I mean, given that the number of people who emphasize with humans is, in all likelihood, higher than the number of people who emphasize exclusively with non-humans, I find it kind of interesting that you'd try to argue it is inaccurate. But given that it's a point that WotC has made it makes sense from that angle.
And while I may not emphasize with humans over non-humans, I can certainly understand the sentiment. It's weird that people aren't able to emphasize with a point of view outside of their own, but given that's rather literally what is being discussed (being able to emphasize with other humans) it doesn't surprise me.
Except that's NOT what people are saying. They are saying it doesn't really matter to them, and believe it probably doesn't matter to most people.
And what are the most popular non human walkers? Bolas, Ugin, Nissa, Ajani, Sorin. Oh look, they are the non humans who have gotten the most cards, and been featured the most in story, and were all pushed pretty heavy before they became popular (Nissa wasn't popular before joining the gatewatch). The most popular human walkers also happen to be the ones that have had the most cards and story exposure. It really is a feedback loop that magnifies smaller trends. There's a slight bias toward human characters, but pushing humans so heavily ensures that humans will end up on top. Characters that are a bit more popular become by far the most popular when they become the main characters. It's mostly name recognition, because they aren't just measuring opinion of people who care about the story, but all magic players, and most people don't care about the story, so their preferences are based off the cards. And the characters with the most cards, and best cards, are the most popular.
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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
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
And what are the most popular non human walkers? Bolas, Ugin, Nissa, Ajani, Sorin. Oh look, they are the non humans who have gotten the most cards, and been featured the most in story, and were all pushed pretty heavy before they became popular (Nissa wasn't popular before joining the gatewatch). The most popular human walkers also happen to be the ones that have had the most cards and story exposure. It really is a feedback loop that magnifies smaller trends. There's a slight bias toward human characters, but pushing humans so heavily ensures that humans will end up on top. Characters that are a bit more popular become by far the most popular when they become the main characters. It's mostly name recognition, because they aren't just measuring opinion of people who care about the story, but all magic players, and most people don't care about the story, so their preferences are based off the cards. And the characters with the most cards, and best cards, are the most popular.
I would like to know where you are getting this information. Because I strongly suspect you are pulling it out of somewhere where good information isn't typically pulled.
While I can't find recent sources, but, as of Kalasdesh, Ajani was rated as the lowest white walker. Which makes it hard to say he ranks highly in any capacity.
At the start of Theros block Sorin was the most popular nonhuman planeswalker. I think he had the most printings but I don't want to check.
Bolas and Ugin both receive significant splash popularity by being dragons, the most popular creature type.
I doubt you actually have any grounds to support your claim of the 5 most popular nonhuman walkers but I would be very interested in being proven wrong.
Remind me guys who is the most popular character at MtG neighbor across the street at WOTC in the ye olde Dungeons and Dragons Office. Cause I seem to remember that character aint a human.
Which is to say powerful cards, story relevance, a unique look, and getting to do cool things does wonders for a characters popularity.
Does the story explains what happened to Sorin vs Nahiri?
Was brought up 3 times. First during a war meeting Nahiri is mentioned looking for someone, next we seem them fighting each other and ignoring the harvesting eternals and finally near the end they finally stop fighting each and start taking out eternals.
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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"
Im pretty sure ugin was definately right about bolas if he was killed that he would just rise stronger one day and that was probably while he still had his spark
So I think he just wasn’t aware his spark was remove until he brought him in the meditation realm (correct me if I’m wrong ofcoarse)
Just want to jump in to say that a "relatable character" is not a character "just like you". If you can relate only to someone that is the same as you, then you have almost no empathy and should start working on that.
A relatable character is a character whose traits you can recognize, can understand what he/she does and why, wether that character is human or not it doesn't matter.
As for who is the most popular character, my opinion is that most people just play the game and don't care about the plot (in this forum we are only a minority of the playerbase) so design, exposure and most importantly power level are more important than plot and characterization. In a world where Jace, the mind sculptor has been the most powerful planeswalker for a long time or where Ugin, the spirit dragon might single-handedly win you games, it is no wonder who will come on top in popularity contest.
On the other hand, you can have a great character like Davriel, but when most people see a card like Davriel, rogue shadowmage as the only introduction to the character, you can be sure that he is not going to win any popularity contest anytime soon.
EDIT: if WotC decided to print a literally unnamed planeswalker with a "-X you win the game" that can be activated right away with doubling season, that one would become instantly the most popular character. Even if it has no characterization whatsoever and no relevance to the plot.
The first extra chapter is lame sauce. One new scene in the beginning and then just the first part of the book from Rat's POV. I really should have expected to be disappointed.
The first extra chapter is lame sauce. One new scene in the beginning and then just the first part of the book from Rat's POV. I really should have expected to be disappointed.
Meh Rat annoys me she has a massive grab bag of abilities and getting more screen time then most Walkers in story. It grates as a Teferi fan because Teferi doesn't remember he can fly, read minds, polymorph, etc basically do anyhting but manipulate time and counter. Not to mention I seem to remember Oldwalker Urza not being able to easily get into Teferi's mind when he was a kid presparking. But sure Neowalker Jace is totally strong enough to make everyone think Bolas really died.
As for character popularity. I say what matters most is card power, card appearances, how cool the character looks, and how much people like the set/plane the character appears in/is associated with. So for instance it sucks to be Hautli lol. Cause she got screwed under most of those categories.
Since most magic fans are not following the story. Heck a lot of your top magic youtubers aren't either. Prof seems up to date, Jimmy seems to have some familiarity, Josh Lee Kwai though knows nothing lol.
The first extra chapter is lame sauce. One new scene in the beginning and then just the first part of the book from Rat's POV. I really should have expected to be disappointed.
On the other hand its great for the people who can't/don't want pay for the full novel and keeps the story accessible. I hope we get some more new content though.
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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"
So I read the whole book yesterday, and I have some thoughts which some may find disagreeable. I’m going to attempt to put them under a spoiler thing:
If I had to give a rating “x/10,” I would give 3/10. I’m not a Bolas fanboy, so the rating isn’t coming from that. The rating also only has partial relevance to my earlier postings about stakes, but takes more than ‘deaths’ into account.
1) For an end of the Bolas arc, Nicol Bolas did remarkably little. True, I read this pretty quickly, but I took a lot of screenshots as I was reading which back up my general conclusion here. Bolas was presented as far more dangerous, far more powerful, and far more . . . Nicol Bolas-y in the Amonkhet short stories than he did here. 85% of the time that he was mentioned in War of the Spark, he was described as sitting around and smiling. I can’t say my memory is perfect on this next score, but apart from blasting away Oketra and protecting Liliana for a few seconds by tumbling some buildings, did he do anything substantial before being defeated? I can’t think of anything. He never went toe-to-toe with any walker that I can recall (apart from invisible Ugin when he was desparked). And as the Elder Spell progressed, we are told Bolas is sucking in the odd spark here or there into his gem. Yet we see no god-like Bolas at any point. We don’t see astonishing power that outshines anything he did in the beginning of the story, or in any other story. Bolas simply didn’t feel like a godly threat. How could this happen? He is presented as far more impressive and powerful in the cards than in this story. Very disappointing.
