Imo, Bolas needs to be tweaked because he doesn't feel.... Legitimate. I mean, look at Alarm. He set up this whole plot to regain his oldwalker powers only to get bopped by a newbie planeswalker and then get sent home with his tail between his legs. The consortium? Ruined by a couple of planeswalkers. Sure, he did kill Ugin but we were told that waaaay after the fact and his murder was undone by a guy who is a total submissive to every dragon in existence.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that every plot by Bolas either fails hilariously or is unfinished but still has little to no impact on the storyline and makes little to no sense. You may argue that Bolas's machinations (I honestly hate that word) are meant to be inconceivable and shadowy. The problem is, that without any clues or any build up to the revelations of his plots, they don't hold any weight and don't mean much because they were "Surprise! This is what was going on the whole time and there was no way you could have pieces this together yourself because it wasn't written in until the last minute!". The best mysteries are those that the audience is can price together along with the characters if they are perceptive enough. When there are no small clues, hints and easter eggs, there is nothing to piece together. Also, Bolas needs to win. He needs to actually be a legitimate threat even if all we see are his fingerprints on the huge disasters and small inconveniences of the multiverse. He needs to be the Moriarty of the multiverse and not just a Saturday morning cartoon villain, which is where he stands now.
Let me put it this way, we need to actually see his bread crumbs instead of stumbling upon him with the whole loaf. And sometimes, he needs to actually get to eat the loaf instead of getting sent directly to jail and not passing go.
What's really stupid is WotC isn't letting Bolas lose, either. "Oh, Ajani didn't beat Bolas, he just shooed him away." What kind of non-resolution is that? WotC even retconned Agents of Artifice so that Tezzeret taking the Infinite Consortium from him was all part of Bolas's plan all along. Even though that causes his involvement in Agents of Artifice to make zero sense.
So he's in this weird place where he's invincible, like some kinda villain-sue, and yet, despite that, he's unable to make any headway on any of his plans, like some kinda Team Rocket.
WotC even retconned Agents of Artifice so that Tezzeret taking the Infinite Consortium from him was all part of Bolas's plan all along. Even though that causes his involvement in Agents of Artifice to make zero sense.
WotC even retconned Agents of Artifice so that Tezzeret taking the Infinite Consortium from him was all part of Bolas's plan all along. Even though that causes his involvement in Agents of Artifice to make zero sense.
Tezzeret then went on to seize control of the cabal known as the Infinite Consortium (or at least Bolas allowed him to think he had).
The current wording makes it somewhat ambiguous, but some time ago, back before the mothership's design overhaul, the phrasing was very definite about the takeover being "all part of the plan".
The Planeswalker spark may have been altered by The Mending, but the Eldrazi titans - beings that for three powerful Oldwalkers were too overwhelming to bind, let alone defeat, have not been changed by it. I think that's the clue. Bolas must want to know what made them resilient to it. I suspect he needed them free to do it. They consume a plane's mana when free. If Bolas can learn the method with which they do, I imagine he would not need to orchestrate another event like Alara's shards fusing. He could simply acquire power the way an Eldrazi titan does. If Alara alone was sufficient enough to presumably restore his Oldwalker capabilities (or so he seemed to think, at least), then it wouldn't take much for Bolas to acquire the power he needs Eldrazi-style.
I would love for a planeswalker Umezawa to turn up in the storyline. More reminiscent of Tetsuo than Toshiro...and then have it revealed that this was Bolas in disguise. An identity created to allow the Elder Dragon to take a direct hand in his affairs. The shadowy dark lord routine has grown stale.
The Planeswalker spark may have been altered by The Mending, but the Eldrazi titans - beings that for three powerful Oldwalkers were too overwhelming to bind, let alone defeat, have not been changed by it. I think that's the clue. Bolas must want to know what made them resilient to it. I suspect he needed them free to do it. They consume a plane's mana when free. If Bolas can learn the method with which they do, I imagine he would not need to orchestrate another event like Alara's shards fusing. He could simply acquire power the way an Eldrazi titan does. If Alara alone was sufficient enough to presumably restore his Oldwalker capabilities (or so he seemed to think, at least), then it wouldn't take much for Bolas to acquire the power he needs Eldrazi-style.
