I was hoping for a being like Ugin to appear in the Magic universe. I've been playing since 1995 and just from the small amount of information given about Ugin he reminds me of Urza, Karn and Feroz. I see him as more of a Grandfather figure, due to his age and wisdom, more so than a malevolent or uncaring force such as Nicol Bolas.
It is impossible to conceptualize how a being who is several millenia old would make a moral decision. And even when said being sways more towards what we perceive to be 'good' or 'evil' does it make them so? As others have stated the motivation, or impetus, behind a character's actions speaks volumes. Though we still only know very little about Ugin his machinations remind me of The Watcher from Marvel comics, though he does take more action. Ugin wishes to study the Multiverse and its inhabitants and he understands, at least on some scale, the grand architecture of the Multiverse. As the individual writing about him in the latest Uncharted Realms article quoted his character as saying: "We are all part of a vast tapestry. Break a thread, and that part of the Multiverse unravels. You can never know how small or how large the damage will be until after it is too late. That is why small minds should never be allowed to wield great power." To Ugin, who seems to care about the balance of the Multiverse, an individual like Nicol Bolas is simple minded because he only wishes to expand upon his own personal power and does not care about what his machinations have done to countless billions across hundreds of planes.
I've also heard some individuals say things such as, "I don't like that another, super-powerful dragon just 'poofed' out of existence as a counter-balance to Bolas." Ugin was first 'hinted' at in Future Sight with Ghostfire. That 'hint' came out in 2007 and was in development at least 2 years before that. The concept of Ugin was probably in development for years, his appearance now just may seem like a "Ok we have a giant, powerful evil dragon with no equal. I KNOW! LETS MAKE AN EQUALLY POWERFUL GOOD DRAGON AND NO ONE WILL QUESTION WHERE THE HELL HE'S BEEN FOR THE LAST 20 OR SO YEARS OF MAGIC!" It is difficult to peek backwards into the history of a fictional story without individuals saying, "Well that's convenient!" I'm not saying Wizards is infallible I'm just saying Ugin may have been around in the Wizards Workshop far longer than we know.
All things in the universe have opposites: hot, cold, light, dark, etc. In the current story of Magic there was no singular force (unless you count the Eldrazi and Phyrexia: which in my opinion aren't necessarily evil just organisms that wish to survive and propagate) that could stand up to Bolas. And where Bolas is self-absorbed Ugin is not and sees a much larger picture.
TL DR: Ugin, to me at least, seems like more of a grandfather figure than a antagonist or protagonist. He seems to care more about the homeostasis of the Multiverse and not about his own glory and power. He isn't the protagonist some may want (like Gideon, Ajani or Nahiri) but he is the kind of protagonist that is needed in order to combat a force such as Nicol Bolas.
This!
But Grandfather of the Multiverse is a bit much. He only just burst onto the scene as a card, and although he has been around for much longer he hasn't been anything like Urza, or even Karn.
Aye, he just personally reminds me of Karn or Urza in that they were powerful beings who weren't necessarily 'good' or 'evil' but powerful beings with a goal or purpose. But you are correct in that, personality wise, he is nothing like Karn or Urza!
And I only mention the word 'grandfather' as a title given to someone who is wise and patient. Ugin may only be a mere pawn in the greater scheme of things!
As for the Future Sight and Ghostfire... I do not believe anyone has in mind back there what Ugin is now. It happened to people far, far later that they can use the name and concept. See this story: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mc90 . That is the entirety of how they envisioned Ugin back then. They had a "colorless" card, they needed a dragon who breathes invisible fire.
Do you remember how we found out that the Eye of Ugin is a friggin' cave? And the flavortext of Ghostfire made absolutely zero sense with that? But they decided to use the name of Ugin for a dragon walker. And even later, the idea of creating a counterpart to Bolas crystallized. I am inclined to believe that they might have started planning this development (good Bolas) around Zendikar. But definitely not in FS.
That does not make the "I KNOW! LETS MAKE AN EQUALLY POWERFUL GOOD DRAGON AND NO ONE WILL QUESTION WHERE THE HELL HE'S BEEN FOR THE LAST 20 OR SO YEARS OF MAGIC!" less of a spit in the face, though.
