Under the picture of the Blackblade, the narration reads:
The spirits flowed past them, but a familiar bulbous creature stopped in front of Gideon and pointed urgently outside. "Belzenlok!" it said.
Who is the "familiar bulbous creature"? I feel my reading comprehension skills fell off somewhere...
I think it was the spirit/creature that startled them when they were meeting with the resistance fighters in chapter 11.
Something moved in the brush and Gideon reached for his sword hilt. But the Jamuraan man said, "It's all right. It's a spirit from the town. They hate the Cabal and won't betray us."
The figure that moved out of the shadows was short and bulbous, with a flattened head and dark gray skin. It seemed to roll rather than walk, but Gideon could clearly see it had at least three legs. One eye swiveled to regard him as it passed by.
It's an odd choice for a callback, but there it is.
Not only was Belzenlok not strong enough, he also wasn't smart enough. See here's the thing. He has wings. If I saw an indestructible man wielding one of the only weapons capable of killing me and visibly intended to do so, my first instinct would be to fly out of his striking range and then order my clerics to make him go insane with dementia spells. Instead, he just gets into a swordfight with Gideon. The worst part is that Liliana's other four demons weren't also Elder. This implies that Belzenlok has been around much longer than the others, and should therefore have some semblance of a survival instinct. But he doesn't.
Not only was Belzenlok not strong enough, he also wasn't smart enough. See here's the thing. He has wings. If I saw an indestructible man wielding one of the only weapons capable of killing me and visibly intended to do so, my first instinct would be to fly out of his striking range and then order my clerics to make him go insane with dementia spells. Instead, he just gets into a swordfight with Gideon. The worst part is that Liliana's other four demons weren't also Elder. This implies that Belzenlok has been around much longer than the others, and should therefore have some semblance of a survival instinct. But he doesn't.
We know that Gideon is (mostly) indestructible, but that doesn't mean that Belzenlok does.
In fairness, Belzenlok was seconds away from murdering Gideon when Liliana interrupted him. The fact that he was able to best Gideon in one-on-one combat puts him in a category with Ulamog, Ob Nixilis, and Nicol Bolas, and (to the best of my knowledge) no one else. Not shabby company, if you ask me. And judging by how little he was affected by Liliana's most powerful death spell, he would've killed her and Gideon in quick succession if she hadn't goaded him into a blind rage with her mockery.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Dominaria story did a poor job of building up suspense and making Belzenlok seem like a credible threat. I definitely would've preferred to actually see a display of his full power; the writers could've showed him personally killing resistance fighters by the hundreds with his death magic, or draining the life energy from everyone in the fighting pits at once, or summoning armies of demonic spirits to do his bidding. At the very least, they should've had the other characters talk him up more, rather than calmly discussing him as if he was merely a temporary obstacle to be dealt with. We should've had a real sense that the people of Dominaria, even the heroes, were genuinely afraid of him.
But even though I wish we'd seen more of him and heard more about him, I can't say I was disappointed by his actual appearance, once we finally got to it. His portrayal in the last chapter wasn't bad, and I definitely don't agree that he came across as weak. He effortlessly waded through a horde of attackers while leaving a trail of corpses in his wake, nearly killed two powerful Planeswalkers, and shrugged off every attack that wasn't made with the Blackblade. In the end, he was only defeated because Liliana exploited his main psychological weakness, which makes for the most satisfying conclusion from a narrative perspective. Right from the start I'd hoped that he would be defeated as a result of someone challenging his reputation, given how much they played up his pathological desire for fame and recognition; I was satisfied that he was ultimately done in by his own inability to handle mockery.
As for Yargle and Urgoros being overpowered, I don't really see it. I never got any sense that these two random spirits were more powerful than Belzenlok himself, let alone more powerful than Avacyn or the gods of Theros/Amonkhet or the Eldrazi Titans. They may have posed more of a challenge to the protagonists (though even that seems like a serious exaggeration to me), but if so, that's because of the particular circumstances of the battles they were involved in, not because they were more powerful in any meaningful way.
It's like when people were complaining that Baral came across as more powerful than Ulamog and Kozilek, since he came closer to defeating Chandra and Nissa than the Titans did. The claim only makes sense if you completely ignore all the context relevant to the battles in question. In theory, Nissa and Chandra could've channeled half of Kaladesh's mana into a giant fireball powerful enough to completely incinerate all of Ghirapur, Baral included. Does anyone really think either of them would be willing to destabilize the plane and vaporize everyone and everything in the capital city, just to take down one glorified security guard?
