How come the same dragons are around after 1280 years? Shouldn't they have naturally died out by now?
Akk-
*Clears Throat*
Depends on which source material your reading. Dragons are often portrayed with longevity in fiction. With the Multiverse, dragons are depicted as long-lived entities such as Nicol Bolas or even now the five Dragon-Lords of Tarkir. Dragons are often depicted as gaining powers and becoming stronger as they age.
Akki's point for starters. Really 1300 years isn't impossible for a dragon in fiction. And for second, there's no guarantee that they are the same ones (Kolaghan for examples looks WAY different to me but that could just be different artist interpretations). The humans may just use the same names over and over again (since it's never made clear how the heck these dragons got their names in the first place. I just assumed it's what the non-draconians called them) for the different brood leaders. They'll likely all demonstrate similar attributes and general likenesses as families often do.
I seriously don't understand how this time traveling is supposed to make any sense. I can accept that Sarkhan gets back to the present. What I can't accept is that the timeframe gets just perfectly altered so that we will have different versions of past characters.
I can't think of any story involving time travel where it doesn't work like that.
That's because those stories don't generally go back in time a THOUSAND years. Way too many variables in such a large amount of time. There's no way those exact same people would be there with such an extensive lenght to a butterfly effect; chances are none of them would.
And yes, I understand they're playing to expectations; people naturally want to see how characters changed in response to the altered events of the past. For me, however, the required suspension of disbelief is so massive ends up ruining any natural expectations I might have had about that. It's basically a saturday morning cartoon plot, but presented with a straight face.
EDIT: And the way Sarkhan not only expected those same people to be there, a thousand years later, but also expected them to recognize him, going so far as to enthusiastically hold a goblin that was in fact attacking him... it's too much, man. Can't take that stuff seriously. That's a comedy scene right there.
I believe that for as long as the Crucible exists, the 5 ancients will live (unless slain). But these 5 are undoubtedly the strongest in Tarkir. They're much too cunning, and we haven't even discussed about their physical prowess.
Besides, ancient doesn't mean old and weak. For all we know they could be at their peak and maturity.
Kolaghan's new picture looks absolutely majestic.
I'm pretty sure we'll get them as mythics these time round.
Akki's point for starters. Really 1300 years isn't impossible for a dragon in fiction. And for second, there's no guarantee that they are the same ones (Kolaghan for examples looks WAY different to me but that could just be different artist interpretations). The humans may just use the same names over and over again (since it's never made clear how the heck these dragons got their names in the first place. I just assumed it's what the non-draconians called them) for the different brood leaders. They'll likely all demonstrate similar attributes and general likenesses as families often do.
The new kolaghan art is by the same artist as her card art. So I think there's an intentional showing of age. And with the leaked pic Ojutai also looks older/ more ancient
That's because those stories don't generally go back in time a THOUSAND years. Way too many variables in such a large amount of time. There's no way those exact same people would be there with such an extensive lenght to a butterfly effect; chances are none of them would.
A single generation is more than enough to butterfly effect everyone out of existence.
And the way Sarkhan not only expected those same people to be there, a thousand years later, but also expected them to recognize him, going so far as to enthusiastically hold a goblin that was in fact attacking him... it's too much, man. Can't take that stuff seriously. That's a comedy scene right there.
Goodness its almost as though he's a character encountering people to who he has a deep emotional connection rather than a detached observer. I'm sure they'll get right on fixing that.
I seriously don't understand how this time traveling is supposed to make any sense. I can accept that Sarkhan gets back to the present. What I can't accept is that the timeframe gets just perfectly altered so that we will have different versions of past characters.
I can't think of any story involving time travel where it doesn't work like that.
That's because those stories don't generally go back in time a THOUSAND years. Way too many variables in such a large amount of time. There's no way those exact same people would be there with such an extensive lenght to a butterfly effect; chances are none of them would.
And yes, I understand they're playing to expectations; people naturally want to see how characters changed in response to the altered events of the past. For me, however, the required suspension of disbelief is so massive ends up ruining any natural expectations I might have had about that. It's basically a saturday morning cartoon plot, but presented with a straight face.
