Talk:Zhalfir
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About this sentence "The Zhalfirins pioneered the five colors of mana on Dominaria and, unlike the rest of the plane, escaped the ravages of the Sylex Blast, the Ice Age, and the Flood Ages.", as Zhalfir has been phased out during the first phyrexian invasion, wasn't it still on Dominaria during the Sylex blast and the Ice Age? --Fabrimagic (talk) 06:38, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
- Correct. There is no source on the claim and Zhalfir has indeed existed since before 0 AR. Needs a citation, I suppose? -CathGuac (talk) 08:11, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like the edit was made way back in 2006 and I have no idea where they got that information from. The 2018 The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria does mention Zhalfir was formed in the "Time of Legends" according to Squirle's review of the book. I don't have access to a copy so I can't verify that. -- RivalRowan (talk) 10:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
- Okay... I remember this being stated as fact in the past on various forums. But I couldn't think of the source either, so I did some digging, assuming it must have been one of the oldest sites. Long story short, I found the unofficial (semi-official?) source it was copied from. It's the Jeff Lee's old site about lore. I never knew how to evaluate information from it though. On the one hand, he was in contact with the likes of Pete Venters or the author Teri McLaren at the time - he certainly had some degree of information from the backstage. On the other hand, it is not officially official site, if you will, and we can't say what exactly has been taken from Wizards' people, and what he merely inferred from other bits of official info (or how well), and/or what may have been ultimately retconed. The best I could find from the official sources is this, stating: "Welcome to Jamuraa, a land steeped in magical traditions that have existed for millennia." But that's not really saying much, given that the story for Mirage is set past the 4000 AR. That gives us Zharfirian magical traditions starting a millennium before the end of the Ice Age or earlier. So at the very least, Lee's info is consistent. Ontos (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
- I think the general consensus, or at least my opinion, would be that information from Jeff that can't be directly sourced to a primary source should be removed. While his resource was great before we had a centralized repository like the wiki, it's not up to modern standards of sourcing and it turns out there's a fair bit he got wrong. RudleyDudley (talk) 02:57, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
- In this case it looks like a bit of ascended fanon thanks to The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria. But in general, yes. If the only source is Jeff's site and Jeff doesn't have a cited source, we're taking the approach that it's not verifiable information (WP:PROOF). -- RivalRowan (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
- All fine with me. And for posterity, here's that one time that Jeff Lee resurfaced on MTG Sally, talking about some of his sources and inferences. Ontos (talk) 23:08, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
- In this case it looks like a bit of ascended fanon thanks to The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria. But in general, yes. If the only source is Jeff's site and Jeff doesn't have a cited source, we're taking the approach that it's not verifiable information (WP:PROOF). -- RivalRowan (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
- I think the general consensus, or at least my opinion, would be that information from Jeff that can't be directly sourced to a primary source should be removed. While his resource was great before we had a centralized repository like the wiki, it's not up to modern standards of sourcing and it turns out there's a fair bit he got wrong. RudleyDudley (talk) 02:57, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
- Okay... I remember this being stated as fact in the past on various forums. But I couldn't think of the source either, so I did some digging, assuming it must have been one of the oldest sites. Long story short, I found the unofficial (semi-official?) source it was copied from. It's the Jeff Lee's old site about lore. I never knew how to evaluate information from it though. On the one hand, he was in contact with the likes of Pete Venters or the author Teri McLaren at the time - he certainly had some degree of information from the backstage. On the other hand, it is not officially official site, if you will, and we can't say what exactly has been taken from Wizards' people, and what he merely inferred from other bits of official info (or how well), and/or what may have been ultimately retconed. The best I could find from the official sources is this, stating: "Welcome to Jamuraa, a land steeped in magical traditions that have existed for millennia." But that's not really saying much, given that the story for Mirage is set past the 4000 AR. That gives us Zharfirian magical traditions starting a millennium before the end of the Ice Age or earlier. So at the very least, Lee's info is consistent. Ontos (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like the edit was made way back in 2006 and I have no idea where they got that information from. The 2018 The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria does mention Zhalfir was formed in the "Time of Legends" according to Squirle's review of the book. I don't have access to a copy so I can't verify that. -- RivalRowan (talk) 10:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)