This is pretty much why even I, a big fan of Chandra, have to acknowledge that her straight up incinerating two of the titans that the same time is really, really horrible writing.
On the Mending and the Titans: Didn't The Mending only change the way that planeswalker sparks work? If so, I don't believe it would have had any effect on the Eldrazi Titans whatsoever, as they do not possess sparks and are not olaneswlakers but rather beings born of the blind eternities.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
This is pretty much why even I, a big fan of Chandra, have to acknowledge that her straight up incinerating two of the titans that the same time is really, really horrible writing.
A nitpick: Seeing that the flavor text is probably not the whole story, shouldn't you wait until the official story comes out before saying that?
We don't really know what the spark is, or what the Eldrazi are, do we? Or what the exact effect of the Mending was on it/them? (I was in absentia during Time Spiral, so I don't really know) It isn't outside the realms of possibility that the Mending altered the nature of 'that thing' that allows a creature to pass safely through the Blind Eternities. What the planeswalkers have as a spark could be just a tiny fragment of everything an Eldrazi is, so what affects one could also affect the other.
That said, I like the idea that Bolas is aware / suspects the Eldrazi haven't been diminished so wants to discover why, and how he can make it work for him. That sounds like one of the more rational reasons why he might want them free.
Re: Chandra's super burn, my pet preference would be finding out Nissa somehow tapped into Omnath's power (predominantly G, but now angry RG) and was able to channel the R part of that to Chandra. That at least would give some kind of explanation. But as Marek14 said, we'll just have to wait and see how it was written.
considering two titans are dead, and one is wandering the multiverse. who knows if bolas wants them dead and is winning, or wanted them alive and is pissed.
Tezzeret then went on to seize control of the cabal known as the Infinite Consortium (or at least Bolas allowed him to think he had).
The current wording makes it somewhat ambiguous, but some time ago, back before the mothership's design overhaul, the phrasing was very definite about the takeover being "all part of the plan".
Ewww. I really hope that was an accident. Maybe they mean it in a sense of Bolas could take it back whenever he wanted? Which technically he could, just not without revealing himself more than he wanted to.
*completely unbased speculations and imagination incoming*
I can think of several reasons why Bolas is fascinated by the Eldrazi and has freed them to study and learn from them.
1. The Eldrazi have destructive powers unlike any other known entity in the multiverse, which is very compelling to any villain, I'm sure.
2. The Eldrazi seem to be unaffected by the Mending and may even be unphased by the catastrophy that would have arisen without fixing the time rifts. Both these potential attributes are very compelling for Bolas too, as they would bring him closer to his old power for sure.
3. The Eldrazi consume mana in an absolute, irreversible way. Also, their mana consumption is multiplanar, because even though the corporal forms of the titans seem to be limited to a single plain, I can imagine the entities itself as the conflux of ll the consumed mana. Just think what kind of spellcasting such a build-up of mana would allow, like very (ruthless) planeswalker's wet dream.
4. I can see Bolas having released the Eldrazi in order to distract or kill planeswalker that could get in his way. I have not read up on Bolas's and Ugins rivalry, but I asume that releasing the Eldrazi to occupy/harm his archenemy could be a reason to release an ancient threat.
5. I like the theory of how destroying Dominaria might get rid of the time rifts and the Eldrazi are cut out for the job. It's so ruthless that it could very well be a Bolas idea.
So far for unbased speultions. You can now go ahead and tell me how wrong I am. =)
4. I can see Bolas having released the Eldrazi in order to distract or kill planeswalker that could get in his way. I have not read up on Bolas's and Ugins rivalry, but I asume that releasing the Eldrazi to occupy/harm his archenemy could be a reason to release an ancient threat.
Probably not this, as Bolas spent millenia believing that he has killed Ugin (and, to be fair, he DID).
4. I can see Bolas having released the Eldrazi in order to distract or kill planeswalker that could get in his way. I have not read up on Bolas's and Ugins rivalry, but I asume that releasing the Eldrazi to occupy/harm his archenemy could be a reason to release an ancient threat.
Probably not this, as Bolas spent millenia believing that he has killed Ugin (and, to be fair, he DID).
Oh yeah, absolutely true. Still, there are other planeswalker Bolas finds irksome, I'm sure.
