Magic Untapped takes a look back at Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths as Magic: The Gathering introduces a new story, new characters, and a new setting.
Video Transcript:
On May 15, 2020, (just a couple months into the COVID-19 pandemic) came the 84th Magic: The Gathering expansion: Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
Typically just referred to as Ikoria, the set brought 274 cards (387 if you include variants) to the collectible card game as well as a new plane for players to experience. Inspired by monster movie tropes, it’s a set that reminds players that there’s always a larger monster of one sort or another around the corner.
As for what that entails, let’s first check out the set’s story summary based largely upon the e-book Sundered Bond by Sjango Wexler:
Lukka is a captain in the Coppercoats – a military organization that protects the humans who live in the city of Drannith from the various monsters and beasts that live on the world. As such, he holds a certain resentment to these beasts – a resentment that only grows after his squadron is decimated by a new beast that has encroached upon the human’s territory.
This new beast – a flying large cat – would have killed Lukka as well were it not for the sudden flash of green energy that appeared between him and the beast. All at once, their two minds are connected. Lukka feels the beast’s sensations and emotions including a foreign influence driving it to attack Drannith before passing out.
Lukka comes to back in Drannith. He’s in an infirmary and recounts his experience to his fiancé, Jirina Kudro, daughter of the city’s general. The captain’s story is strikingly similar to that from others – stories of humans making mental and emotional bonds with the monsters. Unfortunately, the General sees such bonds as abominations and finds that Lukka’s bond with this flying cat-beast will cause the captain to waver in his duties to Drannith.
The General arranges for Lukka’s arrest and eventual execution, but Jirina helps him escape capture. On his way out of town, Lukka is stopped at a checkpoint. The soldiers realize he’s the man the General is after and attempt to take him into custody. That’s when a glowing green arrow streaks past them, bringing with it an ethereal beast that attacks the guards. Viven Reid, a planeswalker, appears and rescues the disgraced captain.
After fleeing into the wilderness of Ikoria, Lukka questions his savior. Vivien tells him that she’s been tracking him ever since his experience with the cat-beast. Lukka says he believes that if he can track down and slay the cat-beast that he’ll be re-accepted into Drannith society and he now thinks that Vivien can be the tracker he needs in order to locate it.
Vivien, being a foreigner, is curious about the plane and how the monsters there seem to be able to mutate and bond with one another. Still sensing the aura of the cat-beast, she agrees to assist Lukka so long as he answers any questions she has while on their quest.
Meanwhile, back in Drannith, Jirina is trying to figure out how to bring her fiancé back to the city unharmed and under her father’s good graces. General Kudro, however, still wants Lukka’s head – especially now that he’s escaped the city as he feels Lukka’s knowledge of the city’s defenses could be a liability should the former captain ally himself with the monsters. To prevent this, the General conscripts a crew of monster hunters and bounty hunters to capture Lukka and return him to the city, ironically assigning Jirina to lead the team.
Days later, Lukka and Vivien are closing in on the cat-beast. As night falls, Vivien senses a dark presence among the trees surrounding them. Lukka charges into the thicket. A moment later, dozens of eyes emerge as a nightmare creature emerges from the shadows.
Vivien tries to dispatch the beast, but it is too quick for her. The nightmare monster immobilizes the planeswalker then prepares to strike against Lukka. Then, unexpectedly, something uncoiled in Lukka’s mind – a set of sensations that were not his own. “His wings, tucked back against his sides as he dove, the wild whipping through his fur-“
The cat-beast, linked with Lukka, senses his bond’s danger and attacks the nightmare beast, tearing into it as it rescues the disgraced captain.
After the encounter, Lukka tells Vivien all about his link with the cat-beast and how it’s like they share the same thoughts and how he can tell there’s an external influence in the beast’s mind that seemed to be coming from a crystal structure known as the Ozolith that seems to be driving the beast to attack the human city. That connection with the crystal, however, seems to have been severed, though the question of why and who remain.
