Sorry, but wrong. Like 5oolors said, we got a glimpse of it with Ulamog.
And Ugin was VERY VERY VERY pissed that the Gatewatch destroyed the other two titans. Just... the ramifications of doing so haven't been felt yet.
You are both right. I completely forgot about Memory of Blood (just reread). But I maintain that I liked Emrakul's portrayal a lot better than those of Kozilek and Ulamog.
Kozilek's portrayal in The Blight We Were Born For was very good IMO.
It seems the existence of the multiverse is somehow governed or influenced by the Eldrazi. Like black holes. We see them absorb planets and stars, but what becomes of the matter? Ejected from a white hole on the other end, to become new matter? What function does this serve? We see it end worlds, but we simply cannot understand the universe and its need for such phenomena.
All Planeswalkers, their lives, their home planes, their existence, all part of Emrkaul's story, and her story is existence itself? Life and death, compressed into one entity, perhaps? An arbiter of existence? Man the theories that can abound from this are endless. Most chilling cliffhanger yet.
So nice to see the Eldrazi are more than "eat everything." It really took Innistrad and the prospect of cosmic horror to paint them out as having a greater purpose.
Am I the only one who found Liliana's "do-goody, do-gooder" comments too Joss Whedon-y for a Cosmic Horror Story?
I'll agree that it's cool that Emrakul is implied to be some kind of MtG answer to Galactus, but this ending didn't really feel satisfying for me; maybe it's because the build to it wasn't up to the task? Still, probably the best story about the Eldrazi thus far.
Can we please read about some local characters instead of the Neowalkers now? They seem a lot more interesting than the Plane-hopping wizards.
Jace won the chess match against Emrakul. Yet Emeria also demonstrated that he could lose if she willed it. But as long as they played on an even plane, his mind defeated hers.
I think Emrakul let herself lose (like she let herself be imprisoned). The chess game wasn't so much a challenge as it was a way to drive a point home to Jace just how very out of his league he is.
Chilling Lovecraftian ending. Emrakul sealing herself, taking control of Tamiyo's "turn" and devastating her in the process. It appears Emrakul entered Jace's mind and learned of all their capabilities, using Planeswalkers to complete whatever function she deemed necessary. Emrakul sealing herself was a twist I never would have anticipated.
I will need time to comment at length about this story. But a few points I want to raise:
Emrakul being incomplete - is this at the loss of Ulamog and Kozilek?
Jace won the chess match against Emrakul. Yet Emeria also demonstrated that he could lose if she willed it. But as long as they played on an even plane, his mind defeated hers.
The theme between Emrakul and Lilliana was all about extending life and the prospect of death, or fates greater and worse than death. A damnation of sorts. Emrakul is thought of as a destroyer all this time, but this idea of her being a creator is interesting. Death allows for new life, after all. Spring only after winter. The Eldrazi really do seem like great hurricanes, leaving swaths of destruction, only to discover plankton blooms in the ocean and dead leaves shaken from the trees afterwards, and the temperature gradients of the Earth balanced out by what was an incomprehensible but necessary force that is only perceived to be evil, but isn't anything but necessary. Mother Nature is compelling like that.
Notice how Avacyn's words proved prophetic in the end as I said - but still, to what end?
Poor Tamiyo. She was utterly devastated by having her promise compromised. No wonder she didn't join the Gatewatch. Emrkaul could have ended Innistrad, either by herself or through the iron scroll when she took control of Tamiyo. Emrakul had two different ways of ending the plane and chose to seal herself instead… there is a greater function being served here for sure. Renewing planes perhaps. Or the prospect of Innistrad not being a plane the Eldrazi wish to end at this time. Emrakul was lured there after all, she didn't select it for destruction naturally.
Despite being in the title, Emrakul probably doesn't even "end"... she's more of "After the End" then an end of any kind (which Ulamog and Kozilek represent more directly).
