Why do you feel Emrakul is the "most obvious" thing? Because this is the crux of your argument for it not being Emrakul I wonder when did you decided that Emrakul was "obvious"? Was it the moment previews started? When we deciphered the clues? When it was said Avacyn was stopping an extraplanar entity from 'landing' on Innistrad? Because unless it was the first one then it is not the "Most Obvious" it is only obvious after all the clues have been gathered. which is the way these mysteries work. The vast majority of players haven't been exposed to all of the clues and context to see Emrakul as the "most obvious" so it will suprise them.
Because the first thing everyone I have seen said upon "Nahiri is doing something to destroy Innistrad" immediately jumped to "Emrakul"
Boy, Maro must be laughing his ass off reading this compulsive "It's Emrakul!" thing, as he's the one that said many times that players tend to make cycles of everything, even when said cycles don't exist and never intended to exist and thus don't make sense at all in the first place.
There's something the "It's Emrakul!" people seem to be oblivious about, the fact that there's absolutely ZERO Eldrazi support in SOI, nothing, almost no ramping even, not a reliable way to hardcast Emrakul, so basically when BFZ cycle rotates out, they don't even care that the game'll be left with a bloody 15-mana monster hanging around with no realistic way of casting it, people, WoTC has tried to avoid that like the plague for the last years, and there are lots times where cards from one block work fine with cards from the next or previous block, because it DIVERSIFIES the options in the game, which is basically one of the core aspects of the game itself, they won't trash such a thing just to stick Emrakul in the middle of a pool of cards that it can't interact nor combine in any way at all.
That's just the mechanic, in-game part of the problem, the other part concerns to the flavor, there's NO trace AT ALL of Eldrazi in SOI, neither in mechanics as I mentioned before, nor in any graphical or historical aspect, so claiming that "Because Avacyn is no more now Emrakul will come to Inninstrad" is absurd by miles, Avacyn was made to stop ANY threat to Inninstrad that would lead it to its destruction, she wasn't "Anti-Eldrazi", she was "Anti-Everything-That's-Not-Human", she was created to protect the humans of the plane and to protect the plane from ANYTHING that could come from outside to harm it, and planeswalkers are MILLIONS OF TIMES more dangerous than the three titans together, because the titans might have been nigh-omnipotent and almost invulnerable, but they have the intellect of a frying pan, from Ulamog who was that stupid to stop to fight Gideon and didn't simply swatted the whole island he was standing on, to Kozilek that didn't use its reality-bending powers to deceive the Gatewatch and escape from Zendikar. Emrakul isn't going to have better luck against the Gatewatch because it isn't any smarter than the other two, so they'll easily dispatch it as soon as they find it, and because it'll be a hastily cobbled together story, it'll be dissapointing as OGW was.
PS: And it's not Marit Lage either, prerevisionist content won't be touched with a 3-meter stick again.
Are you new to this mystery and the story? I'm not condescending, I'm honestly wondering if you started looking into the mystery of who is coming in SOI a week ago, because you are not making any references to the evidence we have for Emrakul.
I did not start out on the Emrakul bandwagon, I was firmly against it, and made many arguments similar to what you are making, how it didn't make sense to have yet another Eldrazi so soon after BFZ block, how it didn't seem like it would play well mechanically with this block.
Then the Tamiyo's journal puzzle was solved. I was skeptical and thought "oh whatever, what kind of nonsense are the pro-Emrakul people up to now? Oh..... huh, well all right then. I guess I was completely wrong, Emrakul is obviously coming. OK, time to revisit all of my assumptions, what would this mean for the block." It wasn't as quick as that for my assumptions to change, but you get the point. I was confident that it wasn't going to be Emrakul, but then the evidence put out there by Wizards was overwhelming and undeniable. I would not have done it if I was working for the creative team, but its clear that they chose to go this route. I think you might be late to the party and haven't read and seen everything we've seen.
Are you new to this mystery and the story? I'm not condescending, I'm honestly wondering if you started looking into the mystery of who is coming in SOI a week ago, because you are not making any references to the evidence we have for Emrakul.
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Then the Tamiyo's journal puzzle was solved...
I've been reading the articles since before the Uncharted Realms column was created, so, no, I don't think I'm "late" as you claim.
And about the so-called puzzle: Yeah, yeah, the famous "they came as three" phrase as the only piece of evidence to claim it's Emrakul, because it makes the same sense than claiming it's the Phyrexians or it's Bolas, because "they came as three" may reference an indefinite number of things, such as, the three remaining Praetors in New Phyrexia (Sheoldred and Urabrask were destroyed by Elesh-Norn), or the three mana colors Bolas controls (UBR)
And, at last, dude, until there's a card showing Emrakul itself or any of its brood in Eldritch Moon, it's not Emrakul, period, you can't prove it otherwise.
Are you new to this mystery and the story? I'm not condescending, I'm honestly wondering if you started looking into the mystery of who is coming in SOI a week ago, because you are not making any references to the evidence we have for Emrakul.
...
Then the Tamiyo's journal puzzle was solved...
I've been reading the articles since before the Uncharted Realms column was created, so, no, I don't think I'm "late" as you claim.
And about the so-called puzzle: Yeah, yeah, the famous "they came as three" phrase as the only piece of evidence to claim it's Emrakul, because it makes the same sense than claiming it's the Phyrexians or it's Bolas, because "they came as three" may reference an indefinite number of things, such as, the three remaining Praetors in New Phyrexia (Sheoldred and Urabrask were destroyed by Elesh-Norn), or the three mana colors Bolas controls (UBR)
And, at last, dude, until there's a card showing Emrakul itself or any of its brood in Eldritch Moon, it's not Emrakul, period, you can't prove it otherwise.
It is not the only evidence. It is by far the strongest, but there is a lot to consider.
1) First lets not leave the journal yet. This took a ridiculous amount of effort with Wizards doing several things they never, ever did before. They printed 6 clue tokens. Even in original Innistrad when they made a big deal about Zombies they stopped at four, but the secret message had 6 words so they had no choice. Ugin's insight was JUST printed, its not an old card, its the prior set. The message is almost word for word what Ugin told Jace, when he was warning him about how many Eldrazi there were. There is no plausible explanation other than Wizards sending a message to the players in the pre-release saying "what Ugin said in Ugin's insight is important in this block", and no they aren't trolling us. Wizards also had different flavor text for the clues in most languages rather than direct translations, which they rarely do. They dropped a hint that we might see the full message in just our own language using prerelease cards, which turned out to be true. All the alternate journal entries that were theorized that we'd probably see if the puzzle was solved, all 6 of them showed up in prerelease cards.
So to sum up, Wizards went through a lot of effort and probably some expense to send a secret message basically telling us to go back and look at the flavor text from Ugin's insight again. You can not reasonably interpret that to mean anything other than Emrakul.
2) Emrakul is everywhere in the art, and this isn't a matter of us looking for things that are not there and seeing things we want to see. You see bizarre tentacles coming out of people that look like Emrakul tentacles in both color and shape. You see lattices everywhere. You see solid matter transforming into weird biological matter, which is a known Emrakul thing. Emrakul is close enough to corrupt the plane, but because she is being blocked from entering the plane we don't see spawn..... yet, but we see everything else.
3) In the story, right when Avacyn went mad, she saw visions that hinted at Emrakul.
