Thanks a lot. I've read the Artifact Cycle starting at The Thran, and I'm currently at Bloodlines. Still have much to go! Is there any youtube channel or text summary of the Invasion, Otaria, and Time Spiral storylines?
You can search Youtube for a channel named "The Aether Hub", as he does a lot of various summaries of older stories. There is also the blog "Multiverse in Review" which is written by a member of this very forum. And as for anything Antiquities and Invasion related, I literally have those books sitting on my bookshelf not five feet away. Ask me any question you want!
Nice confirmation that the round quartered sigil on M25 Ihsan's Shade's armour (and therefore on M25 Renewed Faith, DOM angel's shield and avian's cloth) is indeed Serra's.
Nothing new under the sun after Jay13x's find, though.
To the persons who are concerned about Jaya's fate: WotC declared that the story would focus on the evenements that happened beforeJace's landing... and she's most likely the one who greeted the "bookworm". IMO, she will survive the story of the set. Or so I hope.
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There is no evidence that Bolas dealt with any other civilization on Dominaria, let alone its other planeswalkers until Time Spiral, but in Time Spiral when Teferi's gang is tricked by Bolas's spirit into resurrecting his body, Teferi does seem to know who Bolas is and even challenged him to a formal planeswalker duel.
What in the world made Teferi think he could possibly win? Powerful as he might be, Bolas has consistently wiped the floor with other planeswalkers, to the point where extremely powerful walkers like Ugin and Azor still needed an elaborate plan to have any hope of defeating him. I can understand Bolas being afraid of Urza, but why would he fear Teferi? Realistically, wouldn't Bolas just destroy him almost as effortlessly as he wiped the floor with the Gatewatch?
For that matter, I'm still not entirely clear on how Umezawa managed to kill a planeswalker as intelligent and powerful as Bolas, even temporarily. Did Umezawa find some particular weakness to exploit? Was Bolas just holding the Idiot Ball for that storyline?
There is no evidence that Bolas dealt with any other civilization on Dominaria, let alone its other planeswalkers until Time Spiral, but in Time Spiral when Teferi's gang is tricked by Bolas's spirit into resurrecting his body, Teferi does seem to know who Bolas is and even challenged him to a formal planeswalker duel.
What in the world made Teferi think he could possibly win? Powerful as he might be, Bolas has consistently wiped the floor with other planeswalkers, to the point where extremely powerful walkers like Ugin and Azor still needed an elaborate plan to have any hope of defeating him. I can understand Bolas being afraid of Urza, but why would he fear Teferi? Realistically, wouldn't Bolas just destroy him almost as effortlessly as he wiped the floor with the Gatewatch?
For that matter, I'm still not entirely clear on how Umezawa managed to kill a planeswalker as intelligent and powerful as Bolas, even temporarily. Did Umezawa find some particular weakness to exploit? Was Bolas just holding the Idiot Ball for that storyline?
Teferi didn't think he could beat Bolas. His plan was convoluted at hinged on Bolas being the most arrogant being in the multiverse. So not really a bad plan, still not a good one but not bad.
As for the Umezawa thing. It involved a number of things that led Bolas into a state of vulnerablitity. Overall it was more or less him being too arrogant when he had every right to be that arrogant.
What in the world made Teferi think he could possibly win? Powerful as he might be, Bolas has consistently wiped the floor with other planeswalkers, to the point where extremely powerful walkers like Ugin and Azor still needed an elaborate plan to have any hope of defeating him. I can understand Bolas being afraid of Urza, but why would he fear Teferi? Realistically, wouldn't Bolas just destroy him almost as effortlessly as he wiped the floor with the Gatewatch?
He did beat Teferi effortlessly. It was Teferi who was being arrogant at the time. And not necessarily without good reason.
Teferi also tried recruiting Bolas into helping his crew seal the time rifts, so there is that. Bolas didn't care, though, as he was already planning his revenge against Myojin of Nights Reach. They hadn't yet pieced together the risk the rifts posed to the multiverse at large, or Bolas might have been more amenable to helping them. However, you have to keep in mind that when Time Spiral was printed, they had yet to write many of the victories that Bolas has had since then, and many of those have been against Neowalkers with much less experience and magical expertise than Teferi. Bolas had just been resurrected, and was itching for a fight specifically to test what his new body was capable of. Teferi might have figured he could take him on in such a state, particularly because there was no way of knowing about the duel with Ugin thanks to Sarkhan's time travel hijinks.
