Magic's story is subjective, and some people's mileage varies more than others. When people say 'this is the death of magic', I don't think they realize people have been saying that since the Weatherlight saga Chronicles.
(The point being, people have *always* said this.)
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It would be nice if people could understand that it doesn't matter if Ugin shows up 'hahh, what have you done?! Now the titans are free!!', etc. It doesn't matter. The titans should not have been defeated. Everything in which they are based upon, the whole way the storyline was going, the very things we know about the Eldrazi in the past, that all should be indicators that the planeswalkers should not win. The eldrazi are supposed to be powerful, ancient monsters causing devastation in a way that you can't stop, you can only hope to escape from it or, in the case of the God-like oldwalkers, make a complex trap to lure them and seal it for a while.
Do you know one of the most impressive eldrazi cards for me? Disaster Radius. It depicts so well in the art the barren, destroyed, bloodied destruction that the eldrazi left behind, and just out there in the horizon you can see the silhouette of a gigantic unfathomable creature. Is it dead? Is it walking amongst the destruction? It just comes to show what happens after they (the eldrazi) get here. Foggy skies, barely no sunlight, bones exposed, trees all dead and rivers of blood. That is what a doomsday scenario caused from a lovecraftian entity should look like. And you know what's more? That very entity should strike fear into your heart just by existing, just by the evidence of its presence.
Now, let's assume they had a chance to beat ONE titan. They would have to give everything they got, and I mean EVERYTHING. I think that, even then, they should not be able to do it. The point of theses monsters it that they should NOT BE DEFEATED, you have to work around them. But oh well, the planeswalkers did not know that, so they go and try to beat Ulamog. They almost suceed, and that really baffles me. I think they shouldn't be able to just seal a titan with some hedrons, but alright, let's roll with it just to recapitulate: it was a huge cost to do that. Zendikar was almost completely destroyed and the only reason Ulamog went to Sea Gate was because he could sense the mana from there, one of the last remaining havens of civilization. They give their everything to get Zendikar back. And what happens? Kozilek shows up to shut the party down. Now Ulamog is free again, and now the story should end. The planeswalkers escape from the plane, get some refugees and beat themselves on the head for failing the world.
But that isn't going to happen, is it? They are going to pull some Deus ex Machina and KILL both titans (not imprison, KILL. Kill the creatures that should be the representation of incomprehensible madness and uber-destructive power). HOW can we roll with that? I don't need to read the story in the UR to know that there isn't anything that they could write from now on that will convince me, because of everything that was established and written before. Simple as that. I don't need to wait. I know what is coming, and I just can't agree with it. That was the worst possible outcome.
I think the biggest problem is that people don't give the story the chance it needs. Part of this is because of the current storytelling model being so different than what we've been used to in the past. We're getting snippets of crucial story moments now, during preview weeks, yet we won't know the full story until the last UR goes up a couple of weeks after the set releases. People are judging the plot based on these tiny glimpses and summaries of summaries, and when these plot summaries aren't what they want they get angry.
It'd be like watching the Star Wars trailer and deciding that because those moments in the trailer weren't exactly the ending you wanted you aren't going to see the movie. The trailer isn't supposed to have the plot of the entire movie, just enough key moments to draw you in. We're seeing key story moments out of order and out of context (the Oaths, Fall of the Titans), which is causing people to come to conclusions about the story without having actually experienced it.
It's an adjustment in expectations on the part of the audience that hyper-invested enfranchised people on the internet aren't willing to make because of the nature of being an enfranchised entitled internet person.
With Oath of the Gatewatch specifically, Creative is setting up the Gatewatch to be the multiversal Avengers. For this to happen, there has to be a threat exists large enough that these people (who other than Gideon suck in the teamwork department) decide they need to work together. As Creative set up the Eldrazi as that threat, there are only two outcomes that lead to the Avengers Assemble! moment: Zendikar is destroyed and the titans move on (and it's not likely that WotC would destroy one of their most popular worlds) or the 'walkers manage to drive the Eldrazi off (which is a terrible thing because they saved Zendikar at the expense of the multiverse, but makes the most sense for the narrative). I fully expect Ugin to show up, call out the younger 'walkers for being idiots and freeing the Titans back into the Eternities, and tell them they have to clean up this mess (hence they swear their respective oaths)*.
From a narrative standpoint, the only way to have the Gatewatch formed is for there to still be a looming threat. You can't have the Superfriends if there's not some reason for them to join forces.
*Or, say they actually do destroy Ulamog and Kozilek, utterly and completely. We still don't know what the actual role(s) of the Eldrazi are in the greater ecosystem of the multiverse, so Ugin still shows up to call out the younger 'walkers because now they've damaged some fundamental function of existence, and he tells them they have to clean up this mess (hence they swear their respective oaths). This is the new looming threat.
I really hate to compare this to "that scenario", but the way the structure works now is pretty much like how the leaks for Oath of the Gatewatch had on the community. Just like Kozilek's early leak spoiled the C mechanic and it ended up with the community arguing over what the symbol could possibly stand for, releasing storyline details like "Ulamog was sealed once again" and "Ulamog and Kozilek were destroyed" creates a similar scenario, it doesn't establish what really happened and as a result causes confusion in the community.
It also bugs me that they explicitly called the effects out when the leaks happened for the cards (confusion for the community is bad), yet don't seem to admit the same effect when this happens to the storyline. I know the cards are the core of the franchise (being the actual merchandise) and have priority, but this really feels like they don't even put any effort in preventing similar confusion in the Vorthos Community at all, making it feel like "Anything not the cards needs no immediate clearance" at all instead.
I really think they ought to end the major UR Storylines at the point of a set's release and not have it halfway through if they want to continue this model and not raise the confusion everytime they do this.
Can somebody send this to Maro's tumblr? I would say send it to Doug,but he's never there.