4) This one isn't evidence more than logic, but I'll go with it. The decision to go to the 2 set per block paradigm happened during BFZ design. If it was originally going to be a 3-set block, its reasonable to assume each set would feature a different titan. Then whoops, we're doing two now. Shoehorn Emrakul in? Nah, lets say Emrakul left and her set happens in the next block. You are essentially saying, for people wanting to see a new Emrakul card, that wizards went "huh... Emrakul's not here? How about that. Oh well, no Emrakul card for you, maybe in a few more years, off to the next block!" Its more plausible to believe that the "Emrakul set" was moved from BFZ block to SOI block, and creative adjusted.
5) The final nail happened 2 weeks ago, when Jace discovered that Avacyn was holding back an extraplanar entity in the blind eternities that was trying to enter the plane. Its not a planeswalker (who can only briefly survive in the blind eternities anyway), and its not Marit Lage (we assume). There's really nothing else it could be. You can't just casually dismiss it. Nothing else is known to exist for a prolonged period of time in the blind eternities.
There are other things other people have pointed out that are less convincing, but I don't think I need to go beyond those 5. If you are up to date on everything and still think its not Emrakul, its because (I think) you bet on the wrong horse like I did, but you stubbornly don't want to change your mind until you can see the card. I changed my mind because I'm always willing to admit that my prior assumptions may have been incorrect, given new evidence.
there's absolutely ZERO Eldrazi support in SOI, nothing, almost no ramping even, not a reliable way to hardcast Emrakul, so basically when BFZ cycle rotates out, they don't even care that the game'll be left with a bloody 15-mana monster hanging around with no realistic way of casting it.
15 mana, huh? Interesting, have you seen the card? They are not going to simply reprint the prior Emrakul card. There's at least a couple reasonable explanations:
1) Who cares if its not good in standard after BFZ rotates? It might be relevant now, and the support for huge monsters won't go away for a while. Ulamog is relevant for 1.5 years, Kozilek for ~15 months, its not the end of the world if Emrakul is relevant for only 9 months. We'll be off to the next new thing anyway, 1 card slot for a mythic that falls off halfway through its standard existence is fine.
2) There could easily be an alt casting cost. I can think of many alt costs, and it doesn't even have to be a set mechanic, it could just be an Emrakul thing. Maybe you can reduce the casting cost by one mana for each land you sac, essentially making a 15 cmc monster with that mechanic cost effectively 8 mana. (but it obviously has to win the game at that point because you've just wrecked your mana base.)
edit: oddly that land sac mechanic I just thought of off the top of my head plays well with delirium.
Why do you feel Emrakul is the "most obvious" thing? Because this is the crux of your argument for it not being Emrakul I wonder when did you decided that Emrakul was "obvious"? Was it the moment previews started? When we deciphered the clues? When it was said Avacyn was stopping an extraplanar entity from 'landing' on Innistrad? Because unless it was the first one then it is not the "Most Obvious" it is only obvious after all the clues have been gathered. which is the way these mysteries work. The vast majority of players haven't been exposed to all of the clues and context to see Emrakul as the "most obvious" so it will suprise them.
Because the first thing everyone I have seen said upon "Nahiri is doing something to destroy Innistrad" immediately jumped to "Emrakul"
There were a LOT of competing theories, We didn't jump to an Emrakul consensus. We only lined up behind Emrakul after Wizards basically beat us down with Emrakul hints.
It is not the only evidence. It is by far the strongest, but there is a lot to consider.
1) First lets not leave the journal yet. This took a ridiculous amount of effort with Wizards doing several things they never, ever did before. They printed 6 clue tokens. Even in original Innistrad when they made a big deal about Zombies they stopped at four, but the secret message had 6 words so they had no choice. Ugin's insight was JUST printed, its not an old card, its the prior set. The message is almost word for word what Ugin told Jace, when he was warning him about how many Eldrazi there were. There is no plausible explanation other than Wizards sending a message to the players in the pre-release saying "what Ugin said in Ugin's insight is important in this block", and no they aren't trolling us. Wizards also had different flavor text for the clues in most languages rather than direct translations, which they rarely do. They dropped a hint that we might see the full message in just our own language using prerelease cards, which turned out to be true. All the alternate journal entries that were theorized that we'd probably see if the puzzle was solved, all 6 of them showed up in prerelease cards.
The same way they printed 6 different Eldrazi Scions or why they stuck with 4 different basic land arts (Or 8 in the case of the Zendikar blocks), variety, it's kinda boring for some people to have the exact same card 20 times, those players like some variance in the card looks.
So to sum up, Wizards went through a lot of effort and probably some expense to send a secret message basically telling us to go back and look at the flavor text from Ugin's insight again. You can not reasonably interpret that to mean anything other than Emrakul.
Which equals to those people that believe there are hidden messages in the fifth letter of each fifth word of each fifth paragraph of each fifth page of each newspaper that uncovers some eons-old mistery, just making stuff up for the sake of making stuff up.
2) Emrakul is everywhere in the art, and this isn't a matter of us looking for things that are not there and seeing things we want to see. You see bizarre tentacles coming out of people that look like Emrakul tentacles in both color and shape. You see lattices everywhere. You see solid matter transforming into weird biological matter, which is a known Emrakul thing. Emrakul is close enough to corrupt the plane, but because she is being blocked from entering the plane we don't see spawn..... yet, but we see everything else.
Except that NONE of those fit with Emrakul, the other Eldrazi had tentacles too, the only thing with "lattice" is the non-promo Mindwrack demon, because the promo one from the Duel Deck doesn't have any of it. Emrakul was stated in the Zendikar Artbook that DOES NOT AFFECT NON-LIVING MATTER, its influence ONLY affects living beings, stone walls aren't living stuff, also, Emrakul's brood doesn't have any sensory organs, no mouths, no eyes. For all we know Emrakul might be scratching whatever passes for its butt near any random plane this moment, hell, it might be about to invade Kaladesh or Ravnica. There's literally NO evidence that Emrakul was being "blocked out of Inninstrad", if Sorin managed to do such a miracle, he didn't have had the need to ally himself with Ugin and the now bipolar psycho Nahiri.
4) This one isn't evidence more than logic, but I'll go with it. The decision to go to the 2-block paradigm happened during BFZ design. If it was originally going to be a 3-set block, its reasonable to assume each set would feature a different titan. Then whoops, we're doing two now. Shoehorn Emrakul in? Nah, lets say Emrakul left and her set happens in the next block. You are essentially saying, for people wanting to see a new Emrakul card, that wizards went "huh... Emrakul's not here? How about that. Oh well, no Emrakul card for you, maybe in a few more years, off to the next block!" Its more plausible to believe that the "Emrakul set" was moved from BFZ block to SOI block, and creative adjusted.
Or maybe they just wanted to cover more horror tropes with the Inninstrad 2.0 and decided not to touch Emrakul for at least five more years.
5) The final nail happened 2 weeks ago, when Jace discovered that Avacyn was holding back an extraplanar entity in the blind eternities that was trying to enter the plane. Its not a planeswalker (who can only briefly survive in the blind eternities anyway), and its not Marit Lage (we assume). There's really nothing else it could be. You can't just casually dismiss it. Nothing else is known to exist for a prolonged period of time in the blind eternities.
You're just making stuff up again, there's nothing saying that Avacyn was blocking anything from entering Inninstrad and you can scour the whole net trying to gainsay me on this one yet you'll fail at it.
There are other things other people have pointed out that are less convincing, but I don't think I need to go beyond those 5. If you are up to date on everything and still think its not Emrakul, its because (I think) you bet on the wrong horse like I did, but you stubbornly don't want to change your mind until you can see the card. I changed my mind because I'm always willing to admit that my prior assumptions may have been incorrect, given new evidence.
No, thanks, I'm not communist to stubborny cling to a lie.
