So in a sense Eldrazi are GREEN aligned sicne they are motivated by instinct.
Heh. I never liked ramping into Eldrazi with a green deck, because it always felt kind of "wrong" to me. But if you see it like this, summoning an Eldrazi as a green mage is essentially summoning the ultimate predator. So it does make sense a bit. Interesting observation!
Heh. I never liked ramping into Eldrazi with a green deck, because it always felt kind of "wrong" to me. But if you see it like this, summoning an Eldrazi as a green mage is essentially summoning the ultimate predator. So it does make sense a bit. Interesting observation!
Could also look at it as using mana bonds and creatures with strong connections to the land to lure the Eldrazi to you. Then you just step out of the way and let them do their work.
The Eldrazi having human traits would make them look a) silly and over-the-top (a stereotypical comic villain, essentially) or b) like a second Phyrexia.
For the story Creative's telling, the Eldrazi are already silly and over the top. Pretty sure I've said this in other threads, or maybe even this one (it's all a blur to me now), but the way they're written, they're pretty clearly meant to be villainous, and all that "they're unfathomable monsters!!!!" diatribe is exactly that, just nonsense. It's not shown by the narrative and is just fluff. They might as well be Cobra Commander.
Also, I have suggested previously that Phyrexia would've been better for the story they want to tell.
If you survived a volcano eruption or a tidal wave, you'd most likely be happy. And even if you're watching from afar, you can be happy about a bunch of people saving others from their certain deaths in a natural disaster.
See, that would be fine and good if the Eldrazi were a one and done villain. But there's 2 other titans out there that we should care about, and this story's been hanging for 6 years. Creative's failed to deliver on what they describe the Eldrazi as, and in doing so, they've already failed in future uses of the Eldrazi because they can't even eat Zendikar when there's no oldwalkers around.
The Eldrazi having human traits would make them look a) silly and over-the-top (a stereotypical comic villain, essentially) or b) like a second Phyrexia.
For the story Creative's telling, the Eldrazi are already silly and over the top. Pretty sure I've said this in other threads, or maybe even this one (it's all a blur to me now), but the way they're written, they're pretty clearly meant to be villainous, and all that "they're unfathomable monsters!!!!" diatribe is exactly that, just nonsense. It's not shown by the narrative and is just fluff. They might as well be Cobra Commander.
Also, I have suggested previously that Phyrexia would've been better for the story they want to tell.
If you survived a volcano eruption or a tidal wave, you'd most likely be happy. And even if you're watching from afar, you can be happy about a bunch of people saving others from their certain deaths in a natural disaster.
See, that would be fine and good if the Eldrazi were a one and done villain. But there's 2 other titans out there that we should care about, and this story's been hanging for 6 years. Creative's failed to deliver on what they describe the Eldrazi as, and in doing so, they've already failed in future uses of the Eldrazi because they can't even eat Zendikar when there's no oldwalkers around.
The Eldrazi are "merely" incomprehensible, they are not "Mary/Marty Stu".
I agree. You actually need some kind of character to be as such.
Creatures beyond comprehension by definition cannot be Mary/Marty Sues/Stus. They are designed to be invincible monsters.
Couple of thoughts here:
1. I agree with your assessment of the Eldrazi up to a point - they aren't really incomprehensible per se. Their goals are very clear: devour a plane; move to another plane; lather, rinse and repeat. That's the Galactus influence. The Lovecraftian influence is their alien biology and alien thought processes and methods. (But see Point 3 below).
2. Phyrexia is not interchangeable with the Eldrazi because the purpose of (New) Phyrexia is to be the Virus or the Corrupter - the enemy that turns you into them piece by piece. The purpose of the Eldrazi (stripped of trappings) is to be a Natural Disaster that can be fought, to some extent. And that brings me to...
3. I speculated about this before, but I am certain now that, despite what Wizards has said, this story is really Howardian and not Lovecraftian in tone - valor and cunning triumphing over inhuman force and impossible odds. The Eldrazi are not written to be invincible monsters - they are written to be seemingly-invincible monsters are heroes are meant to find a way to beat anyway (see Galactus again). Whether the victory ends up being plausible or not depends entirely on the quality of the writing. (I'm not optimistic, but that's a separate argument.)
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
5. However, I agree your larger premise - too much of the threat of the Eldrazi has been told, not shown, and (again, like Galactus) if they don't achieve a victory somewhere, they cease to be a credible threat. (Actually, "tell, not show" has been a HUGE problem in MtG storytelling since forever. See, just for example: Slobad's death (seriously, you DON'T kill major characters off-camera - that's a huge storytelling no-no), Jaya's possible death, the re-establishment of the Guilds on Ravnica, basically everything re: Sorin Markov, etc.)