Even though Teferi lost by being torn into pieces, Teferi just put his own body back together with healing magic. Urza no doubt taught him how to do that, as his regeneration was on par with Wolverine. It took Teferi some time to fully heal himself, but the point is that if he were a neo-walker he would be quite dead. Teferi was no slouch, he was as much a godlike being as Bolas, and literally phased an entire continent out of time. He phased his own island out of time multiple times during his experiments. Urza respected Teferi's power so much he was convinced that Teferi would join the Nine Titans, especially since Teferi was his student once. Teferi was likely weakened during the Time Rifts crisis because he didn't phase Zalfir back in soon enough, which meant he didn't have access to most of his mana. Like I said, Teferi had good reason to be cocky too, its just that he forgot to take a number of factors into account before challenging Bolas to a fight.
As for what would happen if the two fought before the Phyrexian Invasion? Well, first of all it would more likely be a war than a personal duel, because whenever Bolas was on Dominaria he had to stay in the Madaran capital in order not to destabilize the plane (remember that he was metaphysically connected to the Madaran Rift as he was the cause of its existence). Madara had three mana lines converge at the capital, so that apparently gave Bolas the power to keep his own magical power in check. That meant that any conquest he did on Dominaria would have to be through armies and conventional warfare-- he couldn't show up on the battlefield to personally wreak havoc, much as he would have enjoyed it. In contrast, Urza, Teferi, Freyalise, Jaya Ballard, and Lord Windgrace could go anywhere they pleased on Dominaria, and that meant Bolas's armies would be disadvantaged in any war against those planeswalkers. However, none of them really cared what Bolas was doing in his own empire, so long as he didn't encroach on their territories.
For that matter, I'm still not entirely clear on how Umezawa managed to kill a planeswalker as intelligent and powerful as Bolas, even temporarily. Did Umezawa find some particular weakness to exploit? Was Bolas just holding the Idiot Ball for that storyline?
Bolas was beatable by Tetsuo because of the mana lines and the nature of the Meditation Plane. After battling Ramses Overdark, Tetsuo fled into the Meditation plane knowing that Bolas would follow (as Bolas's own servant, he had been taught how to access the demiplane). What Bolas didn't know is that Tetsuo also set up a spell ahead of time that would blow up the Imperial shrine, having the twofold effect of making it impossible for Bolas to go back to Dominaria once he was in the Meditation Realm lest he destabilize the Madaran Rift, and taking away the majority of Bolas's magic for the upcoming fight. Imagine that Tetsuo had cast a one sided Armageddon against Bolas's lands. That meant that planeswalker or no, Bolas was vulnerable to Tetsuo's spells and weapons, and Bolas could only use his draconic abilities in the fight. Against a highly powerful spellcaster like Tetsuo Umezawa, it wasn't good enough, and ironically it was only Bolas's connection to the Madaran rift that kept his spirit from passing on.
Thanks a lot. I've read the Artifact Cycle starting at The Thran, and I'm currently at Bloodlines. Still have much to go! Is there any youtube channel or text summary of the Invasion, Otaria, and Time Spiral storylines?
yeah to piggyback on that, the archive traps articles at this site have been great at providing comprehensive summaries of each of MTG's most important stories. in lieu of hunting down the books, these are great sources.
Any hint of what the new Serran/Benalish combo is going to be like, as far as temperament? I'm trying to remember the angels of Serra's plane. I know Radiant went off, managed to kind-of kill Urza, and was war-like. But I don't think all the angels were like that. And Benalia was about honor, chivalry, knights, and all that, as far as I recall. So are they the 'good guys,' through and through?
As far as Teferi being considered a hero of Dominaria, I can't speak for the Planar Chaos and Future Sight books (which were the two out of the three NOT in ebook form for whatever reason) as to what Teferi did after he lost his spark, but it's probably safe to assume that of all the characters still alive, who have as much experience and power, and who care about the average person more than the average Planeswalker used to, Teferi is best placed to be a savior figure for Dominaria. How he achieves this, I guess we don't know yet.
Question: if there are Bolas themes for Dominaria, does that imply the visions Jace had of Bolas' plans for Ravnica may have been false? In my mind, to an ancient dragon, Dominaria may be more important that Ravnica.
Also, I am still unconvinced that any Weatherlight in this set is the original Weatherlight. The Apocalypse book was unambiguous that Sisay rode the dead ship into the ocean after Yawgmoth was defeated, it cracked and broke, and it sank into the ocean. "The impact had split the keel." " . . . ocean poured into the wide open hull." "Explosions below . . ." "She swam out of the wreckage . . ." "The broken hull of Weatherlight sank furiously." "Then it's outline . . . disappeared forever. There would never be another ship like Weatherlight."
