Welp, I guess the Angrath=Tibalt theory is busted.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
My personal take on the Sun Empire is that the Emperor has an understanding for logistics.
(In my personal interpretation) He's looking at outside interlopers who come from an ocean and saying "If I make it cost too much to come to my land, you'll likely leave." His predecessor/mother was of a conservative governing nature. "Protect civilians (your labor/tax force) and your city centers. (your centralized areas of production) The Emperor says himself that he doesn't like what his mother would say, and knows exactly what she would. She would have trained him in her line of thinking for when he was in charge.
He may decide "I want to expand," and that doesn't mean he has to also think "and I'm just gonna go slaughter everyone who's standing in my way!!" I for one would love a Naya-aligned character who demonstrates they understand that wars on large scale require seeing whole systems. Naya in many ways is great at seeing whole systems.
My personal take on the Sun Empire is that the Emperor has an understanding for logistics.
(In my personal interpretation) He's looking at outside interlopers who come from an ocean and saying "If I make it cost too much to come to my land, you'll likely leave." His predecessor/mother was of a conservative governing nature. "Protect civilians (your labor/tax force) and your city centers. (your centralized areas of production) The Emperor says himself that he doesn't like what his mother would say, and knows exactly what she would. She would have trained him in her line of thinking for when he was in charge.
He may decide "I want to expand," and that doesn't mean he has to also think "and I'm just gonna go slaughter everyone who's standing in my way!!" I for one would love a Naya-aligned character who demonstrates they understand that wars on large scale require seeing whole systems. Naya in many ways is great at seeing whole systems.
I suppose, except that burning supplies isn't how you make it expensive. Killing personnel is, and burning ships. If you have no intention of collaborating or trading with the invaders, and if they show no particular mercy toward your people (Raiders' Wake), then the best strategy is to kill them. So I suspect that the story beats here aren't to show that the Sun Empire is being realistically tactical, but that they're being (unrealistically) "good" by minimizing casualties.
I too enjoyed Angrath's fighting style; as soon as the chains were involved, I was hooked. Def got flashbacks of Chainer, and for a planeswalker to use this style too is awesome. Looking forward to seeing more of Angrath.
As for the rest, def not bad, and as others have said, I also enjoyed her mistaking Kaladesh as the city of gold.
Calling it now, Angrath is likely going to end up my favorite character of the block. I love RB, I love Minotaurs, I grew up reading Ghost Rider, and Chainer is one of my favorite characters in all of MTG lore (you're definitely right, I immediately got flashbacks of the Torment book reading this)... that's a grand slam for me.
The story almost makes me wonder whether Orazca is actually a functioning portal to Kaladesh or another golden city on another plane. That would explain how it's the potential gateway for planeswalkers to leave. As long as the locals are complicit and the Ixalani think it's still part of Ixalan, the stories can continue to grow around it.
On the other hand, Huatli mistaking Kaladeshi cities for legendary Orazca is the more likely explanation.
Welp, I guess the Angrath=Tibalt theory is busted.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
Well, the Sun Empire does want to expand and is at war with the River Heralds, so I don't think they're clear cut good guys.
If they are, that's unfortunate, but I trust Creative's stance on the moral gray of the color pie will make this relatively nuanced. I mean, they did make their conquistador analogues have sympathetic motivations, after all.
I suppose, except that burning supplies isn't how you make it expensive. Killing personnel is, and burning ships. If you have no intention of collaborating or trading with the invaders, and if they show no particular mercy toward your people (Raiders' Wake), then the best strategy is to kill them. So I suspect that the story beats here aren't to show that the Sun Empire is being realistically tactical, but that they're being (unrealistically) "good" by minimizing casualties.
Mm, I see your point. It's possible it was supposed to be a little of Column A and a little from Column B, and just haven't done a good job describing it, now leaving it looking a bit too 1980's 'A-Team Firing'.
I'm digging Angrath. He's easily the most interesting new walker we've been introduced to in a good while. Possibly since Tamiyo during original Innistrad block.
Destruction could be white in this case. In fact wakening sun's avatar "destroys" all non-dinosaur creatures. White has long been associated with mass destroy effects.
That would mean red=creativity, white=destruction, and green=sustenance.
I can definitely agree with this. It's also a refreshing take on the colors (even if it's really not NEW at all), red gets to be about something other than "heh, heh, fire" and white gets it's not-such-a-nice-guy* aspects that most people generally overlook highlighted.