Before they could explore those questions, though, they’re ambushed by savage hunters. Lukka is stunned to find his fiancé leading them. As things get ugly, Vivien protects Lukka as the pair mount the cat-beast to fly off to safety.
The encounter with his would-be killers make Lukka realize that merely slaying the cat-beast would not allow him to re-enter Drannith society. He then thinks that if he could use this connection to control Ikorian monsters and use them in defense of Drannith, then perhaps General Kudro would see his value and allow him to return.
Now, Lukka resolves to locate this Ozolith and decipher its secrets. Vivien, curious about the crystalline structure as well, continues to accompany the disgraced captain. Along the way, the pair encounter other humans whom have bonded with beasts. Their presence causes Lukka to ponder more on his own bond with the cat-beast as he reconsiders his relationship with it.
A while later, the group draw near the Ozolith’s base. The crystal, as if sensing their presence, unleashes a cohort of nightmare beasts in defense. As Viven and their newfound bonder allies distract the beasts, Lukka and the cat-beast fly directly towards the crystal monument.
As they approach, he hears the constant drum of the mysterious voice throttle his mind. It only grows louder as he grows nearer to it, cascading to a crescendo as he touches the stone. A connection made, he communicates with the voice within the crystal.
The voice, now speaking as a friend rather than a dominating force, confesses that it is the reason for the changes in Ikoria’s monsters, but it hides both its motives and its identity.
Meanwhile, outside of the crystal, the battle between Vivan and the bonders against the nightmare creatures devolves into chaos as Jirina and her bounty hunters arrive on scene via skyship. The voice within the Ozolith, realizing the turn of the battle outside, tells Lukka that if he wants to save Jirina he needs to allow him into his mind, allowing the disgraced captain to control the monsters.
Lukka submits. The result is a wave of energy coming from the Ozolith that grants Lukka control over the beasts in the fray. He commands them to destroy the skyship and bring Jirina to him. Lukka’s cat-beast, free of the Ozolith’s influence, swoops in and saves Jirina, having realized that Lukka is now a slave to the Ozolith’s power just as it once was.
Vivien and the bonders realize too late what Lukka had done. The captain, drunk with newfound power, tells them that he’ll enslave Ikoria’s beasts and use them to defend Drannith once he gets back home. The bonders, though, knowing the bond is not one of master and slave, but rather mutual kinship, disagree with the captain’s plans.
Lukka, driven by the voice in his head, attempts to domineer the bonders’ monsters. The link between the humans and their bonded monsters is too strong for Lukka to break, however, and the bonders flee.
Meanwhile, Jirina and the cat-beast arrive back in Drannith. Rumors quickly spread that Jirina has sided with the monsters and she is as much a traitor as is Lukka. Looking to save face, the General has the cat-beast imprisoned and orders his daughter to execute it as a show of loyalty to the city. After her recent experiences, however, Jirina can’t bring herself to slay the beast.
General Kudro then takes his sword and commits the heartless act himself.
Lukka, despite being miles away, still shares a bond with the cat-beast and witnesses the scene play out in his head. Looking through his bonded beast’s eyes, the last thing he sees in the display is Jirina. Knowing the beast brought his fiancée back home, Lukka decided that it was time for him to head back to the city.
Reaching out with his newfound powers, he calls upon an army of monsters to march upon Drannith.
Soon, reports spread across Drannith about increasing incursions from monsters in the lands surrounding the city with a human who appears to be the monsters’ leader. In defense of the city, General Kudro comes up with a plan to sally his army out into the fields surrounding Drannith to meet the threat in person outside of the city walls.
He commands Jirina to accompany him, knowing Lukka would trust her. He then tells his daughter to kill Lukka once given the opportunity.
The opposing armies meet on opposite sides of a river. Lukka sends a message to the humans that he want to talk. General Kudro thinks this is a perfect opportunity to slay Lukka and has Jirina accompany him, arming her for the kill.
