Today's story read like a prequel or set-up to an actual story. There were the predictable card beats (though it would be nice if the cards depicted the physical manifestation of the Chain Veil on Liliana (the bleeding tattoos, etc). There were some okay one-liners, and we see more of the Gideon/Jace bromance, but there's no real tension, even when the Gatewatch's plan falls to crap. I didn't mind Nissa's portrayal here, but it's unclear why she thought the initial plan would work at all when she noted immediately that things were off with the leylines. Nissa's reaction to the Veil was nice.
Overall, not much happened. Everyone else is on stage, all that really remains is for Tamiyo to drop in and do her thing. Hopefully it will happen in a cool manner, because the planeswalker that has been most entertaining to read about in all these stories has been Tamiyo. Then on probably to a couple stories about Commander characters before we get to Shandalar.
This week's story wasn't bad, but we've had a lot better. The Gatewatch's plan to kill Emrakul off just like they did Ulamog and Kozilek but with even less leylines was obviously going to fail. Also, there was an inconsistency at one point in the Story when they mention Thraben being the most densely populated city of Innistrad.
From Battle of Thraben
That, plus the fact that Thraben is the densest population of life on Innistrad, will mean that Emrakul will almost certainly be drawn there.
From Planeswalker's guide to Innisrad: Gavony and Humans
Thraben lies in on the northern edge of the province of Gavony. It's the largest walled city in Innistrad, although parts of Nephalia's seaports are more densely populated.
You could argue that since Emrakul came from the sea, she already warped most of Nephalia, leaving Thraben as the next biggest city, but I feel like there might have been a lack of research into the plane for this story.
Up till now I found it barely acceptable, but todays article is the limit. This horrible avengers style story is completely forsaking the fantasy writing history of magic. There has been some bad writing before, but at least that was without the power rangers.
I was excited to see Gideon's reaction to Jace having discovered Emrakul, and the dire way Jace might explain Innistrad's desperate condition to him. I was anticipating the awe and dread of seeing the greatest cosmic horror we know invade one of the most haunting planes out there and warp it.
Instead, this was a flat, anti-clamatic checklist story that places characters conveniently where they need to be with little to no reaction or pause for emotion and not the slightest hint of due drama.
I just don't understand it. We get so much set up, but when the rewarding moment arrives, it's never served properly. It's there and then it's gone and there was nothing to show for anything.
Well... if nothing else, this chapter has convinced me that the "Jacetus League" monicker is more than appropriate, since it reads like one of the worse parts of a DC/Marvel Crisis Crossover.
What I'm really salty about is the fact that the art book summary had better pacing and a side story them seem to have cut out. I'm putting it in spoiler tags since it is from another source then the online fiction but it dose seem like they cut this out;
So the Gatewatch start at the Drownyard Temple and make their way to the city. Along the way they find a small town that has been mostly abounded as the eldrazi horror mutants followed Emrakul to Thraben, except for a few heavily mutated humans and animals left. As they leave Chandra ends up completely burning the town down because of how much of Emrakul has tainted it.
If they really cut that part out, it feels like a missed opportunity. But on the other flip of the dick, if it had been written with the same quality as this chapter, leaving it out might have been for the better.
The main problem with this story is it's length. There's material for a bit more here, but on the other hand, do we really want a full story about the gatewatch marching towards Thraben with Gideon whipping his surral back and forth again like half of the BfZ story? I think we could've focussed a bit more on Liliana and some of the interactions.
Meh, legendary creature-stories > PW stories.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Why is the plan of copypasting what worked on Zendikar to try on Innistrad 'plain stupid'? It is, 'this was the only thing that worked last time, so its our only shot here'. This is just about the only logical conclusion you can draw, what would have been stupid would have been to try anything else. Unless you don't mean 'in story' then I can see you reasoning.
Edit: If it says anything about this latest story, I've summarized it in like six sentences for the next archive trap, compared to last week's taking three or four paragraphs.
