Yeah, guess you are right. But they do this all the time. They create a world and then just wreak havoc on it and utterly destroy it to the point of near extinction of the inhabitants. It's not only Amonkhet, but also Innistrad, Zendikar, Mirrodin, Alara kind of and yes, unbeloved Kamigawa too. It gets boring and we loose interesting worlds and places and characters.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Another reason I admire Theros. While it was a story of upheaval, the idea of Xenagos as a false god was unique and interesting, especially his motives as a planeswalker who learned of worlds where Theros gods held no sway. They compromised the story a little with the whole "Nyxborn turn on mortals" nonsense, re-creating a Kami War setting where none was needed. But overall, it would be nice not to have planes royally trashed all the damn time.
So Bolas utterly thrashes all the good guys, and yet they all escape relatively unscathed.
"So, Batman and Robin have escaped my Killimijig. It matters not! Not even the Dynamic Duo can stop me now!"
I won't forgive them unless Jace stays permanently wrecked. The stakes are high for Bontu and Hazoret, so they should be high for the recurring characters too. How does Gideon always get to keep all his limbs?
To be fair, the ability to planeswalk away from near-death situations certainly helps. If you want to kill a planeswalker, there are three ways to do it:
1. Kill them by surprise (Elsepth)
2. Make them lose their spark first (Xenagos)
3. Make them sacrifice themself (Venser as well as several oldwalkers during Time Spiral)
Otherwise, they're just going to planeswalk away before they would otherwise be killed.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more planeswalker deaths. But it does make sense for them to be able to escape unscathed in this case. And I'm glad to see them willing to kill off some legendary creatures this time after being extremely conservative with Kaladesh/Aether Revolt (you know, the most nonviolent revolution of all time).
The book actually offers a little bit of info on Bolas releasing the Eldrazi
"Bolas hoped that the presence of such a terrible interplanar threat would mobilize Planeswalkers to battle them and he could profit from seeing how a group of Planeswalkers would handle such a threat. Events on Zendikar didn't unfold as he had planned, since the appearance of Ugin, whom he had though dead. But the events on Zendikar and Innistarad, where one of the Titans had made it's way to-provided Bolas with a lovely gift: a little band of Planeswalkers he could manipulate."
You know, someone brought this up in speculation months ago and people dismissed the theory because it would be almost impossible to predict what would happen.
Why would he be able to predict that planeswalkers would work together? It was entirely possible that they wouldn't. Remember, on average each plane has only one to two planeswalkers on it, and most visiting planeswalkers are pretty indifferent to the plane's well-being. Plus Zendikar is a huge place and the Eldrazi threat was everywhere, so even if more than a couple of planeswalkers were fighting Eldrazi, the chances of them all being on the same continent and meeting up is pretty unlikely. The fact that there were so many planeswalkers who actually cared enough to try and defend Zendikar was very unlikely and coincidental. Bolas would have been lucky if two planeswalkers had worked together, let alone five.
Even if planeswalkers worked together to fight the Eldrazi, why would he assume that they would survive? This is Bolas we're talking about. He's smart enough to know that the chances of planeswalkers defeating the Eldrazi are one in a million (which is precisely why the plot of BFZ was so stupid). Anyone in the right mind would assume that even if multiple planeswalkers teamed up to fight the Eldrazi, they would either be killed or give up and planeswalk away.
Even if the planeswalkers somehow won,, why would he assume that they would continue to work together? Planeswalkers are solitary by nature and on the very rare occasion that a group of them work together for a common goal, they virtually never continue working together afterward. It was much more likely that the hypothetical group of planeswalkers would go their separate ways after defeating the Eldrazi (which, of course, in itself is a long shot) than continuing to work together.
And even if planeswalkers worked together, defeated the Eldrazi, and continued working together afterward, why would Bolas think that it would let him manipulate them? There was never any guarantee that the group of planeswalkers would come into contact with Bolas, and even if they did, why would he be able to manipulate them and get them to work for him? Hell, this is even what actually happened in the story. Bolas didn't get to manipulate the Gatewatch or use them to his benefit at all. They fought him, and he won. The whole thing leaves him no better off than he was before.