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I also think that when development decided to make Nicol Bolas a major antagonist in the current Magic storyline they probably also thought that they would need some kind of force to balance him out. I think a larger slap in the face would have been to bring an already known Elder Dragon, like Chromium, back to battle Bolas.
The problems with a fictional universe is that it infinitely expands across time based on the whims of mortals who want to make memorable characters but are also bound by profit margins!
Heck, at this point I would probably less outraged if they took one of the Elders and make a shocking revelation that Ugin is his/her new identity, than saying that Ugin is a Elder who was unknown to us till now, despite being "Nicol Bolas's eons-old nemesis".
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I'm mostly upset by the apparent notion that mtg needs a "big bad" and "big good". Magic had large scale villians but I'm very concerned that we're going to be heading into Saturday morning cartoon territory with Bolas as Dr.Claw and Ugin as Zordon.
I wonder what direction they would take if Hasbro didn't own Wizards...
In truth, beyond the need to find something to challenge Bolas, Wizards understands that younger generations love large scale, epic battles between the forces of 'good' and 'evil'. I kind of wish Magic was more like A Song of Ice and Fire and the lines between such were more blurred. But oh well. Ugin is still in his infant stages and we'll just have to see if his existence gets justified in some meaningful way.
The thing is, we used to have shades of gray. Urza? Sure, he was working to stop Yawgmoth, but look at the things he did: eugenics, hastening the destruction of a world, weapons of mass destruction FUELED BY THE SOULS OF HIS ALLIES. His ends were noble, but his means were, well, horrific.
Now, everything has been simplified to mustache-twirlling villains and tortured emo heros, and there's never a gray area.
Heck, at this point I would probably less outraged if they took one of the Elders and make a shocking revelation that Ugin is his/her new identity, than saying that Ugin is a Elder who was unknown to us till now, despite being "Nicol Bolas's eons-old nemesis".
I am not sure I understand the outrage here? Sure, it goes against what has been known about the Elder Dragons till now, but I never saw anywhere, except for some "prerevisionist lore" according to the Wiki article, that it was 100% set in stone that the survivors we knew were the only ones. The term "prerevisionist" suggests to me that the cannon would then follow whatever came directly from Wizards and not this other party.
As for the Ugin being a counter to Bolas. I guess that could be the case, but part of me feels like that is a little too cheesy. Also, Bolas did kill him once so I would still say Bolas is the more powerful of the two.
The thing is, we used to have shades of gray. Urza? Sure, he was working to stop Yawgmoth, but look at the things he did: eugenics, hastening the destruction of a world, weapons of mass destruction FUELED BY THE SOULS OF HIS ALLIES. His ends were noble, but his means were, well, horrific.
Now, everything has been simplified to mustache-twirlling villains and tortured emo heros, and there's never a gray area.
Easily selling objective GOOD vs objective BAD does, and that has never been what magic is about. It's really upsetting. I think Tezz is currently the only villain who has any morally gray in him, and is mostly a villain by virtue of being an unfeeling jerk.
Magic is still ok regarding good guys not feeling terrible, but the villains have fallen far.
Has it been confirmed anywhere that Ugin (or Sarkhan, for that matter) will survive the 1,208 years, or however long, it will take for the altered Tarkir to catch up with the rest of the present-day multiverse, or could it still just be a "All the 'wild' dragons are back now..." head-scratcher for those who can see Tarkir from an outside perspective?
The thing is, we used to have shades of gray. Urza? Sure, he was working to stop Yawgmoth, but look at the things he did: eugenics, hastening the destruction of a world, weapons of mass destruction FUELED BY THE SOULS OF HIS ALLIES. His ends were noble, but his means were, well, horrific.
Now, everything has been simplified to mustache-twirlling villains and tortured emo heros, and there's never a gray area.
I don't think we've gotten a lot of morally gray villains even in the old days. The only ones that come up to my mind now are Gaddock Teeg and Radiant.