A few other people mentioned this, but the problem is not the story. The medium is limited. Telling a story on cards and short stories undermines the type of storytelling people really enjoy. Look at most of the best-selling novels (often trilogies or long series) or the most-watched television shows that span many seasons. Heroes win, but they have to earn it. Even in Walking Dead, where the entire world seems hellbent on making it feel as if the good guys never win, the few victories earned by the protagonists feel earned. The stakes are high and they really earn the victory through blood, death, and struggle that changes the characters. We are not seeing true character development, and we're seeing the climax of the story without feeling the build up.
Telling a story on cards and short UR stories removes the "earned" factor of the victory. A 300-page novel might show the struggles and journeys of the Planeswalkers and Zendikari, making the big finale worth it, but most people here don't see how the team went from losing to winning so quickly. The story of how they did so could probably fill a novel or television season, but that's not the storytelling medium we're working with, so it all just feels rushed and barely earned.
I've come to accept that the storytelling in MtG will be flawed, but I guess that's what happens if you're in the collectible card business rather than the novel writing business.
Still, I wish for the sake of the longer story arc that the Jace-tus League got whooped this time only to regroup, find more PWs to help, and pull out a win in their next encounter with the titans. It would feel earned if players and our heroes lost one of their favorite planes, making everyone eager for a rematch with the bastard titans that took something so precious from us.
I'll tell you what I want, I want to find out Bolas engineered the release of the Eldrazi to manipulate them or at least one (emrakul) to go to New Phyrexian and battle the Phyrexians. Then regardless of who wins he would show up and finish off the other, leaving him with no real threats to his power in the Multiverse.
I'm not saying that killing Elspeth was BAD, it was a great story mode.
but there was griping.
Wizards kept the theme. It was meant to end like a Greek tragedy.
Except that there was no real dilemma nor hubris on Elpeth's part, just Heliod randomly deciding to kill his champion at the end of a story, that before that point was an ok example for modern storytelling but had almost nothing in common with the typical elements of Greek tragedies. It felt like someone had read that Greek tragedies must end with the death of the hero but did not really understand why. That was the source of the gripe.
I think you are the one misinterpreting the tradgedies. There are two kinds: Shakespearian, where the fall is due to character flaw; and Greek, where the hero is screwed by fate and there is nothing they can do.
I don't think calling us "entitled" is helping your argument, kaburi.
You're absolutely right. That was a poor word choice. I was trying to find a word that was more serious than "enfranchised", and I didn't think about the connotations. I was going for "emotionally invested".
It isn't so much for me an issue of who wins in the end; either the Gatewatch or the Eldrazi. I'd just like the setup to mean something. We have the entirety of the BFZ storyline sething up Ulamog as damaging the plane irrevocably, possibly, though never fully implied to have destroyed it. There was an open door to the plane's survival or not. It felt at a minimum, though, that some major players would die. We cared about Theros' story due to Elspeth "dying" and Xenagos' fate being unclear. They're more or less gone, but their ultimate fates left some sort of resolution to the plot. It was a true Greek tragedy for elspeth and a karmatic or pure sense of hubris for Xenagos. Theros was a set story based on walkers that completed a full story with peril, uncertainty and impact.
Tarkir was a walker story that involved Sarkhan, Ugin and Sorin more as plot movers than central, key figures. Now hear me out. Yes, Sarkhan grew and found a cure for his madness and longing. HOWEVER, Sarkhan moved the plot along more than he devloped. The development was for the world of Tarkir itself told through its legendary cards. Compare Narset legendary versus walker and the loss of red leading her to be more focused on study than combat. Anafenza went from the ruler of a clan focused on ancestry and family by bonds over blood to a murdered practicioner of ancestry. Same method, different outcome. Zurgo went from Sarkhan's biggest rival and a legitimate threat, as well as the somewhat brutal leader of the Mardu to a subservient bell ringer for Kolaghan. Surrak gave up the shamanistic tendencies of the Temur for just feeding Atarka so the Temur aren't eaten themselves, and Sidisi just became a zombie one lower on the SulTai pecking order. Most of us found the lore of the world and legends far more appealing than Sarkhan's story, due to the story having an impact on the legends and world. The impact was real and clear.
Here in Zendikar, and I'm trying to hold onto th hope that Ugin is right and Jace and the rest have just foolishly unleashed the Eldrazi back into the Multiverse to manifest in new forms after burning the 'hands" of the titans off, nothing seems to matter. No one is going to die, likely, given the story and promotions. We were set up for zendikar to likely be devastated, possibly destroyed, but that seems unlikely. The Titans are described as unfathomable behemoths of reality-warping magic that now seem capable of being stopped and destroyed by 4 young wipper-snappers who figured out something out of the blue. Why was it so much buildup and planning to trap Ulamog only for that to fail and now Kozilek to be trapped as well? Isn't Kozilek supposed to be smarter than that based on Kiora's merfolk legend about Kosi and the pearl? No, nevermind, that didn't matter either. And then Ob shows up and beats the crap out of 3 of the 4 Magix Avengers, only to be scared off by Chandra and THEN they get their crap together to solve the problem? Really?
If the titans were simply sealed, or if Kozilek bounced and Zendikar was destroyed, or just simply if SOMEONE other than Lorthos was killed off by a titan, I could forgive it. If Ugin shows up and berates the Oath for their lack of forethought, I might be placated. It bugs me that 3 old walkers with nigh-unlimited powers and thousands of years in Sorin and Ugin's case of insight into how the Multiverse work wouldnt be able to stop or easily seal the titans without years of planning and effort, and Jace just deus ex machina stumbles his way into a solution. None of the buildup meant anything, and that's what bugs me. Unless almost all of Zendikar is killed off before the Oath can finish this, I'm not going to approve of this story. Even then I'd be disappointed. I need the stakes to matter. Magic Creative seemed to finally get that with Mirrodin and Elspeth, and then they go and forget all about that here. Even Colson died in the Avengers. There was a reason to work together and fight the good fight. Quicksilver in Avengers 2. I don't care that the Oath wins. I just wanted the Titans to be the monsters that we were led to believe and there to be some sense of stakes to all of this; that the Eldrazi ravaging a plane mattered in terms of some character we cared about. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case.