It is unequivocal that the ship is wrecked, destroyed, and sunk. So it can't be the old Weatherlight come back. If it is, 1) the story is going to be outlandish. We dove down, used merfolk, pulled up the debris, hammered it together, Multani kissed it, and it was all better? What? 2) Wizards would be resurrecting something from a heroic and fitting end just for nostalgia sales and story. If you read the books that involved Weatherlight, then you have an inkling that it went down as heroic as an 'inanimate' object could be. I would howl just as much if Gerrard or Barrin or Urza were ressurected! Let the dead rest!
Rant over. I am eager to see what the story will tell us! I'm all aboard the hype train, for now.
Any hint of what the new Serran/Benalish combo is going to be like, as far as temperament? I'm trying to remember the angels of Serra's plane. I know Radiant went off, managed to kind-of kill Urza, and was war-like. But I don't think all the angels were like that. And Benalia was about honor, chivalry, knights, and all that, as far as I recall. So are they the 'good guys,' through and through?
As far as Teferi being considered a hero of Dominaria, I can't speak for the Planar Chaos and Future Sight books (which were the two out of the three NOT in ebook form for whatever reason) as to what Teferi did after he lost his spark, but it's probably safe to assume that of all the characters still alive, who have as much experience and power, and who care about the average person more than the average Planeswalker used to, Teferi is best placed to be a savior figure for Dominaria. How he achieves this, I guess we don't know yet.
Question: if there are Bolas themes for Dominaria, does that imply the visions Jace had of Bolas' plans for Ravnica may have been false? In my mind, to an ancient dragon, Dominaria may be more important that Ravnica.
Also, I am still unconvinced that any Weatherlight in this set is the original Weatherlight. The Apocalypse book was unambiguous that Sisay rode the dead ship into the ocean after Yawgmoth was defeated, it cracked and broke, and it sank into the ocean. "The impact had split the keel." " . . . ocean poured into the wide open hull." "Explosions below . . ." "She swam out of the wreckage . . ." "The broken hull of Weatherlight sank furiously." "Then it's outline . . . disappeared forever. There would never be another ship like Weatherlight."
It is unequivocal that the ship is wrecked, destroyed, and sunk. So it can't be the old Weatherlight come back. If it is, 1) the story is going to be outlandish. We dove down, used merfolk, pulled up the debris, hammered it together, Multani kissed it, and it was all better? What? 2) Wizards would be resurrecting something from a heroic and fitting end just for nostalgia sales and story. If you read the books that involved Weatherlight, then you have an inkling that it went down as heroic as an 'inanimate' object could be. I would howl just as much if Gerrard or Barrin or Urza were ressurected! Let the dead rest!
Rant over. I am eager to see what the story will tell us! I'm all aboard the hype train, for now.
I figure Benalia and the Serran Religion would mesh fairly well.
Teferi was the guy who went into that first rift, sealing it without knowing if he'd come back. And after, I believe he said he'd go traveling, perhaps becoquino a court mage again. And maybe his title, "Hero of Dominaria" is something he gets in this story.
Bolas' connection to the main story on Dominaria may only be to bring Lilliana fully into his service. I think he want something connected to Ravnica, and while he probably would want to reclaim Madara at least, he's more about regaining his power than past glories.
I hope the Weatherlight II is a new ship. Perhaps Multani gifts Jhoira a weathersead to make the new ship.
Another thing I wonder is how powerful/ part of Dominaria Belzenlok is being an elder demon.
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“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"
One of the spoiled characters is Tiana, Ship's Caretaker, and the type line says she is an angel. That suggests that the Serrans are in some way involved with getting the ship resurrected, which would make sense given its significance in how they got to Dominaria and survived the implosion of Serra's realm. Given that the art has shown Benalish archetecture floating in the sky with links to the Serran Order, it does seem like dredging up the Weatherlight wreck is within their power. Restoring it would likely take a lot of manpower and skilled artifice... but then again, it is captained by Jhoira now.
The real question is, does the Weatherlight's planeswalking engine still work? Because if it does and if it works even remotely like Rashmi's planar bridge, this gives the Gatewatch something they can use to pierce through the barrier erected by The Immortal Sun like Tezzeret can. Considering Bolas's plans for Ravinca, that could be very useful indeed.
One of the spoiled characters is Tiana, Ship's Caretaker, and the type line says she is an angel. That suggests that the Serrans are in some way involved with getting the ship resurrected, which would make sense given its significance in how they got to Dominaria and survived the implosion of Serra's realm. Given that the art has shown Benalish archetecture floating in the sky with links to the Serran Order, it does seem like dredging up the Weatherlight wreck is within their power. Restoring it would likely take a lot of manpower and skilled artifice... but then again, it is captained by Jhoira now.