Yargle was attacking the Weatherlight itself, and the crew was unprepared to deal with him; for most of the battle, they were mainly just trying to avoid getting knocked off the deck, and couldn't coordinate their efforts in any meaningful way. He did manage to tank Jaya's fire blasts, Liliana's death magic, and Jhoira's grenades without taking any real damage, which is admittedly impressive, but no more so than I'd expect from any other giant monster. As for Urgoros, he didn't really accomplish much of anything at all, other than not dying. He launched a barrage of spells at the heroes that they immediately countered, then countered the barrage of spells that they launched at him, then immediately dispersed when his summoner died. That hardly puts him on par with Avacyn, Thassa, or Hazoret.
Likewise, I don't really understand why people are complaining that Teferi was underpowered. In this last chapter alone, he was able to effortlessly stop all of the arrows being launched at the Weatherlight while simultaneously helping to counter Urgoros' magical attacks, and didn't seem any worse for the wear. In the chapter before that, he froze the entire Stronghold at once, which I'd consider to be the most impressive feat of magic in the entire story. I'm not really sure what more people expect, short of him effortlessly defeating all of the story's antagonists with a wave of his hand. Does that really seem like it would make for a particularly interesting narrative? For that matter, has Teferi ever been that powerful, even before the Mending?
I'll admit that Karn didn't really have a chance to shine, but I'm also not exactly sure what Karn's powers are. His card abilities seem to be based around exiling permanents, bringing them back into play, and restarting the game, which I always took to represent his use of time travel, but I don't know if he can manipulate time as precisely as Teferi, or if he's limited to simply traveling and sending people/objects to the past or future.
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.
I said I'd drop it before, but seeing it brought up again gives me renewed hope that not everyone here is accepting of blatant retcons like this. It's almost like some folks skipped over the ending of Rivals of Ixalan.
As for the Dominaria story proper, I haven't read the last two stories yet, but based on the comments here, it seems to have a lot of interesting problems. I'm sure I'll find some entertainment from it all the same, but Wizards does need to be more consistent with the relative power levels of their characters. Yargle may be a meme in the MTG community at this point, but that should be no reason to make him more threatening than characters who should be far stronger than that.
She steeled herself. "And I suppose we need to return Serra's Realm to you, so you can deliver it to the Church." If Tiana took the Powerstone, Jhoira would just have to think of another way to power the Weatherlight.
Loved the very next lines, though...
Tiana lifted her brows. "Is that what the bargain was?"
Jhoira pressed her lips together to hide her relief and put a quizzical look on her face. "Wasn't it?"
Tiana shrugged a little. "I thought it was to eradicate the Cabal from all of Dominaria. I mean, Belzenlok being dead is going to help, of course, but there are clerics all over the world that are going to try to hang onto their power."
Jhoira tilted her head. "You're right, of course. But that could take years."
Tiana met her gaze, and they both smiled as she answered, "Yes. Yes, I guess it could, couldn't it?
*WINK WINK*
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Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Remember, NuJace is fully focused on his responsibilities as Living Guildpact, and needs to be all-business in addressing the Bolas threat. The transition between happy-to-see-everybody Jace at the end of Ixalan and cut-the-BS-and-get-to-business Jace in Dominaria is a bit too jarring, but I can still understand it.
And as far as his rather harsh attitude towards Lili is concerned, NuJace has had the veil (pun intended) pulled away of how she had been treating him. and he remembers EVERYTHING now, including all of the times she double-crossed him and used him for personal gain. and he remembers that she used to work for the guy he's now trying to find a way to defeat, that is threatening his adopted home. he would naturally be not very enthused to see her again.
and as far as the offscreen adventures of the Weatherlight is concerned..... in Television they have what is called the "backdoor pilot" where an episode of an established TV show is really a thinly-veiled pilot episode of a spinoff. That's what the resolution of the Weatherlight's arc feels like. Now they can have as many adventures with the crew as they need to, Saturday-morning cartoon style, especially with them establishing that the Cabal is bigger than Lili's dead demon, and has generals all over Domainaria's rather large world.
Not sure how someone can argue Yargle and Urgoros didn't look impressive compared to Belzenlok.
Belzenlok killed cannon fodder? That is not impressive that is what you expect from a boss.
