Go back to Novels? I mean they could also increase the word count...unless they are paying author per word here and not per chapter or just for the whole story.
Still what does Wells deserve culpability for here? I am not saying she had carte blanche but I also don't think WOTC was micromanaging her every step.
Do we really saying WOTC forced Wells to have Teferi, Jaya and Karn job out to Yargle and Urgoros?
Did WOTC force Wells to explain absolutely nothing?
On that last one, my genuine belief is not that she was forced, but that no one cared to make sure things were explained. She's not a Magic person. She wouldn't know the history of Magic things that could make this sort of thing possible unless someone told her. Which means people at Wizards could not be bothered to provide the relevant information. Which means somewhere the decision was made to not put in the effort to explain the things we absolutely need explained.
My real fear is that Wizards is really making a heavy turn at merchandising. You always have to sell your wares, but it seems like Wizards is churning out a lot of new merchandising things, more so than say five years or so ago. The decision to bring back core sets this year at the expense of a second Dominaria set makes *zero sense.* You can bring back core sets next year. This is the Big Anniversary, and you hype up a return to Dominaria and . . . decide to hamstring it by reintroducing core sets this year? And that decision definitely worked against the Dominaria story. In a lot of her writings, Wells shows her skill and ability in writing. But the time crunch and medium made it almost cruel. And the apparent lack of guidance for super important story moments just makes it seem like a lot of things are going to take second fiddle to churning out merchandise.
Story has been a sidenote for Wizards for a while now (but they have done a lot of good work on the website these years!), but I just feel used at the conclusion of the Dominaria story.
Thankfully, there's an opportunity to fix this in the Ravnica block. Just have Teferi explain to someone how Jhoira did it. How it felt to get his spark back. You guys at Wizards have months now for a plausible story, and three sets to write it!
This is a bitter post, but I'm genuinely bitter that we were robbed of these important story moments.
Go back to Novels? I mean they could also increase the word count...unless they are paying author per word here and not per chapter or just for the whole story.
Still what does Wells deserve culpability for here? I am not saying she had carte blanche but I also don't think WOTC was micromanaging her every step.
Do we really saying WOTC forced Wells to have Teferi, Jaya and Karn job out to Yargle and Urgoros?
Did WOTC force Wells to explain absolutely nothing?
I am sure WOTC forced her to write Jace, The Golden Boy, as a Bitter and Spiteful Ex Boyfriend...
I know you didn't like the story, so your response here amounts to you asking Wells and WotC to explain why you didn't like the story. You've made it clear why you didn't, all I'm trying to do is share a little insight as to why things might have been the way they were.
I enjoyed it because I knew what to expect. I didn't expect a sweeping saga with incredible depth of character, and so my expectations weren't dashed.
It is an assumption, but I'd be fairly certain that she would've had an average word count to adhere to. In fact, as an author I would be demanding it. Without knowing the specifics of the contract, it still makes sense. They're not paying her for sales, so she would've had a fixed price for the job or per installment, which means she would've asked them to specify exactly how much they wanted her to write. There's no way, as an author, you're going to allow yourself to give away a novel's worth without even the possibility of earning more money from retail sales.
I can't say I blame her, either. If she had not specified, I'm sure WotC wouldn't have said no to a novel, but they definitely would never have paid her enough to justify her doing that much.
Go back to Novels? I mean they could also increase the word count...unless they are paying author per word here and not per chapter or just for the whole story.
Still what does Wells deserve culpability for here? I am not saying she had carte blanche but I also don't think WOTC was micromanaging her every step.
Do we really saying WOTC forced Wells to have Teferi, Jaya and Karn job out to Yargle and Urgoros?
Did WOTC force Wells to explain absolutely nothing?
I am sure WOTC forced her to write Jace, The Golden Boy, as a Bitter and Spiteful Ex Boyfriend...