What makes this interesting is that Emrakul is aware that Ulamog and Kozilek are dead. She has to be aware because she explicitly chose to leave Zendikar when Ulamog and Kozilek were alive (it was probably be easy to reseal oneself on the plane of Hedron Networks...) whereas she didn't on Innistrad.
Perhaps she couldn't either - the leylines that lured them seem to also have "binding" effects on the Eldrazi Titans... perhaps Ulamog and Kozilek weren't actually fleeing in cowardice during OGW... the leylines were exhausted during Chandra's Ghostfire rampage and they were permitted to leave and they didn't hestitate to make that choice (sure, the pain was also a good motivator, but it might not have been the main one).
The problem with the Eldrazi being bound is that they had to find the leylines and break/exhaust them to free themselves, but in most cases, by the time they're done with that, the plane is destroyed/mutated by their default passive powers. In fact, I suspect that Emrakul was only able to leave Zendikar early because they had 3 titans on the job, something that doesn't usually happen in the first place. Once she left, Ulamog and Kozilek had a way more difficult time breaking the rest of the leylines until the Gatewatch did it for them in that brief moment.
A pity Ulamog and Kozilek didn't have the capability to translate that over to the planeswalkers like Emrakul, so they ended up looking like 2 Godzillas rather than two hands of an incomplete UlaKoziEmra process they might be.
Jace won the chess match against Emrakul. Yet Emeria also demonstrated that he could lose if she willed it. But as long as they played on an even plane, his mind defeated hers.
Everything that Emeria does foreshadows the Gatewatch's "victory". In this case its the fact that clever plans are meaningless. Jace wins the chess match in the same way that the Gatewatch "defeats" Emrakul, which is to say not at all.
The theme between Emrakul and Lilliana was all about extending life and the prospect of death, or fates greater and worse than death. A damnation of sorts.
There was a few sentences at the end that really played on that theme: "Sometimes our stories have to end. Yet here we are, each seeking to prolong our story, no matter the cost."
Taken out of context, who does that describe most? Liliana. But Tamiyo was talking about the Gatewatch as a whole, the group who seek to interfere by destroying or imprisoning the Eldrazi. Nissa and Gideon don't trust Liliana, but Tamiyo notes that by seeking to save planes from the Eldrazi, the green and white mage aren't different from the necromancer they distrust. Surprised how deep this story actually is!
Exactly. They're all trying to defeat death in some form. Hence the appearance of Erebos as well, who Emrakul veiled herself with. It suggests to me that the Eldrazi, whatever they may be, are as inevitable as death, or as life too. One does not choose to live or exist, that decision is made for them. And one cannot choose to not die, as that decision is made for them. But by what? What is the destruction and creation entity which decides such fates for people, and what greater destiny does it have in mind for them all when the time is right to decide?
Lilliana is delaying death just as they are all trying to delay something inevitable. But the inevitable seems to be Emrakul's domain, and they're deluded into thinking their decisions have any impact on their pre-determined destinies by greater entities. Like perhaps Emrakul.
Finally logged back in because the premise of this story was really good. I'll never forgive Creative for what they've done to Sorin this block, but I have to admit that ending *really* surprised and pleased me. The actual telling was a bit patchy, with some very good bits and a few quite poor bits, but I very much enjoyed Jace's conversation with Emeria, and then the final reveal from Tamiyo. The actual sealing of Emrakul felt hugely underwhelming and disappointing until that last bit completely changed the way it should be understood. It's really good to see a genuinely surprising twist in this era of major story-moment cards and supposed 'everything revealed beforehand' through card spoilers and art books. I have to hand it to Wizards on this one - well played indeed.
Jace won the chess match against Emrakul. Yet Emeria also demonstrated that he could lose if she willed it. But as long as they played on an even plane, his mind defeated hers.
Everything that Emeria does foreshadows the Gatewatch's "victory". In this case its the fact that clever plans are meaningless. Jace wins the chess match in the same way that the Gatewatch "defeats" Emrakul, which is to say not at all.
