Now that Ugin's card has been revealed, does it lend any credibility to the idea that he may be an elder dragon? His abilities are extremely powerful, and his third ability is the polar opposite of Bolas' third ability.
We don't know what a Spirit Dragon's abilities might include, what with Ugin being the only example.
However, it should be noted that his third ability being the opposite of Bolas's doesn't lend credence to anything since Bolas's third ability was representative of his touch, a totally unique ability to him.
Couldnt he be an elder dragon that simply never participated in the wars? I mean the multiverse is massive. Bolas and the rest might of not even known about him. Anyways there to be a reason Bolas wanted him dead and him being an Elder Dragon is a good one.
Didn't happen. There were no bystanders in the Elder Dragon War. The thing was MASSIVE and spanned the entirety of their empire.
Though it wasn't even the Elder Dragons that ended the war, it was the worldspell that made ALL but a handful of the Elders into the Elder Land Wurms.
I mean they could just do a relatively minor retcon an just add him in. Regardless I am mostly just looking for a reason as to him an Bolas fighting *I am sure we will get it but hey... speculation*
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
I'm beginning to think that Ugin IS Nicol Bolas. Some kind of separation of personalities or something. Light side / dark side kind of thing, and the dark side won.
This was my thought as well. When Ajani fought Bolas during the Alara storyline, he summoned an avatar of Bolas's soul. Bolas being treacherous and power-hungry, he and the avatar immediately attacked one another. What if Ugin IS that avatar?
It would explain their physical similarities, as well as Ugin's title of "spirit dragon".
We know that Ugin existed long before Alara, but time travel is involved in this story...
I'm beginning to think that Ugin IS Nicol Bolas. Some kind of separation of personalities or something. Light side / dark side kind of thing, and the dark side won.
This was my thought as well. When Ajani fought Bolas during the Alara storyline, he summoned an avatar of Bolas's soul. Bolas being treacherous and power-hungry, he and the avatar immediately attacked one another. What if Ugin IS that avatar?
It would explain their physical similarities, as well as Ugin's title of "spirit dragon".
We know that Ugin existed long before Alara, but time travel is involved in this story...
Ew. God, I hope not.
The implications of Ajani being able to create Planeswalkers like that are disgusting to me. It would completely undermine Planeswalker's specialness.
I mean they could just do a relatively minor retcon an just add him in. Regardless I am mostly just looking for a reason as to him an Bolas fighting *I am sure we will get it but hey... speculation*
Minor really depends on your vantage point.
I'd find it to be a fairly large retcon and really, I would HATE it if they took that path.
It would be much better if Ugin were just something of his own rather than trying to ram him into a piece of lore where he doesn't belong.
I mean they could just do a relatively minor retcon an just add him in. Regardless I am mostly just looking for a reason as to him an Bolas fighting *I am sure we will get it but hey... speculation*
Minor really depends on your vantage point.
I'd find it to be a fairly large retcon and really, I would HATE it if they took that path.
It would be much better if Ugin were just something of his own rather than trying to ram him into a piece of lore where he doesn't belong.
Just chiming in to say that this kinda is a minor retcon, since only a tiny amount of the Magic players even know about the Elder Dragon Wars, much less any details. Just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean it's a big thing.
Now, I don't even think they're gonna touch the Elder Dragon Wars mostly because it is so obscure to the average Magic player, so I find it unlikely that Ugin will be revealed as an Elder Dragon, but I just wanted to remind everyone that WotC thinks about the average Magic player and not hard-core storyline fans.
They will do whatever they want regarding the story. It would be easy enough to make UGin an elder and say oh he was in hiding/exile/stasis. It would be easy enough to make him a parallel nicol bolas and say oh well it happened prior to anything you knew about him, or his spark split in two, or whatever. When urza started busting out fighter jets and mechs it became pretty apparent they were going to do whatever from that point forward, whether done thematically and favorable, or to the disdain of the die-hard fan base in an attempt to further pander to whoever they think their player base is. I love this game but honestly i liked it a lot better before ongoing story lines, when planeswalker were mysterious favor text and not on half the artwork with full bios. But that's just me. End rant.