EDIT: And the way Sarkhan not only expected those same people to be there, a thousand years later, but also expected them to recognize him, going so far as to enthusiastically hold a goblin that was in fact attacking him... it's too much, man. Can't take that stuff seriously. That's a comedy scene right there.
They probably pinned themselves with (a) popular expectations, and more importantly (b) the involvement of Bolas. Remember that Bolas had been out of action for the whole span between the Mending and his confrontation with Tetsuo Umezawa. And I'd say the current timeframe is no more than forty years post-Mending. In other words, to involve Bolas in any meaningful way that gave a reasonable amount of time to fully extirpate dragonkind, it would have to be in the distant past, before Umezawa ever felled him.
(And to get a sense of your perspective, when did the Magic storyline stop holding appeal for you?)
As for Vol expecting to be recognized by the former Ankle Shanker, I'm going to guess that he didn't quite realize the effects of altered causality himself. Remember, he's not known for steady thinking. Not to mention that he was in the past for no more than a few days, if that. Not all that much time to internalize the situation to utmost detail.
Akki's point for starters. Really 1300 years isn't impossible for a dragon in fiction. And for second, there's no guarantee that they are the same ones (Kolaghan for examples looks WAY different to me but that could just be different artist interpretations). The humans may just use the same names over and over again (since it's never made clear how the heck these dragons got their names in the first place. I just assumed it's what the non-draconians called them) for the different brood leaders. They'll likely all demonstrate similar attributes and general likenesses as families often do.
The new kolaghan art is by the same artist as her card art. So I think there's an intentional showing of age. And with the leaked pic Ojutai also looks older/ more ancient
Thank you. And by the way, where is the leaked Ojutai art? I want to see!!!!!
The reason why the new Tarkir has all the characters from the old Tarkir, while in reality, if you change things in the past, some people may not even exist in the future, is because of Kamigawa.
When WOTC made Kamigawa, they looked into the Japanese mythology stuff, and made it faithful to the real thing. The reason it failed was because it wasn't faithful to people's expectations of Japanese mythology, or at least that was what Maro said in his blog.
So learning their lesson, rather than making it faithful to what would happen in reality, they made it faithful to people's expectations, and a alternate present just doesn't work if there is nothing to compare it to.
Never picked that Sarkhan and Narset were sleeping together in old Tarkir. (I assume that's why Sarkhan cares about her)
Totally not even HINTED at! A male and female character need not be romantically involved in a story to care for each other sincerely. The two are simply good friends who formed a connection with one another during difficult circumstances. Two characters can care about each other without bumping uglies or even wanting to.
It's bad fiction, so I just assume it follows the standard bad tropes of bad fiction.
I agree with a lot of you here that real altered pasts-into-presents would wipe out a lot more than Sidisi (here's one Khan I don't expect to show up in any way, shape, or form in Dragons Tarkir) from existence.
The interesting thing is what will happen to Sorin in DTK--as far as I know, he hadn't left Tarkir by the time Uncharted Realms left him behind, so he might be on Tarkir while it undergoes its version change! Maybe it feels just like the Great Aurora on Lorwyn/Shadowmoor (at best, and it might feel like getting ripped apart or becoming nonexistent at worse).
Speaking of the Great Aurora, maybe version changes on Tarkir behave like the Great Aurora, except with the ancestors of everyone on Tarkir at the time also undergoing changes (instead of just the current residents of Lorwyn/Tarkir undergoing changes).
If the story is going on the direction of waking up Ugin, the obstacle might be that 3 planeswalkers and ghostfire will be needed to open up the hedrons. So i'm guessing he'll meetup with Sorin and another PW. My guess is that Narset is a strong candidate for the third. Aside from previous hints, she may be the one with the knowledge on where to find the information on Ghostfire, and they may have to assault/infiltrate Ojutai's stronghold to get ahold of the forgotten, lost teachings.
That's assuming the hedron works the same, which we don't really have any evidence for considering it didn't work the same when Sarkhan triggered it in the first place.
Maybe she was even the "Sarkhan" of this timeline and is now a slave to Bolas?