I was hoping for a being like Ugin to appear in the Magic universe. I've been playing since 1995 and just from the small amount of information given about Ugin he reminds me of Urza, Karn and Feroz.
I don't think Ugin is anything like Karn or Feroz. I have a hard time imagining that they'd be so casual about watching entire planes of existence get destroyed the way Ugin was while researching the Eldrazi. When Nahiri points out that Ugin let millions of people die he doesn't care in the slightest. He does seems a lot like Urza, ruthless and vaguely noble of intention. I imagine he'd be UB if he were made of colored mana.
He reminds me of Karn and Feroz in that Ugin sees a much larger picture. If you've lived for countless millennia your perception of everything will change. Imagine being immortal and able to travel to other worlds. Countless worlds, each at a different stage of social, topographical and technological evolution, each one rife with its own problems. You could spend your immortal existence combating what you believe to be the injustices of the universe...unless you understand that some events are meant to happen. It's one thing to challenge a force such as Ob Nixilis or Nicol Bolas who are sentient beings who either revel in their own power or take joy in the suffering of others, it is quite another to destroy something that may be a natural occurance. I view the Eldrazi the same as I view Galactus; a world consuming entity that has a purpose for the ecosystem of the universe.
Furthermore, if Ugin did not care about whether the Eldrazi destroyed worlds or not why trap them? Ugin is a ageless being who is vastly powerful, if what you say is true he could easily scoff at other worlds and let the Eldrazi munch away. I believe he wanted to trap them to learn more about them. What if he was close to a discovery when Bolas killed him? What if Tarkir wasn't the only reason Ugin needed to be revived? His magic involves converting matter into energy and all can use it. Since the Eldrazi are beings made of energy perhaps he was developing magic to combat or challenge the Eldrazi
You could spend your immortal existence combating what you believe to be the injustices of the universe...unless you understand that some events are meant to happen. It's one thing to challenge a force such as Ob Nixilis or Nicol Bolas who are sentient beings who either revel in their own power or take joy in the suffering of others, it is quite another to destroy something that may be a natural occurance.
These sentences contradict each other. What is Nicol Bolas is "meant" to conquer the universe? You're just proposing a roundabout form of nihilism, a position that Ugin explicitly rejects in his conversation with Sorin and Nahiri.
I view the Eldrazi the same as I view Galactus; a world consuming entity that has a purpose for the ecosystem of the universe.
That's what Ugin thinks, certainly, but we know almost nothing about the Eldrazi. Hopefully killing them doesn't result in a giant evil Statue of Liberty dissolving the walls of reality.
Furthermore, if Ugin did not care about whether the Eldrazi destroyed worlds or not why trap them?
He was concerned about them being dangerous, he certainly didn't care that learning about them meant leaving millions of people to die. Ugin is ultimately benevolent but he's also extremely callous. That makes him radically unlike Karn. Also Ugin was pretty clear that they couldn't kill the Eldrazi in the first place.
My initial sentences were not contradictory. I was implying that the Eldrazi, as far as we can glean from texts, are not sentient as far as being you can reason with. They are, again as far as we know, eating worlds to survive. Bolas, on the other hand, is merely trying to bolster his own strength. If Bolas were to die there would not be a 'natural' imbalance because Bolas's intention are not merely about survival and nothing, so far as we know, that Bolas has done has created any form of harmony. (You could say he helped the mending but again he sacrificed Leshrac for that).
And que current story arc! We don't know what role the Eldrazi play in the multiverse. If it turns out that they are just parasites and do not contribute at all then their death may well be justified.
And while yes, Karn is not callous, he also over time dropped his pacifist morality. We don't know what Ugin was like when he first became a planeswalker. Hell he might have been as horrible as Bolas! But time and experience change everything and Karn is not as old Ugin. Over time Karn may grow to become callous after seeing countless worlds that he could not help.
We don't know what Ugin was like when he first became a planeswalker. Hell he might have been as horrible as Bolas!
Being a dragon, that seems likely.
I would argue that in some respects, he's still as bad as Bolas, but in different ways. He may not be about collecting power, but it seems quick to call him benevolent. At best, I'd say he's lawful neutral.
