Hi everyone after ready the atrocity that is the story of Oathwatch I thought I'd start a thread on what we would do if we could retell the tale of the Battle for Zendikar and what changes would you make.
For me personally the main change would have that Kozilek and Ulamog would not be destroyed by such stupid means. Not only did it completely ruin the threat level of the Eldrazi but it was done in such a cheesy, unbelievable and overally convenient way that it makes me fear for what else WOTC have in store story wise for mtg. And we all know what they did to Nissa in Origins. That was just painful.
Ways I hope they can amend this ending would be no. 1 have the victory be all an illusion by Kozilek and by the time they awake form it they find Zendikar completely destroyed beyond repair and the Titans have already departed. Or no. 2 The titans they destroyed were only mere avatars that held only a portion to the real titan's true power. The real titans are elsewhere in the blind eternities, weakened by the loss of their avatars but still alive and kicking.
Hi everyone after ready the atrocity that is the story of Oathwatch I thought I'd start a thread on what we would do if we could retell the tale of the Battle for Zendikar and what changes would you make.
For me personally the main change would have that Kozilek and Ulamog would not be destroyed by such stupid means. Not only did it completely ruin the threat level of the Eldrazi but it was done in such a cheesy, unbelievable and overally convenient way that it makes me fear for what else WOTC have in store story wise for mtg. And we all know what they did to Nissa in Origins. That was just painful.
Ways I hope they can amend this ending would be no. 1 have the victory be all an illusion by Kozilek and by the time they awake form it they find Zendikar completely destroyed beyond repair and the Titans have already departed. Or no. 2 The titans they destroyed were only mere avatars that held only a portion to the real titan's true power. The real titans are elsewhere in the blind eternities, weakened by the loss of their avatars but still alive and kicking.
What about everyone else?
First, we don't know that the titans were truly destroyed, especially given everything Ugin told Jace. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone believes they were. They are trying to set it up that way only to have a big reveal when one of the two shows up on another plane.
The problems with the story were in presentation. The skeleton of the plot isn't bad, its essentially the following:
Threat to the world presents itself, begins to win. Superheroes figure out they can't fight it on their own, decide to team up. Superheroes, aided by non-superhero forces, gain the upperhand and seemingly win. Supervillain plays a trump card, making threat substantially worse, and all seems lost. Oh look, the superhero that was most reluctant to join the team shows up and helps defeat the supervillian! Team, now at full strength, devises a plan B that defeats the threat, at least for now, but the specter of the threats return causes them to stay together.
Bro, that's the first Avengers movie. What sucked about the story here was that many of the "chapters" were poorly written, there was too much filler, and the plot twists were all spoiled by the company in summary form. Its proof that having a proven plot doesn't automatically make a story good, or even passable. The story has to make you care about the characters. The story has to have a good tempo and hit the right notes. The dialogue needs to be well written, as does the description of the action. When you have wooden dialogue, repetitive action sequences, several chapters of filler making up the first half of the story (which is a sin, because those were the chapters that should have been used to flesh out the characters and the world, as well as paint a more evocative picture of the destruction being wrought), and silly mistakes, that tears everything down.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
From a creative perspective, I would have the Titans serve as analogies for groupthink...each of the Titans would be revealed as infantile in their mindset. Or, old and senile. Hints at both leaving it up to the Vorthosi to decide for themselves.
The planeswalkers involved:
Garruk - Emrakul would make her way to Shandalar, hooked by the plane's strange mana. Garruk would kill Emrakul and gain some new advantage over his curse. A way to use its power by feeding it that of the slaim Titan. After which, he would go to Zendikar seeking the other two.
Tezzeret - Events on New Phyrexia and radio silence from Lord Bolas send the Agent of Bolas to Zendikar. Tezzeret would want to find a way to weaponize the Eldrazi, creating interplanar ships to rival the deadly fleets being constructed by Jin-Gitaxias.
Sarkhan - Events on Tarkir are spiraling out of control. The Elder Dragons are leading their dragonstorm offspring to the slaughter at the blades and spells of Tarkir's humanoid population. Sarkhan fears that this will end in another Dragonfall, leaving the plane vulnerable to Bolas. Rather than leave himself easy prey to Bolas's mindrape, Sarkhan decides that securing a horde of Eldrazi drones and processes will allow him to present a threat that will call for all of Tarkir to unite. Dragon and non-dragon alike. In doing so, Sarkhan hopes that the dissidents from both sides will be wiped out in a war of his own making.
Vraska - Vraska's campaign against the guilds has stalled. The Cult of Yore are gaining followers from among the Gateless. At first, Vraska was on board with this movement. It soon became apparent that the radicalized Gateless--and some guildsmen from the Gruul, Golgari, and Rakdos--were beyond her control. Vraska comes to Zendikar with the intent of using Svogthir's necromancy to kill and reanimate some of the more powerful Eldrazi. Not the Titans, but Eldrazi that would be more manageable and wouldn't destroy Ravnica. Something to convince the dyed-in-the-wool fanatics that Vraska has the ability to control the Cult of Yore's gods (the Eldrazi looking like the Nephilim).
I would wait for the full story and the exact details of how it would happen before I issue judgement.
But if I had to write it:
BFZ
-Less Nissa
-Gideon starts building his army earlier, the recruitment is a background event occurring while Jace takes his weeks long journey to Ugin's sanctuary.
-Nissa realizes the Khalni Heart is important and goes to retrieve it, running into Nixilis. Without planeswalking on the same plane.
-Spend a chapter or two making Ulamog an actual threat. Perhaps on Jace's journey, instead of seeing him in the distance, Jace gets an up close look of Ulamog disintegrating refugees and sends Jori En to warn Gideon of Ulamog's abilities.
-Ulamog shows up at Sea Gate and wrecks *****. Gideon constructs hieromancy chains to try to slow him down but they barely do anything. A squad captain that Gideon befriended sacrifices himself so Gideon can escape from Ulamog's aura. This is just enough time and Jace+Nissa manage to finish the network just as Ulamog is about to disintigrate Gideon with seconds to spare.
-Ob Nixilis still shows up and does his stuff.
OGW
I will wait to see what the payoff is, but I might change how Chandra frees the other walkers. They seem to recover too quickly after being curb stomped by Ob Nixilis.
Scenario A (The Realistic one):
I wouldn't have done it. At all. No 'battle for Zendikar'. The Eldrazi would have left beforehand (or just as the PWs get there), and then the Gatewatch band together to find them all. That sounds a lot better than exploding eldrazi. Sure, it's less exciting, but there's less chance you can screw up characterization that way. Maybe the PWs try to get the Eldrazi to stay, but they just ignore them like they were inconsequential/nothing (which they should have done in the fist place). Zendikar is ravaged, but not gone, and there's still stuff to clean up afterwards.
Scenario B (The Mostly Serious one):
Ulamog stays behind (the only one to do so), and nearly destroys the plane. The PWs try to stop him, and are almost successful, but then Ob screws it all up. They fight Ob, he leaves, and then they barely manage to trap Ulamog. End scene. Ugin congratulates them, They go to the malt shop, 'Don't You Forget About Me' starts playing. Roll Credits.