Meanwhile Yargle and Urgoros both held out and no sold attacks from about a dozen different characters including Oldwalkers. The walkers involved are going to help fight Nicol Bolas and they cannot do any damage to these two no name scrubs? Its Pathetic.
And they weren't emotionally manipulated by taunts either.
The fact they didn't kill anyone is not really relevant cause since the Gatewatch Era....named characters especially Walkers rarely die even against threats that should kill some of them. Looking at you Titans and Bolas.
So yeah to answer the question after the marketing and build up I expect Teferi to at least crush Urgoros and Jaya to roast Yargle. They didn't even fight Belzenlok. Instead these three oldwalkers did as good as job as Raff. I expected to see a clear gap in performance. Like I said before Nissa vs Nahiri springs to mind. Nahiri shows what Nissa could be because Nahiri doesn't need the plane to like her to pull off impressive feats of Leyline Manipulation like crushing House Markov or summoning Emrakul across the Blind Eternities. Where is the gap between Jaya and Chandra?
So Teferi didn't get to shine in the fights in my book and the more important character development moments for him like Resparking or taking the Oath weren't good enough to get any screen time. He also has gotten nothing done on the Zhalfir Front in 60+ years and didn't even get his own Spark Back.
Karn is at once better and worse, also major in the marketing. Better in the since that he was around for less time and accomplished his main goal of picking up tactical nuke. Worse in the sense that he contributed zilch to the fights.
This was the ending we were expect. . . like, EXACTLY what we were expecting. The two major plot points happen that we already knew were going to happen thanks to cards happened (1. Belzenlock gets beat and 2. Liliana gets yanked onto Bolas' team) and that was it. I was hoping for some sort of surprise, or dramatic character-to-character confrontation, or for the baddies to get beat in a cool way, like, anything. In the end the only thing left of interest was how the other characters reacted when Bolas showed up, and we didn't even get that because he only appeared once they'd left! I was waiting for his chapter so I could adjust all my pet-theories, and now I hardly have to do that because we don't even have much new information...
Well, Karn has tended to be pretty pacifistic when it comes to most things non-phyrexian, so I don't expect him to be particularly nasty in a fight.
The gap between Jaya and Chandra is one of control, not power (Chandra uses more power per strike to match what Jaya can do, but Chandra likely has more raw power than Jaya has currently). Jaya's also spent the last few decades teaching and directing rather than fighting, so I wouldn't expect her to necessarily be at very high levels of power (though her control should be top notch).
He is fighting a Shade who he says was never alive in the first place. Here is Karn's line straight from the story
"It's a powerful lich. But like the spirits created from the purest dark magic, it's never been human."
Yeah Karn doesn't kill living things but he didn't even view the Shade as living so that is no excuse. Nice Try.
Why is the excuse well its okay they are not at their best? Nahiri and Ob did more impressive stuff straight out of their imprisonments. Nahiri spent over a millennium in Helvault before she did the feats I noted in my post. Heck I believe Nahiri said she was more powerful after freedom then she was before getting imprisoned. Teaching and 1000 years account for nothing apparently, I should note we have no idea all of what Jaya has been up to or who has more raw power that is all speculation but lets assume its not about power.
Fine how about Jaya controls a tight burst down Yargle's open mouth and burns him from the inside out? How about she weaves together a flame prison then compresses onto a target? What about going for the eyes with some tight fire beams? What about that? If your answer is control is the difference then there are a thousand different ways Fire Mages have showed control across media, its a common power and not that hard. But Wells didn't show the supposed superior control of Jaya making any difference in the fights.
I should note in interviews Wells was especially happy about getting to contribute to the fight scenes. Her issue in my book is she wanted her new Weatherlight to shine which ergo necessitated much jobbing so that they didn't get shown up in the action scenes by characters who rightly should be clearly superior. Its a great feat for New Wetherlight that they do just as good as Teferi, Karn and Jaya against Urgoros but it does nothing to make the three Oldwalkers look good or like they be useful against Bolas.
As for why Urgoros is better then Belzenlok...he fought more opponents of note, for longer, wasn't affected by taunts, showed off some actual magic skills, took no damage and didn't forget he could fly.
He is fighting a Shade who he says was never alive in the first place. Here is Karn's line straight from the story
"It's a powerful lich. But like the spirits created from the purest dark magic, it's never been human."
Yeah Karn doesn't kill living things but he didn't even view the Shade as living so that is no excuse. Nice Try.