15 mana, huh? Interesting, have you seen the card? They are not going to simply reprint the prior Emrakul card.
But it'll share some characteristics with the old card, just as Ulamog and Kozilek cards did, being the mana cost and size its most famous features (And the difficulty get rid of it, so it might have had Hexproof too)
There's at least a couple reasonable explanations:
1) Who cares if its not good in standard after BFZ rotates? It might be relevant now, and the support for huge monsters won't go away for a while. Ulamog is relevant for 1.5 years, Kozilek for ~15 months, its not the end of the world if Emrakul is relevant for only 9 months. We'll be off to the next new thing anyway, 1 card slot for a mythic that falls off halfway through its standard existence is fine.
Who cares? Well, the game does, mythic cards are used to sell the set, and R&D is more prone to create back-breaking monstrosities such as the Mindsculptor rather than 50 cent forgettable cards like Sphinx Sovereign, and no, the "card becomes useless at the half of its life" idea is something that doesn't happen anymore.
2) There could easily be an alt casting cost. I can think of many alt costs, and it doesn't even have to be a set mechanic, it could just be an Emrakul thing. Maybe you can reduce the casting cost by one mana for each land you sac, essentially making a 15 cmc monster with that mechanic cost effectively 8 mana. (but it obviously has to win the game at that point because you've just wrecked your mana base.)
And there it goes again, the "it doesn't even have to be a set mechanic, it could just be an Emrakul thing", you just disregard one of the integral parts of the design which is that the cards should be playable in the environment they're getting released and should interact with the other cards, you sound like some other player I met years ago that said "Why they had to print answers for planeswalkers in the same set where the planeswalkers are? It doesn't make sense! Planeswalkers should be invincible!"
Which equals to those people that believe there are hidden messages in the fifth letter of each fifth word of each fifth paragraph of each fifth page of each newspaper that uncovers some eons-old mistery, just making stuff up for the sake of making stuff up.
I have to firmly push back on this, because you are being far too dismissive of something that Wizards went through a lot of effort to do. This was not a case where Wizards printed 6 tokens and a journal where the flavor text didn't mean anything and we went nuts with numerology. Wizards was actively involved on social media basically letting us know that yes, there is something there, this is a puzzle, try to solve it.
Also, keep in mind the message was found in every single language printed, even though different languages had different flavor text, different number of words, etc. Its not statistically possible that this was an accident, we're talking about that old cliche where given infinite time, a hundred monkeys on typewriters can eventually write Shakespeare at that point.
So, the message is real, and it was put in there deliberately by wizards, and its almost word for word what Ugin said one set ago. Those 3 statements are all undeniable facts. If the message is deliberate, pointing to Ugin's insight, then that really should sweep away your stubborn skepticism, unless you believe that they are trolling their most enfranchised players.
Most of your other explanations are opinions about design and gameplay that are not inherently "wrong", and/or qualitative things that can't be disproven, like where you somehow don't see things that we see in the art, so moving on.
You're just making stuff up again, there's nothing saying that Avacyn was blocking anything from entering Inninstrad and you can scour the whole net trying to gainsay me on this one yet you'll fail at it.
huh?!? Among other purposes (keeping the humans alive), Sorin also created Avacyn to prevent extraplaner creatures like the Eldrazi from entering Innistrad, and Jace saw that Avacyn was actively keeping something out that was trying to invade, in the story that dropped 13 days ago. You are just wrong here, but since you say there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, I guess we're done.
There were a LOT of competing theories, We didn't jump to an Emrakul consensus. We only lined up behind Emrakul after Wizards basically beat us down with Emrakul hints.
I was firmly on team Marit Lage during the early weeks of spoilers. Then Wizards dropped a hint. And another hint. And yet another hint. Pretty soon, we had a huge pile of evidence. Using Occam's razor, we decided the most likely possible scenario was Emrakul. Bear in mind that an Eldrazi can be the antagonist of a block without the block being an Eldrazi block.
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"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
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Most of your other explanations are opinions about design and gameplay that are not inherently "wrong", and/or qualitative things that can't be disproven, like where you somehow don't see things that we see in the art, so moving on.
Nice way to disregard everything I posted with just one line to simply say at the end "You're somehow missing the things in the art", when they're clearly not there. There's no trace of anything related to Emrakul in any card, and, if you are so sure of the contrary, post the pic here and explain the argument to prove me wrong.
You're just making stuff up again, there's nothing saying that Avacyn was blocking anything from entering Inninstrad and you can scour the whole net trying to gainsay me on this one yet you'll fail at it.
huh?!? Among other purposes (keeping the humans alive), Sorin also created Avacyn to prevent extraplaner creatures like the Eldrazi from entering Innistrad, and Jace saw that Avacyn was actively keeping something out that was trying to invade, in the story that dropped 13 days ago. You are just wrong here, but since you say there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, I guess we're done.
Again, you insist on some misinterpretation of the text, where's the supossed line you claim that's your irrefutable proof about "Avacyn stopped Emrakul from coming"?
Here?
Tamiyo only frowned. She hiked her robes and squatted on the floor, reaching out with gloved fingertips to sample the ash remains. She rose, rubbing the ash between her fingers. She rested her hand on a small telescope on her belt, like a warrior touching a reassuring weapon, her eyes fixed on Jace. "This will have...consequences," she said.
Jace nodded. "The people of this world have lost a protector."
An extended, guttural bass rumble rolled across the sky, profound and booming. The sound thudded in Jace's chest and shook dust from the ceiling.
Tamiyo looked grave. "The plane has lost its protector," she said.
Nahiri basically manipulated Sorin into killing what was basically the closest thing he had for family (After wiping out most of the Markov along the Manor) and leaving the plane vulnerable to ANYTHING that might overpower the weakened defenses humans and the few remaining angels might muster now, not only from outside such as hostile PWs like Ob Nixilis or the Phyrexians, but from within with the myriad of monsters and things that gladly slaughter humans left and right and might end sending the plane down to a self-destructive spiral, stuff much closer and logical than "Emrakul just appears outta nowhere with no sense or context"
Nice way to disregard everything I posted with just one line to simply say at the end "You're somehow missing the things in the art", when they're clearly not there. There's no trace of anything related to Emrakul in any card, and, if you are so sure of the contrary, post the pic here and explain the argument to prove me wrong.
Well, come on. I'd understand being irritated by that one-liner if it was my first response, but looking back at the wall of text we've thrown into this thread, you gotta admit that we're probably taking this a bit too far.
Its better to focus on concrete things that can be "proven" (sort of, more or less) or not, like the journal and Ugin's insight, and less on squishy things based on opinion and perception, because I already know whats going to happen. I'll point to tentacles that look like Emrakul tentacles, and lattices in more than just the demon, then you'll argue how its too vague or not like Emrakul, and we'll go around and around for days because its not something that can be proven or disproven. Lets just pretend we did that with no satisfying resolution and move on from the qualitative stuff.
As far as the story goes, the flavor of the ominous rumbling helps, since it indicates the plane has lost some kind of spell or protection or whatever, but I was talking more about two parts earlier in the story, when Tamiyo told Jace Avacyn was warding the plane. Warding is a pretty specific and peculiar word, it does not mean "guarding", it implies more of a spell or a spell-like effect. Then much later Jace told Tamiyo that she was right, and Avacyn was pushing back against an unknown threat. Earlier stories and bits and pieces surrounding Sorin's creation of Avacyn also refer to her as more than just a protector, that her very existence is meaningful apart from the fact that she can actively kill things.
edit: Warding in a sci-fi or fantasy context almost always means a spell or spell-like effect, anyway. In the real world where magical powers do not exist, then warding can mean guarding, ie "warding off" an invading army or whatever.