Scenario C (The Silly one):
Ugin gets his ***** together and fixes this whole mess. He gets his super-duper time machine and grabs Commodore Guff and they rewrite the plot. Also, Phyrexia wins (Go Phyrexia!).
My ideal scenario is A, but most of B works too (barring the malt shop and credits).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A giant dork. Who likes to eat with forks. Never used a spork.
Decks: Casual R Burn R
EDH R Godo Voltron R RUG ETB Overload RUG BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW GW Spirits!!! GW RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
100 times this. She feels so bland compared to all the other walkers in this block, and her stories were just her crying about Ashaya continuously, while not moving the plot at all. Kiora and Ob Nixilis stole the show in almost every scene they were in, and they actually do the most in their stories. Gideon developed as a character, and Jace and Chandra actually contributed to the plot. Aside from provoking Ob Nixilis, Nissa did NOTHING of significance in the Battle of Zendikar stories (Khalni heart is just a macguffin). She is finally doing stuff now in Oath of the Gate Watch, but her stories are so pointless it hurts, and full of boring monologues.
I've found the leylines to be too much of a plot device and not enough mythology/science behind them. I would have vastly preferred if they adopted a more "investigative" stance of the leylines instead of just figuring it out as an Anti-Eldrazi-Titan-Weapon.
If I could tell the story, I would have gone the Omnath road:
1) Eldrazi are natural plane cleansers, they seek out planes that are about to die by sensing "Plane-Destroyers". Ugin knows this, but never reveals it.
2) Omnath is created as a "Plane-Destroyer" to lure the 3 titans to Zendikar (with Ugin bluffing his way of course), but Omnath is also sealed, which is why Zendikar wasn't actually "dying". Ugin thinks as long as Omnath and the Titans are sealed there, all you have is a ridiculously unstable plane at most. The legend of Omnath preceding and creating Emeria, Cosi and Ula came from that.
3) "Plane-Destroyers" naturally draw energy from the plane and the spark as well to fight the Eldrazi as they want "the right to destroy the plane", so technically they are the "malevolent" ones and the Eldrazi are just cleaners and actually have to "fight" the "Plane-Destroyer", so it isn't as easy as mere mortals imagine it to be. Ob Nixilis once drew too close to Omnath's prison, which is why he lost his spark.
4) Nahiri stumbles across the truth and hence left the plane in search for Sorin/Ugin due to said "betrayal" (even if Sorin didn't know the entire theory either).
5) Emrakul still leaves, Ulamog is still on the surface and Kozilek is still underground. Jace learns the destruction of the leylines via studying Ulamog's patterns, while Gideon and team investigates the legends behind the Eldrazi to learn more about them. They conclude about Kozilek being underground and Omnath.
6) Ulamog is sealed in an attempt to lure Kozilek to the surface and it works. Ob Nixilis still appears to free Ulamog and regain his spark, but Gideon and team has already headed down to destroy Omnath, rendering the plane to be classified "non-dangerous" to the Eldrazi.
7) Ulamog and Kozilek doesn't leave and Gideon realises why - Ob Nixilis is a plane-killer as well. They engage in combat and Ob still wins and imprisons them, then Chandra comes in and rescues them. Ob retreats and planewalks away, finally rendering Zendikar as no longer "dying". Ulamog and Kozilek depart from the plane.
8) The Oath of the Gatewatch is formed to prevent similar scenarios from happening again by seeking out the plane's "Plane-Killer" before the Eldrazi completely cleanse the plane, if the plane can be saved (there might be exceptional planes naturally doomed, perhaps the one Emrakul is on) and one such "Plane-Killer" they vowed to remove is Ob-Nixilis. Ugin thinks the entire group is naive for thinking they can extend such protection for their entire lives, which are much shorter than his and leaves for his own plans.
There, none of it requires direct contact with the Eldrazi Titans and I don't think exposing how they "operate" by studying the aftermath degrades them that much (as at least not as bad as burning them out of the plane). Ob Nixilis is still set up as the "villain" with the Titans as the background "forces of nature" they always were. This also abides by the "protection for planeswalkers" policy the story seems to be having at the moment. If they were cautiously doing the entire thing and not recklessly in combat with the Titans, then the policy can hold true while being more realistic.
Working with the Pre-established Gatewatch Lineup:
Gideon and Nissa would trek across Zendikar, recruiting soldiers for their cause. Along the way, some of their troops begin to wonder whether or not these otherworldly beings are responsible for the coming of the Eldrazi. After having seen the horrors of the Eldrazi, the Zendikari can't grasp why Gideon and Nissa are dead set on dealing with the problem. Among the Zendikari.
Jace would seek out the Eye of Ugin and consult with the Elder Dragon. There, Ugin would take advantage of Jace, probing his mind and dragging out the Mind Sculptor aspect of his persona. Within the Eye, we would learn that Ugin has come to Zendikar with a plan to seize control of the Eldrazi race. Presumably to deal with Nicol Bolas. He intends to send Jace to Tarkir to undo Sarkhan's rise to power. Sorin, seeking Ugin, intervenes and convinces the Elder Dragon that they might use Jace to unravel the minds of the Eldrazi.
On Regatha, Chandra finds herself surrounded by monks that are critical of her blind, recklessness. Since the events of TPF, the forest-dwellers have executed the old black druid for a traitor and chosen a new leader. This new druid's ouphes have taken to spreading plagues of saprolings by abducting children from the surrounding hamlets, seeding them with the saprolings via a primordial ritual, and returning them to their cribs. Come the morning, the parents find writhing masses of shredded corpses and thorn-studded saprolings that grow into fullblown fungal elementals. Chandra, seeking to honor the memory of Mother Luti, has decided to give peace a chance. Deep within the libraries she sequesters herself while the abbots speak of her as being a weakling that would rather hide from the realities than deal with them.
Chandra's research sends her back to Zendikar to see the ghostfire that she once wielded. Regathan books speak of dragons of the eternities that are woken by the ghostfire. Chandra has decided to make use of these dragons in the Monastery's struggle to protect the surrounding towns and cities from the depredations of the druid and his forest-dwelling radicals.
Throughout this Jace is powerless to resist the psychic intrusions of Ugin. Jace loathed his time as the Mind Sculptor. Sorin reminds Jace of the power he once wielded while he was the Mind Sculptor. The vampire planeswalker reminds Jace that Tezzeret and Bolas are still out there, likely planning to retake the Infinite Consortium and return the organization to its original purposes. Jace, faced with the threat of having his hard work swept away, gives himself to Ugin's influence.
Jace emerges from the Eye as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and goes to seek out the Eldrazi.
BFZ - Pretty much how it went until Jace meets Ugin. Then Ugin becomes the main mastermind behind the heroes' plans throughout the block. Seriously - why did they bring him back from the dead just to sit in a cave and think about things for the entire block? Jace tells Ugin about Nissa; Ugin tasks Jace with managing their short-term plan (temporarily rebinding Ulamog) while he works on the long-term plan (first, re-energising the plane-wide hedron network; then coming up with a strategy to deal with the absent Kozilek and Emrakul).