That is awesome art. Almost good enough to replace my Noah Bradley Plains desktop.
Edit: I don't know. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I'm a Brandon Sanderson fan. Sanderson has incredible writing skills, and he certainly doesn't skimp when it comes to length. The current novel he is working on is expected to be upward of 400,000 words long.
I love Sanderson too, but I know there are people out there who hate his writing. That's why I try and keep it all in perspective, after all I find The Lord of the Rings basically unreadable (but the audiobooks are great).
To each his own. I try not to judge people based on their entertainment tastes. Everybody has their own preferred style of storytelling. Magic's current serialization is not one of mine.
What I'm really salty about is the fact that the art book summary had better pacing and a side story them seem to have cut out. I'm putting it in spoiler tags since it is from another source then the online fiction but it dose seem like they cut this out;
So the Gatewatch start at the Drownyard Temple and make their way to the city. Along the way they find a small town that has been mostly abounded as the eldrazi horror mutants followed Emrakul to Thraben, except for a few heavily mutated humans and animals left. As they leave Chandra ends up completely burning the town down because of how much of Emrakul has tainted it.
Yeah, the story in the Art Book is a lot better than the one we got. They seem to have thrown continuity and timing out the window lately. With the exception of the Saint Traft story last week, the authors made it sound like each chapter occurred on the same night. To clarify, that means that Jace visited the drownyard in Nephalia, traveled to the Stensia foothills to accuse Liliana, go to Thraben to fight Avacyn, travel to Zendikar to round up the Gatewatch, and return to Innistrad and right their way to the center of the city in the space of less than 12 hours. I mean, Innistrad is a small plane, but if this story is to be believed, then the entire world is less than 50 miles across.
It is possible to effectively serialize a story, but this is not how you do it. The continuity is crap because they have a dozen different people writing different chapters at the same time. Things would be lot less bumpy if they assigned a single author to each set or block.
Oh boy, I disliked many things in this one. The pacing was all wrong and their plan of trying to copypaste what they did on Zendikar was plain stupid. Worst though was Jace's "stopover for snacks"-comment to Gideon. Made me want to punch that arrogant git in the face--Gideon *just* saved his life, and this is how he greets him? Yuck.
Vorthos Cartography - Check out my completed maps of Zendikar and Innistrad!
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Maybe now that MTG's community and market has grown so much since they stopped the novels... they'll try them again! Something tells me they didn't expect the art books to really sell, but they have. Though I know those are through a separate um, idk the official word but poor sales wouldn't hurt Wizards much.
Of course, it's going to be hard for them to consider that if the "numbers" show that people are "more invested in the story than ever!" I think it's safe to say that people unhappy with the story and medium are a vast minority.
I feel like maybe they took the "Avengers" concept too far here because at points it read like a storyboard for a comic.
Also I think I know what lineup they're going for:
Jace = Spiderman
Gideon = Captain America
Chandra = Thor
Nissa = Scarlet Witch
Liliana = Black Widow
Tamiyo, of course, is a special appearance by Doctor Strange.
What I'm really salty about is the fact that the art book summary had better pacing and a side story them seem to have cut out. I'm putting it in spoiler tags since it is from another source then the online fiction but it dose seem like they cut this out;
So the Gatewatch start at the Drownyard Temple and make their way to the city. Along the way they find a small town that has been mostly abounded as the eldrazi horror mutants followed Emrakul to Thraben, except for a few heavily mutated humans and animals left. As they leave Chandra ends up completely burning the town down because of how much of Emrakul has tainted it.
So the Gatewatch start at the Drownyard Temple and make their way to the city. Along the way they find a small town that has been mostly abounded as the eldrazi horror mutants followed Emrakul to Thraben, except for a few heavily mutated humans and animals left. As they leave Chandra ends up completely burning the town down because of how much of Emrakul has tainted it.
