The Next Major Magic Story Arc(s) (2023-2026)

[5colorsrainbow]

When Wizards talked about the schedule for sets out to 2026 they also talked on what the story will be doing. We will be seeing three year long story arcs that will make up the next major saga for Magics story; Codename-Metronome*. The three arcs are; The Omenpath Arc (2023-2024), The Dragon Storm Arc (2024-2025) and The CENSORED* arc (2025-2026).

*As many of the sets are still in the very very early processes of being made, some info hasn't been fully given out and code names, ect are used instead.

Omen Path Arc (2023-2024)

Q4- 2023

Wilds of Eldraine
-Return to Eldraine with bigger focus on fairy tale theme

Desparked Planeswalkers- Will and Rowan
planeswalker- Ashiok
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Eriette

Major events (Spoilers for length)

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-Rowan "falls to the dark side" in part by being manipulated by Ashiok and Eriette using her trauma of the Phyrexian war, the lost of her parents and her desparking and the friction with Will over the kingdom to get her to work with them.

-We meet Kellan a half fae human teenager who find out through his quest that his father is Oko. He finds an omenpath and starts a muti-planar journey to find his father.

-Ashiok seems to have plans involving gathering powerful individuals and seems to takes Eriette off plane for this reason.

Last Caverns of Ixalan
-A return to Ixalan but with it as a backdrop for "Underground world"

Desparked Planeswalkers- Huatli and Saheeli
Planeswalker- Quint
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan and Amalia

Major events

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-Saheeli has moved to Ixalan via Omenpath usage

-We learn that the Fomori (seen a few times in flavor text and card) were a mutiplanar colonizing empire, nicknamed the Coin Empire by Quint, that at one time tried to take over the core of Ixalan.

-The Mycotyrant and Aclazotz are freed on Ixalan and possibly the rest of the multiverse.

-Amalia, a vampire disillusioned by her faith after meeting Aclazotz, joins Kellan traveling the planes.

2024

Murders at Karlov Manor
-Ravnica 4 but with it as a backdrop for a "Whodunnit" top down set.

Desparked Planeswalkers- N/A
Planeswalker- Kaya (card) Ral (story)
Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan, Alquist Proft, Etrata

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- Several murders happened on Ravnica and the detective team of Alquist Proft, Ravnicnas greatest sleuth, Kellan, Kaya and Etrata join together to figure out whodunnit with several guilds leadership and status quo shakened up.

-A powerful telepath/mental-mind mage appeared as a hooded figure in Proft memory palace and takes something from the detectives mind. No gender was hinted.

-Niv was show to be tracking and planning on taking control of the omenpaths popping up over Ravnica and make the plane the center/hub of the newly united multiverse.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction
-A "villains" set that mixes in elements of the Western/ Cowboy genre

Desparked Planeswalkers- Vraska
planeswalker- Oko, Ral (story) and Ashiok (story)

SPOILER

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but really Jace who got a card

Major Legendary Creatures - Kellan, Annie Flash, Tiny Bones, Rakdos and the other members of Okos gang, Akul

SPOILER

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-We enter on Thunder Junction, a midway plane that many omenpaths open into and where settlers of all kinds from all different planes have set up home.

-We end Kellans storyline as he finds his father Oko who has been recruited by Ashiok, along with several other villains to rob a vault on the plane of Thunder Junction. Father and son morals conflict as Kellan learns his father is nowhere the hero Kellan is.

-We find that this whole story Ashiok had been Jace in disguise who betrays Oko and he and Vraska take the true treasure, a child from an alien looking speices that has a living map of the mutiverse in his mind,

-In Epilogues we find out what happend to Jace and Vraska. Jace was able to keep more of his true self using his telepathy put his unphyrexian self aided by the halo that poured out of Luxior when Elspeth stabbed him. While unable to full keep in control enough of Jace was left to trick his mind and thus body into rejecting phyrexia as a virus.