Never said that Karn wouldn't work to kill it. Because he's a pacifist in many situations, he doesn't have all that much experience when it comes to combat (his original card can't even damage another creature without outside assistance). To put it lightly, it would be inconsistent if Karn actually was good at combat.
Why is the excuse well its okay they are not at their best? Nahiri and Ob did more impressive stuff straight out of their imprisonments. Nahiri spent over a millennium in Helvault before she did the feats I noted in my post. Heck I believe Nahiri said she was more powerful after freedom then she was before getting imprisoned.
Nahiri was essentially kept in stasis within the Hellvault (otherwise she would have aged since she didn't have something else extending her life like Teferi does). Ob Nixilis was driven on constantly by his desire for revenge (so forgive me if I don't find it strange that he'd keep in top form).
Teaching and 1000 years account for nothing apparently, I should note we have no idea all of what Jaya has been up to or who has more raw power that is all speculation but lets assume its not about power.
Except that, you know, Jaya's entire issue with Chandra was one of the latter's lack of self control and direction, and her lessons have been stressed several times in the story as focusing on improving Chandra's control. Also keep in mind that, unlike Bolas, Jaya is entirely human, so when the Mending happened, she'd be even less capable of drawing on ~1000 years of experiences. I'd expect a couple centuries at most (and even that through the lens of flawed human memory).
Fine how about Jaya controls a tight burst down Yargle's open mouth and burns him from the inside out? How about she weaves together a flame prison then compresses onto a target? What about going for the eyes with some tight fire beams? What about that? If your answer is control is the difference then there are a thousand different ways Fire Mages have showed control across media, its a common power and not that hard. But Wells didn't show the supposed superior control of Jaya making any difference in the fights.
As has been pointed out to you already, most of the crew in the Yargle fight were trying to stay on the deck as the ship lurched about. Specifically in Jaya's case, however, she was also busy burning up the clouds of acid from Yargle (since counterspelling just turned them to liquid). Sorry Jaya was a bit busy keeping the ship from dissolving.
We then get one moment of it opening it's mouth (so very little time between that becoming a target and Yargle being dealt with) before Slimefoot talks to the spirits and they bring in Muldrotha which ends the fight.
As for why Urgoros is better then Belzenlok...he fought more opponents of note, for longer, wasn't affected by taunts, showed off some actual magic skills, took no damage and didn't forget he could fly.
Counterspell works wonderfully against magic not so much against a sword. Urgoros also failed to incapacitate or even hurt any of the people on the Weatherlight with the sole exception of getting Liliana with a single tail swipe. Belzenlok, on the other hand, bested Gideon in melee combat (something I believe we've only seen Ob Nixilis and Bolas do prior). Yes, his death was easy, but the Blackblade did all the work (literally, Liliana had to grab the hilt while the blade was in his thigh and the blade did all the rest) which is to be expected given it's history.
Not really. Karn clearly plans to fight his way through Phyrexia to plant his bomb. I will agree with you that his precise abilities are rather undefined since escaping New Phyrexia and getting Venser's spark. Shame Wells couldn't be bothered to define them but its probably for the best. He could end up like Teferi who inexplicably lose all non time related abilities.
Nahiri spent centuries listening to Demons in the Helvault, sure she wasn't aging but she was still conscious and not able to practice at all. And yet she says she is stronger when she gets out then she was when she was an Oldwalker and got put in. So what she do, image training? She then proceeded to pull of amazing feats when she should still be rusty as you like to default to.
Fine did Jaya show a couple centuries worth of experience? I don't think so maybe you disagree even though that couple centuries thing is total head canon and not confirmed. The point is Jaya didn't show any of this vaunted control you want to bandy about making any difference in her fighting ability. It didn't help her do any damage to Yargle or Urgoros. And I am suppose to believe these characters are going to do anything to Nicol Bolas?
Yeah Belzenlok put down Gideon but he was only fighting 2 People, he had a way easier job then Urgoros who had to hold against Teferi, Jaya, Karn, Jhoira, Raff, Shanna, Arvad, Tiana, and Slimefoot while in Aerial Combat. 9 v 1 as opposed 2 v 1. Urgoros started fighting before Belzenlok and lasted way longer against more opponents way more impressive. Whereas Belzenlok lost because he let Lili goad him and he was too stupid too pull the sword out of himself.
I just noticed that Urgoros is said to never been human, when his "origin" vignette (from the same set, not from some obscure comic or novel written ten or more years ago!) tells exactly the opposite...
