I mentioned this in another thread, but Emrakul's trait of warping biology is a new one as of BFZ. She did generically Eldrazi tihngs before as all the titans did, but she still does that stuff alongside her newly elaborated on power of currption. Why would she get that power though? It has nothing to d owith her other ones flavorfully. It's like, "she makes us feel despair and loneliness in the world, messes with gravity to pull things into herself... and also she makes people into her drones now". If she was going to be featured in a return to Innistrad, that's a rather useful trait for us to learn about her to tie her mechanically to Innistrad, if that ends up beign the case.
Woah, wait, hold on. Is that something that was specifically mentioned in the lore?
I actually don't get why people are surprised that it is heavily hinted to be Emrakul, even if you don't follow Magic lore that closely.
1) BFZ block conveniently omitted Emrakul without an explanation - there is no reason she wouldn't be on Zendikar, unless she could leave/was brought somewhere else. Nothing implied Emrakul was dead, at all.
2) Nahiri has no real reason to be on Innistrad, Sorin's home plane. While it would take some lore knowledge to know that Nahiri, Sorin and Ugin originally bound the Eldrazi, from a narrative perspective, there is NO COMPELLING REASON Nahiri and Sorin would be on the same plane together, except for the thing that brought them together in the first place. It wouldn't be absurd for Sorin to be in a block, or Nahiri, but both are present.
3) There are some stylistic choices that pervade the SOI art - namely, tentacles everywhere. Emrakul is literally the games flying spaghetti monster. This is super on the nose.
4) What is Nahiri the Harbinger of? Could be anything in theory, but if we assume some type of reasonably coherent narrative, maybe the thing that was conveniently omitted from the last block.
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
This is like M. Night Shamalyan level of subtlety in storytelling. You don't have to dig very deep to see where this is going. Emrakul may not show up in this set, but if she wasn't in Eldritch Moon, that would be really odd.
I actually don't get why people are surprised that it is heavily hinted to be Emrakul, even if you don't follow Magic lore that closely.
1) BFZ block conveniently omitted Emrakul without an explanation - there is no reason she wouldn't be on Zendikar, unless she could leave/was brought somewhere else. Nothing implied Emrakul was dead, at all.
2) Nahiri has no real reason to be on Innistrad, Sorin's home plane. While it would take some lore knowledge to know that Nahiri, Sorin and Ugin originally bound the Eldrazi, from a narrative perspective, there is NO COMPELLING REASON Nahiri and Sorin would be on the same plane together, except for the thing that brought them together in the first place. It wouldn't be absurd for Sorin to be in a block, or Nahiri, but both are present.
3) There are some stylistic choices that pervade the SOI art - namely, tentacles everywhere. Emrakul is literally the games flying spaghetti monster. This is super on the nose.
4) What is Nahiri the Harbinger of? Could be anything in theory, but if we assume some type of reasonably coherent narrative, maybe the thing that was conveniently omitted from the last block.
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
This is like M. Night Shamalyan level of subtlety in storytelling. You don't have to dig very deep to see where this is going. Emrakul may not show up in this set, but if she wasn't in Eldritch Moon, that would be really odd.
I gotta agree with this. What's more likely? The tentacles, madness, and "eldritch" references are a throwback to the big-bad that was blatantly absent on our last plane? Or that it's something TOTALLY NEW?
Like I said in another thread, Magic ain't great literature. At its best, it's Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire levels of subtlety.
Am I the only that thought of the 3 angel sisters with 'They came as three'? As in, solving this Riddle (and WotC noticing this) causes them to reveal the missing sisters?
I mentioned this in another thread, but Emrakul's trait of warping biology is a new one as of BFZ. She did generically Eldrazi tihngs before as all the titans did, but she still does that stuff alongside her newly elaborated on power of currption. Why would she get that power though? It has nothing to d owith her other ones flavorfully. It's like, "she makes us feel despair and loneliness in the world, messes with gravity to pull things into herself... and also she makes people into her drones now". If she was going to be featured in a return to Innistrad, that's a rather useful trait for us to learn about her to tie her mechanically to Innistrad, if that ends up beign the case.
