Well you consider Bolas whole plot is regaining Omnipotence so obviously he isn't now.
My problem with the Gatewatch is inconsistent power level (they go from killing Eldrazi Titans to having trouble with Baral). I know you can expect some of that but that level of difference is absurd.
The other end is they don't pay a high enough price for their screwups. Bolas should have put at least one of the Gatewatch in the ground. Since Nissa is warming the bench for the forseeable future it should have been her.
The other problem is of course they don't dig deep enough into their colors, they are all far to surface level representations of the their color. Gideon is Captain America, Jace is a introvert nerd, Chandra is impulsive, etc.
You do realize Jace is no longer as introverted, right?
Also what's wrong with being an introverted nerd anyway?
I agree that they tried too hard to tie their personalities to the basic qualities of their colors, but if post-Ixalan Jace and Gideon Blackblade are any indication, they might be loosening up on that.
Well you consider Bolas whole plot is regaining Omnipotence so obviously he isn't now.
My problem with the Gatewatch is inconsistent power level (they go from killing Eldrazi Titans to having trouble with Baral). I know you can expect some of that but that level of difference is absurd.
The other end is they don't pay a high enough price for their screwups. Bolas should have put at least one of the Gatewatch in the ground. Since Nissa is warming the bench for the forseeable future it should have been her.
The other problem is of course they don't dig deep enough into their colors, they are all far to surface level representations of the their color. Gideon is Captain America, Jace is a introvert nerd, Chandra is impulsive, etc.
I agree with you completely. The main difference between the weatherlight saga and the new story is that life/death was a big factor for the characters. A lot of them made self sacrifices, or became corrupted, or died trying to do what they thought was right. The new Planeswalker characters, especially the ones we follow as protagonists, may feel like they are in life or death situations, but never have any real consequences to their injuries. Venser was the only one to die on Phyrexia in sacrifice to restore Karn, but he was an older character. It feels like WOTC is extremely precious about any new characters they have as planeswalker protagonists, where even if they are corrupted (Garruk, Apex Predator) or are killed (Elspeth Tirel), they are not considered permanently dead or out of the running. And since planeswalkers are the stories we follow (the settings they go to don't matter that much as if one quirky plane fails, big whoop, travel to the next), it just becomes hard to get invested in characters whose lives aren't at stake (as WOTC isn't interested in nailing the coffin for any "good guy").
And I'm not saying the old school story wasn't full of problems -- magic text has always read like it was written by people who went to an online school to get their creative writing degree. It's always been amateur fantasy literature tacked onto a wonderfully complex strategy game.
I'm just saying that when the main characters were human (or didn't have a spark), their mortality was at stake. Their actions seemed like real triumphs. They lost people along the way to achieve their goals. The people around them died, and they had to immediately deal with it, and then try to overcome their threat at the time. It's time WOTC brings the same amount of mortality to the Gatewatch, and let big actions have consequences.
Bolas winning in Amonkhet felt like a James Bond villain slapping someone and being like "hope you learned your lesson, okay, get outta here champ."
But Bolas recruiting Liliana might be interesting for the future. Maybe they are taking the story into a more dramatic direction.
Well you consider Bolas whole plot is regaining Omnipotence so obviously he isn't now.
My problem with the Gatewatch is inconsistent power level (they go from killing Eldrazi Titans to having trouble with Baral). I know you can expect some of that but that level of difference is absurd.
The other end is they don't pay a high enough price for their screwups. Bolas should have put at least one of the Gatewatch in the ground. Since Nissa is warming the bench for the forseeable future it should have been her.
The other problem is of course they don't dig deep enough into their colors, they are all far to surface level representations of the their color. Gideon is Captain America, Jace is a introvert nerd, Chandra is impulsive, etc.
