Not too sure if a thread's been made for this yet, but, I was wondering what everyone thinks of The Gatewatch as a story element? I've met quite a few people who love it, and just as equally, people who hate it.
Personally, I think it's kinda lame. It feels like they're almost dumbing down the story (I know they're essentially doing this so that we have actual protagonists and in turn easier to understand storylines). The stories in older sets was always super interesting stuff, they were never afraid to kill off important characters, and introduce new heroes and villains alike. I feel like now with the Gatewatch, they're not gonna be as 'ballsy' when it comes to huge story stuff, if that makes sense? I also feel like they're kinda doing this in order to make a movie or something easier to happen, since (once again) we'll have set protagonists.
Another reason I'm not a fan of the Gatewatch is honestly because I'm not a fan of the planeswalkers involved. Jace is sssooooo boring. No one likes him at this point, at least from the opinions of nearly everyone I've talked to about this. Chandra seems a bit too brash, and I don't think she'd be able to handle huge threats within the multiverse with care. Nissa, I do like, but once again, she's kinda' one of those characters that cares strongly about her stuff, her friends stuff, and not much else. She sticks up for what she believes in, and sticks up for her friends, but would she be willing to sacrifice all that to defeat massive threats? Gideon, once again, such a boring dude. These are all obviously personal reasons why I dislike the Gatewatch, but I'd love to hear other peoples opinions!
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I have no problem at all with the Gatewatch, in theory.
I just don't really care for it as far as execution. They picked just about the blandest characters in their stable of planeswalkers, imo. I frankly find it hard to care about any of them so the storylines they're involved in may as well not even have a protagonist for me. I cared more about Tamiyo in SOI than all of the gatewatch characters combined. I found Arlinn orders of magnitude more interesting just from the story and a half we had that even mentioned her.
I have no problem with the story being centered on planeswalkers. But at least try to make them interesting ones.
I like them. The story hasn't changed too much, and characters dying has little to do with the existence of the Gatewatch.
As for the members, the writing team has started to hit their stride. The characterization is good, and each character has clear traits with a bit of complexity. There havent been any bad stories since Kaladesh started.
I like that we get to see the walkers interact on a larger scale than just 1 on 1 encounters. There is carry-over in the story and much more character inter-play.
If they were going to go with planeswalkers forming an alliance, I'd rather have seen Sorin, Ral Zarek, Kiora, Garruk, and possibly Ashiok together. Why? Because can you imagine the absolute hell the multiverse would have to be in to get those guys to actually team up? We're talking total Guardians of the galaxy level madness here. Especially Garruk considering he sees every other walker as prey.
Actually, they really should try to find a way to get Garruk into the Gatewatch. I'd love to see how they manage it given he's a walking death machine.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The Gatewatch is horrible. I absolutely despise it. It’s wrong for the story on so many levels, yet the players who aren’t even invested story can actually recognize characters now so Wizards considers the Gatewatch a big success. Even though most of the people who really care about the story would rather not have the Gatewatch be part of it, WotC will continue using it anyway.
A recurring cast is fine but an extremely bland and cliché Avengers rip off as that recurring cast is not. There are plenty of other franchises that can make those types of stories (and they are seldom good). That is not the direction that anyone wanted Magic’s story to go in.
The Origins 5 didn’t really have any business being selfless, plane-saving heroes anyway. Even Gideon was something of a Knight Templar who, before the Gatewatch, was a hero half the time and an anti-villain the other half. The rest were flat-out anti-heroes, yet only Liliana is being presented as one while the rest are actually supposed to heroic now, disregarding tons of previous canon. At least Ajani is finally there; he and Elspeth are the only two who are actually belong in a team like the Gatewatch.
Then you have the ridiculous amount of focus they deserve which robs most legendary creatures and non-Gatewatch planeswalkers of the story focus they deserve. This is especially painful because we get to see the Gatewatch all the time but only see other characters on rare occasions, the other characters are often way more complex and interesting than the one-dimensional Gatewatch planeswalkers. Look at Arlinn Kord, for example. An extremely popular character with lots of potential was completely ignored except for two filler stories unrelated to the main plot, because we need to see more of Jace dammit! Kaladesh block seems to be slightly better at representing other characters the BFZ and SOI, but it still seems like they often just have a character show up in a story once or twice, say a few lines, and disappear just to check a box (Depala, Gonti, Kambal, Padeem in Kaladesh, peharps others in Aether Revolt).
Getting two cards for each Gatewatch member every 2-3 blocks is going to get old fast. Jace and Chandra have, what, nine cards by now? Have you tried building Superfriends in less than three colors in EDH? Having three Teferis, three Tezzerets, three Tamiyos, and three Jaces in mono-blue would offer much better options than one Teferi, one Tezzeret, one Tamiyo, and nine Jaces. We have not gotten a single non-Gatewatch monocolored planeswalker since Ob Nixilis, and that was before Lili joined.
I agree with pretty much everything that's been said so far. The idea of the Gatewatch is fine, but they aren't terribly interesting characters, either in personality or abilities. The former has been at least somewhat improved upon in the recent stories, but it still takes too much of the focus away from the plane-relevant characters like Saheeli and Arlinn. I feel like being monocolored doesn't help any of this either; it seems like it restricts both a character's abilities and characterization compared to somebody who is multicolored.
I like them. I enjoy a recurring series of characters. I always found it kinda silly that a game about wizards that can travel from world to world never actually had many of those in the story outside of Urza. I like seeing how other characters respond to the world when they visit it, which is why I like Sanderson's Cosmere stories quite a bit.
I also don't agree with those saying that the story is being dumbed down, considered that there wasn't really much of a story to begin with. We went to a plane, something bad happened, it usually got fixed and kaboom, we're done. Ravnica, Time Spiral, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor and Alara were all that way. At least this way we have characters who can interact and grow with the environment, rather than seeing a blur of names and faces that I won't need to care about in six months.
I think the Gatewatch is less of an issue than the overall unevenness in the story. I think the block change, plus the move to a more serialized story, created some chaos that's only starting to come together. They definitely need more character building moments, and there's a bit of an issue with characterizations feeling a little flat in general, but specific stories like Homesick have been really fun to read. The first year being all Eldrazi didn't help either.
The main issue, I think, is with the limited space they have portraying complexity is hard. I think the more we see the dynamics of the Gatewatch characters as they conflict with one another, the better the story will be. The story, I believe, has been steadily improving since BFZ, with Kaladesh being mostly good and Aether Revolt looking to be on track there too.