Woah, wait, hold on. Is that something that was specifically mentioned in the lore?
Yes, it's specifically noted as one of her powers in the art book (I suppose to tie in to Consume the Meek which the description of the her use of the ability matches and cards like that one flying-related enchantment I forget the name of), but Kozilek's brood is able to manipulate gravity as well, and I thought the flavor text was just a poetic way of saying whatever leviathans and krakens and stuff in Innistrad's seas have grown more restless and are causing their own waves, so I don't personally necessarily feel this was a hint of anything in particular, but maybe I'm not looking into it enough.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
Go back to Emrakul's first appearance. The word "aeon", as most of you probably know, is an alternate spelling of Aion, the minor Roman god of Time/Eternity. Plato used that word to describe the eternal world of ideas, the purified essences of what we experience here in the material world (the distilled Platonic essence of "a computer" is the perfected form of the computer you are using right now, etc). Originally the word meant "life" or "generation" but also "a period of time" or, loosely, "age". This is why you got an extra turn with her, an effect that, strangely, Ugin's Nexus prevents (not that any of you ever used it).
Anyway, some researchers link Aion to both Chronos and Saturnus, the being who first emerged from the primordial Chaos which existed before existence; other researchers also link him to Osiris, the Egyptian deity who was slain, cut into pieces, then resurrected to take up the throne in the Underworld. In either case, this aspect refers to "eternal", "eternity", or "immortality". Symbols of Aion are often depicted with a serpent coiled around a stick or staff (sound familiar?) Although some symbology appears akin to that of Ouroboros, in this case the serpent is usually depicted with its tail hidden rather than looping back around into the mouth; this ties Aion more closely to the snake's sloughing of skin to renew itself rather than a cycle of dying then being reborn.
Pictures we have of both Marit Lage and Emrakul feature tentacles or root-like tendrils; although similar features are found on Engulf the Shore, that one clue token, and the staff carried by the Westvale Cult Leader, we cannot yet determine who it might be. I suspect the Eldrazi but it could be Marit. Either way, Nahiri's ultimate is meant to put a big thing into play immediately--she got the attention of *something* in the course of taking revenge on Sorin and now she plans to unleash it.
Now for the question no one has ever asked: *why* did the Eldrazi show up as *three*? You can write an entire book on comparative mythology and/or mysticism trying to answer that question.
Like most of us, I will be sad if and when it turns out it was all over Emrakul. She won't show up until Eldritch Moon, I'm sure, but it'll be a let-down. Personally, I'd hoped for an answer to the great threat that wasn't a big creature. If, and when they do bring out Emrakul, though, I'm sure it'll be done well. For all the complaining we Magic players love to do, they do generally carry out their job well.
"Why did the chicken cross the road? ...To get to the other side!"
"Oh... that's not funny."
"What's the big bad thing coming to Innistrad? ...Boom! It's Emrakul!"
"Oh... that's not surprising."
Wasnt it stated that the BFZ block was originally three sets with a titan each and emrakul getting the last set? Wouldnt it make sense that during the 'reshuffle' they moved emrakul 'related' story to SOI instead of scrapping her altogether? Makes sense to me, but without having eldrazi everywhere because /yawn.
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
Long time players don't want them to just forget about the old stuff though. And there is already a history of bringing old characters and story elements into the modern game. Nicol Bolas was relatively obscure and old before his adoption into the Alara story. The Phyrexians have been brought back despite their prior extinction. Marit Lage's original design was clearly based on Cthulhu, and her eventual card was bang on for what eventually became the Eldrazi, so maybe that's too similar to have them both around at the same time.