So much this. I'm usually not a fan of deus ex ass-pull (partially by merit of the fact that they're usually forecasted pretty heavily), so it's completely understandable that this would elicit groans from a lot of people. I'm upset that the COLOSSAL ELDRITCH MONSTROSITIES can be "Captain Planet'd" away (by your powers combined!), but as long as they're unleashed in a completely unrestrained manner into The Blind Eternities, causing the Gatewatch to have to perpetually un-**** the multiverse as a result, I can grudgingly accept this resolution. Ugin chastising "these damn kids on {his} lawn" would be a good segue into their journeys. Maybe next time they come up, they're battered from their vigilant pursuit of the Eldrazi across the multiverse, split up across a few worlds while on the hunt? Honestly, I was hoping Omnath was going to be unleashed onto the Titans, put up a hell of a fight against Ulamog (maybe even destroying his physical form), but then Kozilek spots an opening and promptly rends him apart, much like he did to Lorthos, absorbing Omnath's released mana and causing Zendikar to slowly fold in on itself with Kozilek at the center, absorbing the plane. Maybe he dies as a result, or maybe he walks off to another plane. Either would be fine. But then the decrepit Gatewatch has to slink away to another place where they reconvene and set up the Oath to "never let Zendikar happen again". It would have an emotional impact on the story because of the huge amount of loss (including Kiora, presumably - or maybe the camera pans over to her in next week's episode when she came to just in time to escape the collapse of Zendikar - or maybe someone else saved her. Suspenseful!) and the subsequent disheartening of the Walkers for their failure as such.
It'll also make it up to me a little bit if we get a hint as to where Emrakul has gone; we can only hope we see her in Formerly Mirrodin.
Edit: I see Ebontail posted this theory before I did. That's what I get for not reading page 2!
I think the biggest problem is that people don't give the story the chance it needs. Part of this is because of the current storytelling model being so different than what we've been used to in the past. We're getting snippets of crucial story moments now, during preview weeks, yet we won't know the full story until the last UR goes up a couple of weeks after the set releases. People are judging the plot based on these tiny glimpses and summaries of summaries, and when these plot summaries aren't what they want they get angry.
It'd be like watching the Star Wars trailer and deciding that because those moments in the trailer weren't exactly the ending you wanted you aren't going to see the movie. The trailer isn't supposed to have the plot of the entire movie, just enough key moments to draw you in. We're seeing key story moments out of order and out of context (the Oaths, Fall of the Titans), which is causing people to come to conclusions about the story without having actually experienced it.
It's an adjustment in expectations on the part of the audience that hyper-invested enfranchised people on the internet aren't willing to make because of the nature of being an enfranchised entitled internet person.
With Oath of the Gatewatch specifically, Creative is setting up the Gatewatch to be the multiversal Avengers. For this to happen, there has to be a threat exists large enough that these people (who other than Gideon suck in the teamwork department) decide they need to work together. As Creative set up the Eldrazi as that threat, there are only two outcomes that lead to the Avengers Assemble! moment: Zendikar is destroyed and the titans move on (and it's not likely that WotC would destroy one of their most popular worlds) or the 'walkers manage to drive the Eldrazi off (which is a terrible thing because they saved Zendikar at the expense of the multiverse, but makes the most sense for the narrative). I fully expect Ugin to show up, call out the younger 'walkers for being idiots and freeing the Titans back into the Eternities, and tell them they have to clean up this mess (hence they swear their respective oaths)*.
From a narrative standpoint, the only way to have the Gatewatch formed is for there to still be a looming threat. You can't have the Superfriends if there's not some reason for them to join forces.
*Or, say they actually do destroy Ulamog and Kozilek, utterly and completely. We still don't know what the actual role(s) of the Eldrazi are in the greater ecosystem of the multiverse, so Ugin still shows up to call out the younger 'walkers because now they've damaged some fundamental function of existence, and he tells them they have to clean up this mess (hence they swear their respective oaths). This is the new looming threat.
for the most part. Though I disagree with part of your assessment - the Oath clearly happens after the titans are defeated, and they're definitely in Zendikar when it happens. They wouldn't take the time before they fight the titans to say "ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL, GUISE!" and they wouldn't put off escaping a collapsing Zendikar to make said Oath. Just my $.02!
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There are two kinds: Shakespearian, where the fall is due to character flaw; and Greek, where the hero is screwed by fate and there is nothing they can do.
Greek tragedies are all about the fatal flaw, you know hamartia? (Although, yes, Greek writers tended to railroad characters. Their view of fate and free will was rather strange.)
I never had an issue with Magic's storyline or characters until somewhat Magic Origins and now entirely with BFZ and what appears to have happened with OGW.
I immediately was dissatisfied with their announcement to have the Origin 5 be the vocal of for the foreseeable future. This meant two things: these characters would get stale fast as they are blunt to the point characters reflecting their colorpie characteristics and that none of them faced any threat of dying on Zendikar.
What I could not foresee is how they could overpower these characters so much and seemingly dumb down the Eldrazi from what they were mentioned as being and depicted in Rise of the Eldrazi as unbeatable, unstoppable, and unfathomable to these hungry hungry baloths which they are now. The Gatewatch somehow in three weeks imprisoned Ulamog twice, and through teamwork and fire destroyed Ulamog and Kozilek in one swoop.
Kozilek one hit killed Lorthos, yet Gideon can single handily hold back Ulamog and only break a bit of a sweat? The Eldrazi have never been defeated, being almost ageless as they predate colourless mana, yet Chandra with suped up fire can seemingly annihilate two Eldrazi titans at once? Ugin, Sorin and Nahiri's plan took delicate planning, thousands of hedrons to be created, and three oldwalkers to pull off, yet in three weeks four Neowalkers, six hedrons and fire have seemingly destroyed two titans.
Please read the artifact cycle novels. I want that level of quality in a perfect world.
Based on current storytelling I'd settle for Mirrodin level.