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The answer is purple because ice cream has no bones.
They will do whatever they want regarding the story. It would be easy enough to make UGin an elder and say oh he was in hiding/exile/stasis. It would be easy enough to make him a parallel nicol bolas and say oh well it happened prior to anything you knew about him, or his spark split in two, or whatever. When urza started busting out fighter jets and mechs it became pretty apparent they were going to do whatever from that point forward, whether done thematically and favorable, or to the disdain of the die-hard fan base in an attempt to further pander to whoever they think their player base is. I love this game but honestly i liked it a lot better before ongoing story lines, when planeswalker were mysterious favor text and not on half the artwork with full bios. But that's just me. End rant.
I agree with you - the time leading up to Apocalypse was my favorite in the history of the game - the focus and story was told through each and every card in those sets, and almost all were interconnected in some way. We have something similar yet not the same in today's game - the focus is on the planeswalkers (MTG poster-boys) and everything else seems secondary. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the older sets pre-Odyssey block felt more encompassing while the new sets feel more narrowly-focused.
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"To make peace with the forest, make peace with me." -Multani, to Urza
My recollection is that the only details we ever got about the Elder Dragon Wars were that the original five (plus Piru) were thought to be the only survivors and that the Elder Land Wurms were those who had lost the war and had their wings stripped from them. Not sure about the worldspell. I don't recall if this came from the tear-calendar specifically but think the few details actually came from Acclaim as well as InQuest or one of the other magazines. I recall the guys at Acclaim approached the Elder Dragons as interplanar--maybe that explains how Chromium Rhuell's remains got repurposed into a "planar barge"--so it's definitely possible they were not meant to be limited to Dominaria in origin. The whole storyline was so vague that I don't think it rules out anything and I always thought (and hoped) it was being treated as a blank canvas to be revisited later. Would definitely not mind revisiting both the non-Bolas classic five and getting a proper treatment of the war. Continuity clearly dropped in Piru after the creation of the original five, so it's also not as if they ruled out other Elders surviving even back then.
I recall the guys at Acclaim approached the Elder Dragons as interplanar--maybe that explains how Chromium Rhuell's remains got repurposed into a "planar barge"--so it's definitely possible they were not meant to be limited to Dominaria in origin.
They've since established that the Elder Dragons were older than Dominaria itself so there's no question it was interplanar in nature.
Would definitely not mind revisiting both the non-Bolas classic five and getting a proper treatment of the war.
The other dragons have since been slain so... they aren't likely to ever be touched upon again.
Continuity clearly dropped in Piru after the creation of the original five, so it's also not as if they ruled out other Elders surviving even back then.
Jeff
There's been a LOT of debate about things as far as Piru is concerned, but most have settled that she wasn't an Elder. Just a Lesser Elder.
I know Bolas makes some mention of it from his POV, but I'm not up to speed on what Continuity has said about the subject since they reintroduced Bolas as a character, so I guess I'm with others asking where it was established that there were "no bystanders" and a "worldspell" (which I take was actually an interplanar event, unless all the Elders fought their last battle on one plane). Genuine curiosity on my part, as I'd probably be inclined to buy one of the new novels to get those details :).
My interest in revisiting is in a flashback set--I'm well aware we're talking about largely dead characters, although in some cases I think there's a legitimate question (Arcades Sabboth being dead is an indirect deduction off other characters' hearsay; unclear if Asmadi is unsummoned or actually killed, etc.).