I agree with you completely. The main difference between the weatherlight saga and the new story is that life/death was a big factor for the characters. A lot of them made self sacrifices, or became corrupted, or died trying to do what they thought was right. The new Planeswalker characters, especially the ones we follow as protagonists, may feel like they are in life or death situations, but never have any real consequences to their injuries. Venser was the only one to die on Phyrexia in sacrifice to restore Karn, but he was an older character. It feels like WOTC is extremely precious about any new characters they have as planeswalker protagonists, where even if they are corrupted (Garruk, Apex Predator) or are killed (Elspeth Tirel), they are not considered permanently dead or out of the running. And since planeswalkers are the stories we follow (the settings they go to don't matter that much as if one quirky plane fails, big whoop, travel to the next), it just becomes hard to get invested in characters whose lives aren't at stake (as WOTC isn't interested in nailing the coffin for any "good guy").
And I'm not saying the old school story wasn't full of problems -- magic text has always read like it was written by people who went to an online school to get their creative writing degree. It's always been amateur fantasy literature tacked onto a wonderfully complex strategy game.
I'm just saying that when the main characters were human (or didn't have a spark), their mortality was at stake. Their actions seemed like real triumphs. They lost people along the way to achieve their goals. The people around them died, and they had to immediately deal with it, and then try to overcome their threat at the time. It's time WOTC brings the same amount of mortality to the Gatewatch, and let big actions have consequences.
Bolas winning in Amonkhet felt like a James Bond villain slapping someone and being like "hope you learned your lesson, okay, get outta here champ."
But Bolas recruiting Liliana might be interesting for the future. Maybe they are taking the story into a more dramatic direction.
... Card is okay.
Bolas could kill Vraska to really hurt Jace, and it would upset a lot of people who've come to like the character since her depiction in Ixalan block.
Amonkhet should have had bigger consequences for their folly, I agree, but I don't think death should always be the go-to answer for that. This is especially because there are worse consequences than death. Bolas could have mindslavered every single Gatewatch member present, and the consequences of such would have arguably been far worse than his just killing them off on the spot.
Bolas could kill Vraska to really hurt Jace, and it would upset a lot of people who've come to like the character since her depiction in Ixalan block.
Amonkhet should have had bigger consequences for their folly, I agree, but I don't think death should always be the go-to answer for that. This is especially because there are worse consequences than death. Bolas could have mindslavered every single Gatewatch member present, and the consequences of such would have arguably been far worse than his just killing them off on the spot.
The only issue with mindslavering is whether or not WOTC keeps them mindslavered long enough for it to feel like it has an impact. It kind of sucks when they do something story wise only to have it resolved in the next set.
Though if they mindslavered Jace and had him destroy his home plane (or something similar), that would have been just as tragic as one of the characters dying.
Bolas could kill Vraska to really hurt Jace, and it would upset a lot of people who've come to like the character since her depiction in Ixalan block.
Amonkhet should have had bigger consequences for their folly, I agree, but I don't think death should always be the go-to answer for that. This is especially because there are worse consequences than death. Bolas could have mindslavered every single Gatewatch member present, and the consequences of such would have arguably been far worse than his just killing them off on the spot.
The only issue with mindslavering is whether or not WOTC keeps them mindslavered long enough for it to feel like it has an impact. It kind of sucks when they do something story wise only to have it resolved in the next set.
Though if they mindslavered Jace and had him destroy his home plane (or something similar), that would have been just as tragic as one of the characters dying.
If you're referring to Vryn, Jace considers Ravnica his home, despite now remembering where he really came from. We know Bolas has his sights on Ravnica for unknown reasons, so we'll see how that plays out.
Also, they would have to introduce the plane properly to both us and Jace (in his case, it's a reintroduction) before something like that has any real impact.
This is why I hate boring, invincible villains like Bolas; they aren't fun characters, they just create Darkness-Induced Apathy and kill the fun of a story. Xenagos seeking godhood is understandable; he started out as a "normie", no stronger than most planeswalkers, and attained godhood through cunning manipulation of Theros' faith system (without being blue or black, no less!). Tezzeret is a ruthless, scheming villain, but very much a vulnerable one. Bolas is already individually stronger than most of the cast; his mentality is basically like that lady from the Tom & Jerry movie: "I don't want power, I want POWER!" He's one of those ridiculous OP characters amateur writers come up with to try and make their villain look formidable without any thought to the greater narrative and how the villain's ultimate defeat ties into it.