I'd be hesitant to explain something if I didn't have the full detail or maybe the explanation unveils too much about future plot points. I find it hard to believe that wells had sufficient time and space to breathe the life this story deserved - it flies in the face of what we know about the pacing and time constraints of prior stories. Historically the story outlets have not been stated to have been completed that far in advance of the set releases.
Heck, they start working on sets 2+ years out...which means creative has to have a direction 2-3 years in advance? This story could have been rotting in an electronic file for 8-12 months with a cursory glance through months before posting to bring it up to date with the card file and set changes. It may not have even been Martha doing the final edits (why would it be, I'm sure she wasn't cheap). This is how it should be, Imo. Finished work that is revisited and polished for continuity with product lines.
Now given the positive reinforcement Yargle has received according to WotC tweets and stuff, I don't think this was the case. If the community outright hated yargle, like the pushback against lorwyn's not serious enough tone, then it would have been a big issue to have him show up so much in the final chapters. The actual timeframe was probably more condensed, which means rushing, which means stuff gets omitted in error, and we have unhappy fans because the final product is less polished than desired.
Tldr: Martha probably isn't to blame. WotC slapped their name on it and should have been more careful with some of the details and given the story more time/space to feel more organic.
I am saying I agree that she had a word count and WOTC should look to lift that cause these stories need more length.
However, I am saying I don't think WOTC was micromanaging the story beats like the mechanics of the fight scenes or Jace's Personality whiplash from Ixalan to Dominaria.
Fair enough. And I agree, this format doesn't work. They really need to put a line in the sand as to where they want the depth of story to sit. As it is, they're currently pretending it's more immersive than it is, and they'd do well just adjust their perspective on it. I don't think novels are financially viable, I just don't know what else they could do.
I like the idea of like a podcast style thing, but I don't know how financially feasible that would be. Failing that, a lengthened article would be adequate.
I don't get the 'personality whiplash'. It's clear why Jace doesn't trust Lili, and why his personality changed.
Here, I fixed the confrontation between Yargle and our protagonists for those of y'all who felt like said showdown betrayed the cards and characters: "And then Yargle flashed in somehow! But Jaya quickly immolated it because it only had 3 toughness (she saw three untapped mountains on the horizon and had been holding a Flame Javelin in her hand since drawing it in Yavimaya) and the Weatherlight was totally fine because, even though the skyship had blocked Yargle, Jaya's spell went off before the combat damage step."
I think that it's best to just ignore the cards when reading these stories; they're almost never gonna square off convincingly. Otherwise, Karn really should've restarted the game back on New Phyrexia.
I don't get the 'personality whiplash'. It's clear why Jace doesn't trust Lili, and why his personality changed.
The difference between how he interacts with Vraska and the rest of the crew at the end of Ixalan is much much brighter than how he has been interacting with Gideon, which flies in the face of how happy he seemed to be at the idea of reconnecting with the gatewatch.
This was a satisfying end. The various battlefronts were handled well within a limited space, allowing each character to have some moments.
I do wish we would have had a little more explanation on Radha (or have her removed)--or have Squee show up instead. Those are just minor preferences.
As others have noted, the role of each individual character (especially Teferi and Karn) was underwhelming, but the team's together and we got some throwbacks.
As I noted a few pages ago, this makes me itch to do some fan-fiction with some revisions to the story--I'd love to flesh out some character relationships, change Teferi's spark-holding powerstone to Gerrard's lost hourglass pendant, and add a frame to the story like Rath and Storm(an old Master Ilcaster telling the story would be great), but the story was satisfactory for what it was.
Onward to the big finale. I'm sure Nissa will return so we get the Gatewatch in full. With this new pacing between sets, though, I'm really enjoying the pacing (across our actual real-world calendar years) as opposed to the slow grind since post-Mending.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
Here, I fixed the confrontation between Yargle and our protagonists for those of y'all who felt like said showdown betrayed the cards and characters: "And then Yargle flashed in somehow! But Jaya quickly immolated it because it only had 3 toughness (she saw three untapped mountains on the horizon and had been holding a Flame Javelin in her hand since drawing it in Yavimaya) and the Weatherlight was totally fine because, even though the skyship had blocked Yargle, Jaya's spell went off before the combat damage step."