To be fair, Karn was a pacifist until Invasion block, where he saw his friends might die. Then he absolutely crushed enemies that whole block. Then in Time Spiral block he went back in time to Tolaria as it was being overrun by Phyrexians and wiped the floor with them there, too. Dude's pretty dangerous.
Yeah Karn reminds me of Iron Giant, he is built by Urza after all no ones idea of Pacifist. But he chooses to be nice, however, don't let him being nice and good get you twisted. Karn is perfectly capable of wrecking face when he needs to and really if anyone should have been training for a fight. Its Karn who apparently had no plans to recruit much of a team to go after New Phyrexia.
Eh I am not going to fault Wells for getting Urgoros wrong (who knows if the flavor text was done when she started, granted their should be some editing from WOTC to catch these things) although this story did seem to have trouble knowing the difference between Shade, Lich, and Zombie. But again that is more on the editing, the rules for those can be confusing and varying based on magic system.
I just noticed that Urgoros is said to never been human, when his "origin" vignette (from the same set, not from some obscure comic or novel written ten or more years ago!) tells exactly the opposite...
That is concerning.
While restructuring MtG Creative as being a consistent entity would certainly be difficult, one would think that they would have this better mastered in their more recent material.
I agree with someone here that retcons sometimes take away from the immersive elements of storytelling, and is a vice rather than a virtue often found within comic books and TV as opposed to other mediums.
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Can we please stop pretending that Shadows Over Innistrad was good? Nahiri SHOULD have been rusty after the Helvault. What she accomplishes is fairly ridiculous. The story was hastily slapped together at the last minute when BfZ switched from 3 blocks to 2 and they had to tell an Emrakul story on a different plane. It's ending was better and it actually had decent atmosphere, but it sucked overall and only seemed better at the time because of what an abortion BfZ was. Yes, it creates inconsistency, but that's a problem with the overall story more than Dominaria.
Belzenlok was always doomed to be a chump because creative decreed that he would be felled by the Blackblade. Wells actually made him a formidable threat that bested Gideon and was actually competent throughout the fight, only dying to the awesome cheesiness of the Blackblade, which allowed what he was shrugging off as a scratch to be fatal. Personally, I think Wells should have leaned into his inherent chumpiness. He should have been the weakest of Liliana demons, a guy that has been coasting on his own bull*****. We know he was lying about everything and taking credit for others accomplishments, his main power should have been a silver tongue. He should have been the conman who really took over the cabal by making deals with the leadership that he exploited. He should have weaseled his way into power then used a fabricates reputation as a badass to scare off any challenges. Gideon should have had the upper hand almost immediately while Belz desperately defended himself and tried to talk and deal his way out of it and run away. His wings should have gotten ****ed up immediately as he tried to fly away keeping him there. He should have died a coward.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
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Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I am not making a comment on how good SOI is but it is canon and its not like Teferi, Karn and Jaya combined put in a performance even half as good as that.
Three of the them combined with half a dozen character as backup got held by Urgoros Alone. It is not a good showing even if you ignore the Nahiri Comparison. Certainly not what I expected with Teferi and Karn plastered all over the Marketing Campaign. False Advertisement.
The hard part for Nahiri is she hasn't done much story wise so you cannot really call those feats outliers cause they basically are her only present day feats.
Also is Gideon becoming Worf? Beat by Ob Nixilis, Beat by Nicol Bolas, and beat by Belzenlok...
Also is Gideon becoming Worf? Beat by Ob Nixilis, Beat by Nicol Bolas, and beat by Belzenlok...
That's a very common trope for fiction (See The Worf Effect and Badass Decay). Whenever you need to play an antagonist up as a big threat, you have them defeat your "strongest" protagonist character. The problem is that if you do this too often, then people (rightly) question your "strong" characters' ability.
Now, Worf wasn't the strongest character on TNG (that was Data, by far) but he was the "Warrior" where Data was more of an academic, wo he served the same role/purpose.
Who is the "familiar bulbous creature"? I feel my reading comprehension skills fell off somewhere...
I think it was the spirit/creature that startled them when they were meeting with the resistance fighters in chapter 11.
It's an odd choice for a callback, but there it is.