Also, there's a twisted part of me that likes the idea of Bolas and Ugin having been something akin to friends at one point. Two boundless intellects finally finding another mind to challenge them. I can see the two of them engaged in massive world spanning machinations pitted against one another and enjoying the challenge of trying to undermine each other but not caring what they did to countless worlds in the process. Perhaps Ugin turns a blind eye to a lot Bolas's shadier doings because he enjoyed having another mind and another dragon mind especially to connect with. Eventually though Bolas goes too far for Ugin and he sets about opposing him. Perhaps this happens many times, culminating in the event that happened on Crux of Fate.
Thinking of Ugin as some kind of Gandalf to the neowalkers is reading too much in the story so far. That's speculation in my book.
What we know about Ugin is that he cares about stopping the Eldrazi and that he fought Bolas at some point. Neither implies he is a good person... I could see a number of evil characters wanting to stop Eldrazi as well, for the sake of protecting their assets. Also, people dying didn't seen like the reason why he wanted to stop the Eldrazi. About fighting Bolas, that's just trivial. Bolas is enemy to all.
In my mind so far he is just another large force who play a role in the Eldrazi story arch and might play a role in other ones.
About the Bolas being a "mustache twirling" villain. I'm not sure why people believe every villain need a grey area. Bolas is the most natural and realistic thing in the whole mtg. Someone struggling to be in a better position and not caring about creatures who means nothing to him. I think Bolas's biggest flaw is not being as cool and mind ******* terrifying as phyrexians (the previews big baddy).
Ugin is like Gandalf in many ways simply because he is unfathomably old, and is indeed wise and his ways seem strange to most people. The image many people have of Gandalf is not completely true to Gandalf's nature. Gandalf the White and Gandalf the Grey are almost completely different people that served almost completely different purposes. Ugin is Gandalf as Olorin,'in my youth in the West' who is again as unlike Gandalf the Grey as Gandalf the Grey is to Gandalf the White, perhaps even without the pity he learned from Nienna.
The Eldrazi are Kinda like Galactus, but so far they only seem to provide a little balance and some kind of symmetry in the Multiverse, but I don't think they're ultimately super crucial to the fundamental existence of reality as they are. In other words, there is room for the Eldrazi's situation to be changed, for Ugin to study and learn about them, perhaps impose new and different natures on them, so that they are less of a threat. If Ugin can Tame the Eldrazi to be more productive to the Multiverse, they might even be marshaled against Phyrexia.
I hope we see a story about Ugin and Urza. I find it next to impossible to believe they were unaware of each other. They are both the kind of Ancient Multiverse Wandering Academic Busy Bodies that care about the Old and Powerful....they just would have run across each other before. They just would have. Even if Liliana, Ob Nixilis, Nahiri, Sorin, and Karn never met Ugin nor Urza in their centuries/millenia of existence, Ugin and Urza totally would have met each other because they looked at things on the Stupidly Maximally Grand Scale that can be used to justify just about anything.
Ugin would absolutely be 5-colored if he were colored at all, just like Urza, with most probably a leaning toward G/U/R, the colors I associate more with the Blind Eternities. (whereas Urza was more Team America)
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
The problem with the Phyrexians having been so central a threat in the past is that now people assume everybody should be concerned with the Phyrexians.
Ultimately, the Phyrexians are probably less of a threat than the Eldrazi and not every walker is going to even pay attention to them.
I hope we see a story about Ugin and Urza. I find it next to impossible to believe they were unaware of each other.
With as large as the multiverse is? It's INCREDIBLY likely they had never even heard of each other.
They are both the kind of Ancient Multiverse Wandering Academic Busy Bodies that care about the Old and Powerful....they just would have run across each other before. They just would have.
No, they really wouldn't have. Urza never ran across Bolas and they actually went to some of the same places! Ugin and Urza? Good chance they never even stayed in the same neighborhood of the multiverse.
