So, after being a huge fan of the post-mending story for years, over the last few months I've been reading the Artifacts Cycle and a lot of older lore that I've been negligent about until recently.
For years I've taken it for granted that Oldwalkers outclassed Neowalkers in every way, because that's what everyone says. However, now that I've actually read a lot about them... I'm not that impressed.
Yes, Oldwalkers seem more powerful than Neowalkers, for sure. But they don't seem so distantly removed as people claim. A lot of their power seems to be pretty much due to their age and experience, not because of any kind of inherent ability. A 30-year-old Human Oldwalker wouldn't be that much stronger than a 30-year-old Human Neowalker with the same specialty, for instance.
The biggest difference seems to be that Neowalkers are corporeal beings while Oldwalkers were pure energy. Oldwalkers had some inherent advantages that stem from their bodies being energy and not being 'true' bodies, but that seems to be about it. They seem more powerful than the average mage, but the number of times Urza has almost died leaves me less impressed with their might. They could do more, sure, but they were still at a lot of risk in a lot of the same situations our Neowalkers find themselves in, even if the more mundane day-to-day threats aren't that big a deal for them.
most of the neo walkers are also either really young or not featured very heavily bolas and ulgin might still be capable of making planes. and some of the younger neo planes walkers might eventually gain the ability if they can find a way to live long enough.
and that's where the old walkers advantage comes in they had immortality standard came with the package neo walkers? not so much.
I know that scaling people to Bolas isn't really a good idea because he's so beyond a lot of 'walkers pre/post-Mending, but the wiki says that the first duel Bolas had as a Planeswalker lasted a straight month and created a spatial rift in the process.
The most enduring Neo-walker we know of is Gideon, and from the UR, he wasn't even two weeks in and already about to collapse from the strain.
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The spark gave tons of mana to use for spells, but it didn't make you more powerful in all situations. The thing was that oldwalkers where immortal from old age and they acquired tons of info.
A 30 year old oldwalker that knows the same as a 30 year neowalker would probably kick his ass if they knew spells like Fireball, but you probably won't see a big difference between two mages that lead armies.
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Interestingly, there are two walkers that support either view, as has been touched on. On the one hand, Bolas feels clearly diminished, and has actively taken steps to regain power. This supports the old walkers are far more powerful theory. But since he seemed to be more powerful than even most old walkers, he had the farthest to fall, and so may be the sole remaining exception.
So, if that's true, Ob Nixilis supports the neowalkers aren't much less theory. Ob is aware some measure of walker strength has been lessened, but isn't bothered by it. In one UR, he indicates he's glad other planes won't have as powerful protectors to stop him. But since he's monoblack and personality wise very much about power, the fact that he doesn't mind the change would indicate on some level, perhaps just subconsciously, that he believes the diminishing as not that bad.
I think this is one of the major reasons for the mending. Immortal, shapeshifting demigods are not easy to write. They usually just end up comeing off as dickish. Which, to be fair, if you think Bolas, Ugin, or Sorin can be ********s then you definitely don't want to see me with 25,000 years under my belt. i think it can be hard to relay in writing feats that are great enough to live up to the oldwalker rep. If we were to get "Weatherlight: The Anime" then we might see things that more live up to the hype.
Sorry but this is nitpicking. We will never know what it involves but we do know that they were capable of doing it.
We most likely won't ever get the explanation on how but we know for a fact that they could create planes. Bringing
''but what does it involve?'' after so much years serves no purpose other than to try to make the neowalkers more
closer in power to oldwalkers. We know for a fact that they could create them and there was never a mention of
what it involves other than their own power and we won't ever get the answer to that so we must assume that they
simply could do it. No point in trying to disapprove that. The best answer to how could they create planes is the
one that we were provided with: they simply can.
I think you're misreading something into my statement that I'm not trying to say.
My point was that we don't know how they did it, and that it was a fairly rare occurrence. Using it as an explanation of how much stronger Oldwalkers are is pointless because it was something rare, even among Oldwalkers.
