At first I was so excited because the name of the set suggests that Avacyn comes back and we finally get a block with a happy ending. But then someone on IRC mentioned that they probably wouldn't have revealed the set name that supports such an obvious inference of a happy ending so early on in the block if that were the case. And I looked closer at the promo pic and that angel actually looks kind of evil.
Is anything good ever going to happen in a Magic storyline ever again? The Phyrexians have overrun Mirrodin, the Eldrazi are coming to destroy Zendikar and the rest of existence, Bant is no more...
The ending of the block was no secret. If Avacyn doesn't return, then humanity is doomed. Since extinction isn't something most people get over, there's no way they'd let that happen.
You don't end a "classic horror" block the same way as New Phyrexia (set up the revival of a potentially inter-planar threat) or Rise of the Eldrazi (reveal new interplanar threat, leave the fate of the plane on a cliffhanger). The whole block is designed around a particular narrative tradition, so the story is going to follow that as well. First set, things are starting to look bad. Second set, things get incredibly dire and bleak. Third set, the survivors rally and pull through, push back the villainous forces and have the hope of returning to normalcy, or close to it.
Making the block's narrative end with "monsters eat everyone, the end" is a dissatisfying story arc, is too much of a retread of the past two blocks, and doesn't make sense in the greater scheme, as the antagonists on Innistrad aren't a threat to the multiverse as a whole in the same way as the Eldrazi and Phyrexians. There was a purpose to leaving those villains in a position of power, to create a "rogues' gallery" of potential threats to reappear in the future. Innistrad's issues are local. What happens on the plane is highly unlikely to affect anything outside it on a scale larger than the personal experiences of individual planeswalkers. These villains don't serve any purpose by persisting beyond the story arc during which we see them.
Not to mention that we haven't actually seen Avacyn yet, or the "normal" state of the plane balanced between light and dark. We started with the dark side already having gained more ground, and Dark Ascension will push that even further. Ending the block with more darkness makes little sense, since there's nothing to contrast it to. We need to be able to see the good times for the bad times to have more weight to them, and vice versa.
I like it, I feel the dark ending is getting cliched in horror movies, glad magic isnt doing it.
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Where did it say that DFCs aren't going to be in Avacyn Restored? That means there won't be any werewolves in the set. That could lead to the conclusion that most of the 'monsters' won't make an appearance.
Last time it went large-small-large, it went "happy adventure land", "mana filled happy adventure land", "DEAD MANA ELDRAZI OVERRUN SAD DEFENSE LAND."
Note how all the mechanics in Zendikar-Worldwake were completely replaced in Rise. Morbid and Transform are going to disappear in Avacyn Restored to tell a bit of a different story.
"dark gothic scary land" into "darker gothic scary land" into "BRIGHT ALL-DAY HOLY LAND OF BEAUTIFULNESS" is my guess.
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You guys forgot another horror trope: "One Last Scare."
basically the story ends, and you think the surviving good guys are out of the woods, but then at the very end there's some dark reminder that the horror isn't necessarily over yet.
Think Carrie's hand reaching out of the grave to freak the heck out of Sue.
Is it possible that AVR might have that kind of twist?
You guys forgot another horror trope: "One Last Scare."
basically the story ends, and you think the surviving good guys are out of the woods, but then at the very end there's some dark reminder that the horror isn't necessarily over yet.
Think Carrie's hand reaching out of the grave to freak the heck out of Sue.
Is it possible that AVR might have that kind of twist?
Given the general tone of the set, it's entirely possible that Avacyn's rule isn't as benevolent as we've been led to expect. Life under Avacyn's leadership may simply be the lesser of two (three, four) evils. She could be a heavy-handed, totalitarian dictator for all we know. Her only motive for (Possibly) destroying the werewolves (the only tribe reliant on DFCs) maysimply be hatred.
Here's some baseless speculation:
Avacyn is the ast of the true archangels, who have been prgressively killed and destroyed over millenia by the vampires of Innistrad. This has engendered in her a deep hatred of the creatures, which has extended to the other non-human races over the years. Adopting the natural weakness of the vampires to the moon, along with the other creatures' affinity with the night, into her own church, she has created an army of templars and monster hunters, along with forcefully recruiting or killing any mages that are born on Innstrad.
While her crusade led to better lives for all humans, the remnants of the creatures destroyed, the mana of ambition and freedom she has worked so hard to expunge has led to the creation of her greatest foes. Demons, and their lesser spawn, devils, do more damage to the plane and people of Innistrad than any other menace Avacyn's Church has worked so hard to destroy. In an final, desperate effort to stem the tide, Avacyn herself enters into battle.
Unfortunately, the Church, and Avacyn herself, underestimated the power of the demonic hordes. As the Martyr Saints (eg. St Traft) destroy nests of demons and thier cults, others are born, maturing within the bowels of the earth. One day the Church launches a great assault, destroying many demons and thier followers. All is well for a time, until a new demon awakes; Griselbrand. Avacyn's equal in power, she has no choice but to fight him herself in an eternal battle for the souls of Innistrad. While she is so occupied, the boosted power she provided to the people's natural faith magic wanes, along with the wards powered from her own personal pool of power.
Then, one day, a woman enters the plane. Her name is Liliana Vess.