Really, I'm getting tired of existing characters and settings getting replaced by virtually identical new ones, like they're trying to overwrite the lore instead of building on it.
I'm also getting tired of the writers being afraid to take risks with the story. Eldrazi do not feel really threatening now since two thirds of them were killed with no casualties among the main cast. The bad guys need to win sometimes too to keep us invested, if Zendikar had been defeated, they next time an Eldrazi showed up, there would be genuine tension and uncertainty about the outcome. Also they need to hold onto suspense an appropriate amount of time, neither blowing it right away (as Emrakul appearing in Innistrad will do) nor leaving it until everyone has forgotten entirely (those New Phyrexians haven't done much of anything).
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
I'm also getting tired of the writers being afraid to take risks with the story. Eldrazi do not feel really threatening now since two thirds of them were killed with no casualties among the main cast. The bad guys need to win sometimes too to keep us invested, if Zendikar had been defeated, they next time an Eldrazi showed up, there would be genuine tension and uncertainty about the outcome. Also they need to hold onto suspense an appropriate amount of time, neither blowing it right away (as Emrakul appearing in Innistrad will do) nor leaving it until everyone has forgotten entirely (those New Phyrexians haven't done much of anything).
But, don't you think they built suspense quite well regardless of Emrakul? I suppose it's only my opinion, but at least in vague brush strokes, without knowing the full plot after all, this seems like a really intriguing mystery story. Humans and monsters alike going mad, Sorin's past coming to haunt him, cultists taking advantage of the situation, and overtones of something greater and otherworldly in the background. The villains of these kinds of things are never as we build them up anyway, it's about how the clues are built and the intricacy of how the plot threads tie together for a mystery, in my opinion. Emrakul being part of the cause, perhaps, doesn't change the story they've told so far, if you already found it interesting or intriguing or whatever. The actual cause or "villain" could really be interchangeable of all the ones people were speculating.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
So if this is correct they altered the block structure, permanently shortening the life span of most constructed cards, because it was too hard to make three set blocks, then immediately make SOI a continuation of BFZ. That is exactly the kind of thing WotC would do.
Sorry, but having Emrakul turn out to be the one responsible for all of these strange occurrences is just a huge letdown.
I mean, with all of the build-up about all of these mysteries and unraveling the secrets of Innistrad, only to have something huge and obvious smack us in the face is about the story-telling equivalent to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4RuB3gT8t0
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
Long time players don't want them to just forget about the old stuff though. And there is already a history of bringing old characters and story elements into the modern game. Nicol Bolas was relatively obscure and old before his adoption into the Alara story. The Phyrexians have been brought back despite their prior extinction. Marit Lage's original design was clearly based on Cthulhu, and her eventual card was bang on for what eventually became the Eldrazi, so maybe that's too similar to have them both around at the same time.
Really, I'm getting tired of existing characters and settings getting replaced by virtually identical new ones, like they're trying to overwrite the lore instead of building on it.
I'm also getting tired of the writers being afraid to take risks with the story. Eldrazi do not feel really threatening now since two thirds of them were killed with no casualties among the main cast. The bad guys need to win sometimes too to keep us invested, if Zendikar had been defeated, they next time an Eldrazi showed up, there would be genuine tension and uncertainty about the outcome. Also they need to hold onto suspense an appropriate amount of time, neither blowing it right away (as Emrakul appearing in Innistrad will do) nor leaving it until everyone has forgotten entirely (those New Phyrexians haven't done much of anything).
I started playing with Revised and took a break from the middle of Urza's Saga until Shards of Alara, I actually don't care about them dredging up old characters. The only old storylines I enjoyed were the Brothers War and the Weatherlight Saga, but again, those have 0 resonance for the majority of people today. Projecting my expectations on to the game would be silly: they aren't catering to the people who have played the longest. This should be very evident by now especially if you have played for a long time.
Emrakul fits the narrative of the most probable thing. The simplest explanation is often the correct one. Sure, it COULD be something else, but at this point would be very out of left field.