I should be clear: It's not that I don't think the Oldwalkers were powerful, or more powerful than the Neowalkers. It just seems that the vast majority of that power is better explained by accumulated experience and wisdom. I find it harder to buy the Oldwalkers as near-omnipotent when I read the artifacts cycle Urza is nearly killed ever 60 pages.
When it comes to how powerful they are, I've been reading Time Spiral again and they are described as near omnipotent
immortals. Hell, Nicol Bolas was so powerful that his very presence was enough to destroy Madara. Teferi was so powerful
that he literally removed Shiv from existence during the Phyrexian invasion. Taysir, Urza, Karn, Freyalise, Leshrac, Serra,
all of these character have shown such feats of raw power that neowalkers look like toddlers compared to them.
As I understand it, almost every major feat of power we're talking about here was fueled by something else. Teferi's phasing out of Jamuura and Shiv was powered by he and Urza overloading the planar portals during the Invasion.
The exception being the truly ancient beings like Nicol Bolas, who were near-godlike. Neowalker Bolas is probably more powerful than most Oldwalkers were, even reduced.
As mentioned above, the Oldwalker's greatest strength over Neowalkers is experience, since the spark doesn't guarantee agelessness anymore. Shapeshifting and rapid healing help, and I would certainly say one on one an Oldwalker could take a Neowalker easily, but as I read about Oldwalkers having only truly experienced Neowalkers, I'm just saying that so far I'm only seeing them as stronger, not eclipsing Neowalkers.
In addition to the immortality, I think Oldwakers had a greater inborn connection to mana than Neowalkers( who have a greater connection than plane bound mages, imo).
Neowalkers have consistently stated to be nothing more than mages with the ability to travel across planes. While I disagree that they have ever shown this properly that is their supposed power level.
Oldwalkers were quite literally gods. Immortal, near limitless mana, and all insane. Their "drawbacks" if you can call them that were due to their unnatural state of existence. Urza is the best example of the flaw of the oldwalkers. Inability to understand or perhaps truly care about the lives of others. From an ascended state all other beings are minuscule. Bolas understands this still even if he lacks his near infinite power to back it up.
So I'll completely disagree with the notion that Oldwalkers are in any way "overblown". World creating, undying, timeless, formless, nigh-infinitely powered beings are indeed far more powerful than mages who can planeshift.
If Creative wants to redact their "Neowalkers are just normal mages with Planeshift" stance then maybe we can discuss more. But currently, because their not supposed to be super special, them being super special is really annoying.
If experience is the deciding factor then Ob really should have had no trouble with the Gatewatch. I mean Ob probably had more experience and wisdom and mana bonds under his belt than five Gatewatches. I wont bring up Bolas and Ugin since being dragons puts them on an inherently higher level than the rest.
I've always considered oldwalkers to be on a god/ demigod status. Back during the dominaria storyline Teferi completely phased out Shiv, and Zhalfir. Also as mentioned before they have the ability to manifest planes out of thin are. They are immortal and can only be killed by completely obliterating them, and they can shapeshift. Back in Lorwyn when planeswalkers were introduced they we compared to being mages with the ability to planeswalk, nothing compared to the might of their formers selves. Their power seems to have been recently exaggerated with them destroying the Eldrazi and all, but they never mentioned in the old storyline about how sorin couldn't kill them. So I don't think the Eldrazi are that strong in comparison to planeswalkers. They simply had no corporeal form which is why they had Nahiri create the Hedron network to bind them to physical form. It was stated ugin never tried to kill the Eldrazi but rather imprison them because he didn't understand their role in the multiverse. Tl:dr Eldrazi can't be used to compare the power of Planeswalkers. Even the Titan engines Urza Created with the power of planeswalkers controlling them could decimate a plane. Walkers now a days seem no stronger than say niv-mizzet. I feel as though that since time spiral was released 10 years ago and a vast majority of the players now a days have no recollection of the storyline pre mending it's easy to see how one would think the neowalkers are strong compared to others in the storyline but that's just not the case. As I stated before, neowalkers just seem like average mages with the ability to planeswalk. I doubt sorin has the ability to conjure enough mana to make a creation as powerful as Avacyn again.
