Which would explain why so many Neowalkers sparked there although it has such a small population: The few who get the spark inevitably ignite because of the traumatizing horror of living on Innistrad.
And by the way: I like stories about legendaries as much as the next guy, but the problem really is (as has been said before) that we switch planes every block and then only get back in half a decade or so. You can't have continuing protagonists that way which is not very great for a more focussed upon story. Like it or not, Planeswalkers as the main characters and Legendaries as secondary (and sometimes even important) characters is probably the best way to do it.
This is why we need "intermittent" stories during the course of a story, such as Kamigawa's during the recent article. To cite a more "relevant" example, imagine if while chasing Ob-Nixilis in a future plot, Jace returns to Zendikar and checks with Tazri (and the rest of the team) whether Ob returned and what he did if he had (I know he probably didn't, but it's just an example) but he learns of other things there (Nahiri, for example). They'll still be secondary characters, but they'll be the important links between planeswalkers' information of each other without them having to always run into each other awfully conveniently. Also, they wouldn't be completely locked into having to return to the plane for a feature.
Sure, it's a bit sad that you'll have to be a "Legendary planeswalker informant" to get some relevance, but we'll all have the live and adapt... and it's vast improvement from being a completely forgotten foe... anyone remembers Zurgo?
After playing the Kaledesh Campaign in Magic Duels I have begun to fear for Dovin Baan.
I just get this feeling that regardless of Tezzeret's success on the plane, he's going to experience a major fallout. This I contend based on a number of possible scenarios all ending poorly for him.
Scenario 1: Tezzaret succeeds and his success requires continued planar control of Kaledesh. In this Scenario, whether it's somehow bringing New Phyrexia or its corruption to the plane or somehow consolidating Bolas's influence there, the Consulate will lose its autonomy either by force or slow thralldom to Bolas. This scenario is unlikely I think and I only mention it being possible.
Scenario 2 and 3: Tezzeret Fails in his schemes or Succeeds but without requiring a continued presence on Kaledesh. Either way it seems likely in either case that the Planeswalker-assisted revolution wouid be successful. Dovin would have to flee his homeplane, likely following Tezzeret and more than likely becoming bested and dominated by Bolas.
Edit: I recognize however there are other possible outcomes but these to me seem most plausible and all spell bad things for our stuffy Bureaucratic Planeswalker. What do you guys think? Am I off? The only hope for him is to be forwarned or discover independently that Tezzeret means him and his plane nothing good.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
After playing the Kaledesh Campaign in Magic Duels I have begun to fear for Dovin Baan.
I just get this feeling that regardless of Tezzeret's success on the plane, he's going to experience a major fallout. This I contend based on a number of possible scenarios all ending poorly for him.
Scenario 1: Tezzaret succeeds and his success requires continued planar control of Kaledesh. In this Scenario, whether it's somehow bringing New Phyrexia or its corruption to the plane or somehow consolidating Bolas's influence there, the Consulate will lose its autonomy either by force or slow thralldom to Bolas. This scenario is unlikely I think and I only mention it being possible.
Scenario 2 and 3: Tezzeret Fails in his schemes or Succeeds but without requiring a continued presence on Kaledesh. Either way it seems likely in either case that the Planeswalker-assisted revolution wouid be successful. Dovin would have to flee his homeplane, likely following Tezzeret and more than likely becoming bested and dominated by Bolas.
Edit: I recognize however there are other possible outcomes but these to me seem most plausible and all spell bad things for our stuffy Bureaucratic Planeswalker. What do you guys think? Am I off? The only hope for him is to be forwarned or discover independently that Tezzeret means him and his plane nothing good.
I'm still holding out for Dovin realizing that Tezzeret is manipulating the Consul for his own personal gain uncaringly throwing Kaladesh into chaos in the process, and so turns against him.