Edit: To be more specific. I really dislike the current "Avengers" style storyline they are going for. It feels pandering at best and very little like magic.
The medium is limited. Telling a story on cards and short stories undermines the type of storytelling people really enjoy.
Telling a story on cards and short UR stories removes the "earned" factor of the victory.
I actually disagree. They could have easily went with the story of Oath being "we destroyed one titan with great casualties" and then in the future make two other blocks where our heroes defeat the remaining two titans instead of this rushed "let's kill both titans in one set".
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I wouldn't mind the Gatewatch approach if they were made more interesting. Like this lineup of oaths and watchers:
Ashiok: For the sake of my designs, I'll keep watch.
Tamiyo: For the potential behind each horizon, I'll keep watch.
Vraska: For the survival of my ambitions, I'll keep watch.
Tibalt: Oh, I'll keep watch, I'll keep watching you, all the time....
Tezzeret: Flips them off.
I already feel like there's more interesting characterization in these simple oaths than in the URs we've gotten for our actual Gatewatch. There's more room for internal politicking here to break the monotony of "lol lets save the day from Saturday morning villain _____"
I wouldn't mind the Gatewatch approach if they were made more interesting. Like this lineup of oaths and watchers:
Ashiok: For the sake of my designs, I'll keep watch.
Tamiyo: For the potential behind each horizon, I'll keep watch.
Vraska: For the survival of my ambitions, I'll keep watch.
Tibalt: Oh, I'll keep watch, I'll keep watching you, all the time....
Tezzeret: Flips them off.
Narset: Of course I will watch for the Eldrazi. They are fascinating.
Domri: Yeah, whatever!
Sarkhan: For the beauty of the multiverse, I will keep watch.
Ob Nixilis: *roars of laughter*
I wouldn't mind the Gatewatch approach if they were made more interesting. Like this lineup of oaths and watchers:
Ashiok: For the sake of my designs, I'll keep watch.
Tamiyo: For the potential behind each horizon, I'll keep watch.
Vraska: For the survival of my ambitions, I'll keep watch.
Tibalt: Oh, I'll keep watch, I'll keep watching you, all the time....
Tezzeret: Flips them off.
Narset: Of course I will watch for the Eldrazi. They are fascinating.
Domri: Yeah, whatever!
Sarkhan: For the beauty of the multiverse, I will keep watch.
Ob Nixilis: *roars of laughter*
Sorin & Ugin: What the **** do you think we've been doing? Damned knowitall kids.
Bolas: And who do you think watches the watchers...?
Jace should go back for the Infinite Consortium and put it back into good use. I know he was using it at one point. I'd like to see storyline Jace become a cocky dandy that sees the Consortium as a tool to be used than something evil. Ral Zarek should be his enemy. In order to one-up the Izzet planeswalker, I'd like to see Jace using the Consortium to either recruit or assassinate Ravnica's best blue mages. To keep them from falling into Ral Zarek's hands.
Garruk should become a violent hypersexualized barbarian that uses exothermic energy generate from his veil-curse enhanced bloody butcherings and sexual romps to gain mastery over his curse. Something within the curse feeds off of his vital energy - so through blood and sex, the very things that sustain and create life - Garruk manages to keep the curse sated.
Liliana should try to find a way to turn demons into thralls, breaking free of the role she took on when she struck her bargain with Kothoped. Finding a way to bind demons and use them as tools rather than be used by them. Using their infernal powers to sustain herself long enough to enjoy the pleasures she once knew was an Oldwalker.
As for the current arc?
I would prefer the Battle for Zendikar to have ended with Gideon, Chandra, and Nissa dead, the Titans re-bound, and Zendikar made a homeplane for the Eldrazi race. Nissa's pilgrimage to see Ugin would have her learning how to merge Ashaya with the magic that Ugin and the others used when they first trapped the Eldrazi. Sorin would then inform Nissa that the magic would require a sacrifice, and he would deliver the news that the Gatewatch had fallen, the Titans were still free, and the Zendikari driven back into their homes and holes to await the end.
Thus Nissa would step up to willingly give herself to the plane that the Eldrazi Titans might be stopped. After Nissa's sacrifice, Sorin and Ugin would discuss the importance of the Zendikari adapting to the changes wrought by the Eldrazi Titans and their spawn. Then they leave the plane to the Zendikari, the Eldrazi, and the re-bound Titans.
Jace, seeing his work undone, would leave Zendikar as well. Returning to Ravnica to plot his next move against Sorin and Ugin. A brush with mortality would lead to Jace acting more cocksure and condescending. More confident, more willing to take risks, enjoy the perks of his job as the Living Guildpact.
When it comes down to it, Vorthoses aren't much different than Spikes. People have their preconceptions of what they want and conflate that with what is good.
1. People try to use the "Avengers" thing as an insult, even when WotC openly has referred to that themselves. The whole idea of the Origins 5 is driven by the fact that many people not as invested in the story wanted more connection between the arcs and have characters they could follow. Heavily invested players bemoan the fact that he follow the heroes (planeswalkers), but the first how many years of magic were following Urza and Co. around?
2. For whatever reason, everything about the plane of Zendikar that people loved from the first time around being destroyed by the Eldrazi is somehow invalidated if the Zendikari people achieve a Pyrrhic victory.
3. Magic has really taken a steampunk sort of overall atmosphere for their writing, which is just a decision they've made. A number of people in this sub-forum seem to pine for the standard, yet mediocre medieval writing that most standard fantasy epics use. I personally side with Wizards on this one, but even if you don't, it just seems dumb to complain week after week about that aspect of it.
That's just me though. I think some of the BFZ URs have been pretty bad, but that's not because we're focusing on planeswalkers. It's because the present threat of Eldrazi is a lot less interesting than the looming threat of the Eldrazi is.
My complaint is that Wizards actually has a pretty nice stable of planeswalkers that they aren't taking advantage of. Tezzeret, Ral Zarek, Domri Rade, Vraska, Tibalt, Dack Fayden, Garruk...these are characters I could see myself following faithfully. Many of these also had some really great runs in Standard, so they'd sell cards just as well as the Gatewatch bunch.