Personally I think the Gatewatch suffered defeat enough. They lost, their team is brokenup before it had a chance to properly stabilize, and the last prosperous city on Amonkhet fell, leaving the whole known plane a desolate wasteland. That ain't close enough to a plane being destroyed? And of course people are asking for Vryn, Jace's homeplane, to take the bullet because it's Jace's plane of birth. Never mind that there's a two, potentially three-sided war going on over the Mage-Rings. Nope, Vryn can be a sacrificial lamb to show just how uber Bolas is, because he hasn't already proven it in the grand tradition of boring, invincible, overpowered villains, right? That's just more Jace hate creeping through. If Alara had been Jace's birth plane, those same people would have been asking for it to be destroyed instead to tie the "necessary loss" to Jace hate. So color me unimpressed by the idea.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
This is why I hate boring, invincible villains like Bolas; they aren't fun characters, they just create Darkness-Induced Apathy and kill the fun of a story. Xenagos seeking godhood is understandable; he started out as a "normie", no stronger than most planeswalkers, and attained godhood through cunning manipulation of Theros' faith system (without being blue or black, no less!). Tezzeret is a ruthless, scheming villain, but very much a vulnerable one. Bolas is already individually stronger than most of the cast; his mentality is basically like that lady from the Tom & Jerry movie: "I don't want power, I want POWER!" He's one of those ridiculous OP characters amateur writers come up with to try and make their villain look formidable without any thought to the greater narrative and how the villain's ultimate defeat ties into it.
Personally I think the Gatewatch suffered defeat enough. They lost, their team is brokenup before it had a chance to properly stabilize, and the last prosperous city on Amonkhet fell, leaving the whole known plane a desolate wasteland. That ain't close enough to a plane being destroyed? And of course people are asking for Vryn, Jace's homeplane, to take the bullet because it's Jace's plane of birth. Never mind that there's a two, potentially three-sided war going on over the Mage-Rings. Nope, Vryn can be a sacrificial lamb to show just how uber Bolas is, because he hasn't already proven it in the grand tradition of boring, invincible, overpowered villains, right? That's just more Jace hate creeping through. If Alara had been Jace's birth plane, those same people would have been asking for it to be destroyed instead to tie the "necessary loss" to Jace hate. So color me unimpressed by the idea.
We don't know who created the Mage-Rings or why, and these things have created chaos on the plane, so I imagine that mystery would be the larger plot for a Vryn set whenever that becomes a thing.
If we don't want Bolas laying a claw on the place, we'd better hope that the Mage-Ring Network isn't something he's interested in.
I mean Amonkhet is a Tragedy for Samut but for the Gatewatch it was just some random plane. Same for the audience, probably doesn't help Amonkhet was already dying before Bolas showed up. Jace got mindwiped sure but in the very next arc he got a power up, abs, a girlfriend, made a plan to help beat Bolas and smacked around Azor hardly a lasting defeat. Gideon hurt his arm. Beyond that no Gatewatch member really paid a heavy price. That is not really enough consequences in my book for a plan that was so stupid. We are going to fight Bolas at full power on his plane when we are tired from fighting a Demon.
The Gatewatch have to take a personal hit at some point for me to care about them. They have had losses on a personal level, but they only get "defeated" in the same way a character in a Steam game gets defeated. Permanent defeat/extinction would be much more dramatic, and welcome, from this player's standpoint.
I know we're supposed to be "planeswalkers" when we play the game, but let's be honest, that is simply artifice. I get no additional poiwers over my opponent, I can't alter games going on around me, I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose. Not much of a planeswalking bunch if we have no powerrs at all, and need to call on another planeswalker to do our job for us.
I've been reticent to use planeswalkers in my Magic deck for a long time for this very reason. I connect with very few of them outside Liliana or Tezzeret and the payback isn't there for putting them on the battlefield, outside of them acting as a "fog" for a few rounds.
Bolas has at least died once, so I can respect that from him. I still prefer the Weatherlight crew since they did, indeed, cease. And that takes courage from a writing crew that is absent from DIgges and co. They just don't have the nerve to kill their sacred lamb. More's the pity.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
=I've been reticent to use planeswalkers in my Magic deck for a long time for this very reason. I connect with very few of them outside Liliana or Tezzeret and the payback isn't there for putting them on the battlefield, outside of them acting as a "fog" for a few rounds.