I agree with Jay here, the "godlike powers" of the oldwalkers are at least debatable. Yes, we see them creating planes and changing their form at will, but then they struggle with minor inconveniences. I mean, if Urza has the powers of a god, why does he need those silly mechs to fight a bunch of phyrexians? It's the classical "Why Don't You Just Shoot Him" that fantasy stories tend to fall on: you give your characters inconmensurable power, but then ignore those powers for the sake of a more compelling plot. The Mending was needed for a reason.
Using such incomprehensibly powerful characters as the focus on your story makes it that much harder to craft good stories that don't fall into plotholes/inconsistencies, so yes, the Mending was probably for the best in terms of that.
However, whether or not they used their full power at all times doesn't change the fact about what their full power could do, even if they don't show it all the time. Call it plot/character-induced forgetfulness/stupidity if you want, call it low-showings or whatever.
What would the game/lore have looked like if Planeswalkers used their full power all the time? Entire planes would collapse from their attacks, time shenanigans that would make the people from Doctor Who blush, entire civilizations eradicated merely as collateral damage... How do you represent that in cards? How do you make people identify with somebody who destroys universes with a word/spell?
You can argue they're "overblown" in the sense that while we often see a minimal fraction of their power (compounded with writing difficulties that makes presenting threats to them that are still relevant to vastly less powerful entities), we're told that their power was immeasurable. Of course we're left wanting, but that doesn't change that the feats available to us prove that even experience aside, neowalkers are specks of dust in comparison to them.
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I agree with Jay here, the "godlike powers" of the oldwalkers are at least debatable. Yes, we see them creating planes and changing their form at will, but then they struggle with minor inconveniences. I mean, if Urza has the powers of a god, why does he need those silly mechs to fight a bunch of phyrexians? It's the classical "Why Don't You Just Shoot Him" that fantasy stories tend to fall on: you give your characters inconmensurable power, but then ignore those powers for the sake of a more compelling plot. The Mending was needed for a reason.
This is my problem.
While oldwalkers like Bolas may have been near-gods, the rest just seem to become extra strong shapeshifters.
Like, Urza is frequently almost killed. They can't regenerate if you put them off balance, which multiple enemies are show to be able to do, repeatedly.
You are overblowing Urza being frequently almost killed.
Urza got his head cut off and it was a minor inconvenience for him. All of these ''great dangers and phyrexian infiltrators'' that chase Urza and
''almost kill him frequently'' have never killed a planeswalker.
To be fair, I'm talking about the Artifacts cycle, which I'm about to finish up.
In Planeswalker, Urza is almost killed while in Phyrexia, and by Gix, and numerous times by Phyrexians following him and Xantcha.
In Timestreams, he's nearly killed by Kerrick's mini-Phyrexia twice, and Radiant does in fact nearly kill him, yanking out his powerstones.
It's pretty explicitly stated that if you injure him fast enough or frequently enough he can't regenerate, or if you hit him with something powerful enough.
You are overblowing Urza being frequently almost killed.
Urza got his head cut off and it was a minor inconvenience for him. All of these ''great dangers and phyrexian infiltrators'' that chase Urza and
''almost kill him frequently'' have never killed a planeswalker.
To be fair, I'm talking about the Artifacts cycle, which I'm about to finish up.
In Planeswalker, Urza is almost killed while in Phyrexia, and by Gix, and numerous times by Phyrexians following him and Xantcha.
In Timestreams, he's nearly killed by Kerrick's mini-Phyrexia twice, and Radiant does in fact nearly kill him, yanking out his powerstones.
How is he almost killed?
As we've seen you can't kill him unless you take out the stones as well meaning that any other way to
kill him would ultimately result in failure.
Be so kind and read the books yourself thoroughly, and then come to discuss.
- in Timestreams, he is gravely wounded by the hijacked falcon engines, who cut his flesh so rapidly that he must divert everything to healing himself. He is totally neutralized, unable to do anything else. If he was caught in the same torrent of fire that Kristina, when she was "by accident" immolated by Szat, he would perish as well.
- He was also totally at the mercy of Yavimaya. If the forest had decided to assimilate him, he would be powerless.
- If Xantcha and Ratepe did not sacrifice themselves, Gix would kill him.