We know that Gideon is (mostly) indestructible, but that doesn't mean that Belzenlok does.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Dominaria story did a poor job of building up suspense and making Belzenlok seem like a credible threat. I definitely would've preferred to actually see a display of his full power; the writers could've showed him personally killing resistance fighters by the hundreds with his death magic, or draining the life energy from everyone in the fighting pits at once, or summoning armies of demonic spirits to do his bidding. At the very least, they should've had the other characters talk him up more, rather than calmly discussing him as if he was merely a temporary obstacle to be dealt with. We should've had a real sense that the people of Dominaria, even the heroes, were genuinely afraid of him.
But even though I wish we'd seen more of him and heard more about him, I can't say I was disappointed by his actual appearance, once we finally got to it. His portrayal in the last chapter wasn't bad, and I definitely don't agree that he came across as weak. He effortlessly waded through a horde of attackers while leaving a trail of corpses in his wake, nearly killed two powerful Planeswalkers, and shrugged off every attack that wasn't made with the Blackblade. In the end, he was only defeated because Liliana exploited his main psychological weakness, which makes for the most satisfying conclusion from a narrative perspective. Right from the start I'd hoped that he would be defeated as a result of someone challenging his reputation, given how much they played up his pathological desire for fame and recognition; I was satisfied that he was ultimately done in by his own inability to handle mockery.
It's like when people were complaining that Baral came across as more powerful than Ulamog and Kozilek, since he came closer to defeating Chandra and Nissa than the Titans did. The claim only makes sense if you completely ignore all the context relevant to the battles in question. In theory, Nissa and Chandra could've channeled half of Kaladesh's mana into a giant fireball powerful enough to completely incinerate all of Ghirapur, Baral included. Does anyone really think either of them would be willing to destabilize the plane and vaporize everyone and everything in the capital city, just to take down one glorified security guard?
Yargle was attacking the Weatherlight itself, and the crew was unprepared to deal with him; for most of the battle, they were mainly just trying to avoid getting knocked off the deck, and couldn't coordinate their efforts in any meaningful way. He did manage to tank Jaya's fire blasts, Liliana's death magic, and Jhoira's grenades without taking any real damage, which is admittedly impressive, but no more so than I'd expect from any other giant monster. As for Urgoros, he didn't really accomplish much of anything at all, other than not dying. He launched a barrage of spells at the heroes that they immediately countered, then countered the barrage of spells that they launched at him, then immediately dispersed when his summoner died. That hardly puts him on par with Avacyn, Thassa, or Hazoret.
Likewise, I don't really understand why people are complaining that Teferi was underpowered. In this last chapter alone, he was able to effortlessly stop all of the arrows being launched at the Weatherlight while simultaneously helping to counter Urgoros' magical attacks, and didn't seem any worse for the wear. In the chapter before that, he froze the entire Stronghold at once, which I'd consider to be the most impressive feat of magic in the entire story. I'm not really sure what more people expect, short of him effortlessly defeating all of the story's antagonists with a wave of his hand. Does that really seem like it would make for a particularly interesting narrative? For that matter, has Teferi ever been that powerful, even before the Mending?
I'll admit that Karn didn't really have a chance to shine, but I'm also not exactly sure what Karn's powers are. His card abilities seem to be based around exiling permanents, bringing them back into play, and restarting the game, which I always took to represent his use of time travel, but I don't know if he can manipulate time as precisely as Teferi, or if he's limited to simply traveling and sending people/objects to the past or future.
I said I'd drop it before, but seeing it brought up again gives me renewed hope that not everyone here is accepting of blatant retcons like this. It's almost like some folks skipped over the ending of Rivals of Ixalan.
As for the Dominaria story proper, I haven't read the last two stories yet, but based on the comments here, it seems to have a lot of interesting problems. I'm sure I'll find some entertainment from it all the same, but Wizards does need to be more consistent with the relative power levels of their characters. Yargle may be a meme in the MTG community at this point, but that should be no reason to make him more threatening than characters who should be far stronger than that.
Loved the very next lines, though...
*WINK WINK*
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
and as far as the offscreen adventures of the Weatherlight is concerned..... in Television they have what is called the "backdoor pilot" where an episode of an established TV show is really a thinly-veiled pilot episode of a spinoff. That's what the resolution of the Weatherlight's arc feels like. Now they can have as many adventures with the crew as they need to, Saturday-morning cartoon style, especially with them establishing that the Cabal is bigger than Lili's dead demon, and has generals all over Domainaria's rather large world.
Click the pic for more info.
Belzenlok killed cannon fodder? That is not impressive that is what you expect from a boss.