Sea Gate happens, with Nissa only knowing what to do because Jace has relayed Ugin's instructions to her. Chandra joins them just as Ob does his stuff, Kozilek appears, Ob sods off.
OGW - In the wake of Kozilek's return and Kiora's death (yes, really*), Gideon tries to rally the Zendikari remnant and is aided by Chandra, and Jace and Nissa retreat to the Eye of Ugin to tell him what has happened and that Koz is back. Gideon and Chandra manage to give the Zendikari enough cover to perform an organised retreat. Everything ends up at the Eye. Jace is all for still trying to win; Ugin understands that Zendikar is lost. He tells Jace of the absolute importance now of finding Sorin and Nahiri and tells him to bring them to him on Tarkir, then walks away. Jace and Gideon convince Nissa and Chandra that they can still win. With Eldrazi closing in all around, the battle goes ill. The final straw for Gideon is seeing Tazri die. He thinks back to his Irregulars and how his arrogance cost them their lives, sees he's done it again here, and admits defeat. As Noyan Dar, Drana, Jori-En et al fall, the walkers have no choice but to flee. They rendezvous on Ravnica where they make their oaths never to let the fate of Zendikar befall another plane. Nissa takes time out amongst the Selesnyan elves to deal with the loss of her home plane; Chandra and Gideon depart together to search for traces of trails of the titans; Jace heads to Innistrad to begin his search for Sorin and Nahiri.
*EDIT: As an alternative to Kiora's death, I would have liked to see her enthralled by Kozilek, to work, as someone said before, like the Surfer to Galactus. The art for 'Kiora, Herald of Kozilek' would then have her glassy-eyed with the obsidian shards around her head.
Let Zendikar fall, let the walkers fail, let them try their plan and pull the titans completely into Zendikar only to notice, that they are now even stronger than before. Ugin meanwhile made preparations at the eye to find suitable hedrons to build something like an interplaner bride. Ob said “The basic function of a hedron is to redirect energy—but that simple function can be used to empower, summon, imprison, or destroy“, so Ugin will take some hedrons walk them to a new plane and set up a network through the blind eternities with hedrons he arranged at the eye. In the end it will work like the Soul traps and transport the people of Zendikar to a new plane. He will then tell Jace through telepathy to bring every last surviving Zendikari to the eye, so that they can escape. They rally everyone they can and travel to the eye, where the last surviving people of every race are transported to a new world. The walkers travel after them and meet on the new plane, Nissa uses the seed she was given to bring a part of Zendikar to the new world. Everyone will be pretty down before Gideon (or another walker) starts to swear an oath to never let something like this happen to another world ever again. The walkers assemble the Gatewatch and start traveling to other worlds to find a way to stop the Eldrazi, while also looking for Sorin and Nahiri. Meanwhile Ugin has an "empty" plane full of Eldrazi he can study without the meddling of any Zendikari or Walker.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
If I had ultimate power to do as I please? I wouldn't change the new Zendikar block, I'd prevent it from ever being born. It is conceptually flawed at the most fundamental level, for a variety of reasons that have already been given multiple times in this forum.
I'd also change the structure of the creative team, as that too is fundamentally flawed. I've never worked for WOTC's creative team, but I have worked for a similar company, and I can tell you that in that case the lore was created like this: a bunch of people sitting round a table, filling the silences with polite but meaningless babble. Someone comes up with a terrible idea, but no one wants to hurt that person's feelings, so instead of saying "that's crap", they say stuff like "that could work".
Since people working together in groups tend to conform, and to coast on other team member's achievements, many shockingly bad ideas make it through the "blue sky" phase and into the development phase.
I would change this system, replacing a large team with a smaller, more talented team, and giving them a greater share of responsibility, along with enough isolation from each other to develop their own ideas, so that less emphasis is placed on "story by committee" and more is placed on individual creativity.
It would be too easy to craft an engaging story if one were given free reign in this way. Unfortunately, that's not how it works in large-scale companies; creative departments are always subordinate to marketing departments, and our thought-experiment should reflect that.
So, to make it fair on WOTC's current crop of writers, let's assume that we too are bound by the same marketing rules, which are likely these:
- The story must appeal to adolescents.
- The story must end with the formation of the Gatewatch.
- The story must be structured in a way that it can be told on cards.
There may be other rules, but I feel they would be ones that I could convince Marketing not to uphold.
(If one of the rules was that the story must end with the Gatewatch victorious over the Eldrazi, I'd fight tooth and nail to have the antagonist changed from the Eldrazi to a weaker, expendable villain. If I could not succeed I'd wish Wizards good luck and leave the company).
So, if our rules from Marketing are that the story must appeal to adolescents, it must end with the formation of the Gatewatch, and it must be able to be told through cards, I'd come up with something like this:
Strange events presage the coming of the Eldrazi. Mass suicides, people sleepwalking, raging storms, trees wilting and changing colours.
Under an aurora-filled sky, Jace, his fellow Planeswalkers, and some prominent Zendikaris try to work out a plan for how to defeat the Eldrazi. One of them is a young Kor girl, whom we'll call Ayla. She is the curator of several aerial gardens of exotic plants. On Nissa's instruction, Ayla takes the planeswalkers on a brief tour of the gardens, showing them the beauty they must preserve. They see many rare and powerful plants, such as the Black Lotus, and a plant that can reverse the effect of a Gorgon's gaze. Nissa remarks that one of the plants in the garden, a night-blooming Saturnine Orchid, is her favourite flower, because it causes life to grow all around it.
Jace takes a liking to Ayla, but senses that she is horribly scared, and even in ordinary circumstances extremely cautious of all strangers. He tries to reassure her by telling her he will find a way to save her gardens, and her plane.
They consult Ugin, who tells them there is no hope of stopping the Eldrazi, and that they must evacuate the people of Zendikar. He says this can be done by using the hedrons to create isolation zones around populations, and then transferring power from Planeswalker sparks through the hedrons to transport everyone in the isolation zone to another plane.
Gideon, taking Ugin's advice, announces to the Zendikaris that they will try to evacuate in precisely this way. Jace senses Ayla's sadness at the news she'll have to leave her home, and the gardens she has put her life's work in. Unable to see her like this, he decides to go against Ugin's wisdom. He argues that if the Eldrazi's forms can be pulled fully into Zendikar, they can be completely trapped, possibly destroyed, and prevented from ever touching Zendikar or another plane again.
Nissa, being unable to let go of Zendikar, agrees with Jace. Chandra also agrees, simply because she thinks the Eldrazi have an attitude problem, and need to be knocked down a peg or two.
Gideon, being responsible, says they should heed Ugin's warnings; after all, he is the only one to have faced the Eldrazi and survived. Gideon says it wouldn't be cowardly to flee, if they can save Zendikar's inhabitants in the process.
Jace, Nissa, and Chandra don't back down. They insist that Jace's plan -- of binding the Eldrazi to the plane and then trapping them forever, will work. Jace adds that they can't flee from these creatures forever. Gideon, unable to let them fight alone, reluctantly decides to join them.