- If Radiant was not so curious and did not put the stones together, he would die.
- Saying "cutting his head off was a minor inconvenience" is utter nonsense. He was not able to regenerate his body anymore, his essence diminished by the soul-cutting halberd. Frankly, he would probably die outright if not for the second planeswalker spark in Glacian's stones.
There you go.
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The loss of his body was minor to Urza, as his life was contained within the twin gemstones, the Mightstone and Weakstone, which rested in his head as his eyes, though his powers had been greatly weakened.
Well, someone than better go and edit our wikia then.
Using our Wiki as the primary source of lore knowledge is not wise. There are many things not entirely true, if not outright speculative and/or wrong.
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I think the biggest frame of reference we have is Karn. Not counting Bolas, he is the only walker we have seen in action both pre and post mending.
So the question is: is Karn as powerful now as he was then?
You can also make an argument for Teferi. if the NeoWalkers have been classified as just above average mages witht he ability to travel between worlds, then Spark-less Teferi should be on the same level power-wise as most of our neowalkers, right? So how big is the power dropoff between when he had his spark and now?
I never paid attention to the power level discrepancies between the old and the new walkers. For me, it comes down to most of the old walkers having more interesting personalities than most of the new ones.
Isn't the inconsistent power level of god-like beings like oldwalkers par for the course? Just like in ancient mythology, where the God of the Old Testament was unable to defeat iron chariots or mortal Diomedes wounding gods Aphrodite and Ares in combat.
Isn't the inconsistent power level of god-like beings like oldwalkers par for the course? Just like in ancient mythology, where the God of the Old Testament was unable to defeat iron chariots or mortal Diomedes wounding gods Aphrodite and Ares in combat.
Those mythological examples are due to works by separate and unrelated authors. The discrepancies in Oldwalker power is called bad writing.
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For years I've taken it for granted that Oldwalkers outclassed Neowalkers in every way, because that's what everyone says. However, now that I've actually read a lot about them... I'm not that impressed.
Yes, Oldwalkers seem more powerful than Neowalkers, for sure. But they don't seem so distantly removed as people claim. A lot of their power seems to be pretty much due to their age and experience, not because of any kind of inherent ability. A 30-year-old Human Oldwalker wouldn't be that much stronger than a 30-year-old Human Neowalker with the same specialty, for instance.
The biggest difference seems to be that Neowalkers are corporeal beings while Oldwalkers were pure energy. Oldwalkers had some inherent advantages that stem from their bodies being energy and not being 'true' bodies, but that seems to be about it. They seem more powerful than the average mage, but the number of times Urza has almost died leaves me less impressed with their might. They could do more, sure, but they were still at a lot of risk in a lot of the same situations our Neowalkers find themselves in, even if the more mundane day-to-day threats aren't that big a deal for them.
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and that's where the old walkers advantage comes in they had immortality standard came with the package neo walkers? not so much.
The most enduring Neo-walker we know of is Gideon, and from the UR, he wasn't even two weeks in and already about to collapse from the strain.
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A 30 year old oldwalker that knows the same as a 30 year neowalker would probably kick his ass if they knew spells like Fireball, but you probably won't see a big difference between two mages that lead armies.
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So, if that's true, Ob Nixilis supports the neowalkers aren't much less theory. Ob is aware some measure of walker strength has been lessened, but isn't bothered by it. In one UR, he indicates he's glad other planes won't have as powerful protectors to stop him. But since he's monoblack and personality wise very much about power, the fact that he doesn't mind the change would indicate on some level, perhaps just subconsciously, that he believes the diminishing as not that bad.
My point was that we don't know how they did it, and that it was a fairly rare occurrence. Using it as an explanation of how much stronger Oldwalkers are is pointless because it was something rare, even among Oldwalkers.
I should be clear: It's not that I don't think the Oldwalkers were powerful, or more powerful than the Neowalkers. It just seems that the vast majority of that power is better explained by accumulated experience and wisdom. I find it harder to buy the Oldwalkers as near-omnipotent when I read the artifacts cycle Urza is nearly killed ever 60 pages.