2) I had a general “What the hell?” reaction to many things, including:
- The Beacon. Ral says “[N]either the dragon nor his minions will be able to shut it off. Hell, *I* can’t even shut it off.” They repeat this over and over in the story. But wow, later on in the story, we figure out that we can just cut the power to the Beacon. What an ingenious flaw!
- We are set up in Ixalan, after the friendship/love story between Jace and Vraska, with Jace blocking away Vraska’s memories of him so that they could unlock their alliance when Bolas least expected it. Instead, in this book . . . a kraul telepath unlocked Vraska’s memories long before Bolas’ arrival, but then she . . . went ahead and killed people and Isperia anyway, because she was angry? What? Her whole relationship with Bolas and her actions are so convoluted now that her part in the story was just nonsensical.
- Bolas has an Eternal army created to invade Ravnica, but then: “Eternals, despite their years of training on Amonkhet, stood little chance with their limited free will and limited agency against these Planeswalkers.” What? The Eternals fought with some semblance of free will and agency on Amonkhet. They weren’t exactly marching morons. They also exhibited a lot of their previous skill in combat and killing. Yet . . . Bolas makes them the droids from the Star Wars prequels that need a command ship (Liliana) to do anything? Nonsensical. In War of the Spark they’re just automatons, plodding around instead of being written as truly terrifying. What a lost opportunity.
- The Eternals trained all their lives to be the most dangerous warriors Bolas could bring to bear on Ravnica. Yet throughout the story, almost every named person is killing them easily. They’re being melted, shattered, stabbed (in their eyes? I lost count how many times the author had Eternals stabbed in their eyes, by nobodies too. How do they even have eyes???), chained, on and on. Neheb, the cream of the crop? Easily beheaded. You never really feel like the Eternals are dangerous (but they're slaughtering people! Yes, but they're being slaughtered en masse, too), and that could be because of the writing style. I might address this again later, but the writer seemed to have written a long outline first, and then just added details later. There was a lot of movement in the story without a lot of meat on the bones. You would think that Neheb would have a moment of fear-inducing violence. Nope: Samut jumps on his back and cuts off his head, easily.
- Planeswalkers throughout the story make strange observations. Ral at one point is like, “That leonin Ajani is likely from Alara.” What? There are several, at least, planes with leonins. Teyo also seems to be the writer’s mouthpiece, and the writer mentions almost all the named walker cards throughout the story, almost in passing, like he was crossing names off a list to make sure they made an appearance. (Tibalt leading forces in battle? Doesn’t make sense, but sure.) And apparently Samut knows the name of every Eternal she kills? What? Also, I think it's Teyo near the end who reflects that it was hard to feel a certain way for all the unnamed walkers who died. It's almost like the writer knows we're thinking the same thing.
- I may have been a fool, but weren’t we set up to believe that five of the guilds were being led by five walkers loyal to Bolas, or working indirectly for Bolas? Yet when the story starts, there’s only one walker working with Bolas, directly or indirectly: Dovin. Domri doesn’t appear to be working with Bolas until he watches the Selesnya elemental get torn apart by the god-eternals. Until that point, he was fighting and killing Eternals. Then he ‘woo hoo’ed and went over to Bolas, and was promptly killed. What? What happened to the Raze Boar set-up? What happened to what I felt was the set-up of Domri working with Bolas from the start and then getting betrayed? What? Ral and Kaya are not with Bolas, and Vraska is on Ixalan for half the book.
- The Beacon doesn’t force a planeswalk, it just strongly suggests it. How did Sorin free himself from the wall on Innistrad? We’ll never know. Why didn’t he free himself before this battle? No idea. Obviously he chose to planeswalk to Ravnica, which means he could have planeswalked from the wall any time, which makes that whole part of the Innistrad story meaningless. At most, we are told Sorin and Nahiri are fighting on rooftops. That’s it. What a waste of a story set-up.
- So, nothing biological can pass through the Planar Bridge . . . except for planeswalkers. What? This was another point they hammered ever since the Planar Bridge was made. Yet, in this story, Ob Nixilis, Dack, Karn, and Samut just walk/fly through the portal into Amonkhet. The explanation is that their sparks somehow protect them. Then somehow, for some reason, Sarkhan Vol is on Amonkhet and helped Hazoret restore the Hekma shield (didn’t that take more than one weak god to maintain?). And feel free to inform me otherwise, since I could be wrong, but when did Sarkhan and Karn ever meet?: ‘“Sarkhan Vol.” The golem didn’t sound particularly pleased to see this Vol again. Sarkhan Vol’s attitude toward Karn seemed no more welcoming. “Karn.” Then he turned to the demon and with even less warmth said, “Nixilis.” Ob Nixilis eyed the newcomer with suspicion, “What brought you here?” “I had word – from . . . Goldmane . . . . ”’ Suddenly all these walkers know each other? I may be wrong, and if I am, I will be humbled and thankful for the education.
- People are walking all over the city to recruit guilds to the fight, ***while people are being hunted and slaughtered***. This seemed to be a rejection of reality to me. The city is being attacked and people are being killed, yet we have the heroes mosying to different guilds to try to convince them to take up arms. There is so little sense of urgency!
- Can we talk about the fact that Jace knew a 9-word spell to deactivate the Immortal Sun, because he somehow pulled it from Azor’s head on Ixalan? In the story, they turn *off* the Immortal Sun, then turn it back *on*, which, obviously, no one else would be able to figure out (*cough* Bolas-if-he-was-trapped *cough*). The Immortal Sun also gives god-like power to the one who stands on it, yet . . . neither Dovin nor Bolas stand on it. It just rests on top of an Azorious citadel. Then Chandra, Saheeli, and Lavinia (I think) face down Dovin and hundreds of his thopters, and *survive.* Then Dovin gets ninja stars thrown into his eyes by Lazav. Where was Chandra’s Triumph? Never happened in the story. Dovin escapes, blind, and ‘walks away. And ***no one uses the Immortal Sun against Bolas.***
- Bolas setting up the story of the Blackblade in order to trick the Gatewatch into directing all their attention to it as the weapon to beat him. Possible, but man, did it make my head shake. Bolas doesn’t even brag about the steps he took to make it unable to ever kill an Elder Dragon again (it killed an eternalized god and Elder Demon, but shrug).