I think that it's best to just ignore the cards when reading these stories; they're almost never gonna square off convincingly. Otherwise, Karn really should've restarted the game back on New Phyrexia.
Jaya should have immolated Yargle. You don't need game mechanics but 3 Oldwalkers and Backup with the Oldwalkers going on to help fight Bolas and Friends should not be struggling to drop the likes of Yargle and Urgoros in fights. Yargle and Urgoros should not be harder to put down then their boss, Belzenlok. In fact, I argue these two did more then any antagonist not named Nicol Bolas or Emrakul in a fight. This is basic stuff.
Compare this trios performance to the likes of Nahiri, fresh out of prison or Ob freshly re-sparked.
It was quite simply pathetic, doubly so when you factor in about 10 years on average since we last saw this bunch, real world. Especially with the buildup of how this mission really needed Teferi and yet in the big conflict he is indistinguishable alongside Karn and Jaya from any generic Blue Mage, Red Mage and Artificer.
1) How were both Yargle and Urgoros more threatening than Belzenlok?
2) Why was Radha there aside from being a cameo...She's supposed to be the Keldon warlord. Also, she was rediculously strong due to her connection with her host in the Time Spiral block novels.
Aside from that...fine.
So, when it comes to Lili's demons, can we note how easy all of them went down in the end? I get her first two. They were caught off guard by her wielding one of the strongest artifacts in the multiverse. But the way Razaketh was defeated, that was just a big brawl. Same here. Why didn't these ancient demons use powerfull dark magics?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
I honestly say Radha getting taken alive is pretty out of character but who knows maybe Belzenlok sent Urgoros who is apparently totally Immune to Magic unlike Belzenlok himself, funny that.
Lili's Demons are not the only ones who lost their spellbooks...they can sit right next to Teferi on that front.
2) Why was Radha there aside from being a cameo...She's supposed to be the Keldon warlord. Also, she was rediculously strong due to her connection with her host in the Time Spiral block novels.
Bolas did say that he would come back for her and throw her into a fighting pit before he left for (presumably) Amonkhet. I presume he made good on that promise as best he could.
A.k.a. their strength equals what the plot requires it to be.
Mind you, this happens in a lot of stories, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does take you out of the story and makes it pretty much impossible to buy if done so blatantly obvious.
I do want to say that I don’t agree fully when it comes to Teferi’s “nerf”. In Time Spiral, after losing his PW abilities, he was quite weak. While he did succomb to plot induced weakness, so did many other characters. The feats he pulls off with his time magic is actually very impressive to me to the point where I felt it was even too powerful for a post-mending mage. Did we even ever see him use this kind of magic? He phased things, sure, but to be able to freeze huge areas in time is quite impressive.
It’s not raw strength either. He showed quite some finesse by having Gids and Chandra able to move as the only two elements there, imo.
Also, he rusted away an entire bridge in an instant!
A.k.a. their strength equals what the plot requires it to be.
Mind you, this happens in a lot of stories, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does take you out of the story and makes it pretty much impossible to buy if done so blatantly obvious.
I do want to say that I don’t agree fully when it comes to Teferi’s “nerf”. In Time Spiral, after losing his PW abilities, he was quite weak. While he did succomb to plot induced weakness, so did many other characters. The feats he pulls off with his time magic is actually very impressive to me to the point where I felt it was even too powerful for a post-mending mage. Did we even ever see him use this kind of magic? He phased things, sure, but to be able to freeze huge areas in time is quite impressive.
It’s not raw strength either. He showed quite some finesse by having Gids and Chandra able to move as the only two elements there, imo.
Also, he rusted away an entire bridge in an instant!
Agree with the above. He seemed locked into time magic only, which hasn't been the case before, and that time magic was impressive in the last chapters. If he can super age a giant metal structure in some kind of time bubble, why not . . . anyone else? Like Yargle? And his control of time over an enormous spread of area was also pretty impressive. One could say he was so tired from that exertion that he couldn't disintegrated Yargle via time, but surely he could have frozen things in time for short bursts to assist his allies.