Tezzeret then went on to seize control of the cabal known as the Infinite Consortium (or at least Bolas allowed him to think he had).
The current wording makes it somewhat ambiguous, but some time ago, back before the mothership's design overhaul, the phrasing was very definite about the takeover being "all part of the plan".
Ewww. I really hope that was an accident. Maybe they mean it in a sense of Bolas could take it back whenever he wanted? Which technically he could, just not without revealing himself more than he wanted to.
That still raises the question of why Bolas would bother hiring Lili to do something he could have easily done himself. He promised to kill four archdemons for her, fer chrissakes! That's got to be more difficult to pull of than just taking back the Consortium himself.
I have spent way too much time thinking on this, and no matter Bolas's angle, this retcon calls his credibility as a chessmaster into question. It all comes back to the question of why he would make a deal to gain something he already has/could easily regain. Even if he expected Liliana to fail, why would he risk that success? He could have easily told her, "Don't bother with the Infinite Consortium, I have plans; what else do you have to offer me?" That way it's win-win for Bolas, regardless of Liliana's success.
The most irksome thing about this whole affair is that this retcon paints Bolas as a villain-sue, who doesn't see any major setbacks because the plot demands it, rather than because of any effort on his part. Whereas the original canon painted him as a badass, yet realistically flawed, villain. I mean think about it; why did Bolas lose control of the Consortium in the original canon? Because he was too busy dealing with many other, more important, issues to notice the changing internal politics within the Consortium. Let me rephrase that: Nicol Bolas lost control of the Infinite Consortium because a vast, inter-dimensional crime syndicate was small potatoes to him. That is how you write a villain. You make them seem imposing and threatening, while also giving them character flaws. Not only does that make your villain a more realistic, three-dimensional character, it also means that when the time comes in the narrative for the hero to defeat the villain, the hero's triumph over an insurmountable foe doesn't feel like deus ex machina.
But, no, apparently the folks over at WotC feel that having antagonists that can actually be plausibly defeated is a bad thing. Asspulls for everyone!
While I do think the most likely reason Bolas freed the titans was to have them destroy any plane Karn spread the oil to, his lack of involvement in this block has me considering another possibility. I believe Bolas was counting on some group of planeswalkers to come along and destroy the titans once he freed them. Ugin warns several times that destroying these things could lead to a far worst situation given we understand very little about how they operate. What we do understand however is that sometimes when incredibly powerful beings are destroyed the fabric of the universe is damaged resulting in a time rift. We've seen this with the Madaran rift when Bolas destroyed that planeswalking Leviathan and we've seen this with Otaria when Karona was killed. What if he's trying to trigger another Time Spiral event to undo the effects the last one had on him? What's the Phyrexian plague to him if he's able to restore his spark to it's former glory?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that every plot by Bolas either fails hilariously or is unfinished but still has little to no impact on the storyline and makes little to no sense. You may argue that Bolas's machinations (I honestly hate that word) are meant to be inconceivable and shadowy. The problem is, that without any clues or any build up to the revelations of his plots, they don't hold any weight and don't mean much because they were "Surprise! This is what was going on the whole time and there was no way you could have pieces this together yourself because it wasn't written in until the last minute!". The best mysteries are those that the audience is can price together along with the characters if they are perceptive enough. When there are no small clues, hints and easter eggs, there is nothing to piece together. Also, Bolas needs to win. He needs to actually be a legitimate threat even if all we see are his fingerprints on the huge disasters and small inconveniences of the multiverse. He needs to be the Moriarty of the multiverse and not just a Saturday morning cartoon villain, which is where he stands now.
Let me put it this way, we need to actually see his bread crumbs instead of stumbling upon him with the whole loaf. And sometimes, he needs to actually get to eat the loaf instead of getting sent directly to jail and not passing go.
-Chandra Nalaar
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
What's really stupid is WotC isn't letting Bolas lose, either. "Oh, Ajani didn't beat Bolas, he just shooed him away." What kind of non-resolution is that? WotC even retconned Agents of Artifice so that Tezzeret taking the Infinite Consortium from him was all part of Bolas's plan all along. Even though that causes his involvement in Agents of Artifice to make zero sense.