If I use planeswalkers in a deck, it's because their loyalty abilities have something valuable to offer, and not just as a "fog".
The Gatewatch have to take a personal hit at some point for me to care about them. They have had losses on a personal level, but they only get "defeated" in the same way a character in a Steam game gets defeated. Permanent defeat/extinction would be much more dramatic, and welcome, from this player's standpoint.
I know we're supposed to be "planeswalkers" when we play the game, but let's be honest, that is simply artifice. I get no additional poiwers over my opponent, I can't alter games going on around me, I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose. Not much of a planeswalking bunch if we have no powerrs at all, and need to call on another planeswalker to do our job for us.
I've been reticent to use planeswalkers in my Magic deck for a long time for this very reason. I connect with very few of them outside Liliana or Tezzeret and the payback isn't there for putting them on the battlefield, outside of them acting as a "fog" for a few rounds.
Bolas has at least died once, so I can respect that from him. I still prefer the Weatherlight crew since they did, indeed, cease. And that takes courage from a writing crew that is absent from DIgges and co. They just don't have the nerve to kill their sacred lamb. More's the pity.
Well also its the Gatewatch outside of Ajani has no real beef with Bolas.
Nissa: He helped the Eldrazi get lose on Zendikar but that was reliant on Gatewatch Incomptence. Zendikar is also damaged.
Jace: Has Plans for Ravnica? Jace has beef against Tezz I guess.
Chandra: Zilch, I mean I guess he is tangentially related to her father getting killed but that is several degrees off again Tezz more beef.
Liliana: Before the end of this story again no beef. In fact he helped her out.
Gideon: No Beef.
Ajani: Tried to destroy Alara so beef.
Teferi: Will see how the story ends but now not really. I mean he did rekt Teferi in a fight but Bolas did his part with the Time Rifts.
Again usually the heroes have way more motivation to take down the big bad which most of the Gatewatch is lacking. Its not Personal for us or really the reader yet. For Samut its personal but for most of the Gatewatch Bolas hasn't done much to them. Ajani is the only one with real issue with Bolas. Lili didn't read the fine print. And Zendikar was mostly caused by Gatewatch Incompetence.
The Gatewatch have to take a personal hit at some point for me to care about them. They have had losses on a personal level, but they only get "defeated" in the same way a character in a Steam game gets defeated. Permanent defeat/extinction would be much more dramatic, and welcome, from this player's standpoint.
I know we're supposed to be "planeswalkers" when we play the game, but let's be honest, that is simply artifice. I get no additional poiwers over my opponent, I can't alter games going on around me, I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose. Not much of a planeswalking bunch if we have no powerrs at all, and need to call on another planeswalker to do our job for us.
I've been reticent to use planeswalkers in my Magic deck for a long time for this very reason. I connect with very few of them outside Liliana or Tezzeret and the payback isn't there for putting them on the battlefield, outside of them acting as a "fog" for a few rounds.
Bolas has at least died once, so I can respect that from him. I still prefer the Weatherlight crew since they did, indeed, cease. And that takes courage from a writing crew that is absent from DIgges and co. They just don't have the nerve to kill their sacred lamb. More's the pity.
Well also its the Gatewatch outside of Ajani has no real beef with Bolas.
Nissa: He helped the Eldrazi get lose on Zendikar but that was reliant on Gatewatch Incomptence. Zendikar is also damaged.
Jace: Has Plans for Ravnica? Jace has beef against Tezz I guess.
Chandra: Zilch, I mean I guess he is tangentially related to her father getting killed but that is several degrees off again Tezz more beef.
Liliana: Before the end of this story again no beef. In fact he helped her out.
Gideon: No Beef.
Ajani: Tried to destroy Alara so beef.
Teferi: Will see how the story ends but now not really. I mean he did rekt Teferi in a fight but Bolas did his part with the Time Rifts.