I myself had questions to Continuity and Acclaim back in the day about Piru, because she did seem an odd shoehorn in addition to the five. But bear in mind that in the actual source material, she's never referred to as anything BUT an actual Elder. Comics explicitly refer to her as the sixth, and the characters in "Dakkon Blackblade" explicitly call her an Elder. I do agree that it would be clean to assign her, like the original Scarzam dragons (of Sivitri Scarzam), to the first generation after the original five, or a "sub" Elder Dragon--given that they are single-named (that we know) dragons with maybe two colors (UB for Scarzam, I'd guess GB for Piru if I had to). I think I may have had that on the website at one point, although I was later told the creators of the character intended for her to be at the same level as the original five. The question though is, what exactly is an Elder then? You have at least two generations preceding the original five--since Asmadi's the cousin. Then you have a subsequent generation ("sub-Elder") that probably retained the power to cross planes (Scarzam). I think that's probably the proper dividing line, giving us at least four generations of Elders. As for where Piru sits in that, I'd agree that she'd be more comfortably placed in the last category, but she could just as well have been intended to be another cousin like Asmadi of the original five. The point of this all was to say, even if the source material hammers in the idea that only five survived, there's nothing to stop Continuity from introducing a character that sat out the war or otherwise wasn't known to Bolas to have survived, etc.
I know Bolas makes some mention of it from his POV, but I'm not up to speed on what Continuity has said about the subject since they reintroduced Bolas as a character, so I guess I'm with others asking where it was established that there were "no bystanders" and a "worldspell" (which I take was actually an interplanar event, unless all the Elders fought their last battle on one plane). Genuine curiosity on my part, as I'd probably be inclined to buy one of the new novels to get those details :).
The worldspell was just touched on as being the product of what made the Elder Land Wurms, so I guess that was on the tear away calender.
The no bystanders bits seems to mostly have been cobbled together from Bolas's after the fact recollections, but the entire thing was vague as well. It seems like it likely was influenced by both Time Spiral and the Assassin's Blade novels, but as far as I am aware, there wasn't any actual definitive and explicit statement along those lines*, but most people agree that given the survivors and their outlook towards things, they all took part. At the very least, if somedragon didn't take part in the war, they ended up as Elder Land Wurms anyways...
*There MIGHT have been something mentioned in Test of Metal, but... I hate that book and have ignored most of what it had to say since I first read it. Besides that, take anything it says with a grain of salt.
My interest in revisiting is in a flashback set--I'm well aware we're talking about largely dead characters, although in some cases I think there's a legitimate question (Arcades Sabboth being dead is an indirect deduction off other characters' hearsay; unclear if Asmadi is unsummoned or actually killed, etc.).
I think the final fates of the dragons in that conflict end up being moot because Bolas states they've been dealt with, implying he hunted them down himself.
I'd be all sorts of down for a flashback set, but sadly, I don't think they're going to go for it.
I myself had questions to Continuity and Acclaim back in the day about Piru, because she did seem an odd shoehorn in addition to the five. But bear in mind that in the actual source material, she's never referred to as anything BUT an actual Elder. Comics explicitly refer to her as the sixth, and the characters in "Dakkon Blackblade" explicitly call her an Elder. I do agree that it would be clean to assign her, like the original Scarzam dragons (of Sivitri Scarzam), to the first generation after the original five, or a "sub" Elder Dragon--given that they are single-named (that we know) dragons with maybe two colors (UB for Scarzam, I'd guess GB for Piru if I had to). I think I may have had that on the website at one point, although I was later told the creators of the character intended for her to be at the same level as the original five. The question though is, what exactly is an Elder then? You have at least two generations preceding the original five--since Asmadi's the cousin. Then you have a subsequent generation ("sub-Elder") that probably retained the power to cross planes (Scarzam). I think that's probably the proper dividing line, giving us at least four generations of Elders. As for where Piru sits in that, I'd agree that she'd be more comfortably placed in the last category, but she could just as well have been intended to be another cousin like Asmadi of the original five. The point of this all was to say, even if the source material hammers in the idea that only five survived, there's nothing to stop Continuity from introducing a character that sat out the war or otherwise wasn't known to Bolas to have survived, etc.
This is actually really fascinating stuff that I think would be great discussion material for the archives on another site I'm a member of. I know we'd love to have you swing by if you're interested. We've been trying to cull the various websites to consolidate as much of the older information as we can. I'll toss you a PM if you wouldn't mind.
Just to be clear, the only thing stopping Ugin from being an Elder Dragon is because there are references to there only being five (six)? It seems that Ugin could be a lesser Elder, may be even Bolas's first child. That would explain why he looks like Bolas.