That still leaves his and the Consul's standing with the renegades, Gatewatch and other bodies/organizations; and the resolution of the various conflicts in question, but at least he won't be in the position of having been "on Tezzeret's side" quite so much.
Before getting overly critical about the number of walkers, look at where those walkers come from primarily.
It's typically, at most, one or two per plane. Planes with more, like Ravnica, tend to be extremely populous or dangerous. Of the planeswalkers who've sparked since the mending:
How many is too many? Three doesn't seem like a glut, it seems like a reasonable generational average on planes with large populations.
To me it's less the number and more that a majority of our cast is in the 20-mid 30's. That is an amazingly small age range for an "infinite" multiverse.
This was part of my point, planes having multiple walkers ignite within a relatively short time period. I get that it's fun and exciting to have new walkers for each plane, but it begins to undermine the odds stated by Creative. If Creative continues at this rate, they will need to do a DC-like Crisis to cull the amount of walkers, like DC did to various Earths. Either that, or give us something to work with as to why we are seeing more ignitions at the rate we are.
Having read comments from the weekend, I def get that some planes are more hazardous and thus more ignitions can happen. But I would not be opposed at seeing more Earth-Prime type planes where no walkers ever ignited, even if it were a dangerous plane.
Which would explain why so many Neowalkers sparked there although it has such a small population: The few who get the spark inevitably ignite because of the traumatizing horror of living on Innistrad.
And by the way: I like stories about legendaries as much as the next guy, but the problem really is (as has been said before) that we switch planes every block and then only get back in half a decade or so. You can't have continuing protagonists that way which is not very great for a more focussed upon story. Like it or not, Planeswalkers as the main characters and Legendaries as secondary (and sometimes even important) characters is probably the best way to do it.
This is why we need "intermittent" stories during the course of a story, such as Kamigawa's during the recent article. To cite a more "relevant" example, imagine if while chasing Ob-Nixilis in a future plot, Jace returns to Zendikar and checks with Tazri (and the rest of the team) whether Ob returned and what he did if he had (I know he probably didn't, but it's just an example) but he learns of other things there (Nahiri, for example). They'll still be secondary characters, but they'll be the important links between planeswalkers' information of each other without them having to always run into each other awfully conveniently. Also, they wouldn't be completely locked into having to return to the plane for a feature.
Sure, it's a bit sad that you'll have to be a "Legendary planeswalker informant" to get some relevance, but we'll all have the live and adapt... and it's vast improvement from being a completely forgotten foe... anyone remembers Zurgo?
The issue there is storyline use on characters that would be difficult to represent in cards. The card space is finite in a block, and limited to the plane we are on (to a degree, we get odd things like Ugin's Insight). But even with the upped count on Legendary creatures lately? I don't see them burning a slot on someone off plane. We get to see them, again, sure, but it undercuts someone making a play in the current set (we spent a while off plane, and while every legend (except Gonti, who has only been mentioned) has shown up in the plot. Most for fairly low impact roles.
I imagine, barring planes like Theros and Ravnica which had huge legend cycles, we'll revisit any legendary that isn't super dead when we return to the plane. Inn 3 will have Thalia and Sigarda, Rav 3 will have Lavinia and... Niv in stories (with the 15 other guys in cards), and so on. Planes we're not returning to... have spaces in supplementals like Comm decks (and I hope Planechase and Archenemy decks if we ever see those again). Master sets have been eating a lot of releases without offering anything new for vorthos to enjoy.
Rather enjoyed todays story, though mostly as an Ajani fan I'm just yassssssing since he is in the storyline. Also it looks like Saheelis role is going to be working together with Ajani and the gatewatch to free the inventors/inventions.
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():
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The issue there is storyline use on characters that would be difficult to represent in cards. The card space is finite in a block, and limited to the plane we are on (to a degree, we get odd things like Ugin's Insight). But even with the upped count on Legendary creatures lately? I don't see them burning a slot on someone off plane. We get to see them, again, sure, but it undercuts someone making a play in the current set (we spent a while off plane, and while every legend (except Gonti, who has only been mentioned) has shown up in the plot. Most for fairly low impact roles.