Tezzie's novel was fun, the others had some great URs. I never really liked Urza and company. I liked the aesthetic the Weatherlight arc brought to the storyline, but my favorite set of heroes are still Toshiro Umezawa, Heartless Hidetsugu, Marrow-Gnawer, and Kiku, Night's Flower. They were just fun, and I see shades of these guys in the lineup of neglected planeswalkers that I've mentioned.
I can't say that I've read any medieval fantasy of late...I want to say the last one I tried was Dragonlance, though after asking myself why I was forcing myself to read it, I set it aside and considered abandoning the genre. I would like to see Magic go more the route of fantasists like Clive Barker, Steven King, Richard K Morgan, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Mark Lawrence, Joe Abercrombie, or Michael Moorcock. These guys aren't really respecters of genre boundaries, so their styles would fit Magic quite well, I think. Since Magic itself runs the gamut of subgenres. So I would like to see Magic look into funner venues than, say, the Avengers or the looming DCCU.
*The courses I threw out for Jace, Lily and Garruk were inspired by some of the characters from the authors I've mentioned.
Garruk as a hypersexualised barbarian? Yeah - can't see that happening in a game aimed at 13+ I also don't really see much in the way of steampunk in MtG right now; some aspects of the Izzet and Kaladesh maybe, but otherwise... For a genre whose starting point is 'Victorian', the entirety of the MtG multiverse falls technologically too far short. I certainly can't picture steam engines or dirigibles on any other plane. But personally, I'm all for the MtG story staying centred on mediaeval / high fantasy, with influences from elsewhere thrown into that setting to taste.
I think my concern about the Gatewatch / Origins 5 focus of the current story-telling idiom is that it will become boring; over-exposure of some characters and under-exposure of others. People already complain of Jace overload. But I'm being presumptuous here; we don't actually know *how* centrally they'll weave the 5 into the longer arc, and with how much focus, or how well they'll integrate other characters along the way.
I think we do have to accept though that the arc will be aimed at a different target audience that the invested, bookish, mature Vorthoses who populate places like this. Late-teen comic book seems more likely, and we'll just have to take the bones of better storycraft from wherever we can find them, without, as Anteaterking says, becoming Spike-ish in our disdain for anything that doesn't happen to hit our own personal buttons.
It's amazing how people talk about Jace overload. He's featured in one block story. He's a more minor character in the ZEN and BFZ stories. And that's it. He's got several cards but from a story aspect he's got less story exposure than Ajani and Elspeth who have been the feature characters for at least one block and been prominent in at least one other. I think people just want to complain because he's who WotC want a to make the poster child. If it were Ashiok people would complain about Ashiok overload. Etc etc.
Garruk as a hypersexualised barbarian? Yeah - can't see that happening in a game aimed at 13+ I also don't really see much in the way of steampunk in MtG right now; some aspects of the Izzet and Kaladesh maybe, but otherwise... For a genre whose starting point is 'Victorian', the entirety of the MtG multiverse falls technologically too far short. I certainly can't picture steam engines or dirigibles on any other plane. But personally, I'm all for the MtG story staying centred on mediaeval / high fantasy, with influences from elsewhere thrown into that setting to taste.
I think my concern about the Gatewatch / Origins 5 focus of the current story-telling idiom is that it will become boring; over-exposure of some characters and under-exposure of others. People already complain of Jace overload. But I'm being presumptuous here; we don't actually know *how* centrally they'll weave the 5 into the longer arc, and with how much focus, or how well they'll integrate other characters along the way.
I think we do have to accept though that the arc will be aimed at a different target audience that the invested, bookish, mature Vorthoses who populate places like this. Late-teen comic book seems more likely, and we'll just have to take the bones of better storycraft from wherever we can find them, without, as Anteaterking says, becoming Spike-ish in our disdain for anything that doesn't happen to hit our own personal buttons.
Actually, yeah, I think "Victorian" is a much better description (outside of as we noted, Vryn, Kaladesh, etc.).
In response to the OP, I wanted some originality and tension! I want my characters to be richly developed and unique, and not tired tropes. Moreover, I don't want to be forced into following the exploits of said tired-trope-heroes for the foreseeable future. I want villains whose badassery isn't lazily undermined in the last second! I want more new characters and settings that not only keep me from getting tired of the old ones, but expand the universe in exciting ways.
In short, give me characters I care about in the context of an interesting story. Win or lose, it's about the journey, not the destination. In the case of BFZ block's story, both were lacking.
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The problem isn't simply that they beat the eldrazi, the problem is that all the lead-up from BFZ that would have made that victory believable was removed (by Ob Nixilis breaking the Hebron alignment and Kozilek's emergence, but the neowalkers won anyways. The eldrazi were set up to be the most powerful beings in the multiverse, with a single one of effortlessly destroying an entire plane despite the best efforts of two godlike oldwalkers, leading them to seek help from an even stronger oldwalker. It then takes the combined power of the three oldwalkers FORTY YEARS or preparation to trap them. The fact that most of this takes place off-screen doesn't change the fact that the Eldrazi are set up to be the most dangerous antagonist we will ever see. If they had been defeated by the aligned hedrons, that would have been acceptable. The months of BFZ's story to set it up, combined with the fact that the victory was using the pre-existing hedrons which had been created by a greater power, would have offset the power difference between the neowalkers and the Eldrazi.
However, when the network was broken, that should have been the end of all hope for the neowalkers. The fact that they managed to then figure something out in the limited time remaining is pretty unbelievable. If they can beat the eldrazi without prior setup, then what else is there to provide an actual threat? Wasn't the whole point of the Mending to make planeswalkers into relatable characters that could be threatened by plane-bound enemies, instead of godlike beings whose only real opponents were other planeswalkers?