Again, you insist on some misinterpretation of the text, where's the supossed line you claim that's your irrefutable proof about "Avacyn stopped Emrakul from coming"?
Here?
Tamiyo only frowned. She hiked her robes and squatted on the floor, reaching out with gloved fingertips to sample the ash remains. She rose, rubbing the ash between her fingers. She rested her hand on a small telescope on her belt, like a warrior touching a reassuring weapon, her eyes fixed on Jace. "This will have...consequences," she said.
Jace nodded. "The people of this world have lost a protector."
An extended, guttural bass rumble rolled across the sky, profound and booming. The sound thudded in Jace's chest and shook dust from the ceiling.
Tamiyo looked grave. "The plane has lost its protector," she said.
Nahiri basically manipulated Sorin into killing what was basically the closest thing he had for family (After wiping out most of the Markov along the Manor) and leaving the plane vulnerable to ANYTHING that might overpower the weakened defenses humans and the few remaining angels might muster now, not only from outside such as hostile PWs like Ob Nixilis or the Phyrexians, but from within with the myriad of monsters and things that gladly slaughter humans left and right and might end sending the plane down to a self-destructive spiral, stuff much closer and logical than "Emrakul just appears outta nowhere with no sense or context"
I'm quite certain he means the story before that not that one and the quotes in question are
"Working on that. But listen. She's the source of the madness among the angels. They synchronize with her somehow. And through her, the church. But...she's not the origin. She's being affected by something else, and—you were right! She's still holding something else at bay. I can't see it, but I think if I push a little deeper..."
Bolded for emphasis.
And then? She is still defending this world, Jace, despite her madness. Did you ever make a promise, Jace? I made one, long ago. And promises aren't just to be kept when the keeping of them is easy. We make promises for times like this, when we desperately want to break them. No, Jace. The scroll stays closed.
Again bolded for emphasis.
Although your quote definitely implies a planar threat beyond any of the normal horrible things lurking on Innistrad.
Also if you want to discuss art look at the Innistrad thread, each instance of lattice work in art has been discussed to death there.
Are you new to this mystery and the story? I'm not condescending, I'm honestly wondering if you started looking into the mystery of who is coming in SOI a week ago, because you are not making any references to the evidence we have for Emrakul.
...
Then the Tamiyo's journal puzzle was solved...
I've been reading the articles since before the Uncharted Realms column was created, so, no, I don't think I'm "late" as you claim.
And about the so-called puzzle: Yeah, yeah, the famous "they came as three" phrase as the only piece of evidence to claim it's Emrakul, because it makes the same sense than claiming it's the Phyrexians or it's Bolas, because "they came as three" may reference an indefinite number of things, such as, the three remaining Praetors in New Phyrexia (Sheoldred and Urabrask were destroyed by Elesh-Norn), or the three mana colors Bolas controls (UBR)
And, at last, dude, until there's a card showing Emrakul itself or any of its brood in Eldritch Moon, it's not Emrakul, period, you can't prove it otherwise.
It is not the only evidence. It is by far the strongest, but there is a lot to consider.
1) First lets not leave the journal yet. This took a ridiculous amount of effort with Wizards doing several things they never, ever did before. They printed 6 clue tokens. Even in original Innistrad when they made a big deal about Zombies they stopped at four, but the secret message had 6 words so they had no choice. Ugin's insight was JUST printed, its not an old card, its the prior set. The message is almost word for word what Ugin told Jace, when he was warning him about how many Eldrazi there were. There is no plausible explanation other than Wizards sending a message to the players in the pre-release saying "what Ugin said in Ugin's insight is important in this block", and no they aren't trolling us. Wizards also had different flavor text for the clues in most languages rather than direct translations, which they rarely do. They dropped a hint that we might see the full message in just our own language using prerelease cards, which turned out to be true. All the alternate journal entries that were theorized that we'd probably see if the puzzle was solved, all 6 of them showed up in prerelease cards.
So to sum up, Wizards went through a lot of effort and probably some expense to send a secret message basically telling us to go back and look at the flavor text from Ugin's insight again. You can not reasonably interpret that to mean anything other than Emrakul.
2) Emrakul is everywhere in the art, and this isn't a matter of us looking for things that are not there and seeing things we want to see. You see bizarre tentacles coming out of people that look like Emrakul tentacles in both color and shape. You see lattices everywhere. You see solid matter transforming into weird biological matter, which is a known Emrakul thing. Emrakul is close enough to corrupt the plane, but because she is being blocked from entering the plane we don't see spawn..... yet, but we see everything else.
3) In the story, right when Avacyn went mad, she saw visions that hinted at Emrakul.
4) This one isn't evidence more than logic, but I'll go with it. The decision to go to the 2 set per block paradigm happened during BFZ design. If it was originally going to be a 3-set block, its reasonable to assume each set would feature a different titan. Then whoops, we're doing two now. Shoehorn Emrakul in? Nah, lets say Emrakul left and her set happens in the next block. You are essentially saying, for people wanting to see a new Emrakul card, that wizards went "huh... Emrakul's not here? How about that. Oh well, no Emrakul card for you, maybe in a few more years, off to the next block!" Its more plausible to believe that the "Emrakul set" was moved from BFZ block to SOI block, and creative adjusted.
5) The final nail happened 2 weeks ago, when Jace discovered that Avacyn was holding back an extraplanar entity in the blind eternities that was trying to enter the plane. Its not a planeswalker (who can only briefly survive in the blind eternities anyway), and its not Marit Lage (we assume). There's really nothing else it could be. You can't just casually dismiss it. Nothing else is known to exist for a prolonged period of time in the blind eternities.
There are other things other people have pointed out that are less convincing, but I don't think I need to go beyond those 5. If you are up to date on everything and still think its not Emrakul, its because (I think) you bet on the wrong horse like I did, but you stubbornly don't want to change your mind until you can see the card. I changed my mind because I'm always willing to admit that my prior assumptions may have been incorrect, given new evidence.
1) They printed 6 different Eldrazi Scions over BFZ ans OGW. Even differentiating between broods, they only needed 2. They have a budget for tokens, and this just took up the tokens they were using. There is nothing unusual, especially considering it is a block mechanic. Also on a semantic note, Ugin said: "Do not forget, they came as 3." If it really mattered they would have done 7 clues.
4) Why is it more plausible that Emrakul got pushed into SOI? Instead of Shoehorning Emrakul into BFZ we will shoehorn it into SOI?
Y'all know Emmy's the titan that messes with biological matter, right? Check out all the beautiful mutations and fungoid lattices across SOI. Also, another key power of hers is to damage the sanity of those around her.
Creature cards with lattice or fungoid or mutant art (not counting zombies or fungi)
C'mon guys, we have Sorin and Nahiri in the center of the story. They were the former guardians of the ELdrazi seal, specially Nahiri. The cards flavor of her makes clear she wants to destroy Innistrad and make Sorin suffer. Her motivations are not convincing enough but her intentions are clear.
And the third ability of her card, that she can summons any creature or artifact... I can understand why the artifact appeal, we can think about equipments. But creature? She can summon a super monster when she have enough "energy". And who is the super monster she knows well and been missing from Zendikar?
She wants that Innistrad suffers as much as Zendikar. And how she can accomplish this? Just gather the pieces of the puzzle. So much evidence.
But could be very fun if Wizards surprises everybody and come with a totally diferent explanation that makes sense.
4) Why is it more plausible that Emrakul got pushed into SOI? Instead of Shoehorning Emrakul into BFZ we will shoehorn it into SOI?