The real question is, does the Weatherlight's planeswalking engine still work? Because if it does and if it works even remotely like Rashmi's planar bridge, this gives the Gatewatch something they can use to pierce through the barrier erected by The Immortal Sun like Tezzeret can. Considering Bolas's plans for Ravinca, that could be very useful indeed.
Unless Jhiora found a way to Empower a Huge Power stone then no, the Weatherlight shouldn't be able to Planeshift, during Apocalypse The Weatherlight took the Mana from the Null Moon and slammed it into Yawgmoth it burnt out basically everything that the Weatherlight could do.
Any hint of what the new Serran/Benalish combo is going to be like, as far as temperament? I'm trying to remember the angels of Serra's plane. I know Radiant went off, managed to kind-of kill Urza, and was war-like. But I don't think all the angels were like that. And Benalia was about honor, chivalry, knights, and all that, as far as I recall. So are they the 'good guys,' through and through?
It was said IIRC that even though Radiant wanted to stay in the Realm, in the end she felt that it was far better in the times that Serra was there.
I guess the same is true for a large remnant of the angels... specially those that got saved from Urza's 2nd return back there. Case in point, Reya Dawnbringer. (another question pops up, is Lyra a creation of Reya or just a namesake?)
I'm largely interested in how current Creative is going to weave the Serran religion being seemingly the prime religion in the current Benalia when before it was considered a cult.
Maybe it became more prevalent because there are actual Serran Angels that could help the cause of the religion? (it was never mentioned if Gabriel Angelfire, the supposed namesake of the Church prevalent in Benalia before actually appeared in Benalia and/or he has made angels to go around Benalia)
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Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
I was wondering about Lyra Dawnbringer as well. Since when would an angel have a descendant/family by name? And if it's just an homage, why Reya Dawnbringer of all legendary angels from Dominaria? She was less than a footnote. O_o Bummer because it's probably not relevant enough to have anything to do in the story.
I was wondering about Lyra Dawnbringer as well. Since when would an angel have a descendant/family by name? And if it's just an homage, why Reya Dawnbringer of all legendary angels from Dominaria? She was less than a footnote. O_o Bummer because it's probably not relevant enough to have anything to do in the story.
There is an implication in Planeswalker that Serra Angels are 'born'. Not sure if that's going to be walked back or anything, but it IS possible that Lyra is a descendant, or 'Dawnbringer' might be a title, like Urza Planeswalker was.
Unless Jhiora found a way to Empower a Huge Power stone then no, the Weatherlight shouldn't be able to Planeshift, during Apocalypse The Weatherlight took the Mana from the Null Moon and slammed it into Yawgmoth it burnt out basically everything that the Weatherlight could do.
On the other hand, as someone pointed out last time we saw the Weatherlight it was rapidly sinking into the ocean and deemed by its captain to be unsalveagable. Now its back in the sky. It was known for one thing, and that was traveling between planes; well, two things if you count being a piece of the legacy weapon, as is its power matrix, and the LW supposedly lives on as Karn, who shows up in this set. And Karn created a whole plane of artifice, so who knows what he and Jhoira could do together on a project? Look, all I'm saying is that I wouldn't put it past Wizards to retcon their existing lore to allow it. They've done it before in the not-so-distant past.
I was wondering about Lyra Dawnbringer as well. Since when would an angel have a descendant/family by name? And if it's just an homage, why Reya Dawnbringer of all legendary angels from Dominaria? She was less than a footnote. O_o Bummer because it's probably not relevant enough to have anything to do in the story.
There is an implication in Planeswalker that Serra Angels are 'born'. Not sure if that's going to be walked back or anything, but it IS possible that Lyra is a descendant, or 'Dawnbringer' might be a title, like Urza Planeswalker was.
The idea that Serra's angels are born goes all the way back to the novel Planeswalker, actually, which I'll requote from the Dominaria Spoilers Digest article:
Quote from "Chapter 14 page 212" »
On the twentieth day of forced smiles, Xantcha's conspiratorial campaign achieved its greatest victory when Sosinna confessed that she was in love, perfectly and eternally, with one of her nursery peers: an angel.
"Is that permitted?" Xantcha interrupted before she had the wit to censor herself. The notion of love fascinated her, and spending most of her life in Urza's shadow or hiding her unformed flesh beneath a young man's clothes, she'd had very little opportunity to learn love's secrets. "You don't have wings."