So not only was his plan extremely unlikely to work on several different levels, but even with everything happening that he wanted by chance, he still couldn't do what he wanted to in the end. Plus releasing the Eldrazi was actually a huge risk to him, them being one of the few things that could actually present real threats to him. And they could destroy planes that he had conquered even without confronting him directly, and he might not be able to stop them.
So there was a 0.0000001% chance of him getting the potential to get some new planeswalker minions and a 90% chance that he would create a problem for himself by having Eldrazi titans roaming the multiverse. This whole plan is ridiculously, absurdly, insultingly stupid.
I'll withhold full judgement until we get the actual stories, especially since the art book summaries are full of inconsistincies because creative can't coordinate their story properly, but if this is the actual direction they chose to go I will be extremely disappointed.
Clearly they had no idea what would be Bolas's motivation back when they were writing the story of Zendikar block, leaving the future creative team with a pretty difficult task, but I'll be damned if this isn't a piss-poor way of retroactively creating a plan that is supposed to be worthy of Nicol Bolas.
They threw me a curve-ball with that HoD trailer then because it looked like Hazoret was getting drained by locusts in that really awful way that is portrayed by movies with a lot of bugs. I will accept Jackal-mom being alive. She's great and that excerpt about her accepting trinkets warms my heart. Oketra getting got makes me sad though.
It's funny. I didn't really care all that much about the Amonkhet gods all that much until I heard they were all going to die. I was like "wait no what? why? please don't do that." :/
Yeah, guess you are right. But they do this all the time. They create a world and then just wreak havoc on it and utterly destroy it to the point of near extinction of the inhabitants. It's not only Amonkhet, but also Innistrad, Zendikar, Mirrodin, Alara kind of and yes, unbeloved Kamigawa too. It gets boring and we loose interesting worlds and places and characters.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Another reason I admire Theros. While it was a story of upheaval, the idea of Xenagos as a false god was unique and interesting, especially his motives as a planeswalker who learned of worlds where Theros gods held no sway. They compromised the story a little with the whole "Nyxborn turn on mortals" nonsense, re-creating a Kami War setting where none was needed. But overall, it would be nice not to have planes royally trashed all the damn time.
Oh I very much agree. The thought that an apocalypse can get boring is a bad sign. Yes its good to have drama and tension but I feel Wizards has almost forgotten how to do the microcosm side, I say almost as Kaladesh is much smaller and isn't simply a genocidal event. Now it sounds like I'm ragging on them a bit hard, but its because I know they can tell the other half of those stories. As its good to give the audience some time to breathe, like how Ixalan seems to be going, its much more of a small event than with Amonkhet which was much larger in scale.
I'm a bit of an advocate in this matter, but that is why I think Urza's story is very good in this regard. It starts off with very small events and builds and builds with the events getting incrementally larger in scale until Yawgmoth's defeat.
"Bolas hoped that the presence of such a terrible interplanar threat would mobilize Planeswalkers to battle them and he could profit from seeing how a group of Planeswalkers would handle such a threat. Events on Zendikar didn't unfold as he had planned, since the appearance of Ugin, whom he had though dead.But the events on Zendikar...provided Bolas with a lovely gift: a little band of Planeswalkers he could manipulate."
It looks more like Bolas wanted to see a group of walkers might handle an interplanar threat (ohhhh like lets say say an Elder Dragon with an undead army) but it seems that he didn't think they'd live or keep going as a group. But Ugin put a wrench into that plan and as the result the Gatewatch was given the key to defeating the eldrazi, but Bolas doesn't seem to think (and shows) the gatewatch still aren't able to beat him.
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"
"Bolas hoped that the presence of such a terrible interplanar threat would mobilize Planeswalkers to battle them and he could profit from seeing how a group of Planeswalkers would handle such a threat. Events on Zendikar didn't unfold as he had planned, since the appearance of Ugin, whom he had though dead.But the events on Zendikar...provided Bolas with a lovely gift: a little band of Planeswalkers he could manipulate."
It looks more like Bolas wanted to see a group of walkers might handle an interplanar threat (ohhhh like lets say say an Elder Dragon with an undead army) but it seems that he didn't think they'd live or keep going as a group. But Ugin put a wrench into that plan and as the result the Gatewatch was given the key to defeating the eldrazi, but Bolas doesn't seem to think (and shows) the gatewatch still aren't able to beat him.