It showed that Emrakul doesn't have to play by the rules of reality, actually. But she chose to in that moment, and discovered she was incomplete. Yes, she foreshadowed her own fate and their decisions, but those were also decisions so made for herself. So the question is, does Emrakul see and decide the future? Does she decide how stories will end, or not end?
Jace won the chess match against Emrakul. Yet Emeria also demonstrated that he could lose if she willed it. But as long as they played on an even plane, his mind defeated hers.
Everything that Emeria does foreshadows the Gatewatch's "victory". In this case its the fact that clever plans are meaningless. Jace wins the chess match in the same way that the Gatewatch "defeats" Emrakul, which is to say not at all.
It showed that Emrakul doesn't have to play by the rules of reality, actually. But she chose to in that moment, and discovered she was incomplete. Yes, she foreshadowed her own fate and their decisions, but those were also decisions so made for herself. So the question is, does Emrakul see and decide the future? Does she decide how stories will end, or not end?
I think she was aware she was incomplete the moment Ulamog and Kozilek died. The chess game was just her way (and the clearest one) of bringing the entire metaphor to Jace (along with every other attempt, but those ended up feeling only like madness). She's consciously aware of her destructive passive powers and probably also aware of leylines being their weakness (considering it's leylines used to lure, bind and destroy Eldrazi Titans so far...).
Whether Emrakul sees and decides the future depends on the perspective you take - from a mortal's point of view, it feels like inevitable fate. But from her point of view, it's nothing but a GIANT chess board, and even the Eldrazi have weaknesses as players of this GIANT chessboard. This is why she took the form of Erebos in Gideon's view - because that's the closest "same-concept" view she can bring it to Gideon (since I doubt Gideon plays Chess), but the chess metaphor is the clearest one.
The Eldrazi are players of the Chess Board - a mistake and they lose the game. But that's it - they lose a game. Everything else, however, is a piece of the chess board and let's just say you don't exactly respawn when a new game begins - that's a similar but still individually different piece of the board that appears in the next game (which does sort of align with Jace's doppelganger moment if you think about it).
If anything Emrakul demonstrated she's not part of the chess board, but above it. She demonstrated that Jace, even when she permits him to be her opponent, is still just another chess piece on the board which she can easily control, whose rules she could easily break.
I'm glad that Creative is capable of a solid plot twist. I can't say this redeems them for BFZ but if they can manage to tie both blocks together down the line, I might forgive them for BFZ. I legit started marking out when I read that Emrakul modified Tamiyo's scroll spell. If she was willing to trap herself in the moon, I can't imagine what will happen to Innistrad when she breaks out.
In any case, I'm all Eldrazi'd out for the time being.
Just a random thought: Are phyrexians "alive". Or are they more artificial than biological? It was just a thought I had when thinking about the story lines so far. If the gatewatch needs a weapon to defeat the phyrexians, and Emrakul sees mirrodin as "ready" for cleansing/rebirth due to their machine nature, things could get interesting.
I liked the payoff here. The whole time I was reading I was waiting for the mindslaver, and thought it wasn't coming. Well done, WotC creative team.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
I'm fairly certain Bolas didn't get what he wanted from Alara, he wanted to harness the energy of the Conflux to regain his power, but Ajani stopped him.
This is all assuming that Alara book I read years ago is canon.
Bolas takes all but a sliver of the power of the Conflux. He does get what he wants. Ajani uses the leftover sliver to create a soul duplicate, which runs him off.
But he still got what he wanted.
All Ajani did was stop him form destroying Alara, which wasn't Bolas goal really either.
Yeah, that was more of a side effect, he wasn't deliberately destroying it, it was just going to be destroyed because of what he was doing.
Jace did not win that chess match. That was Emrakul showing him that he was never even in the game. Creating the illusion that your opponent knows more than you is very powerful, it instills overconfidence. It can also be the greatest way to provide hope, which then in turn, allows you to easily destroy that hope which some believe is the most cruel thing of all.