Meanwhile Yargle and Urgoros both held out and no sold attacks from about a dozen different characters including Oldwalkers. The walkers involved are going to help fight Nicol Bolas and they cannot do any damage to these two no name scrubs? Its Pathetic.
And they weren't emotionally manipulated by taunts either.
The fact they didn't kill anyone is not really relevant cause since the Gatewatch Era....named characters especially Walkers rarely die even against threats that should kill some of them. Looking at you Titans and Bolas.
So yeah to answer the question after the marketing and build up I expect Teferi to at least crush Urgoros and Jaya to roast Yargle. They didn't even fight Belzenlok. Instead these three oldwalkers did as good as job as Raff. I expected to see a clear gap in performance. Like I said before Nissa vs Nahiri springs to mind. Nahiri shows what Nissa could be because Nahiri doesn't need the plane to like her to pull off impressive feats of Leyline Manipulation like crushing House Markov or summoning Emrakul across the Blind Eternities. Where is the gap between Jaya and Chandra?
So Teferi didn't get to shine in the fights in my book and the more important character development moments for him like Resparking or taking the Oath weren't good enough to get any screen time. He also has gotten nothing done on the Zhalfir Front in 60+ years and didn't even get his own Spark Back.
Karn is at once better and worse, also major in the marketing. Better in the since that he was around for less time and accomplished his main goal of picking up tactical nuke. Worse in the sense that he contributed zilch to the fights.
The gap between Jaya and Chandra is one of control, not power (Chandra uses more power per strike to match what Jaya can do, but Chandra likely has more raw power than Jaya has currently). Jaya's also spent the last few decades teaching and directing rather than fighting, so I wouldn't expect her to necessarily be at very high levels of power (though her control should be top notch).
"It's a powerful lich. But like the spirits created from the purest dark magic, it's never been human."
Yeah Karn doesn't kill living things but he didn't even view the Shade as living so that is no excuse. Nice Try.
Why is the excuse well its okay they are not at their best? Nahiri and Ob did more impressive stuff straight out of their imprisonments. Nahiri spent over a millennium in Helvault before she did the feats I noted in my post. Heck I believe Nahiri said she was more powerful after freedom then she was before getting imprisoned. Teaching and 1000 years account for nothing apparently, I should note we have no idea all of what Jaya has been up to or who has more raw power that is all speculation but lets assume its not about power.
Fine how about Jaya controls a tight burst down Yargle's open mouth and burns him from the inside out? How about she weaves together a flame prison then compresses onto a target? What about going for the eyes with some tight fire beams? What about that? If your answer is control is the difference then there are a thousand different ways Fire Mages have showed control across media, its a common power and not that hard. But Wells didn't show the supposed superior control of Jaya making any difference in the fights.
I should note in interviews Wells was especially happy about getting to contribute to the fight scenes. Her issue in my book is she wanted her new Weatherlight to shine which ergo necessitated much jobbing so that they didn't get shown up in the action scenes by characters who rightly should be clearly superior. Its a great feat for New Wetherlight that they do just as good as Teferi, Karn and Jaya against Urgoros but it does nothing to make the three Oldwalkers look good or like they be useful against Bolas.
As for why Urgoros is better then Belzenlok...he fought more opponents of note, for longer, wasn't affected by taunts, showed off some actual magic skills, took no damage and didn't forget he could fly.
Never said that Karn wouldn't work to kill it. Because he's a pacifist in many situations, he doesn't have all that much experience when it comes to combat (his original card can't even damage another creature without outside assistance). To put it lightly, it would be inconsistent if Karn actually was good at combat.
Nahiri was essentially kept in stasis within the Hellvault (otherwise she would have aged since she didn't have something else extending her life like Teferi does). Ob Nixilis was driven on constantly by his desire for revenge (so forgive me if I don't find it strange that he'd keep in top form).
Except that, you know, Jaya's entire issue with Chandra was one of the latter's lack of self control and direction, and her lessons have been stressed several times in the story as focusing on improving Chandra's control. Also keep in mind that, unlike Bolas, Jaya is entirely human, so when the Mending happened, she'd be even less capable of drawing on ~1000 years of experiences. I'd expect a couple centuries at most (and even that through the lens of flawed human memory).
As has been pointed out to you already, most of the crew in the Yargle fight were trying to stay on the deck as the ship lurched about. Specifically in Jaya's case, however, she was also busy burning up the clouds of acid from Yargle (since counterspelling just turned them to liquid). Sorry Jaya was a bit busy keeping the ship from dissolving.