Welp, I guess the Angrath=Tibalt theory is busted.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
I've got to agree with this too. They were really trying too hard to paint Huatli as a good guy, it felt really forced. We're only two stories in, so I can't say anything really for the narative as a whole, but it's starting to feel very Kaladesh-y. Kaladesh was frankly cringeworthy how everyone survived (minus a handful of nameless redshirts), it was simply unbelievable. I really, really hope they don't go the same direction with Ixalan (or even any faction on Ixalan).
*Edited to clear up that by not-such-a-good-guy, I was meaning more behavior (being nice) as opposed to "Good Guy" morality or ethics or whatever.
I'm digging Angrath. He's easily the most interesting new walker we've been introduced to in a good while. Possibly since Tamiyo during original Innistrad block.
I don't know if this is related to what you said in any way, but I think new walkers tend to be more interesting when they show up in a plane they aren't native to. Highlights the fact that they're, well, planeswalkers.
Wait and see all of the sides will be shown as shades of grey right?
Clearly the Aztecs are heroes, they just want to drive the pirates off!
To be fair, we're seeing this from the perspective of an "Aztec", and we know that the Sun Empire is in expansionist mode, which usually has its underhanded elements. The Emperor wanting the prize in Orazca, and only offering the Warrior-Poet title to the person who everyone already attributes the title to anyway only after they find the city, adds to that notion IMO. Of course, it's possible they could just be trying to paint them as the "good guys", and the tactics they've used here lend credence to that, but I think it might be premature to say that.
Destruction could be white in this case. In fact wakening sun's avatar "destroys" all non-dinosaur creatures. White has long been associated with mass destroy effects.
That would mean red=creativity, white=destruction, and green=sustenance.
I can definitely agree with this. It's also a refreshing take on the colors (even if it's really not NEW at all), red gets to be about something other than "heh, heh, fire" and white gets it's not-such-a-good-guy aspects that most people generally overlook highlighted.
Welp, I guess the Angrath=Tibalt theory is busted.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
I've got to agree with this too. They were really trying too hard to paint Huatli as a good guy, it felt really forced. We're only two stories in, so I can't say anything really for the narative as a whole, but it's starting to feel very Kaladesh-y. Kaladesh was frankly cringeworthy how everyone survived (minus a handful of nameless redshirts), it was simply unbelievable. I really, really hope they don't go the same direction with Ixalan (or even any faction on Ixalan).
Return to Innistrad was a whole block of white villians.
Maybe Invasion block and before White was rarely the villian but going back as far as the Dark white has been villianous.
Akroma, Konda, Heliod, Avacyn and the whole church of Avacyn.
How many mono-black central villians have there been after Invasion?
Destruction could be white in this case. In fact wakening sun's avatar "destroys" all non-dinosaur creatures. White has long been associated with mass destroy effects.
That would mean red=creativity, white=destruction, and green=sustenance.
I can definitely agree with this. It's also a refreshing take on the colors (even if it's really not NEW at all), red gets to be about something other than "heh, heh, fire" and white gets it's not-such-a-good-guy aspects that most people generally overlook highlighted.
Welp, I guess the Angrath=Tibalt theory is busted.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
I've got to agree with this too. They were really trying too hard to paint Huatli as a good guy, it felt really forced. We're only two stories in, so I can't say anything really for the narative as a whole, but it's starting to feel very Kaladesh-y. Kaladesh was frankly cringeworthy how everyone survived (minus a handful of nameless redshirts), it was simply unbelievable. I really, really hope they don't go the same direction with Ixalan (or even any faction on Ixalan).
Return to Innistrad was a whole block of white villians.
Maybe Invasion block and before White was rarely the villian but going back as far as the Dark white has been villianous.
Akroma, Konda, Heliod, Avacyn and the whole church of Avacyn.
How many mono-black central villians have there been after Invasion?
I didn't mean to imply I was referring to White being villainous. White absolutely can be, has been, and will likely again in the future be, the villain.
I said that white as the destruction aspect of the sun would highlight it's not so nice traits that a lot of people simply, or even willfully overlook. Many people still blindly hold Black and White, as colors in MTG, up to BE black and white, as good and evil.
*EDIT: I note there's some ambiguity in my earlier post, when I said not-such-a-good-guy, i didn't mean Good as in virtuous, but rther good as in nice guy. I'll edit that post to clear that up.
