Sarkhan arrives at Ugin's Tomb, followed by Zurgo. Narset somehow shows up as well, and then the time-travelling happens.
That would a)explain how Narset is still around to be a planeswalker even if the timeline shifts drastically and present day Tarkir is hugely different from how we currently know it, b) keep Zurgo in the story since Wizards (I'm guessing) seems to think he is the most popular of the Khans and c) turn the story into - "3 people with no love lost between them are forced to work together to achieve a goal..." (overused cliche in all forms of media)
Maybe...
1) zurgo follows sarkhan
2) sarkhan time travels
3) zurgo somehow joins him
4) zurgo supports bolas/stops sarkhan from helping ugin (knowingly or not)
5) ugin is still saved sadly at leas we get a colorless pw card.
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First come the goblins. Hordes of them. But soon the ramp produced by xenagos attracts monstrous token-producing hydras. Towering over the battlefield, these 12-headed killing machines are protected 2 archetypes of endurance as they crash any resistence left
I dislike the fact that, despite the Asian-themed setting of Tarkir, there has been no explicit mention of ki, as there was in the Kamigawa block; the Jeskai clearly are users of ki, but that concept has never been mentioned by name, so I am rather disappointed by that. Does anyone else feel the same way about that?
Khans of tarkir is not FAR EAST themed, but more of a middle east - middle asia theme (excepy the jeskai I guess)
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First come the goblins. Hordes of them. But soon the ramp produced by xenagos attracts monstrous token-producing hydras. Towering over the battlefield, these 12-headed killing machines are protected 2 archetypes of endurance as they crash any resistence left
Personally, I've loved how each time we've seen the Mardu from their own perspective the white aspect has been emphasized. Their leaders aren't just the biggest meatheads around, they genuinely care for their underling warriors and realize, much like the Abzan, that if they don't act and fight as one, they're doomed. Even Zurgo's breakdown and loss of authority is ultimately driven by his desire to do right by his clan. He honestly thinks that Sarkhan's head on a pike is the best way to serve the Mardu, and he's going to make it happen whether anybody else agrees with him or not. And the fact that he's achieving a white goal through the very R/B means of 'screw the rules I'mma go do what I think needs doing' is wonderfully appropriate.
I dislike the fact that, despite the Asian-themed setting of Tarkir, there has been no explicit mention of ki, as there was in the Kamigawa block; the Jeskai clearly are users of ki, but that concept has never been mentioned by name, so I am rather disappointed by that. Does anyone else feel the same way about that?
Khans of tarkir is not FAR EAST themed, but more of a middle east - middle asia theme (excepy the jeskai I guess)
I've heard it said in the Design videos that they made for the Pro Tour that Jeskai has nothing to do with Japan, but more with some Thai/Cambodian ancient Khmer civilization.
That sounds more Sultain than Jeskai.
The Jeskai certainly aren't Japanese, that's true. They're more like China/Tibet.
Indeed. The Eldrazi, Nicol Bolas and Elesh Norn are on the same level as Maleficent or Jafar.
Sidisi is Cruella de Vil. And even that's too charitable.
I don't know if this is intended as a complement or an insult to Bolas, Norn, and the Eldrazi. Because neither Maleficent nor Jafar were particularly engaging villains.
Personally, I don't see how Nicol Bolas is any different from the Sultai, aside from being more powerful. I've come to hate the term "moustache-twirler" because it's thrown around so much these days that it has become cliché (I've used it in the past, so I'm guilty), but if anyone deserves that label, it's Nicol Bolas. He has no redeeming qualities, stands for nothing (he has no motive aside from power for power's sake), kills his subordinates just to show how evil he is, and his great physical size is belied by an innate smallness and pettiness that feels ill-suited to such an ancient and all-powerful being. When Yawgmoth spoke, you could feel his vast age, wisdom, and power in his monologues. Nicol Bolas has lived three times as long, but his personality has nothing to show for it. For all his supposed intelligence and might, he's just so... simple.
Magic used to boast truly well-written villains like Yawgmoth, Ixidor, Konda, and Szadek. Recently, we've had some fun ones like Xenagos and deliciously despicable ones like Heliod. But any high school fanfic writer could write Nicol Bolas. The sooner he finally dies, the sooner Magic's story will have more room to grow and mature.
....
