Either way, would it really be that simple? If it were me, I'd give this thing a rather high priority level, because 1) it's ugin and 2) these hedrons are damn interesting and powerful. And even if you don't study them on Tarkir, you still would on Zendikar. Then once you think you can budge or manipulate them send someone with specific instructions to Tarkir to crack them open.
It's hard to accept that this would be the end of it all. You walk away and that's it? No, you keep tabs on the damn thing because something is definitely up with it.
Look, I'm just not buying what they presented here, it's too easy to poke holes in.
So, in the original timeline, Bolas returns and finds Ugin's bones lying where he left them. Yasova was victorious and all the "lessons" she speaks of in regards to working with Bolas don't matter, because she succeeded.
In the new timeline, Bolas returns and gets bluffed into leaving and never returning.
Anyways, even if I accept that Bolas was bluffed away from Tarkir and decided never to return himself out of fear of being captured, it's still mightily convenient that he never decided to send an agent to Tarkir to check on the hedrons and Ugin's corpse.
Anyway, lets use this spot for something productive then.
Having Bolas show up was a tough corner to write yourself out of, I think. Wonder if Kate decided to do it herself or if it was in some sort of outline provided by creative. Does anyone know how much freedom the co-ops have?
Why is this just discarded? The fact that Bolas can read minds like a book has been not only shown repeatedly, but mentioned over and over again in this very story. And Bolas was fooled by the twins? He knows Naiva has an identical twin. That's what he was using, Naiva's resentment for her twin, to manipulate her to begin with.
I LOVED the first six chapters of this story. But these last two... what happened?
This was the line that finally ended it for me:
"He's gone," said Grandmother. "He could not take the chance it was a bluff."
You don't bluff Bolas. He looks into your eyes and sees what cards you're holding; that's why Jace has to erase Vraska's memories of their sabotage plot. And he loses now by being lied to?
If you pushed Bolas off a cliff, would he actually fly, or would he just fall to his death?
This x1000 <.< I completely agree. First 6 were great.
But was the Tarkir angle needed? What if they had just told the Ugin story...
I was about to mention how obtaining a spark is no easy feat (Yawgmoth, Memnarch), but then I was reminded of the unfortunate spark in the heart moment in New Phyrexia...
Interestingly, one could say they broke the pattern with the plains.
The lands represent each walker’s birth world and then their spark world.
1&2 is the birth world, 3&4 the spark world. None of them (at that time) had returned to their birth world aside from Nissa, which is why she goes 1 -> 2&3 -> 4!
But this is clearly overthinking things as this doesn’t hold true for Gids =/ Still kinda cute.
Small tidbit someone on reddit mentioned which is really nice:
Bolas says in the Emperor's Fist novel by McGough that he respected his siblings as equals and did not harm them. Which means that Ugin is actually worse than Bolas for trying to assassinate a sibling and initiating the conflict between the two.
I like how they portrayed Bolas in this story. Not quite as adept as his siblings, implying his rise to power was more through his cunning and smarts than natural prowess, which is cool. Also, a demeanor change, though a learned one, as his more brash personality does show at times.
I just noticed that Urgoros is said to never been human, when his "origin" vignette (from the same set, not from some obscure comic or novel written ten or more years ago!) tells exactly the opposite...
That is concerning.
While restructuring MtG Creative as being a consistent entity would certainly be difficult, one would think that they would have this better mastered in their more recent material.
I agree with someone here that retcons sometimes take away from the immersive elements of storytelling, and is a vice rather than a virtue often found within comic books and TV as opposed to other mediums.
I cannot understand how in the same set one guy goes as far to re-read every canon sources to compile a huge Dominarian map with every place (even only name-dropped) on it to clear every continuity error, and then just some weeks later: we find out that the Sylex is still around when it shouldn't (destroyed in the comics), Yavimaya is on Argoth (Wrong: Argoth became Fyndhorn); Tallids and Molimo are from Yavimaya (wrong, they are from Sarpadia and Llanowar respectively) and so on...
100 times this. It’s baffling, because these past few weeks/months we got to see how deeply (at least some) people on creative care about these things, yet at the same time...well, we all know what’s been going on in these forums the past couple of years.
A.k.a. their strength equals what the plot requires it to be.
Mind you, this happens in a lot of stories, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does take you out of the story and makes it pretty much impossible to buy if done so blatantly obvious.
I do want to say that I don’t agree fully when it comes to Teferi’s “nerf”. In Time Spiral, after losing his PW abilities, he was quite weak. While he did succomb to plot induced weakness, so did many other characters. The feats he pulls off with his time magic is actually very impressive to me to the point where I felt it was even too powerful for a post-mending mage. Did we even ever see him use this kind of magic? He phased things, sure, but to be able to freeze huge areas in time is quite impressive.
It’s not raw strength either. He showed quite some finesse by having Gids and Chandra able to move as the only two elements there, imo.
Also, he rusted away an entire bridge in an instant!