I also *love* how werewolves were completely tossed to the wind in this entire block's story. It's so neat to see how little Wizards Creative cares about them. /sarcasm
I went through an entire pot of coffee, I didn't stop reading, and it was like "AWESOME". This was a great story with twists and turns. The personification of Emrakul was so well done. At the point of her appearance, and her speaking to Jace, I literally "NO WAY!". Previous stories had prodded at the question, "Do the Eldrazi Titans have a mind?" and today we are rewarded in a big way.
She self sealed herself...I guess the destruction of Ulamog and Kozilek had far more implications that previously thought. Ugin was right, but ... Doomsday postponed. On to Kaladesh.
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Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
I don't regularly post in this section but this story was awesome. The best I've read so far. Full of interesting developments: potential insight into what the Eldrazi are, the hook to several future stories about Eldrazi (not too soon, of course, we're all a bit tired of them) and Tamiyo's scroll. But also something I haven't seen mentioned here much, I think Liliana changed in this story, regarding her "deeper" use of the Chain Veil and her actually learning to master it. And what really struck me about that is that I think Liliana is becoming black-red. I felt the way her "new" use of the Veil was described had a lot of elements of red: rage, reckless abandon, happiness, and also short-sightedness (she revels in the power without realizing she will get tired). Some of the descriptions in the story to illustrate this point:
Liliana's blood was on fire, her mind in shreds. One force kept her coherent—rage.
Without conscious thought she drew deep on the power of the Chain Veil,
somehow this time her rage inoculated her from the worst of the Chain Veil's injuries.
This power. It is a revelation. All it had taken was Liliana's will. Her desire. For so long she had thought herself utterly pragmatic and driven to her cause. To not die. To kill her demon tormentors. But now she knew she had been unwilling to take that final step, to cross over the last barrier. I had restraint. How foolish.
Liliana's scorn draped each word she thought back in reply. Do not seek to contain me with your small expectations, little man. Today is the day I destroy an Eldrazi titan. Why? Because I dare.
I emphasized some adjectives/phrases that are typically associated with red. So I'm calling this now, next Liliana will be BR.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
I also really like how Liliana also sees the Gatewatch in a similar way Bolas sees Tezzert and Sarkhan.
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“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"
Whoah. This was actually an excellent way to end the story, and to close the chapter for the Eldrazi in general. I'm still burned out on cosmic horrors, but at least we didn't end on a sour note, making me look forward to picking up the Eldrazi plot in, let's say 3 years?
Personally, I didn't like the Jace parts. He talking to himself was just too snippy and a bit out of place of how serious the situation was. He felt like a superhero in those marvel movies who quip and chit-chat in the midst of a battle or even a catastrophe where civilians are dying. Oh well.
At any rate, I'm very glad we got a pseudo-info dump, as in, we got new glimpses into how the Eldrazi operate and what their purpose is. "World-Creator"? Emrakul? The soil not yet receptive? On the one hand this is awesome, on the other hand my cynical self is a little bit sceptical about any of this, considering how fast and loose creative likes to play with continuity. Still, #Eldrazi4MultiversalDetritovores!
I did thoroughly enjoy this story although I felt a bit confused. The scene where lili was loosing control of the zombies was it the veil the raven man or emrakul? I did enjoy her little battle with the titan and interaction with emeria was very well done IMO. The story team may have truly reginighted my respect for the eldrazi.
I don't regularly post in this section but this story was awesome. The best I've read so far. Full of interesting developments: potential insight into what the Eldrazi are, the hook to several future stories about Eldrazi (not too soon, of course, we're all a bit tired of them) and Tamiyo's scroll. But also something I haven't seen mentioned here much, I think Liliana changed in this story, regarding her "deeper" use of the Chain Veil and her actually learning to master it. And what really struck me about that is that I think Liliana is becoming black-red. I felt the way her "new" use of the Veil was described had a lot of elements of red: rage, reckless abandon, happiness, and also short-sightedness (she revels in the power without realizing she will get tired). Some of the descriptions in the story to illustrate this point:
Liliana's blood was on fire, her mind in shreds. One force kept her coherent—rage.