If they really cut that part out, it feels like a missed opportunity. But on the other flip of the dick, if it had been written with the same quality as this chapter, leaving it out might have been for the better.[/quote]
THe horrible screaming irony is that there's a decent chance they cut it because during BFZ everyone was complaining that the story refused to get to the point.
EMN is certainly moving along quickly, probably too quickly. I agree with Glamdring that things seem to have happened over the course of no more than a couple days which is crazy. Presumably the pieces of Jace's stories in SOI take place at least days apart and some of the later stories do suggest that months have passed but it feels from a pacing POV like Emrakul manifested and everything immediately exploded into tentacles.
The art books tend to have early story details. Remember the articles themselves aren't actually finished sometimes up until the week before they're published, while the Art Book outline would have to be drafted well before the set is even released.
I feel like maybe they took the "Avengers" concept too far here because at points it read like a storyboard for a comic.
Also I think I know what lineup they're going for:
Jace = Spiderman
Gideon = Captain America
Chandra = Thor
Nissa = Scarlet Witch
Liliana = Black Widow
Tamiyo, of course, is a special appearance by Doctor Strange.
No wonder Tamiyo is my favorite Planeswalker so far. That really crushes my hopes for future Tamiyo appearances though, no Dormammu for her to face.
Tamiyo has been the highlight of this story for sure. Jace and Lilliana have surprisingly also been rather good here.
It's Gideon and Nissa that need more development and dimension. Chandra too, although she's pretty comical at least, in a free spirit sort of Red way.
But better writing and sufficiently detailed stories with quality transitions and forethought would take all of this a long way. At least Tamiyo was given high quality writing.
Krienes has done rather well in this block. He works this time around are superior to the last two stories, which are the low point for SOI/EMN so far.
The reader: who put an Avengers action scene with Marvel level levity in my horror story?
The story overall was an improvement over the past two weeks, which is a starting point. I like Marvel action scenes and their balance of serious and humor.
Unfortunately, the issue is that's not what I expect on Innistrad, and that's not what I expect in the tone set for Emrakul. All pretense of Emrakul invading Innistrad and mental warfare was dropped. They might as well have been fighting Ulamog and his brood on Zendikar again.
The result is… okay. They bantered, they fought, they quarreled, they were rescued by Liliana when they were about to lose. They could have done worse (because they did.)
An interesting note is that with the art book details I keep being told on here, this is the third week in a row that I've suspected they overhauled the story at the last minute likely to the detriment.
Olivia survived Nahiri and Sorin's little war, last week felt like they crushed two stories together, and now I find that they may have cut an entire story where the Gatewatch has to confront Emrakul's influence over an entire town, although I think the Gatewatch vs. Hanweir may have worked better than random town. And that would have been a a more interesting story about conquering Emrakul's madness rather than her army.
I'm curious if we'll ever get a peek to find out if there's any merit to my suspicious.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Story was ok not too great other than lili calling Gideon meat and Chandra describing liliana's dess . was hoping this story would explain why zombies aren't affect but walls are but I feel like were getting close to that explanation.
But we were already told that zombies and geists can't be corrupted, because zombies don't have a mind that can go insane and geists don't have a biological body that can mutate. Walls on the other hand-
Waaaaait a minute.
well walls and weapons have minds on innistrad I guess
I feel like maybe they took the "Avengers" concept too far here because at points it read like a storyboard for a comic.
Also I think I know what lineup they're going for:
Jace = Spiderman
Gideon = Captain America
Chandra = Thor
Nissa = Scarlet Witch
Liliana = Black Widow
Tamiyo, of course, is a special appearance by Doctor Strange.
Well IMO I would have put Chandra as hulk since all they make her do is "Chandra burn!" Like hulk smash. Alsi would liliana be doc strange due to her dabbling in the dark arts or doom? Maybe Loki?
I feel like maybe they took the "Avengers" concept too far here because at points it read like a storyboard for a comic.
Also I think I know what lineup they're going for:
Jace = Spiderman
Gideon = Captain America
Chandra = Thor
Nissa = Scarlet Witch
Liliana = Black Widow
Tamiyo, of course, is a special appearance by Doctor Strange.