Unlikely. For that to be true, she'd have to be Bolas' slave in addition to Sarkhan, since we have confirmation that all the things Sarkhan did on other planes, like hanging out in the Eye of Ugin and whatnot, still happened and were done by him.
Q:People seem convinced that The Reforged Chain means Sarkhan no longer exists. Wouldn't his non-existence affect stuff that happened while he was on other planes (Alara/Jund, the Zendikar plot), which you're not doing? Can't "temporal forces whisked Sarkhan away" just mean back to the new present? OR couldn't Bolas come back and keep killing Ugin, and Ugin keep summoning Sarkhan to the less-distant past to save him, in a repetitive cycle until Sarkhan only had to go back to right before Zendikar?
A:We’ll have to wait until closer to Dragons of Tarkir to find out the specifics of what happens with Sarkhan. But yes, we’ve said we don’t intend this block to change the history of other planes. The how is kind of timey-wimey (more on that during DTK), but from the perspective of the rest of the Multiverse, somebody who called himself Sarkhan still showed up and participated in those Sarkhan-involving, off-Tarkir events in recent history (meeting Ajani on Jund, declaring fealty to Bolas, going to the Eye of Ugin, fighting with Chandra and Jace). In other words, worlds other than Tarkir have seen Sarkhan showing up and doing stuff over the past few years just as before, and haven’t experienced any temporal changes, even though things have already begun to change in Tarkir’s history. I can’t say more without spoiling stories to come, but that’s the sitch so far.
The way this is worded we could have another planeswalker who calls themselves Sarkhan doing all the events in the original timeline. However due to pronouns my theory that Narset is the new "Sarkhan" is kinda out even though it would have been a nice twist for Sarkhan to come back to see Narset enslaved to Bolas instead of him.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Time travel stories are always wonky. Its so wonky that the movie Looper didn't even bother explaining it anymore as a small jab on how wonky time travel stories are.
I do have a question about the current story though; if Tarkir's dragons are territorial, how come Sarkhan get to fly all over the place without getting attacked by one? He wasn't even noticed by Kologhan that went straight to Atarka's broods. Also, why were they following Sarkhan in the first place? An unfamilar and small (as Sarkhan put it himself) dragon is being followed by a bunch of newly born dragons and went on world tour completely unopposed until a Dragonlord showed up and just completely ignores him to roast his fans.
He knew her for a matter of HOURS and even though they totally had a connection, it's just... nonsensical to be THAT attached to someone you barely met.
so you don't believe in love on the first sight ???
Wizards print good rares, players complain about cash grab. They print underwhelming rares, players complain that the cards suck. They spoil the best cards first, players complain about the insane prices of preorders. They spoil the meh cards first, players complain that this is the worst set ever.
So. I think I understand now.
As far as these forums are concerned, WotC can never do anything good because:
Card that is new and probably good = "pushed"
Card that is new and probably bad = "EDH/casual fodder"
Card that is a reprint = "lazy"
Card that is a better version of an older card = "power creep"
Card that is a weaker version of an older card = "worthless"
Goodness its almost as though he's a character encountering people to who he has a deep emotional connection rather than a detached observer. I'm sure they'll get right on fixing that.
He has to be pretty naive to let himself get carried away like that. Even as he decided to alter the past, it should be pretty obvious that he'd have written himself out of those people's lives, no matter how attached he is to them. It's the kind of reasoning I'd expect from a character in a kid's cartoon, not from stories aimed at young adults. And even then, the "lovingly holding an attacking globin" thing is just plain ridiculous for a non-comedy, even if it's aimed at kids.
(And to get a sense of your perspective, when did the Magic storyline stop holding appeal for you?)
The last physical books I purchased were the ones from the original Ravnica block. I got very disillusioned at all the retconning and deus-ex machinae during Time Spiral, and have been more of a casual observer since them (by contrast, I was very heavily invested in the game's lore before then).
Sarkhan: "Screw this world I've always wanted! One person that I barely know may or may not be dead in it! SCREW IT, I say!"
