Spoiler warning: this post covers major story beats from MTG comic issues 1-8 of BOOM! Studios’ Magic: The Gathering series. If you want to stay unspoiled, bail now and come back after you’ve read them.
If you are here for spoilers, cool. Let’s talk about MTG comic issues 1-8 and why they feel like someone looked at Ravnica and said, “You know what this city needs? More paranoia. And maybe tentacles.”
What this MTG comic arc is trying to do (fast)
The comic kicks off in a very specific Ravnica mood: post-war tension, guild politics, and that familiar sense that the city is one bad day away from turning into a crater. And it smartly chooses three guild leaders who already come with baggage: Kaya, Ral Zarek, and Vraska.
That choice matters because the story does not have to waste time proving they’re competent. They are. The comic spends its time asking a better question: what happens when competent people are dropped into a mystery designed to make them distrust everything, including themselves?
MTG comic issues 1-3: Coordinated hits, Jace faceplants, and the undercity is way too quiet
The opening move is blunt. Three simultaneous attacks, three different guild spaces, three different styles of violence. Whoever planned this wanted attention, and they wanted chaos.
Kaya is stuck doing the “responsible guildmaster” routine for the Orzhov, which is like assigning a free spirit to run a funeral home that also does taxes.
Ral Zarek is the Izzet boss now, which means he’s trying to apply logic and experimentation to a city that runs on grudges and symbolism.
Vraska leads the Golgari, and she carries that specific kind of regret that MTG loves: the “I made choices, and now they have names and faces” kind.
All three deal with the attackers, but Ral keeps one alive. And that survivor becomes the match that lights the whole story on fire.
They bring the captive to the Azorius for interrogation, because if you’re going to do mind-reading, you might as well do it somewhere that smells like paperwork and judgment.
Enter Jace Beleren, called in to crack the prisoner’s thoughts.
And then: pain. A psychic backlash. Jace drops, the captive mutates into something far worse than “random assassin,” and the monster escapes into the sewers.
This is one of the best choices in MTG comic issues 1-3. It pushes the story from “guild intrigue” into “something cosmic is chewing at the edges of reality,” without needing a ten-page lore dump. It also turns Jace into the obvious center of gravity.
Not because he’s the strongest person in the room, but because the attack feels personal. Like someone set a trap specifically for his mind.
The trio planeswalks to Zendikar to talk away from guild ears. Ral lays out the facts, tries to pattern-match, and lands on the uncomfortable conclusion: the real target might have been Jace all along.
Kaya pushes back, and honestly, she’s not wrong. If someone wanted Jace dead, there are simpler ways to do it than synchronized bombings and sewer monsters.
But that’s the point. Simple is not the vibe here. This feels like a plan built to create confusion, widen suspicion, and bait powerful people into making messy decisions.
And then the comic does the classic MTG thing: it shows someone listening from the shadows.
Hello, Tezzeret. Of course it’s Tezzeret. If there’s a scheme, he’s either behind it, profiting from it, or taking notes for later.
Back on Ravnica, Jace is comatose under the care of a guildless healing order. Vraska is not taking it well. Which tracks. Her relationship with Jace has always been complicated, and the comic leans into that discomfort instead of smoothing it over.
Then the assassins hit again, this time disguised as hospital staff, because nothing says “we’re the bad guys” like attacking a patient in critical condition.
The trio handles them. But the key detail is what happens when they try to get answers: the attackers have a failsafe. Shared death. Brains popping. No loose ends.
That tells you two things:
- Whoever is behind this has control and resources.
- Whoever is behind this is not planning to negotiate.
They call a meeting with the other guild leaders. Kaya points at House Dimir fast. Secret assassins, false flags, missing representatives. Dimir is the obvious suspect.
The other guild leaders, being politicians, don’t love accusations without proof. So they send Kaya, Ral, and Vraska into the Undercity to investigate Dimir directly.
It’s a nice Ravnica beat: the guilds are always united in one sacred tradition, which is delegating risk to someone else.
The undercity stretch slows down in a good way. You get Kaya’s history and why she’s allergic to settling down. You get Ral’s connection to Tomic, which adds texture to his choices. And you get Vraska opening up about Jace in a way that feels guarded but honest.
Also, the comic keeps reminding you that these three are wildly capable. They’re not uneasy because the sewer is hard. They’re uneasy because the sewer is too easy.
No Dimir wards. No traps. No shadowy “you are being watched” nonsense.
