Rift Era
| Rift Era | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| Information | |||||
| Dates | 4206—4500 AR | ||||
| Length | 294 years | ||||
| Plane | Dominaria, Mirrodin, Ravnica | ||||
| Sets | Odyssey block, Onslaught block, Mirrodin block, Ravnica block, Time Spiral block | ||||
| Storyline Sources | |||||
| Odyssey, Chainer's Torment, Judgment, Onslaught, Legions, Scourge, The Moons of Mirrodin, The Darksteel Eye, The Fifth Dawn, Ravnica, Guildpact, Dissension, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight | |||||
| Notable Events | |||||
| Battle for the Mirari, Nightmare War, Rebirth of Karona, Karona's War, Corruption of Memnarch, Fifth Dawn, The Vanishing, Creation of the Schism, Decamillennial, The Dissension, Temporal Crisis of Dominaria | |||||
| Timeline | |||||
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The Rift Era was a period of escalating magical instability in the Multiverse, marked by the formation of time and space rifts across Dominaria. From approximately 4206 to 4500 AR, this era witnessed the slow unraveling of Dominaria's ecosystem, civilizations, and even its temporal coherence. Though the Phyrexian Invasion had ended, the accumulated trauma of centuries of magical warfare and divine intervention left deep wounds in reality — rifts that grew larger and more unstable over time. The Rift Era explores the cost of power, with Planeswalkers’ and other powerful beings' careless, godlike actions leaving permanent scars across three disparate worlds.
Description
The Rift Era is characterized by history, geography, mana, and even identity fragmentation. While Dominaria is the central stage, the consequences of the era echo across other planes, particularly Mirrodin, which was created during this time, and Ravnica, where independent magical instability culminated in Dissension.
This period saw the fall of empires, the birth of artificial worlds, the transformation of mortals into gods and back again, and the deaths of numerous planeswalkers. It concluded with the Temporal crisis of Dominaria, in which several time rifts were sealed at great cost, triggering the Great Mending and ushering in a new planar age.
Rise and Fall of Karona
The opening decades of the Rift Era followed the events of Otaria, on which the artifact known as the Mirari caused widespread chaos. It amplified magic, desire, and ambition, and the Battle for the Mirari and the Nightmare War saw it eventually falling into the hands of Kamahl, whose actions inadvertently led to the Rebirth of Karona, a godlike being personifying the plane's mana. Karona’s mere existence unbalanced Dominaria’s magic, and Karona's War triggered a final time rift formation across Otaria. Her brief, unstable reign ended in her destruction, but the damage to the plane's leylines was done.
Creation and Corruption of Mirrodin
On another front, the planeswalker Karn used the Mirari’s core to create Memnarch, protector of the artificial plane of Argentum. However, the presence of glistening oil, carried unknowingly from Dominaria, began corrupting Karn's servant. The Corruption of Memnarch led to the golem's supreme madness, and he began abducting organic beings from other planes to seed life on Mirrodin. The Fifth Dawn event would lead Glissa and Slobad to defeat Memnarch in Mirrodin's Core, triggering the Vanishing which drained the plane of much of its life forms, setting the stage for later Phyrexian resurgence.
Events on Ravnica
While Ravnica was mostly isolated from Dominaria’s crises, the Creation of the Schism and the celebration of the Decamillennial, a 10,000-year anniversary of the Signing of the Guildpact, occurred during the Rift Era. The subsequent breaking of the Guildpact and the events of the Dissension, a period of large-scale havoc caused by the machinations of Momir Vig, Izolda, Szadek, and the Nephilim reflected a growing theme of unchecked magical collapse that echoed the pattern on Dominaria.
The Temporal Crisis
The era culminated in the Temporal crisis of Dominaria. As time rifts widened across Shiv, Tolaria, Urborg, Yavimaya, Otaria, Madara, Skyshroud, and Zhalfir, mana drained from the plane and the multiverse began to warp. Time anomalies and alternate timelines emerged, and old heroes were called back to act.
The crisis forced legendary planeswalkers — Teferi, Freyalise, Lord Windgrace, Jeska, and Karn — to sacrifice their sparks or lives to close the rifts. Nicol Bolas reemerged and manipulated the chaos for his ends, sacrificing Leshrac to seal the rift over Madara. Jeska’s final sacrifice closed the last rift, catalyzing the multiversal Great Mending. After the Mending, planeswalkers were no longer immortal or omnipotent; instead, they became mortal mages, though retaining the ability to travel the Multiverse. This marked the start of the Mending Era, a time of rebuilding and the emergence of a new generation of planeswalkers — including Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Liliana Vess.
Though much of Dominaria's former glory was lost, the plane survived and slowly began to heal.