So he's in this weird place where he's invincible, like some kinda villain-sue, and yet, despite that, he's unable to make any headway on any of his plans, like some kinda Team Rocket.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Tezzeret's blurb on the Planeswalkers page.
The current wording makes it somewhat ambiguous, but some time ago, back before the mothership's design overhaul, the phrasing was very definite about the takeover being "all part of the plan".
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
On the Mending and the Titans: Didn't The Mending only change the way that planeswalker sparks work? If so, I don't believe it would have had any effect on the Eldrazi Titans whatsoever, as they do not possess sparks and are not olaneswlakers but rather beings born of the blind eternities.
-Chandra Nalaar
A nitpick: Seeing that the flavor text is probably not the whole story, shouldn't you wait until the official story comes out before saying that?
That said, I like the idea that Bolas is aware / suspects the Eldrazi haven't been diminished so wants to discover why, and how he can make it work for him. That sounds like one of the more rational reasons why he might want them free.
Re: Chandra's super burn, my pet preference would be finding out Nissa somehow tapped into Omnath's power (predominantly G, but now angry RG) and was able to channel the R part of that to Chandra. That at least would give some kind of explanation. But as Marek14 said, we'll just have to wait and see how it was written.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I can think of several reasons why Bolas is fascinated by the Eldrazi and has freed them to study and learn from them.
1. The Eldrazi have destructive powers unlike any other known entity in the multiverse, which is very compelling to any villain, I'm sure.
2. The Eldrazi seem to be unaffected by the Mending and may even be unphased by the catastrophy that would have arisen without fixing the time rifts. Both these potential attributes are very compelling for Bolas too, as they would bring him closer to his old power for sure.
3. The Eldrazi consume mana in an absolute, irreversible way. Also, their mana consumption is multiplanar, because even though the corporal forms of the titans seem to be limited to a single plain, I can imagine the entities itself as the conflux of ll the consumed mana. Just think what kind of spellcasting such a build-up of mana would allow, like very (ruthless) planeswalker's wet dream.
4. I can see Bolas having released the Eldrazi in order to distract or kill planeswalker that could get in his way. I have not read up on Bolas's and Ugins rivalry, but I asume that releasing the Eldrazi to occupy/harm his archenemy could be a reason to release an ancient threat.
5. I like the theory of how destroying Dominaria might get rid of the time rifts and the Eldrazi are cut out for the job. It's so ruthless that it could very well be a Bolas idea.
So far for unbased speultions. You can now go ahead and tell me how wrong I am. =)
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
Probably not this, as Bolas spent millenia believing that he has killed Ugin (and, to be fair, he DID).
Oh yeah, absolutely true. Still, there are other planeswalker Bolas finds irksome, I'm sure.
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
That still raises the question of why Bolas would bother hiring Lili to do something he could have easily done himself. He promised to kill four archdemons for her, fer chrissakes! That's got to be more difficult to pull of than just taking back the Consortium himself.
I have spent way too much time thinking on this, and no matter Bolas's angle, this retcon calls his credibility as a chessmaster into question. It all comes back to the question of why he would make a deal to gain something he already has/could easily regain. Even if he expected Liliana to fail, why would he risk that success? He could have easily told her, "Don't bother with the Infinite Consortium, I have plans; what else do you have to offer me?" That way it's win-win for Bolas, regardless of Liliana's success.
The most irksome thing about this whole affair is that this retcon paints Bolas as a villain-sue, who doesn't see any major setbacks because the plot demands it, rather than because of any effort on his part. Whereas the original canon painted him as a badass, yet realistically flawed, villain. I mean think about it; why did Bolas lose control of the Consortium in the original canon? Because he was too busy dealing with many other, more important, issues to notice the changing internal politics within the Consortium. Let me rephrase that: Nicol Bolas lost control of the Infinite Consortium because a vast, inter-dimensional crime syndicate was small potatoes to him. That is how you write a villain. You make them seem imposing and threatening, while also giving them character flaws. Not only does that make your villain a more realistic, three-dimensional character, it also means that when the time comes in the narrative for the hero to defeat the villain, the hero's triumph over an insurmountable foe doesn't feel like deus ex machina.
But, no, apparently the folks over at WotC feel that having antagonists that can actually be plausibly defeated is a bad thing. Asspulls for everyone!
This makes the most sense to me