Agree with the above. He seemed locked into time magic only, which hasn't been the case before, and that time magic was impressive in the last chapters. If he can super age a giant metal structure in some kind of time bubble, why not . . . anyone else? Like Yargle? And his control of time over an enormous spread of area was also pretty impressive. One could say he was so tired from that exertion that he couldn't disintegrated Yargle via time, but surely he could have frozen things in time for short bursts to assist his allies.
Um, Teferi and Karn weren't picked up until after the Weatherlight escaped Yargle. They couldn't help because they weren't there.
When they mentioned a horned creature coming oit of a volcano, did anyone else think "Ooo Darigaaazzz!!!" just to be let down by "it's name is Urgoros"
Agree with the above. He seemed locked into time magic only, which hasn't been the case before, and that time magic was impressive in the last chapters. If he can super age a giant metal structure in some kind of time bubble, why not . . . anyone else? Like Yargle? And his control of time over an enormous spread of area was also pretty impressive. One could say he was so tired from that exertion that he couldn't disintegrated Yargle via time, but surely he could have frozen things in time for short bursts to assist his allies.
Um, Teferi and Karn weren't picked up until after the Weatherlight escaped Yargle. They couldn't help because they weren't there.
That's true. They were there for the specter Urgoros, though. Their 'attacks' weren't working, but a time bubble isn't an attack.
In any event, it's an issue Wizards has had since Zendikar 2.0. The walkers are super powerful, until you need them to not be. They'll perform an amazing feat of magic here, and fail to do so there. It's like comic books, I suppose, where powers are plot-convenient.
I still wish Teferi had Ovinize(d) someone/thing. Seeing largely only time magic was a bit myopic. He can do so much more!
Agree with the above. He seemed locked into time magic only, which hasn't been the case before, and that time magic was impressive in the last chapters. If he can super age a giant metal structure in some kind of time bubble, why not . . . anyone else? Like Yargle? And his control of time over an enormous spread of area was also pretty impressive. One could say he was so tired from that exertion that he couldn't disintegrated Yargle via time, but surely he could have frozen things in time for short bursts to assist his allies.
Um, Teferi and Karn weren't picked up until after the Weatherlight escaped Yargle. They couldn't help because they weren't there.
That's true. They were there for the specter Urgoros, though. Their 'attacks' weren't working, but a time bubble isn't an attack.
In any event, it's an issue Wizards has had since Zendikar 2.0. The walkers are super powerful, until you need them to not be. They'll perform an amazing feat of magic here, and fail to do so there. It's like comic books, I suppose, where powers are plot-convenient.
I still wish Teferi had Ovinize(d) someone/thing. Seeing largely only time magic was a bit myopic. He can do so much more!
I'd expect certain types of time magic to be rather useless against Urgoros, though. He's a specter. There's nothing alive about it to rapidly decay (speeding up the flow of time for an opponent would also allow them to move around rapidly as well, which seems to be what he did to Chandra and Gideon and, later on, to Karn and himself).
Slowing time down would be more effective against an animate opponent, like Urgoros. I'd say targeting such a potent slow down of time might be difficult, but we did just see him freeze Multani and its elementals while allowing Chandra, Karn, and Jaya to move normally (though perhaps he just sped up time for the Weatherlight, its crew, and the walkers below in that story rather than slowing down Multani and all the elementals which could still allow for issues with targeting).
1) I don't think its too hard for some power consistency. Especially in the same story set and making sure the supposed Big Bad Belzenlok is stronger then his ex minion Yargle and his current minion Urgoros. What Belzenlok cannot cast Anti-Magic Sphere like Urgoros? This is standard Fantasy/RPG stuff when most conflicts are resolved through fighting. The Elder Demon should be stronger then the specter he created.
