something that most players can pretty easily latch onto and keep up with if they want to, so it tends to be pretty simple. It can't be everything for everyone, though it does try.
That being said, Magic's side stories are something truly special. They're not beholden to an ongoing narrative, nor do they require the presence of the most marketable characters. In short: they get to be weirder and more specific.
Two incredibly famous characters in Magic history originated in these self-contained one-offs: The Gitrog Monster and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. These characters found a great deal of success due to their cards, but the impact of their lore should not be understated.
The Gitrog Monster debuted in Sacrifice and Alesh in The Truth of Names, but these two side stories are already relatively famous. I'm also not talking in-depth about the Hugo-nominated short story, Tangles.
I want to take a moment to shine a light on ten stories from the last ten years, quick reads that leave a lasting impact.
The First World is the Hardest
This is a first-person narrative from the point of view of Ob Nixilis as he wages a campaign on his war-torn plane, leading up the moment where his spark ignites. We get such a clear, crisp visualization of his character here.
"[The Keocian] had a word that meant 'victory at any cost'. Do you know what it was? [...] Victory. The distinction is for lesser souls than ours."
The plot has its own little twist at the end, but the treat of it is Nixilis' characterization throughout. It all oozes with his rich personality, that of a hard man who is cruel but not foolishly so. Everything he does is with reason and purpose. I hope to see more of this in his next appearance.
Read if you enjoy dark fantasy, military characters, and villainous protagonists.
I'm also calling out this story for a secret bonus reason: it's not currently available on Wizards website due to some site migration issue. It's available on MTGLore, and I love to hype up that website where I can. However, I'm sad that such a fantastic story isn't where newcomers to the game can find it, especially with Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin having appeared again as recently as Aftermath.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath was the card associated with this story, but Ob Nixilis, the Fallen was the card which truly launched the character's popularity enough to merit one to begin with, and it remains his most popular iteration.
The Call
In the world of Tarkir, dragons rule and humans serve. Amongst the Atarka clan, that means humans must hunt endlessly to satiate the appetite their dragonlord. In this simple survival story, we see Surrak the Huntcaller trying to amass a sledge of meat.
There are brief complications, but the ending (which I won't spoil here) has such a delightful punch to it, befitting of a text about Surrak.
Read if you enjoy survival stories, dragons, and primal hunter protagonists.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller got a reprint in Foundations and was incredibly unique at the time for being a mono-green commander who granted haste. You may switch to the more recent Surrak and Goreclaw, but the mono-green beats deck you can build with the magnificent puncher will look similar.
Games
This is the closest I'll come to breaking my "entirely self-contained" rule with these side stories, but Gisa and Geralf are too good to not talk about.
In this story, Gisa starts out having been captured by cathars but gets freed by Geralf's zombies. She brags about her escape, but Geralf is agog when she claims full credit and doesn't realize he had sent help. There are allusions to the broader Innistrad storylines of the past and present, but the meat (rotted as it is) of the story is all about the twins getting increasingly irate with one another.
Read here if you enjoy zombies, epistolary narratives, and squabbling main characters. Build Gisa and Geralf if you're so inclined afterwards!
Under the Cover of Fog
During the year leading up to War of the Spark, we got a very eclectic set of stories with a street-level view of Ravnica, one for each guild. I'd honestly recommend scanning through the summaries and picking one that interests you, but for my money, Under the Cover of Fog has stuck with me the hardest. It's the story of Merrett, an agent of the Dimir who has to do grunt labor to stay in a position where he can occasionally pass on surveillance information. He's dirt-poor and desperate for a come-up. Things go sideways quickly from there.
Read here if you enjoy stories of frustrated strugglers, community voices, and subterfuge.
Poor Merrett (and his mysterious child) currently lack a card, but their guildmaster has plenty to choose from. I'll choose the Lazav of the set associated with this story.
Direction. Purpose. Honor. Glory.
This short story written surrounding one of the face commanders, this Kaldheim story gives us an amazing little taste of its worldbuilding. Ranar is a man who spent his life protecting those who could not protect themselves. He awakens in the afterlife and finds himself unraveling the curious nature of his placement in Istfell, the least honorable of the afterlife realms. Every sentence oozes with the mythological power of Kaldheim's setting, which got to peek through amidst the main story but didn't get as much focus as the incoming Phyrexian invasion. Of all the stories on the list, this one remains my personal favorite.
Read here if you enjoy mythological stories, epic journeys, cyclical natures, and resolute protagonists.
Ranar the Ever-Watchful was the face of the foretell deck in the original Kaldheim set, though he includes the ability to pivot towards blink and spirits with a more generally open ability.
A Cry of Magic
The Strixhaven side stories each focused on one representative student of the five colleges. Quintorius Kand became a planeswalker and has been running about the multiverse ever since, getting to join the main line, while Zimone, All-Questioning has shown up again thanks to Omenpaths.