Back before BFZ block was released, knowing we were about to see Eldrazi titans in Zendikar but nothing else about the coming story, it would have been more plausible to think that Emrakul would appear in BFZ block than in the following block.
But, she didn't appear. So that possibility is foreclosed. We are now left with either Emrakul in this block, or Wizards just not showing Emrakul at all for yet a couple more years or so. Given THOSE possibilities, it is now more plausible to believe that, having moved to the 2-set block paradigm during BFZ design, Wizards decided to keep Emrakul in her own set (which was probably going to be set#3 in BFZ block), and moved that set to the next block on a different plane.
Thats one thing the anti-Emrakul folks are missing, Wizards likely went into BFZ design fully intending to show Emrakul, then the 2-set change happened. They probably didn't go into design intending to not show Emrakul.
4) Why is it more plausible that Emrakul got pushed into SOI? Instead of Shoehorning Emrakul into BFZ we will shoehorn it into SOI?
Back before BFZ block was released, knowing we were about to see Eldrazi titans in Zendikar but nothing else about the coming story, it would have been more plausible to think that Emrakul would appear in BFZ block than in the following block.
But, she didn't appear. So that possibility is foreclosed. We are now left with either Emrakul in this block, or Wizards just not showing Emrakul at all for yet a couple more years or so. Given THOSE possibilities, it is now more plausible to believe that, having moved to the 2-set block paradigm during BFZ design, Wizards decided to keep Emrakul in her own set (which was probably going to be set#3 in BFZ block), and moved that set to the next block on a different plane.
Thats one thing the anti-Emrakul folks are missing, Wizards likely went into BFZ design fully intending to show Emrakul, then the 2-set change happened. They probably didn't go into design intending to not show Emrakul.
Then plans change. If they need to push Emrakul they will. They have pushed designs out for later if it doesn't fit. It would make more sense to push Emrakul to a place where it would fit better rather than shoehorn her in mid-design.
Y'all know Emmy's the titan that messes with biological matter, right? Check out all the beautiful mutations and fungoid lattices across SOI. Also, another key power of hers is to damage the sanity of those around her.
Creature cards with lattice or fungoid or mutant art (not counting zombies or fungi)
Y'all know Emmy's the titan that messes with biological matter, right? Check out all the beautiful mutations and fungoid lattices across SOI. Also, another key power of hers is to damage the sanity of those around her.
Creature cards with lattice or fungoid or mutant art (not counting zombies or fungi)
4) Why is it more plausible that Emrakul got pushed into SOI? Instead of Shoehorning Emrakul into BFZ we will shoehorn it into SOI?
Back before BFZ block was released, knowing we were about to see Eldrazi titans in Zendikar but nothing else about the coming story, it would have been more plausible to think that Emrakul would appear in BFZ block than in the following block.
But, she didn't appear. So that possibility is foreclosed. We are now left with either Emrakul in this block, or Wizards just not showing Emrakul at all for yet a couple more years or so. Given THOSE possibilities, it is now more plausible to believe that, having moved to the 2-set block paradigm during BFZ design, Wizards decided to keep Emrakul in her own set (which was probably going to be set#3 in BFZ block), and moved that set to the next block on a different plane.
Thats one thing the anti-Emrakul folks are missing, Wizards likely went into BFZ design fully intending to show Emrakul, then the 2-set change happened. They probably didn't go into design intending to not show Emrakul.
Then plans change. If they need to push Emrakul they will. They have pushed designs out for later if it doesn't fit. It would make more sense to push Emrakul to a place where it would fit better rather than shoehorn her in mid-design.
Except it wouldn't have been mid-design. They had enough heads up about the 2 block shift that they could have designed Innistrad completely around Emrakul. So there would have been no shoehorning. Whether or not that was the decision made or if there were other factors that lead them to their current setting it is very hard to deny Emrakul without simply ignoring LOTS of evidence.
So because of the timeline for the 2 block shift putting Emrakul into BFZ would have been shoehorning her in because of already made plans but putting her in Innistrad would have been a simple design decision with no shoehorning.
Why do you feel Emrakul is the "most obvious" thing? Because this is the crux of your argument for it not being Emrakul I wonder when did you decided that Emrakul was "obvious"? Was it the moment previews started? When we deciphered the clues? When it was said Avacyn was stopping an extraplanar entity from 'landing' on Innistrad? Because unless it was the first one then it is not the "Most Obvious" it is only obvious after all the clues have been gathered. which is the way these mysteries work. The vast majority of players haven't been exposed to all of the clues and context to see Emrakul as the "most obvious" so it will suprise them.
Because the first thing everyone I have seen said upon "Nahiri is doing something to destroy Innistrad" immediately jumped to "Emrakul"
There were a LOT of competing theories, We didn't jump to an Emrakul consensus. We only lined up behind Emrakul after Wizards basically beat us down with Emrakul hints.
Which ones? Marit? Phyrexia? Name one Theory that existed past "Nahiri is manipulating mana on the plane to destroy Innistrad and get Revenge on Sorin" that was actually plausible? Sorry Emerakul was by far the single most obvious answer to the mystery, and if that is the answer WOTC completely wasted ALL Of our time with this clue Bullcrap because a mystery that drops the singular most obvious answer as it's solution is a terrible mystery.
If Emmy does show up, I seriously hope they kill off the last Titan at the end so that the Eldrazi stop showing up to utterly ruin sets.
Why do you feel Emrakul is the "most obvious" thing? Because this is the crux of your argument for it not being Emrakul I wonder when did you decided that Emrakul was "obvious"? Was it the moment previews started? When we deciphered the clues? When it was said Avacyn was stopping an extraplanar entity from 'landing' on Innistrad? Because unless it was the first one then it is not the "Most Obvious" it is only obvious after all the clues have been gathered. which is the way these mysteries work. The vast majority of players haven't been exposed to all of the clues and context to see Emrakul as the "most obvious" so it will suprise them.
Because the first thing everyone I have seen said upon "Nahiri is doing something to destroy Innistrad" immediately jumped to "Emrakul"
There were a LOT of competing theories, We didn't jump to an Emrakul consensus. We only lined up behind Emrakul after Wizards basically beat us down with Emrakul hints.
Which ones? Marit? Phyrexia? Name one Theory that existed past "Nahiri is manipulating mana on the plane to destroy Innistrad and get Revenge on Sorin" that was actually plausible? Sorry Emerakul was by far the single most obvious answer to the mystery, and if that is the answer WOTC completely wasted ALL Of our time with this clue Bullcrap because a mystery that drops the singular most obvious answer as it's solution is a terrible mystery.
If Emmy does show up, I seriously hope they kill off the last Titan at the end so that the Eldrazi stop showing up to utterly ruin sets.
Ok, so first of all, calm down a little. Don't make general statements so hastily, I really don't feel like Wizards wasted my time with this for example, and I thought it was Emrakul pretty much from day one. I can only repeat what I and others have said about this:
- For us Emrakul might have been obvious, but that is certainly not so for non-enfranchised players who don't follow the clues etc. as rigorously.
- A good mystery doesn't have to be unpredictable. It just has to be plausible and well crafted in the end, with red herrings and foreshadowing strewn throughout. And Wizards certainly did that right with SOI in my opinion.
- A huge number of people were disappointed with Eldrazi as just huge Galactus-like monsters in BFZ when they were first introduced as eldritch, lovecraftian horrors. Now they finally do it right with Emrakul on the plane where it makes the most flavorful sense (gothic horror does match up quite nicely with Lovecraft in my opinion).