-Finally either through this and/or Phyrexia being phased out/ Norn dying Jace as able to regain his mind and went looking for Vraska. Jace redid what he did on her to him and put mental shields around her mind to let her regain control of her mind and ordered her body to reject the oil and metal in her. Knowing its not enough and scared Jace goes the one place he can think of most for help and take Vraska and himself to his mom Ranna Beleren.

-Ranna is able to heal Jace and Vraska, taking months to do so but only able too due Jace's mental command to their bodies to reject phyrexia as well as Ranna having learned how to use phoenix feathers as a way to replace organs and body parts by using its fire to burn way the infection and then having the reminding flesh as a base to regrow new organs and limbs.

-Jace and Vraska heal and learn of the omenpaths and desparking and believing they need to fix the multiverse, taking the phoenix metaphor of death and rebirth they set out on an yet told plan to heal what phyrexia took. To this end Jace would hide himself as Ashiok first doing so at the end of WOE where it was him who freed Eriette after Ashiok fled and get the crew together to rob the vault and freeing the child, Loot. Now with a living map to the mutiverse in real time, the family of a telepath, a gorgon and their adopted child head out to fix what phyrexia broke.

The Dragon Storm Arc (2024-2025)

Bloomburrow
- A "Funny Animal" trope themed plane (see Redwall) with no humanoid beings and all animals are to scope

Duskmourn: House of Horror
- A new Horror plane thats much more modern horror (with 70's/80's horror period being mentioned) and the whole plane is set within a singel haunted Manor

2025 (The rest of sets are being worked on and such we only have codenames for the sets and will be updated as we know info)

Tennis
-A "Death race" set across three planes now connected by the Omenpaths. Two of the planes are planes that have been visited in a premier-set but not returned to and the third is a plane that we have seen on cards, but it hasn't been the main setting of a premier set yet.

Ultimate
-A return to Tarkir that will feature elements from both Khans of Tarkir and Dragons of Tarkir

The CENSORED Arc (2024-2025)

Volleyball
- A top down Space Opera fantasy set

Wrestling
- A return to Lorwyn (and likely Shadowmoor )

2026

Yachting
- A return to Strixhaven

Ziplining
- A capstone set (Ie War of the Spark and March of the Machine) of this story Saga.

[void_nothing]

I will note that we can actually list some of the major characters for Thunder Junction based on the key art and other info: Rakdos, Oko, Rutstein, and apparently Tinybones, among others. Dragonstorms (Dragon Tempests) are important to the Tarkir story as the way Tarkiri dragons are born, but I'm not sure how the prior sets in 2024-2025 could be part of a "Dragonstorm arc" yet... maybe Ugin is somehow involved?

[benjameenbear]

So Ashiok has become the new antagonist?

[void_nothing]

So Ashiok has become the new antagonist?

One of them. Tezzeret's still at large and it sounds like Oko's going to be a recurring bad guy. Not to mention the "Coin" (i.e. Fomori) Empire as a new planar invader faction.

[benjameenbear]

Ayy, that's good to know. I suppose I'm mildly interested in Tezzeret since he's a recurring antagonist who could feasibly do a reasonable amount of damage to the Multiverse. The Coin is probably just going to be a knock-off Phyrexia in some form or fashion but without the hegemony of Phyrexia's "belief" system.

[void_nothing]

I'm actually high on the possibility of high-tech Fomori barbarian raiders. Would be refreshing to have a bad guy faction that's essentially just bad people with simple motivations like greed and the desire for conquest, rather than mindless slaves of Bolas like the Eternals, mindless forces of annihilation like the Eldrazi, or partially mindless cybernetic plague monsters like the Phyrexians (and this is said as someone who loves the Eldrazi and Phyrexians).