1) How were both Yargle and Urgoros more threatening than Belzenlok?
2) Why was Radha there aside from being a cameo...She's supposed to be the Keldon warlord. Also, she was rediculously strong due to her connection with her host in the Time Spiral block novels.
Aside from that...fine.
So, when it comes to Lili's demons, can we note how easy all of them went down in the end? I get her first two. They were caught off guard by her wielding one of the strongest artifacts in the multiverse. But the way Razaketh was defeated, that was just a big brawl. Same here. Why didn't these ancient demons use powerfull dark magics?
I don't see how people here can reasonably can defend the "explanation" they give. It's not consistent within the story. "He was an immortal" is the explanation they give us through his daughter. Yet we see other immortals do age (both Jaya and Liliana as examples, one of which has a story arc based on the fact that time was catching up with her). Thus it's not a valid explanation.
But whatever, it's not really that important in the grand scheme of things. The only complaints I have, have to do with the old lore. Most people playing the game these days probably don't know enough about that to care.
If I ignore anything that has to do with older, established lore, I quite like what we got. Martha's writing means there is no inconsistent quality anymore. The Liliana/Gideon story line is very good imo. Slimefoot was a great little surprise. Sure, at times things felt rushed, but I get that she likely had to deal with certain constraints and that Dominaria going from 2 to 1 set must have had its influence, too.
Either way, would it really be that simple? If it were me, I'd give this thing a rather high priority level, because 1) it's ugin and 2) these hedrons are damn interesting and powerful. And even if you don't study them on Tarkir, you still would on Zendikar. Then once you think you can budge or manipulate them send someone with specific instructions to Tarkir to crack them open.
It's hard to accept that this would be the end of it all. You walk away and that's it? No, you keep tabs on the damn thing because something is definitely up with it.
Look, I'm just not buying what they presented here, it's too easy to poke holes in.
In the new timeline, Bolas returns and gets bluffed into leaving and never returning.
Anyways, even if I accept that Bolas was bluffed away from Tarkir and decided never to return himself out of fear of being captured, it's still mightily convenient that he never decided to send an agent to Tarkir to check on the hedrons and Ugin's corpse.
Anyway, lets use this spot for something productive then.
Having Bolas show up was a tough corner to write yourself out of, I think. Wonder if Kate decided to do it herself or if it was in some sort of outline provided by creative. Does anyone know how much freedom the co-ops have?
This x1000 <.< I completely agree. First 6 were great.
But was the Tarkir angle needed? What if they had just told the Ugin story...
The lands represent each walker’s birth world and then their spark world.
1&2 is the birth world, 3&4 the spark world. None of them (at that time) had returned to their birth world aside from Nissa, which is why she goes 1 -> 2&3 -> 4!
But this is clearly overthinking things as this doesn’t hold true for Gids =/ Still kinda cute.
I like how they portrayed Bolas in this story. Not quite as adept as his siblings, implying his rise to power was more through his cunning and smarts than natural prowess, which is cool. Also, a demeanor change, though a learned one, as his more brash personality does show at times.
He also doesn't come over as conniving as Ugin.
100 times this. It’s baffling, because these past few weeks/months we got to see how deeply (at least some) people on creative care about these things, yet at the same time...well, we all know what’s been going on in these forums the past couple of years.
Mind you, this happens in a lot of stories, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it does take you out of the story and makes it pretty much impossible to buy if done so blatantly obvious.
I do want to say that I don’t agree fully when it comes to Teferi’s “nerf”. In Time Spiral, after losing his PW abilities, he was quite weak. While he did succomb to plot induced weakness, so did many other characters. The feats he pulls off with his time magic is actually very impressive to me to the point where I felt it was even too powerful for a post-mending mage. Did we even ever see him use this kind of magic? He phased things, sure, but to be able to freeze huge areas in time is quite impressive.
It’s not raw strength either. He showed quite some finesse by having Gids and Chandra able to move as the only two elements there, imo.
Also, he rusted away an entire bridge in an instant!
2) Why was Radha there aside from being a cameo...She's supposed to be the Keldon warlord. Also, she was rediculously strong due to her connection with her host in the Time Spiral block novels.
Aside from that...fine.
So, when it comes to Lili's demons, can we note how easy all of them went down in the end? I get her first two. They were caught off guard by her wielding one of the strongest artifacts in the multiverse. But the way Razaketh was defeated, that was just a big brawl. Same here. Why didn't these ancient demons use powerfull dark magics?
But whatever, it's not really that important in the grand scheme of things. The only complaints I have, have to do with the old lore. Most people playing the game these days probably don't know enough about that to care.
If I ignore anything that has to do with older, established lore, I quite like what we got. Martha's writing means there is no inconsistent quality anymore. The Liliana/Gideon story line is very good imo. Slimefoot was a great little surprise. Sure, at times things felt rushed, but I get that she likely had to deal with certain constraints and that Dominaria going from 2 to 1 set must have had its influence, too.