As for this recent UR, I liked the story pretty well overall. At first I wasn't fond of Zurgo being a simple henchman-killing brute, but as the story neared its end he became more sympathetic, and his final loss was an unexpected turn of events. All three of his colors are portrayed well here, giving us glimpses of his desire for control and dominance (Black), his feelings of pride and devotion to the Mardu (White), and passion and vengefulness that lead to his undoing (Red). Still, reading this makes you wonder at his intelligence, and it's surprising he was able to hold on to leadership as long as he did.
Zurgo is Captain Ahab, only his crew caught him early in his madness and left before he could get the rest of them killed. I like the idea of the lone ex-khan who has lost everything in his quest for vengeance, bitterly tracking the object of his hatred through the murderous cold of the wilderness, until at last he finds Sarkhan and engages him in a desperate fight to the death (preferably on the edge of a ravine )
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"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
Indeed. I meant more in terms of memorability and impact.
I hate Nicol Bolas (though nowhere near as much as Sidisi) and the only Disney villains I actually like are Denahi, Frollo and Yokai, since they have, you know, actual humanity to them.
But in all seriousness, this is a nice piece of literature that leads to the artwork on despise. Zurgo got too angry, and it cost him everything. Watch him get zapped back in time.
Personally, I don't see how Nicol Bolas is any different from the Sultai, aside from being more powerful. I've come to hate the term "moustache-twirler" because it's thrown around so much these days that it has become cliché (I've used it in the past, so I'm guilty), but if anyone deserves that label, it's Nicol Bolas. He has no redeeming qualities, stands for nothing (he has no motive aside from power for power's sake), kills his subordinates just to show how evil he is, and his great physical size is belied by an innate smallness and pettiness that feels ill-suited to such an ancient and all-powerful being. When Yawgmoth spoke, you could feel his vast age, wisdom, and power in his monologues. Nicol Bolas has lived three times as long, but his personality has nothing to show for it. For all his supposed intelligence and might, he's just so... simple.
Magic used to boast truly well-written villains like Yawgmoth, Ixidor, Konda, and Szadek. Recently, we've had some fun ones like Xenagos and deliciously despicable ones like Heliod. But any high school fanfic writer could write Nicol Bolas. The sooner he finally dies, the sooner Magic's story will have more room to grow and mature.
I'm of the opinion that simple villains are some of the best ones. At the end of the day not every villain can be sympathetic or complex. Sometimes you need a wonderfully simple character to serve a wonderfully simple purpose. Say what you want about 'mustache-twirlers', but unrepentant, card carrying villains serve a valuable purpose to a story, especially when you've got as many characters floating around as MtG canon. The real world is often times plenty complex and annoyingly full of shades of grey on it's own, so there's always gonna be people who want their fiction to be completely uncomplicated and straight-forward. People who will want to be able to point at a character and say "This guy is a bad guy. This guy is the good guy. The good guy saves the day because he's good and he's good because he saves the day. The bad guy kicks puppies because he's evil and he's evil because he kicks puppies." Simple, clean, satisfying. Nicol Bolas serves as a perfect example of that sort of character, and is a planeswalker, rather than a gibbering monster like the Eldrazi or an entire race of beings like the Phyrexians. So unless they find some other singularly evil planeswalker, who also had enough presence in the game's history and cache with the fan base to keep people from getting pissed about Bolas being replaced, I sincerely doubt they'd ever kill him off.
Besides all that, personally I don't think he even IS all that one dimensional. Now I will admit right off the bat that I'm not anything even approaching an expert on MtG lore. That said, you say he has "no motive aside from power for power's sake", but come on man. Bolas was an Elder Dragon AND an Oldwalker. I imagine that, after existing as an effectively omnipotent being for however long Bolas did, one becomes used to a certain style of living, as it were. And now he wants to get back what he lost. What he probably thinks is owed to him. We're talking about a giant lizard so mindbendingly set on recapturing his former glory that he's willing to smash whole freaking dimensions together and unlock the cage on his universe's equivalent to a triplet of cthulhus. Are you honestly telling me you don't think that kind of blind greed and unstoppable determination doesn't make for a good villain? Cause if you are I gotta ask what kind of metric you measure your villains by.
I dislike the fact that, despite the Asian-themed setting of Tarkir, there has been no explicit mention of ki, as there was in the Kamigawa block; the Jeskai clearly are users of ki, but that concept has never been mentioned by name, so I am rather disappointed by that. Does anyone else feel the same way about that?