First of all, I agree with everyone saying that the Sun Empire's nonviolence is forced and illogical. That's not how you win wars. Doing it once would have been fine, but twice was just too much. Maybe I could buy that by pure luck they somehow managed to fight off the vampires without casualties despite actual dinosaurs being involved in the battle, but burning the pirates' supplies and then preparing to leave with the pirates still around? Seriously? That's just stupid. I get that the writes are trying really hard not to offend anyone by portraying Aztecs negatively (though they have no such reservations for the Spanish), and I even understand why they avoided cannibalism, but this... this is just too much. We get it, the Aztecs are the good guys. You can still have them kill their enemies. Protagonists do it all the time. The real Aztecs did it all the time. Having them actually kill their enemies would have made the story more interesting and much more believable. The last two blocks have done an absolutely awful job of making a story that even resembles morally grey, and I was hoping that Ixalan would be where they turn that around. Apparently not.
On a more positive note, Angrath is great for two reasons: 1. he's not human and 2. he's not from Ixalan. The number of human planeswalkers compared to non-human ones has been ridiculous lately. In the past two years, we've gotten Kaya, Arlinn, Saheeli, Samut, and Huatli as new human walkers and only Dovin as non-human. With so many cool races in Magic, it's a crime to give us a twentieth human planeswalker instead of something unique. I don't care how relatable humans are supposed to be, you could at least try to make half or a third of new planeswalkers non-human instead one-sixth. The same 5:1 ratio happens for new walkers appearing on their home planes versus on other planes: only Kaya was non-native, and the other five were all introduced on their home planes. Having planeswalkers show up only on their home planes defeats the point of having them be planeswalkers in the first place. And sure, sometimes planeswalkers introduced on their home planes end up going to other planes later on, like Vraska did, but for every one that does, another one doesn't, like Domri. Plus planeswalkers from other planes create more interesting stories anyway - for instance, Kiora being from Zendikar explained why she was on Theros and made her story arc that much more interesting because of it. It's nice to see another non-human and another non-native. Let's hope that these factors play into the story to some extent.
But of course, this begs the question: what plane is Angrath from? Let's look at the clues we have:
He uses fire magic: This could be any plane, and he didn't necessarily have to learn it on his own plane anyway.
He uses chains as weapons: All planes have chains, but none that I know of use it as a prominent fighting style, so once again this isn't helpful.
He's been to a plane with dragons: The only planes without dragons are Ixalan itself and old-timeline Tarkir, neither of which are candidates for his homeplane. He didn't even need to see dragons on his home plane anyway.
His horns are shorter and curvier than most minotaurs' (Shandalar, Alara, Zendikar, parts of Dominaria) but not as curvy as Amonkhet's minotaurs: I think this helps us narrow it down to most likely Dominaria, Ravnica, or Tarkir.
He has four horns: Now this is useful. Four-horned minotaurs don't show up on every plane, and they're rare on the planes they do appear. From what I can tell, we've only seen them on two planes: Ravnica (Boros Reckoner) and Tarkir (Felhide Spiritbender), though they could exist on others in theory. Boros Reckoner's four horns don't match Angrath's at all, and while the Spiritbender isn't a perfect match, it's the closest thing we have.
He has red fur: This is also unique among minotaurs, but Rageblood Shaman, a Theran minotaur, seems to have it too.
He's probably BR: This likely eliminates Ravnica, where minotaurs are almost always in the Boros and never in the Rakdos. Most other planes don't have BR minotaurs (though a single BR character wouldn't be impossible), but Theros and Amonkhet clearly have minotaurs in black and red. Amonkhet is impossible thanks to the horn shape, so once again this points towards Theros.
Because of this, I'm going to guess Theros. It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, too, since Theros is currently the plane that is most associated with minotaurs (with good reason) and we will presumably be returning there in the near future. I wouldn't be super surprised to have him be from Dominaria or maybe Ravnica instead, but Theros definitely seems the most likely to me.