Gideon announces the change of plan to the Zendikaris. People stop packing their things, and start sharpening their weapons.
Ugin is displeased. He tells the Planeswalkers that they do not know what they are dealing with. But Jace, bolstered by the hope that Ayla has in him, insists that his plan will work.
Eventually, the sky rips apart and the titanic forms of the Eldrazi emerge, twisting the reality around them, heightening the madness. The inhabitants of Zendikar rise up against the otherworldly abominations. They are mutated, slain, resurrected, and then slain again.
Jace and their allies organise their master plan. They align the hedrons around the Eldrazi, and then use leylines and binding spells to pull the Eldrazi further into this world. But this has an unintended effect -- it makes them even stronger, and they break through the hedron fields and obliterate the horizons with even more vigour.
As they lay waste to the landscape, Jace learns that Ayla has been killed. By his arrogance. He is distraught. he finds her corpse, amid her ruined garden. He remembers what she said about the Saturnine Orchid, and its ability to seed life around it. He places the flower near her corpse, hoping it will revive her. It doesn't. Gideon finds Jace, tells him to straighten up, and use the remaining hedrons to create isolation fields for mass evacuation.
Jace takes the flower with him, and follows Gideon to do his duty.
Through Gideon's determination, and Jace's reluctant knowledge, they manage to evacuate most of the region's inhabitants to another plane with a similar environment (Lorwyn?). By the time they have done this, all of Zendikar is overrun. Staying any longer would mean certain death. Gideon says they should leave. Chandra agrees. And Jace. But Nissa, tearful and now weirdly emaciated, explains that she can't leave Zendikar, because her fate is tied to it.
Gideon says, "If you won't come with us, we'll take you." He strides forward, ready to grab her. She shakes her head. "Sorry". And she raises a wall of Eldrazi-mutated trees between them. By the time Gideon has hacked through the trees with his surral, there is no sign of Nissa. They want to search for her, but by now, reality itself is beginning to disintegrate, and they are close to losing their minds. And so the three planeswalkers teleport away to Lorwyn.
There, among the grim, muted celebrations, the Zendikari vow that they will try to rebuild their part of Zendikar here on Lorwyn, in defiance of the Eldrazi.
Chandra sits depressed, reflecting that all the fire and fury in the world is nothing against beings who are beyond the laws of reality. If she is going to beat them, she'll need new tricks.
Gideon feels bad for Nissa. The saved Zendikari hail him a hero. He tells them Jace, Chandra and Nissa are the true heroes, but says he will do everything to help them settle on this new, uncertain plane.
Jace wanders off alone. He thinks of Nissa, but what really gets to him is Ayla's death, because he knows it was his blindness that killed her. The regret eats away at him, till he can bear it no longer. He creates an illusion of her, and it stares blankly at him. He whispers an apology to it.
Although he tries to pretend it is really her, his mind can't make it real, and Ayla, blankly staring, fades away. Filled with a killing sadness, Jace contemplates erasing all his memories of Ayla. He eventually decides against it, because if he doesn't learn from it, her death really will have been in vain.
The three battered, exhausted planeswalkers meet with Ugin, who asks them if they now understand the severity of what they face. They say nothing. Seeing how dejected they are, Ugin remarks that just before he left Zendikar, he watched Nissa take on the Eldrazi alone, alongside what remained of the plane's flora and fauna. She lasted far longer than he had expected.
Ugin tells the three planeswalkers that the Eldrazi could invade another plane next millennium, or tomorrow. He tells them that if they want to stand a chance of surviving the next attack, they will need to find the Multiverse's most powerful planeswalkers, such as Sorin and Nahiri, and also gain the co-operation of hundreds of planes. Ugin warns them about Sorin, saying that while he is needed, he cannot be trusted. Finally, the Spirit Dragon tells the three that he will be watching, and then he vanishes.
On an abandoned hill, the three planeswalkers plant Nissa's favourite flower, the night-blooming Saturnine Orchid. That night, a forest grows around the flower. The three enter the forest, and as the breeze rushes through the trees, it whispers Nissa's last word, "Sorry". Chandra points it out, but Jace says it's just a pareidolia. He knows this because he heard Ayla's voice instead.
Knowing that the Multiverse has become a far more dangerous place, and that they'll only survive if they work together, they take their oaths, for Nissa and Ayla and all the other lives lost. They agree that they will meet in this forest, by this flower, whenever the next titanic threat emerges.
So that's basically the general idea. And yes, I know it has problems, such as cheese and schmaltz. But it IS a story that has to appeal to adolescents, so I've tried to take that into account. Before anyone attacks me, bear in mind that this is all simply off the top of my head. If I had as much time as the WOTC creative team, and actually sat down and planned it all out, I could come out with a much, much, much better plot. But unfortunately, I'm too busy for that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"For the sake of Hasbro's half-year financial report, we will keep watch."
-- The Gatewatch
So that's basically the general idea. And yes, I know it has problems, such as cheese and schmaltz. But it IS a story that has to appeal to adolescents, so I've tried to take that into account. Before anyone attacks me, bear in mind that this is all simply off the top of my head. If I had as much time as the WOTC creative team, and actually sat down and planned it all out, I could come out with a much, much, much better plot. But unfortunately, I'm too busy for that.
You've put up the most well thought out suggestion so far, so that's a plus. Still, you know Jace is a secondary character in BFZ right? Rotating to the primary character position risks overexposing Jace, especially when he's headlining SOI right after. Additionally, killing Nissa off is a poor move, it wastes the narrative effort given to her in Origins, though it could work as a twist.
If I had to rewrite BFZ I would keep the focus on Gideon and Nissa, those two have the biggest stakes and are most central to the conflict. The plot would stay mostly the same, though I would move around the emphasis. Gideon will be the leader of the Gatewatch, but the story rarely shows his leadership capabilities. In my version, Vorik dies early and pass command to Gideon, who then has to contend with the all the troubles Zendikar as a leader. This gives much more time on how Gideon organizes, strategizes and handles problems as they arise. That way, you get a better understanding of Gideon and where he fits when the Gatewatch later forms. I would also use this extra time to show Ayli as a threat to the army as she steals away people for Ulamog sacrifice.
Nissa's I would retool, starting off Nissa out of connection with Zendikar and Ashaya. I would then echo her origin story as she goes on a quest of self discovery and understanding of her bond with the plane. This would culminate in her finding the Khalni Heart, and Ob. The two duel and after a desperate gamble Nissa touches the Khalni Heart and has a moment of epiphany about her nature and the nature of Zendikar. Then Ashaya wrecks house and leaves Ob Pinned to the Earth.
Jace and Kiora would stay mostly intact. Jace learns about Hedrons from Ugin, they argue about what they should do and Jace storms off. Kiora comes back, meets up with her sister and full charges towards Sea Gate.