Khans of tarkir is not FAR EAST themed, but more of a middle east - middle asia theme (excepy the jeskai I guess)
I've heard it said in the Design videos that they made for the Pro Tour that Jeskai has nothing to do with Japan, but more with some Thai/Cambodian ancient Khmer civilization.
Far east =/= japan...
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First come the goblins. Hordes of them. But soon the ramp produced by xenagos attracts monstrous token-producing hydras. Towering over the battlefield, these 12-headed killing machines are protected 2 archetypes of endurance as they crash any resistence left
Japan is my favorite country and culture of all Asia and he far east (mostly because that is from where Japanese animation and many video games, of which I am very fond, originate, and I was also a student of Karate, a Japanese art, for fourteen years), so the fact that Tarkir, which is modeled after Tibet, Mongolia, and some areas of the middle east, shall likely be more popular than Kamigawa, which is modeled after Japan, bothers me. Will there ever again be a set with influences from feudal Japan in this game?
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“Those who would trade their freedoms for security will have neither.”-Benjamin Franklin
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Japan is my favorite country and culture of all Asia and he far east (mostly because that is from where Japanese animation and many video games, of which I am very fond, originate, and I was also a student of Karate, a Japanese art, for fourteen years), so the fact that Tarkir, which is modeled after Tibet, Mongolia, and some areas of the middle east, shall likely be more popular than Kamigawa, which is modeled after Japan, bothers me. Will there ever again be a set with influences from feudal Japan in this game?
Maro has said a couple times on his Tumblr that another block with Japanese influenced creative is a possibility, but that if it does happen it's much more likely to be a new plane than a return to Kamigawa.
Maro has said a couple times on his Tumblr that another block with Japanese influenced creative is a possibility, but that if it does happen it's much more likely to be a new plane than a return to Kamigawa.
What would the point of that be? Would it really be so difficult to have another block set on Kamigawa, but with far better-designed cards, a completely new story, and perhaps even different mechanical identities? It has been a decade since that block was released, so, at this point, there would be little difference between a return to Kamigawa and a completely new Japanese-themed plane, apart from minor flavor and aesthetic differences.
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“Those who would trade their freedoms for security will have neither.”-Benjamin Franklin
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
What would the point of that be? Would it really be so difficult to have another block set on Kamigawa, but with far better-designed cards, a completely new story, and perhaps even different mechanical identities? It has been a decade since that block was released, so, at this point, there would be little difference between a return to Kamigawa and a completely new Japanese-themed plane, apart from minor flavor and aesthetic differences.
So... what would be the point of going back to Kamigawa if you change basically everything that made it what it was?
The advantage of doing a new block means being able to innovate. The ability to not have to adhere to decisions made a decade ago.
It also means that it is free of the stigma and problems that plagued the first one. Tabula Rasa.
What would the point of that be? Would it really be so difficult to have another block set on Kamigawa, but with far better-designed cards, a completely new story, and perhaps even different mechanical identities? It has been a decade since that block was released, so, at this point, there would be little difference between a return to Kamigawa and a completely new Japanese-themed plane, apart from minor flavor and aesthetic differences.
So... what would be the point of going back to Kamigawa if you change basically everything that made it what it was?
The advantage of doing a new block means being able to innovate. The ability to not have to adhere to decisions made a decade ago.
It also means that it is free of the stigma and problems that plagued the first one. Tabula Rasa.
I'm of the opinion that simple villains are some of the best ones. At the end of the day not every villain can be sympathetic or complex. Sometimes you need a wonderfully simple character to serve a wonderfully simple purpose. Say what you want about 'mustache-twirlers', but unrepentant, card carrying villains serve a valuable purpose to a story, especially when you've got as many characters floating around as MtG canon. The real world is often times plenty complex and annoyingly full of shades of grey on it's own, so there's always gonna be people who want their fiction to be completely uncomplicated and straight-forward. People who will want to be able to point at a character and say "This guy is a bad guy. This guy is the good guy. The good guy saves the day because he's good and he's good because he saves the day. The bad guy kicks puppies because he's evil and he's evil because he kicks puppies." Simple, clean, satisfying. Nicol Bolas serves as a perfect example of that sort of character, and is a planeswalker, rather than a gibbering monster like the Eldrazi or an entire race of beings like the Phyrexians. So unless they find some other singularly evil planeswalker, who also had enough presence in the game's history and cache with the fan base to keep people from getting pissed about Bolas being replaced, I sincerely doubt they'd ever kill him off.