- Throughout the story, the writer keeps pointing out that Gideon can’t share his invulnerability and must stand in the way of danger so that he takes the hits. But then, Gideon *somehow* gives his invulnerability to Liliana and takes her curse. And somehow that invulnerability immediately starts reconstituting Liliana, where never before did it ever heal (it was just a full-body barrier of light). That, too, was just head-shaking all around.
- The Immortal Sun was still (re)activated when Gideon died. Yet he has a vision of Theros. Does he truly depart to Theros? This should be impossible. Does he just imagine it? That would make more sense, but we don’t know for sure, so it’s just nice and confusing at the same time.
- The whole thing with Hazoret’s spear piercing the God Bolas, and him being unable to dissolve it despite being a God Bolas because he had been the one who created it, was so, so ridiculous to the point of upsetting me.
- Another favorite: Bolas asks Ugin how Ugin managed to get past the safeguards on the Meditation Plane that Bolas had put up. They must have been considerable, considering Bolas created them. Ugin’s response? “Oh, Sarkhan helped me, because you made him angry.” What? No other explanation.
- The Spirit Gem that Bolas has been carrying around was a piece of Ugin? What? What kind of hand-wavy nonsense is this?
- Ugin rubs it in to Bolas that Bolas didn’t expect Hazoret’s spear to be dangerous to him. But no one knew Hazoret would give her spear to Samut and the good guys, or that it would get into the paws of Niv-Mizzet. So what the hell is he bragging about? Sarkhan didn’t really convince Hazoret to give the spear, as Ugin implies. I quote: Sarkhan: ”I came to Amonkhet with the hope of finding something on this plane that could defeat its former God-Pharaoh.” Hazoret: “Unfortunately, We know of nothing here that can defeat Nicol Bolas.” Sarkhan: “Perhaps your spear?” Hazoret: “Perhaps, though it is unlikely, as it was his creation.” No one knew for sure that the spear would be of any use! And it would take four of them to lift it!
3) Four or five years ago, in these forums, I had put forth the idea that Bolas might try to harvest planeswalker sparks to make himself a God again. It started some heated debates, but the end result is this story clearly shows that the mere spark provides Bolas with more power (how much more? Very ill-defined. We never see super-powered Bolas do anything really impressive). But are the sparks also one’s connection to Magic? When Bolas is harvested by Bontu, all the sparks he had absorbed, including his own, are pulled out and then they dissipate. On the Meditation Plane, Ugin tells Bolas he is no longer long-lived because he is spark-less, and then we find out Bolas is also Magic-less. But Nixilis lost his spark, no? As did Teferi. They both continued to be able to use Magic though. Since this book is officially canon, what impact does this have on the past stories of walkers losing their sparks? Is your tie to Magic a result of your spark? If not, how did Bolas lose all his powers in addition to his ability to planeswalk? Is the spark also the source of Bolas’ long life? I always thought that was a result of him being an Elder Dragon. None of this is ever explained, but it’s all canon.
4) It honestly felt like the writer wrote the story before being told by Wizards which planeswalkers would be involved in the story. It reads like an outline that is only later fleshed out. Planeswalkers are mentioned throughout the story almost in passing, a lot like the writer was told to make sure they pop up somewhere. We have Tibalt leading fighters into battle, which is crazy. We have Angrath trash-talking the Gatewatch even though he only just now found out about the Gatewatch and Bolas, and has no idea of their history. We have strange conversations and strange information about various walkers. I honestly would not be surprised if the first draft of the story simply had blank spaces for the names as placeholders until the writer knew who Wizards wanted him to put in there. It also feels like there was very little literary meat on the bones. I rarely can read through 363 pages in one day, especially on a work day, but there was so little juiciness to the story that it took me no time at all to finish it. It seemed like the reading grade level was pretty low.
Final Thoughts:
This story did not do justice to the conclusion of Bolas’ story arc. We’ve been led up to this moment with so much hype, and all the action takes place in less than a day. Medieval battles took longer to sort themselves out. Bolas barely does anything of note, and all his best laid plans have immediate solutions (cut the power to the Beacon, say the magic words to turn off the Immortal Sun, walk through the portal the close it from the other side, stab Bolas with a spear). How is this anything other than ridiculous? Again, I’m not a Bolas fanboy. I’m not coming at this from the perspective of someone who lives and breathes Bolas. I think, as an objective matter, this is a particularly big dud. Not well-written, way too many strange plot points or throwing out of plot points. Honestly, the story told in the cards is way better. Very disappointing.
I had a lot of other points I wanted to make, but between yesterday and today, I’ve forgotten them.
Sorry for the wall of text.
I was going to write out my main thoughts on the book, but you pretty much got to most of what I was going to bring up and far more, Perkunas, at least in terms of the plot and continuity issues. I also spent the day reading, and was also disappointed. I feel like the author was rushed, and had to make changes to the story at the last minute. Because there are plenty of important events which play out differently on the cards than in the novel. There weren’t cards for Rat or the Spear of Hazoret, but Illharg, Krenko, Massacre Girl, Fblthp, Feather, and Roalesk all saw print despite none of them being in the book at all.
However, that doesn’t excuse the horribly misplaced focus within the narrative. For example, we got multiple pages of Teyo and company slowly making their way through Rix Maadi, complete with descriptions of every macabre performer, but the reconciliation between Chandra and Nissa, which should have been a major emotional beat, got like two paragraphs. I was similarly flabbergasted by the way Gideon’s death was handled. And Liliana’s change of heart, rather than being a result of her coming to genuinely care for others, as was being set up, was instead motivated by her realizing ‘oh wait being a slave forever is worse than dying’. It’s like every plot thread was burned instead of tied up nicely. And the internal voices of multiple POV figures, like Ral and Kaya, tended to blend together, as if nobody checked to make sure they were even in character. I honestly liked most of the story more on the cards.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Teyo was amusing as a novice mage way out of his comfort zone, and Rat was extremely funny and adorable. I also chuckled aloud here and there at some of the jokes. But overall, yes, the book was mediocre at best, and a big letdown. Sanderson’s novella and Drayden’s shorts are both leagues better, and either of them would have handled things with more care had they been given the reins.
It sounds like a lot of the issues come from continuity problems and being rushed. This has been a pattern with the story, so I wouldn't lay it at the feet of the author. I don't think creative has a well thought out plan for the story or fails to communicate it to the authors. If this was the first time a novel hit with retcons and continuity issues, it would be different, but it seems like this happens every time. There is one common factor here, and it's not the authors, who have turned on good work elsewhere.
GOD... reading the spoilers of the book feels utterly rushed and needs to be split into two books instead for the Bolas Arc to end in the most epic way.
A RANDOM Kraul was able to undo Jace's mindwipe on Vraska... I call that utter bullcrap!