So if this is correct they altered the block structure, permanently shortening the life span of most constructed cards, because it was too hard to make three set blocks, then immediately make SOI a continuation of BFZ. That is exactly the kind of thing WotC would do.
I would think so in regards to their policies. One should note however, that before WOTC implemented the 2 set block structure, there was a third set planned originally for the BFZ block, which was said to be SOI. I could be wrong however since I only heard this rumor over the internet...
But, don't you think they built suspense quite well regardless of Emrakul? I suppose it's only my opinion, but at least in vague brush strokes, without knowing the full plot after all, this seems like a really intriguing mystery story. Humans and monsters alike going mad, Sorin's past coming to haunt him, cultists taking advantage of the situation, and overtones of something greater and otherworldly in the background. The villains of these kinds of things are never as we build them up anyway, it's about how the clues are built and the intricacy of how the plot threads tie together for a mystery, in my opinion. Emrakul being part of the cause, perhaps, doesn't change the story they've told so far, if you already found it interesting or intriguing or whatever. The actual cause or "villain" could really be interchangeable of all the ones people were speculating.
If there had been a block in between BFZ and this, then yes. But eldrazi are on everyone's mind right now. Even players who are not picking apart the clues and hashing this out on forums would only have one set's worth of suspense before the reveal in Eldrich Moon. Emrakul was specifically set up to be missing from Battle for Zendikar, but with the distraction of the other two, the characters and the readers don't really think about that until after the task a hand has been resolved.
So at the end of Oath, Ugin shows up and is mad and reminds everyone that Emrakul is missing and they can't track her. They decide to get the original team back together, but don't know where any of them are. So, Jace trots over to Sorin's home plane, finds both Sorin AND Nahiri, and then ALSO finds Emrakul right away? That's not good storytelling, that's just contrived.
It's also true that the planeswalkers who defeated the Eldrazi also came as three. And that Nahiri, who is behind all this, is one of those three as the clues would point out. Jace is looking for Nahiri herself after all. Doesn't explain what Nahiri is summoning though. So it could still be Emrakul.
That said, I think it would be lovely to have Emrakul annihilate Tarkir. The worst plane of all. She needs revenge on Ugin too of course.
It's funny, even if all facts point to Emrakul, some people will keep denying becouse they simple are Eldrazi haters for some reason. It's like they don't want to be Emrakul, but deep down, they know this is the most logical speculation.
Long time players don't want them to just forget about the old stuff though. And there is already a history of bringing old characters and story elements into the modern game. Nicol Bolas was relatively obscure and old before his adoption into the Alara story. The Phyrexians have been brought back despite their prior extinction. Marit Lage's original design was clearly based on Cthulhu, and her eventual card was bang on for what eventually became the Eldrazi, so maybe that's too similar to have them both around at the same time.
I feel where you are coming from. There are plenty of interesting possibilities in the game's past, but we should not forget that the newer players got a reminder of who both Nicol Bolas and the Phyrexians were just in time for their return. The Marit Lage angle would feel much more approachable by the new players if we had recently gotten Dark Depths in FTV: Eldritch.
I would like seeing Marit Lage return to the story or a visit to Innistrad's Great-Uncle Ulgrotha, but there is a difference between wanting something and thinking something is likely.
The same thing is true for narative concerns. Would it hve been nice to draw out the Eldrazi storyline some more? I would agree on that. But with statements on the record about their intent to wrap up dangling threads in their stories after switching to the two-block paradigm does it really sound like the pacing they have in mind? For what it's worth the fact that the whole first set of SOI is used as a build-up before the reveal is some kind of slow-rolling it. It also gives this great world a chance to play itself. I'm actually quiet pleased by the way the mystery story is interwoven with known aspects of Innistrad as well as new extrapolations of the setting.