We then get one moment of it opening it's mouth (so very little time between that becoming a target and Yargle being dealt with) before Slimefoot talks to the spirits and they bring in Muldrotha which ends the fight.
Counterspell works wonderfully against magic not so much against a sword. Urgoros also failed to incapacitate or even hurt any of the people on the Weatherlight with the sole exception of getting Liliana with a single tail swipe. Belzenlok, on the other hand, bested Gideon in melee combat (something I believe we've only seen Ob Nixilis and Bolas do prior). Yes, his death was easy, but the Blackblade did all the work (literally, Liliana had to grab the hilt while the blade was in his thigh and the blade did all the rest) which is to be expected given it's history.
Nahiri spent centuries listening to Demons in the Helvault, sure she wasn't aging but she was still conscious and not able to practice at all. And yet she says she is stronger when she gets out then she was when she was an Oldwalker and got put in. So what she do, image training? She then proceeded to pull of amazing feats when she should still be rusty as you like to default to.
Fine did Jaya show a couple centuries worth of experience? I don't think so maybe you disagree even though that couple centuries thing is total head canon and not confirmed. The point is Jaya didn't show any of this vaunted control you want to bandy about making any difference in her fighting ability. It didn't help her do any damage to Yargle or Urgoros. And I am suppose to believe these characters are going to do anything to Nicol Bolas?
Yeah Belzenlok put down Gideon but he was only fighting 2 People, he had a way easier job then Urgoros who had to hold against Teferi, Jaya, Karn, Jhoira, Raff, Shanna, Arvad, Tiana, and Slimefoot while in Aerial Combat. 9 v 1 as opposed 2 v 1. Urgoros started fighting before Belzenlok and lasted way longer against more opponents way more impressive. Whereas Belzenlok lost because he let Lili goad him and he was too stupid too pull the sword out of himself.
Eh I am not going to fault Wells for getting Urgoros wrong (who knows if the flavor text was done when she started, granted their should be some editing from WOTC to catch these things) although this story did seem to have trouble knowing the difference between Shade, Lich, and Zombie. But again that is more on the editing, the rules for those can be confusing and varying based on magic system.
That is concerning.
While restructuring MtG Creative as being a consistent entity would certainly be difficult, one would think that they would have this better mastered in their more recent material.
I agree with someone here that retcons sometimes take away from the immersive elements of storytelling, and is a vice rather than a virtue often found within comic books and TV as opposed to other mediums.
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Belzenlok was always doomed to be a chump because creative decreed that he would be felled by the Blackblade. Wells actually made him a formidable threat that bested Gideon and was actually competent throughout the fight, only dying to the awesome cheesiness of the Blackblade, which allowed what he was shrugging off as a scratch to be fatal. Personally, I think Wells should have leaned into his inherent chumpiness. He should have been the weakest of Liliana demons, a guy that has been coasting on his own bull*****. We know he was lying about everything and taking credit for others accomplishments, his main power should have been a silver tongue. He should have been the conman who really took over the cabal by making deals with the leadership that he exploited. He should have weaseled his way into power then used a fabricates reputation as a badass to scare off any challenges. Gideon should have had the upper hand almost immediately while Belz desperately defended himself and tried to talk and deal his way out of it and run away. His wings should have gotten ****ed up immediately as he tried to fly away keeping him there. He should have died a coward.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I am not making a comment on how good SOI is but it is canon and its not like Teferi, Karn and Jaya combined put in a performance even half as good as that.
Three of the them combined with half a dozen character as backup got held by Urgoros Alone. It is not a good showing even if you ignore the Nahiri Comparison. Certainly not what I expected with Teferi and Karn plastered all over the Marketing Campaign. False Advertisement.
The hard part for Nahiri is she hasn't done much story wise so you cannot really call those feats outliers cause they basically are her only present day feats.
Also is Gideon becoming Worf? Beat by Ob Nixilis, Beat by Nicol Bolas, and beat by Belzenlok...
That's a very common trope for fiction (See The Worf Effect and Badass Decay). Whenever you need to play an antagonist up as a big threat, you have them defeat your "strongest" protagonist character. The problem is that if you do this too often, then people (rightly) question your "strong" characters' ability.
Now, Worf wasn't the strongest character on TNG (that was Data, by far) but he was the "Warrior" where Data was more of an academic, wo he served the same role/purpose.