On a more positive note, Angrath is great for two reasons: 1. he's not human and 2. he's not from Ixalan. The number of human planeswalkers compared to non-human ones has been ridiculous lately. In the past two years, we've gotten Kaya, Arlinn, Saheeli, Samut, and Huatli as new human walkers and only Dovin as non-human. With so many cool races in Magic, it's a crime to give us a twentieth human planeswalker instead of something unique. I don't care how relatable humans are supposed to be, you could at least try to make half or a third of new planeswalkers non-human instead one-sixth. The same 5:1 ratio happens for new walkers appearing on their home planes versus on other planes: only Kaya was non-native, and the other five were all introduced on their home planes. Having planeswalkers show up only on their home planes defeats the point of having them be planeswalkers in the first place. And sure, sometimes planeswalkers introduced on their home planes end up going to other planes later on, like Vraska did, but for every one that does, another one doesn't, like Domri. Plus planeswalkers from other planes create more interesting stories anyway - for instance, Kiora being from Zendikar explained why she was on Theros and made her story arc that much more interesting because of it. It's nice to see another non-human and another non-native. Let's hope that these factors play into the story to some extent.
I'd count Arlinn as non-human. Her starting point was "werewolf planeswalker" and she does have a non-human form that in shown on a card. Id even give ya 50/50 but I don't agree she should be seen as just another human walker.
We had two stories focused on Domri, his origin story where he goes to Naya. Ral would have been a better example.
But of course, this begs the question: what plane is Angrath from? Let's look at the clues we have:
He uses fire magic: This could be any plane, and he didn't necessarily have to learn it on his own plane anyway.
He uses chains as weapons: All planes have chains, but none that I know of use it as a prominent fighting style, so once again this isn't helpful.
He's been to a plane with dragons: The only planes without dragons are Ixalan itself and old-timeline Tarkir, neither of which are candidates for his homeplane. He didn't even need to see dragons on his home plane anyway.
His horns are shorter and curvier than most minotaurs' (Shandalar, Alara, Zendikar, parts of Dominaria) but not as curvy as Amonkhet's minotaurs: I think this helps us narrow it down to most likely Dominaria, Ravnica, or Tarkir.
He has four horns: Now this is useful. Four-horned minotaurs don't show up on every plane, and they're rare on the planes they do appear. From what I can tell, we've only seen them on two planes: Ravnica (Boros Reckoner) and Tarkir (Felhide Spiritbender), though they could exist on others in theory. Boros Reckoner's four horns don't match Angrath's at all, and while the Spiritbender isn't a perfect match, it's the closest thing we have.
He has red fur: This is also unique among minotaurs, but Rageblood Shaman, a Theran minotaur, seems to have it too.
He's probably BR: This likely eliminates Ravnica, where minotaurs are almost always in the Boros and never in the Rakdos. Most other planes don't have BR minotaurs (though a single BR character wouldn't be impossible), but Theros and Amonkhet clearly have minotaurs in black and red. Amonkhet is impossible thanks to the horn shape, so once again this points towards Theros.
Because of this, I'm going to guess Theros. It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, too, since Theros is currently the plane that is most associated with minotaurs (with good reason) and we will presumably be returning there in the near future. I wouldn't be super surprised to have him be from Dominaria or maybe Ravnica instead, but Theros definitely seems the most likely to me.
Planeswalkers tend to break the mold sometimes, but iirc the minotaurs on Theros are barley able to think and are pretty primitive, so making him a Theros Minotaur seems unlikely since he seems at least average human intelligent. Could be seeds maybe for a new plane.
Private Mod Note
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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"
If he is from an already-known plane, my money is on Dominaria.
I hope not, we already have so many Dominaria walkers. Since shandalaris super genetic, I could see it having Minotaurs and we have yet to see them a walker from there.
Also for the sun Creativity is W, destruction is R, and sustenance is G. Creativity in this case I think is less of art (like it is on Kaladesh) and more like a creator/builder which is defiantly more white.
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"
If he is from an already-known plane, my money is on Dominaria.
I'd wager that's what we've got here:
His name is similar in formation to Tahngrath
His chain magic is evocative of Chainers
A number of Dominarian Minotars went to Otarai after the Invastion
I didn't mean to imply I was referring to White being villainous. White absolutely can be, has been, and will likely again in the future be, the villain.
I said that white as the destruction aspect of the sun would highlight it's not so nice traits that a lot of people simply, or even willfully overlook. Many people still blindly hold Black and White, as colors in MTG, up to BE black and white, as good and evil.
*EDIT: I note there's some ambiguity in my earlier post, when I said not-such-a-good-guy, i didn't mean Good as in virtuous, but rther good as in nice guy. I'll edit that post to clear that up.
Im sorry but this gets said almost every block since I can remember.
And whites not being the nice guy has been around since the dark.
I loved the bit about mistaking Girapur for Orazca, that was very clever. And the way Angrath reacted to the revelation of another planeswalker was also a good twist.