Even if Liliana, Ob Nixilis, Nahiri, Sorin, and Karn never met Ugin nor Urza in their centuries/millenia of existence, Ugin and Urza totally would have met each other because they looked at things on the Stupidly Maximally Grand Scale that can be used to justify just about anything.
Urza was pretty much exclusively concerned with Dominaria. He didn't actually get around that much.
His plots and plans only concerned Dominaria, but he went all over the place, especially while he was stuck on the outside of the Shard. He travelled as far as the Eon Fog on Equilor, which is pretty darn far out there. Maybe in a percentage sense, he didn't spend much of his time away from Dominaria, but in an absolute sense, he did. Artifacts Cycle mentions at least one period of time where Urza was going just about everywhere, planehopping. Maybe not staying for long, but maybe it wouldn't take him long to just hear rumors of this or that.
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
I was hoping for a being like Ugin to appear in the Magic universe. I've been playing since 1995 and just from the small amount of information given about Ugin he reminds me of Urza, Karn and Feroz. I see him as more of a Grandfather figure, due to his age and wisdom, more so than a malevolent or uncaring force such as Nicol Bolas.
It is impossible to conceptualize how a being who is several millenia old would make a moral decision. And even when said being sways more towards what we perceive to be 'good' or 'evil' does it make them so? As others have stated the motivation, or impetus, behind a character's actions speaks volumes. Though we still only know very little about Ugin his machinations remind me of The Watcher from Marvel comics, though he does take more action. Ugin wishes to study the Multiverse and its inhabitants and he understands, at least on some scale, the grand architecture of the Multiverse. As the individual writing about him in the latest Uncharted Realms article quoted his character as saying: "We are all part of a vast tapestry. Break a thread, and that part of the Multiverse unravels. You can never know how small or how large the damage will be until after it is too late. That is why small minds should never be allowed to wield great power." To Ugin, who seems to care about the balance of the Multiverse, an individual like Nicol Bolas is simple minded because he only wishes to expand upon his own personal power and does not care about what his machinations have done to countless billions across hundreds of planes.
I've also heard some individuals say things such as, "I don't like that another, super-powerful dragon just 'poofed' out of existence as a counter-balance to Bolas." Ugin was first 'hinted' at in Future Sight with Ghostfire. That 'hint' came out in 2007 and was in development at least 2 years before that. The concept of Ugin was probably in development for years, his appearance now just may seem like a "Ok we have a giant, powerful evil dragon with no equal. I KNOW! LETS MAKE AN EQUALLY POWERFUL GOOD DRAGON AND NO ONE WILL QUESTION WHERE THE HELL HE'S BEEN FOR THE LAST 20 OR SO YEARS OF MAGIC!" It is difficult to peek backwards into the history of a fictional story without individuals saying, "Well that's convenient!" I'm not saying Wizards is infallible I'm just saying Ugin may have been around in the Wizards Workshop far longer than we know.
All things in the universe have opposites: hot, cold, light, dark, etc. In the current story of Magic there was no singular force (unless you count the Eldrazi and Phyrexia: which in my opinion aren't necessarily evil just organisms that wish to survive and propagate) that could stand up to Bolas. And where Bolas is self-absorbed Ugin is not and sees a much larger picture.
TL DR: Ugin, to me at least, seems like more of a grandfather figure than a antagonist or protagonist. He seems to care more about the homeostasis of the Multiverse and not about his own glory and power. He isn't the protagonist some may want (like Gideon, Ajani or Nahiri) but he is the kind of protagonist that is needed in order to combat a force such as Nicol Bolas.
But Grandfather of the Multiverse is a bit much. He only just burst onto the scene as a card, and although he has been around for much longer he hasn't been anything like Urza, or even Karn.
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And I only mention the word 'grandfather' as a title given to someone who is wise and patient. Ugin may only be a mere pawn in the greater scheme of things!
Do you remember how we found out that the Eye of Ugin is a friggin' cave? And the flavortext of Ghostfire made absolutely zero sense with that? But they decided to use the name of Ugin for a dragon walker. And even later, the idea of creating a counterpart to Bolas crystallized. I am inclined to believe that they might have started planning this development (good Bolas) around Zendikar. But definitely not in FS.