I mean what lol. Tarkir is such a dumb place. Let's just hurry up and get to Magic Origins stuff, because Tarkir's story is nonsensical.
OH NOES!!! A character aligned to magic characterized by being guided by wildly swinging and unstable emotions is acting according to his wildly swinging and unstable emotions!
The plot is being driven by a character who can't control his emotions and has a dubious grasp on reality; I'd be disappointed if weird and somewhat nonsensical stuff didn't happen.
Why the heck is Sarkhan caring so much about Narset a deal breaker?
Because it makes no sense from his character or the story as a whole.
It's jarring, forced, and distracting.
He knew her for a matter of HOURS and even though they totally had a connection, it's just... nonsensical to be THAT attached to someone you barely met.
Sarkhan hasn't exactly been the perfect picture of mental health.
As I said above. Jarring, forced, distracting, nonsensical, loony, unhinged, broken, schizophrenic, etc... These are pretty much Sarkhan's shtick. If Sarkhan behaved in a rational manner, it would be seriously OOC, and that would be a serious plot hole.
As for different versions of the same people being around over a thousand years after the point where history was changed, and how that doesn't mesh with the current understanding of the so-called "butterfly effect;" our protagonist in this story is a human uses the mystical energy of fire and rage to transform into a genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile that blatantly ignores the square-cube law to maintain flight (spontaneously generating several hundred kilos of mass out of where?). He uses another kind of mystical energy generated by the corpse of a another genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile (this time with added bigness) to time travel into the past and save that long-dead reptile from an even older and larger genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile. This has the effect of ensuring the survival of one or more species of magically generated, genetically impossible, six- (and eight-) limbed, flying reptiles that had gone extinct, fundamentally altering the timeline of the world.
And people complain that the story doesn't follow scientific and/or logical understandings of temporal mechanics.
Just enjoy the ride people, not all stories have to fit into your logic to be enjoyed. And lets be clear on this; entertainment is more important than logic in these stories. If your willing suspension of disbelief can't extend that far, then maybe you should either stick to harder forms of speculative fiction or avoid the genre altogether. I'm not saying that to be snarky; fantasy requires a stretch of acceptance that not everyone can make. When you go as far as MtG's setting goes, applying real-world logic or modern scientific knowledge to it can be a sure-fire way to ruin your experience of the story. There's a large degree of internal consistency within the Tarkir storyline IMO, and most of the problems people point out with it come from outside Tarkir ("This previous MtG storyline was better"), outside MtG ("I like how franchise X did time travel more than this"), or meta problems ("I hate time travel stories"). I don't like all the characters (Sidisi and Shu Yun were particularly underdeveloped, I think) and there was rather weak writing on some of the "filler" entries; but the main plot so far has been pretty good, especially since Sarkhan's little time-jump back. I like that even though Sarkhan has a better sense of himself, he's still wildly emotional and having a hard time understanding the effects of his actions in the past.
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():
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
I wonder if he cares so much for Narset because his affection for her is the last illusion of his humanity to his subconscious. I'm getting some silent hill plot twist vibe going on. His "Unbroken" look combined with him not being affected by the change in history at all is really giving me the feeling that Sarkhan Vol was born from a dying wish rather than a human family...
The thing is, even if we do try and pick the story apart logically, people are using faulty logic to do so. Yes, it is true that the butterfly effect makes it very unlikely that Tarkir 1.1 would have nearly identical versions of the people from Tarkir 1.0, but it isn't impossible. If you think it is, I don't think you really understand how probability works.
Don't get me wrong, it's definitely improbable that there would be a version of Zurgo still alive on Tarkir after over a thousand years of changed history. But it is only improbable, not impossible. So when you take that into account, and remember that Wizards of the Coast did it, it's not really that hard to believe after all.
Personally, I'm with the people who have espoused the opinion that we should all just be sitting back and enjoying the ride. Admittedly, I'm also the sort of person who enjoys the exceedingly goofy episodes of Doctor Who that feature cyborg alien cowboys and venetian fish vampires, so I suppose I could be in the minority.