That absence becomes the loudest sound in the room.
Then they reach what should be a major Dimir stronghold and find ruins. Smoke. Collapse. The sense that something hit first, and hit hard.
Duskmantle is gone.
So if Dimir is not the active puppet-master here, what does that mean?
Someone beat them to the punch. Someone wanted Dimir blamed anyway. Someone is playing at a level where the spy guild is just another piece to sweep off the table.
That’s a strong ending for issue three, because it doesn’t answer the mystery. It sharpens it.
MTG comic issues 4-5: Duskmantle fallout, Lazav in your dreams, and a hospital with teeth
Issues 4 and 5 take the Duskmantle reveal and turn it into a fight over what “proof” even means on Ravnica.
Kaya, Ral, and Vraska come up from the undercity convinced of one thing: House Dimir was a target, not the mastermind. The scale of destruction is too big, too public, too brutal. This wasn’t Dimir covering tracks. This was someone sending a message.
Niv-Mizzet does not agree.
As the Living Guildpact, he’s supposed to be the adult in the room. Instead, he leans into the oldest Ravnican tradition: blaming Dimir for everything, including weather. He points to a string of assassinations carried out while the trio was underground and argues the Duskmantle destruction is a smokescreen. He announces he’ll call a guild conclave soon and sends them on their way.
So the trio does what any sane person would do after being dismissed by an ancient dragon genius: they keep investigating anyway.
They try to rest. They fail.
Each of them gets visited in a dream by Lazav, guildmaster of House Dimir. Lazav claims Dimir wasn’t behind the initial citywide attacks, but he admits something worse: Dimir hit the Hospital of the Frozen Heart.
Not for Jace. Not for the guildmasters. For secrets.
Lazav frames Dimir’s role as “we find threats and quietly deal with them,” which is a hilarious mission statement for the group most famous for causing threats. But he also drops the key detail: even Dimir can’t pierce whatever conspiracy is sitting inside the Hospitaliers. All he has is a name, and he only dares whisper it in a dream.
So Kaya, Ral, and Vraska march on the hospital.
The abbot greets them warmly, which is never comforting. Vraska demands Jace be released. The abbot claims Jace recovered and left earlier that day. Vraska tries to petrify him.
It doesn’t work.
That’s the moment the story stops being “guild mystery” and becomes “oh, we are dealing with divine protection or something pretending to be it.”
A crowd of guildless citizens forms, loyal to the Hospitaliers as one of the few institutions that treats them like people. Hidden in that crowd is Tezzeret, because of course he’s there.
And just as the tension is about to boil over, Aurelia intervenes and orders the guildmasters back to their halls. As the trio retreats, Ral fires off a parting shot: he claims he knows the name of the abbot’s god.
The abbot’s response is basically: soon everybody will.
Great. Love that.
MTG comic issue 6: Teferi points, Jaya remembers, and everybody says “Marit Lage” like it hurts
The next move is a very planeswalker move. If you can’t trust Ravnica, leave it.
On Dominaria, the trio meets Teferi. If anyone would know the name Lazav whispered, it’s the time mage with the longest view of “ancient weird things that refuse to stay dead.”
Teferi recognizes the name, but he doesn’t offer a clean solution. Instead, he points them toward someone older. Someone with direct experience. Someone with a long memory and a shorter patience.
They split up to follow leads across the Multiverse:
Ral checks Innistrad and finds mostly deception.
Vraska checks Ixalan, reconnects with her old pirate life, and comes up empty on the one thing she actually needs.
Kaya checks Amonkhet, a dead desert plane that makes “bad vibes” feel like an understatement. She barely escapes. And even she admits it’s the worst place she’s ever seen.
With leads exhausted, they reconvene on Kaldheim and finally find the ancient planeswalker: Jaya Ballard.
Jaya starts jovial, because that’s her brand. Then they say the name.
Jaya’s tone shifts. And when Jaya Ballard stops joking, you should probably stop too.
She recounts her first encounter with a cult that sought to free their goddess from ice during Dominaria’s Ice Age. Later, she faced them again at a besieged outpost, where cultists and barbarians turned into tentacled monstrosities. She eventually tracked down the cult’s leader, Balash Xev, and learned the real problem: killing leaders doesn’t kill belief.
So she went after Marit Lage herself.
And even as an old-style planeswalker, the kind that used to feel closer to a god than a mage, Jaya couldn’t kill Marit Lage. She could resist the mental pressure, barely. She could fight. She could survive.