Well IMO I would have put Chandra as hulk since all they make her do is "Chandra burn!" Like hulk smash. Alsi would liliana be doc strange due to her dabbling in the dark arts or doom? Maybe Loki?
Given Loki never joined the Avengers (at least that I recall), it would be rather weird to make Liliana an analog to Loki. It isn't about power set either, otherwise most of those analogs go out the window.
Edit: Meant to say Doctor Doom doesn't really dabble in the dark arts (typically) either. Doom also has never joined the Avengers that I recall, though I wouldn't be surprised if in some comic he was part of the Fantastic Four. Either way though he's typically not a major focus for the Avengers.
I was actually looking forward to this story, because I wanted to see how the Gatewatch would fare in a different setting. And the answer was...poorly, I guess? It didn't really have to be, but this story was way, way too short. I would have loved to see the other members of the Gatewatch's reactions to Jace locating Emrakul, rather than just immediately jumping into the fight. People mention that the legendary creature stories are more compelling than the Planeswalker ones, and while that does end up being true I don't think it has to be the case--they just refuse to write these people interestingly.
I'm not to the idea of the Gatewatch, I actually like the concept, but they're taking way too many beats straight out of Marvel's playbook and I wish they wouldn't. This is *not* the place for Whedonesque quip-fests. I won't get into my personal hatred of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's writing, but the worst parts of it are showing up here. The characters feel shallow and they're supposed to be the characters we know best. Liliana and Jace are the exceptions here, as we've spent plenty of time in their heads and they've been built up enough, but we need way more from the others. I like Chandra's wittiness and general attitude, but she needs considerably more depth.
Gideon's pretty one-note in practice, though from his origin story and the piece about him working himself to death bouncing back and between Zendikar and Ravnica, I know there is more to him. He can be an interesting character, I just need more than "confident, stoic commander".
I legitimately don't even know who Nissa is, or who she's supposed to be. She feels the most out of place off of Zendikar, and I really believe she should have never been inducted into the Gatewatch. Every other member of the Gatewatch has some history with the others--Jace and Liliana have a past romance together, Gideon and Chandra were at least set up as love interests even though that seems to have been forgotten, Jace and Chandra have their couple of encounters in the past. Nissa just met all of them. I know she loves Zendikar, but I can't identify what her character motivation is. It feels like it would have been more in-character for her to just stay on Zendikar and help rebuild her world. She doesn't have a particularly interesting dynamic with any of the Gatewatch, and she's not even a source of humor so I can't pinpoint any sense of purpose to her. She seems to only be along because her powers are narratively useful, which is the worst reason for a character to exist if that's all there is. This story didn't really help things out at all.
The Gatewatch was here for the space of a single story before needing to be immediately saved. I would have loved a story dedicated to them trying to fight the eldrazi the same way they did last time, resulting in them failing horribly, having to fight off Emrakul's mental assault as well as the physical assault of the mutated denizens. It would have been nice to see the characters showing actual fear for more than just a couple paragraphs. They're fresh off of a victory against two titans, it makes sense that they'd have some measure of bravado, and I wanted to see that utterly broken. Nissa shows the most signs of it, but more could have been done. This piece just needed to be longer, in terms of plot beats it's fine but the way it was handled was awful. Which is surprising, as I've thought EMN's Magic Stories have been significantly better than past stories as a cohesive whole. I would have loved to see a twist to this fight that felt uniquely 'Emrakul', but as it stands you could have just shoved this into Oath's storyline and it would have worked just fine.
And whoa, whoa, this was Nik Davidson? Wow, I'd never have guessed, I've loved every other one of his stories.