Akk-
*Clears Throat*
Depends on which source material your reading. Dragons are often portrayed with longevity in fiction. With the Multiverse, dragons are depicted as long-lived entities such as Nicol Bolas or even now the five Dragon-Lords of Tarkir. Dragons are often depicted as gaining powers and becoming stronger as they age.
Akki's point for starters. Really 1300 years isn't impossible for a dragon in fiction. And for second, there's no guarantee that they are the same ones (Kolaghan for examples looks WAY different to me but that could just be different artist interpretations). The humans may just use the same names over and over again (since it's never made clear how the heck these dragons got their names in the first place. I just assumed it's what the non-draconians called them) for the different brood leaders. They'll likely all demonstrate similar attributes and general likenesses as families often do.
And yes, I understand they're playing to expectations; people naturally want to see how characters changed in response to the altered events of the past. For me, however, the required suspension of disbelief is so massive ends up ruining any natural expectations I might have had about that. It's basically a saturday morning cartoon plot, but presented with a straight face.
EDIT: And the way Sarkhan not only expected those same people to be there, a thousand years later, but also expected them to recognize him, going so far as to enthusiastically hold a goblin that was in fact attacking him... it's too much, man. Can't take that stuff seriously. That's a comedy scene right there.
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Besides, ancient doesn't mean old and weak. For all we know they could be at their peak and maturity.
Kolaghan's new picture looks absolutely majestic.
I'm pretty sure we'll get them as mythics these time round.
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's one possibility. The other option is that Sarkhan isn't a sexually frustrated teen boy.
The new kolaghan art is by the same artist as her card art. So I think there's an intentional showing of age. And with the leaked pic Ojutai also looks older/ more ancient
A single generation is more than enough to butterfly effect everyone out of existence.
Goodness its almost as though he's a character encountering people to who he has a deep emotional connection rather than a detached observer. I'm sure they'll get right on fixing that.
They probably pinned themselves with (a) popular expectations, and more importantly (b) the involvement of Bolas. Remember that Bolas had been out of action for the whole span between the Mending and his confrontation with Tetsuo Umezawa. And I'd say the current timeframe is no more than forty years post-Mending. In other words, to involve Bolas in any meaningful way that gave a reasonable amount of time to fully extirpate dragonkind, it would have to be in the distant past, before Umezawa ever felled him.
(And to get a sense of your perspective, when did the Magic storyline stop holding appeal for you?)
As for Vol expecting to be recognized by the former Ankle Shanker, I'm going to guess that he didn't quite realize the effects of altered causality himself. Remember, he's not known for steady thinking. Not to mention that he was in the past for no more than a few days, if that. Not all that much time to internalize the situation to utmost detail.
Thank you. And by the way, where is the leaked Ojutai art? I want to see!!!!!
When WOTC made Kamigawa, they looked into the Japanese mythology stuff, and made it faithful to the real thing. The reason it failed was because it wasn't faithful to people's expectations of Japanese mythology, or at least that was what Maro said in his blog.
So learning their lesson, rather than making it faithful to what would happen in reality, they made it faithful to people's expectations, and a alternate present just doesn't work if there is nothing to compare it to.
It's bad fiction, so I just assume it follows the standard bad tropes of bad fiction.
The interesting thing is what will happen to Sorin in DTK--as far as I know, he hadn't left Tarkir by the time Uncharted Realms left him behind, so he might be on Tarkir while it undergoes its version change! Maybe it feels just like the Great Aurora on Lorwyn/Shadowmoor (at best, and it might feel like getting ripped apart or becoming nonexistent at worse).
Speaking of the Great Aurora, maybe version changes on Tarkir behave like the Great Aurora, except with the ancestors of everyone on Tarkir at the time also undergoing changes (instead of just the current residents of Lorwyn/Tarkir undergoing changes).
That's assuming the hedron works the same, which we don't really have any evidence for considering it didn't work the same when Sarkhan triggered it in the first place.