Xantcha's curiosity was ill-timed and rude. It jeapardized everything she'd gained through long days of patient questions, but it was sincere. [...]
But Sosinna surprised Xantcha with a furious blush that stretched from the collar of her white gown into her pale gold hair.
"Wings," Sosinna exclaimed, "have nothing to do with it!" A lie, if Xantcha had ever heard one. "We are all born the same, raised the same. Our parentage is not important to Lady Serra. We are all equal in her service. She encourages us to chrish each other openly and to follow our hearts, not our eyes, when we declare our one true love."
More lies, though Sosinna's passion was real. "Kenidiern is a paragon," she confided in a whisper. "no one serves the Lady with more bravery and vigor. He has examined every aspect of his being and cast out all trace of imperfection. Ther is not one mote of him that isn't pure and devoted to duty. He stands above all the other angels, and no one would fault him if he were proud, but he isn't. Kenidiern has embraced humility. There isn't a woman alive who wouldn't exchange tokens with him, but he has given his to me."
Sosinna removed her veil and, sweeping her hair aside, revealed a tiny golden earring in the lobe of her left ear.
So three things are revealed here:
1) there are apparently male Serran angels, even though the game makes a point of only depicting female angels outside of Amonkhet.
2) Serran angels are indeed born and raised alongside human children. How they are "born" is left up to the imagination, but the text suggests they have parents, and some stuff I left out from earlier in the chapter implies Serra has an almost G ideology concerning the sanctity of life in direct contrast with Phyrexian beliefs or even some of Urza's actions (although Xantcha finds the Serrans to be just as dogmatic as Phyrexians, hence her suspicion in this passage).
3) Serran angels can feel love and are allowed to marry humans. Could explain the flavor of Angelic Destiny! Among other things.
On the other hand, as someone pointed out last time we saw the Weatherlight it was rapidly sinking into the ocean and deemed by its captain to be unsalveagable. Now its back in the sky. It was known for one thing, and that was traveling between planes; well, two things if you count being a piece of the legacy weapon, as is its power matrix, and the LW supposedly lives on as Karn, who shows up in this set. And Karn created a whole plane of artifice, so who knows what he and Jhoira could do together on a project? Look, all I'm saying is that I wouldn't put it past Wizards to retcon their existing lore to allow it. They've done it before in the not-so-distant past.
That doesn't change the fact that the power needed to power the Planeshift engine is enormous, unless Jhoira gets ahold of the Immortal Sun them getting a Power Source powerful enough would require a huge explanation as Urza needed to absorb Serra's Realm to power the first Planeshift Engine. Karn and Jhoira building it yes, they helped build the first one (Jhoria was the first Captain of the Weatherlight too) but Karn can't make Planes anymore.
And Weatherlight getting Salvaged is completely within what we know of it..since it had self repair capabilities from its building materials.
At the end of Time Spiral Jhoira inherited a Phyrexian Ambulator that Venser was studying, but no longer had a use for after his spark ignited. Since it is one of old Phyrexia's many devices made for planar travel, it could be the basis for a new planeswalking engine. Also, Venser was working on making his own skyship with planar travel powers when Koth shanghaied him into fighting New Phyrexia (Koth is particularly afraid of PLanar bridge tech, since he doesn't want New Phyrexia to get its hands on it).
Unless Jhiora found a way to Empower a Huge Power stone then no, the Weatherlight shouldn't be able to Planeshift, during Apocalypse The Weatherlight took the Mana from the Null Moon and slammed it into Yawgmoth it burnt out basically everything that the Weatherlight could do.
On the other hand, as someone pointed out last time we saw the Weatherlight it was rapidly sinking into the ocean and deemed by its captain to be unsalveagable. Now its back in the sky. It was known for one thing, and that was traveling between planes; well, two things if you count being a piece of the legacy weapon, as is its power matrix, and the LW supposedly lives on as Karn, who shows up in this set. And Karn created a whole plane of artifice, so who knows what he and Jhoira could do together on a project? Look, all I'm saying is that I wouldn't put it past Wizards to retcon their existing lore to allow it. They've done it before in the not-so-distant past.
I was wondering about Lyra Dawnbringer as well. Since when would an angel have a descendant/family by name? And if it's just an homage, why Reya Dawnbringer of all legendary angels from Dominaria? She was less than a footnote. O_o Bummer because it's probably not relevant enough to have anything to do in the story.
There is an implication in Planeswalker that Serra Angels are 'born'. Not sure if that's going to be walked back or anything, but it IS possible that Lyra is a descendant, or 'Dawnbringer' might be a title, like Urza Planeswalker was.