Fair enough, but there's still no guarantee that any planeswalker group would form in the first place.
And if he was expecting the Eldrazi to not die, he was putting himself and the planes he controls/influences/profits from at a pretty big risk.
About planeswalkers working together, there are precedents, like the Nine Titans or the closing of the Time Rift (which Bolas obviously knew). Not forgetting Sorin, Nahiri and Ugin. So it could happen, but it is a very rare event... Not worthy of building a plane around it, in my opinion.
I think that the cunning of Bolas has been vastly overrated (from fans and creative alike): it's difficult to give him a really brilliant plan in the long run, more even so if creative didn't think of his motivation before.
About planeswalkers working together, there are precedents, like the Nine Titans or the closing of the Time Rift (which Bolas obviously knew). Not forgetting Sorin, Nahiri and Ugin. So it could happen, but it is a very rare event... Not worthy of building a plane around it, in my opinion.
I think that the cunning of Bolas has been vastly overrated (from fans and creative alike): it's difficult to give him a really brilliant plan in the long run, more even so if creative didn't think of his motivation before.
Let's not forget that was went Walkers for 'all-powerful' and Bolas was shown to be able to take on any one-on-one. He bested Teferi in his own field of time magic and Leshrac need a trump card from a similar powerful entity to stand a chance against him. But now he, and every other Walker, is mortal, more or less. It's more likely that he figured that now that they are killible flesh and blood, they'd be more likely to team up. So he needed somewhere where he could have a force devoted to him that eh could use as a meat shield. The fact that he could make the Eternals is more of an after the fact benifit
And if he was expecting the Eldrazi to not die, he was putting himself and the planes he controls/influences/profits from at a pretty big risk.
I don't remember so well, but aren't the Eldrazi attracted to mana-rich planes flush with vitality? I think if the story needed it, there could be some system by which the chances of your plane getting targeted by the Eldrazi could be reduced. Also, if we think of planes in the multiverse like we think about earthlike planets or solar systems in our universe, then the chance of any one plane being targeted by the Eldrazi is very small in the first place.
Bolas' plan doesn't really make sense though. As others have already said: Why stop the army production now when you could just keep it going? I suppose you'll always have to factor in his R side, which probably increases his "maniacal and sometimes irrational supervillain"-like behavior, but Bolas is supposed to be known for his great cunning. I wonder if there's an actual reason to why he decided to throw Amonkhet into the trash now and not some time in the future.
That Damnation art of Bolas smiling is so freakin' awesome it actually kind of pisses me off. Now why couldn't that have been used as "Bolas the Deceiver"'s card art? With the exception of Swanland's new God-Pharaoh piece, Nicol Bolas has never looked half that cool on his own cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
Seems bizarre that a pre-mending walking at the twilight of his powers would spend a fair portion of their final days in power to subdue an entire plane only for an army of eternals. I was sure he wanted direct power/vitality from the plane itself. What would he need the army for so far in advance? What is his intention to attack?
I will say I'm very much not a fan of the long-awaited answer to why Bolas freed the Eldrazi being, essentially, 'to see what would happen'.
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
I will say I'm very much not a fan of the long-awaited answer to why Bolas freed the Eldrazi being, essentially, 'to see what would happen'.
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
I will say I'm very much not a fan of the long-awaited answer to why Bolas freed the Eldrazi being, essentially, 'to see what would happen'.
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
Actually, it's Wizard's royally trashes their planes, but doesn't end them. Just leaves them trashed in a half-ass limbo which no one wants to return to. I'm all for leaving returns possible, but I'm over trashing them and expecting us to want to return. It does feel cowardly. If you're going to go as far as they did with Zendikar and Amonkhet, then end them.
I will say I'm very much not a fan of the long-awaited answer to why Bolas freed the Eldrazi being, essentially, 'to see what would happen'.
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
It definitely feels like they wrote themselves into a corner. Like they just wanted to come up with a reason the Eldrazi got free and someone was like "Oh Bolas would do it!" But no one at the time tried to think of why he wpuld and now they can't think of a good reason so they made that excuse up.