Well, people. Just because you think there was no survivos, it doesn't turn that belief into a fact... Nicol Bolas states that there was no survivos save he and his brothers, sister and cousin, but and if this was a lie?
On "The Lithomancer", Sorin says that Ugin is "old as time" and this could in fact stat that he IS an Elder Dragon of some sort. People tend to think the things are solid when in fact, it isn't. There's no solid detail about the Elder Dragons War, and they could easily say that Ugin was an Elder Dragon, or even died, but his spirit form lived on and his spark ignited turning him into a Planeswalker.
I saw a lot of absurd theories around here... even that he was Bolas avatar. -_-
The fact that they look the same could further the idea of both are elders. Perhaphs a redesign of Bolas brothers are coming in some sort of Commander block, Nahiri, Freyalise, Ob Nixilis, Jazal... all had a card even thought they were long dead/missed/changed so why not the Elder Dragons?
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"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"
Ugin could be an Elder Dragon tat died during the war and his spirit prevailed, thus the fact he's called "The Spirit Dragon". I just think it's funny people say that something that WotC had put on a official story "could be dead wrong" and say that an absurd theory like Ugin being Bolas is something reasonable...
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"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"
It goes back to the old idea of being shown as opposed to being told. I COULD tell you that my namesake, Molcru, became better through a long climb. That does not work as a substitute for the EXPERIENCE of seeing Molcru's growth. Sorin DID say Ugin is "old as time." We haven't seen the development of the multiversal calendar from Ugin's point of view. We haven't seen any plane's development of a calendar or partitioning of time from Ugin's point of view. This could be misinformation given to Sorin by Ugin. We won't know unless the Mothership deems it necessary to their storyline. Ditto for the reason for giving Sorin misinformation. Protean.
I'm going to echo all the others that it's not clear to me how or why we'd rush to rule out Ugin's origins (or more broadly, where we stand with the Elders) other than that it would be a bit out of left field to have this current set (Tarkir) be the one that digs into the Elder Dragons. (A) most of what we know is from the "pre-rev" era and Continuity has the liberty to overwrite it as they have more developed storylines and (B) from what I can tell, there's been a deliberate ambiguity around this space from day one. It's not even clear to me that you can rule out the return of the original five based on a POV from Nicol Bolas that they've been "dealt with." As discussed a bit above, Arcades Sabboth is never explicitly named the Elder Dragon that was killed by Kristina (I would actually bet that Acclaim may have had Nicol Bolas in mind); Vaevictis Asmadi's fate is entirely unclear; Palladia Mors seems to get toasted, but the way she's depicted actually mirrors the way she was first defeated by Chromium (i.e. paralyzed, knocked to the ground and subsequently buried by villagers). I'd consider the latter two "dealt with" if they'd been banished to say the Nether Void or fossilized in the Domains, both possibilities. (It's also surprising because Palladia just seems to get knocked into a tar pit with no repercussions for anyone around her, while the comics made such a HUGE emphasis on the power that's generated by the death of an Elder (i.e. enough to generate an entire chasm or punch through the Shard of the Twelve Worlds.) We only see Chromium and (whatever she is) Piru actually get offed in the old materials. That's all a digression from the point that I think there is plenty enough of a blank canvas here until Continuity wants to explore it, which could be now (I personally doubt it, but wouldn't mind!).
Doug Beyer actually commented about Bolas in relation to "four other elder dragons" back in February (I can't post links yet, but it is tagged under "nicol bolas", "ugin", and other things and is easy to look up). For context, he was responding to a question about if Niv Mizzet is a concern of Bolas, to which he replied:
"Nicol Bolas outlived four other elder dragons. And, at least by his own account, he killed Ugin, the ancient “spirit dragon” who was one of the three planeswalkers that trapped the Eldrazi (and he says that was “not so long ago,” although who knows how long that might be from his perspective). My sense is that Nicol Bolas does keep an eye on, and is likely not overly fond of, other powerful and intelligent dragons. [...]"
Granted, this does not definitively confirm that there were only five surviving elder dragons after the war, but to me it seems pretty close. Granted, they could just say something silly like that comment is technically true as he outlived who knows how many that died during the Elder Dragon War.