The idea that Serra's angels are born goes all the way back to the novel Planeswalker, actually, which I'll requote from the Dominaria Spoilers Digest article:
Quote from "Chapter 14 page 212" »
On the twentieth day of forced smiles, Xantcha's conspiratorial campaign achieved its greatest victory when Sosinna confessed that she was in love, perfectly and eternally, with one of her nursery peers: an angel.
"Is that permitted?" Xantcha interrupted before she had the wit to censor herself. The notion of love fascinated her, and spending most of her life in Urza's shadow or hiding her unformed flesh beneath a young man's clothes, she'd had very little opportunity to learn love's secrets. "You don't have wings."
Xantcha's curiosity was ill-timed and rude. It jeapardized everything she'd gained through long days of patient questions, but it was sincere. [...]
But Sosinna surprised Xantcha with a furious blush that stretched from the collar of her white gown into her pale gold hair.
"Wings," Sosinna exclaimed, "have nothing to do with it!" A lie, if Xantcha had ever heard one. "We are all born the same, raised the same. Our parentage is not important to Lady Serra. We are all equal in her service. She encourages us to chrish each other openly and to follow our hearts, not our eyes, when we declare our one true love."
More lies, though Sosinna's passion was real. "Kenidiern is a paragon," she confided in a whisper. "no one serves the Lady with more bravery and vigor. He has examined every aspect of his being and cast out all trace of imperfection. Ther is not one mote of him that isn't pure and devoted to duty. He stands above all the other angels, and no one would fault him if he were proud, but he isn't. Kenidiern has embraced humility. There isn't a woman alive who wouldn't exchange tokens with him, but he has given his to me."
Sosinna removed her veil and, sweeping her hair aside, revealed a tiny golden earring in the lobe of her left ear.
So three things are revealed here:
1) there are apparently male Serran angels, even though the game makes a point of only depicting female angels outside of Amonkhet.
2) Serran angels are indeed born and raised alongside human children. How they are "born" is left up to the imagination, but the text suggests they have parents, and some stuff I left out from earlier in the chapter implies Serra has an almost G ideology concerning the sanctity of life in direct contrast with Phyrexian beliefs or even some of Urza's actions (although Xantcha finds the Serrans to be just as dogmatic as Phyrexians, hence her suspicion in this passage).
3) Serran angels can feel love and are allowed to marry humans. Could explain the flavor of Angelic Destiny! Among other things.
Think it's safe (and sad) to say that none of this is taken into account, as they've repeatedly stated Angels cannot be planeswalkers because of various reasons about them being constructs of mana, and how a being only can hold a spark because of their "natural" biology being fated to have one, exception being Karn of course. If this is a turning point where they suddenly will acknowledge that novel, then joy.
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You can search Youtube for a channel named "The Aether Hub", as he does a lot of various summaries of older stories. There is also the blog "Multiverse in Review" which is written by a member of this very forum. And as for anything Antiquities and Invasion related, I literally have those books sitting on my bookshelf not five feet away. Ask me any question you want!
Nice confirmation that the round quartered sigil on M25 Ihsan's Shade's armour (and therefore on M25 Renewed Faith, DOM angel's shield and avian's cloth) is indeed Serra's.
Nothing new under the sun after Jay13x's find, though.
Modern Storm
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EDH Jhoira of the Ghitu
What in the world made Teferi think he could possibly win? Powerful as he might be, Bolas has consistently wiped the floor with other planeswalkers, to the point where extremely powerful walkers like Ugin and Azor still needed an elaborate plan to have any hope of defeating him. I can understand Bolas being afraid of Urza, but why would he fear Teferi? Realistically, wouldn't Bolas just destroy him almost as effortlessly as he wiped the floor with the Gatewatch?
For that matter, I'm still not entirely clear on how Umezawa managed to kill a planeswalker as intelligent and powerful as Bolas, even temporarily. Did Umezawa find some particular weakness to exploit? Was Bolas just holding the Idiot Ball for that storyline?
As for the Umezawa thing. It involved a number of things that led Bolas into a state of vulnerablitity. Overall it was more or less him being too arrogant when he had every right to be that arrogant.
He did beat Teferi effortlessly. It was Teferi who was being arrogant at the time. And not necessarily without good reason.