It's quite upsetting to see how many posters here are disregarding the beautiful(ly unsettling) journey SOI is giving us just because they are not seeing the outcome they wanted forming for the next leg. If the story is woven into the setting this well, if the world is build with this depth, if the cards are this resonant and exciting, then I'm happy with the setup that inspired these great creations; if this is the realization of the idea "Emrakul on Innistrad", then I think, we all should be happy with this. I would be rather disappointe if the next block in the Eldrazi story-arc had been of BFZ/OGWs quality (though I give some credit there, too - it probably would have worked quite a bit better with only a few changes - some that would have been possible in the three-set paradigm).
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
How do people feel about Emrakul igniting a planeswalker spark? I understand it is superfluous cause Eldrazi can already planeswalk, but I imagine they are eventually going to throw a "colorless" planeswalker(not generic like Karn) at us. It would also be an asinine twist to make it be Emrakul but also betray expectations of Emrakul. *shrugs* I don't care too much however this turns out. I love the card interactions of this set, and I'm here to play the game.
But, don't you think they built suspense quite well regardless of Emrakul? I suppose it's only my opinion, but at least in vague brush strokes, without knowing the full plot after all, this seems like a really intriguing mystery story. Humans and monsters alike going mad, Sorin's past coming to haunt him, cultists taking advantage of the situation, and overtones of something greater and otherworldly in the background. The villains of these kinds of things are never as we build them up anyway, it's about how the clues are built and the intricacy of how the plot threads tie together for a mystery, in my opinion. Emrakul being part of the cause, perhaps, doesn't change the story they've told so far, if you already found it interesting or intriguing or whatever. The actual cause or "villain" could really be interchangeable of all the ones people were speculating.
If there had been a block in between BFZ and this, then yes. But eldrazi are on everyone's mind right now. Even players who are not picking apart the clues and hashing this out on forums would only have one set's worth of suspense before the reveal in Eldrich Moon. Emrakul was specifically set up to be missing from Battle for Zendikar, but with the distraction of the other two, the characters and the readers don't really think about that until after the task a hand has been resolved.
So at the end of Oath, Ugin shows up and is mad and reminds everyone that Emrakul is missing and they can't track her. They decide to get the original team back together, but don't know where any of them are. So, Jace trots over to Sorin's home plane, finds both Sorin AND Nahiri, and then ALSO finds Emrakul right away? That's not good storytelling, that's just contrived.
It is contrived, no argument there, but don't you think it would have been just as contrived whether it was the next block or the block right after? Maybe it'd be even weirder since it's clearly meant to be a continuation of BFZ's story yet isn't directly linked to it chronologically. I don't think I have any reason to believe given another block focused on another, totally different threat would have given them more time to have a more convincing set up to go back to the other threat than the set up we've gotten, but as I've said I honestly think the set up is fine so maybe that's just my opinion. I'm sure they could have done it well enough if they wanted to. A lot of stories (most?) are basically just a culmination of contrivances, just sometimes it's better disguised. It just works better for storytellers that all these things to tell the story they want to tell just so happens to happen together in a way that conveniently ties things together.
I said before but they said they've had a shift in paradigm, and I think this is just a reflection of that. Even KTK>BFZ was a reflection of it, since that block's story was only set up to get Ugin back in the story and bring Eldrazi back to our minds. We're so used to stories where the blocks are basiclaly us checking in on thigns everyone in a while and uncovering what's changed, but the stories between blocks now are probably all going to lean mostly towards a larger, interconnected storyline with probably most blocks attempting to follow a straight story line. It's different, maybe worse, maybe better, but I personally don't feel like it's inherently worse, but more like something that can be "done worse", or maybe it isn't suited to a storyline that's mostly told through, and having to be a vehicle for, a card game.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
The Marit Lage angle would feel much more approachable by the new players if we had recently gotten Dark Depths in FTV: Eldritch.
if this is the realization of the idea "Emrakul on Innistrad", then I think, we all should be happy with this.