Let's make the inevitable comparison to the Avengers. The Avengers is a good story because there is character development as well as just the action. Most of the team fights each other at some point. Contrast that with BFZ, where Gideon asks Jace for help, and Jace almost immediately agrees. Chandra gets a little bit of development when she changes her mind, but that's about it. Nissa, meanwhile, is just thankful to anyone willing to help (her only development, as mentioned by several others, is her power yo-yoing back and forth, a completely different story problem). The real difference, however, comes in the enemy they are fighting. While we know the Avengers are going to win, they are NOT fighting the "final enemy"; the Chituari are powerful enough to conquer earth, but there are stronger forces to be fought. The Avengers win their first battle, but there is also (to the viewers at least) the knowledge that Thanos is still out there, and is much more powerful. This means that sequels can still present a greater threat. The defeat of the Eldrazi IS the greatest threat, and makes it hard to believe that future antagonists actually have a chance at winning.
I'll give another example. Part of why Game of Thrones is so popular (in addition to the complexity of the story and the characters) is the fact that important characters die. While this can cause other problems, the primary benefit is that it makes every conflict uncertain. When there are fights, you don't always know which side is going to win. When a main character gets captured, it's not a question of "how long will it take him/her to escape?", and that makes everything much more interesting.
Ultimately, for a story to remain interesting, the bad guys have to win sometimes, and the Eldrazi, the most powerful bad guys there are, just got beaten.
I will say that I won't give up on the block's story until we actually get the whole story. There are still a couple ways this could be saved. The main ones I can think of:
1) We discover that the Mending affected the Eldrazi, possibly in a UR where Ugin becomes aware of what happened while he was mia. As far as we know, the Mending changed the nature of the spark, but the Eldrazi are beings native to the Blind Eternities. A change to the nature of the spark affecting creatures whose existence is essentially a greater version of the spark is fairly logical.
2) The summary saying the Eldrazi were destroyed is not exactly true (and is just a summary for those who are less interested in the rest of the multiverse). It is possible that, while the neowalkers believe that they destroyed the Eldrazi, Jace's plan to fully trap their essences on Zendikar wasn't as successful as he thought, and the Eldrazi are still alive and dangerous in the Blind Eternities.
3) Emrakul proves to be not just the strongest, but the strongest by far. For this to work though, the next encounter with Emrakul would HAVE to either have an early (set 1) planeswalker death to put the block ending in doubt, or Emrakul would have to destroy a plane. (Would have to do something to prove its more of a threat than the other titans were)
4) The Eldrazi serve some larger purpose in the multiverse. While this still has the problem of making plane-bound threats pretty irrelevant, it could allow the Eldrazi to be replaced by an even greater threat (this would be my least favorite option)
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(The point being, people have *always* said this.)
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Do you know one of the most impressive eldrazi cards for me? Disaster Radius. It depicts so well in the art the barren, destroyed, bloodied destruction that the eldrazi left behind, and just out there in the horizon you can see the silhouette of a gigantic unfathomable creature. Is it dead? Is it walking amongst the destruction? It just comes to show what happens after they (the eldrazi) get here. Foggy skies, barely no sunlight, bones exposed, trees all dead and rivers of blood. That is what a doomsday scenario caused from a lovecraftian entity should look like. And you know what's more? That very entity should strike fear into your heart just by existing, just by the evidence of its presence.
Now, let's assume they had a chance to beat ONE titan. They would have to give everything they got, and I mean EVERYTHING. I think that, even then, they should not be able to do it. The point of theses monsters it that they should NOT BE DEFEATED, you have to work around them. But oh well, the planeswalkers did not know that, so they go and try to beat Ulamog. They almost suceed, and that really baffles me. I think they shouldn't be able to just seal a titan with some hedrons, but alright, let's roll with it just to recapitulate: it was a huge cost to do that. Zendikar was almost completely destroyed and the only reason Ulamog went to Sea Gate was because he could sense the mana from there, one of the last remaining havens of civilization. They give their everything to get Zendikar back. And what happens? Kozilek shows up to shut the party down. Now Ulamog is free again, and now the story should end. The planeswalkers escape from the plane, get some refugees and beat themselves on the head for failing the world.
But that isn't going to happen, is it? They are going to pull some Deus ex Machina and KILL both titans (not imprison, KILL. Kill the creatures that should be the representation of incomprehensible madness and uber-destructive power). HOW can we roll with that? I don't need to read the story in the UR to know that there isn't anything that they could write from now on that will convince me, because of everything that was established and written before. Simple as that. I don't need to wait. I know what is coming, and I just can't agree with it. That was the worst possible outcome.
Here's another great explanation
Can somebody send this to Maro's tumblr? I would say send it to Doug,but he's never there.
Telling a story on cards and short UR stories removes the "earned" factor of the victory. A 300-page novel might show the struggles and journeys of the Planeswalkers and Zendikari, making the big finale worth it, but most people here don't see how the team went from losing to winning so quickly. The story of how they did so could probably fill a novel or television season, but that's not the storytelling medium we're working with, so it all just feels rushed and barely earned.
I've come to accept that the storytelling in MtG will be flawed, but I guess that's what happens if you're in the collectible card business rather than the novel writing business.
Still, I wish for the sake of the longer story arc that the Jace-tus League got whooped this time only to regroup, find more PWs to help, and pull out a win in their next encounter with the titans. It would feel earned if players and our heroes lost one of their favorite planes, making everyone eager for a rematch with the bastard titans that took something so precious from us.
I think you are the one misinterpreting the tradgedies. There are two kinds: Shakespearian, where the fall is due to character flaw; and Greek, where the hero is screwed by fate and there is nothing they can do.