Teferi also tried recruiting Bolas into helping his crew seal the time rifts, so there is that. Bolas didn't care, though, as he was already planning his revenge against Myojin of Nights Reach. They hadn't yet pieced together the risk the rifts posed to the multiverse at large, or Bolas might have been more amenable to helping them. However, you have to keep in mind that when Time Spiral was printed, they had yet to write many of the victories that Bolas has had since then, and many of those have been against Neowalkers with much less experience and magical expertise than Teferi. Bolas had just been resurrected, and was itching for a fight specifically to test what his new body was capable of. Teferi might have figured he could take him on in such a state, particularly because there was no way of knowing about the duel with Ugin thanks to Sarkhan's time travel hijinks.
Even though Teferi lost by being torn into pieces, Teferi just put his own body back together with healing magic. Urza no doubt taught him how to do that, as his regeneration was on par with Wolverine. It took Teferi some time to fully heal himself, but the point is that if he were a neo-walker he would be quite dead. Teferi was no slouch, he was as much a godlike being as Bolas, and literally phased an entire continent out of time. He phased his own island out of time multiple times during his experiments. Urza respected Teferi's power so much he was convinced that Teferi would join the Nine Titans, especially since Teferi was his student once. Teferi was likely weakened during the Time Rifts crisis because he didn't phase Zalfir back in soon enough, which meant he didn't have access to most of his mana. Like I said, Teferi had good reason to be cocky too, its just that he forgot to take a number of factors into account before challenging Bolas to a fight.
As for what would happen if the two fought before the Phyrexian Invasion? Well, first of all it would more likely be a war than a personal duel, because whenever Bolas was on Dominaria he had to stay in the Madaran capital in order not to destabilize the plane (remember that he was metaphysically connected to the Madaran Rift as he was the cause of its existence). Madara had three mana lines converge at the capital, so that apparently gave Bolas the power to keep his own magical power in check. That meant that any conquest he did on Dominaria would have to be through armies and conventional warfare-- he couldn't show up on the battlefield to personally wreak havoc, much as he would have enjoyed it. In contrast, Urza, Teferi, Freyalise, Jaya Ballard, and Lord Windgrace could go anywhere they pleased on Dominaria, and that meant Bolas's armies would be disadvantaged in any war against those planeswalkers. However, none of them really cared what Bolas was doing in his own empire, so long as he didn't encroach on their territories.
Bolas was beatable by Tetsuo because of the mana lines and the nature of the Meditation Plane. After battling Ramses Overdark, Tetsuo fled into the Meditation plane knowing that Bolas would follow (as Bolas's own servant, he had been taught how to access the demiplane). What Bolas didn't know is that Tetsuo also set up a spell ahead of time that would blow up the Imperial shrine, having the twofold effect of making it impossible for Bolas to go back to Dominaria once he was in the Meditation Realm lest he destabilize the Madaran Rift, and taking away the majority of Bolas's magic for the upcoming fight. Imagine that Tetsuo had cast a one sided Armageddon against Bolas's lands. That meant that planeswalker or no, Bolas was vulnerable to Tetsuo's spells and weapons, and Bolas could only use his draconic abilities in the fight. Against a highly powerful spellcaster like Tetsuo Umezawa, it wasn't good enough, and ironically it was only Bolas's connection to the Madaran rift that kept his spirit from passing on.
Well done, this was very succinct. An excellent summary.
For the Invasion you want Remember the Weatherlight 5a, 5b, and 5c.
I have not seen a good summary of Otaria anywhere, but Multiverse in Review will be covering it soon.
I just published Time Spiral and the Mending here a couple weeks ago.
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As far as Teferi being considered a hero of Dominaria, I can't speak for the Planar Chaos and Future Sight books (which were the two out of the three NOT in ebook form for whatever reason) as to what Teferi did after he lost his spark, but it's probably safe to assume that of all the characters still alive, who have as much experience and power, and who care about the average person more than the average Planeswalker used to, Teferi is best placed to be a savior figure for Dominaria. How he achieves this, I guess we don't know yet.
Question: if there are Bolas themes for Dominaria, does that imply the visions Jace had of Bolas' plans for Ravnica may have been false? In my mind, to an ancient dragon, Dominaria may be more important that Ravnica.
Also, I am still unconvinced that any Weatherlight in this set is the original Weatherlight. The Apocalypse book was unambiguous that Sisay rode the dead ship into the ocean after Yawgmoth was defeated, it cracked and broke, and it sank into the ocean. "The impact had split the keel." " . . . ocean poured into the wide open hull." "Explosions below . . ." "She swam out of the wreckage . . ." "The broken hull of Weatherlight sank furiously." "Then it's outline . . . disappeared forever. There would never be another ship like Weatherlight."