Well, there's a mysterious token in the upcoming FTV, that could point towards Dark Depths.
I'm really enjoying the atmosphere and buildup of the set, Innistrad is one of my favorite settings and an excellent homage to Ulgrotha (which had a bunch of random non-gothic themes as well and would be hard to salvage at this point). Entirely within the context of the block, the story looks fine, but they're supposed to care about the through-thread too, and having Jace find all three characters he's looking for in the first plane he goes to is just bad. I'm really hoping the payoff of the mystery isn't Emrakul.
Y'know what might be cool... Last time we saw the Baron Sengir he was marching his army into a planar gate....
Woah, wait, hold on. Is that something that was specifically mentioned in the lore?
Because if it is, it gives this card's flavour text a whole new context.
1) BFZ block conveniently omitted Emrakul without an explanation - there is no reason she wouldn't be on Zendikar, unless she could leave/was brought somewhere else. Nothing implied Emrakul was dead, at all.
2) Nahiri has no real reason to be on Innistrad, Sorin's home plane. While it would take some lore knowledge to know that Nahiri, Sorin and Ugin originally bound the Eldrazi, from a narrative perspective, there is NO COMPELLING REASON Nahiri and Sorin would be on the same plane together, except for the thing that brought them together in the first place. It wouldn't be absurd for Sorin to be in a block, or Nahiri, but both are present.
3) There are some stylistic choices that pervade the SOI art - namely, tentacles everywhere. Emrakul is literally the games flying spaghetti monster. This is super on the nose.
4) What is Nahiri the Harbinger of? Could be anything in theory, but if we assume some type of reasonably coherent narrative, maybe the thing that was conveniently omitted from the last block.
5) Marit Lage is a character with 0 resonance with modern day players. The story these days is largely about characters that people have encountered since the game started booming, namely Zendikar block (hey - did anything important happen in the original Zendikar?). Dragging out an obscure character literally from 10 years ago, and originally mentioned 20 years ago or so in Ice Age, doesn't make any sense to most players who are playing right now.
This is like M. Night Shamalyan level of subtlety in storytelling. You don't have to dig very deep to see where this is going. Emrakul may not show up in this set, but if she wasn't in Eldritch Moon, that would be really odd.
I gotta agree with this. What's more likely? The tentacles, madness, and "eldritch" references are a throwback to the big-bad that was blatantly absent on our last plane? Or that it's something TOTALLY NEW?
Like I said in another thread, Magic ain't great literature. At its best, it's Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire levels of subtlety.
Yes, it's specifically noted as one of her powers in the art book (I suppose to tie in to Consume the Meek which the description of the her use of the ability matches and cards like that one flying-related enchantment I forget the name of), but Kozilek's brood is able to manipulate gravity as well, and I thought the flavor text was just a poetic way of saying whatever leviathans and krakens and stuff in Innistrad's seas have grown more restless and are causing their own waves, so I don't personally necessarily feel this was a hint of anything in particular, but maybe I'm not looking into it enough.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
Anyway, some researchers link Aion to both Chronos and Saturnus, the being who first emerged from the primordial Chaos which existed before existence; other researchers also link him to Osiris, the Egyptian deity who was slain, cut into pieces, then resurrected to take up the throne in the Underworld. In either case, this aspect refers to "eternal", "eternity", or "immortality". Symbols of Aion are often depicted with a serpent coiled around a stick or staff (sound familiar?) Although some symbology appears akin to that of Ouroboros, in this case the serpent is usually depicted with its tail hidden rather than looping back around into the mouth; this ties Aion more closely to the snake's sloughing of skin to renew itself rather than a cycle of dying then being reborn.