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
Zendikar was chosen because it's mana was a perfect lure for the Eldrazi and it was a plane over which one of the three Walkers presided. From what we've been given the roil was a result of the presence of the Eldrazi and so we can presume that any plane would fight back in some way. Maybe not with such vim and vigor but in it's resistance to corruption and consumption it's really not that much different from other planes.
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
Zendikar was chosen because it's mana was a perfect lure for the Eldrazi and it was a plane over which one of the three Walkers presided. From what we've been given the roil was a result of the presence of the Eldrazi and so we can presume that any plane would fight back in some way. Maybe not with such vim and vigor but in it's resistance to corruption and consumption it's really not that much different from other planes.
Actually, Zendikar as a plane is semi-sapient. It does have an intrinsic ability to fight corruption that most, if not all other planes would not.
Actually, Zendikar as a plane is semi-sapient. It does have an intrinsic ability to fight corruption that most, if not all other planes would not.
We've seen multiple planes with a soul or something that would make it capable of being pseudo-sapient like Zendikar. We know nothing about Zendikar, other than it's wild, powerful mana, that would make it different from other planes. Like I said, the roil was caused by the presence of the Eldrazi. There's nothing to say that any other plane would behave dissimilar to Zendikar when presented with the Eldrazi locked within it. Like I said that's not to say that the unique nature of Zendikars mana doesn't make it stronger in it's fight but we have no evidence to suggest that it's any more inherently capable of fighting back than any other plane. All multi-cellular organisms have an immune system and it often seems as though planes behave more like organisms.
Also: All I said was that it's ability to fight isn't the reason it was chosen to be the prison to the Titans.
2. Phyrexia is not interchangeable with the Eldrazi because the purpose of (New) Phyrexia is to be the Virus or the Corrupter - the enemy that turns you into them piece by piece. The purpose of the Eldrazi (stripped of trappings) is to be a Natural Disaster that can be fought, to some extent. And that brings me to...
Never said it was. I said New Phyrexia would be a better force for the Planeswalkers to confront in the story wizards is trying to tell. The fundamental differences between them and the Eldrazi is what makes them more suitable for being villains in this kind of story than the Eldrazi.
See, just for example: Slobad's death (seriously, you DON'T kill major characters off-camera)
Eh, Slobad was not a major character. He was present in literally only one story arc and existed just as Glissa's sidekick. Don't confuse popularity with importance.
Actually, Zendikar as a plane is semi-sapient. It does have an intrinsic ability to fight corruption that most, if not all other planes would not.
We know of at least three planes (ok, two and a half) that possess a worldsoul and are sentient:
1. Zendikar, obviously
2. Alara, see Progenitus
3. Lorwyn, at least as much as we consider Nissa's origin UR canon
4. Also, Dominaria might have a worldsoul, depending on what Gaea canonically is supposed to be. Also consider the fact that the Kavu were awakened just at the time Phyrexia invaded, which strongly suggests the plane's immunity system kicking in.
There is little reason to believe that not all natural planes have a world soul. It doesn't appear to be a unique feature but rather something that all planes possess but rarely if ever shows itself.
I purposefully ignored the soul cycle, because it doesn't make any sense. (Headcanon says they're just naturally occuring avatars that the inhabitants dub "soul of the land".)
Alara might be even better at fighting off the Eldrazi since its world soul is Progenitus.
Although we're unlikely to return there even if Emrakul visits, I think Kamigawa stands a better chance than Alara since the closest beings to the Worldsoul of Kamigawa defeated a serpent capable of keeping oldwalkers out of the plane.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
Yeah that's a really good idea. The hedrons have a TON of energy so if the walkers can find a way to harness that power maybe they could defeat ulamog.
How do you add a quote to one of your posts when you're editing? I couldn't figure it out.
How do you add a quote to one of your posts when you're editing? I couldn't figure it out.
You can grab multiple posts with multi-quote, or if you're editing after the fact, click 'quote', copy it, then go to your post and hit 'edit' and paste it.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
Given that we know Ugin shows up to at least give advice this seems guaranteed to be what happens.
That would explain the glowy hedrons in Nissa's art. Perhaps the whole riddle of leylines thing is figuring out how to harness those energies that connected the hedrons in the first place. Where's Nahiri when you need her to explain how to use her constructs? She could have left an instruction manual.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
Like a lot of people I want to agree that this seems like a plausible route, but also this remindd me about Perilous Vault depicting a hedron erupting with energy, mechanically shown by having it exile permanents, and this (still) kills the Ulamog. I just thought that was a funny coincidence that I wonder is more than that. They have been shown to be able to foreshadow pretty far ahead with things like the Kytheon Iora easter egg when they want to. Exile is also generally flavored as imprisonment as well so I could see something like them tapping into the hedron's power to lock Ulamog back up.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
The problem is that we've been told the eldrazi aren't actually physically* on Zendikar and they are simply their 3-dimensional shadows cast onto the plane.