As for the finale, I would get Jace back to Gideon much faster. Jace relays his plan and Gideon sees Sea Gate (or the Halimar Basin) as the perfect area for Jace's hedron trap. They army immediately gets to digging up hedrons as Jace unravels more and more of what they can do. While the duo have no concrete plans on how to power the trap they both agree that they should take Sea Gate. Cue Battle of Sea Gate, preferably with a little time spent on the planning phase and getting a bit more into the specifics. Kiora's and Nissa's entries here are perfectly fine. After the battle everyone meets and Nissa agrees to do her leyline thing with the hedrons to entrap Ulamog (and then attempt to destroy it). Ulamog's approach goes roughly the same, though right when Gideon jumps up to grapple a 100ft tall tentacle monster he gets batted all the way back to Sea Gate. Despite that, the trap works, Ob appears, Kozilek emerges etc etc.
I don't know all of OGW but I'll go with my impressions. Ob takes out Nissa Jace and Gideon then Chandra shows up out of the blue(red) and blasts Ob with fire until he peaces out. The four heroes get their bearings and look over the scene to see the devastation of the Eldrazi. Gideon rallies everyone and they hatch a new plan, to try and replicate the hedrons using just Nissa and the leylines. At this point Jace is running on hunches and theories and is fairly certain the plan isn't going to work. It's the only plan they've got though, so they go a head with it. After fighting through Eldrazi they catch with the Titans and execute their plan, and it seemingly works, though at a devastating cost to Zendikar. Zendikar has been drained of almost all its power and it doesn't look like it will survive. The plane begins to buckle and in a desperate attempt to save the plane Nissa channels the power of the Planeswalkers and stops Zendikar from dying completely. The Zendikari cheer and Ugin shows up to tell Jace he forgot the analogy. Ugin informs the Planeswalkers that while the Eldrazi have been damaged, they will return one day, then he scoffs and flies off like most dragons would. Gideon turns to the team and makes an Oath to protect other planes from Eldrazi and any other threat and invites the others to do the same. Inspired, everyone else makes an Oath.
At some point in there Kiora gives up and bails, what a wimp.
From there Gideon and Nissa hang back to find a way to help Zendikar recover while Jace and Chandra go off to investigate this Sorin guy on Innistrad.
This version stays very close to how I think the story will turn out but I think the revisions make for a more compelling narrative.
This is not the place for fan fiction. Storyline is for discussion of canon Magic lore only. If you wish to write your own version of a Magic story, that's what the Personal Writing subforum is for.
For me personally the main change would have that Kozilek and Ulamog would not be destroyed by such stupid means. Not only did it completely ruin the threat level of the Eldrazi but it was done in such a cheesy, unbelievable and overally convenient way that it makes me fear for what else WOTC have in store story wise for mtg. And we all know what they did to Nissa in Origins. That was just painful.
Ways I hope they can amend this ending would be no. 1 have the victory be all an illusion by Kozilek and by the time they awake form it they find Zendikar completely destroyed beyond repair and the Titans have already departed. Or no. 2 The titans they destroyed were only mere avatars that held only a portion to the real titan's true power. The real titans are elsewhere in the blind eternities, weakened by the loss of their avatars but still alive and kicking.
What about everyone else?
First, we don't know that the titans were truly destroyed, especially given everything Ugin told Jace. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone believes they were. They are trying to set it up that way only to have a big reveal when one of the two shows up on another plane.
The problems with the story were in presentation. The skeleton of the plot isn't bad, its essentially the following:
Threat to the world presents itself, begins to win. Superheroes figure out they can't fight it on their own, decide to team up. Superheroes, aided by non-superhero forces, gain the upperhand and seemingly win. Supervillain plays a trump card, making threat substantially worse, and all seems lost. Oh look, the superhero that was most reluctant to join the team shows up and helps defeat the supervillian! Team, now at full strength, devises a plan B that defeats the threat, at least for now, but the specter of the threats return causes them to stay together.
Bro, that's the first Avengers movie. What sucked about the story here was that many of the "chapters" were poorly written, there was too much filler, and the plot twists were all spoiled by the company in summary form. Its proof that having a proven plot doesn't automatically make a story good, or even passable. The story has to make you care about the characters. The story has to have a good tempo and hit the right notes. The dialogue needs to be well written, as does the description of the action. When you have wooden dialogue, repetitive action sequences, several chapters of filler making up the first half of the story (which is a sin, because those were the chapters that should have been used to flesh out the characters and the world, as well as paint a more evocative picture of the destruction being wrought), and silly mistakes, that tears everything down.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
The planeswalkers involved:
Garruk - Emrakul would make her way to Shandalar, hooked by the plane's strange mana. Garruk would kill Emrakul and gain some new advantage over his curse. A way to use its power by feeding it that of the slaim Titan. After which, he would go to Zendikar seeking the other two.
Tezzeret - Events on New Phyrexia and radio silence from Lord Bolas send the Agent of Bolas to Zendikar. Tezzeret would want to find a way to weaponize the Eldrazi, creating interplanar ships to rival the deadly fleets being constructed by Jin-Gitaxias.
Sarkhan - Events on Tarkir are spiraling out of control. The Elder Dragons are leading their dragonstorm offspring to the slaughter at the blades and spells of Tarkir's humanoid population. Sarkhan fears that this will end in another Dragonfall, leaving the plane vulnerable to Bolas. Rather than leave himself easy prey to Bolas's mindrape, Sarkhan decides that securing a horde of Eldrazi drones and processes will allow him to present a threat that will call for all of Tarkir to unite. Dragon and non-dragon alike. In doing so, Sarkhan hopes that the dissidents from both sides will be wiped out in a war of his own making.
Vraska - Vraska's campaign against the guilds has stalled. The Cult of Yore are gaining followers from among the Gateless. At first, Vraska was on board with this movement. It soon became apparent that the radicalized Gateless--and some guildsmen from the Gruul, Golgari, and Rakdos--were beyond her control. Vraska comes to Zendikar with the intent of using Svogthir's necromancy to kill and reanimate some of the more powerful Eldrazi. Not the Titans, but Eldrazi that would be more manageable and wouldn't destroy Ravnica. Something to convince the dyed-in-the-wool fanatics that Vraska has the ability to control the Cult of Yore's gods (the Eldrazi looking like the Nephilim).
There's my Gatewatch.
But if I had to write it:
BFZ
-Less Nissa
-Gideon starts building his army earlier, the recruitment is a background event occurring while Jace takes his weeks long journey to Ugin's sanctuary.
-Nissa realizes the Khalni Heart is important and goes to retrieve it, running into Nixilis. Without planeswalking on the same plane.
-Spend a chapter or two making Ulamog an actual threat. Perhaps on Jace's journey, instead of seeing him in the distance, Jace gets an up close look of Ulamog disintegrating refugees and sends Jori En to warn Gideon of Ulamog's abilities.
-Ulamog shows up at Sea Gate and wrecks *****. Gideon constructs hieromancy chains to try to slow him down but they barely do anything. A squad captain that Gideon befriended sacrifices himself so Gideon can escape from Ulamog's aura. This is just enough time and Jace+Nissa manage to finish the network just as Ulamog is about to disintigrate Gideon with seconds to spare.
-Ob Nixilis still shows up and does his stuff.
OGW
I will wait to see what the payoff is, but I might change how Chandra frees the other walkers. They seem to recover too quickly after being curb stomped by Ob Nixilis.