This story was too short and nothing really happened. The most interesting part for me was Nissa's comment about not liking the elemental she could summon. I would have liked to see that done just to see what would have appeared.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RGTron UGInfect URStorm WUBRAd Nauseam BRGrishoalbrand URGScapeshift WBGAbzan Company WUBRGAmulet Titan BRGLiving End WGBogles
Story was ok not too great other than lili calling Gideon meat and Chandra describing liliana's dess . was hoping this story would explain why zombies aren't affect but walls are but I feel like were getting close to that explanation.
But we were already told that zombies and geists can't be corrupted, because zombies don't have a mind that can go insane and geists don't have a biological body that can mutate. Walls on the other hand-
Waaaaait a minute.
In the art book it say things like moss, algae, lichen etc where corrupted so that what I'm guessing most of the building mutations are.
I've been thinking it seems like while unlive things are immune to emrakul, stuff arounds them seems to like to grow around it, making almost a shell. Which is what it think happened to Vexing Scuttler, the lanterns in Daring Sleuth flavor and the buildings of Hanweir, the Writhing Township, they became almost like a shell for the eldrazi.
Tamiyo has been the highlight of this story for sure.
Very much agreed. The fact that they pushed her into three colors so she could get a card is very indication she is popular and now being a supporting lead in SoI story will hopefully mean she will seen again soon.
And I like that she doesn't join the Gatewatch. But because of the friendly way she departs with them, I hope we will see her as an ally/sage figure or follow along to a plane she is intreated in studying in.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Seeing as how the battle scenes of Zendikar were not overly well-received by the vocal/consistent members of this forum, I'm not sure why we need more Eldrazi battles on Innistrad. This story isn't about Eldrazi battles like Battle for Zendikar was. We are looking at the resolution of the mystery and Liliana's role here.
I appreciated Nissa's immediate distrust of Liliana and the Chain Veil. I'd like to see that relationship develop, especially as Chandra and Nissa already get along.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
Eh, I don't think this week's story or last week's are as bad as some people are saying. Neither of them are great, by any means, but they're far from the worst writing I've seen in Magic Stories. They are a little underwhelming, especially since they're supposed to be showing key moments in the story, but they're still leagues and bounds better than any of the Nissa stories from Battle for Zendikar or most of the Gatewatch stories from Oath.
I guess maybe I just have low expectations. Still, I do feel like this block has been a huge improvement over the last one, in terms of both the overarching plot and the writing quality of individual stories.
This story was too short and nothing really happened. The most interesting part for me was Nissa's comment about not liking the elemental she could summon. I would have liked to see that done just to see what would have appeared.
I would have loved that. I really like seeing ways in which planes are similar yet different, would have been really interesting to see.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Overall, not much happened. Everyone else is on stage, all that really remains is for Tamiyo to drop in and do her thing. Hopefully it will happen in a cool manner, because the planeswalker that has been most entertaining to read about in all these stories has been Tamiyo. Then on probably to a couple stories about Commander characters before we get to Shandalar.
From Battle of Thraben
From Planeswalker's guide to Innisrad: Gavony and Humans
You could argue that since Emrakul came from the sea, she already warped most of Nephalia, leaving Thraben as the next biggest city, but I feel like there might have been a lack of research into the plane for this story.
RJaya Ballard, Task Mage Mono Red Control Decklist
WNahiri, the Lithomancer Mono White Control Decklist
RGWUKynaios and Tiro of Meletis Aikido Control Decklist
UBGisa and Geralf Tribal Aggro Decklist
URGRiku of Two Reflections Non-combo coolstuff Decklist
RWUBruse Tarl, Boorish Herder and Kraum, Ludovic's Opus Equipments Decklist
WBAthreos, God of Passage Reanimate/Goodstuff Decklist
Instead, this was a flat, anti-clamatic checklist story that places characters conveniently where they need to be with little to no reaction or pause for emotion and not the slightest hint of due drama.
I just don't understand it. We get so much set up, but when the rewarding moment arrives, it's never served properly. It's there and then it's gone and there was nothing to show for anything.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
If they really cut that part out, it feels like a missed opportunity. But on the other flip of the dick, if it had been written with the same quality as this chapter, leaving it out might have been for the better.