Besides all that, personally I don't think he even IS all that one dimensional. Now I will admit right off the bat that I'm not anything even approaching an expert on MtG lore. That said, you say he has "no motive aside from power for power's sake", but come on man. Bolas was an Elder Dragon AND an Oldwalker. I imagine that, after existing as an effectively omnipotent being for however long Bolas did, one becomes used to a certain style of living, as it were. And now he wants to get back what he lost. What he probably thinks is owed to him. We're talking about a giant lizard so mindbendingly set on recapturing his former glory that he's willing to smash whole freaking dimensions together and unlock the cage on his universe's equivalent to a triplet of cthulhus. Are you honestly telling me you don't think that kind of blind greed and unstoppable determination doesn't make for a good villain? Cause if you are I gotta ask what kind of metric you measure your villains by.
I'm of the opinion that simple villains are some of the best ones. At the end of the day not every villain can be sympathetic or complex. Sometimes you need a wonderfully simple character to serve a wonderfully simple purpose. Say what you want about 'mustache-twirlers', but unrepentant, card carrying villains serve a valuable purpose to a story, especially when you've got as many characters floating around as MtG canon. The real world is often times plenty complex and annoyingly full of shades of grey on it's own, so there's always gonna be people who want their fiction to be completely uncomplicated and straight-forward. People who will want to be able to point at a character and say "This guy is a bad guy. This guy is the good guy. The good guy saves the day because he's good and he's good because he saves the day. The bad guy kicks puppies because he's evil and he's evil because he kicks puppies." Simple, clean, satisfying. Nicol Bolas serves as a perfect example of that sort of character, and is a planeswalker, rather than a gibbering monster like the Eldrazi or an entire race of beings like the Phyrexians. So unless they find some other singularly evil planeswalker, who also had enough presence in the game's history and cache with the fan base to keep people from getting pissed about Bolas being replaced, I sincerely doubt they'd ever kill him off.
Besides all that, personally I don't think he even IS all that one dimensional. Now I will admit right off the bat that I'm not anything even approaching an expert on MtG lore. That said, you say he has "no motive aside from power for power's sake", but come on man. Bolas was an Elder Dragon AND an Oldwalker. I imagine that, after existing as an effectively omnipotent being for however long Bolas did, one becomes used to a certain style of living, as it were. And now he wants to get back what he lost. What he probably thinks is owed to him. We're talking about a giant lizard so mindbendingly set on recapturing his former glory that he's willing to smash whole freaking dimensions together and unlock the cage on his universe's equivalent to a triplet of cthulhus. Are you honestly telling me you don't think that kind of blind greed and unstoppable determination doesn't make for a good villain? Cause if you are I gotta ask what kind of metric you measure your villains by.
Well, villains who are pretty simple and straight forward in their cruelty can have well-drawn backgrounds to serve as a foundation for their villainy. I don't recall much of Jafar or the others mentioned, but take Ramsay Bolton. On the surface he is clearly a villain with an over the top penchant for cruelty. But, if you dig deeper, you find that he is symptomatic of a broken caste system that dehumanizes the individual based on blood purity. Flaying and castrating Theon is symbolic of stripping away the privilege that comes from being a lord's son, and a stripping of power seen in the castration. Ramsay's favorite sport: hunting women through the woods, raping them, then killing them is a perverse mimicry of his conception. Roose Bolton was hunting when he came across Ramsay's mother, and raped her. Ramsay's hunts replicate this event, except they culminate in a murder rather than new life, or birth. This modification on Ramsay's behalf points toward a deep self-loathing. On the surface, Ramsay's stuff is unquestionably villainous--there is no redemption for this sort of monster, and he's one of the only characters I'd be happy to see Melisandre burn at the stake--but those villainous actions have a solid, psychological foundation.
Other villains, like Zurgo and Ob Nixilis do not have particularly compelling, or tragic, backgrounds. Rather, it is their mannerisms and personalities that allow them to become complex villains rather than cartoonish buffoons like Lord Overdark. So, blind greed and unstoppable determination alone do not make a good villain. There's a reason for those characteristics, and that reason doesn't necessarily mean you're going to feel sorry for the villain.