I wouldn't have done it. At all. No 'battle for Zendikar'. The Eldrazi would have left beforehand (or just as the PWs get there), and then the Gatewatch band together to find them all. That sounds a lot better than exploding eldrazi. Sure, it's less exciting, but there's less chance you can screw up characterization that way. Maybe the PWs try to get the Eldrazi to stay, but they just ignore them like they were inconsequential/nothing (which they should have done in the fist place). Zendikar is ravaged, but not gone, and there's still stuff to clean up afterwards.
Scenario B (The Mostly Serious one):
Ulamog stays behind (the only one to do so), and nearly destroys the plane. The PWs try to stop him, and are almost successful, but then Ob screws it all up. They fight Ob, he leaves, and then they barely manage to trap Ulamog. End scene. Ugin congratulates them, They go to the malt shop, 'Don't You Forget About Me' starts playing. Roll Credits.
Scenario C (The Silly one):
Ugin gets his ***** together and fixes this whole mess. He gets his super-duper time machine and grabs Commodore Guff and they rewrite the plot. Also, Phyrexia wins (Go Phyrexia!).
My ideal scenario is A, but most of B works too (barring the malt shop and credits).
Decks:
Casual
R Burn R
EDH
R Godo Voltron R
RUG ETB Overload RUG
BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW
GW Spirits!!! GW
RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
100 times this. She feels so bland compared to all the other walkers in this block, and her stories were just her crying about Ashaya continuously, while not moving the plot at all. Kiora and Ob Nixilis stole the show in almost every scene they were in, and they actually do the most in their stories. Gideon developed as a character, and Jace and Chandra actually contributed to the plot. Aside from provoking Ob Nixilis, Nissa did NOTHING of significance in the Battle of Zendikar stories (Khalni heart is just a macguffin). She is finally doing stuff now in Oath of the Gate Watch, but her stories are so pointless it hurts, and full of boring monologues.
If I could tell the story, I would have gone the Omnath road:
1) Eldrazi are natural plane cleansers, they seek out planes that are about to die by sensing "Plane-Destroyers". Ugin knows this, but never reveals it.
2) Omnath is created as a "Plane-Destroyer" to lure the 3 titans to Zendikar (with Ugin bluffing his way of course), but Omnath is also sealed, which is why Zendikar wasn't actually "dying". Ugin thinks as long as Omnath and the Titans are sealed there, all you have is a ridiculously unstable plane at most. The legend of Omnath preceding and creating Emeria, Cosi and Ula came from that.
3) "Plane-Destroyers" naturally draw energy from the plane and the spark as well to fight the Eldrazi as they want "the right to destroy the plane", so technically they are the "malevolent" ones and the Eldrazi are just cleaners and actually have to "fight" the "Plane-Destroyer", so it isn't as easy as mere mortals imagine it to be. Ob Nixilis once drew too close to Omnath's prison, which is why he lost his spark.
4) Nahiri stumbles across the truth and hence left the plane in search for Sorin/Ugin due to said "betrayal" (even if Sorin didn't know the entire theory either).
5) Emrakul still leaves, Ulamog is still on the surface and Kozilek is still underground. Jace learns the destruction of the leylines via studying Ulamog's patterns, while Gideon and team investigates the legends behind the Eldrazi to learn more about them. They conclude about Kozilek being underground and Omnath.
6) Ulamog is sealed in an attempt to lure Kozilek to the surface and it works. Ob Nixilis still appears to free Ulamog and regain his spark, but Gideon and team has already headed down to destroy Omnath, rendering the plane to be classified "non-dangerous" to the Eldrazi.
7) Ulamog and Kozilek doesn't leave and Gideon realises why - Ob Nixilis is a plane-killer as well. They engage in combat and Ob still wins and imprisons them, then Chandra comes in and rescues them. Ob retreats and planewalks away, finally rendering Zendikar as no longer "dying". Ulamog and Kozilek depart from the plane.
8) The Oath of the Gatewatch is formed to prevent similar scenarios from happening again by seeking out the plane's "Plane-Killer" before the Eldrazi completely cleanse the plane, if the plane can be saved (there might be exceptional planes naturally doomed, perhaps the one Emrakul is on) and one such "Plane-Killer" they vowed to remove is Ob-Nixilis. Ugin thinks the entire group is naive for thinking they can extend such protection for their entire lives, which are much shorter than his and leaves for his own plans.
There, none of it requires direct contact with the Eldrazi Titans and I don't think exposing how they "operate" by studying the aftermath degrades them that much (as at least not as bad as burning them out of the plane). Ob Nixilis is still set up as the "villain" with the Titans as the background "forces of nature" they always were. This also abides by the "protection for planeswalkers" policy the story seems to be having at the moment. If they were cautiously doing the entire thing and not recklessly in combat with the Titans, then the policy can hold true while being more realistic.
Gideon and Nissa would trek across Zendikar, recruiting soldiers for their cause. Along the way, some of their troops begin to wonder whether or not these otherworldly beings are responsible for the coming of the Eldrazi. After having seen the horrors of the Eldrazi, the Zendikari can't grasp why Gideon and Nissa are dead set on dealing with the problem. Among the Zendikari.
Jace would seek out the Eye of Ugin and consult with the Elder Dragon. There, Ugin would take advantage of Jace, probing his mind and dragging out the Mind Sculptor aspect of his persona. Within the Eye, we would learn that Ugin has come to Zendikar with a plan to seize control of the Eldrazi race. Presumably to deal with Nicol Bolas. He intends to send Jace to Tarkir to undo Sarkhan's rise to power. Sorin, seeking Ugin, intervenes and convinces the Elder Dragon that they might use Jace to unravel the minds of the Eldrazi.
On Regatha, Chandra finds herself surrounded by monks that are critical of her blind, recklessness. Since the events of TPF, the forest-dwellers have executed the old black druid for a traitor and chosen a new leader. This new druid's ouphes have taken to spreading plagues of saprolings by abducting children from the surrounding hamlets, seeding them with the saprolings via a primordial ritual, and returning them to their cribs. Come the morning, the parents find writhing masses of shredded corpses and thorn-studded saprolings that grow into fullblown fungal elementals. Chandra, seeking to honor the memory of Mother Luti, has decided to give peace a chance. Deep within the libraries she sequesters herself while the abbots speak of her as being a weakling that would rather hide from the realities than deal with them.
Chandra's research sends her back to Zendikar to see the ghostfire that she once wielded. Regathan books speak of dragons of the eternities that are woken by the ghostfire. Chandra has decided to make use of these dragons in the Monastery's struggle to protect the surrounding towns and cities from the depredations of the druid and his forest-dwelling radicals.
Throughout this Jace is powerless to resist the psychic intrusions of Ugin. Jace loathed his time as the Mind Sculptor. Sorin reminds Jace of the power he once wielded while he was the Mind Sculptor. The vampire planeswalker reminds Jace that Tezzeret and Bolas are still out there, likely planning to retake the Infinite Consortium and return the organization to its original purposes. Jace, faced with the threat of having his hard work swept away, gives himself to Ugin's influence.