Would have wanted like other interactions and ways that would have made it consistent or true to the story.
How Niv-Mizzet got killed by Bolas
Like Jace giving the Captain Vraska "Call-sign" as some of the "allied to Bolas" guilds were fighting Jace and some of the others.
Maybe Kaya was part of the welcome wagon of the Eternals entering the Orzhov Guildgate and was attacked, thanks to her ability, she escaped and realized that she got betrayed by Bolas.
Jace maybe encountering Angrath and Angrath finding he can't get out of Ravnica due to the Immortal Sun
Huatli and Saheeli arrive and help some people fight the Eternals, Saheeli is dumbfounded that she can't escape and Huatli recognizes the Immortal Sun shick.
Teyo encountering some of the other Walkers and maybe trying to protect himself from the Single Combat between Sorin and Nahiri
There should have been a better "Ending" for Domri
So the Eternals are more Star Wars Droids... weaksauce.
I can say that there's SO MANY ways and things that NEEDED to be fixed to make this story GREAT.
I don't get why Bolas randomly kills Domri for like no reason. I mean its not like he needs anyones spark specifically. So him stabbing his help in the back just seems dumb and to show look he is evil. Like killing your underlings cause they screwed up fine...killing your underlings for no reason doesn't make the bad guy look scary it makes them look dumb and incompetent.
Also like some rando can reverse Jace's but then Jace is suppose trick everyone about Bolas being dead? How does that logically work...
I don't get why Bolas randomly kills Domri for like no reason. I mean its not like he needs anyones spark specifically. So him stabbing his help in the back just seems dumb and to show look he is evil. Like killing your underlings cause they screwed up fine...killing your underlings for no reason doesn't make the bad guy look scary it makes them look dumb and incompetent.
This is a big problem I have with Bolas, and why I just can't find him a compelling villain. He's the most generic, paint by numbers, card-carrying , moustache-twirling, finger-steepling, evil-cackling, Saturday morning cartoon supervillain with nothing of substance or interest to him. It's like they just cracked open a book of "1001 Generic Villain Tropes" and molded it into the vague shape of a dragon with a completely ridiculous design (seriously, he looks just...awful).
And for a story that's all about stopping the villain, if the villain isn't compelling, then it's hard to care about anyone trying to stop him. I have a lot of issues with the story, but that's the real killer, I think.
I think its the show don't tell rule applying. We are told Bolas is a brilliant evil dragon. But they only show him being evil...they don't show him being smart. Its just him being more powerful everyone else and thus bullying them around.
His best moment of characterization recently if you ask me is when Vraksa like how do you know how to command a boat...and Bolas is basically like well you know I like to read. That was like peak characterization for me and showed some depth.
I don't get why Bolas randomly kills Domri for like no reason. I mean its not like he needs anyones spark specifically. So him stabbing his help in the back just seems dumb and to show look he is evil. Like killing your underlings cause they screwed up fine...killing your underlings for no reason doesn't make the bad guy look scary it makes them look dumb and incompetent.
I believe it was already brought up that Domri really didn't serve Bolas. He was in the war to spread chaos and tear down civilization, and wanted to offer his allegiance to Bolas in the middle of all the fighting since the latter was leading a major assault on Ravnica.
To Bolas, Domri was just a nobody, who may or may not be useful to him, offering to serve him out of nowhere (plausibly in a bid to ensure their survival). I really don't blame Bolas for just offing him without further thought.
I don't get why Bolas randomly kills Domri for like no reason. I mean its not like he needs anyones spark specifically. So him stabbing his help in the back just seems dumb and to show look he is evil. Like killing your underlings cause they screwed up fine...killing your underlings for no reason doesn't make the bad guy look scary it makes them look dumb and incompetent.
I believe it was already brought up that Domri really didn't serve Bolas. He was in the war to spread chaos and tear down civilization, and wanted to offer his allegiance to Bolas in the middle of all the fighting since the latter was leading a major assault on Ravnica.
To Bolas, Domri was just a nobody, who may or may not be useful to him, offering to serve him out of nowhere (plausibly in a bid to ensure their survival). I really don't blame Bolas for just offing him without further thought.
To be fair there isn't the slightest hint that Bolas actually was involved in the decision at all. Domri Rode up with his horde and was all, "Hey guys I want to turn sides", the walker identification function for the Eternals activates, which minimizes Liliana's control over them and they quickly butcher Domri's horde to get to his spark. Its highly unlikely anyone gave any thought to Domri's self pitch and he died because he was dumb.
So I read the whole book yesterday, and I have some thoughts which some may find disagreeable. I’m going to attempt to put them under a spoiler thing:
If I had to give a rating “x/10,” I would give 3/10. I’m not a Bolas fanboy, so the rating isn’t coming from that. The rating also only has partial relevance to my earlier postings about stakes, but takes more than ‘deaths’ into account.
1) For an end of the Bolas arc, Nicol Bolas did remarkably little. True, I read this pretty quickly, but I took a lot of screenshots as I was reading which back up my general conclusion here. Bolas was presented as far more dangerous, far more powerful, and far more . . . Nicol Bolas-y in the Amonkhet short stories than he did here. 85% of the time that he was mentioned in War of the Spark, he was described as sitting around and smiling. I can’t say my memory is perfect on this next score, but apart from blasting away Oketra and protecting Liliana for a few seconds by tumbling some buildings, did he do anything substantial before being defeated? I can’t think of anything. He never went toe-to-toe with any walker that I can recall (apart from invisible Ugin when he was desparked). And as the Elder Spell progressed, we are told Bolas is sucking in the odd spark here or there into his gem. Yet we see no god-like Bolas at any point. We don’t see astonishing power that outshines anything he did in the beginning of the story, or in any other story. Bolas simply didn’t feel like a godly threat. How could this happen? He is presented as far more impressive and powerful in the cards than in this story. Very disappointing.
2) I had a general “What the hell?” reaction to many things, including:
- The Beacon. Ral says “[N]either the dragon nor his minions will be able to shut it off. Hell, *I* can’t even shut it off.” They repeat this over and over in the story. But wow, later on in the story, we figure out that we can just cut the power to the Beacon. What an ingenious flaw!
- We are set up in Ixalan, after the friendship/love story between Jace and Vraska, with Jace blocking away Vraska’s memories of him so that they could unlock their alliance when Bolas least expected it. Instead, in this book . . . a kraul telepath unlocked Vraska’s memories long before Bolas’ arrival, but then she . . . went ahead and killed people and Isperia anyway, because she was angry? What? Her whole relationship with Bolas and her actions are so convoluted now that her part in the story was just nonsensical.