- You are dismissing theories like Marit Lage and Phyrexia (and I might add "random sea god worshipped by the Stormkirk") as if no one had ever seriously brought them up, which is just not the case, just look at this very forum over the past couple of months. A mystery which leads to so much wild mass guessing must be doing something right, especially when it is leading to a relatively predictable outcome.
- And I have said it before, I really don't think Eldritch Moon will be Battle for Innistrad even if it is Emrakul, nothing seems to lead in this direction. SOI has set up this story really well and I believe this time the resolution will deliver as well. Looking at (and this is my last point):
- Nahiris motivation. I really don't think the mystery is solved with "It's Emrakul" alone, Nahiris role in this is much more mysterious. I mean we have seen her getting mad at Sorin, but we don't know why she is doing all of this. What is her motivation for bringing Emrakul to Innistrad? It can't be simply for revenge, I think it will be a little bit more complicated than that. Maro did hint at more to all of this when he said that the white in her color identity would make more sense later on.
All in all I think you are overreacting considerably. Let's wait for Eldritch Moon to see where all of this is really going
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Because the first thing everyone I have seen said upon "Nahiri is doing something to destroy Innistrad" immediately jumped to "Emrakul"
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There's something the "It's Emrakul!" people seem to be oblivious about, the fact that there's absolutely ZERO Eldrazi support in SOI, nothing, almost no ramping even, not a reliable way to hardcast Emrakul, so basically when BFZ cycle rotates out, they don't even care that the game'll be left with a bloody 15-mana monster hanging around with no realistic way of casting it, people, WoTC has tried to avoid that like the plague for the last years, and there are lots times where cards from one block work fine with cards from the next or previous block, because it DIVERSIFIES the options in the game, which is basically one of the core aspects of the game itself, they won't trash such a thing just to stick Emrakul in the middle of a pool of cards that it can't interact nor combine in any way at all.
That's just the mechanic, in-game part of the problem, the other part concerns to the flavor, there's NO trace AT ALL of Eldrazi in SOI, neither in mechanics as I mentioned before, nor in any graphical or historical aspect, so claiming that "Because Avacyn is no more now Emrakul will come to Inninstrad" is absurd by miles, Avacyn was made to stop ANY threat to Inninstrad that would lead it to its destruction, she wasn't "Anti-Eldrazi", she was "Anti-Everything-That's-Not-Human", she was created to protect the humans of the plane and to protect the plane from ANYTHING that could come from outside to harm it, and planeswalkers are MILLIONS OF TIMES more dangerous than the three titans together, because the titans might have been nigh-omnipotent and almost invulnerable, but they have the intellect of a frying pan, from Ulamog who was that stupid to stop to fight Gideon and didn't simply swatted the whole island he was standing on, to Kozilek that didn't use its reality-bending powers to deceive the Gatewatch and escape from Zendikar. Emrakul isn't going to have better luck against the Gatewatch because it isn't any smarter than the other two, so they'll easily dispatch it as soon as they find it, and because it'll be a hastily cobbled together story, it'll be dissapointing as OGW was.
PS: And it's not Marit Lage either, prerevisionist content won't be touched with a 3-meter stick again.
Fan of Both old and new Slivers (But the new ones are still better anyway)
C Call of Emrakul - G vs R DD: Elves vs. Goblins - W vs B DD: Divine vs. Demonic - WUB Esper Artifice - RGW Aura Dancers
WUBRG Wrath of the Reaper King - WB Men of Faith - B Mercenaries - UB Phyrexian Assault 2.0 - WU Artifacts of Empires
BR Skeleton Warriors - RG Night of The Howlpack - B Bog Murderers - BR Eldrazi Assault - BGU Ulamog's Swarm
Are you new to this mystery and the story? I'm not condescending, I'm honestly wondering if you started looking into the mystery of who is coming in SOI a week ago, because you are not making any references to the evidence we have for Emrakul.
I did not start out on the Emrakul bandwagon, I was firmly against it, and made many arguments similar to what you are making, how it didn't make sense to have yet another Eldrazi so soon after BFZ block, how it didn't seem like it would play well mechanically with this block.
Then the Tamiyo's journal puzzle was solved. I was skeptical and thought "oh whatever, what kind of nonsense are the pro-Emrakul people up to now? Oh..... huh, well all right then. I guess I was completely wrong, Emrakul is obviously coming. OK, time to revisit all of my assumptions, what would this mean for the block." It wasn't as quick as that for my assumptions to change, but you get the point. I was confident that it wasn't going to be Emrakul, but then the evidence put out there by Wizards was overwhelming and undeniable. I would not have done it if I was working for the creative team, but its clear that they chose to go this route. I think you might be late to the party and haven't read and seen everything we've seen.
I've been reading the articles since before the Uncharted Realms column was created, so, no, I don't think I'm "late" as you claim.
And about the so-called puzzle: Yeah, yeah, the famous "they came as three" phrase as the only piece of evidence to claim it's Emrakul, because it makes the same sense than claiming it's the Phyrexians or it's Bolas, because "they came as three" may reference an indefinite number of things, such as, the three remaining Praetors in New Phyrexia (Sheoldred and Urabrask were destroyed by Elesh-Norn), or the three mana colors Bolas controls (UBR)
And, at last, dude, until there's a card showing Emrakul itself or any of its brood in Eldritch Moon, it's not Emrakul, period, you can't prove it otherwise.
Fan of Both old and new Slivers (But the new ones are still better anyway)
C Call of Emrakul - G vs R DD: Elves vs. Goblins - W vs B DD: Divine vs. Demonic - WUB Esper Artifice - RGW Aura Dancers
WUBRG Wrath of the Reaper King - WB Men of Faith - B Mercenaries - UB Phyrexian Assault 2.0 - WU Artifacts of Empires
BR Skeleton Warriors - RG Night of The Howlpack - B Bog Murderers - BR Eldrazi Assault - BGU Ulamog's Swarm
It is not the only evidence. It is by far the strongest, but there is a lot to consider.
1) First lets not leave the journal yet. This took a ridiculous amount of effort with Wizards doing several things they never, ever did before. They printed 6 clue tokens. Even in original Innistrad when they made a big deal about Zombies they stopped at four, but the secret message had 6 words so they had no choice. Ugin's insight was JUST printed, its not an old card, its the prior set. The message is almost word for word what Ugin told Jace, when he was warning him about how many Eldrazi there were. There is no plausible explanation other than Wizards sending a message to the players in the pre-release saying "what Ugin said in Ugin's insight is important in this block", and no they aren't trolling us. Wizards also had different flavor text for the clues in most languages rather than direct translations, which they rarely do. They dropped a hint that we might see the full message in just our own language using prerelease cards, which turned out to be true. All the alternate journal entries that were theorized that we'd probably see if the puzzle was solved, all 6 of them showed up in prerelease cards.
So to sum up, Wizards went through a lot of effort and probably some expense to send a secret message basically telling us to go back and look at the flavor text from Ugin's insight again. You can not reasonably interpret that to mean anything other than Emrakul.
2) Emrakul is everywhere in the art, and this isn't a matter of us looking for things that are not there and seeing things we want to see. You see bizarre tentacles coming out of people that look like Emrakul tentacles in both color and shape. You see lattices everywhere. You see solid matter transforming into weird biological matter, which is a known Emrakul thing. Emrakul is close enough to corrupt the plane, but because she is being blocked from entering the plane we don't see spawn..... yet, but we see everything else.
3) In the story, right when Avacyn went mad, she saw visions that hinted at Emrakul.