Again usually the heroes have way more motivation to take down the big bad which most of the Gatewatch is lacking. Its not Personal for us or really the reader yet. For Samut its personal but for most of the Gatewatch Bolas hasn't done much to them. Ajani is the only one with real issue with Bolas. Lili didn't read the fine print. And Zendikar was mostly caused by Gatewatch Incompetence.
Gideon has beef with Bolas because of what he did to Amonkhet. You can hate someone for something they did to someone else.
Also, Zendikar getting nearly destroyed wasn't due to "Gatewatch incompetence". At the time the Eldrazi got loose, the Gatewatch didn't even exist as a group, and Jace and Chandra had no idea what was hiding in the Eye of Ugin. Sarkhan was partly to blame since he was also in the Eye.
Yeah I suppose it works because Gideon is Captain America.
I didn't realize you had to be Captain America to care about the suffering of others, or to get enraged when you see first-hand the kind of effect someone like Bolas has on an entire world.
Just to note, Gids didn't start to really hate Bolas until he took part in the Trial of Ambition. Making it his mission to take down Bolas after what he saw in that trial is very understandable.
Yeah I suppose it works because Gideon is Captain America.
I didn't realize you had to be Captain America to care about the suffering of others, or to get enraged when you see first-hand the kind of effect someone like Bolas has on an entire world.
Just to note, Gids didn't start to really hate Bolas until he took part in the Trial of Ambition. Making it his mission to take down Bolas after what he saw in that trial is very understandable.
I am saying it doesn't feel personal to me because Amonkhet is a new plane with new characters. But for Gidoen who is in the Captain America Archetype it works fine as motivation. But not for say Nissa who bounces to handle the cleanup on the plane she really cares about.
Yeah I suppose it works because Gideon is Captain America.
I didn't realize you had to be Captain America to care about the suffering of others, or to get enraged when you see first-hand the kind of effect someone like Bolas has on an entire world.
Just to note, Gids didn't start to really hate Bolas until he took part in the Trial of Ambition. Making it his mission to take down Bolas after what he saw in that trial is very understandable.
I am saying it doesn't feel personal to me because Amonkhet is a new plane with new characters. But for Gidoen who is in the Captain America Archetype it works fine as motivation. But not for say Nissa who bounces to handle the cleanup on the plane she really cares about.
Fair enough. Also, it kinda says something that Tezzeret is comparable to Bolas in terms of the hate he attracts.
I know we're supposed to be "planeswalkers" when we play the game, but let's be honest, that is simply artifice. I get no additional poiwers over my opponent, I can't alter games going on around me, I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose. Not much of a planeswalking bunch if we have no powerrs at all, and need to call on another planeswalker to do our job for us.
The spells in your deck are your powers. I thought that was obvious.
Permanent defeat/extinction would be much more dramatic, and welcome, from this player's standpoint.
I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose.
"This group of planeswalkers should lose."
"If I'm a planeswalker, why do I lose sometimes?" wat
Bolas has at least died once, so I can respect that from him.
Really? Bolas's death was ultimately meaningless. It was a minor setback at most, and he really didn't lose anything that he couldn't recoup easily. That gets more respect from you than the losses that other 'walkers have suffered? The loss of things they actually care about, and can't get back, like friends and family?
And that takes courage from a writing crew that is absent from DIgges and co. They just don't have the nerve to kill their sacred lamb.
I'm pretty sure that's more the fault of the brand department. It's my understanding that if the writers want to kill off a 'walker, they have to get permission to do so.
Sounds like how Anakin's zeal to save Padme destroyed her and pulled him to the dark side, except a brother instead of a lover, and multiple Palpatines of which Bolas is one. Confronting the master (Lady Ana and the Raven Man in this story, Bolas now?) also seems like the Sith.
Edit: As for the other Star franchise, The Next Generation used the Borg sparingly because it's hard to write good storylines with such OP villians, it sounds like WOTC sometimes doesn't exercise similar restraint.
You do realize Jace is no longer as introverted, right?
Also what's wrong with being an introverted nerd anyway?
I agree that they tried too hard to tie their personalities to the basic qualities of their colors, but if post-Ixalan Jace and Gideon Blackblade are any indication, they might be loosening up on that.