2) Sorry I am not impressed with Teferi being at the center of the marketing for this set. And being told, we really need his help for his main contributions to be a haste spell and destroying one wall or door that Jhoira had explosives for anyway. Maybe its just me but I don't tend to rate destroying inanimate objects that highly unless its like an entire mountain or something. Feats against thinking characters almost always rate higher in my book. Meanwhile any interesting character beat like his re-spark or joining the Gatewatch is off panel and not important enough to show. Its shoddy treatment even if you ignore the power nerfs and his lack of ability to cast non time magic.
3) Even if we spin Teferi's pathetic peformance and loss of anything not time magic relating. That in no way explains Jaya and Karn putting in performances that were as bad or worse against the likes of Yargle or Urgoros. Chandra can pump up her fire spells so high pre Jaya training that Bolas can feel it on Amonkhet but Jaya cannot do anything to Yargle or Urgoros? I suppose that goes back to powerscaling but still don't see how anybody read this story conclusion and thought these three oldwalkers will be all that useful against Bolas. You read someone like Nahiri and think wow if Nissa trains hard maybe she can hit this level of leyline mastery. You didn't read this trio and get that sense of raw power or mastery in my book.
On that last one, my genuine belief is not that she was forced, but that no one cared to make sure things were explained. She's not a Magic person. She wouldn't know the history of Magic things that could make this sort of thing possible unless someone told her. Which means people at Wizards could not be bothered to provide the relevant information. Which means somewhere the decision was made to not put in the effort to explain the things we absolutely need explained.
My real fear is that Wizards is really making a heavy turn at merchandising. You always have to sell your wares, but it seems like Wizards is churning out a lot of new merchandising things, more so than say five years or so ago. The decision to bring back core sets this year at the expense of a second Dominaria set makes *zero sense.* You can bring back core sets next year. This is the Big Anniversary, and you hype up a return to Dominaria and . . . decide to hamstring it by reintroducing core sets this year? And that decision definitely worked against the Dominaria story. In a lot of her writings, Wells shows her skill and ability in writing. But the time crunch and medium made it almost cruel. And the apparent lack of guidance for super important story moments just makes it seem like a lot of things are going to take second fiddle to churning out merchandise.
Story has been a sidenote for Wizards for a while now (but they have done a lot of good work on the website these years!), but I just feel used at the conclusion of the Dominaria story.
Thankfully, there's an opportunity to fix this in the Ravnica block. Just have Teferi explain to someone how Jhoira did it. How it felt to get his spark back. You guys at Wizards have months now for a plausible story, and three sets to write it!
This is a bitter post, but I'm genuinely bitter that we were robbed of these important story moments.
I know you didn't like the story, so your response here amounts to you asking Wells and WotC to explain why you didn't like the story. You've made it clear why you didn't, all I'm trying to do is share a little insight as to why things might have been the way they were.
I enjoyed it because I knew what to expect. I didn't expect a sweeping saga with incredible depth of character, and so my expectations weren't dashed.
It is an assumption, but I'd be fairly certain that she would've had an average word count to adhere to. In fact, as an author I would be demanding it. Without knowing the specifics of the contract, it still makes sense. They're not paying her for sales, so she would've had a fixed price for the job or per installment, which means she would've asked them to specify exactly how much they wanted her to write. There's no way, as an author, you're going to allow yourself to give away a novel's worth without even the possibility of earning more money from retail sales.
I can't say I blame her, either. If she had not specified, I'm sure WotC wouldn't have said no to a novel, but they definitely would never have paid her enough to justify her doing that much.
I'd be hesitant to explain something if I didn't have the full detail or maybe the explanation unveils too much about future plot points. I find it hard to believe that wells had sufficient time and space to breathe the life this story deserved - it flies in the face of what we know about the pacing and time constraints of prior stories. Historically the story outlets have not been stated to have been completed that far in advance of the set releases.