It is unequivocal that the ship is wrecked, destroyed, and sunk. So it can't be the old Weatherlight come back. If it is, 1) the story is going to be outlandish. We dove down, used merfolk, pulled up the debris, hammered it together, Multani kissed it, and it was all better? What? 2) Wizards would be resurrecting something from a heroic and fitting end just for nostalgia sales and story. If you read the books that involved Weatherlight, then you have an inkling that it went down as heroic as an 'inanimate' object could be. I would howl just as much if Gerrard or Barrin or Urza were ressurected! Let the dead rest!
Rant over. I am eager to see what the story will tell us! I'm all aboard the hype train, for now.
Teferi was the guy who went into that first rift, sealing it without knowing if he'd come back. And after, I believe he said he'd go traveling, perhaps becoquino a court mage again. And maybe his title, "Hero of Dominaria" is something he gets in this story.
Bolas' connection to the main story on Dominaria may only be to bring Lilliana fully into his service. I think he want something connected to Ravnica, and while he probably would want to reclaim Madara at least, he's more about regaining his power than past glories.
I hope the Weatherlight II is a new ship. Perhaps Multani gifts Jhoira a weathersead to make the new ship.
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The real question is, does the Weatherlight's planeswalking engine still work? Because if it does and if it works even remotely like Rashmi's planar bridge, this gives the Gatewatch something they can use to pierce through the barrier erected by The Immortal Sun like Tezzeret can. Considering Bolas's plans for Ravinca, that could be very useful indeed.
Unless Jhiora found a way to Empower a Huge Power stone then no, the Weatherlight shouldn't be able to Planeshift, during Apocalypse The Weatherlight took the Mana from the Null Moon and slammed it into Yawgmoth it burnt out basically everything that the Weatherlight could do.
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It was said IIRC that even though Radiant wanted to stay in the Realm, in the end she felt that it was far better in the times that Serra was there.
I guess the same is true for a large remnant of the angels... specially those that got saved from Urza's 2nd return back there. Case in point, Reya Dawnbringer. (another question pops up, is Lyra a creation of Reya or just a namesake?)
I'm largely interested in how current Creative is going to weave the Serran religion being seemingly the prime religion in the current Benalia when before it was considered a cult.
Maybe it became more prevalent because there are actual Serran Angels that could help the cause of the religion? (it was never mentioned if Gabriel Angelfire, the supposed namesake of the Church prevalent in Benalia before actually appeared in Benalia and/or he has made angels to go around Benalia)
Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
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On the other hand, as someone pointed out last time we saw the Weatherlight it was rapidly sinking into the ocean and deemed by its captain to be unsalveagable. Now its back in the sky. It was known for one thing, and that was traveling between planes; well, two things if you count being a piece of the legacy weapon, as is its power matrix, and the LW supposedly lives on as Karn, who shows up in this set. And Karn created a whole plane of artifice, so who knows what he and Jhoira could do together on a project? Look, all I'm saying is that I wouldn't put it past Wizards to retcon their existing lore to allow it. They've done it before in the not-so-distant past.
The idea that Serra's angels are born goes all the way back to the novel Planeswalker, actually, which I'll requote from the Dominaria Spoilers Digest article:
So three things are revealed here:
1) there are apparently male Serran angels, even though the game makes a point of only depicting female angels outside of Amonkhet.
2) Serran angels are indeed born and raised alongside human children. How they are "born" is left up to the imagination, but the text suggests they have parents, and some stuff I left out from earlier in the chapter implies Serra has an almost G ideology concerning the sanctity of life in direct contrast with Phyrexian beliefs or even some of Urza's actions (although Xantcha finds the Serrans to be just as dogmatic as Phyrexians, hence her suspicion in this passage).
3) Serran angels can feel love and are allowed to marry humans. Could explain the flavor of Angelic Destiny! Among other things.
That doesn't change the fact that the power needed to power the Planeshift engine is enormous, unless Jhoira gets ahold of the Immortal Sun them getting a Power Source powerful enough would require a huge explanation as Urza needed to absorb Serra's Realm to power the first Planeshift Engine. Karn and Jhoira building it yes, they helped build the first one (Jhoria was the first Captain of the Weatherlight too) but Karn can't make Planes anymore.
And Weatherlight getting Salvaged is completely within what we know of it..since it had self repair capabilities from its building materials.
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Think it's safe (and sad) to say that none of this is taken into account, as they've repeatedly stated Angels cannot be planeswalkers because of various reasons about them being constructs of mana, and how a being only can hold a spark because of their "natural" biology being fated to have one, exception being Karn of course. If this is a turning point where they suddenly will acknowledge that novel, then joy.