Jace emerges from the Eye as Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and goes to seek out the Eldrazi.
Sea Gate happens, with Nissa only knowing what to do because Jace has relayed Ugin's instructions to her. Chandra joins them just as Ob does his stuff, Kozilek appears, Ob sods off.
OGW - In the wake of Kozilek's return and Kiora's death (yes, really*), Gideon tries to rally the Zendikari remnant and is aided by Chandra, and Jace and Nissa retreat to the Eye of Ugin to tell him what has happened and that Koz is back. Gideon and Chandra manage to give the Zendikari enough cover to perform an organised retreat. Everything ends up at the Eye. Jace is all for still trying to win; Ugin understands that Zendikar is lost. He tells Jace of the absolute importance now of finding Sorin and Nahiri and tells him to bring them to him on Tarkir, then walks away. Jace and Gideon convince Nissa and Chandra that they can still win. With Eldrazi closing in all around, the battle goes ill. The final straw for Gideon is seeing Tazri die. He thinks back to his Irregulars and how his arrogance cost them their lives, sees he's done it again here, and admits defeat. As Noyan Dar, Drana, Jori-En et al fall, the walkers have no choice but to flee. They rendezvous on Ravnica where they make their oaths never to let the fate of Zendikar befall another plane. Nissa takes time out amongst the Selesnyan elves to deal with the loss of her home plane; Chandra and Gideon depart together to search for traces of trails of the titans; Jace heads to Innistrad to begin his search for Sorin and Nahiri.
*EDIT: As an alternative to Kiora's death, I would have liked to see her enthralled by Kozilek, to work, as someone said before, like the Surfer to Galactus. The art for 'Kiora, Herald of Kozilek' would then have her glassy-eyed with the obsidian shards around her head.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
I'd also change the structure of the creative team, as that too is fundamentally flawed. I've never worked for WOTC's creative team, but I have worked for a similar company, and I can tell you that in that case the lore was created like this: a bunch of people sitting round a table, filling the silences with polite but meaningless babble. Someone comes up with a terrible idea, but no one wants to hurt that person's feelings, so instead of saying "that's crap", they say stuff like "that could work".
Since people working together in groups tend to conform, and to coast on other team member's achievements, many shockingly bad ideas make it through the "blue sky" phase and into the development phase.
I would change this system, replacing a large team with a smaller, more talented team, and giving them a greater share of responsibility, along with enough isolation from each other to develop their own ideas, so that less emphasis is placed on "story by committee" and more is placed on individual creativity.
It would be too easy to craft an engaging story if one were given free reign in this way. Unfortunately, that's not how it works in large-scale companies; creative departments are always subordinate to marketing departments, and our thought-experiment should reflect that.
So, to make it fair on WOTC's current crop of writers, let's assume that we too are bound by the same marketing rules, which are likely these:
- The story must appeal to adolescents.
- The story must end with the formation of the Gatewatch.
- The story must be structured in a way that it can be told on cards.
There may be other rules, but I feel they would be ones that I could convince Marketing not to uphold.
(If one of the rules was that the story must end with the Gatewatch victorious over the Eldrazi, I'd fight tooth and nail to have the antagonist changed from the Eldrazi to a weaker, expendable villain. If I could not succeed I'd wish Wizards good luck and leave the company).
So, if our rules from Marketing are that the story must appeal to adolescents, it must end with the formation of the Gatewatch, and it must be able to be told through cards, I'd come up with something like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strange events presage the coming of the Eldrazi. Mass suicides, people sleepwalking, raging storms, trees wilting and changing colours.
Under an aurora-filled sky, Jace, his fellow Planeswalkers, and some prominent Zendikaris try to work out a plan for how to defeat the Eldrazi. One of them is a young Kor girl, whom we'll call Ayla. She is the curator of several aerial gardens of exotic plants. On Nissa's instruction, Ayla takes the planeswalkers on a brief tour of the gardens, showing them the beauty they must preserve. They see many rare and powerful plants, such as the Black Lotus, and a plant that can reverse the effect of a Gorgon's gaze. Nissa remarks that one of the plants in the garden, a night-blooming Saturnine Orchid, is her favourite flower, because it causes life to grow all around it.
Jace takes a liking to Ayla, but senses that she is horribly scared, and even in ordinary circumstances extremely cautious of all strangers. He tries to reassure her by telling her he will find a way to save her gardens, and her plane.
They consult Ugin, who tells them there is no hope of stopping the Eldrazi, and that they must evacuate the people of Zendikar. He says this can be done by using the hedrons to create isolation zones around populations, and then transferring power from Planeswalker sparks through the hedrons to transport everyone in the isolation zone to another plane.
Gideon, taking Ugin's advice, announces to the Zendikaris that they will try to evacuate in precisely this way. Jace senses Ayla's sadness at the news she'll have to leave her home, and the gardens she has put her life's work in. Unable to see her like this, he decides to go against Ugin's wisdom. He argues that if the Eldrazi's forms can be pulled fully into Zendikar, they can be completely trapped, possibly destroyed, and prevented from ever touching Zendikar or another plane again.
Nissa, being unable to let go of Zendikar, agrees with Jace. Chandra also agrees, simply because she thinks the Eldrazi have an attitude problem, and need to be knocked down a peg or two.
Gideon, being responsible, says they should heed Ugin's warnings; after all, he is the only one to have faced the Eldrazi and survived. Gideon says it wouldn't be cowardly to flee, if they can save Zendikar's inhabitants in the process.
Jace, Nissa, and Chandra don't back down. They insist that Jace's plan -- of binding the Eldrazi to the plane and then trapping them forever, will work. Jace adds that they can't flee from these creatures forever. Gideon, unable to let them fight alone, reluctantly decides to join them.
Gideon announces the change of plan to the Zendikaris. People stop packing their things, and start sharpening their weapons.
Ugin is displeased. He tells the Planeswalkers that they do not know what they are dealing with. But Jace, bolstered by the hope that Ayla has in him, insists that his plan will work.
Eventually, the sky rips apart and the titanic forms of the Eldrazi emerge, twisting the reality around them, heightening the madness. The inhabitants of Zendikar rise up against the otherworldly abominations. They are mutated, slain, resurrected, and then slain again.
Jace and their allies organise their master plan. They align the hedrons around the Eldrazi, and then use leylines and binding spells to pull the Eldrazi further into this world. But this has an unintended effect -- it makes them even stronger, and they break through the hedron fields and obliterate the horizons with even more vigour.
As they lay waste to the landscape, Jace learns that Ayla has been killed. By his arrogance. He is distraught. he finds her corpse, amid her ruined garden. He remembers what she said about the Saturnine Orchid, and its ability to seed life around it. He places the flower near her corpse, hoping it will revive her. It doesn't. Gideon finds Jace, tells him to straighten up, and use the remaining hedrons to create isolation fields for mass evacuation.
Jace takes the flower with him, and follows Gideon to do his duty.