Pictures we have of both Marit Lage and Emrakul feature tentacles or root-like tendrils; although similar features are found on Engulf the Shore, that one clue token, and the staff carried by the Westvale Cult Leader, we cannot yet determine who it might be. I suspect the Eldrazi but it could be Marit. Either way, Nahiri's ultimate is meant to put a big thing into play immediately--she got the attention of *something* in the course of taking revenge on Sorin and now she plans to unleash it.
Now for the question no one has ever asked: *why* did the Eldrazi show up as *three*? You can write an entire book on comparative mythology and/or mysticism trying to answer that question.
"Why did the chicken cross the road? ...To get to the other side!"
"Oh... that's not funny."
"What's the big bad thing coming to Innistrad? ...Boom! It's Emrakul!"
"Oh... that's not surprising."
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For your curiosity examine exhibit Q: Gravitational Shift
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Long time players don't want them to just forget about the old stuff though. And there is already a history of bringing old characters and story elements into the modern game. Nicol Bolas was relatively obscure and old before his adoption into the Alara story. The Phyrexians have been brought back despite their prior extinction. Marit Lage's original design was clearly based on Cthulhu, and her eventual card was bang on for what eventually became the Eldrazi, so maybe that's too similar to have them both around at the same time.
Really, I'm getting tired of existing characters and settings getting replaced by virtually identical new ones, like they're trying to overwrite the lore instead of building on it.
I'm also getting tired of the writers being afraid to take risks with the story. Eldrazi do not feel really threatening now since two thirds of them were killed with no casualties among the main cast. The bad guys need to win sometimes too to keep us invested, if Zendikar had been defeated, they next time an Eldrazi showed up, there would be genuine tension and uncertainty about the outcome. Also they need to hold onto suspense an appropriate amount of time, neither blowing it right away (as Emrakul appearing in Innistrad will do) nor leaving it until everyone has forgotten entirely (those New Phyrexians haven't done much of anything).
But, don't you think they built suspense quite well regardless of Emrakul? I suppose it's only my opinion, but at least in vague brush strokes, without knowing the full plot after all, this seems like a really intriguing mystery story. Humans and monsters alike going mad, Sorin's past coming to haunt him, cultists taking advantage of the situation, and overtones of something greater and otherworldly in the background. The villains of these kinds of things are never as we build them up anyway, it's about how the clues are built and the intricacy of how the plot threads tie together for a mystery, in my opinion. Emrakul being part of the cause, perhaps, doesn't change the story they've told so far, if you already found it interesting or intriguing or whatever. The actual cause or "villain" could really be interchangeable of all the ones people were speculating.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
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I mean, with all of the build-up about all of these mysteries and unraveling the secrets of Innistrad, only to have something huge and obvious smack us in the face is about the story-telling equivalent to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4RuB3gT8t0
I started playing with Revised and took a break from the middle of Urza's Saga until Shards of Alara, I actually don't care about them dredging up old characters. The only old storylines I enjoyed were the Brothers War and the Weatherlight Saga, but again, those have 0 resonance for the majority of people today. Projecting my expectations on to the game would be silly: they aren't catering to the people who have played the longest. This should be very evident by now especially if you have played for a long time.
Emrakul fits the narrative of the most probable thing. The simplest explanation is often the correct one. Sure, it COULD be something else, but at this point would be very out of left field.
I would think so in regards to their policies. One should note however, that before WOTC implemented the 2 set block structure, there was a third set planned originally for the BFZ block, which was said to be SOI. I could be wrong however since I only heard this rumor over the internet...
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If there had been a block in between BFZ and this, then yes. But eldrazi are on everyone's mind right now. Even players who are not picking apart the clues and hashing this out on forums would only have one set's worth of suspense before the reveal in Eldrich Moon. Emrakul was specifically set up to be missing from Battle for Zendikar, but with the distraction of the other two, the characters and the readers don't really think about that until after the task a hand has been resolved.