I'll reserve my opinion until I get a better indication of where they take the Gatewatch idea. So far it's had its high ups and low downs, and some pretty abysmal downs (largely in BFZ block. Gideon whipping back Ulamog is a notable one). That said, I do agree the rotating cast of characters made the multiverse seem bustling and diverse and now it feels a lot smaller. The Gatewatch has potential and I've had moments of both liking and resenting it as a concept. I do get a sense that it's growing on me. The issue I have with that, though, is that part of the reason the Gatewatch is taking off is because its foundation is based on things established by the previous storytelling model - Jace and Lilliana's romance and conflict, Bolas and his machinations, the Eldrazi as threats, Sorin, Nahiri and Ugin, etc. Exploring that territory is what is really propelling the Gatewatch now with Emrakul sealed and Tezzeret a threat and Bolas on the horizon for Amonkhet. This isn't exactly new ground for the Gatewatch itself. IDK, a more consolidated story is a double edged sword. The multiverse seems smaller, but there is consistency in how the plot is approached. I'd say I learn more toward the previous model with a rotating cast, but I have enough reason to give the Gatewatch idea a chance because I do enjoy the prospect of diverse and powerful individuals teaming up.
I think they made the right call with the cast. Gideon needs to be developed more and has a lot of potential too. I enjoyed glimpses of him in BFZ which didn't involve fighting, but him being a hero in other ways. Such as encouragement and caring about people or proving to be a competent leader. The prospect of him being a co-leader with Jace is room for interesting interactions to build his character.
The issue with the Gatewatch is it feels they were thrown into a major conflict against very major villains. Then those villains were Ex Deus Machina because friendship. That has left a sour taste wit many - especially when the highlights of BFZ, which established the Gatewatch, were Kiora charging Ulamog with Lorthos, Tazri's interaction with Kozilek's distortion field and Ugin's anger with the Eldrazi slaughter. As in, nothing to do with the Gatewatch. Still, the cast had every reason to be on Zendikar when they were, and the set-up was respectable. I just wish we had gotten into the character's heads more individually before the conflict. Too much of BFZ was devoted to Nissa whining and Gideon whipping surral back and forth - both literally the case - instead of exploring who the characters were as people and how the events of Zendikar affected their moral ideology relative to the Eldrazi threat and influencing their upcoming oaths. But I felt like the SOI/EMN story cleaned up the inconstancies in quality that BFZ had. And did a good job of recruiting Lilliana and getting inside her mind, which was arguably the greatest challenge for the Gatewatch model and yet was probably done the best out of the 5 oaths so far.
I'm starting to dislike seeing every member of the Gatewatch collectively showing up every block. It made sense with the Eldrazi, but now I would like to see them allocate 1-3 members per case.
And they really need to have Jace take a break from the action. I find it rather ridiculous that the central figure of an entire plane's government is constantly absent from his duties.
I'm going to echo the sentiment that if we were going to do this, these were the wrong characters to start with. Also that we do not need to see every member every block. They don't get along with eachother (and not in a way good for storytelling), many of them didn't know each other previously, and in general they seem to have been chosen because many of them were recurrent features in the yearly base sets like Jace and Chandra. With the exception of Chandra, their new backstories from Origins have had very little effect on their portrayals while BFZ pretty much redefined them in the most bland possible way. Now, part of this is bad writing and surprise changes to the block structure, but the thing is that every department seems to be excellent at planning ahead years in advance... except the storywriters, who at times seem like they are weeks behind schedule and releasing rough drafts of their work rather than giving them the polish that they need. We know for a fact that some of the Gatewatch's more interesting battles during Eldritch Moon were edited out of the story thanks to the art book, for instance, and it feels like it was only because of lack of time and focus. And also, do Chandra and Lilliana really need to inject 21'st century internet slang into their conversations? Really? That just takes me out of the world. They don't have to speak in Shakespearean verse, but at least try not to make it sound so deliberately colloquial. Earth isn't supposed to exist in the Multiverse.
Its not that these characters cannot be made better with time, but it was a bad start and the progression from allies to a formal team with Oaths to keep felt very inorganic for them. The introduction of Ajani, by contrast, feels much better, because his character has always had a heroic streak and he is established as quite literally a mentor of heroes. He comes into the story with a goal that happens to align with the Gatewatch, and while that might seem like a massive coincidence especially considering we didn't know his friendship with Tamyio before now, but he feels like he was already on this path for a while. And speaking of, I feel like the reveal about Tamyio's story circle showed how this should have worked. The informal ties between the characters should have come first, then they should have come together as a formal organization once they realized how much their goals aligned. Instead, while Chandra does tie together Jace and Gideon, no one knew Nissa prior to BFZ, and it shows. She is an alien in both senses of the word-- an outsider to their social circle, and until Ajani arrived she was the only non-human member of the group. Similarly, the only connection between Lilliana and the rest is Jace, and moreover she has the biggest moral disconnect from the group's stated purpose of any of them.
Which leads to my final gripe: the way their characters are defined by their color affiliations instead of the other way around. I feel like each character should have an internal reason for choosing a given kind of magic rather than having that color of magic thrust upon them and then being defined by it. The former is how writers usually do things, and the latter is the biggest sin of the superhero genre IMO. Consider how different Lilliana is from Yahenni. Yahenni is black by virtue of his * race, but his characterization is largely unaffected by that. He's a hedonist, sure, he has a will to live, sure, but he isn't evil just because he has an affiliation with Black magic. In fact, he is one of the most empathetic characters we've ever been introduced to, and his fast friendship with Nissa-- despite being from her enemy color!-- feels perfect. Yes, he gets benefits from his relationships, but he is authentic about it and forms those friendships out of a sincere concern for Nissa and the others. And even when he is tempted by evil, it isn't because he wants power for its own sake but because he is convinced he must contribute to the greater good. In contrast, Lilliana is just the token evil teammate because she happens to practice necromancy, and Black is supposedly the color of selfishness. Except that it can be so much more, as shown by the comparison. Likewise, Ajani also benefits here because he has been affiliated with up to three colors in the past, and even now is associated with two. Now, it should not be that monocolor characters are boring, but it appears that in their desire to make Jace the face of Blue magic they forgot to give him an actual personality, and likewise for Gideon and Nissa they actually sacrificed interesting character traits to make them into more archetypical characters. That's just... terrible.
So TL;DR, if they had gotten the Gatewatch together in the more informal way that Tamyio's Story Circle is organized in the beginning at least, the concept would have worked better. They also should have either chosen better characters, or given the characters they did choose personalities extending beyond their archetypes. And of course, they just need to write better prose.