Does it feel like this story has the Sun Empire pulling its punches a little bit, to make sure that Huatli is an unambiguous goodguy? Odd that they'd only try to destroy the pirates' supplies and not try to kill or capture them all with their dinosaurs. Goes double for the fight with the Legion of Dusk before the story starts, with no casualties on either side. Nice I guess, but that ain't how you win a war. Is this going to be another sort of 80's-cartoon-show-violence block, like Kaladesh was?
(In my personal interpretation) He's looking at outside interlopers who come from an ocean and saying "If I make it cost too much to come to my land, you'll likely leave." His predecessor/mother was of a conservative governing nature. "Protect civilians (your labor/tax force) and your city centers. (your centralized areas of production) The Emperor says himself that he doesn't like what his mother would say, and knows exactly what she would. She would have trained him in her line of thinking for when he was in charge.
He may decide "I want to expand," and that doesn't mean he has to also think "and I'm just gonna go slaughter everyone who's standing in my way!!" I for one would love a Naya-aligned character who demonstrates they understand that wars on large scale require seeing whole systems. Naya in many ways is great at seeing whole systems.
I suppose, except that burning supplies isn't how you make it expensive. Killing personnel is, and burning ships. If you have no intention of collaborating or trading with the invaders, and if they show no particular mercy toward your people (Raiders' Wake), then the best strategy is to kill them. So I suspect that the story beats here aren't to show that the Sun Empire is being realistically tactical, but that they're being (unrealistically) "good" by minimizing casualties.
"While the prior emperor had busied herself with conservative busywork"
It sucks that this story was written in this way seeing as it is from the R&D Team.
Calling it now, Angrath is likely going to end up my favorite character of the block. I love RB, I love Minotaurs, I grew up reading Ghost Rider, and Chainer is one of my favorite characters in all of MTG lore (you're definitely right, I immediately got flashbacks of the Torment book reading this)... that's a grand slam for me.
On the other hand, Huatli mistaking Kaladeshi cities for legendary Orazca is the more likely explanation.
Well, the Sun Empire does want to expand and is at war with the River Heralds, so I don't think they're clear cut good guys.
If they are, that's unfortunate, but I trust Creative's stance on the moral gray of the color pie will make this relatively nuanced. I mean, they did make their conquistador analogues have sympathetic motivations, after all.
Mm, I see your point. It's possible it was supposed to be a little of Column A and a little from Column B, and just haven't done a good job describing it, now leaving it looking a bit too 1980's 'A-Team Firing'.
I guess that makes sense with Dominaria looming. But he could also be from Theros, yeah?
Clearly the Aztecs are heroes, they just want to drive the pirates off!
Warning for Trolling: Please do not post fake cards.
~kaburi
Here have a troll cookie.
Besides who would ever think lilianna would mud and clutter through a jungle island. Dramatic strut king of girl that she is.
I can definitely agree with this. It's also a refreshing take on the colors (even if it's really not NEW at all), red gets to be about something other than "heh, heh, fire" and white gets it's not-such-a-nice-guy* aspects that most people generally overlook highlighted.
I've got to agree with this too. They were really trying too hard to paint Huatli as a good guy, it felt really forced. We're only two stories in, so I can't say anything really for the narative as a whole, but it's starting to feel very Kaladesh-y. Kaladesh was frankly cringeworthy how everyone survived (minus a handful of nameless redshirts), it was simply unbelievable. I really, really hope they don't go the same direction with Ixalan (or even any faction on Ixalan).
*Edited to clear up that by not-such-a-good-guy, I was meaning more behavior (being nice) as opposed to "Good Guy" morality or ethics or whatever.
I don't know if this is related to what you said in any way, but I think new walkers tend to be more interesting when they show up in a plane they aren't native to. Highlights the fact that they're, well, planeswalkers.
To be fair, we're seeing this from the perspective of an "Aztec", and we know that the Sun Empire is in expansionist mode, which usually has its underhanded elements. The Emperor wanting the prize in Orazca, and only offering the Warrior-Poet title to the person who everyone already attributes the title to anyway only after they find the city, adds to that notion IMO. Of course, it's possible they could just be trying to paint them as the "good guys", and the tactics they've used here lend credence to that, but I think it might be premature to say that.
Return to Innistrad was a whole block of white villians.
Maybe Invasion block and before White was rarely the villian but going back as far as the Dark white has been villianous.
