I, for one, will find it hilarious if we returned to Zendikar and didn't get Ob in card form at all - and only a footnote in the Planeswalker's Guide that since he lost his spark and couldn't planeswalk away, he was annihilated with the entirely of the Zendikar's denizens during the Eldrazi-Era.
I doubt a Neo-Planeswalker who lost his spark (Or even if he lost it pre-TS, he got regressed to Neo-Planeswalker standards during TS) would stand a chance against the Eldrazi anyway - considering perfectly fine walkers are all having trouble, with Sorin already given up because he knew that.
The demons of Zendikar have pretty much given up on taking on the Eldrazi (Since they regressed to talking about "Taking down the world with them, as opposed to taking down them) - I doubt Demon-Ob is significantly more powerful then them to the point he could match 3 oldwalkers.
It's certainly possible to see Ob getting more in-depth treatment in a Return to Zendikar block. After all, he's so far the only character who lost a spark and tries to get it back. That alone could make for an interesting story. Maybe he will team up with the planeswalkers to fight the Eldrazi and try to find a way to regain his spark. (Absorb the Eldrazi to reignite his own, steal one of the other planeswalkers while they're busy, etc.)
They were going to be a new creature type called Sleen. But, they thought later on that the backlash of introducing Sleen as "slightly different Slivers that don't work with actual Slivers" would be bigger than the backlash of having new Slivers with the new art direction.
I was under the impression, from how they worded the articles, that "Sleen" was just a working title, to be replaced by something else. And that the change to slivers was done before art was comissioned.
I wonder how much of Zendikar there is to milk for a whole block? You have a whole plane that's basically being sucked dry of mana by bloodthirsty otherworldly beings that are unstoppable, which will inevitably cause the whole plane to collapse and cause the extinction of all living things on the plane. The Eldrazi no longer will be bound to the plane because it won't exist, and then they'll just fly around eating planes like an apocalyptic Pacman game until Wizards pulls out a deus ex machina from behind someone's ear.
I wonder how much of Zendikar there is to milk for a whole block? You have a whole plane that's basically being sucked dry of mana by bloodthirsty otherworldly beings that are unstoppable, which will inevitably cause the whole plane to collapse and cause the extinction of all living things on the plane. The Eldrazi no longer will be bound to the plane because it won't exist, and then they'll just fly around eating planes like an apocalyptic Pacman game until Wizards pulls out a deus ex machina from behind someone's ear.
Or from between someone's horns. They can always have someone put a temp lock on the Titans.
Bolas is far from being a god - he might be the strongest of the Planeswalkers, but even he couldn't chain up all the Eldrazi or, I suspect, even do any kind of lasting damage to them.
I wonder how much of Zendikar there is to milk for a whole block? You have a whole plane that's basically being sucked dry of mana by bloodthirsty otherworldly beings that are unstoppable, which will inevitably cause the whole plane to collapse and cause the extinction of all living things on the plane. The Eldrazi no longer will be bound to the plane because it won't exist, and then they'll just fly around eating planes like an apocalyptic Pacman game until Wizards pulls out a deus ex machina from behind someone's ear.
The plane won't collapse. It will be devoid of life, but it will still exist as an ash covered wasteland.
I, too, would be curious to see how we'd get a whole block of Zendikar... though I would not have a problem with an Urza's Saga-like block where we plane-hope amidst the block. I think that would be a nice way to revisit a handful of planes and put some closure to some of the story threads... eventually... From there, Creative can continue other threads and begin new ones.
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The plane won't collapse. It will be devoid of life, but it will still exist as an ash covered wasteland.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they retconned the Eldrazi to have abilities that would enable them to consume all planar material. They're already the worst things in the Multiverse, something that even Phyrexia can't aspire to - imagine how much more thrilling and exciting it would be if they didn't just suck up mana, but just ate EVERYTHING?
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they retconned the Eldrazi to have abilities that would enable them to consume all planar material. They're already the worst things in the Multiverse, something that even Phyrexia can't aspire to - imagine how much more thrilling and exciting it would be if they didn't just suck up mana, but just ate EVERYTHING?
It's still best if we don't attribute retcons where they don't exist. They're nasty enough to deal with as it is. Sometimes it isn't even on purpose but because the creative team can't keep track of what's been developed.
Which might be cynical, and I don't especially blame them, but Doug just sort of proved the point in regards to Jace so...