* sorry, I know the correct pronoun for Aetherborn is "it," but I'm just not comfortable referring to sentient characters that way.
I'm going to echo the sentiment that if we were going to do this, these were the wrong characters to start with. Also that we do not need to see every member every block. They don't get along with eachother (and not in a way good for storytelling), many of them didn't know each other previously, and in general they seem to have been chosen because many of them were recurrent features in the yearly base sets like Jace and Chandra. With the exception of Chandra, their new backstories from Origins have had very little effect on their portrayals while BFZ pretty much redefined them in the most bland possible way. Now, part of this is bad writing and surprise changes to the block structure, but the thing is that every department seems to be excellent at planning ahead years in advance... except the storywriters, who at times seem like they are weeks behind schedule and releasing rough drafts of their work rather than giving them the polish that they need. We know for a fact that some of the Gatewatch's more interesting battles during Eldritch Moon were edited out of the story thanks to the art book, for instance, and it feels like it was only because of lack of time and focus. And also, do Chandra and Lilliana really need to inject 21'st century internet slang into their conversations? Really? That just takes me out of the world. They don't have to speak in Shakespearean verse, but at least try not to make it sound so deliberately colloquial. Earth isn't supposed to exist in the Multiverse.
Its not that these characters cannot be made better with time, but it was a bad start and the progression from allies to a formal team with Oaths to keep felt very inorganic for them. The introduction of Ajani, by contrast, feels much better, because his character has always had a heroic streak and he is established as quite literally a mentor of heroes. He comes into the story with a goal that happens to align with the Gatewatch, and while that might seem like a massive coincidence especially considering we didn't know his friendship with Tamyio before now, but he feels like he was already on this path for a while. And speaking of, I feel like the reveal about Tamyio's story circle showed how this should have worked. The informal ties between the characters should have come first, then they should have come together as a formal organization once they realized how much their goals aligned. Instead, while Chandra does tie together Jace and Gideon, no one knew Nissa prior to BFZ, and it shows. She is an alien in both senses of the word-- an outsider to their social circle, and until Ajani arrived she was the only non-human member of the group. Similarly, the only connection between Lilliana and the rest is Jace, and moreover she has the biggest moral disconnect from the group's stated purpose of any of them.
Which leads to my final gripe: the way their characters are defined by their color affiliations instead of the other way around. I feel like each character should have an internal reason for choosing a given kind of magic rather than having that color of magic thrust upon them and then being defined by it. The former is how writers usually do things, and the latter is the biggest sin of the superhero genre IMO. Consider how different Lilliana is from Yahenni. Yahenni is black by virtue of his * race, but his characterization is largely unaffected by that. He's a hedonist, sure, he has a will to live, sure, but he isn't evil just because he has an affiliation with Black magic. In fact, he is one of the most empathetic characters we've ever been introduced to, and his fast friendship with Nissa-- despite being from her enemy color!-- feels perfect. Yes, he gets benefits from his relationships, but he is authentic about it and forms those friendships out of a sincere concern for Nissa and the others. And even when he is tempted by evil, it isn't because he wants power for its own sake but because he is convinced he must contribute to the greater good. In contrast, Lilliana is just the token evil teammate because she happens to practice necromancy, and Black is supposedly the color of selfishness. Except that it can be so much more, as shown by the comparison. Likewise, Ajani also benefits here because he has been affiliated with up to three colors in the past, and even now is associated with two. Now, it should not be that monocolor characters are boring, but it appears that in their desire to make Jace the face of Blue magic they forgot to give him an actual personality, and likewise for Gideon and Nissa they actually sacrificed interesting character traits to make them into more archetypical characters. That's just... terrible.
So TL;DR, if they had gotten the Gatewatch together in the more informal way that Tamyio's Story Circle is organized in the beginning at least, the concept would have worked better. They also should have either chosen better characters, or given the characters they did choose personalities extending beyond their archetypes. And of course, they just need to write better prose.
* sorry, I know the correct pronoun for Aetherborn is "it," but I'm just not comfortable referring to sentient characters that way.
Also, this post got marked as spam the first time I posted it; I think it was a timeout issue.
* sorry, I know the correct pronoun for Aetherborn is "it," but I'm just not comfortable referring to sentient characters that way.
They and variations thereof, actually. It's in all the stories, and was stated during the whole reveal of the race.
I'm personally for the Gatewatch. I have an intense love of diving into the lore, but the longform, interconnected by slight bits, of that original storytelling method led to some storylines just getting dropped, or put on hold for an extensive period of time. Garruk was "on the verge of succumbing to his curse" for 2 years. The Eldrazi problem was left alone for 5, and characters that were involved in that just...did other things in the meanwhile. It wasn't like the last we saw of Jace was Worldwake, he came back for RTR, and nothing was mentioned about the world-ending menace.
The Gatewatch feels like it's leading to a more streamlined story, and a more streamlined creative system. I feel like before this decision was made, the world was the only major focus, and long-term ramifications were more luck based than anything else. I would bet, with the current system, since they have a consistent batch of characters to utilize, they have a base for the storytelling of future worlds, whereas before, it was mostly a matter of "Here's the world's story, and if it fits into the larger narrative...great! If not, whatever."
I think that the execution has been lacking, in parts. But I don't think the Gatewatch is bad for Magic.
Have they? If so, I guess it hasn't come up often enough to register on my radar. Most of the posts dealing with Aetherborn have been from Yahenni's perspective, and when Yahenni refers to... huh, I don't think there is a gender neutral form of "him/herself"... well, Yahenni's story posts are in first person perspective is what I'm saying. It hasn't been a big deal in months.
Sorry for double posting, BTW. The spam filter on this forum really does mystify me. This is the second time its misflagged my posts, the first time that someone or something corrected it. I wish I knew what was going on.
I totally feel yea' on this one. I would've loved the focus on planeswalkers if they chose interesting characters, rather than characters with little personality *cough cough* Jace *cough cough*...
Also, hell yes, Tamiyo is so great!
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Orzhov Nightsky Mimic
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Yeah, you're definitely right there. The storylines lately have been pretty uneven, and as Tiro below this post was saying, the block change probably had a pretty big effect on story telling. To me, Emrakul or Innistrad felt like a direct problem with this. BFZ was originally a three set block, and I feel like they realized they couldn't combine two eldrazi titans into one set, so they thought ".. well, Innistrad was insanely popular, so maybe we'll just make that into a set".