I imagine, barring planes like Theros and Ravnica which had huge legend cycles, we'll revisit any legendary that isn't super dead when we return to the plane. Inn 3 will have Thalia and Sigarda, Rav 3 will have Lavinia and... Niv in stories (with the 15 other guys in cards), and so on. Planes we're not returning to... have spaces in supplementals like Comm decks (and I hope Planechase and Archenemy decks if we ever see those again). Master sets have been eating a lot of releases without offering anything new for vorthos to enjoy.
That's why you use Legendary Creatures already printed. The Kamigawa one might not have been a good example (considering we'll still not getting a Return and the original block was over a thousand years back), but look at the recent one on Ravnica - Lavinia and Niv-Mizzet were mentioned and although Ral was a planeswalker, the role he played could have been played by a Legendary character aware of planeswalkers (since Ral didn't planeswalk that article). It's not about creating new Legendary creatures off-plane, it's making sure existing off-plane Legendaries can still be relevant (however minor) to a current storyline, using planeswalkers as the link.
Does this take away from the new Legendaries introduced on the current plane? Yes it does, but not a lot and honestly, not there's hardly noticeable since even Legendary Creatures in the current plane are already treated like background objects. It also helps build up the planeswalker's interactions with others, something missing from the "high-and-mighty" age of planeswalkers that got us "self-centered" walkers like Sorin (or "short-sightedness" for Nahiri). For every escapade Jace does Lavinia is mentioned, when (and if) she snaps during Ravnica 3.0 due to Jace always goes missing, we've actually experienced that through all those intermittent paragraphs/articles across the blocks we've been through, rather than it be a informed attribute. It might not be a vast improvement for Lavinia's characterization, but it is still an improvement.
Planeswalkers (currently) aren't going to planes for vacations, they're more akin to well-traveled business people visiting countries to establish connections.
I know that we are on the fence about Phyrexia showing up or not but we can assume that a planar portal is being built. I honestly hope that Tezzeret won't summon phyrexia to Kaladesh, or anything else, only for it being defeated by the usage of Aether because this would be the third time in a row that an unstoppable threat just coincidentally appears on the one plane that actually has the ability to stop it. Please, no phyrexia unless they are planning do destroy Kaladesh.
I'm guessing the big conflict is the Gatewatch + Ajani and Saheeli destroying/stopping the device* before Tezzeret finishes it/powers it up.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
That's why you use Legendary Creatures already printed. The Kamigawa one might not have been a good example (considering we'll still not getting a Return and the original block was over a thousand years back), but look at the recent one on Ravnica - Lavinia and Niv-Mizzet were mentioned and although Ral was a planeswalker, the role he played could have been played by a Legendary character aware of planeswalkers (since Ral didn't planeswalk that article). It's not about creating new Legendary creatures off-plane, it's making sure existing off-plane Legendaries can still be relevant (however minor) to a current storyline, using planeswalkers as the link.
Does this take away from the new Legendaries introduced on the current plane? Yes it does, but not a lot and honestly, not there's hardly noticeable since even Legendary Creatures in the current plane are already treated like background objects. It also helps build up the planeswalker's interactions with others, something missing from the "high-and-mighty" age of planeswalkers that got us "self-centered" walkers like Sorin (or "short-sightedness" for Nahiri). For every escapade Jace does Lavinia is mentioned, when (and if) she snaps during Ravnica 3.0 due to Jace always goes missing, we've actually experienced that through all those intermittent paragraphs/articles across the blocks we've been through, rather than it be a informed attribute. It might not be a vast improvement for Lavinia's characterization, but it is still an improvement.
Planeswalkers (currently) aren't going to planes for vacations, they're more akin to well-traveled business people visiting countries to establish connections.