It's like fish trying to "kill" a fisher boat's net. Even if they succeed in destroying that net, the humans can still come back with a new one.
Unless, of course, that has been retconned as well...
*Considering that the eldrazi do not even exist in a corporeal form, this may as well be completely impossible even if the Eldrazi wanted to.
With all the use of the hedrons against the eldrazi I'am wondering if they abondend the idea of the eldrazi also tapping into the hedrons power, like Dreamstone Hedron showed.
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Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
With all the use of the hedrons against the eldrazi I'am wondering if they abondend the idea of the eldrazi also tapping into the hedrons power, like Dreamstone Hedron showed.
More than likely. I've noticed the Eldrazi have not been doing stuff with hedrons since Rise of the Eldrazi.
Quick side note that didn't occur to me, there IS one plausible way the neowalkers could beat Ulamog.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
The problem is that we've been told the eldrazi aren't actually physically* on Zendikar and they are simply their 3-dimensional shadows cast onto the plane.
It's like fish trying to "kill" a fisher boat's net. Even if they succeed in destroying that net, the humans can still come back with a new one.
Unless, of course, that has been retconned as well...
I don't think they would use that element as recently as Nahiri's intro story if they were going to retcon it.
With all the use of the hedrons against the eldrazi I'am wondering if they abondend the idea of the eldrazi also tapping into the hedrons power, like Dreamstone Hedron showed.
More than likely. I've noticed the Eldrazi have not been doing stuff with hedrons since Rise of the Eldrazi.
Also, only thing cool about Gremmy is his design.
Which is sad, it was a nice idea for a twist, having the heroes think they can beat them with the hedrons, only to realize that they too can use their power, maybe they feared it would have ended in an hedron lazer war
Yeah his design and power were cool, but his fight sucked
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Heh. I never liked ramping into Eldrazi with a green deck, because it always felt kind of "wrong" to me. But if you see it like this, summoning an Eldrazi as a green mage is essentially summoning the ultimate predator. So it does make sense a bit. Interesting observation!
Could also look at it as using mana bonds and creatures with strong connections to the land to lure the Eldrazi to you. Then you just step out of the way and let them do their work.
For the story Creative's telling, the Eldrazi are already silly and over the top. Pretty sure I've said this in other threads, or maybe even this one (it's all a blur to me now), but the way they're written, they're pretty clearly meant to be villainous, and all that "they're unfathomable monsters!!!!" diatribe is exactly that, just nonsense. It's not shown by the narrative and is just fluff. They might as well be Cobra Commander.
Also, I have suggested previously that Phyrexia would've been better for the story they want to tell.
See, that would be fine and good if the Eldrazi were a one and done villain. But there's 2 other titans out there that we should care about, and this story's been hanging for 6 years. Creative's failed to deliver on what they describe the Eldrazi as, and in doing so, they've already failed in future uses of the Eldrazi because they can't even eat Zendikar when there's no oldwalkers around.
I agree. You actually need some kind of character to be as such.
Creatures beyond comprehension by definition cannot be Mary/Marty Sues/Stus. They are designed to be invincible monsters.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Couple of thoughts here:
1. I agree with your assessment of the Eldrazi up to a point - they aren't really incomprehensible per se. Their goals are very clear: devour a plane; move to another plane; lather, rinse and repeat. That's the Galactus influence. The Lovecraftian influence is their alien biology and alien thought processes and methods. (But see Point 3 below).
2. Phyrexia is not interchangeable with the Eldrazi because the purpose of (New) Phyrexia is to be the Virus or the Corrupter - the enemy that turns you into them piece by piece. The purpose of the Eldrazi (stripped of trappings) is to be a Natural Disaster that can be fought, to some extent. And that brings me to...
3. I speculated about this before, but I am certain now that, despite what Wizards has said, this story is really Howardian and not Lovecraftian in tone - valor and cunning triumphing over inhuman force and impossible odds. The Eldrazi are not written to be invincible monsters - they are written to be seemingly-invincible monsters are heroes are meant to find a way to beat anyway (see Galactus again). Whether the victory ends up being plausible or not depends entirely on the quality of the writing. (I'm not optimistic, but that's a separate argument.)
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
5. However, I agree your larger premise - too much of the threat of the Eldrazi has been told, not shown, and (again, like Galactus) if they don't achieve a victory somewhere, they cease to be a credible threat. (Actually, "tell, not show" has been a HUGE problem in MtG storytelling since forever. See, just for example: Slobad's death (seriously, you DON'T kill major characters off-camera - that's a huge storytelling no-no), Jaya's possible death, the re-establishment of the Guilds on Ravnica, basically everything re: Sorin Markov, etc.)