Or, maybe they were planning an Innistrad set but changed the story to involve Emrakul? I personally HATED it, because Eldrazi's got incredibly tiring, especially with how dull (imo) BFZ was. Maybe if they did it a few years later, and made Emrakul into a sorta' Lovecraftian thing more, I would've liked it.
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It's growing on me, I didn't love it at first, and fully understand the OP's concerns that core characters are harm-proof due to plot armor. I've been starting to like the characters more though, one of the benefits of set protagonists is there is more room for character growth and development to be explored Gideon and Jace have both had some very interesting stories from their POV recently that I've enjoyed, Nissa is much more interesting outside of her comfort zone (Zendikar) and Liliana (who I don't love a character) still has cool interplay with the other members and a bunch of interesting plot threads. Chandra is probably the least interesting to me, but I also feel she has a lot of room for development and could have cool interactions with the other members. BFZ block story was bumpy and meh, SOI block story was good but didn't utilize the non PW characters enough. KLD story has been largely good and has done a good job interplaying planebound stories with Gatewatch stories. If they can keep that up I'm a fan.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I have very mixed feelings, most of which touch upon things already stated.
On one hand, I love that we finally have a reoccurring cast. It always bothered me that all the planeswalkers we saw had little to no interaction with each other, and hardly ever traveled with each other. They would come, have their time in the spotlight, then just go off on their own at the end of the block. That style of storytelling is great for highlighting worlds, but it does little to get people invested.
On the other, I dislike the origins 5. I understand the importance of starting with mono colored planeswalkers, and making sure each color is represented before moving forward. With Origins being a soft reboot, it was the right choice, but as an invested player who's been following the game, it felt boring and contrived. Highlighting this was the fact that both planes where the Origins 5 took their oaths (Zendikar and Innistrad) were both return planes, and without the new setting to distract me, I just really started focusing on how uninteresting I found the characters. To the story team's credit, there have been more nuance in the Origins 5's characters as of late, but I still can't help but get annoyed sometimes at how typically they embody their colors. Thankfully, Ajani's introduction and soon-to-be inclusion in the gatewatch makes perfect sense, and I'm eagerly awaiting for more non-mono colored planeswalkers to join up.
So on a whole I'm happy that the gatewatch exists, but mostly because of the type of storytelling it brings. I have great hope for the future, now that the awkward part of establishing the Origins 5 is over, and that Ajani, one of my favorite characters, is a part of it.
Hating on Jace is pretty unfounded and even obnoxious IMO. Jace having no depth/personality/character? Wrong. He has a pretty extensive back story and an intriguing one at that. The idea of a telepath with a lost identity from his duel with the sphinx master who abused him, now on a journey to discover who he is and how that plays into his moral code is a very noble journey for someone in a clan like the Gatewatch. Especially the thought of his promise to see his mother again, having now forgotten even her face. Jace has always been a great player analog and his origin story as a gifted by bullied youth living in poverty on Vryn has this charming Harry Potter vibe which connects with many of us because we were in similar situations ourselves.
Gideon is a Greek hero who suffered Greek tragedy on Greek mythology world, and has allowed it to shape him from then on. Not to mention he then travelled to Bant, which has heavy Christian influences (angels, knights - a lot from Arthurian era) as a contrast to Greek mythology too which is a point of interest.
Lilliana's backstory and her debt to demons and the influence of the Chain Veil and her own selfish desires muddled by her lingering affection for Jace has always been a point of interest for many. She's on a dire precipice of losing control - dead because of her fear of death. Seeing that journey involve a team now is an interesting perspective for me. Lilliana had difficulty overcoming this alone and has been seeking assistance as of late. Now she has allies. How will her curse affect those who join her on that dark journey?
Nissa has potential because she was such a staunch racist favoring Elves - but the Eldrazi threatening all life alike on her home plane - Elf, human, beast or otherwise, and the Eyeblight tribe of Lorwyn taught her otherwise. This profound lesson of having love for all beings of nature - even the trees themselves as we saw in BFZ - is intriguing. Now with that outlook applied elsewhere, it's a good ground for the team to always value life wherever and however it exists.
Chandra has history with Gideon. She's been more comic relief for me and her role on Kaladesh fleshed her out more as an individual. She's similar to Jace in being a misunderstood youth ostracized for her individuality. I like that she brings a sense of strength in overcoming adversity to the team.
Personally, I love it. Recurring characters, people you can get behind, and its not like it hasn't allowed other characters to take center stage as need be (Thalia, Sorin, and Nahiri in Innistrad; Pia, Dovin Baan, and Rashmi in Kaladesh).
It was really clunky to start, but its really started to hit its stride. Furthermore, there's so much potential for further stories beyond what we've already gotten.
1. Liliana explicitly joined the gatewatch to use them to combat her (literal) demons. Obviously this is going to come to a head sooner or later- and will likely fracture the group as a result.
2. Ajani and Gideon have met- both have been overtly screwed over by gods and lost loved ones to their machinations. Return to Theros?
3. Garruk's still out there. As is Vraska.
4. You know we're not yet done with Nahiri- and I'm not entirely certain she'll be a villian outside the context of Innistrad.
There's a lot of potential for some great stories ahead. Its not wrong to have a bit of familiarity from one block to the next though.
Hating on Jace is pretty unfounded and even obnoxious IMO. Jace having no depth/personality/character? Wrong. He has a pretty extensive back story and an intriguing one at that. The idea of a telepath with a lost identity from his duel with the sphinx master who abused him, now on a journey to discover who he is and how that plays into his moral code is a very noble journey for someone in a clan like the Gatewatch. Especially the thought of his promise to see his mother again, having now forgotten even her face. Jace has always been a great player analog and his origin story as a gifted by bullied youth living in poverty on Vryn has this charming Harry Potter vibe which connects with many of us because we were in similar situations ourselves.
I disagree completely. Backstory is not characterization. Characterization is what the character does and how they think. Jace is not an active character. Nothing he has done since BFZ has indicated he is remotely interested in finding his home plane or learning about his past. He even said in Return to Ravinca that as far as he is concerned, Ravinca is his home. Ravinca is where his heart is, not Vryn. He is a reactive character who is mainly concerned with fighting whatever threat is right in front of him-- Gideon had to figuratively drag him back to Zendikar to take responsibility for his part in releasing the Eldrazi. Then he went to Innistrad looking for Sorin, only to completely abandon that goal as soon as he found Tamyio's journal and got mentally attacked by Emrakrul. Honestly, I actually found crazy Jace more fun than normal Jace, because his actions didn't have to make sense for a change. But then Tamyio returns his sanity, and suddenly he's right back into his usual "lets defeat the Eldrazi menace!" mode all over again. Again, despite coming to Innistrad to find Sorin. He just completely forgets why he was there to begin with. Then that's dealt with, and now he's on Kaladesh only because Lilliana told him that Tezzeret is there. He does not feel like the leader, nor even the person who sets the agenda for the group, but the writers keep pretending that he and Gideon are vying for leadership. Gideon should be the leader; he has the skills, and he was the one who assembled the team to begin with. At no point does Jace act like a person going on a journey the way Elspeth was. He is far more like a guy riding a rollercoaster on a dare. His amnesia thus comes off less like a backstory and more like an anti-backstory. It lets the writers say that he technically has one, but it also renders him a blank slate so its irrelevant 99% of the time. The other 1% is when Baan was doing his psychobabble routine.