I'm more speaking of the Ajani story when it comes to balancing things, we got a lot (about 50% of the action) was about characters we'd never see in the block. Lavinia being around is about the level of use that is acceptable, but past that we get to the point it damages the overall cohesiveness of the set+story together. Although I'm still holding out hope that Shadowblayde (she's hilarious we need more of her) gets a card in Aether.
I wish there was enough resources that Wizards could give us a second story each week. It'd mean that the break between two sets allows for more stories in non-standard places. Twice as many Conspiracy/Supplimental stories, and a few more random 'so what's Thalia up to back home' stories. As I want more stuff outside of standard's block, but I also want the characters in the set and the characters in the stories to match up. I still am holding hope for a Gonti story to happen.
I'm more speaking of the Ajani story when it comes to balancing things, we got a lot (about 50% of the action) was about characters we'd never see in the block. Lavinia being around is about the level of use that is acceptable, but past that we get to the point it damages the overall cohesiveness of the set+story together. Although I'm still holding out hope that Shadowblayde (she's hilarious we need more of her) gets a card in Aether.
I wish there was enough resources that Wizards could give us a second story each week. It'd mean that the break between two sets allows for more stories in non-standard places. Twice as many Conspiracy/Supplimental stories, and a few more random 'so what's Thalia up to back home' stories. As I want more stuff outside of standard's block, but I also want the characters in the set and the characters in the stories to match up. I still am holding hope for a Gonti story to happen.
The way I see it (for now) though, its that the stories revolve around the planeswalkers of the set rather than the plane it is based off. While it is true we will see less (and its inhabitants) of the main plane that the story is taking place on, a storyline that dabbles across several planes at the same time gives the sense of planar travel they wanted the planeswalkers to portray, not just merely travelling between blocks as a transition tool, but rather as a plot point itself.
I understand where you're coming from though, since I also used to feel that way as well, but I've becoming more accepting that the story is ultimately about planeswalkers at the moment rather than the plane (it's inhabitants and events being the backdrop of the plans of planeswalkers - the Eldrazi themselves were essentially all played by planeswalkers rather than a "legitimate threat of their own will" until Emrakul revealed the twist if you think about it). I'll sacrifice 50% of a Legendary Creature's presence in his/her own plane if it means that creature gets featured in a story that takes place in another plane because of their connections with the planeswalkers they built during the 50% time they got on their own plane, to show that they have relevance to the actual storyline of the planeswalkers rather than relevance to the backdrop storyline of their homeplane.
Well for some time, almost every Legendary Creature played that backdrop role (Theros & Tarkir mainly) and I felt that made the plane and its plot "less important" to the overall storyline of planeswalkers and the multiverse (Tarkir got away with Ugin's revival, I honestly felt while Theros left a hook and had Ajani, it wasn't enough). RTR on the other hand, did a good job at integrating itself (but then again, it's the current planeswalker hub, so it better had done a good job). Zendikar and Innistrad are too recent for me to determine whether they will succeed on that point or not. Kamigawa was honestly just my bias, since R&D still doesn't seem keen to return there yet and it's been far too long (both lore-wise and set-wise) for any set-up to be relevant.
Ultimately I think we just hold different point of views (and mine are temporary mainly because I foresee the planeswalker-centric storyline going on for some time), so we'll have to agree to disagree.
This was part of my point, planes having multiple walkers ignite within a relatively short time period. I get that it's fun and exciting to have new walkers for each plane, but it begins to undermine the odds stated by Creative. If Creative continues at this rate, they will need to do a DC-like Crisis to cull the amount of walkers, like DC did to various Earths. Either that, or give us something to work with as to why we are seeing more ignitions at the rate we are.
Having read comments from the weekend, I def get that some planes are more hazardous and thus more ignitions can happen. But I would not be opposed at seeing more Earth-Prime type planes where no walkers ever ignited, even if it were a dangerous plane.
