I must say that I liked this story too. The whole leyline thing is just Nissas perspective, she sees mana currents as leylines, the gods are obviously made up of a complex network of those currents converging inside them, binding them and letting them interact with the plane itself in form of trials for example (and for everyone getting so angry about what a leyline supposedly should be, MANA is even more strange in that regard. I've heard many definitions of that one as well, either being used as "prestige" or the ability to change ones luck or power over the land etc.). Another mage not familiar with leylines but capable of sensing mana would probably just see a chaotic convergence of magic instead.
Also I believe that Bolas corruption itself made the god more vulnerable to further manipulation. Nissa only got the idea by observing the changes already done to Kefnet. It might have been a bit too fast for her to learn how to do a faulty and hasty manipulation herself, but it wasn't unbelievable. And as someone who likes non-evil Simic characters I appreciate her change to a somewhat more analytical person.
The symbolism in this story is a little bit too thick though. I think it will make more sense in the future, but the connection to Emrakul felt strange (even though I appreciate that she appeared at all). Bolas "They would take away my power." seems to hint that he went and corrupted Amonkhet directly before the mending if I'm not mistaken. How long has it been since that time?
All in all I liked Nissas last story a little bit more, but this one was pretty good as well. I'm still much more intrigued by Amonkhets story than Kaladeshs.
For all the Gideon story moments to happen we should see him next time, right?
Yeah, it doesn't look good for the survival of anything on this plane, the keyart for Hour of Devastation already shows Bolas tearing down the Hekma and letting the desert forces destroy the city. And somehow for the first time since quite a while I'm actually moved by that, because as we found out a while ago, Amonkhet was once a very different kind of world before Bolas interference, much more like the "normal" ancient egypt but with a real afterlife similar to the underworld of Theros (that's what I took from Nissas "talk" to the plane anyway). Then Bolas corrupted everything and now he'll destroy the rest. Perhabs it's just my affinity for ancient egypt, but somehow this saddens me.
Also, I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned multiple times that the people of Zendikar ARE aware of planeswalkers, even before the rise of the Eldrazi. At least a few gods (and their prophets) of Theros know about them too and while it isn't public knowledge, it seemed to me as if the higher echelons of Kaladeshs government are also aware of planeswalkers (ignoring that they didn't seem to know that Tezzeret was one of them).
As someone who doesn't care about standard or even tournaments at all and doesn't have an allergy against the Gatewatch I have to say that I really like this set. The gods feel "smaller" than the Theros gods and I was at first a little bit disappointed by that, but it actually makes sense from a flavor standpoint (which is obviously the main focus of a top-down set, if I have to remind everyone about that). They are not larger than life, but walk among mortals, perhabs even diminished by Bolas to some extent. That said, their "helping" abilities could have been slightly more powerful or less costly.
Other than that I like:
- The -1/-1 counter interactions in Jund colors.
- Embalm as an ability (extremely flavorful and perhabs even more powerful than it looks like at first glance).
- Egyptian flavor as a whole is pretty great (deserts, the monuments, the agricultural society (warped into harvesting itself) etc.)
- The new Nissa in my favorite color combination.
- Strangely I really like Exert although it is a pretty basic idea.
- Some tribal stuff.
- Cycling as a whole in this set. And I don't want a repeat of Astral Slide etc., I want new interactions which I got.
I don't like:
- The small discard and pseudo-hellbent theme. I know that with cycling in this set it might be a good idea, I've just grown a bit tired from discarding mechanics after SOI.
- The invocations, a great idea that was sadly overdesigned. I don't hate them, but they could have been much better.
- Naga instead of Snakes. I'm generally a vorthos, but in this case I'm on the side of the melvins: Snake tribal already exists, Naga aren't very resonant in my opinion and they still haven't done much with the creature type anyway.
I withhold judgement for now on:
- The Aftermath cards. They seem weak, but I believe they could be deceptively powerful. Time will tell.
All in all, as a vorthos flavor trumps all for me, and Amonkhet certainly delivers that. I feel like many people wished for this set to undo the mistakes of Kaladesh and BFZ and where disappointed when Amonkhet didn't deliver what they had hoped for. I think that this is a little bit unfair. But I already stated that I don't care much for standard anyway, so I'll not delve into this discussion in any more capacity.
I have hoped for an egyptian set for more than five years now and they delivered. There are multiple powerful cards I would really like to try out and mechanics that seem fun enough to try them at the prerelease.
As one of the few who seemingly doesn't mind the Gatewatch, I still have to say that this is probably for the better. The core 5 are just too fixed on certain strategies and don't allow for much diversity. That's why my favorite planeswalker card for example from the SOI block was Tamiyo to be honest.