IIRC, there also hasn't been a webcomic, novel, or UR with Bolas as the focal character. We've only ever seen his actions through the lenses of underlings like Tezzeret and Sarkhan, or enemies like Jace and Ajani, and as such can only guess at the underlying motivations and overall picture of his plans. Magic doesn't have hundreds of pages worth of story to develop a single character, they perhaps only have that much space to develop a whole block. So I don't expect deep character development from the story team. I don't even expect character development on the level of the Weatherlight Saga or "Loren's Smile." However I expect that when a story slot is set aside to showcase a named character, it will contain info that is relevant to the overall plot, or at least flesh out some interesting background detail that we didn't know before. Sidisi's story didn't really do either, and as such I can't hate her, or feel that the heroes of the story will be threatened by her, the way I at least can with Bolas. She and the Sultai come across as more pathetic than villainous.
They don't need to go deep with Sidisi's characterization since the focus point is in Sarkhan and the return of the dragons.Sidisi's UR was just to give Sidisi and the SUltai an identity nothing more since it will only last in this block.I don't mind them been over the top villains since their role in the story is just been an evil khan so i woudn't call the Sultai pathetic just because they aren't complex or multiverse dangerous like the unholy trinity
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Sarkhan arrives at Ugin's Tomb, followed by Zurgo. Narset somehow shows up as well, and then the time-travelling happens.
That would a)explain how Narset is still around to be a planeswalker even if the timeline shifts drastically and present day Tarkir is hugely different from how we currently know it, b) keep Zurgo in the story since Wizards (I'm guessing) seems to think he is the most popular of the Khans and c) turn the story into - "3 people with no love lost between them are forced to work together to achieve a goal..." (overused cliche in all forms of media)
Just my 0.02.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I know it won't happen. I just said I hope it does happen.
1) zurgo follows sarkhan
2) sarkhan time travels
3) zurgo somehow joins him
4) zurgo supports bolas/stops sarkhan from helping ugin (knowingly or not)
5) ugin is still saved sadly at leas we get a colorless pw card.
Khans of tarkir is not FAR EAST themed, but more of a middle east - middle asia theme (excepy the jeskai I guess)
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
That does not make sense at all, sorry.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
That sounds more Sultain than Jeskai.
The Jeskai certainly aren't Japanese, that's true. They're more like China/Tibet.
I don't know if this is intended as a complement or an insult to Bolas, Norn, and the Eldrazi. Because neither Maleficent nor Jafar were particularly engaging villains.
Personally, I don't see how Nicol Bolas is any different from the Sultai, aside from being more powerful. I've come to hate the term "moustache-twirler" because it's thrown around so much these days that it has become cliché (I've used it in the past, so I'm guilty), but if anyone deserves that label, it's Nicol Bolas. He has no redeeming qualities, stands for nothing (he has no motive aside from power for power's sake), kills his subordinates just to show how evil he is, and his great physical size is belied by an innate smallness and pettiness that feels ill-suited to such an ancient and all-powerful being. When Yawgmoth spoke, you could feel his vast age, wisdom, and power in his monologues. Nicol Bolas has lived three times as long, but his personality has nothing to show for it. For all his supposed intelligence and might, he's just so... simple.
Magic used to boast truly well-written villains like Yawgmoth, Ixidor, Konda, and Szadek. Recently, we've had some fun ones like Xenagos and deliciously despicable ones like Heliod. But any high school fanfic writer could write Nicol Bolas. The sooner he finally dies, the sooner Magic's story will have more room to grow and mature.
....
As for this recent UR, I liked the story pretty well overall. At first I wasn't fond of Zurgo being a simple henchman-killing brute, but as the story neared its end he became more sympathetic, and his final loss was an unexpected turn of events. All three of his colors are portrayed well here, giving us glimpses of his desire for control and dominance (Black), his feelings of pride and devotion to the Mardu (White), and passion and vengefulness that lead to his undoing (Red). Still, reading this makes you wonder at his intelligence, and it's surprising he was able to hold on to leadership as long as he did.
Zurgo is Captain Ahab, only his crew caught him early in his madness and left before he could get the rest of them killed. I like the idea of the lone ex-khan who has lost everything in his quest for vengeance, bitterly tracking the object of his hatred through the murderous cold of the wilderness, until at last he finds Sarkhan and engages him in a desperate fight to the death (preferably on the edge of a ravine )
I hate Nicol Bolas (though nowhere near as much as Sidisi) and the only Disney villains I actually like are Denahi, Frollo and Yokai, since they have, you know, actual humanity to them.