Doug Beyer actually commented about Bolas in relation to "four other elder dragons" back in February (I can't post links yet, but it is tagged under "nicol bolas", "ugin", and other things and is easy to look up). For context, he was responding to a question about if Niv Mizzet is a concern of Bolas, to which he replied:
"Nicol Bolas outlived four other elder dragons. And, at least by his own account, he killed Ugin, the ancient “spirit dragon” who was one of the three planeswalkers that trapped the Eldrazi (and he says that was “not so long ago,” although who knows how long that might be from his perspective). My sense is that Nicol Bolas does keep an eye on, and is likely not overly fond of, other powerful and intelligent dragons. [...]"
Granted, this does not definitively confirm that there were only five surviving elder dragons after the war, but to me it seems pretty close. Granted, they could just say something silly like that comment is technically true as he outlived who knows how many that died during the Elder Dragon War.
I do think it's enough to basically put a tack in this considering there's... no real fruit in continuing the discussion. Either way, we don't know for certain, and without that certainty as a basis, all speculation becomes more or less pointless since we simply don't have enough to go on.
So, in essence, with that, I'm going to lock this thread until a time when/if we get new data.
Though throwing back to the flip calender that people keep mentioning, I'm fairly certain Gavin Verhey has been posting the calender on his tumblr this entire year.
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We don't know what a Spirit Dragon's abilities might include, what with Ugin being the only example.
However, it should be noted that his third ability being the opposite of Bolas's doesn't lend credence to anything since Bolas's third ability was representative of his touch, a totally unique ability to him.
I mean they could just do a relatively minor retcon an just add him in. Regardless I am mostly just looking for a reason as to him an Bolas fighting *I am sure we will get it but hey... speculation*
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
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This was my thought as well. When Ajani fought Bolas during the Alara storyline, he summoned an avatar of Bolas's soul. Bolas being treacherous and power-hungry, he and the avatar immediately attacked one another. What if Ugin IS that avatar?
It would explain their physical similarities, as well as Ugin's title of "spirit dragon".
We know that Ugin existed long before Alara, but time travel is involved in this story...
Ew. God, I hope not.
The implications of Ajani being able to create Planeswalkers like that are disgusting to me. It would completely undermine Planeswalker's specialness.
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I'd find it to be a fairly large retcon and really, I would HATE it if they took that path.
It would be much better if Ugin were just something of his own rather than trying to ram him into a piece of lore where he doesn't belong.
Just chiming in to say that this kinda is a minor retcon, since only a tiny amount of the Magic players even know about the Elder Dragon Wars, much less any details. Just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean it's a big thing.
Now, I don't even think they're gonna touch the Elder Dragon Wars mostly because it is so obscure to the average Magic player, so I find it unlikely that Ugin will be revealed as an Elder Dragon, but I just wanted to remind everyone that WotC thinks about the average Magic player and not hard-core storyline fans.
I agree with you - the time leading up to Apocalypse was my favorite in the history of the game - the focus and story was told through each and every card in those sets, and almost all were interconnected in some way. We have something similar yet not the same in today's game - the focus is on the planeswalkers (MTG poster-boys) and everything else seems secondary. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the older sets pre-Odyssey block felt more encompassing while the new sets feel more narrowly-focused.
Jeff
The other dragons have since been slain so... they aren't likely to ever be touched upon again.
There's been a LOT of debate about things as far as Piru is concerned, but most have settled that she wasn't an Elder. Just a Lesser Elder.
My interest in revisiting is in a flashback set--I'm well aware we're talking about largely dead characters, although in some cases I think there's a legitimate question (Arcades Sabboth being dead is an indirect deduction off other characters' hearsay; unclear if Asmadi is unsummoned or actually killed, etc.).