- Bolas has an Eternal army created to invade Ravnica, but then: “Eternals, despite their years of training on Amonkhet, stood little chance with their limited free will and limited agency against these Planeswalkers.” What? The Eternals fought with some semblance of free will and agency on Amonkhet. They weren’t exactly marching morons. They also exhibited a lot of their previous skill in combat and killing. Yet . . . Bolas makes them the droids from the Star Wars prequels that need a command ship (Liliana) to do anything? Nonsensical. In War of the Spark they’re just automatons, plodding around instead of being written as truly terrifying. What a lost opportunity.
- The Eternals trained all their lives to be the most dangerous warriors Bolas could bring to bear on Ravnica. Yet throughout the story, almost every named person is killing them easily. They’re being melted, shattered, stabbed (in their eyes? I lost count how many times the author had Eternals stabbed in their eyes, by nobodies too. How do they even have eyes???), chained, on and on. Neheb, the cream of the crop? Easily beheaded. You never really feel like the Eternals are dangerous (but they're slaughtering people! Yes, but they're being slaughtered en masse, too), and that could be because of the writing style. I might address this again later, but the writer seemed to have written a long outline first, and then just added details later. There was a lot of movement in the story without a lot of meat on the bones. You would think that Neheb would have a moment of fear-inducing violence. Nope: Samut jumps on his back and cuts off his head, easily.
- Planeswalkers throughout the story make strange observations. Ral at one point is like, “That leonin Ajani is likely from Alara.” What? There are several, at least, planes with leonins. Teyo also seems to be the writer’s mouthpiece, and the writer mentions almost all the named walker cards throughout the story, almost in passing, like he was crossing names off a list to make sure they made an appearance. (Tibalt leading forces in battle? Doesn’t make sense, but sure.) And apparently Samut knows the name of every Eternal she kills? What? Also, I think it's Teyo near the end who reflects that it was hard to feel a certain way for all the unnamed walkers who died. It's almost like the writer knows we're thinking the same thing.
- I may have been a fool, but weren’t we set up to believe that five of the guilds were being led by five walkers loyal to Bolas, or working indirectly for Bolas? Yet when the story starts, there’s only one walker working with Bolas, directly or indirectly: Dovin. Domri doesn’t appear to be working with Bolas until he watches the Selesnya elemental get torn apart by the god-eternals. Until that point, he was fighting and killing Eternals. Then he ‘woo hoo’ed and went over to Bolas, and was promptly killed. What? What happened to the Raze Boar set-up? What happened to what I felt was the set-up of Domri working with Bolas from the start and then getting betrayed? What? Ral and Kaya are not with Bolas, and Vraska is on Ixalan for half the book.
- The Beacon doesn’t force a planeswalk, it just strongly suggests it. How did Sorin free himself from the wall on Innistrad? We’ll never know. Why didn’t he free himself before this battle? No idea. Obviously he chose to planeswalk to Ravnica, which means he could have planeswalked from the wall any time, which makes that whole part of the Innistrad story meaningless. At most, we are told Sorin and Nahiri are fighting on rooftops. That’s it. What a waste of a story set-up.
- So, nothing biological can pass through the Planar Bridge . . . except for planeswalkers. What? This was another point they hammered ever since the Planar Bridge was made. Yet, in this story, Ob Nixilis, Dack, Karn, and Samut just walk/fly through the portal into Amonkhet. The explanation is that their sparks somehow protect them. Then somehow, for some reason, Sarkhan Vol is on Amonkhet and helped Hazoret restore the Hekma shield (didn’t that take more than one weak god to maintain?). And feel free to inform me otherwise, since I could be wrong, but when did Sarkhan and Karn ever meet?: ‘“Sarkhan Vol.” The golem didn’t sound particularly pleased to see this Vol again. Sarkhan Vol’s attitude toward Karn seemed no more welcoming. “Karn.” Then he turned to the demon and with even less warmth said, “Nixilis.” Ob Nixilis eyed the newcomer with suspicion, “What brought you here?” “I had word – from . . . Goldmane . . . . ”’ Suddenly all these walkers know each other? I may be wrong, and if I am, I will be humbled and thankful for the education.
- People are walking all over the city to recruit guilds to the fight, ***while people are being hunted and slaughtered***. This seemed to be a rejection of reality to me. The city is being attacked and people are being killed, yet we have the heroes mosying to different guilds to try to convince them to take up arms. There is so little sense of urgency!
- Can we talk about the fact that Jace knew a 9-word spell to deactivate the Immortal Sun, because he somehow pulled it from Azor’s head on Ixalan? In the story, they turn *off* the Immortal Sun, then turn it back *on*, which, obviously, no one else would be able to figure out (*cough* Bolas-if-he-was-trapped *cough*). The Immortal Sun also gives god-like power to the one who stands on it, yet . . . neither Dovin nor Bolas stand on it. It just rests on top of an Azorious citadel. Then Chandra, Saheeli, and Lavinia (I think) face down Dovin and hundreds of his thopters, and *survive.* Then Dovin gets ninja stars thrown into his eyes by Lazav. Where was Chandra’s Triumph? Never happened in the story. Dovin escapes, blind, and ‘walks away. And ***no one uses the Immortal Sun against Bolas.***
- Bolas setting up the story of the Blackblade in order to trick the Gatewatch into directing all their attention to it as the weapon to beat him. Possible, but man, did it make my head shake. Bolas doesn’t even brag about the steps he took to make it unable to ever kill an Elder Dragon again (it killed an eternalized god and Elder Demon, but shrug).
- Throughout the story, the writer keeps pointing out that Gideon can’t share his invulnerability and must stand in the way of danger so that he takes the hits. But then, Gideon *somehow* gives his invulnerability to Liliana and takes her curse. And somehow that invulnerability immediately starts reconstituting Liliana, where never before did it ever heal (it was just a full-body barrier of light). That, too, was just head-shaking all around.
- The Immortal Sun was still (re)activated when Gideon died. Yet he has a vision of Theros. Does he truly depart to Theros? This should be impossible. Does he just imagine it? That would make more sense, but we don’t know for sure, so it’s just nice and confusing at the same time.
- The whole thing with Hazoret’s spear piercing the God Bolas, and him being unable to dissolve it despite being a God Bolas because he had been the one who created it, was so, so ridiculous to the point of upsetting me.
- Another favorite: Bolas asks Ugin how Ugin managed to get past the safeguards on the Meditation Plane that Bolas had put up. They must have been considerable, considering Bolas created them. Ugin’s response? “Oh, Sarkhan helped me, because you made him angry.” What? No other explanation.
- The Spirit Gem that Bolas has been carrying around was a piece of Ugin? What? What kind of hand-wavy nonsense is this?