The fact that he is supposed to be a player analogue is the worst part. I don't see anything remotely similar about him and myself. He's just some guy with psychic powers he did not earn, with no initiative and no passion for what he does. He's also a smarmy jerk and acknowledges as much when trapped in his own mind by Emrakul. He got the highest position in all of Ravinca and not only does nothing with that, he takes every excuse to leave the place (again, the place he considers his true home) and his responsibilities behind him in favor of traipsing about pretending to be the hero of the story. Sooner or later, if the story was more grounded and consequences mattered more, he would eventually prove Tamyio correct about heroes being mere tragedies waiting to happen. I find him no more enjoyable to read about than watching Tidus from Final Fantasy X claiming to be the main protagonist when for better or for worse that's actually Yuna's role in the game. The only good thing is that Jace does less whining.
One of the main problems of the Gatewatch has always been that it centers around Jace, a character who is already incredibly polarizing. Most opinions on Jace are either "I HATE HIM", "he's pretty awesome", or "I don't get why everybody hates him". It probably would have been wise to leave him out of their number, and have him pop up at points. But it's too late for that.
So far, the biggest problem with the Gatewatch is the classic "the good guys win, and the bad guys lose" paradigm. This certainly has no place in Magic. Perhaps they're setting up for the Gatewatch to have a catastrophic failure after beating the Eldrazi at every turn without losing a single member (or even getting mutilated). This is what I'm hoping for. If they all die except maybe one or two of them in Amonkhet, that would be pretty good writing, and would shake up some expectations. If the good guys keep going along without deaths and mutilations, that is mediocre writing at its mediocre-est.
As it stands, I'm a lot more interested in the side stories than the Gatewatch stories. Why would I care about the good guys who always win?
The dominant opinion, at least here seems to be "Threading the story together more clearly is generally a positive shift, but I don't really like the specific characters in the Gatewatch." That's more or less how I feel as well, and I think that could be solved with a few deaths, and new characters.
One of the main problems of the Gatewatch has always been that it centers around Jace, a character who is already incredibly polarizing. Most opinions on Jace are either "I HATE HIM", "he's pretty awesome", or "I don't get why everybody hates him". It probably would have been wise to leave him out of their number, and have him pop up at points. But it's too late for that.
So far, the biggest problem with the Gatewatch is the classic "the good guys win, and the bad guys lose" paradigm. This certainly has no place in Magic. Perhaps they're setting up for the Gatewatch to have a catastrophic failure after beating the Eldrazi at every turn without losing a single member (or even getting mutilated). This is what I'm hoping for. If they all die except maybe one or two of them in Amonkhet, that would be pretty good writing, and would shake up some expectations. If the good guys keep going along without deaths and mutilations, that is mediocre writing at its mediocre-est.
As it stands, I'm a lot more interested in the side stories than the Gatewatch stories. Why would I care about the good guys who always win?
The dominant opinion, at least here seems to be "Threading the story together more clearly is generally a positive shift, but I don't really like the specific characters in the Gatewatch." That's more or less how I feel as well, and I think that could be solved with a few deaths, and new characters.
Unfortunately, Jace was never going to be left out of the Gatewatch. He's the "most popular planeswalker." Who cares if most of the players who actually read the stories dislike him? The players who don't read about him think he looks cool! (I really don't hate Jace as much as some people, but I think he's boring and I'm sick of him showing up in every damn storyline).
You bring up a good point with the side stories. Which were the best stories in BFZ? Drana's story, Tazri's story, and Kiora's story with Kozilek, but none of the Gatewatch ones. SOI? Most people agreed that the Sorin vs. Nahiri subplot was far more interesting than Jace investigating or Gatewatch vs. Emrakul, and Tamiyo (another non-Gatewatch planeswalker) was popular as well.
For the transition between Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh we got the first Gatewatch story that was legitimately good and well-liked, but still: most of the stories focusing on one or more of the Gatewatch can't compare to the ones that don't. Kaladesh has featured the Gatewatch prominently in almost every single story, and that makes me terrified for the future of the story. I and most other story fans want to learn more about Bolas, Amonkhet, its inhabitants, and planeswalkers we don't get to see often. We don't want to see Jace's character traits (or lack of them) spelled out for us for the tenth time.
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Personally, I think it's kinda lame. It feels like they're almost dumbing down the story (I know they're essentially doing this so that we have actual protagonists and in turn easier to understand storylines). The stories in older sets was always super interesting stuff, they were never afraid to kill off important characters, and introduce new heroes and villains alike. I feel like now with the Gatewatch, they're not gonna be as 'ballsy' when it comes to huge story stuff, if that makes sense? I also feel like they're kinda doing this in order to make a movie or something easier to happen, since (once again) we'll have set protagonists.
Another reason I'm not a fan of the Gatewatch is honestly because I'm not a fan of the planeswalkers involved. Jace is sssooooo boring. No one likes him at this point, at least from the opinions of nearly everyone I've talked to about this. Chandra seems a bit too brash, and I don't think she'd be able to handle huge threats within the multiverse with care. Nissa, I do like, but once again, she's kinda' one of those characters that cares strongly about her stuff, her friends stuff, and not much else. She sticks up for what she believes in, and sticks up for her friends, but would she be willing to sacrifice all that to defeat massive threats? Gideon, once again, such a boring dude. These are all obviously personal reasons why I dislike the Gatewatch, but I'd love to hear other peoples opinions!
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I just don't really care for it as far as execution. They picked just about the blandest characters in their stable of planeswalkers, imo. I frankly find it hard to care about any of them so the storylines they're involved in may as well not even have a protagonist for me. I cared more about Tamiyo in SOI than all of the gatewatch characters combined. I found Arlinn orders of magnitude more interesting just from the story and a half we had that even mentioned her.