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So much this. I'm usually not a fan of deus ex ass-pull (partially by merit of the fact that they're usually forecasted pretty heavily), so it's completely understandable that this would elicit groans from a lot of people. I'm upset that the COLOSSAL ELDRITCH MONSTROSITIES can be "Captain Planet'd" away (by your powers combined!), but as long as they're unleashed in a completely unrestrained manner into The Blind Eternities, causing the Gatewatch to have to perpetually un-**** the multiverse as a result, I can grudgingly accept this resolution. Ugin chastising "these damn kids on {his} lawn" would be a good segue into their journeys. Maybe next time they come up, they're battered from their vigilant pursuit of the Eldrazi across the multiverse, split up across a few worlds while on the hunt? Honestly, I was hoping Omnath was going to be unleashed onto the Titans, put up a hell of a fight against Ulamog (maybe even destroying his physical form), but then Kozilek spots an opening and promptly rends him apart, much like he did to Lorthos, absorbing Omnath's released mana and causing Zendikar to slowly fold in on itself with Kozilek at the center, absorbing the plane. Maybe he dies as a result, or maybe he walks off to another plane. Either would be fine. But then the decrepit Gatewatch has to slink away to another place where they reconvene and set up the Oath to "never let Zendikar happen again". It would have an emotional impact on the story because of the huge amount of loss (including Kiora, presumably - or maybe the camera pans over to her in next week's episode when she came to just in time to escape the collapse of Zendikar - or maybe someone else saved her. Suspenseful!) and the subsequent disheartening of the Walkers for their failure as such.
It'll also make it up to me a little bit if we get a hint as to where Emrakul has gone; we can only hope we see her in Formerly Mirrodin.
Edit: I see Ebontail posted this theory before I did. That's what I get for not reading page 2!
for the most part. Though I disagree with part of your assessment - the Oath clearly happens after the titans are defeated, and they're definitely in Zendikar when it happens. They wouldn't take the time before they fight the titans to say "ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL, GUISE!" and they wouldn't put off escaping a collapsing Zendikar to make said Oath. Just my $.02!
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Greek tragedies are all about the fatal flaw, you know hamartia? (Although, yes, Greek writers tended to railroad characters. Their view of fate and free will was rather strange.)
I immediately was dissatisfied with their announcement to have the Origin 5 be the vocal of for the foreseeable future. This meant two things: these characters would get stale fast as they are blunt to the point characters reflecting their colorpie characteristics and that none of them faced any threat of dying on Zendikar.
What I could not foresee is how they could overpower these characters so much and seemingly dumb down the Eldrazi from what they were mentioned as being and depicted in Rise of the Eldrazi as unbeatable, unstoppable, and unfathomable to these hungry hungry baloths which they are now. The Gatewatch somehow in three weeks imprisoned Ulamog twice, and through teamwork and fire destroyed Ulamog and Kozilek in one swoop.
Kozilek one hit killed Lorthos, yet Gideon can single handily hold back Ulamog and only break a bit of a sweat? The Eldrazi have never been defeated, being almost ageless as they predate colourless mana, yet Chandra with suped up fire can seemingly annihilate two Eldrazi titans at once? Ugin, Sorin and Nahiri's plan took delicate planning, thousands of hedrons to be created, and three oldwalkers to pull off, yet in three weeks four Neowalkers, six hedrons and fire have seemingly destroyed two titans.
Based on current storytelling I'd settle for Mirrodin level.
Edit: To be more specific. I really dislike the current "Avengers" style storyline they are going for. It feels pandering at best and very little like magic.
I actually disagree. They could have easily went with the story of Oath being "we destroyed one titan with great casualties" and then in the future make two other blocks where our heroes defeat the remaining two titans instead of this rushed "let's kill both titans in one set".
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
Ashiok: For the sake of my designs, I'll keep watch.
Tamiyo: For the potential behind each horizon, I'll keep watch.
Vraska: For the survival of my ambitions, I'll keep watch.
Tibalt: Oh, I'll keep watch, I'll keep watching you, all the time....
Tezzeret: Flips them off.
I already feel like there's more interesting characterization in these simple oaths than in the URs we've gotten for our actual Gatewatch. There's more room for internal politicking here to break the monotony of "lol lets save the day from Saturday morning villain _____"
Narset: Of course I will watch for the Eldrazi. They are fascinating.
Domri: Yeah, whatever!
Sarkhan: For the beauty of the multiverse, I will keep watch.
Ob Nixilis: *roars of laughter*
Sorin & Ugin: What the **** do you think we've been doing? Damned knowitall kids.
Bolas: And who do you think watches the watchers...?
Garruk should become a violent hypersexualized barbarian that uses exothermic energy generate from his veil-curse enhanced bloody butcherings and sexual romps to gain mastery over his curse. Something within the curse feeds off of his vital energy - so through blood and sex, the very things that sustain and create life - Garruk manages to keep the curse sated.
Liliana should try to find a way to turn demons into thralls, breaking free of the role she took on when she struck her bargain with Kothoped. Finding a way to bind demons and use them as tools rather than be used by them. Using their infernal powers to sustain herself long enough to enjoy the pleasures she once knew was an Oldwalker.
As for the current arc?
I would prefer the Battle for Zendikar to have ended with Gideon, Chandra, and Nissa dead, the Titans re-bound, and Zendikar made a homeplane for the Eldrazi race. Nissa's pilgrimage to see Ugin would have her learning how to merge Ashaya with the magic that Ugin and the others used when they first trapped the Eldrazi. Sorin would then inform Nissa that the magic would require a sacrifice, and he would deliver the news that the Gatewatch had fallen, the Titans were still free, and the Zendikari driven back into their homes and holes to await the end.
Thus Nissa would step up to willingly give herself to the plane that the Eldrazi Titans might be stopped. After Nissa's sacrifice, Sorin and Ugin would discuss the importance of the Zendikari adapting to the changes wrought by the Eldrazi Titans and their spawn. Then they leave the plane to the Zendikari, the Eldrazi, and the re-bound Titans.
Jace, seeing his work undone, would leave Zendikar as well. Returning to Ravnica to plot his next move against Sorin and Ugin. A brush with mortality would lead to Jace acting more cocksure and condescending. More confident, more willing to take risks, enjoy the perks of his job as the Living Guildpact.