Through Gideon's determination, and Jace's reluctant knowledge, they manage to evacuate most of the region's inhabitants to another plane with a similar environment (Lorwyn?). By the time they have done this, all of Zendikar is overrun. Staying any longer would mean certain death. Gideon says they should leave. Chandra agrees. And Jace. But Nissa, tearful and now weirdly emaciated, explains that she can't leave Zendikar, because her fate is tied to it.
Gideon says, "If you won't come with us, we'll take you." He strides forward, ready to grab her. She shakes her head. "Sorry". And she raises a wall of Eldrazi-mutated trees between them. By the time Gideon has hacked through the trees with his surral, there is no sign of Nissa. They want to search for her, but by now, reality itself is beginning to disintegrate, and they are close to losing their minds. And so the three planeswalkers teleport away to Lorwyn.
There, among the grim, muted celebrations, the Zendikari vow that they will try to rebuild their part of Zendikar here on Lorwyn, in defiance of the Eldrazi.
Chandra sits depressed, reflecting that all the fire and fury in the world is nothing against beings who are beyond the laws of reality. If she is going to beat them, she'll need new tricks.
Gideon feels bad for Nissa. The saved Zendikari hail him a hero. He tells them Jace, Chandra and Nissa are the true heroes, but says he will do everything to help them settle on this new, uncertain plane.
Jace wanders off alone. He thinks of Nissa, but what really gets to him is Ayla's death, because he knows it was his blindness that killed her. The regret eats away at him, till he can bear it no longer. He creates an illusion of her, and it stares blankly at him. He whispers an apology to it.
Although he tries to pretend it is really her, his mind can't make it real, and Ayla, blankly staring, fades away. Filled with a killing sadness, Jace contemplates erasing all his memories of Ayla. He eventually decides against it, because if he doesn't learn from it, her death really will have been in vain.
The three battered, exhausted planeswalkers meet with Ugin, who asks them if they now understand the severity of what they face. They say nothing. Seeing how dejected they are, Ugin remarks that just before he left Zendikar, he watched Nissa take on the Eldrazi alone, alongside what remained of the plane's flora and fauna. She lasted far longer than he had expected.
Ugin tells the three planeswalkers that the Eldrazi could invade another plane next millennium, or tomorrow. He tells them that if they want to stand a chance of surviving the next attack, they will need to find the Multiverse's most powerful planeswalkers, such as Sorin and Nahiri, and also gain the co-operation of hundreds of planes. Ugin warns them about Sorin, saying that while he is needed, he cannot be trusted. Finally, the Spirit Dragon tells the three that he will be watching, and then he vanishes.
On an abandoned hill, the three planeswalkers plant Nissa's favourite flower, the night-blooming Saturnine Orchid. That night, a forest grows around the flower. The three enter the forest, and as the breeze rushes through the trees, it whispers Nissa's last word, "Sorry". Chandra points it out, but Jace says it's just a pareidolia. He knows this because he heard Ayla's voice instead.
Knowing that the Multiverse has become a far more dangerous place, and that they'll only survive if they work together, they take their oaths, for Nissa and Ayla and all the other lives lost. They agree that they will meet in this forest, by this flower, whenever the next titanic threat emerges.
And then they go their separate ways.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's basically the general idea. And yes, I know it has problems, such as cheese and schmaltz. But it IS a story that has to appeal to adolescents, so I've tried to take that into account. Before anyone attacks me, bear in mind that this is all simply off the top of my head. If I had as much time as the WOTC creative team, and actually sat down and planned it all out, I could come out with a much, much, much better plot. But unfortunately, I'm too busy for that.
-- The Gatewatch
If I had to rewrite BFZ I would keep the focus on Gideon and Nissa, those two have the biggest stakes and are most central to the conflict. The plot would stay mostly the same, though I would move around the emphasis. Gideon will be the leader of the Gatewatch, but the story rarely shows his leadership capabilities. In my version, Vorik dies early and pass command to Gideon, who then has to contend with the all the troubles Zendikar as a leader. This gives much more time on how Gideon organizes, strategizes and handles problems as they arise. That way, you get a better understanding of Gideon and where he fits when the Gatewatch later forms. I would also use this extra time to show Ayli as a threat to the army as she steals away people for Ulamog sacrifice.
Nissa's I would retool, starting off Nissa out of connection with Zendikar and Ashaya. I would then echo her origin story as she goes on a quest of self discovery and understanding of her bond with the plane. This would culminate in her finding the Khalni Heart, and Ob. The two duel and after a desperate gamble Nissa touches the Khalni Heart and has a moment of epiphany about her nature and the nature of Zendikar. Then Ashaya wrecks house and leaves Ob Pinned to the Earth.
Jace and Kiora would stay mostly intact. Jace learns about Hedrons from Ugin, they argue about what they should do and Jace storms off. Kiora comes back, meets up with her sister and full charges towards Sea Gate.
As for the finale, I would get Jace back to Gideon much faster. Jace relays his plan and Gideon sees Sea Gate (or the Halimar Basin) as the perfect area for Jace's hedron trap. They army immediately gets to digging up hedrons as Jace unravels more and more of what they can do. While the duo have no concrete plans on how to power the trap they both agree that they should take Sea Gate. Cue Battle of Sea Gate, preferably with a little time spent on the planning phase and getting a bit more into the specifics. Kiora's and Nissa's entries here are perfectly fine. After the battle everyone meets and Nissa agrees to do her leyline thing with the hedrons to entrap Ulamog (and then attempt to destroy it). Ulamog's approach goes roughly the same, though right when Gideon jumps up to grapple a 100ft tall tentacle monster he gets batted all the way back to Sea Gate. Despite that, the trap works, Ob appears, Kozilek emerges etc etc.
I don't know all of OGW but I'll go with my impressions. Ob takes out Nissa Jace and Gideon then Chandra shows up out of the blue(red) and blasts Ob with fire until he peaces out. The four heroes get their bearings and look over the scene to see the devastation of the Eldrazi. Gideon rallies everyone and they hatch a new plan, to try and replicate the hedrons using just Nissa and the leylines. At this point Jace is running on hunches and theories and is fairly certain the plan isn't going to work. It's the only plan they've got though, so they go a head with it. After fighting through Eldrazi they catch with the Titans and execute their plan, and it seemingly works, though at a devastating cost to Zendikar. Zendikar has been drained of almost all its power and it doesn't look like it will survive. The plane begins to buckle and in a desperate attempt to save the plane Nissa channels the power of the Planeswalkers and stops Zendikar from dying completely. The Zendikari cheer and Ugin shows up to tell Jace he forgot the analogy. Ugin informs the Planeswalkers that while the Eldrazi have been damaged, they will return one day, then he scoffs and flies off like most dragons would. Gideon turns to the team and makes an Oath to protect other planes from Eldrazi and any other threat and invites the others to do the same. Inspired, everyone else makes an Oath.
At some point in there Kiora gives up and bails, what a wimp.
From there Gideon and Nissa hang back to find a way to help Zendikar recover while Jace and Chandra go off to investigate this Sorin guy on Innistrad.
This version stays very close to how I think the story will turn out but I think the revisions make for a more compelling narrative.
Thread locked.
@_kaburi_ on Twitter
Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!