I have no problem with the story being centered on planeswalkers. But at least try to make them interesting ones.
As for the members, the writing team has started to hit their stride. The characterization is good, and each character has clear traits with a bit of complexity. There havent been any bad stories since Kaladesh started.
I like that we get to see the walkers interact on a larger scale than just 1 on 1 encounters. There is carry-over in the story and much more character inter-play.
Actually, they really should try to find a way to get Garruk into the Gatewatch. I'd love to see how they manage it given he's a walking death machine.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
A recurring cast is fine but an extremely bland and cliché Avengers rip off as that recurring cast is not. There are plenty of other franchises that can make those types of stories (and they are seldom good). That is not the direction that anyone wanted Magic’s story to go in.
The Origins 5 didn’t really have any business being selfless, plane-saving heroes anyway. Even Gideon was something of a Knight Templar who, before the Gatewatch, was a hero half the time and an anti-villain the other half. The rest were flat-out anti-heroes, yet only Liliana is being presented as one while the rest are actually supposed to heroic now, disregarding tons of previous canon. At least Ajani is finally there; he and Elspeth are the only two who are actually belong in a team like the Gatewatch.
Then you have the ridiculous amount of focus they deserve which robs most legendary creatures and non-Gatewatch planeswalkers of the story focus they deserve. This is especially painful because we get to see the Gatewatch all the time but only see other characters on rare occasions, the other characters are often way more complex and interesting than the one-dimensional Gatewatch planeswalkers. Look at Arlinn Kord, for example. An extremely popular character with lots of potential was completely ignored except for two filler stories unrelated to the main plot, because we need to see more of Jace dammit! Kaladesh block seems to be slightly better at representing other characters the BFZ and SOI, but it still seems like they often just have a character show up in a story once or twice, say a few lines, and disappear just to check a box (Depala, Gonti, Kambal, Padeem in Kaladesh, peharps others in Aether Revolt).
Getting two cards for each Gatewatch member every 2-3 blocks is going to get old fast. Jace and Chandra have, what, nine cards by now? Have you tried building Superfriends in less than three colors in EDH? Having three Teferis, three Tezzerets, three Tamiyos, and three Jaces in mono-blue would offer much better options than one Teferi, one Tezzeret, one Tamiyo, and nine Jaces. We have not gotten a single non-Gatewatch monocolored planeswalker since Ob Nixilis, and that was before Lili joined.
I also don't agree with those saying that the story is being dumbed down, considered that there wasn't really much of a story to begin with. We went to a plane, something bad happened, it usually got fixed and kaboom, we're done. Ravnica, Time Spiral, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor and Alara were all that way. At least this way we have characters who can interact and grow with the environment, rather than seeing a blur of names and faces that I won't need to care about in six months.
URW Control
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GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
The main issue, I think, is with the limited space they have portraying complexity is hard. I think the more we see the dynamics of the Gatewatch characters as they conflict with one another, the better the story will be. The story, I believe, has been steadily improving since BFZ, with Kaladesh being mostly good and Aether Revolt looking to be on track there too.
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I think they made the right call with the cast. Gideon needs to be developed more and has a lot of potential too. I enjoyed glimpses of him in BFZ which didn't involve fighting, but him being a hero in other ways. Such as encouragement and caring about people or proving to be a competent leader. The prospect of him being a co-leader with Jace is room for interesting interactions to build his character.
The issue with the Gatewatch is it feels they were thrown into a major conflict against very major villains. Then those villains were Ex Deus Machina because friendship. That has left a sour taste wit many - especially when the highlights of BFZ, which established the Gatewatch, were Kiora charging Ulamog with Lorthos, Tazri's interaction with Kozilek's distortion field and Ugin's anger with the Eldrazi slaughter. As in, nothing to do with the Gatewatch. Still, the cast had every reason to be on Zendikar when they were, and the set-up was respectable. I just wish we had gotten into the character's heads more individually before the conflict. Too much of BFZ was devoted to Nissa whining and Gideon whipping surral back and forth - both literally the case - instead of exploring who the characters were as people and how the events of Zendikar affected their moral ideology relative to the Eldrazi threat and influencing their upcoming oaths. But I felt like the SOI/EMN story cleaned up the inconstancies in quality that BFZ had. And did a good job of recruiting Lilliana and getting inside her mind, which was arguably the greatest challenge for the Gatewatch model and yet was probably done the best out of the 5 oaths so far.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
And they really need to have Jace take a break from the action. I find it rather ridiculous that the central figure of an entire plane's government is constantly absent from his duties.
Its not that these characters cannot be made better with time, but it was a bad start and the progression from allies to a formal team with Oaths to keep felt very inorganic for them. The introduction of Ajani, by contrast, feels much better, because his character has always had a heroic streak and he is established as quite literally a mentor of heroes. He comes into the story with a goal that happens to align with the Gatewatch, and while that might seem like a massive coincidence especially considering we didn't know his friendship with Tamyio before now, but he feels like he was already on this path for a while. And speaking of, I feel like the reveal about Tamyio's story circle showed how this should have worked. The informal ties between the characters should have come first, then they should have come together as a formal organization once they realized how much their goals aligned. Instead, while Chandra does tie together Jace and Gideon, no one knew Nissa prior to BFZ, and it shows. She is an alien in both senses of the word-- an outsider to their social circle, and until Ajani arrived she was the only non-human member of the group. Similarly, the only connection between Lilliana and the rest is Jace, and moreover she has the biggest moral disconnect from the group's stated purpose of any of them.
Which leads to my final gripe: the way their characters are defined by their color affiliations instead of the other way around. I feel like each character should have an internal reason for choosing a given kind of magic rather than having that color of magic thrust upon them and then being defined by it. The former is how writers usually do things, and the latter is the biggest sin of the superhero genre IMO. Consider how different Lilliana is from Yahenni. Yahenni is black by virtue of his * race, but his characterization is largely unaffected by that. He's a hedonist, sure, he has a will to live, sure, but he isn't evil just because he has an affiliation with Black magic. In fact, he is one of the most empathetic characters we've ever been introduced to, and his fast friendship with Nissa-- despite being from her enemy color!-- feels perfect. Yes, he gets benefits from his relationships, but he is authentic about it and forms those friendships out of a sincere concern for Nissa and the others. And even when he is tempted by evil, it isn't because he wants power for its own sake but because he is convinced he must contribute to the greater good. In contrast, Lilliana is just the token evil teammate because she happens to practice necromancy, and Black is supposedly the color of selfishness. Except that it can be so much more, as shown by the comparison. Likewise, Ajani also benefits here because he has been affiliated with up to three colors in the past, and even now is associated with two. Now, it should not be that monocolor characters are boring, but it appears that in their desire to make Jace the face of Blue magic they forgot to give him an actual personality, and likewise for Gideon and Nissa they actually sacrificed interesting character traits to make them into more archetypical characters. That's just... terrible.