1. People try to use the "Avengers" thing as an insult, even when WotC openly has referred to that themselves. The whole idea of the Origins 5 is driven by the fact that many people not as invested in the story wanted more connection between the arcs and have characters they could follow. Heavily invested players bemoan the fact that he follow the heroes (planeswalkers), but the first how many years of magic were following Urza and Co. around?
2. For whatever reason, everything about the plane of Zendikar that people loved from the first time around being destroyed by the Eldrazi is somehow invalidated if the Zendikari people achieve a Pyrrhic victory.
3. Magic has really taken a steampunk sort of overall atmosphere for their writing, which is just a decision they've made. A number of people in this sub-forum seem to pine for the standard, yet mediocre medieval writing that most standard fantasy epics use. I personally side with Wizards on this one, but even if you don't, it just seems dumb to complain week after week about that aspect of it.
That's just me though. I think some of the BFZ URs have been pretty bad, but that's not because we're focusing on planeswalkers. It's because the present threat of Eldrazi is a lot less interesting than the looming threat of the Eldrazi is.
Tezzie's novel was fun, the others had some great URs. I never really liked Urza and company. I liked the aesthetic the Weatherlight arc brought to the storyline, but my favorite set of heroes are still Toshiro Umezawa, Heartless Hidetsugu, Marrow-Gnawer, and Kiku, Night's Flower. They were just fun, and I see shades of these guys in the lineup of neglected planeswalkers that I've mentioned.
I can't say that I've read any medieval fantasy of late...I want to say the last one I tried was Dragonlance, though after asking myself why I was forcing myself to read it, I set it aside and considered abandoning the genre. I would like to see Magic go more the route of fantasists like Clive Barker, Steven King, Richard K Morgan, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Mark Lawrence, Joe Abercrombie, or Michael Moorcock. These guys aren't really respecters of genre boundaries, so their styles would fit Magic quite well, I think. Since Magic itself runs the gamut of subgenres. So I would like to see Magic look into funner venues than, say, the Avengers or the looming DCCU.
*The courses I threw out for Jace, Lily and Garruk were inspired by some of the characters from the authors I've mentioned.
I think my concern about the Gatewatch / Origins 5 focus of the current story-telling idiom is that it will become boring; over-exposure of some characters and under-exposure of others. People already complain of Jace overload. But I'm being presumptuous here; we don't actually know *how* centrally they'll weave the 5 into the longer arc, and with how much focus, or how well they'll integrate other characters along the way.
I think we do have to accept though that the arc will be aimed at a different target audience that the invested, bookish, mature Vorthoses who populate places like this. Late-teen comic book seems more likely, and we'll just have to take the bones of better storycraft from wherever we can find them, without, as Anteaterking says, becoming Spike-ish in our disdain for anything that doesn't happen to hit our own personal buttons.
Actually, yeah, I think "Victorian" is a much better description (outside of as we noted, Vryn, Kaladesh, etc.).
In short, give me characters I care about in the context of an interesting story. Win or lose, it's about the journey, not the destination. In the case of BFZ block's story, both were lacking.
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However, when the network was broken, that should have been the end of all hope for the neowalkers. The fact that they managed to then figure something out in the limited time remaining is pretty unbelievable. If they can beat the eldrazi without prior setup, then what else is there to provide an actual threat? Wasn't the whole point of the Mending to make planeswalkers into relatable characters that could be threatened by plane-bound enemies, instead of godlike beings whose only real opponents were other planeswalkers?
Let's make the inevitable comparison to the Avengers. The Avengers is a good story because there is character development as well as just the action. Most of the team fights each other at some point. Contrast that with BFZ, where Gideon asks Jace for help, and Jace almost immediately agrees. Chandra gets a little bit of development when she changes her mind, but that's about it. Nissa, meanwhile, is just thankful to anyone willing to help (her only development, as mentioned by several others, is her power yo-yoing back and forth, a completely different story problem). The real difference, however, comes in the enemy they are fighting. While we know the Avengers are going to win, they are NOT fighting the "final enemy"; the Chituari are powerful enough to conquer earth, but there are stronger forces to be fought. The Avengers win their first battle, but there is also (to the viewers at least) the knowledge that Thanos is still out there, and is much more powerful. This means that sequels can still present a greater threat. The defeat of the Eldrazi IS the greatest threat, and makes it hard to believe that future antagonists actually have a chance at winning.
I'll give another example. Part of why Game of Thrones is so popular (in addition to the complexity of the story and the characters) is the fact that important characters die. While this can cause other problems, the primary benefit is that it makes every conflict uncertain. When there are fights, you don't always know which side is going to win. When a main character gets captured, it's not a question of "how long will it take him/her to escape?", and that makes everything much more interesting.
Ultimately, for a story to remain interesting, the bad guys have to win sometimes, and the Eldrazi, the most powerful bad guys there are, just got beaten.
I will say that I won't give up on the block's story until we actually get the whole story. There are still a couple ways this could be saved. The main ones I can think of:
1) We discover that the Mending affected the Eldrazi, possibly in a UR where Ugin becomes aware of what happened while he was mia. As far as we know, the Mending changed the nature of the spark, but the Eldrazi are beings native to the Blind Eternities. A change to the nature of the spark affecting creatures whose existence is essentially a greater version of the spark is fairly logical.
2) The summary saying the Eldrazi were destroyed is not exactly true (and is just a summary for those who are less interested in the rest of the multiverse). It is possible that, while the neowalkers believe that they destroyed the Eldrazi, Jace's plan to fully trap their essences on Zendikar wasn't as successful as he thought, and the Eldrazi are still alive and dangerous in the Blind Eternities.
3) Emrakul proves to be not just the strongest, but the strongest by far. For this to work though, the next encounter with Emrakul would HAVE to either have an early (set 1) planeswalker death to put the block ending in doubt, or Emrakul would have to destroy a plane. (Would have to do something to prove its more of a threat than the other titans were)
4) The Eldrazi serve some larger purpose in the multiverse. While this still has the problem of making plane-bound threats pretty irrelevant, it could allow the Eldrazi to be replaced by an even greater threat (this would be my least favorite option)