What she could do was cast Marit Lage, still sealed in ice, into the Blind Eternities.
Jaya’s warning is simple: act quickly. Because “sealed” is not “solved.” It’s just delayed.
MTG comic issue 7: The rooftop rescue, the abbot gets chomped, and the “comet” stops being cute
While our heroes are lore-hunting, Ravnica keeps bleeding.
The guilds argue about jurisdiction. Azorius and Boros posture. Everyone slows down right when speed matters. The Hospitaliers prepare sacrifices. Cultists embedded inside guild structures wait for the signal.
Kaya, Ral, and Vraska decide they’re done waiting. They planeswalk away, then immediately planeswalk back into the Hospital of the Frozen Heart.
Inside are the grisly remains of sacrifices. Outside, cultists across the plane start triggering chaos, with citizens transforming into tentacled horrors in minutes. The guilds abandon their hospital assault to defend their homes.
On the hospital roof, the abbot prepares the final sacrifice: Jace Beleren. His mind is being used like a beacon to summon Marit Lage.
Vraska distracts. Kaya slips in and rescues Jace. Ral demands surrender. The abbot refuses and declares he already won because the comet is almost here.
Then Niv-Mizzet arrives from the sky and ends the abbot’s life in one clean move, because if there’s one thing dragons are good at, it’s interrupting speeches.
Jace is conscious for the first time in weeks. Vraska embraces him. For a brief moment, it feels like the trio actually pulled this off.
And then Ral looks at the sky and says the worst possible realization out loud: the “comet” is a giant chunk of ice.
Not a normal comet. Not a random omen.
A prison.
Marit Lage has come.
MTG comic issues 1-8: Tezzeret steps forward, and “help” comes with a bill
Issue 8 shifts the spotlight onto the guy who has been lurking in the background like a corporate auditor at a crime scene.
Tezzeret enters the fray and brings “vital information” to the planeswalkers defending Ravnica. He claims only he knows the truth about why Jace was attacked and why Jace is the key to stopping what’s coming.
And then the comic does the most Tezzeret thing possible: it frames his help as a transaction.
The secret forces Jace, Vraska, Kaya, and the allied guilds to consider an unthinkable choice, and that choice is linked to the very crimes Tezzeret wants pardoned in exchange for his help.
So now, on top of everything else, the heroes have to answer a question that feels painfully real: what do you do when the person with the crucial information is also the person you most want to throw off a roof?
What Marit Lage means at the table, not just on the page
If you’ve played Magic long enough, Marit Lage probably triggers one card in your brain: Dark Depths.
Dark Depths is that legendary snow land that starts with ice counters and, when the ice is gone, turns into a 20/20 legendary Avatar token with flying and indestructible. In other words, it’s not subtle. It’s a “do you have an answer right now” moment.
The comic leans into the same idea, just scaled up to a whole plane. Ice in the sky. A prison breaking. A thing that should not be here, now here.
If the comic makes you want to build around that vibe, you don’t need a perfect lore deck. You just need a theme you’ll actually play:
Dimir paranoia: hand attack, clones, misinformation, and “you didn’t see that” tricks.
Golgari grief: recursion, graveyard value, inevitability.
Izzet panic science: spells, weird experiments, and accidents that become win conditions.
Or just go full “ice prison breaks” and build around Dark Depths lines for casual games.
And yes, if you’re testing a list like that and you don’t want to shuffle the real stuff, proxies exist for exactly this reason. Play the games. Get reps. Figure out if the deck is fun before you spend real money on cardboard you’ll be afraid to touch.
Bringing the comic vibe to your table
If you’re in that post-comic mood where you want to brew immediately, two internal reads worth your time:
One is about how modern Magic design changed the way proxy players build cubes and test decks. The other is the practical “ok, where do people actually get these” rundown.
Conclusion: the mystery escalates, and Ravnica pays the price
As a combined run, MTG comic issues 1-8 do something smart: they start with guild politics and assassinations, then steadily peel back the curtain until you realize the real story is cosmic horror wearing a guild mask.
You get coordinated hits. You get Jace as the psychic bullseye. You get the hospital that smiles too much. You get Marit Lage in the sky like an incoming deadline. And finally you get Tezzeret stepping up with a deal, because nothing says “end of the world” like negotiating with a guy who treats morality as optional.
If you’ve read this far, you already know the real hook: i don’t just want to see who wins. i want to see what they’re willing to trade to survive.