So the Eldrazi's threat level just sunked even more....They were jsut lab rats to "test" Planewalkers.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
But of course. Didn't you know everything about this game is about Planeswalkers? Gods, Eldritch horror deities, even entire planes are just props for the Planeswalker soap opera, where they're the entire focus. With this sort of writing, every Planeswalker is a Mary Sue. The fact we couldn't even get Egypt World off the short list without it being Bolas World with an Egyptian veneer is enough evidence of that. I'm willing to grant Bolas is capable of such a feat though, but in the context of everything - just reprehensible. But the way BFZ and Ulamog/Kozilek were handled, Bolas's motives with Eldrazi, Razaketh etc. have been handled? The setup they gave Kiora against Thassa? The idea that Eldrazi titans are pushovers, but Ob Nixlis and Bolas deliver Gatewatch losses? SOI/EMN may very well be the only damn story actually handled rather well. And even then, Emrakul's entire release was orchestrated for… Planeswalkers.
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
I've read many times in these days about people who want an archeology based set... well, in a sense we already had it.
Antiquities on old Dominaria, complete with desert nomads and ancient artifact relics. In truth, I can see that it is so old now that it can be plausible an another archeolgy set is feasible.
So the Eldrazi's threat level just sunked even more....They were jsut lab rats to "test" Planewalkers.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
But of course. Didn't you know everything about this game is about Planeswalkers? Gods, Eldritch horror deities, even entire planes are just props for the Planeswalker soap opera, where they're the entire focus. With this sort of writing, every Planeswalker is a Mary Sue. The fact we couldn't even get Egypt World off the short list without it being Bolas World with an Egyptian veneer is enough evidence of that. I'm willing to grant Bolas is capable of such a feat though, but in the context of everything - just reprehensible. But the way BFZ and Ulamog/Kozilek were handled, Bolas's motives with Eldrazi, Razaketh etc. have been handled? The setup they gave Kiora against Thassa? The idea that Eldrazi titans are pushovers, but Ob Nixlis and Bolas deliver Gatewatch losses? SOI/EMN may very well be the only damn story actually handled rather well. And even then, Emrakul's entire release was orchestrated for… Planeswalkers.
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
To be fair, they apparently realized that they mishandled the whole Gatewatch plot armor thing, while this can't make up for the loss of two eldritch monstrosities and a series of really cheesy moments, they started to make them more mortal. During the last trial, none of them could do anything against the gods and now they were humiliated by Bolas. From now on, they can focus on letting them recover and learn from their failure, while slowly giving them character development without overusing them. For example, take Jace appearance in Ixalan, as it appears now he is a refugee with missing memory, which can lead to quiet an interesting story for a non-fighting character in a world full of dinosaurs and pirates.
I know they should have handled it better from the beginning, with the whole mending and there argument of powering down, but at least they admit that they did things wrong. I know how this feels, my D&D group started like the Gatewatch, beating one enemy after another, without much obstacles, because the DM did not want to risk anyone. He realized as we reached level 10 and already dealt with godlike foes that he wrote himself in a corner, while we rebooted our whole campaign they made a cut with the Gatewatch. I understand how you feel and you have any right to do so, but let’s see where they take it from here.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
This plan doesn't sound very bolas. It sounds very, well, stupid. No matter his ultimate gameplan, destroying your own source of minions and cutting yourself off from suicidal suicidally loyal fanatics just seems really bad planning on bolas's part.
Seems pretty genre savvy to me. Wrecking the place makes it harder for someone to use it to make another army which could be used against him. He can always get a new army somewhere else.
This plan doesn't sound very bolas. It sounds very, well, stupid. No matter his ultimate gameplan, destroying your own source of minions and cutting yourself off from suicidal suicidally loyal fanatics just seems really bad planning on bolas's part.
Seems pretty genre savvy to me. Wrecking the place makes it harder for someone to use it to make another army which could be used against him. He can always get a new army somewhere else.
All of this assuming its possible to make another/more army. For all we know they could be out of Lazotep. Or some other things that would make it difficult or impossible to keep up the zombie factory.