There is a big difference between a single person having to come up with the backstory for a character and a company having to come up with a backstory for a character. Any single person is free to do anything he wants, but a team needs to reach an agreement. And every part of Wizards is a team. Doug wouldn't need to just sit around for 30 minutes to decide what Ob's deal is. He'd probably need to talk with the rest of creative to decide what his deal is (and each of them probably has his/her own ideas on Ob already, so there will be some discussion involved). And if Design and Marketing feel like Ob Nixilis has chances of becoming important again (since his card/concept proved popular), they'll actually tell Doug and the other members of creative to wait until they decide whether Ob should play a big or small role before deciding his backstory.
Also, note that Zendikar was a bottom up set. That means the design process was making the card mechanics first and the flavor and name later. So Ob probably started out as a "Legendary Black landfall life draining creature" first, then creative's job was just to come up with the coolest concept for such a card.
About other things that could happen to save Zendikar:
We know Zendikar is some kind of sentient plane (maybe sapient) and already showed power to snuff out one Premending Planeswalker (Ob). And unlike the walkers, it hasn't been depowered. It might manage to do SOMETHING to the Eldrazi. Maybe not destroy them, but whatever the equivalent of dissapearing sparks is to them.
The nature of the Multiverse has changed a little since the Eldrazi were trapped. Wizards could say this has affected them negatively somehow.
It is possible that Ugin or the Lithomancer created some kind of additional security that Sorin didn't know about (either because they did it behind Sorin's back or after the last time they met). This doesn't necesarily need to be more powerful magic than what they used last time, but perhaps something that "counters" the Eldritch nature of Eldrazi magic a little better.
Also as far as being a demon with spark, I was sure that it was a least stated that he was and old walker who is stuck in demon form due to losing his spark.
Jace SHOULD be unbanned in modern. I hate all the people saying "JACE IS BROKEN OHMYGOD HE'LL TAKE OVER AND CAWBLADE WILL REIGN SUPREME AGAIN" when bloodbraid elf literally comes down after jace and kicks jace right in the crotch, takes jace's lunch money, and jace is left to bleed out on the sidewalk in agonizing pain.
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I doubt a Neo-Planeswalker who lost his spark (Or even if he lost it pre-TS, he got regressed to Neo-Planeswalker standards during TS) would stand a chance against the Eldrazi anyway - considering perfectly fine walkers are all having trouble, with Sorin already given up because he knew that.
The demons of Zendikar have pretty much given up on taking on the Eldrazi (Since they regressed to talking about "Taking down the world with them, as opposed to taking down them) - I doubt Demon-Ob is significantly more powerful then them to the point he could match 3 oldwalkers.
I was under the impression, from how they worded the articles, that "Sleen" was just a working title, to be replaced by something else. And that the change to slivers was done before art was comissioned.
Or from between someone's horns. They can always have someone put a temp lock on the Titans.
The plane won't collapse. It will be devoid of life, but it will still exist as an ash covered wasteland.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they retconned the Eldrazi to have abilities that would enable them to consume all planar material. They're already the worst things in the Multiverse, something that even Phyrexia can't aspire to - imagine how much more thrilling and exciting it would be if they didn't just suck up mana, but just ate EVERYTHING?
It's still best if we don't attribute retcons where they don't exist. They're nasty enough to deal with as it is. Sometimes it isn't even on purpose but because the creative team can't keep track of what's been developed.
Which might be cynical, and I don't especially blame them, but Doug just sort of proved the point in regards to Jace so...
Also, note that Zendikar was a bottom up set. That means the design process was making the card mechanics first and the flavor and name later. So Ob probably started out as a "Legendary Black landfall life draining creature" first, then creative's job was just to come up with the coolest concept for such a card.
About other things that could happen to save Zendikar:
We know Zendikar is some kind of sentient plane (maybe sapient) and already showed power to snuff out one Premending Planeswalker (Ob). And unlike the walkers, it hasn't been depowered. It might manage to do SOMETHING to the Eldrazi. Maybe not destroy them, but whatever the equivalent of dissapearing sparks is to them.
The nature of the Multiverse has changed a little since the Eldrazi were trapped. Wizards could say this has affected them negatively somehow.
It is possible that Ugin or the Lithomancer created some kind of additional security that Sorin didn't know about (either because they did it behind Sorin's back or after the last time they met). This doesn't necesarily need to be more powerful magic than what they used last time, but perhaps something that "counters" the Eldritch nature of Eldrazi magic a little better.
Burning your spark out modelocks you in your most recent form; ie, how Teferi is "still" young.
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