Without conscious thought she drew deep on the power of the Chain Veil,
somehow this time her rage inoculated her from the worst of the Chain Veil's injuries.
This power. It is a revelation. All it had taken was Liliana's will. Her desire. For so long she had thought herself utterly pragmatic and driven to her cause. To not die. To kill her demon tormentors. But now she knew she had been unwilling to take that final step, to cross over the last barrier. I had restraint. How foolish.
Liliana's scorn draped each word she thought back in reply. Do not seek to contain me with your small expectations, little man. Today is the day I destroy an Eldrazi titan. Why? Because I dare.
I emphasized some adjectives/phrases that are typically associated with red. So I'm calling this now, next Liliana will be BR.
The first half sound like red, but the other half are very black.
Desire - Black is about the self, so prioritizing desire is very black, even if red also values it.
I had restraint. How foolish. - sounds red, but also very black. She's a black mage chastising herself for not using power because she was afraid the veil would hurt her. "Power at any cost" is very much in black's slice of the color pie.
Why? Because I dare. - Black's philosophy has always been take what you want until something more powerful stops you.
I think Liliana has changed in this story, but she remains mono-black. Where as before she was "go it alone" she now sees the Gatewatch as "better zombies." The biggest difference between red and black is that red actually cares about people around it. Black, being all about the self, only sees others as tools or obstacles. Her musings at the end reflect a black look on relationships rather than a red one.
Liliana is still acting like a black mage, but a black mage seeking to manipulate others rather than being a loner. Which in some ways makes these worse - I don't think the others will take too kindly if and when Liliana decides they're no longer useful.
If anything, her closing statements make her sound more UB than BR, with all this manipulating people and carefully crafting her oath to be just perfect.
So, Emrakul is basically some variation of Galactus. She annihilates planes, but there's probably a good reason for it, somehow.
Or more specifically, Ulamog annihilates planes. My theory is this: I think both Ulamog and Kozilek were Emrakul's unthinking tools each fulfilling a task that they were made for. At some point when, for whatever reason, Emrakul decides its time for a plane to go, Ulamog comes in and eats everything, Kozilek comes in and distorts the world (which is necessary for some reason?) and the distorted, barren world is then ready for Emrakul to come in and remake it into a new world with new life. The 3 of them being some kind of cosmic recycling station.
Without Ulamog and Kozilek, Emrakul is incomplete and unable to fulfill her role. On a living world that isn't barren and distorted, rather than creating she mutates whatever is there. Emrakul is probably unable to stop herself from doing that, and I think she decided to lock herself up until she can somehow create or find a replacement for Ulamog and Kozilek.
The moment that both the Raven Man and the Chained Veil are scared of Emrakul really impressed me. It was a very simple way of showing how truly powerful she is.
Also, I always wonder why they do these descriptions like the one of Erebos when they have the art in there. With so little words they apparently have, they seem wasted. I noticed this more in other stories, but this reminded me.
Also, isn't Jace taller? From what I remember from Agents of Artifice, he wasn't that short...Yeah I know, canon etc, but these kinds of things irk me <_<
Anyway, I really liked this story. The ending was surprising and very effective, both on an emotional level (Tamiyo's despair) and this finally feeling somewhat like a Lovecraftian tale.
2 more things:
1 after reading all this, I still have no clue why Nicol Bolas released the Eldrazi.
2 How was the story of Serra's Realm (I'm assuming this was read) retconned like this? An emphasis on the collapse of the plane to serve as a powersource for the weatherlight instead of it being ravaged by the phyrexians?
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Modern
Affinity
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Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
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Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
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It seems the existence of the multiverse is somehow governed or influenced by the Eldrazi. Like black holes. We see them absorb planets and stars, but what becomes of the matter? Ejected from a white hole on the other end, to become new matter? What function does this serve? We see it end worlds, but we simply cannot understand the universe and its need for such phenomena.