I think that's a fair point, but I'd caution you to remember we don't actually know the populations of these planes, and even in the old days plenty of walkers ascended around the same time (Urza and Bo Levar, for instance). Others we just didn't see, because the story was hyperfocused on Dominaria and the Phyrexia crisis. For our current crew, we're looking at maybe a 30-40 year variance in the various spark ignitions - Nissa was 40 years ago, while Kiora was just a few, for instance. Fewer than One in a Million is still a lot of people for most planes, I don't think it's unreasonable, and I'm not sure we should take the one in a million thing as a definite rate so much as an indicator of rarity.
It's also possible we are dealing with a Fermi's Paradox situation with the Oldwalkers. Many oldwalkers were snuffed out in their infancy (for instance, the first planeswalker Urza met tried to kill), so without the old insane walkers around killing off any potential rivals, it could just be that there is a lower early death rate and so more to talk about.
I know that we are on the fence about Phyrexia showing up or not but we can assume that a planar portal is being built. I honestly hope that Tezzeret won't summon phyrexia to Kaladesh, or anything else, only for it being defeated by the usage of Aether because this would be the third time in a row that an unstoppable threat just coincidentally appears on the one plane that actually has the ability to stop it. Please, no phyrexia unless they are planning do destroy Kaladesh.
Blink twice if you've been taken hostage and need help
I agree with you on Phyrexia. I don't want it around Kaladesh just yet.
Like others, I'd like more info on Tezzeret, even from his perspective. Last we saw or heard from him was, what, six real-world years ago? I think at some point we'll get more detail, since my gut says that he either says or does something that leads Ajani to Amonkhet (which I hope doesn't suffer the same fate as Kaladesh, in that the plane has the appearance of a culture while ignoring every other piece of the culture; ladyfriend is half Egyptian, and Egyptian myth and history always interested me, but I digress!).
As for the portal, I think it would be a bad plot to destroy it in this block. From what we see, it has yet to unlock interplanar travel. It simply has the capability of doing so. (Also, if Tezzeret is a genius and was actively looking to make a portal device, I think odds are good he could make it; this leads me to think he wasn't looking to make it, but upon learning of its promise, wants it). You need someone like Tezzeret to take it and make that final step to planar portaldom.
We have yet to see, if I recall correctly, biological things be transferred by it. This makes me think we are looking at a reverse Terminator. The biological material must be contained in something not biological, like Ugin's cocoon. Also, as clothes, a bident, and a Theros god-forged weapon can pass through the Blind Eternities with a walker, can Tezzeret just bounce with the portal tech? That would avoid needless (from his perspective) conflict.
I really hope Phyrexia isn't coming to Kaladesh. I love this setting, for one. And secondly we already saw phyrexia on an artifact plane. Let's get them on one that's not artifact focused.
This is why we need "intermittent" stories during the course of a story, such as Kamigawa's during the recent article. To cite a more "relevant" example, imagine if while chasing Ob-Nixilis in a future plot, Jace returns to Zendikar and checks with Tazri (and the rest of the team) whether Ob returned and what he did if he had (I know he probably didn't, but it's just an example) but he learns of other things there (Nahiri, for example). They'll still be secondary characters, but they'll be the important links between planeswalkers' information of each other without them having to always run into each other awfully conveniently. Also, they wouldn't be completely locked into having to return to the plane for a feature.
Sure, it's a bit sad that you'll have to be a "Legendary planeswalker informant" to get some relevance, but we'll all have the live and adapt... and it's vast improvement from being a completely forgotten foe... anyone remembers Zurgo?
I just get this feeling that regardless of Tezzeret's success on the plane, he's going to experience a major fallout. This I contend based on a number of possible scenarios all ending poorly for him.
Scenario 1: Tezzaret succeeds and his success requires continued planar control of Kaledesh. In this Scenario, whether it's somehow bringing New Phyrexia or its corruption to the plane or somehow consolidating Bolas's influence there, the Consulate will lose its autonomy either by force or slow thralldom to Bolas. This scenario is unlikely I think and I only mention it being possible.