[5colorsrainbow]

The lost caverns of Ixalan planeswalkers guide has some info about the Fomori (please click the link even if you don't read, the clicks are the ways creative can show the higher powers people are interested in the story. If nothing else it will show the higher ups that magic own IP is worth keeping vs the game becoming all UB) ;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/featu ... -of-ixalan

but TLDR; the Fomori are an inverse of the ancient aliens trope, they are colonizers who tried to harness/steal the power of the core's sun/god (Chimil, the Inner Sun) who are described as being in fantasy space ships. Also see my note about Lorwyn below

Just my thoughts over everything, copy and pasted form Sally with some stuff updated with more info known (Spoilers for length);

Murders at Karlov Manor

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On the one hand I like the Ravnica guilds/faction sets and I was hoping we see a Strixhaven style one the next time we hit Ravnica where all the guilds don't have one unique mechanic but instead shares some but uses them in different ways (also how morph/manifest/megamorph was used in Tarkir). That said I love murder mystery stuff so I'm extra excited for the story and flavor of this set and its great to have set on Ravnica that can focus on characters and elements that aren't strictly part of the guilds like we got a bit with War of the Spark.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction

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I kinda wish we could just have a wild west plane and a villains set separate but I can see why some of the power that be wouldn't be keen on a Western setting and needing the villains angle to go with it. I'm not a fan of westerns personally but after Kamigawa and New Capenna I welcome magic having more nontraditional fantasy settings and there is a lot of stuff to work with. New native american looking character looks cool and wonder if she's meant to be a villian or not.

For the figures outlined my guesses are tiny bones, Vraska, Kellan, Oko, the new character and Rakdos. We will see if Vraska and Oko are still sparked but my guess is maybe both of them are deparked and the new character is a new planeswalkerc character. And neat to see the first set that clearly couldn't happen until now with the omen paths letting all the villains come together. To the theory of Wild West world being being Angraths home plane would be cute but I don't see anything outright about Angrath being from western world and is vague enough to work either way.

Also glad they got a consultants on this and hope this will show a bit of diversity in mtg we don't get a lot of.

Bloomburrow

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I'm not one of the "too many humans" people as imo diverse human cultures and representation > non-humans in fiction, but as I said with Thunder Junction I'm here to see more nontraditional magic setting and this fits and looks cute. I always felt it was a mistake to not having talking non-humanoid animals on Eldraine so I'm glad that choice was helpful to make this setting feel different. Wonder if this plane got hit by phrexia or was one of the ones that realmbreaker hadn't reached yet.

It would also be fitting if this was a the homeplane of Grist who would fit here as she is a just an insect and hopefully still has her spark if so. Otherwise I think this would be the first set without a desparked planeswalker (as Grist is the only canon animal planeswalker) and if no Grist as a planeswalker maybe we will get another animal walker on this plane. Also maybe this the home plane of Chatterfang.

Duskmourn

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I'm split. On the one hand I love Innistrad I'd kinda just like to keep all the horror tropes and themes there. On the other hand I love the theory that the plane/mansion is some malevolent entity that was once only able to capture planeswalker now getting tons of people now due to the omenpaths which are unstable so likely those people are fully trapped and are not planeswalkers who can just walk away. Its also just a good use of the omethpaths letting them do a setting (a plane all inside a mansion) that couldn't maybe work a living world before now.

While I don't think they would show up as a card I could see this as Ashioks home plane as Ashiok could be seen as magic version of Freddy Krueger. And if the theory is true we could also see a few of desparked characters up now having to deal with a threat unable to just walk away, such as Nissa and Chandra* ending up here looking for Zendikar or Sorin/Arlinn now desparked and once the monsters on their home now victims on this one.

"Death Race"

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Not my thing really but I have a vehicles deck so my melvin side will enjoy it and I like seeing set ideas that use the omenpaths. From the hints and art the only guess I have so far is Kaladesh as that would be a good fit for a what is likely a vehicle set I'd be happy if the other returning plane was Alara (its my "lorwyn/Kamigawa" of planes I want to return too) and this would help show the plane off without needing to address the issues with the planes card identity post conflux. Not sure on the third plane unless maybe Vryn with the rings being part of the race.