Heck, they start working on sets 2+ years out...which means creative has to have a direction 2-3 years in advance? This story could have been rotting in an electronic file for 8-12 months with a cursory glance through months before posting to bring it up to date with the card file and set changes. It may not have even been Martha doing the final edits (why would it be, I'm sure she wasn't cheap). This is how it should be, Imo. Finished work that is revisited and polished for continuity with product lines.
Now given the positive reinforcement Yargle has received according to WotC tweets and stuff, I don't think this was the case. If the community outright hated yargle, like the pushback against lorwyn's not serious enough tone, then it would have been a big issue to have him show up so much in the final chapters. The actual timeframe was probably more condensed, which means rushing, which means stuff gets omitted in error, and we have unhappy fans because the final product is less polished than desired.
Tldr: Martha probably isn't to blame. WotC slapped their name on it and should have been more careful with some of the details and given the story more time/space to feel more organic.
However, I am saying I don't think WOTC was micromanaging the story beats like the mechanics of the fight scenes or Jace's Personality whiplash from Ixalan to Dominaria.
I like the idea of like a podcast style thing, but I don't know how financially feasible that would be. Failing that, a lengthened article would be adequate.
I don't get the 'personality whiplash'. It's clear why Jace doesn't trust Lili, and why his personality changed.
I think that it's best to just ignore the cards when reading these stories; they're almost never gonna square off convincingly. Otherwise, Karn really should've restarted the game back on New Phyrexia.
The difference between how he interacts with Vraska and the rest of the crew at the end of Ixalan is much much brighter than how he has been interacting with Gideon, which flies in the face of how happy he seemed to be at the idea of reconnecting with the gatewatch.
I do wish we would have had a little more explanation on Radha (or have her removed)--or have Squee show up instead. Those are just minor preferences.
As others have noted, the role of each individual character (especially Teferi and Karn) was underwhelming, but the team's together and we got some throwbacks.
As I noted a few pages ago, this makes me itch to do some fan-fiction with some revisions to the story--I'd love to flesh out some character relationships, change Teferi's spark-holding powerstone to Gerrard's lost hourglass pendant, and add a frame to the story like Rath and Storm(an old Master Ilcaster telling the story would be great), but the story was satisfactory for what it was.
Onward to the big finale. I'm sure Nissa will return so we get the Gatewatch in full. With this new pacing between sets, though, I'm really enjoying the pacing (across our actual real-world calendar years) as opposed to the slow grind since post-Mending.
And reading the story she had no idea this would happen
She's not really betraying them it's a she has no choice thing it's the only way to stay alive.
But I also read she's probably going to try to figure out a way out of this that doesn't involve dying/sacrificing herself
For prediction I feel she might sacrifice her self to kill bolas.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I'll be honest, if my bank or credit companies had put a 'we own your soul' clause in the contract, I'd end up in the same boat.
I like this prediction, though. It fits with where they seem to be taking her character.
Jaya should have immolated Yargle. You don't need game mechanics but 3 Oldwalkers and Backup with the Oldwalkers going on to help fight Bolas and Friends should not be struggling to drop the likes of Yargle and Urgoros in fights. Yargle and Urgoros should not be harder to put down then their boss, Belzenlok. In fact, I argue these two did more then any antagonist not named Nicol Bolas or Emrakul in a fight. This is basic stuff.
Compare this trios performance to the likes of Nahiri, fresh out of prison or Ob freshly re-sparked.
It was quite simply pathetic, doubly so when you factor in about 10 years on average since we last saw this bunch, real world. Especially with the buildup of how this mission really needed Teferi and yet in the big conflict he is indistinguishable alongside Karn and Jaya from any generic Blue Mage, Red Mage and Artificer.
2) Why was Radha there aside from being a cameo...She's supposed to be the Keldon warlord. Also, she was rediculously strong due to her connection with her host in the Time Spiral block novels.
Aside from that...fine.
So, when it comes to Lili's demons, can we note how easy all of them went down in the end? I get her first two. They were caught off guard by her wielding one of the strongest artifacts in the multiverse. But the way Razaketh was defeated, that was just a big brawl. Same here. Why didn't these ancient demons use powerfull dark magics?