I especially resonated with Rootha, Mercurial Artist. She's a fifth-generation Prismari student struggling with the legacy of her family and how art is both an expression of emotion and also something which can be logically analyzed and made "better" through rigorous practice.
The story is genuinely a great representation for those who obsess over art and its meaning. Read here if you enjoy college stories, young adult struggles, or stories about what it means to be an artist.
If you're so inspired, Rootha is a slightly different take on the spellslinger archetype, being able to copy a given spell while on the battlefield.
His Eyes, All of Them
Once again, Innistrad brings us a creepy green-black horror that lurks and collects from the populace. Old Stickfingers is behind more than just you in this eerie tale with a fun buddy cop dynamic between Vadrik, Astral Archmage and Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer. They partner up to determine what's going on with mysterious deaths in Lambholdt. The creepy creature looms, but something worse is behind it all.
This was one of the side stories attached to Midnight Hunt, where Innistrad's atmosphere trended towards slightly more modern horror, blissfully unaware of Duskmourn about to encroach on it. This story creeps up towards the line.
A great read for anyone who enjoys a buddy cop mystery, creepy vibes, and folk horror.
Of the three characters, I'd lean towards Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer for the unique burn build it makes possible.
The Family Man
Streets of New Capenna had its share of lore problems. That being said, they managed to pull off some really compelling characters despite this slightly-askew premise. My favorite of the bunch? Anhelo, the Painter.
In The Family Man, Anhelo is approached (on the day of his daughter's wedding) with a job. He is out for information, and then has an assassination to get done. All a vampire wants to do is kill a few people as beautifully as possible and make it back to see his little girl on her happiest day. Is that so much to ask?
Fun tidbit: there have been two vampire weddings in Magic Story, and K. Arsenault Rivera got to write both of them.
Read here if you enjoy father-daughter stories, assassins, and characters with a flair for the dramatic.
Anhelo loves a good spell or three, and his copy effects work well with the Strixhaven set released beforehand.
The Ink of Empires
This is the longest story in my list, because Miguel Lopez is unstoppable, but every word is earned. The Brothers' War was a throwback to the foundational event in Magic's history, retelling it with a modern perspective and modern set design. The epic tale was originally told from Urza's perspective, but he was a single man throwing his power around.
The set's stories show how others reacted and lived with the consequences of those actions.
Episode 4: The Ink of Empires tells the story of essentially unnamed soldiers, the ones fighting in trenches and dealing with the decisions of men they will never see. Those on both sides of the conflict find more camaraderie with each other than with the leaders of their respective nations even as they struggle against one another.
It is a tragic story, not just in the loss and pain felt by the people, but how the battle itself is "just a footnote lost to history."
Read if you enjoy war stories, robot battles, and tales of the "little guy".
Of those from this story, only Farid, Enterprising Salvager received a card. He has a reasonable place at the head of an Artifact Sacrifice deck, with some pieces listed here:
No Tells
Like New Capenna, Thunder Junction had some initial world conceptualization problems. Discussing that is a whole different kettle of fish, because authors still put together excellent side stories for it. (There's even another Gisa and Geralf story here which you might enjoy if you liked the first one.)
No Tells resonates hard with the fanbase, being the second side story to focus on a "first" trans character, this one being Yuma, Proud Protector. Yuma is the first trans man to feature as a main character in Magic story, and he makes an incredible impression.
Alesha's identity as a trans woman stamped itself into the story with her resolve to establish herself and brook no arguments. Yuma's identity is similarly woven into the themes of starting over and remaking one's self. The setting of the story is broken and damaged, but is rebuilt in a beautiful way, representing the same kind of transformation he experienced.
It includes a fantastic conflict, one in which both parties are resolute in their grievances and decisions, in which forgiveness is truly not an option.
Read if you enjoy westerns, trans (and transformation) narratives, or friend-turned-enemy conflicts.
As of the time of writing, you can probably still pick up Yuma's deck. If you're so inclined, here are three interesting pick-ups should you choose to rock with the desert commander.
Closing the Book
Magic Story will continue, despite having died over and over again. Side stories have fluctuated in that time, ebbing and flowing with the different structures and models. The origin of online Magic Story, Tarkir, had twelve stories associated with the Khans of Tarkir set, only three of which were part of the "main story".
With the relaunch of online Magic Story in Zendikar Rising, a new system emerged with five main story chapters and five side story chapters. Sometimes we've gotten the full five side stories, sometimes we've gotten none. I have enjoyed those occasional 10 chapter main set stories, but I do miss when we don't get a side story or two.
Magic is best as a personal experience, and side stories accomplish the unique emotional experiences on a much more personal level (in my opinion).
What do you think? What's been your favorite Magic side story? If you haven't read it before, did this convince you to try one out? Let me know!
