The Greatest Threat to the Multiverse
Two of the greatest threats to ever loom over the Multiverse have been, at least temporarily, dealt with, with Emrakul and Bolas. Where will the next one arise from? Well, we might already know the threat.
The obvious answer here would be Phyrexians. They are known offenders when it comes to interplanar conquest and destruction, are aware of other worlds and have intent to overtake them.
But the phyrexians currently lack any way to reach beyond their existing planes, and if Bolas, the Eldrazis and common sense are any indication, being able to affect multiple planes is important to being a multiversal threat. Until they do, we can narrow it down to planeswalkers, beings able to cross between planes and factions with access to interplanar technology.
Tezzeret check multiple of those boxes. He’s up to no good, is ambitious, is a planeswalker AND has access to interplanar technology allowing him to transfer unorganic armies to other planes. A poorly-written fanfiction that wanted to follow on War of the Spark even went the obvious route to set him up as a major, future antagonist.
But Tezzeret is also the butt of all the jokes, and has rarely achieved much in all his history. While he might think he’s a big deal, his ventures are usually met with failure at best.
Some other planeswalkers might come to mind. From moustache-twirling villains like Ob Nixilis to chaos-inducing Okos, there is plenty to choose from. Even some mysterious threats like the Raven Man or the Mysterious Evil Planeswalker we see in Ikoria’s story might be up for the title. None of them get it.
So who? Who among the known threats is gonna be the next big one? Who has the knowledge, the means and the intent to cause devastation upon countless worlds?
The answer has been building up under our nose for a long time now. It has a single name.
Ravnica.
Ravnica as a whole has been made aware of the Multiverse, and some of its details, recently. They know those other worlds have people. They even know some of those people are dangerous. They also know some of these people can travel between worlds. But more importantly, they know that interplanar portals are not only an idea, but possible, they’ve seen one in action. They have an entire tenth of the world’s infrastructure dedicated to research, and even before they got their hands on the issue of a portal, they had working INTERPLANAR technology for the transfer of information, in the interplanar beacon. And teleporters.
Ravnica has armies, Ravnica has rivaling factions that would do anything for an unclaimed piece of land or an edge over the others. One of them has a super-soldier program running. Ravnica is estimated to have one of the largest populations out of all the planes, despite being one of the smallest. Ravnica’s guilds all have been shown to often be uncaring of people, only caring about their agendas.
Ravnica is one of the most technologically-advanced planes, and it is led by a smart, self-centered dragon. Ravnica has witnessed the threat that other planes can represent, and can even justify its own attacks to its population as pre-emptive defense.
The late-stage capitalist world of Ravnica has run out of room for expansion millenias ago. And now it sees infinite worlds just within its grasp.