So TL;DR, if they had gotten the Gatewatch together in the more informal way that Tamyio's Story Circle is organized in the beginning at least, the concept would have worked better. They also should have either chosen better characters, or given the characters they did choose personalities extending beyond their archetypes. And of course, they just need to write better prose.
* sorry, I know the correct pronoun for Aetherborn is "it," but I'm just not comfortable referring to sentient characters that way.
Its not that these characters cannot be made better with time, but it was a bad start and the progression from allies to a formal team with Oaths to keep felt very inorganic for them. The introduction of Ajani, by contrast, feels much better, because his character has always had a heroic streak and he is established as quite literally a mentor of heroes. He comes into the story with a goal that happens to align with the Gatewatch, and while that might seem like a massive coincidence especially considering we didn't know his friendship with Tamyio before now, but he feels like he was already on this path for a while. And speaking of, I feel like the reveal about Tamyio's story circle showed how this should have worked. The informal ties between the characters should have come first, then they should have come together as a formal organization once they realized how much their goals aligned. Instead, while Chandra does tie together Jace and Gideon, no one knew Nissa prior to BFZ, and it shows. She is an alien in both senses of the word-- an outsider to their social circle, and until Ajani arrived she was the only non-human member of the group. Similarly, the only connection between Lilliana and the rest is Jace, and moreover she has the biggest moral disconnect from the group's stated purpose of any of them.
Which leads to my final gripe: the way their characters are defined by their color affiliations instead of the other way around. I feel like each character should have an internal reason for choosing a given kind of magic rather than having that color of magic thrust upon them and then being defined by it. The former is how writers usually do things, and the latter is the biggest sin of the superhero genre IMO. Consider how different Lilliana is from Yahenni. Yahenni is black by virtue of his * race, but his characterization is largely unaffected by that. He's a hedonist, sure, he has a will to live, sure, but he isn't evil just because he has an affiliation with Black magic. In fact, he is one of the most empathetic characters we've ever been introduced to, and his fast friendship with Nissa-- despite being from her enemy color!-- feels perfect. Yes, he gets benefits from his relationships, but he is authentic about it and forms those friendships out of a sincere concern for Nissa and the others. And even when he is tempted by evil, it isn't because he wants power for its own sake but because he is convinced he must contribute to the greater good. In contrast, Lilliana is just the token evil teammate because she happens to practice necromancy, and Black is supposedly the color of selfishness. Except that it can be so much more, as shown by the comparison. Likewise, Ajani also benefits here because he has been affiliated with up to three colors in the past, and even now is associated with two. Now, it should not be that monocolor characters are boring, but it appears that in their desire to make Jace the face of Blue magic they forgot to give him an actual personality, and likewise for Gideon and Nissa they actually sacrificed interesting character traits to make them into more archetypical characters. That's just... terrible.
So TL;DR, if they had gotten the Gatewatch together in the more informal way that Tamyio's Story Circle is organized in the beginning at least, the concept would have worked better. They also should have either chosen better characters, or given the characters they did choose personalities extending beyond their archetypes. And of course, they just need to write better prose.
* sorry, I know the correct pronoun for Aetherborn is "it," but I'm just not comfortable referring to sentient characters that way.
Also, this post got marked as spam the first time I posted it; I think it was a timeout issue.
They and variations thereof, actually. It's in all the stories, and was stated during the whole reveal of the race.
I'm personally for the Gatewatch. I have an intense love of diving into the lore, but the longform, interconnected by slight bits, of that original storytelling method led to some storylines just getting dropped, or put on hold for an extensive period of time. Garruk was "on the verge of succumbing to his curse" for 2 years. The Eldrazi problem was left alone for 5, and characters that were involved in that just...did other things in the meanwhile. It wasn't like the last we saw of Jace was Worldwake, he came back for RTR, and nothing was mentioned about the world-ending menace.
The Gatewatch feels like it's leading to a more streamlined story, and a more streamlined creative system. I feel like before this decision was made, the world was the only major focus, and long-term ramifications were more luck based than anything else. I would bet, with the current system, since they have a consistent batch of characters to utilize, they have a base for the storytelling of future worlds, whereas before, it was mostly a matter of "Here's the world's story, and if it fits into the larger narrative...great! If not, whatever."
I think that the execution has been lacking, in parts. But I don't think the Gatewatch is bad for Magic.
Hm, no, they've been pretty consistently referred to as "they".
Sorry for double posting, BTW. The spam filter on this forum really does mystify me. This is the second time its misflagged my posts, the first time that someone or something corrected it. I wish I knew what was going on.
Also, hell yes, Tamiyo is so great!
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Or, maybe they were planning an Innistrad set but changed the story to involve Emrakul? I personally HATED it, because Eldrazi's got incredibly tiring, especially with how dull (imo) BFZ was. Maybe if they did it a few years later, and made Emrakul into a sorta' Lovecraftian thing more, I would've liked it.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster | Karlov of the Ghost Council | Breya, Etherium Shaper | Marchesa, the Black Rose | Queen Marchesa | The Mimeoplasm | Avacyn, Angel of Hope |
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RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
On one hand, I love that we finally have a reoccurring cast. It always bothered me that all the planeswalkers we saw had little to no interaction with each other, and hardly ever traveled with each other. They would come, have their time in the spotlight, then just go off on their own at the end of the block. That style of storytelling is great for highlighting worlds, but it does little to get people invested.
On the other, I dislike the origins 5. I understand the importance of starting with mono colored planeswalkers, and making sure each color is represented before moving forward. With Origins being a soft reboot, it was the right choice, but as an invested player who's been following the game, it felt boring and contrived. Highlighting this was the fact that both planes where the Origins 5 took their oaths (Zendikar and Innistrad) were both return planes, and without the new setting to distract me, I just really started focusing on how uninteresting I found the characters. To the story team's credit, there have been more nuance in the Origins 5's characters as of late, but I still can't help but get annoyed sometimes at how typically they embody their colors. Thankfully, Ajani's introduction and soon-to-be inclusion in the gatewatch makes perfect sense, and I'm eagerly awaiting for more non-mono colored planeswalkers to join up.