Scenario 2 and 3: Tezzeret Fails in his schemes or Succeeds but without requiring a continued presence on Kaledesh. Either way it seems likely in either case that the Planeswalker-assisted revolution wouid be successful. Dovin would have to flee his homeplane, likely following Tezzeret and more than likely becoming bested and dominated by Bolas.
Edit: I recognize however there are other possible outcomes but these to me seem most plausible and all spell bad things for our stuffy Bureaucratic Planeswalker. What do you guys think? Am I off? The only hope for him is to be forwarned or discover independently that Tezzeret means him and his plane nothing good.
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
I'm still holding out for Dovin realizing that Tezzeret is manipulating the Consul for his own personal gain uncaringly throwing Kaladesh into chaos in the process, and so turns against him.
That still leaves his and the Consul's standing with the renegades, Gatewatch and other bodies/organizations; and the resolution of the various conflicts in question, but at least he won't be in the position of having been "on Tezzeret's side" quite so much.
This was part of my point, planes having multiple walkers ignite within a relatively short time period. I get that it's fun and exciting to have new walkers for each plane, but it begins to undermine the odds stated by Creative. If Creative continues at this rate, they will need to do a DC-like Crisis to cull the amount of walkers, like DC did to various Earths. Either that, or give us something to work with as to why we are seeing more ignitions at the rate we are.
Having read comments from the weekend, I def get that some planes are more hazardous and thus more ignitions can happen. But I would not be opposed at seeing more Earth-Prime type planes where no walkers ever ignited, even if it were a dangerous plane.
I imagine, barring planes like Theros and Ravnica which had huge legend cycles, we'll revisit any legendary that isn't super dead when we return to the plane. Inn 3 will have Thalia and Sigarda, Rav 3 will have Lavinia and... Niv in stories (with the 15 other guys in cards), and so on. Planes we're not returning to... have spaces in supplementals like Comm decks (and I hope Planechase and Archenemy decks if we ever see those again). Master sets have been eating a lot of releases without offering anything new for vorthos to enjoy.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
That's why you use Legendary Creatures already printed. The Kamigawa one might not have been a good example (considering we'll still not getting a Return and the original block was over a thousand years back), but look at the recent one on Ravnica - Lavinia and Niv-Mizzet were mentioned and although Ral was a planeswalker, the role he played could have been played by a Legendary character aware of planeswalkers (since Ral didn't planeswalk that article). It's not about creating new Legendary creatures off-plane, it's making sure existing off-plane Legendaries can still be relevant (however minor) to a current storyline, using planeswalkers as the link.
Does this take away from the new Legendaries introduced on the current plane? Yes it does, but not a lot and honestly, not there's hardly noticeable since even Legendary Creatures in the current plane are already treated like background objects. It also helps build up the planeswalker's interactions with others, something missing from the "high-and-mighty" age of planeswalkers that got us "self-centered" walkers like Sorin (or "short-sightedness" for Nahiri). For every escapade Jace does Lavinia is mentioned, when (and if) she snaps during Ravnica 3.0 due to Jace always goes missing, we've actually experienced that through all those intermittent paragraphs/articles across the blocks we've been through, rather than it be a informed attribute. It might not be a vast improvement for Lavinia's characterization, but it is still an improvement.
Planeswalkers (currently) aren't going to planes for vacations, they're more akin to well-traveled business people visiting countries to establish connections.
I'm guessing the big conflict is the Gatewatch + Ajani and Saheeli destroying/stopping the device* before Tezzeret finishes it/powers it up.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I wish there was enough resources that Wizards could give us a second story each week. It'd mean that the break between two sets allows for more stories in non-standard places. Twice as many Conspiracy/Supplimental stories, and a few more random 'so what's Thalia up to back home' stories. As I want more stuff outside of standard's block, but I also want the characters in the set and the characters in the stories to match up. I still am holding hope for a Gonti story to happen.