4) This one isn't evidence more than logic, but I'll go with it. The decision to go to the 2 set per block paradigm happened during BFZ design. If it was originally going to be a 3-set block, its reasonable to assume each set would feature a different titan. Then whoops, we're doing two now. Shoehorn Emrakul in? Nah, lets say Emrakul left and her set happens in the next block. You are essentially saying, for people wanting to see a new Emrakul card, that wizards went "huh... Emrakul's not here? How about that. Oh well, no Emrakul card for you, maybe in a few more years, off to the next block!" Its more plausible to believe that the "Emrakul set" was moved from BFZ block to SOI block, and creative adjusted.
5) The final nail happened 2 weeks ago, when Jace discovered that Avacyn was holding back an extraplanar entity in the blind eternities that was trying to enter the plane. Its not a planeswalker (who can only briefly survive in the blind eternities anyway), and its not Marit Lage (we assume). There's really nothing else it could be. You can't just casually dismiss it. Nothing else is known to exist for a prolonged period of time in the blind eternities.
There are other things other people have pointed out that are less convincing, but I don't think I need to go beyond those 5. If you are up to date on everything and still think its not Emrakul, its because (I think) you bet on the wrong horse like I did, but you stubbornly don't want to change your mind until you can see the card. I changed my mind because I'm always willing to admit that my prior assumptions may have been incorrect, given new evidence.
15 mana, huh? Interesting, have you seen the card? They are not going to simply reprint the prior Emrakul card. There's at least a couple reasonable explanations:
1) Who cares if its not good in standard after BFZ rotates? It might be relevant now, and the support for huge monsters won't go away for a while. Ulamog is relevant for 1.5 years, Kozilek for ~15 months, its not the end of the world if Emrakul is relevant for only 9 months. We'll be off to the next new thing anyway, 1 card slot for a mythic that falls off halfway through its standard existence is fine.
2) There could easily be an alt casting cost. I can think of many alt costs, and it doesn't even have to be a set mechanic, it could just be an Emrakul thing. Maybe you can reduce the casting cost by one mana for each land you sac, essentially making a 15 cmc monster with that mechanic cost effectively 8 mana. (but it obviously has to win the game at that point because you've just wrecked your mana base.)
edit: oddly that land sac mechanic I just thought of off the top of my head plays well with delirium.
There were a LOT of competing theories, We didn't jump to an Emrakul consensus. We only lined up behind Emrakul after Wizards basically beat us down with Emrakul hints.
It would be cool if Marit Laige was used to battlecruiser fight Emrakul at the very least.
The same way they printed 6 different Eldrazi Scions or why they stuck with 4 different basic land arts (Or 8 in the case of the Zendikar blocks), variety, it's kinda boring for some people to have the exact same card 20 times, those players like some variance in the card looks.
Which equals to those people that believe there are hidden messages in the fifth letter of each fifth word of each fifth paragraph of each fifth page of each newspaper that uncovers some eons-old mistery, just making stuff up for the sake of making stuff up.
Except that NONE of those fit with Emrakul, the other Eldrazi had tentacles too, the only thing with "lattice" is the non-promo Mindwrack demon, because the promo one from the Duel Deck doesn't have any of it. Emrakul was stated in the Zendikar Artbook that DOES NOT AFFECT NON-LIVING MATTER, its influence ONLY affects living beings, stone walls aren't living stuff, also, Emrakul's brood doesn't have any sensory organs, no mouths, no eyes. For all we know Emrakul might be scratching whatever passes for its butt near any random plane this moment, hell, it might be about to invade Kaladesh or Ravnica. There's literally NO evidence that Emrakul was being "blocked out of Inninstrad", if Sorin managed to do such a miracle, he didn't have had the need to ally himself with Ugin and the now bipolar psycho Nahiri.
No, she just saw random disgusting stuff instead of the truth, which was the madness induced by Nahiri tampering with the mana flow of the plane.
Or maybe they just wanted to cover more horror tropes with the Inninstrad 2.0 and decided not to touch Emrakul for at least five more years.
You're just making stuff up again, there's nothing saying that Avacyn was blocking anything from entering Inninstrad and you can scour the whole net trying to gainsay me on this one yet you'll fail at it.
No, thanks, I'm not communist to stubborny cling to a lie.
But it'll share some characteristics with the old card, just as Ulamog and Kozilek cards did, being the mana cost and size its most famous features (And the difficulty get rid of it, so it might have had Hexproof too)
Who cares? Well, the game does, mythic cards are used to sell the set, and R&D is more prone to create back-breaking monstrosities such as the Mindsculptor rather than 50 cent forgettable cards like Sphinx Sovereign, and no, the "card becomes useless at the half of its life" idea is something that doesn't happen anymore.
And there it goes again, the "it doesn't even have to be a set mechanic, it could just be an Emrakul thing", you just disregard one of the integral parts of the design which is that the cards should be playable in the environment they're getting released and should interact with the other cards, you sound like some other player I met years ago that said "Why they had to print answers for planeswalkers in the same set where the planeswalkers are? It doesn't make sense! Planeswalkers should be invincible!"
Fan of Both old and new Slivers (But the new ones are still better anyway)
C Call of Emrakul - G vs R DD: Elves vs. Goblins - W vs B DD: Divine vs. Demonic - WUB Esper Artifice - RGW Aura Dancers
WUBRG Wrath of the Reaper King - WB Men of Faith - B Mercenaries - UB Phyrexian Assault 2.0 - WU Artifacts of Empires
BR Skeleton Warriors - RG Night of The Howlpack - B Bog Murderers - BR Eldrazi Assault - BGU Ulamog's Swarm
never thought of it that way but that's sweet
I have to firmly push back on this, because you are being far too dismissive of something that Wizards went through a lot of effort to do. This was not a case where Wizards printed 6 tokens and a journal where the flavor text didn't mean anything and we went nuts with numerology. Wizards was actively involved on social media basically letting us know that yes, there is something there, this is a puzzle, try to solve it.
Also, keep in mind the message was found in every single language printed, even though different languages had different flavor text, different number of words, etc. Its not statistically possible that this was an accident, we're talking about that old cliche where given infinite time, a hundred monkeys on typewriters can eventually write Shakespeare at that point.
So, the message is real, and it was put in there deliberately by wizards, and its almost word for word what Ugin said one set ago. Those 3 statements are all undeniable facts. If the message is deliberate, pointing to Ugin's insight, then that really should sweep away your stubborn skepticism, unless you believe that they are trolling their most enfranchised players.
Most of your other explanations are opinions about design and gameplay that are not inherently "wrong", and/or qualitative things that can't be disproven, like where you somehow don't see things that we see in the art, so moving on.
huh?!? Among other purposes (keeping the humans alive), Sorin also created Avacyn to prevent extraplaner creatures like the Eldrazi from entering Innistrad, and Jace saw that Avacyn was actively keeping something out that was trying to invade, in the story that dropped 13 days ago. You are just wrong here, but since you say there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, I guess we're done.
I was firmly on team Marit Lage during the early weeks of spoilers. Then Wizards dropped a hint. And another hint. And yet another hint. Pretty soon, we had a huge pile of evidence. Using Occam's razor, we decided the most likely possible scenario was Emrakul. Bear in mind that an Eldrazi can be the antagonist of a block without the block being an Eldrazi block.
"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
Nice way to disregard everything I posted with just one line to simply say at the end "You're somehow missing the things in the art", when they're clearly not there. There's no trace of anything related to Emrakul in any card, and, if you are so sure of the contrary, post the pic here and explain the argument to prove me wrong.
Again, you insist on some misinterpretation of the text, where's the supossed line you claim that's your irrefutable proof about "Avacyn stopped Emrakul from coming"?
Here?
