The five Nauctis factions are racing to the Sunken Realms

Magic's first post-Jace story got its cast list from a ticketing page. Wizards hasn't previewed a single Nauctis: The Sunken Realm card yet, but the MagicCon Detroit 2027 schedule lists five Sealed leagues for the set, one per faction, and every blurb has its team bragging about who will find the Sunken Realms first.

Jace Beleren died in September. Reality Fracture's final story chapters killed him and handed his spark to Tam. Nauctis opens the next chapter on February 5th, 2027, and the Nauctis factions are our first real clue about what that chapter looks like. Below is who's in the water, what each side wants, and which one I'm taking into the Oceanic League in Detroit.

What are the five Nauctis factions?

The five Nauctis factions are Humans, Merfolk, Sharks, Decalids, and Desolators, as listed in the Oceanic League events on the MagicCon Detroit 2027 ticketed play schedule.

Each league is a weekend-long Sealed event. You pick a faction and a sealed pool (five Nauctis booster packs plus one Collector Booster), then play your matches whenever you want between February 26th and 28th.

Wizards hasn't confirmed these five as story factions, but they do have a track record here. League events at MagicCon Atlanta and Las Vegas named the Strixhaven and Hexhaven colleges well before Secrets of Strixhaven and Reality Fracture put them on cards. Ticketed play schedules leak more than Wizards' marketing team would like, and they tend to be right.

Two names on the list are brand new to Magic: Decalids and Desolators. And two peoples Wizards did name in its Nauctis announcement, homarids and seals, didn't get a league at all. My guess is they ride along inside the bigger factions, the way plenty of minor creature types do each set.

Expect these five to be the set's main creature types and, very likely, its Limited archetypes.

Why does Nauctis start a new era of Magic?

Nauctis is the first in-universe set after Reality Fracture ended the Metronome Arc, the three-year storyline that ran from Wilds of Eldraine all the way to Jace's death.

I covered the setup in my Reality Fracture primer, and the Empower Jace breakdown shows how Wizards put his villain arc on cards. The short version of the ending: Vraska stabbed Jace through the heart, and his spark passed to Tam, the artificial being born in the Echoverse. His funeral was on his home plane of Vryn, and the story wrapped there.

Wizards' Nauctis pitch leaves planeswalkers out entirely. The official announcement is about two warring kingdoms and a group of unlikely heroes trying to keep their home from getting swallowed by the abyss. After three years of watching Jace's mind crack in half, a story about locals fighting over their own ocean is the right reset. A new player can follow it without a wiki tab open.

What are the Sunken Realms?

The Sunken Realms are the prize all five Nauctis factions are racing toward, and Wizards hasn't said what they are yet.

Here's what we have. The set name uses the singular, Sunken Realm, while the league blurbs say Sunken Realms, plural, and one of them calls it a secret. Wizards' announcement describes a plane with no dry land anywhere, vast cities beneath the waves, gods that swim alongside their followers, and more danger the deeper you go.

Put that together, and the Sunken Realms sit at the bottom of the ocean, right next to whatever is threatening to swallow everyone's home. Five factions diving toward the thing that might kill them is a great setup for a Magic story. The story chapters, which should start around January previews, will settle what's down there.

Humans are the only faction that can't breathe down there

The Humans of Nauctis are the outsiders: explorers who survive underwater in submarines, built with no green mana on purpose.

Magic Story Lead Roy Graham told Wargamer the team made "a conscious choice" to keep green away from the plane's humans, because the set had to show how brutal life is on a world without land. Green is the color of nature and belonging. Humans on Nauctis don't belong, and the color pie says it for them. The fan-run MTG Wiki already lists Nauctis humans across the other four colors.

Graham also said there's an answer to how humans ended up on Nauctis, and Wizards is holding it for later. Keep an eye on that one. A plane with zero dry land had to get its humans from somewhere.

The Humans' league blurb leans all the way in, admitting they weren't built for life underwater and betting on ingenuity and an explorer's spirit. They're the faction that showed up to an ocean plane the way I show up to a hotel pool: overprepared and a little out of place. If those submarines turn into artifacts or Vehicles on cards, Humans will be the deck that wins with gear.

Are the Merfolk the favorites to reach the Sunken Realms?

The Merfolk are the home-team favorites, and their league blurb says, with zero doubt, that they'll surely find the secret of the Sunken Realms first.

Merfolk lead Wizards' list of Nauctis peoples, and Magic has been printing them since 1993. They also have the most to lose. Nauctis is their ocean, and two warring kingdoms are fighting over it. Wizards hasn't said who rules those kingdoms, but I'd be stunned if merfolk didn't run at least one of them.

Blue is the obvious color, and Draftsim reports the designers have said the set won't tilt toward blue just because it's wet. Good. A whole set of mono-blue fish would have been a long February.