On the other hand I have to strongly disagree with people who want more isolated storylines back. We had those for a decade, which meant that character growth was very limited or at least sporadic. The Gatewatch storyline has already improved by quite a margin since BFZ and I at least want to see where it is going for a little while longer.
Overall, I'm still pretty underwhelmed. Not necessarily by the power level of the cards, but just their synergy and uniqueness feels way underwhelming compared to Aether Revolt and Kaladesh. Maybe they're just not spoiling as cool of cards just yet. Only time will tell...
I don't know whether this is a fair comparison. Kaladesh was a bottom-up block with heavy emphasis on synergies and the mechanics (and had a pretty high power level too). Amonkhet on the other hand is a top-down set, which is harder to get right in terms of gameplay since the focus is on the flavor. Amonkhet could be great and still feel "weaker" in comparison to Kaladesh because of that. It would probably be fairer to compare it to SOI or Theros. Let's just wait and see.
I like the green -1/-1 counter interactions by the way, could be fun to play.
I don't like the way that Gideon had acted when he was confronted by a God and the possibility of him maybe doing trials in the future. I feel like this is a bit out of character for him. I've heard the argument that piety and religion play a huge role in his life because he comes from Theros where Gods play a hand in everything and worship is a big deal in living there, but if Gideon were such a worshiper when it comes to gods and doing their will he would have went back to Theros years ago.
No, he wouldn't. He is still traumatized and ashamed because his hubris killed all of his friends. We saw that in the vision of Erebos he had when Emrakul began to corrupt him. He is still in awe of the gods, but until now there was nothing to trigger that feeling and he felt a little lost because of it (at least that's what I took out of the story). Now he sees (seemingly) much more benevolent gods walking among the mortals they protect. No wonder his dormant beliefs flared up.
Soo... you like both of them? And Gideon has multiple weaknesses that get around his indestructibility, for example warping his mind, which Emrakul did to a certain extent and which Bolas is a master of. And I'm certain that the red god has the capability to use something like Burn from Within to kill the trial champions. No problem there.
I like these lands very much and I really can't understand people critizising that they are (most of them at least) screaming "Ancient Egypt!", I thought that was the whole point. I've waited so long for an egyptian block that I need that near overload now And since Bolas ego is even greater than his powers I don't mind all the Bolas horns there either.
Non-intervention may be seen as a green clause ("it is not my place to alter the natural proggression of this plane") but it is definitely NOT white. It strongly clashes with the idea of her being white, really.
I didn't state that it was part of her white characteristics, those were just general examples for her non-blue elements.
Well, I think this is part of the area where "it's a game" kind of takes precedence. Tamiyo wasn't Mono-blue even though she's still Blue-centered because it would have imbalanced the colors amongst Planeswalkers in Standard. Though thinking on it there is actually something extra I want to add.
For all that Tamiyo was depicted as Bant, in story she felt much more Blue-focused and centered, and I think it did do a good job of clashing her with comparison to Jace. Granted Jace wasn't in his right frame of mind for a good part of it which kind of hurts the potential to foil them, but I think that just because Tamiyo's card was Bant doesn't mean that we should think of her as a Bant character. One of the biggest complaints that I saw with Tamiyo being Bant was that she didn't feel like a Bant character the way she was written, and I believe that it was at least somewhat confirmed that she isn't really Bant-focused so much as that was something necessary for the card game aspect of it. Kind of roundabout way of saying that I personally think that already was done with Jace and Tamiyo.
Actually, I always thought of Tamiyo (as depicted in the story of SOI) as a blue-centred Bant character. Her story-related abilities, her self-imposed "only watching, never intervening"-clause (which definitely isn't pure blue as far as I know)... It's just that her white and green aspects are somewhat "filtered" through her mostly blue personality (mirrored in her planeswalker abilities). Someone (I believe it was Maro, but I might be wrong) said that she was deliberately written that way to justify her being Bant in EMN. And I like that, you can still see her as a mostly blue character if you want to, but I'm more intrigued by her being Bant to be honest. You can still contrast her to Jace nicely (which was one of my favorite elements of SOI).
I'll never not be shocked at the number of people who will blindly and staunchly defend everything a publicly traded for profit corporation does against any and all criticism, regardless of how minor. The Hasbro Internet Defense Force is alive and well.
And that "$100 bill" meme is one of the dumbest things to ever take hold on this forum. Yeah, we've all seen it, and it's not a particularly compelling argument. The implication is that you should just shut up and appreciate what Wizards is doing, because they are benevolent masters and certainly not primarily beholden to shareholder profits above all else. That these masterpieces are a wondrous gift to the masses and therefore above criticism, and not a cynical attempt to exploit gambling psychology to increase product sales.