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
Lili's Demons are not the only ones who lost their spellbooks...they can sit right next to Teferi on that front.
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
Bolas did say that he would come back for her and throw her into a fighting pit before he left for (presumably) Amonkhet. I presume he made good on that promise as best he could.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Mind you, this happens in a lot of stories, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does take you out of the story and makes it pretty much impossible to buy if done so blatantly obvious.
I do want to say that I don’t agree fully when it comes to Teferi’s “nerf”. In Time Spiral, after losing his PW abilities, he was quite weak. While he did succomb to plot induced weakness, so did many other characters. The feats he pulls off with his time magic is actually very impressive to me to the point where I felt it was even too powerful for a post-mending mage. Did we even ever see him use this kind of magic? He phased things, sure, but to be able to freeze huge areas in time is quite impressive.
It’s not raw strength either. He showed quite some finesse by having Gids and Chandra able to move as the only two elements there, imo.
Also, he rusted away an entire bridge in an instant!
Affinity
UW Control
Commander
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Dragonlord Ojutai
Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
Agree with the above. He seemed locked into time magic only, which hasn't been the case before, and that time magic was impressive in the last chapters. If he can super age a giant metal structure in some kind of time bubble, why not . . . anyone else? Like Yargle? And his control of time over an enormous spread of area was also pretty impressive. One could say he was so tired from that exertion that he couldn't disintegrated Yargle via time, but surely he could have frozen things in time for short bursts to assist his allies.
Um, Teferi and Karn weren't picked up until after the Weatherlight escaped Yargle. They couldn't help because they weren't there.
That's true. They were there for the specter Urgoros, though. Their 'attacks' weren't working, but a time bubble isn't an attack.
In any event, it's an issue Wizards has had since Zendikar 2.0. The walkers are super powerful, until you need them to not be. They'll perform an amazing feat of magic here, and fail to do so there. It's like comic books, I suppose, where powers are plot-convenient.
I still wish Teferi had Ovinize(d) someone/thing. Seeing largely only time magic was a bit myopic. He can do so much more!
I'd expect certain types of time magic to be rather useless against Urgoros, though. He's a specter. There's nothing alive about it to rapidly decay (speeding up the flow of time for an opponent would also allow them to move around rapidly as well, which seems to be what he did to Chandra and Gideon and, later on, to Karn and himself).
Slowing time down would be more effective against an animate opponent, like Urgoros. I'd say targeting such a potent slow down of time might be difficult, but we did just see him freeze Multani and its elementals while allowing Chandra, Karn, and Jaya to move normally (though perhaps he just sped up time for the Weatherlight, its crew, and the walkers below in that story rather than slowing down Multani and all the elementals which could still allow for issues with targeting).
2) Sorry I am not impressed with Teferi being at the center of the marketing for this set. And being told, we really need his help for his main contributions to be a haste spell and destroying one wall or door that Jhoira had explosives for anyway. Maybe its just me but I don't tend to rate destroying inanimate objects that highly unless its like an entire mountain or something. Feats against thinking characters almost always rate higher in my book. Meanwhile any interesting character beat like his re-spark or joining the Gatewatch is off panel and not important enough to show. Its shoddy treatment even if you ignore the power nerfs and his lack of ability to cast non time magic.
3) Even if we spin Teferi's pathetic peformance and loss of anything not time magic relating. That in no way explains Jaya and Karn putting in performances that were as bad or worse against the likes of Yargle or Urgoros. Chandra can pump up her fire spells so high pre Jaya training that Bolas can feel it on Amonkhet but Jaya cannot do anything to Yargle or Urgoros? I suppose that goes back to powerscaling but still don't see how anybody read this story conclusion and thought these three oldwalkers will be all that useful against Bolas. You read someone like Nahiri and think wow if Nissa trains hard maybe she can hit this level of leyline mastery. You didn't read this trio and get that sense of raw power or mastery in my book.