- Ugin rubs it in to Bolas that Bolas didn’t expect Hazoret’s spear to be dangerous to him. But no one knew Hazoret would give her spear to Samut and the good guys, or that it would get into the paws of Niv-Mizzet. So what the hell is he bragging about? Sarkhan didn’t really convince Hazoret to give the spear, as Ugin implies. I quote: Sarkhan: ”I came to Amonkhet with the hope of finding something on this plane that could defeat its former God-Pharaoh.” Hazoret: “Unfortunately, We know of nothing here that can defeat Nicol Bolas.” Sarkhan: “Perhaps your spear?” Hazoret: “Perhaps, though it is unlikely, as it was his creation.” No one knew for sure that the spear would be of any use! And it would take four of them to lift it!
3) Four or five years ago, in these forums, I had put forth the idea that Bolas might try to harvest planeswalker sparks to make himself a God again. It started some heated debates, but the end result is this story clearly shows that the mere spark provides Bolas with more power (how much more? Very ill-defined. We never see super-powered Bolas do anything really impressive). But are the sparks also one’s connection to Magic? When Bolas is harvested by Bontu, all the sparks he had absorbed, including his own, are pulled out and then they dissipate. On the Meditation Plane, Ugin tells Bolas he is no longer long-lived because he is spark-less, and then we find out Bolas is also Magic-less. But Nixilis lost his spark, no? As did Teferi. They both continued to be able to use Magic though. Since this book is officially canon, what impact does this have on the past stories of walkers losing their sparks? Is your tie to Magic a result of your spark? If not, how did Bolas lose all his powers in addition to his ability to planeswalk? Is the spark also the source of Bolas’ long life? I always thought that was a result of him being an Elder Dragon. None of this is ever explained, but it’s all canon.
4) It honestly felt like the writer wrote the story before being told by Wizards which planeswalkers would be involved in the story. It reads like an outline that is only later fleshed out. Planeswalkers are mentioned throughout the story almost in passing, a lot like the writer was told to make sure they pop up somewhere. We have Tibalt leading fighters into battle, which is crazy. We have Angrath trash-talking the Gatewatch even though he only just now found out about the Gatewatch and Bolas, and has no idea of their history. We have strange conversations and strange information about various walkers. I honestly would not be surprised if the first draft of the story simply had blank spaces for the names as placeholders until the writer knew who Wizards wanted him to put in there. It also feels like there was very little literary meat on the bones. I rarely can read through 363 pages in one day, especially on a work day, but there was so little juiciness to the story that it took me no time at all to finish it. It seemed like the reading grade level was pretty low.
Final Thoughts:
This story did not do justice to the conclusion of Bolas’ story arc. We’ve been led up to this moment with so much hype, and all the action takes place in less than a day. Medieval battles took longer to sort themselves out. Bolas barely does anything of note, and all his best laid plans have immediate solutions (cut the power to the Beacon, say the magic words to turn off the Immortal Sun, walk through the portal the close it from the other side, stab Bolas with a spear). How is this anything other than ridiculous? Again, I’m not a Bolas fanboy. I’m not coming at this from the perspective of someone who lives and breathes Bolas. I think, as an objective matter, this is a particularly big dud. Not well-written, way too many strange plot points or throwing out of plot points. Honestly, the story told in the cards is way better. Very disappointing.
I had a lot of other points I wanted to make, but between yesterday and today, I’ve forgotten them.
Sorry for the wall of text.
I was going to write out my main thoughts on the book, but you pretty much got to most of what I was going to bring up and far more, Perkunas, at least in terms of the plot and continuity issues. I also spent the day reading, and was also disappointed. I feel like the author was rushed, and had to make changes to the story at the last minute. Because there are plenty of important events which play out differently on the cards than in the novel. There weren’t cards for Rat or the Spear of Hazoret, but Illharg, Krenko, Massacre Girl, Fblthp, Feather, and Roalesk all saw print despite none of them being in the book at all.
However, that doesn’t excuse the horribly misplaced focus within the narrative. For example, we got multiple pages of Teyo and company slowly making their way through Rix Maadi, complete with descriptions of every macabre performer, but the reconciliation between Chandra and Nissa, which should have been a major emotional beat, got like two paragraphs. I was similarly flabbergasted by the way Gideon’s death was handled. And Liliana’s change of heart, rather than being a result of her coming to genuinely care for others, as was being set up, was instead motivated by her realizing ‘oh wait being a slave forever is worse than dying’. It’s like every plot thread was burned instead of tied up nicely. And the internal voices of multiple POV figures, like Ral and Kaya, tended to blend together, as if nobody checked to make sure they were even in character. I honestly liked most of the story more on the cards.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Teyo was amusing as a novice mage way out of his comfort zone, and Rat was extremely funny and adorable. I also chuckled aloud here and there at some of the jokes. But overall, yes, the book was mediocre at best, and a big letdown. Sanderson’s novella and Drayden’s shorts are both leagues better, and either of them would have handled things with more care had they been given the reins.
It sounds like a lot of the issues come from continuity problems and being rushed. This has been a pattern with the story, so I wouldn't lay it at the feet of the author. I don't think creative has a well thought out plan for the story or fails to communicate it to the authors. If this was the first time a novel hit with retcons and continuity issues, it would be different, but it seems like this happens every time. There is one common factor here, and it's not the authors, who have turned on good work elsewhere.
GOD... reading the spoilers of the book feels utterly rushed and needs to be split into two books instead for the Bolas Arc to end in the most epic way.
A RANDOM Kraul was able to undo Jace's mindwipe on Vraska... I call that utter bullcrap!
Would have wanted like other interactions and ways that would have made it consistent or true to the story.
How Niv-Mizzet got killed by Bolas
Like Jace giving the Captain Vraska "Call-sign" as some of the "allied to Bolas" guilds were fighting Jace and some of the others.
Maybe Kaya was part of the welcome wagon of the Eternals entering the Orzhov Guildgate and was attacked, thanks to her ability, she escaped and realized that she got betrayed by Bolas.
Jace maybe encountering Angrath and Angrath finding he can't get out of Ravnica due to the Immortal Sun
Huatli and Saheeli arrive and help some people fight the Eternals, Saheeli is dumbfounded that she can't escape and Huatli recognizes the Immortal Sun shick.
Teyo encountering some of the other Walkers and maybe trying to protect himself from the Single Combat between Sorin and Nahiri
There should have been a better "Ending" for Domri
So the Eternals are more Star Wars Droids... weaksauce.
I can say that there's SO MANY ways and things that NEEDED to be fixed to make this story GREAT.
Thank you for this. I'm glad that my suspicion of WOTC's storyline handling is justified. Damn it.