Tarkir 2

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Tarkir was never my favorite set card wise but I do wanna see how things have changed pre-phyrexia. My guess is the clans/khans return and some of the dragons join them (changed to be more pro-humanoid after the phyrexian war) though none of the dragonlord will. Some of the dragonlord I think will be killed off but a few will remain as enemies. We already know Narset (and likely becomes a Khan in this timeline once again) and Sarkhan have been desparked here so only question is if they work in Ugin and if Ugin is still a planeswalker or not. I perosnally think iUgin is still sealed away with Bolas and why Tarkir has been unbalanced by Ugin being dead (khans)/healing coma (dragons).

That said the omenpaths and desparking gave Bolas a way to escape his prison and for Ugin to not be able to track him as easliy if desparked

"Space Opera"

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Once again I support magic doing nontraditional fantasy settings and after looking over stuff in Starfinder I would love to see magics take of space fantasy. Only thing I don't care for (which might change) is aliens being used as a creature type vs just making new creature types for each new species. This might be also a good place to reprint some of the Warhammer cards as Universe Within cards. Also would be neat if this was a backdrop set featuring Dominaria as it is canon Dominaria has a full solar system. Be funny to also have (desparked or not) Jace here to make Space Belern canon.

I also think the censored part of this arc might be the Fomori who i do note fall into a subversion of the ancient aliens trope.

Lorwyn/Shadowmoor 2

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I'm not a huge lover of Lowyn/Shadowmoor but I do believe most of magics planes and worlds are returnable in some way and after Kamigawa 2 I'm happy to see Lorwyn is getting a mulligan. Gonna guess day/night will return and fits the flavor of the world changing on the day-night cycle. My personal theory is since we last saw Lowryn the plane will still change from Lorwyn to Shadowmoor and semi-regularly but peoples memories are retained and some elements of Lorwyn are in Shadowmoor and vice-vers such as Kithkin having Shadowmoor like eyes even during Lorwyn. Similar to Kamigawa 2 I don't think most of the old mechincs will show up (though hybrid likley would be cute to use here) though I think there will be a minor Lorwyn creature type matters theme.

Of note Fomori are beings from Irish Mythology and not friendly to the human and the other magical beings (Tuatha Dé Danann) of the lands. This would make them fit right into Lorwyn's Celtic mythology base and Lorwyn is the second set in this arc. Could be fitting of the myths if return to Lorwyn feature a conflict with the peoples of Lorwyn and the Fomori and/or end up being where we lean the origins of the Fomori.

Strixhaven 2

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I like Strixhaven but feels kinda soon to return to it and the fact we are coming back here right before the capstone set of this story saga really makes me think this will be the Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance of this story saga and be a more traditional Strixhaven return before the next set just uses the plane as a setting. My current guess is Kasminas group (maybe now desperate with many members desparked) being a factor in the story either as big bads or trying to stop whatever bad is happening (which could be the Fomori). Will confirm if Liliana was depsarked since she was here helping rebuild so this where she would be if desparked. Quint might be a main character as this is his home plane and would maybe play into his arc of looking into the Fomori.

"Ziplining"

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Can't say much only I'm guessing its the final battle with the Fomori if they are the big bads which they might be

[void_nothing]

So if the Coin Empire's populace is composed of the same Fomori as the ones of Turri Island, it'll be interesting to see how Ruhan's people, who appear to have a low technological level and live on an isolated part of a small backwater plane, got spaceships and powered armor in the first place.

[void_nothing]

Might be able to start on the major events spoiler for Murders at Karlov Manor?

SPOILER

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Prominent Ravnicans have been murdered, starting with Zegana, former Prime Speaker of the Simic Combine.

[5colorsrainbow]

Might be able to start on the major events spoiler for Murders at Karlov Manor?

SPOILER

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Prominent Ravnicans have been murdered, starting with Zegana, former Prime Speaker of the Simic Combine.

I'm gonna wait for the stories to finish first since I'm mainly (in this thread) focusing on the main events of the overall arc.