That does not make the "I KNOW! LETS MAKE AN EQUALLY POWERFUL GOOD DRAGON AND NO ONE WILL QUESTION WHERE THE HELL HE'S BEEN FOR THE LAST 20 OR SO YEARS OF MAGIC!" less of a spit in the face, though.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I also think that when development decided to make Nicol Bolas a major antagonist in the current Magic storyline they probably also thought that they would need some kind of force to balance him out. I think a larger slap in the face would have been to bring an already known Elder Dragon, like Chromium, back to battle Bolas.
The problems with a fictional universe is that it infinitely expands across time based on the whims of mortals who want to make memorable characters but are also bound by profit margins!
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
In truth, beyond the need to find something to challenge Bolas, Wizards understands that younger generations love large scale, epic battles between the forces of 'good' and 'evil'. I kind of wish Magic was more like A Song of Ice and Fire and the lines between such were more blurred. But oh well. Ugin is still in his infant stages and we'll just have to see if his existence gets justified in some meaningful way.
Now, everything has been simplified to mustache-twirlling villains and tortured emo heros, and there's never a gray area.
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I am not sure I understand the outrage here? Sure, it goes against what has been known about the Elder Dragons till now, but I never saw anywhere, except for some "prerevisionist lore" according to the Wiki article, that it was 100% set in stone that the survivors we knew were the only ones. The term "prerevisionist" suggests to me that the cannon would then follow whatever came directly from Wizards and not this other party.
As for the Ugin being a counter to Bolas. I guess that could be the case, but part of me feels like that is a little too cheesy. Also, Bolas did kill him once so I would still say Bolas is the more powerful of the two.
Easily selling objective GOOD vs objective BAD does, and that has never been what magic is about. It's really upsetting. I think Tezz is currently the only villain who has any morally gray in him, and is mostly a villain by virtue of being an unfeeling jerk.
Magic is still ok regarding good guys not feeling terrible, but the villains have fallen far.
Commander Decks
WDarien, King of KjeldorW - WYomiji, Who Bars the WayW - UIxidor, Reality SculptorU
BPhage the UntouchableB - BShirei,
Shadowborn Ap-Shizo's CaretakerB - RZirilan of the ClawR(W/U)Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper(W/U) - (2/G)Phelddagrif Politics(W/U) - (U/B)Mishra, Artificer Prodigy(U/R) - Karona, God of Voltron
I don't think we've gotten a lot of morally gray villains even in the old days. The only ones that come up to my mind now are Gaddock Teeg and Radiant.
I don't think Ugin is anything like Karn or Feroz. I have a hard time imagining that they'd be so casual about watching entire planes of existence get destroyed the way Ugin was while researching the Eldrazi. When Nahiri points out that Ugin let millions of people die he doesn't care in the slightest. He does seems a lot like Urza, ruthless and vaguely noble of intention. I imagine he'd be UB if he were made of colored mana.
Furthermore, if Ugin did not care about whether the Eldrazi destroyed worlds or not why trap them? Ugin is a ageless being who is vastly powerful, if what you say is true he could easily scoff at other worlds and let the Eldrazi munch away. I believe he wanted to trap them to learn more about them. What if he was close to a discovery when Bolas killed him? What if Tarkir wasn't the only reason Ugin needed to be revived? His magic involves converting matter into energy and all can use it. Since the Eldrazi are beings made of energy perhaps he was developing magic to combat or challenge the Eldrazi
These sentences contradict each other. What is Nicol Bolas is "meant" to conquer the universe? You're just proposing a roundabout form of nihilism, a position that Ugin explicitly rejects in his conversation with Sorin and Nahiri.
That's what Ugin thinks, certainly, but we know almost nothing about the Eldrazi. Hopefully killing them doesn't result in a giant evil Statue of Liberty dissolving the walls of reality.
He was concerned about them being dangerous, he certainly didn't care that learning about them meant leaving millions of people to die. Ugin is ultimately benevolent but he's also extremely callous. That makes him radically unlike Karn. Also Ugin was pretty clear that they couldn't kill the Eldrazi in the first place.