So the Eldrazi's threat level just sunked even more....They were jsut lab rats to "test" Planewalkers.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
But of course. Didn't you know everything about this game is about Planeswalkers? Gods, Eldritch horror deities, even entire planes are just props for the Planeswalker soap opera, where they're the entire focus. With this sort of writing, every Planeswalker is a Mary Sue. The fact we couldn't even get Egypt World off the short list without it being Bolas World with an Egyptian veneer is enough evidence of that. I'm willing to grant Bolas is capable of such a feat though, but in the context of everything - just reprehensible. But the way BFZ and Ulamog/Kozilek were handled, Bolas's motives with Eldrazi, Razaketh etc. have been handled? The setup they gave Kiora against Thassa? The idea that Eldrazi titans are pushovers, but Ob Nixlis and Bolas deliver Gatewatch losses? SOI/EMN may very well be the only damn story actually handled rather well. And even then, Emrakul's entire release was orchestrated for… Planeswalkers.
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
I think you're forgetting that planeswalkers, both Old and Neo, have this attitude because they're keenly aware of the vast expanse of the multiverse. This by itself makes it difficult for a walker to really connect with a world that isn't their own unless they put in the effort or have serious motivation, and it's typically white walkers who do that.
When a planebound being like Rashmi, Drana or Kydele is exposed to the idea that there's something beyond their plane's bounds, they openly show wonder, fascination or awe. By stark contrast, it isn't anything special to walkers that have been around many places like the Gatewatch, Tezzeret and so on. It doesn't help that walkers aren't even supposed to be in worlds other than their own, but a glitch in the MTG Matrix called the spark lets them world-hop. Tamiyo even outright called planeswalkers "disasters with a point of view".
Planeswalkers and people with plane-hopping tech like the Planar Bridge and ye-olde planar portals are inherently a danger to the multiverse.
So the Eldrazi's threat level just sunked even more....They were jsut lab rats to "test" Planewalkers.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
But of course. Didn't you know everything about this game is about Planeswalkers? Gods, Eldritch horror deities, even entire planes are just props for the Planeswalker soap opera, where they're the entire focus. With this sort of writing, every Planeswalker is a Mary Sue. The fact we couldn't even get Egypt World off the short list without it being Bolas World with an Egyptian veneer is enough evidence of that. I'm willing to grant Bolas is capable of such a feat though, but in the context of everything - just reprehensible. But the way BFZ and Ulamog/Kozilek were handled, Bolas's motives with Eldrazi, Razaketh etc. have been handled? The setup they gave Kiora against Thassa? The idea that Eldrazi titans are pushovers, but Ob Nixlis and Bolas deliver Gatewatch losses? SOI/EMN may very well be the only damn story actually handled rather well. And even then, Emrakul's entire release was orchestrated for… Planeswalkers.
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
I think you're forgetting that planeswalkers, both Old and Neo, have this attitude because they're keenly aware of the vast expanse of the multiverse. This by itself makes it difficult for a walker to really connect with a world that isn't their own unless they put in the effort or have serious motivation, and it's typically white walkers who do that.
When a planebound being like Rashmi, Drana or Kydele is exposed to the idea that there's something beyond their plane's bounds, they openly show wonder, fascination or awe. By stark contrast, it isn't anything special to walkers that have been around many places like the Gatewatch, Tezzeret and so on. It doesn't help that walkers aren't even supposed to be in worlds other than their own, but a glitch in the MTG Matrix called the spark lets them world-hop. Tamiyo even outright called planeswalkers "disasters with a point of view".
Planeswalkers and people with plane-hopping tech like the Planar Bridge and ye-olde planar portals are inherently a danger to the multiverse.
A lack of awe doesn't explain their power level or how leadership positions, leading star positions, authority or reward all come to them with absolute ease and with minimal consequence, if any at all. Or how they accomplish greater feats within days than the natives of that world themselves, always, for no other reason than being Planeswalkers, which in itself should only mean being able to traverse the planes. Explain how that entitles any of them to march up to or even overpower plane overlords like pushovers or outshine those who have lived in those universes for decades?
A lack of awe doesn't explain their power level or how leadership positions, leading star positions, authority or reward all come to them with absolute ease and with minimal consequence, if any at all. Or how they accomplish greater feats within days than the natives of that world themselves, always, for no other reason than being Planeswalkers, which in itself should only mean being able to traverse the planes. Explain how that entitles any of them to march up to or even overpower plane overlords like pushovers or outshine those who have lived in those universes for decades?
