The last set I really played much of was Edge of Eternities. I actually adored that set - I love that Magic decided to go all in on sci-fi space opera, with a fun justification for it. I've always been really happiest in the borderlands between sci-fi and fantasy.
Universes Beyond started as non-Standard-legal, and I sort of shrugged at its existence, as I play primarily standard (very casually - or at least as casually as one can on Arena). One could argue that the first incursion of UB sets into standard was the Dungeons & Dragons set, but that's a grey area, as WotC owns D&D and we've already had a bit of crossover between them, such that I almost treat them as para-canonically connected (my Ravnica campaign will ultimately end as a Planescape one). The next was Final Fantasy, and especially after playing FF I-VI in 2024, I was feeling a great deal of affection for that IP.
But with Spider-Man (though weirdly scrubbed of its identity in the Arena release) and then the Avatar the Last Airbender set (a show that I really liked, having watched it along with many others when it went on Netflix around the time that the Pandemic hit) in a row, it's felt a little like these sets are robbing the game of one of my favorite of its elements - the really inventive world-building.
Having never played Lorwyn/Shadowmoor (I think I stopped playing MTGO when I got into World of Warcraft in 2006) I'm eager to check out this plane.
My understanding is that Lorwyn/Shadowmoor was kind of the first real "fairy tale" plane, and famously didn't have humans on it (humans had only actually become a creature type a few years earlier in Mirrodin). Eldraine, of course, has kind of filled that same niche, but Lorwyn certainly has its own pretty clear identity.
I was really happy to see the puppet-based intro video for the return to the plane, with a duet between the Lorwyn and Shadowmoor versions of, I assume, the same goblin (known as boggarts in Lorwyn). I remember watching it and saying "wow, this is giving real 1980s Jim Henson vibes, like Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal," only to discover at the end that the puppets had, in fact, been made and performed by the Jim Henson company.
As is my constant refrain, I do miss the block model. Lorwyn was designed as a tribal setting, where you'd build decks around, say, elves or treefolk or giants. But we don't seem to see such themes embraced as much when the themes of each set shift.
But I am certainly happy to see come back to a Magic-original setting.
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