The way I see it (for now) though, its that the stories revolve around the planeswalkers of the set rather than the plane it is based off. While it is true we will see less (and its inhabitants) of the main plane that the story is taking place on, a storyline that dabbles across several planes at the same time gives the sense of planar travel they wanted the planeswalkers to portray, not just merely travelling between blocks as a transition tool, but rather as a plot point itself.
I understand where you're coming from though, since I also used to feel that way as well, but I've becoming more accepting that the story is ultimately about planeswalkers at the moment rather than the plane (it's inhabitants and events being the backdrop of the plans of planeswalkers - the Eldrazi themselves were essentially all played by planeswalkers rather than a "legitimate threat of their own will" until Emrakul revealed the twist if you think about it). I'll sacrifice 50% of a Legendary Creature's presence in his/her own plane if it means that creature gets featured in a story that takes place in another plane because of their connections with the planeswalkers they built during the 50% time they got on their own plane, to show that they have relevance to the actual storyline of the planeswalkers rather than relevance to the backdrop storyline of their homeplane.
Well for some time, almost every Legendary Creature played that backdrop role (Theros & Tarkir mainly) and I felt that made the plane and its plot "less important" to the overall storyline of planeswalkers and the multiverse (Tarkir got away with Ugin's revival, I honestly felt while Theros left a hook and had Ajani, it wasn't enough). RTR on the other hand, did a good job at integrating itself (but then again, it's the current planeswalker hub, so it better had done a good job). Zendikar and Innistrad are too recent for me to determine whether they will succeed on that point or not. Kamigawa was honestly just my bias, since R&D still doesn't seem keen to return there yet and it's been far too long (both lore-wise and set-wise) for any set-up to be relevant.
Ultimately I think we just hold different point of views (and mine are temporary mainly because I foresee the planeswalker-centric storyline going on for some time), so we'll have to agree to disagree.
In any case, it's clear he and Dovin are working together now, so it seems like this whole thing was a set-up from the start.
I think that's a fair point, but I'd caution you to remember we don't actually know the populations of these planes, and even in the old days plenty of walkers ascended around the same time (Urza and Bo Levar, for instance). Others we just didn't see, because the story was hyperfocused on Dominaria and the Phyrexia crisis. For our current crew, we're looking at maybe a 30-40 year variance in the various spark ignitions - Nissa was 40 years ago, while Kiora was just a few, for instance. Fewer than One in a Million is still a lot of people for most planes, I don't think it's unreasonable, and I'm not sure we should take the one in a million thing as a definite rate so much as an indicator of rarity.
It's also possible we are dealing with a Fermi's Paradox situation with the Oldwalkers. Many oldwalkers were snuffed out in their infancy (for instance, the first planeswalker Urza met tried to kill), so without the old insane walkers around killing off any potential rivals, it could just be that there is a lower early death rate and so more to talk about.
Blink twice if you've been taken hostage and need help
I agree with you on Phyrexia. I don't want it around Kaladesh just yet.
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As for the portal, I think it would be a bad plot to destroy it in this block. From what we see, it has yet to unlock interplanar travel. It simply has the capability of doing so. (Also, if Tezzeret is a genius and was actively looking to make a portal device, I think odds are good he could make it; this leads me to think he wasn't looking to make it, but upon learning of its promise, wants it). You need someone like Tezzeret to take it and make that final step to planar portaldom.
We have yet to see, if I recall correctly, biological things be transferred by it. This makes me think we are looking at a reverse Terminator. The biological material must be contained in something not biological, like Ugin's cocoon. Also, as clothes, a bident, and a Theros god-forged weapon can pass through the Blind Eternities with a walker, can Tezzeret just bounce with the portal tech? That would avoid needless (from his perspective) conflict.
Aether Revolt stories begin Nov 30th, I believe.