[5colorsrainbow]

Update murders

Also forgot to post this if anyone wants to guess on the death race planes, three planes will be feature ;

"Two of the planes are planes that have been visited in a premier-set but not returned" gives us;

Rabiah, Ulgrotha, Mercadia, Lorwyn*, Alara, Tarkir*, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, Ikoria, Kaldheim, Arcavios*, Capenna

*since we are having a full return soon Maro has basically said these planes are not gonna be in the death race but wanted just to list them for prosperity.

"Third is a plane that we have seen on cards, but it hasn't been the main setting of a premier set yet." This gives us a lot (like any of the plane chases planes / Battles in MOM) but to narrow it down some to major side planes;

Regatha, Vryn, Gobakhan, Kylem, Tolvada, Fiora, Shandalar, Zhalfir, Shenmeng

[void_nothing]

So for that first list:

Rabiah - It would be really odd to make a momentous change to the policy on this setting (it still technically exists in the fiction but will probably never be used again because it's literally just real-world folklore) just to use it as a background for omenpath Mario Kart.
Ulgrotha - We had Ulgrotha references in MOM but what specifically about Ulgrotha is interesting as far as racing? The Aysen Highway as a superspeedway lol?
Mercadia - This might be one of my preferred options. Every piece of fiction about racing has to have a scene where the race goes through a marketplace and flips over a bunch of tables or something.
Alara - This actually seems like it'd be a waste of a return to (New) Alara - that setting has a certain amount of cachet and grandiosity, like Dominaria and Ravnica if not quite as popular, and should get a full set at least imo.
Kaladesh - There's actually already racing on Kaladesh as far as we've seen! So this makes sense.
Amonkhet - Hey, every racing video game has a desert track, right? Still, I think this would dampen the emotional impact of seeing a rebuilding Amonkhet.
Ikoria - Dodge the monsters while racing? Why not.
Kaldheim - No real reason why not go to Kaldheim - again, it fits with the Mario Kart aesthetic to have an arctic track - but this is another set I think people want a full return for.
Capenna - Another urban setting that would look kinda similar to Kaladesh, only Capenna would be at night, lol. Side note: After the bowler hats in MKM and the soon-to-be cowboy hats in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, it is a crying shame that we won't get a return to New Capenna right after that as a Nice Hat Arc.

Second list:
Regatha - With no Jaya around this might be the most interesting thing that could be done with Regatha right now, and you'd get your "volcano level" right there.
Vryn - The image of racing through mage-rings seems quite obvious, and if Jace is going to take some time being teased as a returning character, this would be a great place to have him as a focus planeswalker.
Gobakhan - This would really put the death in "death race" - Gobakhan's whole deal is that it's almost uninhabitable due to wacky magic weather, so.
Kylem - While Kylem is all about competition in general, there's no real reason I'd put it above all the others on this list. A solid maybe.
Tolvada - Probably too devastated as a world to make sense.
Fiora - This would be similar to Mercadia imo and they'd probably just go with Mercadia.
Shandalar - Maybe a bit too generic/"Dominaria lite" to be used here?
Zhalfir - There is genuinely no way in hell that the first appearance of Zhalfir as its own plane in a set would be as one-third of a wacky death race. That is being saved for a very hyped set a couple of years from now, I hope.
Shenmeng - This might be one of the better use cases for Shenmeng! A plane based on the wacky myths of a specific Ancient Chinese book is a bit narrow for a full set but perfect as one of three settings. Plus, think of the scenery the race would pass through.

[5colorsrainbow]

My guessing for Death Race (again);

Kaladesh- I'm the most sure of this as some of the concept art looked like Kaladesh vehicles and as the set is very likely a vehicles based, it makes sense to feature Kaladesh as the set they first showed up in. Also would help with the issues artifact sets have and would let them show Kaladesh without it being total an artifact set.