Akroma, Konda, Heliod, Avacyn and the whole church of Avacyn.
How many mono-black central villians have there been after Invasion?
I didn't mean to imply I was referring to White being villainous. White absolutely can be, has been, and will likely again in the future be, the villain.
I said that white as the destruction aspect of the sun would highlight it's not so nice traits that a lot of people simply, or even willfully overlook. Many people still blindly hold Black and White, as colors in MTG, up to BE black and white, as good and evil.
*EDIT: I note there's some ambiguity in my earlier post, when I said not-such-a-good-guy, i didn't mean Good as in virtuous, but rther good as in nice guy. I'll edit that post to clear that up.
First of all, I agree with everyone saying that the Sun Empire's nonviolence is forced and illogical. That's not how you win wars. Doing it once would have been fine, but twice was just too much. Maybe I could buy that by pure luck they somehow managed to fight off the vampires without casualties despite actual dinosaurs being involved in the battle, but burning the pirates' supplies and then preparing to leave with the pirates still around? Seriously? That's just stupid. I get that the writes are trying really hard not to offend anyone by portraying Aztecs negatively (though they have no such reservations for the Spanish), and I even understand why they avoided cannibalism, but this... this is just too much. We get it, the Aztecs are the good guys. You can still have them kill their enemies. Protagonists do it all the time. The real Aztecs did it all the time. Having them actually kill their enemies would have made the story more interesting and much more believable. The last two blocks have done an absolutely awful job of making a story that even resembles morally grey, and I was hoping that Ixalan would be where they turn that around. Apparently not.
On a more positive note, Angrath is great for two reasons: 1. he's not human and 2. he's not from Ixalan. The number of human planeswalkers compared to non-human ones has been ridiculous lately. In the past two years, we've gotten Kaya, Arlinn, Saheeli, Samut, and Huatli as new human walkers and only Dovin as non-human. With so many cool races in Magic, it's a crime to give us a twentieth human planeswalker instead of something unique. I don't care how relatable humans are supposed to be, you could at least try to make half or a third of new planeswalkers non-human instead one-sixth. The same 5:1 ratio happens for new walkers appearing on their home planes versus on other planes: only Kaya was non-native, and the other five were all introduced on their home planes. Having planeswalkers show up only on their home planes defeats the point of having them be planeswalkers in the first place. And sure, sometimes planeswalkers introduced on their home planes end up going to other planes later on, like Vraska did, but for every one that does, another one doesn't, like Domri. Plus planeswalkers from other planes create more interesting stories anyway - for instance, Kiora being from Zendikar explained why she was on Theros and made her story arc that much more interesting because of it. It's nice to see another non-human and another non-native. Let's hope that these factors play into the story to some extent.
But of course, this begs the question: what plane is Angrath from? Let's look at the clues we have:
Because of this, I'm going to guess Theros. It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, too, since Theros is currently the plane that is most associated with minotaurs (with good reason) and we will presumably be returning there in the near future. I wouldn't be super surprised to have him be from Dominaria or maybe Ravnica instead, but Theros definitely seems the most likely to me.
It's possible he's from a plane we've never even seen yet.
I'd count Arlinn as non-human. Her starting point was "werewolf planeswalker" and she does have a non-human form that in shown on a card. Id even give ya 50/50 but I don't agree she should be seen as just another human walker.
We had two stories focused on Domri, his origin story where he goes to Naya. Ral would have been a better example.
Planeswalkers tend to break the mold sometimes, but iirc the minotaurs on Theros are barley able to think and are pretty primitive, so making him a Theros Minotaur seems unlikely since he seems at least average human intelligent. Could be seeds maybe for a new plane.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I hope not, we already have so many Dominaria walkers. Since shandalaris super genetic, I could see it having Minotaurs and we have yet to see them a walker from there.
Also for the sun Creativity is W, destruction is R, and sustenance is G. Creativity in this case I think is less of art (like it is on Kaladesh) and more like a creator/builder which is defiantly more white.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I'd wager that's what we've got here:
His name is similar in formation to Tahngrath
His chain magic is evocative of Chainers
A number of Dominarian Minotars went to Otarai after the Invastion
Im sorry but this gets said almost every block since I can remember.
And whites not being the nice guy has been around since the dark.
Witch Hunter
Radiant's Judgment
As for the minotaur, Dominaria or the Homelands plane, that escapes me right now, seem to be candidates but maybe alara I guess.