I wasn't addressing how they came to be able to do that (I actually agree that there should be limitations there), but why they feel they can just go and do that. Said authority you're talking about doesn't really mean anything to many of these people, and it's typically the white walkers that care the most about falling in line, and the green walkers that care about not upsetting the natural order of things.
Unfortunately for Amonkhet, Bolas is neither of those, and he has the power to back it up.
So the Eldrazi's threat level just sunked even more....They were jsut lab rats to "test" Planewalkers.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
But of course. Didn't you know everything about this game is about Planeswalkers? Gods, Eldritch horror deities, even entire planes are just props for the Planeswalker soap opera, where they're the entire focus. With this sort of writing, every Planeswalker is a Mary Sue. The fact we couldn't even get Egypt World off the short list without it being Bolas World with an Egyptian veneer is enough evidence of that. I'm willing to grant Bolas is capable of such a feat though, but in the context of everything - just reprehensible. But the way BFZ and Ulamog/Kozilek were handled, Bolas's motives with Eldrazi, Razaketh etc. have been handled? The setup they gave Kiora against Thassa? The idea that Eldrazi titans are pushovers, but Ob Nixlis and Bolas deliver Gatewatch losses? SOI/EMN may very well be the only damn story actually handled rather well. And even then, Emrakul's entire release was orchestrated for… Planeswalkers.
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
I think you're forgetting that planeswalkers, both Old and Neo, have this attitude because they're keenly aware of the vast expanse of the multiverse. This by itself makes it difficult for a walker to really connect with a world that isn't their own unless they put in the effort or have serious motivation, and it's typically white walkers who do that.
When a planebound being like Rashmi, Drana or Kydele is exposed to the idea that there's something beyond their plane's bounds, they openly show wonder, fascination or awe. By stark contrast, it isn't anything special to walkers that have been around many places like the Gatewatch, Tezzeret and so on. It doesn't help that walkers aren't even supposed to be in worlds other than their own, but a glitch in the MTG Matrix called the spark lets them world-hop. Tamiyo even outright called planeswalkers "disasters with a point of view".
Planeswalkers and people with plane-hopping tech like the Planar Bridge and ye-olde planar portals are inherently a danger to the multiverse.
I don't think that the capacity to travel to different worlds would make it any less awe-evoking. I have the ability to purchase a ticket and see France which is different enough that I'd be awe inspired throughout my stay there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
|| 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 ||
To be fair, the ability to planeswalk away from near-death situations certainly helps. If you want to kill a planeswalker, there are three ways to do it:
1. Kill them by surprise (Elsepth)
2. Make them lose their spark first (Xenagos)
3. Make them sacrifice themself (Venser as well as several oldwalkers during Time Spiral)
Otherwise, they're just going to planeswalk away before they would otherwise be killed.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more planeswalker deaths. But it does make sense for them to be able to escape unscathed in this case. And I'm glad to see them willing to kill off some legendary creatures this time after being extremely conservative with Kaladesh/Aether Revolt (you know, the most nonviolent revolution of all time).
You know, someone brought this up in speculation months ago and people dismissed the theory because it would be almost impossible to predict what would happen.
Why would he be able to predict that planeswalkers would work together? It was entirely possible that they wouldn't. Remember, on average each plane has only one to two planeswalkers on it, and most visiting planeswalkers are pretty indifferent to the plane's well-being. Plus Zendikar is a huge place and the Eldrazi threat was everywhere, so even if more than a couple of planeswalkers were fighting Eldrazi, the chances of them all being on the same continent and meeting up is pretty unlikely. The fact that there were so many planeswalkers who actually cared enough to try and defend Zendikar was very unlikely and coincidental. Bolas would have been lucky if two planeswalkers had worked together, let alone five.
Even if planeswalkers worked together to fight the Eldrazi, why would he assume that they would survive? This is Bolas we're talking about. He's smart enough to know that the chances of planeswalkers defeating the Eldrazi are one in a million (which is precisely why the plot of BFZ was so stupid). Anyone in the right mind would assume that even if multiple planeswalkers teamed up to fight the Eldrazi, they would either be killed or give up and planeswalk away.