Nahiri basically manipulated Sorin into killing what was basically the closest thing he had for family (After wiping out most of the Markov along the Manor) and leaving the plane vulnerable to ANYTHING that might overpower the weakened defenses humans and the few remaining angels might muster now, not only from outside such as hostile PWs like Ob Nixilis or the Phyrexians, but from within with the myriad of monsters and things that gladly slaughter humans left and right and might end sending the plane down to a self-destructive spiral, stuff much closer and logical than "Emrakul just appears outta nowhere with no sense or context"
Fan of Both old and new Slivers (But the new ones are still better anyway)
C Call of Emrakul - G vs R DD: Elves vs. Goblins - W vs B DD: Divine vs. Demonic - WUB Esper Artifice - RGW Aura Dancers
WUBRG Wrath of the Reaper King - WB Men of Faith - B Mercenaries - UB Phyrexian Assault 2.0 - WU Artifacts of Empires
BR Skeleton Warriors - RG Night of The Howlpack - B Bog Murderers - BR Eldrazi Assault - BGU Ulamog's Swarm
Well, come on. I'd understand being irritated by that one-liner if it was my first response, but looking back at the wall of text we've thrown into this thread, you gotta admit that we're probably taking this a bit too far.
Its better to focus on concrete things that can be "proven" (sort of, more or less) or not, like the journal and Ugin's insight, and less on squishy things based on opinion and perception, because I already know whats going to happen. I'll point to tentacles that look like Emrakul tentacles, and lattices in more than just the demon, then you'll argue how its too vague or not like Emrakul, and we'll go around and around for days because its not something that can be proven or disproven. Lets just pretend we did that with no satisfying resolution and move on from the qualitative stuff.
As far as the story goes, the flavor of the ominous rumbling helps, since it indicates the plane has lost some kind of spell or protection or whatever, but I was talking more about two parts earlier in the story, when Tamiyo told Jace Avacyn was warding the plane. Warding is a pretty specific and peculiar word, it does not mean "guarding", it implies more of a spell or a spell-like effect. Then much later Jace told Tamiyo that she was right, and Avacyn was pushing back against an unknown threat. Earlier stories and bits and pieces surrounding Sorin's creation of Avacyn also refer to her as more than just a protector, that her very existence is meaningful apart from the fact that she can actively kill things.
edit: Warding in a sci-fi or fantasy context almost always means a spell or spell-like effect, anyway. In the real world where magical powers do not exist, then warding can mean guarding, ie "warding off" an invading army or whatever.
Bolded for emphasis.
Again bolded for emphasis.
Although your quote definitely implies a planar threat beyond any of the normal horrible things lurking on Innistrad.
Also if you want to discuss art look at the Innistrad thread, each instance of lattice work in art has been discussed to death there.
1) They printed 6 different Eldrazi Scions over BFZ ans OGW. Even differentiating between broods, they only needed 2. They have a budget for tokens, and this just took up the tokens they were using. There is nothing unusual, especially considering it is a block mechanic. Also on a semantic note, Ugin said: "Do not forget, they came as 3." If it really mattered they would have done 7 clues.
4) Why is it more plausible that Emrakul got pushed into SOI? Instead of Shoehorning Emrakul into BFZ we will shoehorn it into SOI?
Creature cards with lattice or fungoid or mutant art (not counting zombies or fungi)
Art is life itself.
And the third ability of her card, that she can summons any creature or artifact... I can understand why the artifact appeal, we can think about equipments. But creature? She can summon a super monster when she have enough "energy". And who is the super monster she knows well and been missing from Zendikar?
She wants that Innistrad suffers as much as Zendikar. And how she can accomplish this? Just gather the pieces of the puzzle. So much evidence.
But could be very fun if Wizards surprises everybody and come with a totally diferent explanation that makes sense.
Back before BFZ block was released, knowing we were about to see Eldrazi titans in Zendikar but nothing else about the coming story, it would have been more plausible to think that Emrakul would appear in BFZ block than in the following block.
But, she didn't appear. So that possibility is foreclosed. We are now left with either Emrakul in this block, or Wizards just not showing Emrakul at all for yet a couple more years or so. Given THOSE possibilities, it is now more plausible to believe that, having moved to the 2-set block paradigm during BFZ design, Wizards decided to keep Emrakul in her own set (which was probably going to be set#3 in BFZ block), and moved that set to the next block on a different plane.
Thats one thing the anti-Emrakul folks are missing, Wizards likely went into BFZ design fully intending to show Emrakul, then the 2-set change happened. They probably didn't go into design intending to not show Emrakul.
Then plans change. If they need to push Emrakul they will. They have pushed designs out for later if it doesn't fit. It would make more sense to push Emrakul to a place where it would fit better rather than shoehorn her in mid-design.
Don't forget Grotesque Mutation, Incorrigible Youths, Manic Scribe, Might Beyond Reason, Traverse the Ulvenwald, Aim High, Kessig Forgemaster/Flameheart Werewolf and one of each basic land, among others.
Also, add Behind the Scenes to the list.
Art is life itself.
So because of the timeline for the 2 block shift putting Emrakul into BFZ would have been shoehorning her in because of already made plans but putting her in Innistrad would have been a simple design decision with no shoehorning.
Which ones? Marit? Phyrexia? Name one Theory that existed past "Nahiri is manipulating mana on the plane to destroy Innistrad and get Revenge on Sorin" that was actually plausible? Sorry Emerakul was by far the single most obvious answer to the mystery, and if that is the answer WOTC completely wasted ALL Of our time with this clue Bullcrap because a mystery that drops the singular most obvious answer as it's solution is a terrible mystery.
If Emmy does show up, I seriously hope they kill off the last Titan at the end so that the Eldrazi stop showing up to utterly ruin sets.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Ok, so first of all, calm down a little. Don't make general statements so hastily, I really don't feel like Wizards wasted my time with this for example, and I thought it was Emrakul pretty much from day one. I can only repeat what I and others have said about this:
- For us Emrakul might have been obvious, but that is certainly not so for non-enfranchised players who don't follow the clues etc. as rigorously.
- A good mystery doesn't have to be unpredictable. It just has to be plausible and well crafted in the end, with red herrings and foreshadowing strewn throughout. And Wizards certainly did that right with SOI in my opinion.
- A huge number of people were disappointed with Eldrazi as just huge Galactus-like monsters in BFZ when they were first introduced as eldritch, lovecraftian horrors. Now they finally do it right with Emrakul on the plane where it makes the most flavorful sense (gothic horror does match up quite nicely with Lovecraft in my opinion).
- You are dismissing theories like Marit Lage and Phyrexia (and I might add "random sea god worshipped by the Stormkirk") as if no one had ever seriously brought them up, which is just not the case, just look at this very forum over the past couple of months. A mystery which leads to so much wild mass guessing must be doing something right, especially when it is leading to a relatively predictable outcome.
- And I have said it before, I really don't think Eldritch Moon will be Battle for Innistrad even if it is Emrakul, nothing seems to lead in this direction. SOI has set up this story really well and I believe this time the resolution will deliver as well. Looking at (and this is my last point):
- Nahiris motivation. I really don't think the mystery is solved with "It's Emrakul" alone, Nahiris role in this is much more mysterious. I mean we have seen her getting mad at Sorin, but we don't know why she is doing all of this. What is her motivation for bringing Emrakul to Innistrad? It can't be simply for revenge, I think it will be a little bit more complicated than that. Maro did hint at more to all of this when he said that the white in her color identity would make more sense later on.
All in all I think you are overreacting considerably. Let's wait for Eldritch Moon to see where all of this is really going