Oh, and stop saying "if you don't like them send them to me ". Every time people criticize a card a bunch of jokers feel the need to post this useless comment.
On the other hand blindly hating against everything Wizards does IS pretty common around here. I understand that people don't like this card frame, but when they begin to tell people who like it that they are objectively wrong and stupid for doing so, that's where I draw a line. Also shouldn't you be glad then that the card frame is so bad? I mean if it is, then the reaction will be pretty bad towards it and Wizards might not gain anything from it. They would have to admit their failure (from my experience they almost always did, for example stating that BFZ was horribly designed) and not repeat this mistake. So what is the problem? Did you want bling cards which are great and everyone wants so that Wizards gains even more money or not?
I personally like the design, but I understand why others don't. It's simple as that.
Well this is of to an interesting start. The first part of the story didn't quite grasp me (too much fighting and shifting perspectives) but the second one... let's just say I'm intrigued by Amonkhet more than I ever was with Kaladesh, Innistrad and especially Zendikar (which just wasn't my kind of plane, I found adventure world a very boring concept).
A few observations:
- I believe that the "curse" of Amonkhet is very much intended by Bolas. Perhabs "unworthy" Amonkhetu are exiled upon their death to the wastes outside the magical border to live a horrible undead life. Others are promised a different kind of life after dead which is much more hopeful. That could be quite the incentive to prove oneself before the "God-Pharaoh".
- Why did the two gods save the Gatewatch? Was it because at first they confused them with Amonkhetu and afterwards Gideons sudden flaring feelings of worship tricked them into thinking they were just that? Are they more "mechanical" in nature, protecting the oasis and the people in it as well as testing and harvesting worship from them because of some kind of programming done by Bolas? Or are they more personal like the Theros gods and take pitty with the people under their care?
- The second sun never truly sets. So Amonkhet has no nights to speak of. Only Dusk and Dawn...
While it will not happen, I concur that somebody from the GW being controlled by Bolas would be better than simply killing people off.
I second that motion. Also I REALLY don't want to return to disconnected block stories which MIGHT have some importance years later. It became tedious to search for the smallest connections to other stories and characters which appeared for more than one block really fast. The Gatewatch might not be consisting of the most well liked characters around this forum (although the hate for Jace and to a lesser extent Chandra is seriously overblown) but at least they have the potential to become better characters along the way (I would even argue that this is already happening). The writing is inconsistent at times, but it would be like that without the Gatewatch too. Nearly all of us seem to agree that a true loss for the Gatewatch dealt by Bolas is in order (although SOI definitely wasn't a victory for them either). And everything points to that being the case.
Also I believe that Bolas corruption itself made the god more vulnerable to further manipulation. Nissa only got the idea by observing the changes already done to Kefnet. It might have been a bit too fast for her to learn how to do a faulty and hasty manipulation herself, but it wasn't unbelievable. And as someone who likes non-evil Simic characters I appreciate her change to a somewhat more analytical person.
The symbolism in this story is a little bit too thick though. I think it will make more sense in the future, but the connection to Emrakul felt strange (even though I appreciate that she appeared at all). Bolas "They would take away my power." seems to hint that he went and corrupted Amonkhet directly before the mending if I'm not mistaken. How long has it been since that time?
All in all I liked Nissas last story a little bit more, but this one was pretty good as well. I'm still much more intrigued by Amonkhets story than Kaladeshs.
For all the Gideon story moments to happen we should see him next time, right?
Other than that I like:
- The -1/-1 counter interactions in Jund colors.
- Embalm as an ability (extremely flavorful and perhabs even more powerful than it looks like at first glance).
- Egyptian flavor as a whole is pretty great (deserts, the monuments, the agricultural society (warped into harvesting itself) etc.)
- The new Nissa in my favorite color combination.
- Strangely I really like Exert although it is a pretty basic idea.
- Some tribal stuff.
- Cycling as a whole in this set. And I don't want a repeat of Astral Slide etc., I want new interactions which I got.
I don't like:
- The small discard and pseudo-hellbent theme. I know that with cycling in this set it might be a good idea, I've just grown a bit tired from discarding mechanics after SOI.
- The invocations, a great idea that was sadly overdesigned. I don't hate them, but they could have been much better.
- Naga instead of Snakes. I'm generally a vorthos, but in this case I'm on the side of the melvins: Snake tribal already exists, Naga aren't very resonant in my opinion and they still haven't done much with the creature type anyway.
I withhold judgement for now on:
- The Aftermath cards. They seem weak, but I believe they could be deceptively powerful. Time will tell.