During the meeting, Lukka tries to end the conflict through conversation by explaining to the General that an army of monsters protecting the Drannith would prevent the future loss of human life such as those lost from his old unit.
The General, however, is stubborn and won’t go against his ways for any sort of new thinking. Lukka is reminded that Drannith is full of old, stubborn men and, if we wants to return to his city, he’ll need to take it by force. As the conversation grows more and more intense, Jirina steps in close to her fiancée and appeals to his better side. She comes clean about her father’s intentions against him.
What the General doesn’t know, though, is that Lukka had already set up a trap of his own against him. Without warning, nightmarish monsters burrow out from the ground below and slay the General’s bodyguards. On the other side of the river, human ballistae are ambushed and demolished by other beasts under Lukka’s control.
In the chaos, Lukka takes Jirina’s sword and runs towards the General, sliding the blade through the General’s ribs, murdering him. After all, if things are ever to change in Drannith, the old ways must first be destroyed.
Shocked, Jirina strikes out against Lukka, grazing him, before fleeing. With her father now dead and her lover seemingly gone mad, the defense of Drannith is her responsibility to bare. She calls out to Vivien Reid and the bonders out in the wilds to defend the city against Lukka and his army of nightmarish beasts.
Soon, Lukka and his army of dominated monsters are at the city gates. The battle erupts as losses mount on both sides. Jirina’s plan in action with Vivien and the bonders providing assistance, she uses herself as bait to separate Lukka from his monsters so he can be confronted in person.
In conversation with her fiancée, she realizes the depth of his insanity as he claims desire to demolish Drannith to build a new one in its ashes. He surrounds her with monsters and demands her surrender. On Jirina’s orders, though, gates are opened and a herd of monsters and their bonders, lead by Vivien, spearhead an attack against Lukka’s beasts.
The tables suddenly terribly turned against Lukka, the disgraced captain reaches out for aid from the Ozolith. The voice tells Lukka that he’s drawing far too much energy and is straining the crystal, but the mad captain doesn’t listen. Instead, he draws even more power from it as a move of desperation. The stress causes the crystal to shatter into a cyclone of intense red mana.
Lukka’s bond with the crystal broken and his mind frayed, something breaks within Lukka and ignites something inside of him as he transcends into becoming a planeswalker. He then seems to fade from existence, ending the battle at Drannith.
In the aftermath, Jirinna and the human survivors set about rebuilding their home. The city loosens their rules about monsters as a means to barter goodwill between monster and man.
While a brighter future seems possible for Ikoria, Vivien doesn’t stick around to see how things play out. Intent on figuring out who was responsible for the Ozolith, she planeswalks away.
As for Lukka, he awakens in a bog on some unknown plane. Surrounded by canine beasts, he mentally reaches out to them and finds that he still holds the power granted to him by the Ozolith. At least, a part of the power at any rate.
Soon,” says Lukka. “I’ll return home.”
And that does it for Ikoria’s story, but there’s still more to talk about in terms of the set itself.
With Vision Design headed up by Mark Rosewater and Set Design by David Humphreys, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths added another 274 cards to Magic: The Gathering (including reprints). If you add in all of the different card variants, that number balloons to 387 cards. It was releases in traditional draft boosters, collector boosters, mono-colored theme boosters, a bundle, and five set-themed Commander decks.
In addition, Wizards of the Coast teamed up with Japan’s Toho Corporation to incorporate Godzilla and other of Toho’s iconic monsters in reskinned cards as well as Godzilla-themed basic lands.
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths introduced a number of new things to the game of Magic including the keyword ability Mutate, which essentially lets you combine creatures together.
Another new thing that came with Ikoria is Companion. Companion is a deckbuilding rule that lets you essentially extend your deck to your sideboard by one card by having a companion creature that you have access to. As originally designed, players could play their companion from the sideboard as if that card is in your hand once during the game. That proved troublesome, however, as Rosewater explains.
Ikoria also introduced keyword counters to sanctioned Magic play. These counters allow players to essentially customize their creatures in play. Not including loyalty counters for planeswalkers, Ikoria features a dozen such counters including +1+/1 counters, flying counters, deathtouch counters, and more.