I feel like there should be a thread to mourn the storyline that should have been. One of the primary reasons I enjoyed MTG so much is because the characterization and storyline was so decent. I would have been able to forgive the Eldrazi hand-waving (seriously, Chandra just burns interplanar beings away?! and Emrakul decides to take a time-out?! The hell?!), the disjointed ret-conning of history, and the mediocre villainy of Bolas (even though he was the best villain available to WOTC). Reading the summary just proves that WOTC doesn't have the chops to end a story arc like Marvel does and indeed failed to tie up the emotionally impactful moments that previous stroy writers had created. The whole Jace & Vraska relationship was actually REALLY good and authentic, and is some of the best characterization I've seen for Jace EVER. And now my respect for them as a story-telling institution is gone. It feels like an unabashed money grab for the players that DO follow the storyline. So glad I didn't spend dollars to acquire the story.
I don't even care what happens anymore lore-wise, though I'm sure Tezzeret will become the new generic villain and somehow the Phyrexians will be brought back. Don't worry though, Karn has a Spirit Bomb that he's going to use to wrap that problem up. Kamehameha that ***** and win, right Goku? Problem solved.
Does the story even say what happened to God-Eternal Kefnet? I thought that of all the Gods, he would have been the one most susceptible to some sort of mind-talk that Liliana did.
Niv-Mizzet Kills Kefnet after being reborn, and then goes into some sort of coma until he stabs Bolas with Hazoret's spear several chapters later. The biggest change from the Books to the cards is that Finale of Eternity shows Lily destroying the Gem of Becoming by shattering The Chain Veil. In the books she just takes the Gem of Becoming and peaces.
I will say that I thought the narrator of the audiobook did a very good job with delivery and different voices for different characters, and made some of the bad writing more enjoyable. I don't know if the narration from the Audiobook is cannon, but if it is then Domri had an Australian accent, the "z" in Orzhov is pronounced like the "s" in measure, Nicol is pronounced "Neecole," Hultai is pronounced "Whatley," if you say "what" like Hank Hill, and "Parun" is pronounced like "Parin."
I don't think we will see Teyo replacing Gideon in the Gatewatch anytime soon. They offered him a place at the end of the novel but he declined and Kaya took it instead.
I don't think we will see Teyo replacing Gideon in the Gatewatch anytime soon. They offered him a place at the end of the novel but he declined and Kaya took it instead.
Well its more like he is undecided since he was debating if he should or not. Though I wonder where his story line will go since he said he most likely not going to go back to Gobakhan (and I agree, War showed him that he's better off as walker then staying with the monks at home) and so far the people he connected with were Kaya and Rat. Teyo might join the gatewatch but they more like wanna make an Oath of Teyo card which leads too...
Since the sequel book doesn't relate to the core set or fall set I do wonder what the story focus will be. Teyo, Rat, Kaya, and Liliana will be main characters and I'm guessing that will focus on Kaya hunting Liliana (which I wanna see since Kaya can OHKO Lilianas zombies) and Jace, Ral and Vraska will also feature so again the plots to hunt down Tezzeret and Dovin. (Hence one reason I'm thinking we gonna see Garruk on viking world this fall).
Private Mod Note
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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"
I don't get why Bolas randomly kills Domri for like no reason. I mean its not like he needs anyones spark specifically. So him stabbing his help in the back just seems dumb and to show look he is evil. Like killing your underlings cause they screwed up fine...killing your underlings for no reason doesn't make the bad guy look scary it makes them look dumb and incompetent.
This is a big problem I have with Bolas, and why I just can't find him a compelling villain. He's the most generic, paint by numbers, card-carrying , moustache-twirling, finger-steepling, evil-cackling, Saturday morning cartoon supervillain with nothing of substance or interest to him. It's like they just cracked open a book of "1001 Generic Villain Tropes" and molded it into the vague shape of a dragon with a completely ridiculous design (seriously, he looks just...awful).
And for a story that's all about stopping the villain, if the villain isn't compelling, then it's hard to care about anyone trying to stop him. I have a lot of issues with the story, but that's the real killer, I think.
These kind of villains can be done well though, and by that I mean they can be highly entertaining. For instance, M Bison in Street Fighter makes Nicol Bolas look like a layered, subtle, and relatable villain in comparison, but he's also one of my favorite movie villains of all time because the movie leans into his over the top cartoon evil and Raul Julia puts forth the full force of his prodigious acting chops (while literally dying of cancer). Bolas at his best (really Amonkhet) played around in the same territory: over the top, cartoonishly evil that manages to be entertaining and even compelling to a degree. This falls flat on its face in WAR.
But fortunately for the author and Wizards, while they ****ed this up, they didn't **** it up as bad as HBO and Beinoff and Weiss seem to be ******* up Game of Thrones with season 8 episode 4. The pile of ***** episode might actually **** up the whole series. At least War of the Spark had good characterization for most of it's key players and was somewhat enjoyable out of context.
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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
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
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Except that's NOT what people are saying. They are saying it doesn't really matter to them, and believe it probably doesn't matter to most people.
And what are the most popular non human walkers? Bolas, Ugin, Nissa, Ajani, Sorin. Oh look, they are the non humans who have gotten the most cards, and been featured the most in story, and were all pushed pretty heavy before they became popular (Nissa wasn't popular before joining the gatewatch). The most popular human walkers also happen to be the ones that have had the most cards and story exposure. It really is a feedback loop that magnifies smaller trends. There's a slight bias toward human characters, but pushing humans so heavily ensures that humans will end up on top. Characters that are a bit more popular become by far the most popular when they become the main characters. It's mostly name recognition, because they aren't just measuring opinion of people who care about the story, but all magic players, and most people don't care about the story, so their preferences are based off the cards. And the characters with the most cards, and best cards, are the most popular.
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!
While I can't find recent sources, but, as of Kalasdesh, Ajani was rated as the lowest white walker. Which makes it hard to say he ranks highly in any capacity.
At the start of Theros block Sorin was the most popular nonhuman planeswalker. I think he had the most printings but I don't want to check.
Bolas and Ugin both receive significant splash popularity by being dragons, the most popular creature type.
I doubt you actually have any grounds to support your claim of the 5 most popular nonhuman walkers but I would be very interested in being proven wrong.
Which is to say powerful cards, story relevance, a unique look, and getting to do cool things does wonders for a characters popularity.
Was brought up 3 times. First during a war meeting Nahiri is mentioned looking for someone, next we seem them fighting each other and ignoring the harvesting eternals and finally near the end they finally stop fighting each and start taking out eternals.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
So I think he just wasn’t aware his spark was remove until he brought him in the meditation realm (correct me if I’m wrong ofcoarse)
A relatable character is a character whose traits you can recognize, can understand what he/she does and why, wether that character is human or not it doesn't matter.
As for who is the most popular character, my opinion is that most people just play the game and don't care about the plot (in this forum we are only a minority of the playerbase) so design, exposure and most importantly power level are more important than plot and characterization. In a world where Jace, the mind sculptor has been the most powerful planeswalker for a long time or where Ugin, the spirit dragon might single-handedly win you games, it is no wonder who will come on top in popularity contest.