All Planeswalkers, their lives, their home planes, their existence, all part of Emrkaul's story, and her story is existence itself? Life and death, compressed into one entity, perhaps? An arbiter of existence? Man the theories that can abound from this are endless. Most chilling cliffhanger yet.
So nice to see the Eldrazi are more than "eat everything." It really took Innistrad and the prospect of cosmic horror to paint them out as having a greater purpose.
BFZ redeemed at last.
|| 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 ||
I'll agree that it's cool that Emrakul is implied to be some kind of MtG answer to Galactus, but this ending didn't really feel satisfying for me; maybe it's because the build to it wasn't up to the task? Still, probably the best story about the Eldrazi thus far.
Can we please read about some local characters instead of the Neowalkers now? They seem a lot more interesting than the Plane-hopping wizards.
I think Emrakul let herself lose (like she let herself be imprisoned). The chess game wasn't so much a challenge as it was a way to drive a point home to Jace just how very out of his league he is.
Despite being in the title, Emrakul probably doesn't even "end"... she's more of "After the End" then an end of any kind (which Ulamog and Kozilek represent more directly).
What makes this interesting is that Emrakul is aware that Ulamog and Kozilek are dead. She has to be aware because she explicitly chose to leave Zendikar when Ulamog and Kozilek were alive (it was probably be easy to reseal oneself on the plane of Hedron Networks...) whereas she didn't on Innistrad.
Perhaps she couldn't either - the leylines that lured them seem to also have "binding" effects on the Eldrazi Titans... perhaps Ulamog and Kozilek weren't actually fleeing in cowardice during OGW... the leylines were exhausted during Chandra's Ghostfire rampage and they were permitted to leave and they didn't hestitate to make that choice (sure, the pain was also a good motivator, but it might not have been the main one).
The problem with the Eldrazi being bound is that they had to find the leylines and break/exhaust them to free themselves, but in most cases, by the time they're done with that, the plane is destroyed/mutated by their default passive powers. In fact, I suspect that Emrakul was only able to leave Zendikar early because they had 3 titans on the job, something that doesn't usually happen in the first place. Once she left, Ulamog and Kozilek had a way more difficult time breaking the rest of the leylines until the Gatewatch did it for them in that brief moment.
A pity Ulamog and Kozilek didn't have the capability to translate that over to the planeswalkers like Emrakul, so they ended up looking like 2 Godzillas rather than two hands of an incomplete UlaKoziEmra process they might be.
Everything that Emeria does foreshadows the Gatewatch's "victory". In this case its the fact that clever plans are meaningless. Jace wins the chess match in the same way that the Gatewatch "defeats" Emrakul, which is to say not at all.
Lilliana is delaying death just as they are all trying to delay something inevitable. But the inevitable seems to be Emrakul's domain, and they're deluded into thinking their decisions have any impact on their pre-determined destinies by greater entities. Like perhaps Emrakul.
|| 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 ||
|| 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 ||
I think she was aware she was incomplete the moment Ulamog and Kozilek died. The chess game was just her way (and the clearest one) of bringing the entire metaphor to Jace (along with every other attempt, but those ended up feeling only like madness). She's consciously aware of her destructive passive powers and probably also aware of leylines being their weakness (considering it's leylines used to lure, bind and destroy Eldrazi Titans so far...).
Whether Emrakul sees and decides the future depends on the perspective you take - from a mortal's point of view, it feels like inevitable fate. But from her point of view, it's nothing but a GIANT chess board, and even the Eldrazi have weaknesses as players of this GIANT chessboard. This is why she took the form of Erebos in Gideon's view - because that's the closest "same-concept" view she can bring it to Gideon (since I doubt Gideon plays Chess), but the chess metaphor is the clearest one.
The Eldrazi are players of the Chess Board - a mistake and they lose the game. But that's it - they lose a game. Everything else, however, is a piece of the chess board and let's just say you don't exactly respawn when a new game begins - that's a similar but still individually different piece of the board that appears in the next game (which does sort of align with Jace's doppelganger moment if you think about it).
|| 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 ||
In any case, I'm all Eldrazi'd out for the time being.