So on a whole I'm happy that the gatewatch exists, but mostly because of the type of storytelling it brings. I have great hope for the future, now that the awkward part of establishing the Origins 5 is over, and that Ajani, one of my favorite characters, is a part of it.
Gideon is a Greek hero who suffered Greek tragedy on Greek mythology world, and has allowed it to shape him from then on. Not to mention he then travelled to Bant, which has heavy Christian influences (angels, knights - a lot from Arthurian era) as a contrast to Greek mythology too which is a point of interest.
Lilliana's backstory and her debt to demons and the influence of the Chain Veil and her own selfish desires muddled by her lingering affection for Jace has always been a point of interest for many. She's on a dire precipice of losing control - dead because of her fear of death. Seeing that journey involve a team now is an interesting perspective for me. Lilliana had difficulty overcoming this alone and has been seeking assistance as of late. Now she has allies. How will her curse affect those who join her on that dark journey?
Nissa has potential because she was such a staunch racist favoring Elves - but the Eldrazi threatening all life alike on her home plane - Elf, human, beast or otherwise, and the Eyeblight tribe of Lorwyn taught her otherwise. This profound lesson of having love for all beings of nature - even the trees themselves as we saw in BFZ - is intriguing. Now with that outlook applied elsewhere, it's a good ground for the team to always value life wherever and however it exists.
Chandra has history with Gideon. She's been more comic relief for me and her role on Kaladesh fleshed her out more as an individual. She's similar to Jace in being a misunderstood youth ostracized for her individuality. I like that she brings a sense of strength in overcoming adversity to the team.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
It was really clunky to start, but its really started to hit its stride. Furthermore, there's so much potential for further stories beyond what we've already gotten.
1. Liliana explicitly joined the gatewatch to use them to combat her (literal) demons. Obviously this is going to come to a head sooner or later- and will likely fracture the group as a result.
2. Ajani and Gideon have met- both have been overtly screwed over by gods and lost loved ones to their machinations. Return to Theros?
3. Garruk's still out there. As is Vraska.
4. You know we're not yet done with Nahiri- and I'm not entirely certain she'll be a villian outside the context of Innistrad.
There's a lot of potential for some great stories ahead. Its not wrong to have a bit of familiarity from one block to the next though.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
I disagree completely. Backstory is not characterization. Characterization is what the character does and how they think. Jace is not an active character. Nothing he has done since BFZ has indicated he is remotely interested in finding his home plane or learning about his past. He even said in Return to Ravinca that as far as he is concerned, Ravinca is his home. Ravinca is where his heart is, not Vryn. He is a reactive character who is mainly concerned with fighting whatever threat is right in front of him-- Gideon had to figuratively drag him back to Zendikar to take responsibility for his part in releasing the Eldrazi. Then he went to Innistrad looking for Sorin, only to completely abandon that goal as soon as he found Tamyio's journal and got mentally attacked by Emrakrul. Honestly, I actually found crazy Jace more fun than normal Jace, because his actions didn't have to make sense for a change. But then Tamyio returns his sanity, and suddenly he's right back into his usual "lets defeat the Eldrazi menace!" mode all over again. Again, despite coming to Innistrad to find Sorin. He just completely forgets why he was there to begin with. Then that's dealt with, and now he's on Kaladesh only because Lilliana told him that Tezzeret is there. He does not feel like the leader, nor even the person who sets the agenda for the group, but the writers keep pretending that he and Gideon are vying for leadership. Gideon should be the leader; he has the skills, and he was the one who assembled the team to begin with. At no point does Jace act like a person going on a journey the way Elspeth was. He is far more like a guy riding a rollercoaster on a dare. His amnesia thus comes off less like a backstory and more like an anti-backstory. It lets the writers say that he technically has one, but it also renders him a blank slate so its irrelevant 99% of the time. The other 1% is when Baan was doing his psychobabble routine.
The fact that he is supposed to be a player analogue is the worst part. I don't see anything remotely similar about him and myself. He's just some guy with psychic powers he did not earn, with no initiative and no passion for what he does. He's also a smarmy jerk and acknowledges as much when trapped in his own mind by Emrakul. He got the highest position in all of Ravinca and not only does nothing with that, he takes every excuse to leave the place (again, the place he considers his true home) and his responsibilities behind him in favor of traipsing about pretending to be the hero of the story. Sooner or later, if the story was more grounded and consequences mattered more, he would eventually prove Tamyio correct about heroes being mere tragedies waiting to happen. I find him no more enjoyable to read about than watching Tidus from Final Fantasy X claiming to be the main protagonist when for better or for worse that's actually Yuna's role in the game. The only good thing is that Jace does less whining.
So far, the biggest problem with the Gatewatch is the classic "the good guys win, and the bad guys lose" paradigm. This certainly has no place in Magic. Perhaps they're setting up for the Gatewatch to have a catastrophic failure after beating the Eldrazi at every turn without losing a single member (or even getting mutilated). This is what I'm hoping for. If they all die except maybe one or two of them in Amonkhet, that would be pretty good writing, and would shake up some expectations. If the good guys keep going along without deaths and mutilations, that is mediocre writing at its mediocre-est.
As it stands, I'm a lot more interested in the side stories than the Gatewatch stories. Why would I care about the good guys who always win?
The dominant opinion, at least here seems to be "Threading the story together more clearly is generally a positive shift, but I don't really like the specific characters in the Gatewatch." That's more or less how I feel as well, and I think that could be solved with a few deaths, and new characters.
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Unfortunately, Jace was never going to be left out of the Gatewatch. He's the "most popular planeswalker." Who cares if most of the players who actually read the stories dislike him? The players who don't read about him think he looks cool! (I really don't hate Jace as much as some people, but I think he's boring and I'm sick of him showing up in every damn storyline).
You bring up a good point with the side stories. Which were the best stories in BFZ? Drana's story, Tazri's story, and Kiora's story with Kozilek, but none of the Gatewatch ones. SOI? Most people agreed that the Sorin vs. Nahiri subplot was far more interesting than Jace investigating or Gatewatch vs. Emrakul, and Tamiyo (another non-Gatewatch planeswalker) was popular as well.
For the transition between Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh we got the first Gatewatch story that was legitimately good and well-liked, but still: most of the stories focusing on one or more of the Gatewatch can't compare to the ones that don't. Kaladesh has featured the Gatewatch prominently in almost every single story, and that makes me terrified for the future of the story. I and most other story fans want to learn more about Bolas, Amonkhet, its inhabitants, and planeswalkers we don't get to see often. We don't want to see Jace's character traits (or lack of them) spelled out for us for the tenth time.