Meh, legendary creature-stories > PW stories.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
That is awesome art. Almost good enough to replace my Noah Bradley Plains desktop.
To each his own. I try not to judge people based on their entertainment tastes. Everybody has their own preferred style of storytelling. Magic's current serialization is not one of mine.
Yeah, the story in the Art Book is a lot better than the one we got. They seem to have thrown continuity and timing out the window lately. With the exception of the Saint Traft story last week, the authors made it sound like each chapter occurred on the same night. To clarify, that means that Jace visited the drownyard in Nephalia, traveled to the Stensia foothills to accuse Liliana, go to Thraben to fight Avacyn, travel to Zendikar to round up the Gatewatch, and return to Innistrad and right their way to the center of the city in the space of less than 12 hours. I mean, Innistrad is a small plane, but if this story is to be believed, then the entire world is less than 50 miles across.
It is possible to effectively serialize a story, but this is not how you do it. The continuity is crap because they have a dozen different people writing different chapters at the same time. Things would be lot less bumpy if they assigned a single author to each set or block.
I'm 95% certain this is a reference to this line from the Avengers. https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1ef412f9-ad7a-4d88-bab8-78996d29a954 Interpret that how you will.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Of course, it's going to be hard for them to consider that if the "numbers" show that people are "more invested in the story than ever!" I think it's safe to say that people unhappy with the story and medium are a vast minority.
Also I think I know what lineup they're going for:
Jace = Spiderman
Gideon = Captain America
Chandra = Thor
Nissa = Scarlet Witch
Liliana = Black Widow
Tamiyo, of course, is a special appearance by Doctor Strange.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
If they really cut that part out, it feels like a missed opportunity. But on the other flip of the dick, if it had been written with the same quality as this chapter, leaving it out might have been for the better.[/quote]
THe horrible screaming irony is that there's a decent chance they cut it because during BFZ everyone was complaining that the story refused to get to the point.
EMN is certainly moving along quickly, probably too quickly. I agree with Glamdring that things seem to have happened over the course of no more than a couple days which is crazy. Presumably the pieces of Jace's stories in SOI take place at least days apart and some of the later stories do suggest that months have passed but it feels from a pacing POV like Emrakul manifested and everything immediately exploded into tentacles.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
No wonder Tamiyo is my favorite Planeswalker so far. That really crushes my hopes for future Tamiyo appearances though, no Dormammu for her to face.
It's Gideon and Nissa that need more development and dimension. Chandra too, although she's pretty comical at least, in a free spirit sort of Red way.
But better writing and sufficiently detailed stories with quality transitions and forethought would take all of this a long way. At least Tamiyo was given high quality writing.
Krienes has done rather well in this block. He works this time around are superior to the last two stories, which are the low point for SOI/EMN so far.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
The reader: who put an Avengers action scene with Marvel level levity in my horror story?
The story overall was an improvement over the past two weeks, which is a starting point. I like Marvel action scenes and their balance of serious and humor.
Unfortunately, the issue is that's not what I expect on Innistrad, and that's not what I expect in the tone set for Emrakul. All pretense of Emrakul invading Innistrad and mental warfare was dropped. They might as well have been fighting Ulamog and his brood on Zendikar again.
The result is… okay. They bantered, they fought, they quarreled, they were rescued by Liliana when they were about to lose. They could have done worse (because they did.)
An interesting note is that with the art book details I keep being told on here, this is the third week in a row that I've suspected they overhauled the story at the last minute likely to the detriment.
Olivia survived Nahiri and Sorin's little war, last week felt like they crushed two stories together, and now I find that they may have cut an entire story where the Gatewatch has to confront Emrakul's influence over an entire town, although I think the Gatewatch vs. Hanweir may have worked better than random town. And that would have been a a more interesting story about conquering Emrakul's madness rather than her army.