But in all seriousness, this is a nice piece of literature that leads to the artwork on despise. Zurgo got too angry, and it cost him everything. Watch him get zapped back in time.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
I'm of the opinion that simple villains are some of the best ones. At the end of the day not every villain can be sympathetic or complex. Sometimes you need a wonderfully simple character to serve a wonderfully simple purpose. Say what you want about 'mustache-twirlers', but unrepentant, card carrying villains serve a valuable purpose to a story, especially when you've got as many characters floating around as MtG canon. The real world is often times plenty complex and annoyingly full of shades of grey on it's own, so there's always gonna be people who want their fiction to be completely uncomplicated and straight-forward. People who will want to be able to point at a character and say "This guy is a bad guy. This guy is the good guy. The good guy saves the day because he's good and he's good because he saves the day. The bad guy kicks puppies because he's evil and he's evil because he kicks puppies." Simple, clean, satisfying. Nicol Bolas serves as a perfect example of that sort of character, and is a planeswalker, rather than a gibbering monster like the Eldrazi or an entire race of beings like the Phyrexians. So unless they find some other singularly evil planeswalker, who also had enough presence in the game's history and cache with the fan base to keep people from getting pissed about Bolas being replaced, I sincerely doubt they'd ever kill him off.
Besides all that, personally I don't think he even IS all that one dimensional. Now I will admit right off the bat that I'm not anything even approaching an expert on MtG lore. That said, you say he has "no motive aside from power for power's sake", but come on man. Bolas was an Elder Dragon AND an Oldwalker. I imagine that, after existing as an effectively omnipotent being for however long Bolas did, one becomes used to a certain style of living, as it were. And now he wants to get back what he lost. What he probably thinks is owed to him. We're talking about a giant lizard so mindbendingly set on recapturing his former glory that he's willing to smash whole freaking dimensions together and unlock the cage on his universe's equivalent to a triplet of cthulhus. Are you honestly telling me you don't think that kind of blind greed and unstoppable determination doesn't make for a good villain? Cause if you are I gotta ask what kind of metric you measure your villains by.
Far east =/= japan...
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Maro has said a couple times on his Tumblr that another block with Japanese influenced creative is a possibility, but that if it does happen it's much more likely to be a new plane than a return to Kamigawa.
What would the point of that be? Would it really be so difficult to have another block set on Kamigawa, but with far better-designed cards, a completely new story, and perhaps even different mechanical identities? It has been a decade since that block was released, so, at this point, there would be little difference between a return to Kamigawa and a completely new Japanese-themed plane, apart from minor flavor and aesthetic differences.
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
The advantage of doing a new block means being able to innovate. The ability to not have to adhere to decisions made a decade ago.
It also means that it is free of the stigma and problems that plagued the first one. Tabula Rasa.
A clean slate.
The advantage of doing a new block means being able to innovate. The ability to not have to adhere to decisions made a decade ago.
It also means that it is free of the stigma and problems that plagued the first one. Tabula Rasa.
A clean slate.
Well, villains who are pretty simple and straight forward in their cruelty can have well-drawn backgrounds to serve as a foundation for their villainy. I don't recall much of Jafar or the others mentioned, but take Ramsay Bolton. On the surface he is clearly a villain with an over the top penchant for cruelty. But, if you dig deeper, you find that he is symptomatic of a broken caste system that dehumanizes the individual based on blood purity. Flaying and castrating Theon is symbolic of stripping away the privilege that comes from being a lord's son, and a stripping of power seen in the castration. Ramsay's favorite sport: hunting women through the woods, raping them, then killing them is a perverse mimicry of his conception. Roose Bolton was hunting when he came across Ramsay's mother, and raped her. Ramsay's hunts replicate this event, except they culminate in a murder rather than new life, or birth. This modification on Ramsay's behalf points toward a deep self-loathing. On the surface, Ramsay's stuff is unquestionably villainous--there is no redemption for this sort of monster, and he's one of the only characters I'd be happy to see Melisandre burn at the stake--but those villainous actions have a solid, psychological foundation.
Other villains, like Zurgo and Ob Nixilis do not have particularly compelling, or tragic, backgrounds. Rather, it is their mannerisms and personalities that allow them to become complex villains rather than cartoonish buffoons like Lord Overdark. So, blind greed and unstoppable determination alone do not make a good villain. There's a reason for those characteristics, and that reason doesn't necessarily mean you're going to feel sorry for the villain.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!