On the other hand, you can have a great character like Davriel, but when most people see a card like Davriel, rogue shadowmage as the only introduction to the character, you can be sure that he is not going to win any popularity contest anytime soon.
EDIT: if WotC decided to print a literally unnamed planeswalker with a "-X you win the game" that can be activated right away with doubling season, that one would become instantly the most popular character. Even if it has no characterization whatsoever and no relevance to the plot.
What are the extra chapters?
As for character popularity. I say what matters most is card power, card appearances, how cool the character looks, and how much people like the set/plane the character appears in/is associated with. So for instance it sucks to be Hautli lol. Cause she got screwed under most of those categories.
Since most magic fans are not following the story. Heck a lot of your top magic youtubers aren't either. Prof seems up to date, Jimmy seems to have some familiarity, Josh Lee Kwai though knows nothing lol.
On the other hand its great for the people who can't/don't want pay for the full novel and keeps the story accessible. I hope we get some more new content though.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
GOD... reading the spoilers of the book feels utterly rushed and needs to be split into two books instead for the Bolas Arc to end in the most epic way.
A RANDOM Kraul was able to undo Jace's mindwipe on Vraska... I call that utter bullcrap!
Would have wanted like other interactions and ways that would have made it consistent or true to the story.
How Niv-Mizzet got killed by Bolas
Like Jace giving the Captain Vraska "Call-sign" as some of the "allied to Bolas" guilds were fighting Jace and some of the others.
Maybe Kaya was part of the welcome wagon of the Eternals entering the Orzhov Guildgate and was attacked, thanks to her ability, she escaped and realized that she got betrayed by Bolas.
Jace maybe encountering Angrath and Angrath finding he can't get out of Ravnica due to the Immortal Sun
Huatli and Saheeli arrive and help some people fight the Eternals, Saheeli is dumbfounded that she can't escape and Huatli recognizes the Immortal Sun shick.
Teyo encountering some of the other Walkers and maybe trying to protect himself from the Single Combat between Sorin and Nahiri
There should have been a better "Ending" for Domri
So the Eternals are more Star Wars Droids... weaksauce.
I can say that there's SO MANY ways and things that NEEDED to be fixed to make this story GREAT.
Also like some rando can reverse Jace's but then Jace is suppose trick everyone about Bolas being dead? How does that logically work...
And for a story that's all about stopping the villain, if the villain isn't compelling, then it's hard to care about anyone trying to stop him. I have a lot of issues with the story, but that's the real killer, I think.
His best moment of characterization recently if you ask me is when Vraksa like how do you know how to command a boat...and Bolas is basically like well you know I like to read. That was like peak characterization for me and showed some depth.
I believe it was already brought up that Domri really didn't serve Bolas. He was in the war to spread chaos and tear down civilization, and wanted to offer his allegiance to Bolas in the middle of all the fighting since the latter was leading a major assault on Ravnica.
To Bolas, Domri was just a nobody, who may or may not be useful to him, offering to serve him out of nowhere (plausibly in a bid to ensure their survival). I really don't blame Bolas for just offing him without further thought.
Thank you for this. I'm glad that my suspicion of WOTC's storyline handling is justified. Damn it.
I feel like there should be a thread to mourn the storyline that should have been. One of the primary reasons I enjoyed MTG so much is because the characterization and storyline was so decent. I would have been able to forgive the Eldrazi hand-waving (seriously, Chandra just burns interplanar beings away?! and Emrakul decides to take a time-out?! The hell?!), the disjointed ret-conning of history, and the mediocre villainy of Bolas (even though he was the best villain available to WOTC). Reading the summary just proves that WOTC doesn't have the chops to end a story arc like Marvel does and indeed failed to tie up the emotionally impactful moments that previous stroy writers had created. The whole Jace & Vraska relationship was actually REALLY good and authentic, and is some of the best characterization I've seen for Jace EVER. And now my respect for them as a story-telling institution is gone. It feels like an unabashed money grab for the players that DO follow the storyline. So glad I didn't spend dollars to acquire the story.
I don't even care what happens anymore lore-wise, though I'm sure Tezzeret will become the new generic villain and somehow the Phyrexians will be brought back. Don't worry though, Karn has a Spirit Bomb that he's going to use to wrap that problem up. Kamehameha that ***** and win, right Goku? Problem solved.
Does the story even say what happened to God-Eternal Kefnet? I thought that of all the Gods, he would have been the one most susceptible to some sort of mind-talk that Liliana did.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I will say that I thought the narrator of the audiobook did a very good job with delivery and different voices for different characters, and made some of the bad writing more enjoyable. I don't know if the narration from the Audiobook is cannon, but if it is then Domri had an Australian accent, the "z" in Orzhov is pronounced like the "s" in measure, Nicol is pronounced "Neecole," Hultai is pronounced "Whatley," if you say "what" like Hank Hill, and "Parun" is pronounced like "Parin."
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
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/184774014558/are-there-plans-for-us-to-see-teyo-again
They got plans for Teyo
So the Teyo replaces Gideon in the gatewatch theory is definately still holding water
Well its more like he is undecided since he was debating if he should or not. Though I wonder where his story line will go since he said he most likely not going to go back to Gobakhan (and I agree, War showed him that he's better off as walker then staying with the monks at home) and so far the people he connected with were Kaya and Rat. Teyo might join the gatewatch but they more like wanna make an Oath of Teyo card which leads too...
Since the sequel book doesn't relate to the core set or fall set I do wonder what the story focus will be. Teyo, Rat, Kaya, and Liliana will be main characters and I'm guessing that will focus on Kaya hunting Liliana (which I wanna see since Kaya can OHKO Lilianas zombies) and Jace, Ral and Vraska will also feature so again the plots to hunt down Tezzeret and Dovin. (Hence one reason I'm thinking we gonna see Garruk on viking world this fall).
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
These kind of villains can be done well though, and by that I mean they can be highly entertaining. For instance, M Bison in Street Fighter makes Nicol Bolas look like a layered, subtle, and relatable villain in comparison, but he's also one of my favorite movie villains of all time because the movie leans into his over the top cartoon evil and Raul Julia puts forth the full force of his prodigious acting chops (while literally dying of cancer). Bolas at his best (really Amonkhet) played around in the same territory: over the top, cartoonishly evil that manages to be entertaining and even compelling to a degree. This falls flat on its face in WAR.
But fortunately for the author and Wizards, while they ****ed this up, they didn't **** it up as bad as HBO and Beinoff and Weiss seem to be ******* up Game of Thrones with season 8 episode 4. The pile of ***** episode might actually **** up the whole series. At least War of the Spark had good characterization for most of it's key players and was somewhat enjoyable out of context.
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!