"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
I liked the payoff here. The whole time I was reading I was waiting for the mindslaver, and thought it wasn't coming. Well done, WotC creative team.
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I also *love* how werewolves were completely tossed to the wind in this entire block's story. It's so neat to see how little Wizards Creative cares about them. /sarcasm
She self sealed herself...I guess the destruction of Ulamog and Kozilek had far more implications that previously thought. Ugin was right, but ... Doomsday postponed. On to Kaladesh.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I emphasized some adjectives/phrases that are typically associated with red. So I'm calling this now, next Liliana will be BR.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Personally, I didn't like the Jace parts. He talking to himself was just too snippy and a bit out of place of how serious the situation was. He felt like a superhero in those marvel movies who quip and chit-chat in the midst of a battle or even a catastrophe where civilians are dying. Oh well.
At any rate, I'm very glad we got a pseudo-info dump, as in, we got new glimpses into how the Eldrazi operate and what their purpose is. "World-Creator"? Emrakul? The soil not yet receptive? On the one hand this is awesome, on the other hand my cynical self is a little bit sceptical about any of this, considering how fast and loose creative likes to play with continuity. Still, #Eldrazi4MultiversalDetritovores!
The first half sound like red, but the other half are very black.
Desire - Black is about the self, so prioritizing desire is very black, even if red also values it.
I had restraint. How foolish. - sounds red, but also very black. She's a black mage chastising herself for not using power because she was afraid the veil would hurt her. "Power at any cost" is very much in black's slice of the color pie.
Why? Because I dare. - Black's philosophy has always been take what you want until something more powerful stops you.
I think Liliana has changed in this story, but she remains mono-black. Where as before she was "go it alone" she now sees the Gatewatch as "better zombies." The biggest difference between red and black is that red actually cares about people around it. Black, being all about the self, only sees others as tools or obstacles. Her musings at the end reflect a black look on relationships rather than a red one.
Liliana is still acting like a black mage, but a black mage seeking to manipulate others rather than being a loner. Which in some ways makes these worse - I don't think the others will take too kindly if and when Liliana decides they're no longer useful.
With Liliana at the helm, maybe the Gatewatch IS the evil Gatewatch. They're young, inexperienced and easily manipulated.
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Or more specifically, Ulamog annihilates planes. My theory is this: I think both Ulamog and Kozilek were Emrakul's unthinking tools each fulfilling a task that they were made for. At some point when, for whatever reason, Emrakul decides its time for a plane to go, Ulamog comes in and eats everything, Kozilek comes in and distorts the world (which is necessary for some reason?) and the distorted, barren world is then ready for Emrakul to come in and remake it into a new world with new life. The 3 of them being some kind of cosmic recycling station.
Without Ulamog and Kozilek, Emrakul is incomplete and unable to fulfill her role. On a living world that isn't barren and distorted, rather than creating she mutates whatever is there. Emrakul is probably unable to stop herself from doing that, and I think she decided to lock herself up until she can somehow create or find a replacement for Ulamog and Kozilek.
Also, I always wonder why they do these descriptions like the one of Erebos when they have the art in there. With so little words they apparently have, they seem wasted. I noticed this more in other stories, but this reminded me.
Also, isn't Jace taller? From what I remember from Agents of Artifice, he wasn't that short...Yeah I know, canon etc, but these kinds of things irk me <_<
Anyway, I really liked this story. The ending was surprising and very effective, both on an emotional level (Tamiyo's despair) and this finally feeling somewhat like a Lovecraftian tale.
2 more things:
1 after reading all this, I still have no clue why Nicol Bolas released the Eldrazi.
2 How was the story of Serra's Realm (I'm assuming this was read) retconned like this? An emphasis on the collapse of the plane to serve as a powersource for the weatherlight instead of it being ravaged by the phyrexians?
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