Even if the planeswalkers somehow won,, why would he assume that they would continue to work together? Planeswalkers are solitary by nature and on the very rare occasion that a group of them work together for a common goal, they virtually never continue working together afterward. It was much more likely that the hypothetical group of planeswalkers would go their separate ways after defeating the Eldrazi (which, of course, in itself is a long shot) than continuing to work together.
And even if planeswalkers worked together, defeated the Eldrazi, and continued working together afterward, why would Bolas think that it would let him manipulate them? There was never any guarantee that the group of planeswalkers would come into contact with Bolas, and even if they did, why would he be able to manipulate them and get them to work for him? Hell, this is even what actually happened in the story. Bolas didn't get to manipulate the Gatewatch or use them to his benefit at all. They fought him, and he won. The whole thing leaves him no better off than he was before.
So not only was his plan extremely unlikely to work on several different levels, but even with everything happening that he wanted by chance, he still couldn't do what he wanted to in the end. Plus releasing the Eldrazi was actually a huge risk to him, them being one of the few things that could actually present real threats to him. And they could destroy planes that he had conquered even without confronting him directly, and he might not be able to stop them.
So there was a 0.0000001% chance of him getting the potential to get some new planeswalker minions and a 90% chance that he would create a problem for himself by having Eldrazi titans roaming the multiverse. This whole plan is ridiculously, absurdly, insultingly stupid.
I'll withhold full judgement until we get the actual stories, especially since the art book summaries are full of inconsistincies because creative can't coordinate their story properly, but if this is the actual direction they chose to go I will be extremely disappointed.
Clearly they had no idea what would be Bolas's motivation back when they were writing the story of Zendikar block, leaving the future creative team with a pretty difficult task, but I'll be damned if this isn't a piss-poor way of retroactively creating a plan that is supposed to be worthy of Nicol Bolas.
It's funny. I didn't really care all that much about the Amonkhet gods all that much until I heard they were all going to die. I was like "wait no what? why? please don't do that." :/
Also, I'm glad that the Scorpion ate ****.
"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
I'm a bit of an advocate in this matter, but that is why I think Urza's story is very good in this regard. It starts off with very small events and builds and builds with the events getting incrementally larger in scale until Yawgmoth's defeat.
From what the quote says;
It looks more like Bolas wanted to see a group of walkers might handle an interplanar threat (ohhhh like lets say say an Elder Dragon with an undead army) but it seems that he didn't think they'd live or keep going as a group. But Ugin put a wrench into that plan and as the result the Gatewatch was given the key to defeating the eldrazi, but Bolas doesn't seem to think (and shows) the gatewatch still aren't able to beat him.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Fair enough, but there's still no guarantee that any planeswalker group would form in the first place.
And if he was expecting the Eldrazi to not die, he was putting himself and the planes he controls/influences/profits from at a pretty big risk.
I think that the cunning of Bolas has been vastly overrated (from fans and creative alike): it's difficult to give him a really brilliant plan in the long run, more even so if creative didn't think of his motivation before.
Let's not forget that was went Walkers for 'all-powerful' and Bolas was shown to be able to take on any one-on-one. He bested Teferi in his own field of time magic and Leshrac need a trump card from a similar powerful entity to stand a chance against him. But now he, and every other Walker, is mortal, more or less. It's more likely that he figured that now that they are killible flesh and blood, they'd be more likely to team up. So he needed somewhere where he could have a force devoted to him that eh could use as a meat shield. The fact that he could make the Eternals is more of an after the fact benifit
Bolas' plan doesn't really make sense though. As others have already said: Why stop the army production now when you could just keep it going? I suppose you'll always have to factor in his R side, which probably increases his "maniacal and sometimes irrational supervillain"-like behavior, but Bolas is supposed to be known for his great cunning. I wonder if there's an actual reason to why he decided to throw Amonkhet into the trash now and not some time in the future.
|| 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 ||
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
As for planes being trashed, it's amazing seeing how many people view it in completely different directions. One day it's "Wizards doesn't have the guts to destroy their planes" and the next it's "Wizards needs to stop destroying their planes", lol.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
|| 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 definitely feels like they wrote themselves into a corner. Like they just wanted to come up with a reason the Eldrazi got free and someone was like "Oh Bolas would do it!" But no one at the time tried to think of why he wpuld and now they can't think of a good reason so they made that excuse up.
