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"Flight of the White Cat" did confuse me, because it was like..."What happened to his white phase? It's like it comes after the red-white phase." This wasn't really the resolution I expected, although it is certainly internally consistent.

And Wayne Reynolds is still badass.

Of course, the most intriguing part of the article was the world models. First of all, I think if you have actual geophysics involved, it makes the world more interesting and believable. Sure, magic can explain anything, but sometimes the more realistic it is, the more interesting it is.

I agree that the Refraction Model is generally better, although there's at least one problem...the Planeswalker's Guide, p. 68: "Before Grixis split off from Alara, it was the home of Vithia, a thriving human empire proud of its dynasty of wise and honorable monarchs." So...did Vithia exist on every shard? Did it turn into the "main" civilization on Bant?

Or maybe there's some sort of hybrid model, like...there was a "center" of mana for each shard, and when the Sundering happened, humans and creatures near that "center" got pulled onto that shard, while actual geography was simply duplicated.

Of course, that begs the question, why was the black mana "center" underneath as white a civilization as Vithia was? Maybe it wasn't so white after all. Or maybe it was just random chance.

Or maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. :P

"Doug Beyer"]There are other problems with the Refraction Model that come up later, as well, but let’ wrote:

There are other problems with the Refraction Model that come up later, as well, but let’s wait to explore those.

Specifically, Conflux. CRUNCH!

It looks like my "he's just using another deck" theory is out. This raises the question, though, of how we're able to call on the aid of someone who doesn't properly exist yet. The Dominarian backdrop on Goldmane provides a clue, but since all the time rifts are closed by the time planeswalkers started flocking to Lorwyn, doesn't that imply there are two Ajanis running around right now, one of which is trapped here from the future?

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, time travel is the cause of, and solution to, all of life's plot holes.

I prefer the refraction model myself. Part of this is due to my original reading of the Obelisks as copies of the same series of mysterious monolithic artifacts scattered around whole Alara, meaning each of these obelisks on a shard is in the same location (or original location) as a corresponding obelisk on each of the other shards. True or not, that is a very interesting symbol for the division of the plane itself, and is thus awesome.

Hey, they printed my letter! Hot dog!

It's kind of funny to get that response, because what prompted the letter was a debate between the orange-peel model and the refraction model. My friend said that the five shards were probably just overlaid on top of one another, but I pointed out what someone said above: Grixis used to be a smaller part of Alara called Vithia. We even went through some of the same pros and cons that Doug mentioned in his response! So good job, Creative--even though you don't explicitly point these things out in your world-building, you still manage to get the ideas across.

I still want to see maps, though...

We see maps produced by Wizards, from time to time, but they are, on the whole, fairly useless. They don't help us understand how cards interact or influence art in any specific way (You won't see a specific geographical micro-feature being represented from the maps, say a particular stretch of road behind some knight's head). I'm guessing this is because the creative work is being done by such a large body of artists all working at the same time. They don't want to make the world too precise and exact, as it would only create opportunities for authors and painters to get things wrong.

You can talk about the "Map of Alara" before and after the Sundering, but I don't think we'll SEE it until the sets, novels, and comic books have all been finished and released. Then, some poor sap will have to compile everything, cross referencing micro-features and half-mentioned snippets into a fairly bland fantasy map for us to be, at that point, disinterested in. We'll be on to the next big thing (for the next set, my money is on a plane analogous to Victorian England, complete with magic powered trains [what color would trains be?] and a planeswalking Sherlock).

Regarding this article:

It is mentioned that Ajani Vengeant happens before Ajani Goldmane, however, that is not what it says on the Multiverse tab. On Ajani's planeswalker page ( http://www.wizards.com/magic/multiverse … kers/ajani ) it says the opposite. There seems to be some kind of mistake either on your article or the page.