I myself had questions to Continuity and Acclaim back in the day about Piru, because she did seem an odd shoehorn in addition to the five. But bear in mind that in the actual source material, she's never referred to as anything BUT an actual Elder. Comics explicitly refer to her as the sixth, and the characters in "Dakkon Blackblade" explicitly call her an Elder. I do agree that it would be clean to assign her, like the original Scarzam dragons (of Sivitri Scarzam), to the first generation after the original five, or a "sub" Elder Dragon--given that they are single-named (that we know) dragons with maybe two colors (UB for Scarzam, I'd guess GB for Piru if I had to). I think I may have had that on the website at one point, although I was later told the creators of the character intended for her to be at the same level as the original five. The question though is, what exactly is an Elder then? You have at least two generations preceding the original five--since Asmadi's the cousin. Then you have a subsequent generation ("sub-Elder") that probably retained the power to cross planes (Scarzam). I think that's probably the proper dividing line, giving us at least four generations of Elders. As for where Piru sits in that, I'd agree that she'd be more comfortably placed in the last category, but she could just as well have been intended to be another cousin like Asmadi of the original five. The point of this all was to say, even if the source material hammers in the idea that only five survived, there's nothing to stop Continuity from introducing a character that sat out the war or otherwise wasn't known to Bolas to have survived, etc.
The no bystanders bits seems to mostly have been cobbled together from Bolas's after the fact recollections, but the entire thing was vague as well. It seems like it likely was influenced by both Time Spiral and the Assassin's Blade novels, but as far as I am aware, there wasn't any actual definitive and explicit statement along those lines*, but most people agree that given the survivors and their outlook towards things, they all took part. At the very least, if somedragon didn't take part in the war, they ended up as Elder Land Wurms anyways...
*There MIGHT have been something mentioned in Test of Metal, but... I hate that book and have ignored most of what it had to say since I first read it. Besides that, take anything it says with a grain of salt.
I think the final fates of the dragons in that conflict end up being moot because Bolas states they've been dealt with, implying he hunted them down himself.
I'd be all sorts of down for a flashback set, but sadly, I don't think they're going to go for it.
This is actually really fascinating stuff that I think would be great discussion material for the archives on another site I'm a member of. I know we'd love to have you swing by if you're interested. We've been trying to cull the various websites to consolidate as much of the older information as we can. I'll toss you a PM if you wouldn't mind.
On "The Lithomancer", Sorin says that Ugin is "old as time" and this could in fact stat that he IS an Elder Dragon of some sort. People tend to think the things are solid when in fact, it isn't. There's no solid detail about the Elder Dragons War, and they could easily say that Ugin was an Elder Dragon, or even died, but his spirit form lived on and his spark ignited turning him into a Planeswalker.
I saw a lot of absurd theories around here... even that he was Bolas avatar. -_-
The fact that they look the same could further the idea of both are elders. Perhaphs a redesign of Bolas brothers are coming in some sort of Commander block, Nahiri, Freyalise, Ob Nixilis, Jazal... all had a card even thought they were long dead/missed/changed so why not the Elder Dragons?
Ugin could be an Elder Dragon tat died during the war and his spirit prevailed, thus the fact he's called "The Spirit Dragon". I just think it's funny people say that something that WotC had put on a official story "could be dead wrong" and say that an absurd theory like Ugin being Bolas is something reasonable...
"Nicol Bolas outlived four other elder dragons. And, at least by his own account, he killed Ugin, the ancient “spirit dragon” who was one of the three planeswalkers that trapped the Eldrazi (and he says that was “not so long ago,” although who knows how long that might be from his perspective). My sense is that Nicol Bolas does keep an eye on, and is likely not overly fond of, other powerful and intelligent dragons. [...]"
Granted, this does not definitively confirm that there were only five surviving elder dragons after the war, but to me it seems pretty close. Granted, they could just say something silly like that comment is technically true as he outlived who knows how many that died during the Elder Dragon War.
I do think it's enough to basically put a tack in this considering there's... no real fruit in continuing the discussion. Either way, we don't know for certain, and without that certainty as a basis, all speculation becomes more or less pointless since we simply don't have enough to go on.
So, in essence, with that, I'm going to lock this thread until a time when/if we get new data.
Though throwing back to the flip calender that people keep mentioning, I'm fairly certain Gavin Verhey has been posting the calender on his tumblr this entire year.