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PC Gamer
PC Gamer
Jody Macgregor

Magic: The Gathering meets crime fiction in Murders at Karlov Manor

An elf crossed with a jellyfish wears a regal gown.

Since the end of the Phyrexian Invasion, which was basically the Avengers: Endgame of Magic: The Gathering, the card game's expansions have hopped between some different genres of fiction. We had one set themed around fairytales and legends, and another based on pulp adventure in a jungle full of dinosaurs and pirates. Next we're going back indoors for a set themed around crime fiction called Murders at Karlov Manor, a kind of Agatha Christie take on Magic where Hercule Poirot isn't a mercurial Belgian, but is instead a wizard and maybe an elf.

Mystery's a great choice for a post-war story. Film noir came about during the post-war 1940s, and all those sleepless hard-drinking detectives with no real skills beyond their ability to shoot a gun and survive being knocked unconscious on the regular make more sense when you realize every one of them just got home from World War II. For those of us sickos who care about Magic's story, Murders at Karlov Manor makes great use of its own post-war setting—the planeswalker Kaya has has just returned to her home of Ravnica after fighting the Phyrexians to find that instead of a hero's welcome she's blamed for the city's suffering during her absence, and Ravnica's guilds are at each other's throats again now their wartime truce has ended.

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