In terms of cycles, Ikoria has a whopping 22! While we’re not going to list them all in this video, a few of the ones that stand out include:
- Mythos, which are five rare mono-colored spells that get better if cast using enemy colors, such as the card Mythos of Snapdax becoming improved if its caster spends red and black mana in addition to the default white mana to cast it;
- Legendary humans at mythic rarity, each of which being a key character from the Ikoria story;
- Ultimatums, which are wedge-colored sorceries at rare that completes the mega-cycle that was introduced years prior in Shards of Alara;
- Crystals at uncommon, which act as mana rocks for each of the set’s wedge combinations and can also be cycled away for two generic mana, and;
- Triomes, which are rare tri-colored taplands that have basic land types and can also be cycled away for three generic mana.
There are also companions for each of the game’s ten two-color pairs such as the cards Yorion, Sky Nomad for white-blue, Obosh, the Preypiercer for black-red, and Keruga, the Macrosage at green-blue.
In terms of single cards of note, there are a handful worth mentioning. This includes:
- Jegantha, the Wellspring, an easy-to-build-around commander that wound up limiting diversity in Modern. Because of that, it was banned from the format in December of 2024;
- Lutri, the Spellchaser, which was banned for Commander the day it was unveiled before the set was even released as would have granted an unfair advantage to decks containing both blue and red. Its status was revisited in February 2026 and was given a special legality class of "Banned as companion", though its inclusion within one’s Commander deck itself is now allowed;
- Lurris of the Dream-Den, a recursion companion card that proved to be rather strong in Legacy and Vintage. While still disallowed for Legacy play, it’s since been unbanned Vintage. The card was also dominant Modern and Pioneer for several years until it was banned in those formats in March 2022;
- Winona, Joiner of Forces, which works well with the human creature type – specifically with the card Agent of Treachery, which players would cheat out and steal their opponent’s creatures. The card became so prevalent and problematic that it became banned in Pioneer in June of 2022;
- Yorion, Sky Nomad, which has made for a common variant of the Legacy deck Death & Taxes thanks to its ability to flicker cards out and back into play, adding extra value for enters-the-battlefield abilities. The card got the ban treatment in Modern in October of 2022.
- Zirda, the Dawnwaker, yet another companion card that has been banned. Thanks to its interaction allowing for infinite mana with the card Grim Monolith, it’s not allowed to be played in Legacy.
The game also had a number of cards that were a direct homage to a number of specific tropes, I.P.s, and cards from Magic’s “Un-sets” such as:
- Flame Spill, which is almost exactly a functional reprint of the Unstable card Super-Duper Death Ray;
- Kogla, the Titan Ape, which is inspired by King Kong;
- The Ozolith, which was inspired by the Unglued card Giant Fan, and;
- Shark Typhoon, which is a reference to the popular Sharknado b-movies.
Plus, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the card Spacegodzilla, Death Corona as it had the unfortunate and unintentional naming tie-in to the coronavirus pandemic that occurred after the card’s creation. The card, which was a reskinned version of the card Void Beckoner, was never printed in future print runs of the set and, digitally, was renamed to Spacegodzilla, Void Invader on MTG Arena.
As far as promotional cards go, prerelease participants got the customary date stamped foil rare or mythic rare in their kits. Those who purchased a booster box of Ikoria were given a Box Topper pack that included one of more than a dozen different Godzilla-themed reskinned cards. Beyond that, a buy-a-box promo card was also handed out (Zilortha, Strength Incarnate) as well as a second buy-a-box promo card: Mechagodzilla (which is a reskinned Hangerback Walker).
As for how Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths was ultimately received, here again is Mark Rosewater with his thoughts:
So, is Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths amongst your favorite Magic: The Gathering sets? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section. Also, please remember to click on those like and subscribe buttons and pop a buck in our Patreon tip jar to support more videos like this one.
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