Zendikar was chosen because it's mana was a perfect lure for the Eldrazi and it was a plane over which one of the three Walkers presided. From what we've been given the roil was a result of the presence of the Eldrazi and so we can presume that any plane would fight back in some way. Maybe not with such vim and vigor but in it's resistance to corruption and consumption it's really not that much different from other planes.
Actually, Zendikar as a plane is semi-sapient. It does have an intrinsic ability to fight corruption that most, if not all other planes would not.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
We've seen multiple planes with a soul or something that would make it capable of being pseudo-sapient like Zendikar. We know nothing about Zendikar, other than it's wild, powerful mana, that would make it different from other planes. Like I said, the roil was caused by the presence of the Eldrazi. There's nothing to say that any other plane would behave dissimilar to Zendikar when presented with the Eldrazi locked within it. Like I said that's not to say that the unique nature of Zendikars mana doesn't make it stronger in it's fight but we have no evidence to suggest that it's any more inherently capable of fighting back than any other plane. All multi-cellular organisms have an immune system and it often seems as though planes behave more like organisms.
Also: All I said was that it's ability to fight isn't the reason it was chosen to be the prison to the Titans.
Never said it was. I said New Phyrexia would be a better force for the Planeswalkers to confront in the story wizards is trying to tell. The fundamental differences between them and the Eldrazi is what makes them more suitable for being villains in this kind of story than the Eldrazi.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Eh, Slobad was not a major character. He was present in literally only one story arc and existed just as Glissa's sidekick. Don't confuse popularity with importance.
We know of at least three planes (ok, two and a half) that possess a worldsoul and are sentient:
1. Zendikar, obviously
2. Alara, see Progenitus
3. Lorwyn, at least as much as we consider Nissa's origin UR canon
4. Also, Dominaria might have a worldsoul, depending on what Gaea canonically is supposed to be. Also consider the fact that the Kavu were awakened just at the time Phyrexia invaded, which strongly suggests the plane's immunity system kicking in.
There is little reason to believe that not all natural planes have a world soul. It doesn't appear to be a unique feature but rather something that all planes possess but rarely if ever shows itself.
Although we're unlikely to return there even if Emrakul visits, I think Kamigawa stands a better chance than Alara since the closest beings to the Worldsoul of Kamigawa defeated a serpent capable of keeping oldwalkers out of the plane.
The Hedron network has been absorbing the Eldrazi's power for 6,000 years. There has to be a LOT of power stored in the Hedrons right now, and in the Oath of the Gatewatch art, those Hedrons are open. If they turn the hedron network back against Ulamog, I can see that working. As we've seen, Hedron's unleashing their power is devastating.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Yeah that's a really good idea. The hedrons have a TON of energy so if the walkers can find a way to harness that power maybe they could defeat ulamog.
How do you add a quote to one of your posts when you're editing? I couldn't figure it out.
You can grab multiple posts with multi-quote, or if you're editing after the fact, click 'quote', copy it, then go to your post and hit 'edit' and paste it.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Given that we know Ugin shows up to at least give advice this seems guaranteed to be what happens.
Like a lot of people I want to agree that this seems like a plausible route, but also this remindd me about Perilous Vault depicting a hedron erupting with energy, mechanically shown by having it exile permanents, and this (still) kills the Ulamog. I just thought that was a funny coincidence that I wonder is more than that. They have been shown to be able to foreshadow pretty far ahead with things like the Kytheon Iora easter egg when they want to. Exile is also generally flavored as imprisonment as well so I could see something like them tapping into the hedron's power to lock Ulamog back up.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
The problem is that we've been told the eldrazi aren't actually physically* on Zendikar and they are simply their 3-dimensional shadows cast onto the plane.
It's like fish trying to "kill" a fisher boat's net. Even if they succeed in destroying that net, the humans can still come back with a new one.
Unless, of course, that has been retconned as well...
*Considering that the eldrazi do not even exist in a corporeal form, this may as well be completely impossible even if the Eldrazi wanted to.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
More than likely. I've noticed the Eldrazi have not been doing stuff with hedrons since Rise of the Eldrazi.
Also, only thing cool about Gremmy is his design.
Your mods are terrified of me.
I don't think they would use that element as recently as Nahiri's intro story if they were going to retcon it.
Which is sad, it was a nice idea for a twist, having the heroes think they can beat them with the hedrons, only to realize that they too can use their power, maybe they feared it would have ended in an hedron lazer war
Yeah his design and power were cool, but his fight sucked
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Only the fact that she encountered vampires back when they were sealing the Eldrazi.
Your mods are terrified of me.