All in all, as a vorthos flavor trumps all for me, and Amonkhet certainly delivers that. I feel like many people wished for this set to undo the mistakes of Kaladesh and BFZ and where disappointed when Amonkhet didn't deliver what they had hoped for. I think that this is a little bit unfair. But I already stated that I don't care much for standard anyway, so I'll not delve into this discussion in any more capacity.
I have hoped for an egyptian set for more than five years now and they delivered. There are multiple powerful cards I would really like to try out and mechanics that seem fun enough to try them at the prerelease.
On the other hand I have to strongly disagree with people who want more isolated storylines back. We had those for a decade, which meant that character growth was very limited or at least sporadic. The Gatewatch storyline has already improved by quite a margin since BFZ and I at least want to see where it is going for a little while longer.
I don't know whether this is a fair comparison. Kaladesh was a bottom-up block with heavy emphasis on synergies and the mechanics (and had a pretty high power level too). Amonkhet on the other hand is a top-down set, which is harder to get right in terms of gameplay since the focus is on the flavor. Amonkhet could be great and still feel "weaker" in comparison to Kaladesh because of that. It would probably be fairer to compare it to SOI or Theros. Let's just wait and see.
I like the green -1/-1 counter interactions by the way, could be fun to play.
No, he wouldn't. He is still traumatized and ashamed because his hubris killed all of his friends. We saw that in the vision of Erebos he had when Emrakul began to corrupt him. He is still in awe of the gods, but until now there was nothing to trigger that feeling and he felt a little lost because of it (at least that's what I took out of the story). Now he sees (seemingly) much more benevolent gods walking among the mortals they protect. No wonder his dormant beliefs flared up.
Soo... you like both of them? And Gideon has multiple weaknesses that get around his indestructibility, for example warping his mind, which Emrakul did to a certain extent and which Bolas is a master of. And I'm certain that the red god has the capability to use something like Burn from Within to kill the trial champions. No problem there.
Which means he either wants to die, he just wants to deceive Bolas somehow or he isn't aware that the fifth trial will lead to his death...
I didn't state that it was part of her white characteristics, those were just general examples for her non-blue elements.
Actually, I always thought of Tamiyo (as depicted in the story of SOI) as a blue-centred Bant character. Her story-related abilities, her self-imposed "only watching, never intervening"-clause (which definitely isn't pure blue as far as I know)... It's just that her white and green aspects are somewhat "filtered" through her mostly blue personality (mirrored in her planeswalker abilities). Someone (I believe it was Maro, but I might be wrong) said that she was deliberately written that way to justify her being Bant in EMN. And I like that, you can still see her as a mostly blue character if you want to, but I'm more intrigued by her being Bant to be honest. You can still contrast her to Jace nicely (which was one of my favorite elements of SOI).
On the other hand blindly hating against everything Wizards does IS pretty common around here. I understand that people don't like this card frame, but when they begin to tell people who like it that they are objectively wrong and stupid for doing so, that's where I draw a line. Also shouldn't you be glad then that the card frame is so bad? I mean if it is, then the reaction will be pretty bad towards it and Wizards might not gain anything from it. They would have to admit their failure (from my experience they almost always did, for example stating that BFZ was horribly designed) and not repeat this mistake. So what is the problem? Did you want bling cards which are great and everyone wants so that Wizards gains even more money or not?
I personally like the design, but I understand why others don't. It's simple as that.
A few observations:
- I believe that the "curse" of Amonkhet is very much intended by Bolas. Perhabs "unworthy" Amonkhetu are exiled upon their death to the wastes outside the magical border to live a horrible undead life. Others are promised a different kind of life after dead which is much more hopeful. That could be quite the incentive to prove oneself before the "God-Pharaoh".
- Why did the two gods save the Gatewatch? Was it because at first they confused them with Amonkhetu and afterwards Gideons sudden flaring feelings of worship tricked them into thinking they were just that? Are they more "mechanical" in nature, protecting the oasis and the people in it as well as testing and harvesting worship from them because of some kind of programming done by Bolas? Or are they more personal like the Theros gods and take pitty with the people under their care?
- The second sun never truly sets. So Amonkhet has no nights to speak of. Only Dusk and Dawn...
I second that motion. Also I REALLY don't want to return to disconnected block stories which MIGHT have some importance years later. It became tedious to search for the smallest connections to other stories and characters which appeared for more than one block really fast. The Gatewatch might not be consisting of the most well liked characters around this forum (although the hate for Jace and to a lesser extent Chandra is seriously overblown) but at least they have the potential to become better characters along the way (I would even argue that this is already happening). The writing is inconsistent at times, but it would be like that without the Gatewatch too. Nearly all of us seem to agree that a true loss for the Gatewatch dealt by Bolas is in order (although SOI definitely wasn't a victory for them either). And everything points to that being the case.