As I understand it, almost every major feat of power we're talking about here was fueled by something else. Teferi's phasing out of Jamuura and Shiv was powered by he and Urza overloading the planar portals during the Invasion.
The exception being the truly ancient beings like Nicol Bolas, who were near-godlike. Neowalker Bolas is probably more powerful than most Oldwalkers were, even reduced.
As mentioned above, the Oldwalker's greatest strength over Neowalkers is experience, since the spark doesn't guarantee agelessness anymore. Shapeshifting and rapid healing help, and I would certainly say one on one an Oldwalker could take a Neowalker easily, but as I read about Oldwalkers having only truly experienced Neowalkers, I'm just saying that so far I'm only seeing them as stronger, not eclipsing Neowalkers.
Maybe that will change as I continue to catch up.
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Neowalkers have consistently stated to be nothing more than mages with the ability to travel across planes. While I disagree that they have ever shown this properly that is their supposed power level.
Oldwalkers were quite literally gods. Immortal, near limitless mana, and all insane. Their "drawbacks" if you can call them that were due to their unnatural state of existence. Urza is the best example of the flaw of the oldwalkers. Inability to understand or perhaps truly care about the lives of others. From an ascended state all other beings are minuscule. Bolas understands this still even if he lacks his near infinite power to back it up.
So I'll completely disagree with the notion that Oldwalkers are in any way "overblown". World creating, undying, timeless, formless, nigh-infinitely powered beings are indeed far more powerful than mages who can planeshift.
If Creative wants to redact their "Neowalkers are just normal mages with Planeshift" stance then maybe we can discuss more. But currently, because their not supposed to be super special, them being super special is really annoying.
However, whether or not they used their full power at all times doesn't change the fact about what their full power could do, even if they don't show it all the time. Call it plot/character-induced forgetfulness/stupidity if you want, call it low-showings or whatever.
What would the game/lore have looked like if Planeswalkers used their full power all the time? Entire planes would collapse from their attacks, time shenanigans that would make the people from Doctor Who blush, entire civilizations eradicated merely as collateral damage... How do you represent that in cards? How do you make people identify with somebody who destroys universes with a word/spell?
You can argue they're "overblown" in the sense that while we often see a minimal fraction of their power (compounded with writing difficulties that makes presenting threats to them that are still relevant to vastly less powerful entities), we're told that their power was immeasurable. Of course we're left wanting, but that doesn't change that the feats available to us prove that even experience aside, neowalkers are specks of dust in comparison to them.
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While oldwalkers like Bolas may have been near-gods, the rest just seem to become extra strong shapeshifters.
Like, Urza is frequently almost killed. They can't regenerate if you put them off balance, which multiple enemies are show to be able to do, repeatedly.
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In Planeswalker, Urza is almost killed while in Phyrexia, and by Gix, and numerous times by Phyrexians following him and Xantcha.
In Timestreams, he's nearly killed by Kerrick's mini-Phyrexia twice, and Radiant does in fact nearly kill him, yanking out his powerstones.
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Well, that takes any tension that existed in any of the early books right out, doesn't it? :/
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- in Timestreams, he is gravely wounded by the hijacked falcon engines, who cut his flesh so rapidly that he must divert everything to healing himself. He is totally neutralized, unable to do anything else. If he was caught in the same torrent of fire that Kristina, when she was "by accident" immolated by Szat, he would perish as well.
- He was also totally at the mercy of Yavimaya. If the forest had decided to assimilate him, he would be powerless.
- If Xantcha and Ratepe did not sacrifice themselves, Gix would kill him.
- If Radiant was not so curious and did not put the stones together, he would die.
- Saying "cutting his head off was a minor inconvenience" is utter nonsense. He was not able to regenerate his body anymore, his essence diminished by the soul-cutting halberd. Frankly, he would probably die outright if not for the second planeswalker spark in Glacian's stones.
There you go.
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So the question is: is Karn as powerful now as he was then?
You can also make an argument for Teferi. if the NeoWalkers have been classified as just above average mages witht he ability to travel between worlds, then Spark-less Teferi should be on the same level power-wise as most of our neowalkers, right? So how big is the power dropoff between when he had his spark and now?
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