I didn't used to pay attention to the story in Magic: The Gathering. I don't need to know who Sheoldred is to play Sheoldred's Apocalypse, and unless I live the dream and get to be on nerd quiz show Um, Actually someday, I don't need even more trivia about imaginary worlds in my head.
That changed last year with The Brothers' War and a series of short stories by Miguel Lopez about a time-traveling planeswalker named Teferi who went back to a time of trench warfare with giant robots to learn about a weapon powerful enough to defeat a threat he knew he'd face in the future. Those war stories full of death and desperation got me interested in Magic's lore, and the conflict they were foreshadowing. Like Teferi, I worked my way back and forward at the same time, reading about the coming threat: biomechanical horrorshows called Phyrexians whose origins lie in Magic's early days and whose multiversal invasion is the subject of its next set, March of the Machine.