So at the end of Oath, Ugin shows up and is mad and reminds everyone that Emrakul is missing and they can't track her. They decide to get the original team back together, but don't know where any of them are. So, Jace trots over to Sorin's home plane, finds both Sorin AND Nahiri, and then ALSO finds Emrakul right away? That's not good storytelling, that's just contrived.
That said, I think it would be lovely to have Emrakul annihilate Tarkir. The worst plane of all. She needs revenge on Ugin too of course.
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I feel where you are coming from. There are plenty of interesting possibilities in the game's past, but we should not forget that the newer players got a reminder of who both Nicol Bolas and the Phyrexians were just in time for their return. The Marit Lage angle would feel much more approachable by the new players if we had recently gotten Dark Depths in FTV: Eldritch.
I would like seeing Marit Lage return to the story or a visit to Innistrad's Great-Uncle Ulgrotha, but there is a difference between wanting something and thinking something is likely.
The same thing is true for narative concerns. Would it hve been nice to draw out the Eldrazi storyline some more? I would agree on that. But with statements on the record about their intent to wrap up dangling threads in their stories after switching to the two-block paradigm does it really sound like the pacing they have in mind? For what it's worth the fact that the whole first set of SOI is used as a build-up before the reveal is some kind of slow-rolling it. It also gives this great world a chance to play itself. I'm actually quiet pleased by the way the mystery story is interwoven with known aspects of Innistrad as well as new extrapolations of the setting.
It's quite upsetting to see how many posters here are disregarding the beautiful(ly unsettling) journey SOI is giving us just because they are not seeing the outcome they wanted forming for the next leg. If the story is woven into the setting this well, if the world is build with this depth, if the cards are this resonant and exciting, then I'm happy with the setup that inspired these great creations; if this is the realization of the idea "Emrakul on Innistrad", then I think, we all should be happy with this. I would be rather disappointe if the next block in the Eldrazi story-arc had been of BFZ/OGWs quality (though I give some credit there, too - it probably would have worked quite a bit better with only a few changes - some that would have been possible in the three-set paradigm).
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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It is contrived, no argument there, but don't you think it would have been just as contrived whether it was the next block or the block right after? Maybe it'd be even weirder since it's clearly meant to be a continuation of BFZ's story yet isn't directly linked to it chronologically. I don't think I have any reason to believe given another block focused on another, totally different threat would have given them more time to have a more convincing set up to go back to the other threat than the set up we've gotten, but as I've said I honestly think the set up is fine so maybe that's just my opinion. I'm sure they could have done it well enough if they wanted to. A lot of stories (most?) are basically just a culmination of contrivances, just sometimes it's better disguised. It just works better for storytellers that all these things to tell the story they want to tell just so happens to happen together in a way that conveniently ties things together.
I said before but they said they've had a shift in paradigm, and I think this is just a reflection of that. Even KTK>BFZ was a reflection of it, since that block's story was only set up to get Ugin back in the story and bring Eldrazi back to our minds. We're so used to stories where the blocks are basiclaly us checking in on thigns everyone in a while and uncovering what's changed, but the stories between blocks now are probably all going to lean mostly towards a larger, interconnected storyline with probably most blocks attempting to follow a straight story line. It's different, maybe worse, maybe better, but I personally don't feel like it's inherently worse, but more like something that can be "done worse", or maybe it isn't suited to a storyline that's mostly told through, and having to be a vehicle for, a card game.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
Well, there's a mysterious token in the upcoming FTV, that could point towards Dark Depths.
I'm really enjoying the atmosphere and buildup of the set, Innistrad is one of my favorite settings and an excellent homage to Ulgrotha (which had a bunch of random non-gothic themes as well and would be hard to salvage at this point). Entirely within the context of the block, the story looks fine, but they're supposed to care about the through-thread too, and having Jace find all three characters he's looking for in the first plane he goes to is just bad. I'm really hoping the payoff of the mystery isn't Emrakul.
Y'know what might be cool... Last time we saw the Baron Sengir he was marching his army into a planar gate....