I agree with you completely. The main difference between the weatherlight saga and the new story is that life/death was a big factor for the characters. A lot of them made self sacrifices, or became corrupted, or died trying to do what they thought was right. The new Planeswalker characters, especially the ones we follow as protagonists, may feel like they are in life or death situations, but never have any real consequences to their injuries. Venser was the only one to die on Phyrexia in sacrifice to restore Karn, but he was an older character. It feels like WOTC is extremely precious about any new characters they have as planeswalker protagonists, where even if they are corrupted (Garruk, Apex Predator) or are killed (Elspeth Tirel), they are not considered permanently dead or out of the running. And since planeswalkers are the stories we follow (the settings they go to don't matter that much as if one quirky plane fails, big whoop, travel to the next), it just becomes hard to get invested in characters whose lives aren't at stake (as WOTC isn't interested in nailing the coffin for any "good guy").
And I'm not saying the old school story wasn't full of problems -- magic text has always read like it was written by people who went to an online school to get their creative writing degree. It's always been amateur fantasy literature tacked onto a wonderfully complex strategy game.
I'm just saying that when the main characters were human (or didn't have a spark), their mortality was at stake. Their actions seemed like real triumphs. They lost people along the way to achieve their goals. The people around them died, and they had to immediately deal with it, and then try to overcome their threat at the time. It's time WOTC brings the same amount of mortality to the Gatewatch, and let big actions have consequences.
Bolas winning in Amonkhet felt like a James Bond villain slapping someone and being like "hope you learned your lesson, okay, get outta here champ."
But Bolas recruiting Liliana might be interesting for the future. Maybe they are taking the story into a more dramatic direction.
... Card is okay.
Bolas could kill Vraska to really hurt Jace, and it would upset a lot of people who've come to like the character since her depiction in Ixalan block.
Amonkhet should have had bigger consequences for their folly, I agree, but I don't think death should always be the go-to answer for that. This is especially because there are worse consequences than death. Bolas could have mindslavered every single Gatewatch member present, and the consequences of such would have arguably been far worse than his just killing them off on the spot.
The only issue with mindslavering is whether or not WOTC keeps them mindslavered long enough for it to feel like it has an impact. It kind of sucks when they do something story wise only to have it resolved in the next set.
Though if they mindslavered Jace and had him destroy his home plane (or something similar), that would have been just as tragic as one of the characters dying.
If you're referring to Vryn, Jace considers Ravnica his home, despite now remembering where he really came from. We know Bolas has his sights on Ravnica for unknown reasons, so we'll see how that plays out.
Also, they would have to introduce the plane properly to both us and Jace (in his case, it's a reintroduction) before something like that has any real impact.
But yeah, we would have to go to Vryn first. It wouldn't be that impactful to destroy a plane we have no connection to.
Personally I think the Gatewatch suffered defeat enough. They lost, their team is broken up before it had a chance to properly stabilize, and the last prosperous city on Amonkhet fell, leaving the whole known plane a desolate wasteland. That ain't close enough to a plane being destroyed? And of course people are asking for Vryn, Jace's homeplane, to take the bullet because it's Jace's plane of birth. Never mind that there's a two, potentially three-sided war going on over the Mage-Rings. Nope, Vryn can be a sacrificial lamb to show just how uber Bolas is, because he hasn't already proven it in the grand tradition of boring, invincible, overpowered villains, right? That's just more Jace hate creeping through. If Alara had been Jace's birth plane, those same people would have been asking for it to be destroyed instead to tie the "necessary loss" to Jace hate. So color me unimpressed by the idea.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
We don't know who created the Mage-Rings or why, and these things have created chaos on the plane, so I imagine that mystery would be the larger plot for a Vryn set whenever that becomes a thing.
If we don't want Bolas laying a claw on the place, we'd better hope that the Mage-Ring Network isn't something he's interested in.
I know we're supposed to be "planeswalkers" when we play the game, but let's be honest, that is simply artifice. I get no additional poiwers over my opponent, I can't alter games going on around me, I sometimes lose and my opponents sometime lose. Not much of a planeswalking bunch if we have no powerrs at all, and need to call on another planeswalker to do our job for us.