Second plane- Honesty not 100% sure. My hope is for Alara (and would to have it feature different environmental tracks the racers will go through) but you can also get that with Kaldheim. Capenna has those car...bug...things, that could let them fit into a death race and have the city and/or the waste lands as raceways

Third plane- only one I think strongly could be Vyrn, it could feature the rings, Maro has said its been considered for a set a few times and could be the set they revel what Jace has been doing. Hard to say otherwise as the choices are so broad and they don't have much flavor or mechincs to say if they would work or not.




And Yeehaw a sooner topic to guess on (before we get the first look here in likely a few weeks) if you look at the art for Outlaws of Thunderjunction we have a few figures to guess at. My guesses are (from left to right);

Tinybones; The only Skeleton of note it could be, though them being a thief to help feed their family if a stretch though with some of the other character maybe they are being very loose with "villian".

Vraska: Again the only major gorgon of note and it fits her typical silhouette.

Kellan: I originally thought Jace but as pointed out the silhouette is hits Kellan and makes sense he wind up here with his dad, speaking of;

Oko; Yeah this Oko, fits the silhouette and we know from the arts he is in the set.

New woman character; I'm guessing this the new naive american coded character we showed off, her silhouette fits partially her pronged weapon. As the art of her was kinda planeswalker like, gonna guess shes a planeswalker of the set. As we didn't know about the 1 planeswalker rule until afterward, not sure this was brought up, but if she is a planeswalkers this means Oko and Vraska have been desparked to be in the set.

[void_nothing]

So our only info on Tinybones is rather... not very serious? I'm not sure how a reanimated oddly small skeleton has a family, and I think when Tinybones, Trinket Thief was created the character was never really meant to be used in a storyline, so their profile is somewhat of a one-off joke. Regardless, that's who the silhouette is so I think we're going to get more characterization about Tinybones being a wisecracker who jokes about their motivations.

The one-PW rule appears to be more of a default than a constraint. I don't think both Oko and Vraska are desparked. The unknown female character who may be native to Thunder Junction could be a planeswalker alongside one other, imo.

[5colorsrainbow]

And thus ends the Omenpath arc aka the Kellan arc.

Next will be the Dragon storm arc starting with Bloomsburrow.

[CommanderMaster999]

Ok spoiler tag for those who haven't read the epilogue who want to

SPOILER

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Now we may have potentially found the BIG BAD VILLAINS! Of are arcs, and incredibly so far Jace, Vraska, and Loot are those people, there intentions seems to be to reset the mutiverse as in annihilate it potentially and start over (basically jaces thoughts when he was trying to activated the sylux in "all will be one" might be still be standing.)

And the key to why Tarkir is the last set of the Dragonstorm arc is that's where Jace and vraska and loot went so that's when the good guys learn their intentions and have to stop them.

If I were to guess a potential thing that might happen is Tarkir time travel thing might effect loot and cause him to grow up very very fast and Jace and vraska realized that made a big mistake and we go to the "Space opera" set because that might be loots (and likely formori related) homeplane

Oh as for death race now I'm almost certain the never visited plane will be vyrn for that one based on Jace and vraska possibly being the bad guys.

Secondary prediction

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Ofcoarse on the other hand the could be making the next two arcs based on "the mandalorian"

Loot = Gorgu

Jace = Din Djarin / The Mandalorian

Vraska = Bo-Katan Kryze

And for a guess… Niv-mizzet = Moff Gideon

Very simple explanation… niv mizzet's Omenpath project to make Ranivca the locus of the mutiverse. If he finds out about loot that pretty much has the map of the entire mutiverse and the omenpath map he probably do whatever it takes to get loot for his project.

third one

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Well this is going into tin foil hat territory

But a quick remind the big theory on eldrazi is the recycle planes and that could fit into the whole "reset the mutiverse" thing Jace and vraska is doing and it's not like loot has a connection to them somehow

And it's not like the eldrazi correct planes are the ones the fomori were on.

And to note from maro himself

He confirms that even infant creatures would have gotten the "Giant" type so they really makes the theory of loot is not a fomori is looking more than good. (Loot might be a different creature but connected to the fomori somehow.)