Total confidence is the Merfolk's whole pitch. In my experience, that's the team that gets humbled in the third act.

Sharks have their priorities straight

The Sharks faction puts the Sunken Realms second on its to-do list, and its league blurb says the search can wait until after.

The MTG Wiki's breakdown of the plane lists both sharkfolk and plain old sharks, so expect this faction to mix sapient sharks with the kind that just eats you. Magic has printed sharks before. It has never given them a team.

My read: Sharks are the aggro deck. Every set needs one faction that just wants to attack, and a team that pencils in its sacred quest for later is that faction.

What is a Decalid?

A Decalid is a new Magic creature type for the tentacled faction of Nauctis, and the smart money says it means squidfolk.

"Deca" means ten, and squid and cuttlefish have ten limbs: eight arms plus two longer tentacles. The Decalids' league blurb opens with "Tentacles unite" and then brags about how much better their arms are than everyone else's. Squidfolk are already on the list of Nauctis peoples, per both the MTG Wiki and Turn Zero's set guide.

One wrinkle: lobsters are ten-legged too, and homarids are lobsterfolk. The blurb leads with tentacles, though, so I'm leaving the homarids out of this one.

For Commander players, a new creature type means a new typal deck to build from scratch, and Mark Rosewater has confirmed every 2027 set gets at least four Commander decks. If one of the Nauctis precons is tentacle typal, it gets heaped onto the buy pile.

Desolators already live where everyone else is headed

The Desolators are the abyss dwellers of Nauctis, and their league blurb says they're already used to the dark of the deep, which gives them a head start on the Sunken Realm search.

Look at the names. Humans, Merfolk, Sharks, and Decalids are all species. Desolator is a job description, and a threatening one.

Wizards' announcement warns that the heroes' home could be swallowed by the abyssal depths, and that players will meet fearsome creatures living far from the surface. The Desolators live down there. My money is on this being the set's black faction, and both the name and the home address point the same way.

The Desolators are the twist

Here's my prediction: the Desolators are the abyssal threat from Wizards' announcement, and the Oceanic League quietly handed a fifth of the room a villain's jersey. Five factions are racing to the bottom of the ocean, and one of them already lives there. That's a heist movie where the safecracker secretly works for the vault.

That makes Desolators my Oceanic League pick. Villains get the best rares.

If you're going, here's everything you need to know about MagicCon Detroit 2027. Pro Tour Nauctis runs the same weekend, so the first serious test of these factions happens a short drive down Woodward from my house.

Author:

Greg is the founder of The Cardboard Chronicles, covering Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, Lorcana, Elestrals, and many more of the world's popular TCGs. Greg has been playing and collecting Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon for over 2 decades and covers the TCG space daily while running all of the social channels!

Nauctis factions FAQ

What are the five factions of Nauctis?

The five Nauctis factions are Humans, Merfolk, Sharks, Decalids, and Desolators. They come from the Oceanic League Sealed events on the MagicCon Detroit 2027 schedule, where each player picks a faction racing to find the Sunken Realms. Wizards has not yet confirmed them as story factions.

What are the Sunken Realms in Magic: The Gathering?

The Sunken Realms are the goal every Nauctis faction is racing to reach first, according to the MagicCon Detroit league descriptions. Wizards has not revealed what they are. The official set announcement points to danger in the ocean's abyssal depths, which suggests the Sunken Realms lie deep below the plane's cities.

When does Nauctis: The Sunken Realm release?

Nauctis: The Sunken Realm releases February 5th, 2027, with prerelease events starting January 29th, 2027. It is the first Magic: The Gathering set of 2027 and the featured set at MagicCon Detroit, February 26th to 28th, 2027.

What is a Decalid in MTG?

Decalid is a new Magic: The Gathering creature type tied to the tentacled faction of Nauctis. Its MagicCon Detroit league description refers to tentacles and arms, which points to squidfolk, a people already confirmed for the plane. "Deca" means ten, matching the ten limbs of a squid.

Why don't the humans of Nauctis use green mana?

The humans of Nauctis have no green mana by design. Magic Story Lead Roy Graham told Wargamer that Wizards chose to keep green away from them to show how hard life is on a plane with no dry land. Nauctis humans explore the ocean in submarines.

Is Nauctis the first Magic set after Jace's death?

Yes. Nauctis: The Sunken Realm is the first in-universe Magic set after Reality Fracture, whose story ended with Jace Beleren's death and his spark passing to Tam. Reality Fracture closed the Metronome Arc, and Nauctis begins Magic's next storyline.

What is the Oceanic League at MagicCon Detroit?

The Oceanic League is a weekend-long Nauctis: The Sunken Realm Sealed league at MagicCon Detroit 2027. Each player chooses one of five factions and receives a sealed pool of five Nauctis booster packs plus one Collector Booster. League matches can be played at any time from February 26th to 28th.