I've been reticent to use planeswalkers in my Magic deck for a long time for this very reason. I connect with very few of them outside Liliana or Tezzeret and the payback isn't there for putting them on the battlefield, outside of them acting as a "fog" for a few rounds.
Bolas has at least died once, so I can respect that from him. I still prefer the Weatherlight crew since they did, indeed, cease. And that takes courage from a writing crew that is absent from DIgges and co. They just don't have the nerve to kill their sacred lamb. More's the pity.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
If I use planeswalkers in a deck, it's because their loyalty abilities have something valuable to offer, and not just as a "fog".
Well also its the Gatewatch outside of Ajani has no real beef with Bolas.
Nissa: He helped the Eldrazi get lose on Zendikar but that was reliant on Gatewatch Incomptence. Zendikar is also damaged.
Jace: Has Plans for Ravnica? Jace has beef against Tezz I guess.
Chandra: Zilch, I mean I guess he is tangentially related to her father getting killed but that is several degrees off again Tezz more beef.
Liliana: Before the end of this story again no beef. In fact he helped her out.
Gideon: No Beef.
Ajani: Tried to destroy Alara so beef.
Teferi: Will see how the story ends but now not really. I mean he did rekt Teferi in a fight but Bolas did his part with the Time Rifts.
Again usually the heroes have way more motivation to take down the big bad which most of the Gatewatch is lacking. Its not Personal for us or really the reader yet. For Samut its personal but for most of the Gatewatch Bolas hasn't done much to them. Ajani is the only one with real issue with Bolas. Lili didn't read the fine print. And Zendikar was mostly caused by Gatewatch Incompetence.
Gideon has beef with Bolas because of what he did to Amonkhet. You can hate someone for something they did to someone else.
Also, Zendikar getting nearly destroyed wasn't due to "Gatewatch incompetence". At the time the Eldrazi got loose, the Gatewatch didn't even exist as a group, and Jace and Chandra had no idea what was hiding in the Eye of Ugin. Sarkhan was partly to blame since he was also in the Eye.
I didn't realize you had to be Captain America to care about the suffering of others, or to get enraged when you see first-hand the kind of effect someone like Bolas has on an entire world.
Just to note, Gids didn't start to really hate Bolas until he took part in the Trial of Ambition. Making it his mission to take down Bolas after what he saw in that trial is very understandable.
I am saying it doesn't feel personal to me because Amonkhet is a new plane with new characters. But for Gidoen who is in the Captain America Archetype it works fine as motivation. But not for say Nissa who bounces to handle the cleanup on the plane she really cares about.
Fair enough. Also, it kinda says something that Tezzeret is comparable to Bolas in terms of the hate he attracts.
"This group of planeswalkers should lose."
"If I'm a planeswalker, why do I lose sometimes?"
wat
Really? Bolas's death was ultimately meaningless. It was a minor setback at most, and he really didn't lose anything that he couldn't recoup easily. That gets more respect from you than the losses that other 'walkers have suffered? The loss of things they actually care about, and can't get back, like friends and family?
I'm pretty sure that's more the fault of the brand department. It's my understanding that if the writers want to kill off a 'walker, they have to get permission to do so.
Sounds like how Anakin's zeal to save Padme destroyed her and pulled him to the dark side, except a brother instead of a lover, and multiple Palpatines of which Bolas is one. Confronting the master (Lady Ana and the Raven Man in this story, Bolas now?) also seems like the Sith.
Edit: As for the other Star franchise, The Next Generation used the Borg sparingly because it's hard to write good storylines with such OP villians, it sounds like WOTC sometimes doesn't exercise similar restraint.
Vintage: Dredge | Legacy: Burn, Goblins, Soldier | Standard: Mono-Red Aggro
Commander: Nicol Bolas, Sliver Overlord, Rafiq
Casual: Selesnya Saproling Smackdown, Izzet Labs, Rebel
Played since June 2004, mostly inactive June 2011 to March 2018
Other usernames include AlanFromRochester, homerthebeerbaron
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