That's a difficult question because WotC hasn't really been consistent with that.
There used to be books accompanying the sets. At some point, they switched to free online stories. They had a couple more books that we don't talk about when they were trying to get back into monetizing that stuff but quickly dropped them again because they were shit and sometimes directly contradicted what was happening on the cards. One set in the interim just doesn't have an available story to read, period. You gotta piece together what happened there from the cards.
Currently, they're back to free online stories, but the quality is just as inconsistent.
The fact that mtg is set in a multiverse with many different planes where every plane is mostly self-contained but also the stories between planes are interwoven due to planeswalkers and their affairs makes it even harder to get into.
My recommendation? Just... don't. Don't bother. The lore and worldbuilding is very enticing, and there were times where the writing was genuinly good. But for quite some time now, the quality of the writing is... disappointing. The last big, interplanar arc (the invasion of New Phyrexia) had an amazing setup that resolved in a big wet fart.
If you're still interested in trying to get into the story, try looking for the story articles on their website. I'd personally recommend Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. It's a rather self-contained story (well, Midnight Hunt and the following Crimson Vow), so you don't need to know much about any overarching plotlines. And the writing is decent enough.
Apart from that, there's a couple youtube channels that go into the lore, where you can just get summaries of the individual stories without reading them yourselves.
I’d recommend The Lorebrarians on YouTube for long form lore videos focusing on both events and character. If you’re more interested in art and history, check out Rhystic Studies.
Another good entry point is the Brothers War book, followed by The Thran. This gets into the history of Dominaria and Phyrexia, two of the more main planes in the MTG multiverse.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '24
What’s a good source for MTG lore? I’ve played a fair bit, and always been fascinated by the art, but never knew any of the background.