Wizards really destroyed the Eldrazi's flavour din't they...
It's just embarrassing. Just call them Oldwalkers already, then. Retcon the mending out. THe mending SHOULD have been a reason Planeswalkers are interesting - being diverse mages who can roam the planes, learning various magics, working hard to develop and hone their abilities through their travels. Being able to wander, escape, return places. It's disingenuous to say they're mages who happen to travel worlds while writing them like immortal gods who humble Eldrazi titans, actual gods, and are the only real heroes and villains of stories; roles that are handed to them right off the bat with minimal effort. It's absurd to me that just being a Planeswalker is the reason these MORTAL, SIMPLE MAGES WHO HAPPEN TO WALK WORLDS can march right up to heavily guarded monarchs in fortresses, head angels on their own turf and SKY-DWELLING DIVINITIES ruling over the natural order of an entire UNIVERSE like they would to a mailbox within hours or days of arriving on a foreign world they've only just experienced.
With that logic, an immigrant should just walk right up to President Trump's doorstep for dinner moments after landing in our airport from Cambodia with ease. Welcome! You can travel continents, therefore you must be exceptional!
Gone are the days of writing like Scott McGough and heroes like Toshi. Who earned their results and adapted to challenges.
|| 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 ||
Antiquities on old Dominaria, complete with desert nomads and ancient artifact relics. In truth, I can see that it is so old now that it can be plausible an another archeolgy set is feasible.
To be fair, they apparently realized that they mishandled the whole Gatewatch plot armor thing, while this can't make up for the loss of two eldritch monstrosities and a series of really cheesy moments, they started to make them more mortal. During the last trial, none of them could do anything against the gods and now they were humiliated by Bolas. From now on, they can focus on letting them recover and learn from their failure, while slowly giving them character development without overusing them. For example, take Jace appearance in Ixalan, as it appears now he is a refugee with missing memory, which can lead to quiet an interesting story for a non-fighting character in a world full of dinosaurs and pirates.
I know they should have handled it better from the beginning, with the whole mending and there argument of powering down, but at least they admit that they did things wrong. I know how this feels, my D&D group started like the Gatewatch, beating one enemy after another, without much obstacles, because the DM did not want to risk anyone. He realized as we reached level 10 and already dealt with godlike foes that he wrote himself in a corner, while we rebooted our whole campaign they made a cut with the Gatewatch. I understand how you feel and you have any right to do so, but let’s see where they take it from here.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Seems pretty genre savvy to me. Wrecking the place makes it harder for someone to use it to make another army which could be used against him. He can always get a new army somewhere else.
I think you're forgetting that planeswalkers, both Old and Neo, have this attitude because they're keenly aware of the vast expanse of the multiverse. This by itself makes it difficult for a walker to really connect with a world that isn't their own unless they put in the effort or have serious motivation, and it's typically white walkers who do that.
When a planebound being like Rashmi, Drana or Kydele is exposed to the idea that there's something beyond their plane's bounds, they openly show wonder, fascination or awe. By stark contrast, it isn't anything special to walkers that have been around many places like the Gatewatch, Tezzeret and so on. It doesn't help that walkers aren't even supposed to be in worlds other than their own, but a glitch in the MTG Matrix called the spark lets them world-hop. Tamiyo even outright called planeswalkers "disasters with a point of view".
Planeswalkers and people with plane-hopping tech like the Planar Bridge and ye-olde planar portals are inherently a danger to the multiverse.
|| 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 wasn't addressing how they came to be able to do that (I actually agree that there should be limitations there), but why they feel they can just go and do that. Said authority you're talking about doesn't really mean anything to many of these people, and it's typically the white walkers that care the most about falling in line, and the green walkers that care about not upsetting the natural order of things.
Unfortunately for Amonkhet, Bolas is neither of those, and he has the power to back it up.
I don't think that the capacity to travel to different worlds would make it any less awe-evoking. I have the ability to purchase a ticket and see France which is different enough that I'd be awe inspired throughout my stay there.