Well here is the quote:
http://dougbeyermtg.tumblr.com/post/109109557374/people-seem-convinced-that-the-reforged-chain
The way this is worded we could have another planeswalker who calls themselves Sarkhan doing all the events in the original timeline. However due to pronouns my theory that Narset is the new "Sarkhan" is kinda out even though it would have been a nice twist for Sarkhan to come back to see Narset enslaved to Bolas instead of him.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I do have a question about the current story though; if Tarkir's dragons are territorial, how come Sarkhan get to fly all over the place without getting attacked by one? He wasn't even noticed by Kologhan that went straight to Atarka's broods. Also, why were they following Sarkhan in the first place? An unfamilar and small (as Sarkhan put it himself) dragon is being followed by a bunch of newly born dragons and went on world tour completely unopposed until a Dragonlord showed up and just completely ignores him to roast his fans.
so you don't believe in love on the first sight ???
The last physical books I purchased were the ones from the original Ravnica block. I got very disillusioned at all the retconning and deus-ex machinae during Time Spiral, and have been more of a casual observer since them (by contrast, I was very heavily invested in the game's lore before then).
*****
ricklongo and RicardoLongo on MTGO
*****
Visit my gaming blog: http://www.gamingsweetgaming.blogspot.com
****************
Check out Rick's Picks, my PureMTGO article series
****************
OH NOES!!! A character aligned to magic characterized by being guided by wildly swinging and unstable emotions is acting according to his wildly swinging and unstable emotions!
The plot is being driven by a character who can't control his emotions and has a dubious grasp on reality; I'd be disappointed if weird and somewhat nonsensical stuff didn't happen.
As I said above. Jarring, forced, distracting, nonsensical, loony, unhinged, broken, schizophrenic, etc... These are pretty much Sarkhan's shtick. If Sarkhan behaved in a rational manner, it would be seriously OOC, and that would be a serious plot hole.
As for different versions of the same people being around over a thousand years after the point where history was changed, and how that doesn't mesh with the current understanding of the so-called "butterfly effect;" our protagonist in this story is a human uses the mystical energy of fire and rage to transform into a genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile that blatantly ignores the square-cube law to maintain flight (spontaneously generating several hundred kilos of mass out of where?). He uses another kind of mystical energy generated by the corpse of a another genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile (this time with added bigness) to time travel into the past and save that long-dead reptile from an even older and larger genetically impossible, six-limbed, flying reptile. This has the effect of ensuring the survival of one or more species of magically generated, genetically impossible, six- (and eight-) limbed, flying reptiles that had gone extinct, fundamentally altering the timeline of the world.
And people complain that the story doesn't follow scientific and/or logical understandings of temporal mechanics.
Just enjoy the ride people, not all stories have to fit into your logic to be enjoyed. And lets be clear on this; entertainment is more important than logic in these stories. If your willing suspension of disbelief can't extend that far, then maybe you should either stick to harder forms of speculative fiction or avoid the genre altogether. I'm not saying that to be snarky; fantasy requires a stretch of acceptance that not everyone can make. When you go as far as MtG's setting goes, applying real-world logic or modern scientific knowledge to it can be a sure-fire way to ruin your experience of the story. There's a large degree of internal consistency within the Tarkir storyline IMO, and most of the problems people point out with it come from outside Tarkir ("This previous MtG storyline was better"), outside MtG ("I like how franchise X did time travel more than this"), or meta problems ("I hate time travel stories"). I don't like all the characters (Sidisi and Shu Yun were particularly underdeveloped, I think) and there was rather weak writing on some of the "filler" entries; but the main plot so far has been pretty good, especially since Sarkhan's little time-jump back. I like that even though Sarkhan has a better sense of himself, he's still wildly emotional and having a hard time understanding the effects of his actions in the past.
Don't get me wrong, it's definitely improbable that there would be a version of Zurgo still alive on Tarkir after over a thousand years of changed history. But it is only improbable, not impossible. So when you take that into account, and remember that Wizards of the Coast did it, it's not really that hard to believe after all.
Personally, I'm with the people who have espoused the opinion that we should all just be sitting back and enjoying the ride. Admittedly, I'm also the sort of person who enjoys the exceedingly goofy episodes of Doctor Who that feature cyborg alien cowboys and venetian fish vampires, so I suppose I could be in the minority.