I'm curious if we'll ever get a peek to find out if there's any merit to my suspicious.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Given Loki never joined the Avengers (at least that I recall), it would be rather weird to make Liliana an analog to Loki. It isn't about power set either, otherwise most of those analogs go out the window.
Edit: Meant to say Doctor Doom doesn't really dabble in the dark arts (typically) either. Doom also has never joined the Avengers that I recall, though I wouldn't be surprised if in some comic he was part of the Fantastic Four. Either way though he's typically not a major focus for the Avengers.
I'm not to the idea of the Gatewatch, I actually like the concept, but they're taking way too many beats straight out of Marvel's playbook and I wish they wouldn't. This is *not* the place for Whedonesque quip-fests. I won't get into my personal hatred of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's writing, but the worst parts of it are showing up here. The characters feel shallow and they're supposed to be the characters we know best. Liliana and Jace are the exceptions here, as we've spent plenty of time in their heads and they've been built up enough, but we need way more from the others. I like Chandra's wittiness and general attitude, but she needs considerably more depth.
Gideon's pretty one-note in practice, though from his origin story and the piece about him working himself to death bouncing back and between Zendikar and Ravnica, I know there is more to him. He can be an interesting character, I just need more than "confident, stoic commander".
I legitimately don't even know who Nissa is, or who she's supposed to be. She feels the most out of place off of Zendikar, and I really believe she should have never been inducted into the Gatewatch. Every other member of the Gatewatch has some history with the others--Jace and Liliana have a past romance together, Gideon and Chandra were at least set up as love interests even though that seems to have been forgotten, Jace and Chandra have their couple of encounters in the past. Nissa just met all of them. I know she loves Zendikar, but I can't identify what her character motivation is. It feels like it would have been more in-character for her to just stay on Zendikar and help rebuild her world. She doesn't have a particularly interesting dynamic with any of the Gatewatch, and she's not even a source of humor so I can't pinpoint any sense of purpose to her. She seems to only be along because her powers are narratively useful, which is the worst reason for a character to exist if that's all there is. This story didn't really help things out at all.
The Gatewatch was here for the space of a single story before needing to be immediately saved. I would have loved a story dedicated to them trying to fight the eldrazi the same way they did last time, resulting in them failing horribly, having to fight off Emrakul's mental assault as well as the physical assault of the mutated denizens. It would have been nice to see the characters showing actual fear for more than just a couple paragraphs. They're fresh off of a victory against two titans, it makes sense that they'd have some measure of bravado, and I wanted to see that utterly broken. Nissa shows the most signs of it, but more could have been done. This piece just needed to be longer, in terms of plot beats it's fine but the way it was handled was awful. Which is surprising, as I've thought EMN's Magic Stories have been significantly better than past stories as a cohesive whole. I would have loved to see a twist to this fight that felt uniquely 'Emrakul', but as it stands you could have just shoved this into Oath's storyline and it would have worked just fine.
And whoa, whoa, this was Nik Davidson? Wow, I'd never have guessed, I've loved every other one of his stories.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
In the art book it say things like moss, algae, lichen etc where corrupted so that what I'm guessing most of the building mutations are.
I've been thinking it seems like while unlive things are immune to emrakul, stuff arounds them seems to like to grow around it, making almost a shell. Which is what it think happened to Vexing Scuttler, the lanterns in Daring Sleuth flavor and the buildings of Hanweir, the Writhing Township, they became almost like a shell for the eldrazi.
Very much agreed. The fact that they pushed her into three colors so she could get a card is very indication she is popular and now being a supporting lead in SoI story will hopefully mean she will seen again soon.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I appreciated Nissa's immediate distrust of Liliana and the Chain Veil. I'd like to see that relationship develop, especially as Chandra and Nissa already get along.
I guess maybe I just have low expectations. Still, I do feel like this block has been a huge improvement over the last one, in terms of both the overarching plot and the writing quality of individual stories.
I would have loved that. I really like seeing ways in which planes are similar yet different, would have been really interesting to see.