The whole point of letting the Eldrazi devour planes was to learn about them, that's why he did it.
And que current story arc! We don't know what role the Eldrazi play in the multiverse. If it turns out that they are just parasites and do not contribute at all then their death may well be justified.
And while yes, Karn is not callous, he also over time dropped his pacifist morality. We don't know what Ugin was like when he first became a planeswalker. Hell he might have been as horrible as Bolas! But time and experience change everything and Karn is not as old Ugin. Over time Karn may grow to become callous after seeing countless worlds that he could not help.
Being a dragon, that seems likely.
I would argue that in some respects, he's still as bad as Bolas, but in different ways. He may not be about collecting power, but it seems quick to call him benevolent. At best, I'd say he's lawful neutral.
Also, there's a twisted part of me that likes the idea of Bolas and Ugin having been something akin to friends at one point. Two boundless intellects finally finding another mind to challenge them. I can see the two of them engaged in massive world spanning machinations pitted against one another and enjoying the challenge of trying to undermine each other but not caring what they did to countless worlds in the process. Perhaps Ugin turns a blind eye to a lot Bolas's shadier doings because he enjoyed having another mind and another dragon mind especially to connect with. Eventually though Bolas goes too far for Ugin and he sets about opposing him. Perhaps this happens many times, culminating in the event that happened on Crux of Fate.
What we know about Ugin is that he cares about stopping the Eldrazi and that he fought Bolas at some point. Neither implies he is a good person... I could see a number of evil characters wanting to stop Eldrazi as well, for the sake of protecting their assets. Also, people dying didn't seen like the reason why he wanted to stop the Eldrazi. About fighting Bolas, that's just trivial. Bolas is enemy to all.
In my mind so far he is just another large force who play a role in the Eldrazi story arch and might play a role in other ones.
About the Bolas being a "mustache twirling" villain. I'm not sure why people believe every villain need a grey area. Bolas is the most natural and realistic thing in the whole mtg. Someone struggling to be in a better position and not caring about creatures who means nothing to him. I think Bolas's biggest flaw is not being as cool and mind ******* terrifying as phyrexians (the previews big baddy).
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
The Eldrazi are Kinda like Galactus, but so far they only seem to provide a little balance and some kind of symmetry in the Multiverse, but I don't think they're ultimately super crucial to the fundamental existence of reality as they are. In other words, there is room for the Eldrazi's situation to be changed, for Ugin to study and learn about them, perhaps impose new and different natures on them, so that they are less of a threat. If Ugin can Tame the Eldrazi to be more productive to the Multiverse, they might even be marshaled against Phyrexia.
I hope we see a story about Ugin and Urza. I find it next to impossible to believe they were unaware of each other. They are both the kind of Ancient Multiverse Wandering Academic Busy Bodies that care about the Old and Powerful....they just would have run across each other before. They just would have. Even if Liliana, Ob Nixilis, Nahiri, Sorin, and Karn never met Ugin nor Urza in their centuries/millenia of existence, Ugin and Urza totally would have met each other because they looked at things on the Stupidly Maximally Grand Scale that can be used to justify just about anything.
Ugin would absolutely be 5-colored if he were colored at all, just like Urza, with most probably a leaning toward G/U/R, the colors I associate more with the Blind Eternities. (whereas Urza was more Team America)
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Ultimately, the Phyrexians are probably less of a threat than the Eldrazi and not every walker is going to even pay attention to them.
With as large as the multiverse is? It's INCREDIBLY likely they had never even heard of each other.
No, they really wouldn't have. Urza never ran across Bolas and they actually went to some of the same places! Ugin and Urza? Good chance they never even stayed in the same neighborhood of the multiverse.
Urza was pretty much exclusively concerned with Dominaria. He didn't actually get around that much.
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
It's contrived and convoluted.
Most of them favor certain planes or what not and stay put for long stretches of time.
Level 1 Judge
I write flavor articles for RoxieCards.
I play and judge at Giga Bites Cafein Marietta, Georgia.