I take no responsibility for the truth of facts in the above passage. I stayed as close to what we know as possible, but if I fudged the details accidentally, I apologise. If that indeed is the truth, I claim full responsibility and dibs on the 'I told you so'
I personally just don't believe that it's going to be a cut-and-dry "Happy Ending" for Innistrad. For one, if the 2nd set is about the forces of darkness gaining even more power over Innistrad, and the humans of Innistrad desperately looking to the absent Avacyn for help, it pretty much kills all suspense to know that the 3rd set is called Avacyn Restored and have that be the end of things - it would be like naming the last Harry Potter book "Harry Kills Voldemort" and letting people know that name before the 6th book came out.
I think if the ending of this story was going to be "Avacyn comes back and all is well", they would have given a more cryptic name to the 3rd set, something like "Wrath of Angels" or "Light Reclaimed" or something like that. That would keep us guessing as to just HOW the good guys win in the end, does Avacyn come back? Do the Humans realize that they had the power within to overcome the darkness all along, and that their "faith magic" was not fueled by Avacyn after all?
But the fact that they gave us that very specific name "Avacyn Restored" practically BEGS the story to have a twist, otherwise they give the whole story away with the name of the 3rd set, before we've even read the 2nd chapter. For the sake of good storytelling, the name "Avacyn Restored" HAS to be misleading, since the name implies all-is-well, so the only way to make that interesting is to have that not truly be the case.
EDIT: And before someone says "what about New Phyrexia", that's exactly the reason why they had to keep the name New Phyrexia secret until after the 2nd chapter of the block's story had been told, so they didn't spoil the ending. I can't imagine that they went to such great lengths to protect the secret of the ending to Mirrodin's story, and then would give away the ending to Innistrad like it's no big deal.
You guys forgot another horror trope: "One Last Scare."
basically the story ends, and you think the surviving good guys are out of the woods, but then at the very end there's some dark reminder that the horror isn't necessarily over yet.
Think Carrie's hand reaching out of the grave to freak the heck out of Sue.
Is it possible that AVR might have that kind of twist?
A random brain fart got me thinking...
what if that recently announced picture of Avacyn is an Avacyn that was created out of something Vampire related?
I mean, within the course of the story it is revealed that Avacyn and Griselbrand gets killed or something and within the course of the story the Vampire elders (or maybe with Sorin?) realizes that without Avacyn to balance out the demons the Vampires are soon going to be overrun as the demons are spewed out by Innistrad's mana.
They use some vampire blood from an old vampire (maybe Sorin's "father", I read somewhere that the Vampires were created out of Avacyn's blood?) to make a pseudo Avacyn and that's why the Avacyn we see on the revealed art looks more gothic....
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Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
On the subject of twists: I'll bet that the twist will be that there is no twist.
Twists can only happen when they are unexpected. Because of Magic's history of downer endings, the expected ending for each set is, by default, an unhappy one (except Kamigawa, but no one seems to remember that). By "spoiling" the end, they've already expected that everyone will expect a twist and that Innistrad will have yet another downer ending. Ever since AVR's name was revealed, roughly 7 out of 10 posters said that something doesn't fit. A majority of people are expecting a twist, which is terrible: twists are supposed to be unforeseeable!
Thus, two justifiable "twists" are possible: 1) The ending is happy (something we completely don't expect to begin with) or 2) There is no twist (which is a twist in itself, because by expecting a twist you've basically guessed the ending, and that defeats the purpose of having a twist in the first place)
My brain hurts from meta-twisting.
Don't get me wrong. I don't know how this will end, and I'm with the camp that believes this will be a happy ending, but you have to admire how Wizards plays with our mind by purposely making us second guess (or third guess, even) something which was supposed to be "an obvious giveaway of the plot".
I participate yearly in a survival challenge in which I am dropped off in the wilderness with 1 days rations, a knife, and no other supplies, and have to find my way home. This is typically several weeks hiking from civilization.
I have personally killed several bears in the course of this challenge, with the use of snares and other traps.
Angels become the bad guys: No one expects the Angelic Inquisition/Purge! (Meaning, they come to clean house of EVERYTHING.)
I must admit that this was one of the thing that came into my mind when I saw the promo art. If that is Avacyn, she looks far more belligerent than your average expected angel of salvation.
On the other hand, angels gone batcrap crazy with purification? We had this in Magic already, with Serra's Realm and the lunatic archangel Radiant.
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Maybe it's more of a bitersweet ending thing. The monsters are gone, and the angels for the moment are benevolent, but hints that they might become tyrannical extremists are present.
Going to call this right here: the humans are what are the abnormality in Innistrad. The block is going to end on a "Humans are the true monsters" kind of thing.
Imagine the kind of evil any church could do if thier god came and helped "purge" those who were "evil". It is a genocide from the other side's view.
I imagine the werewolf tribe will either be gone or permanently transformed, due to no DFC.
Either that or this set will have a "end of days for Innistrad" feel. Avacyn vs "Liliana's Second Master".
I must admit that this was one of the thing that came into my mind when I saw the promo art. If that is Avacyn, she looks far more belligerent than your average expected angel of salvation.
On the other hand, angels gone batcrap crazy with purification? We had this in Magic already, with Serra's Realm and the lunatic archangel Radiant.
Oh Serra~! This theory is so twisted, I'm digging it. And what's funny is that we have all the ingredients for it to come true.
If this block was indeed inspired by Homelands as I read somewhere, what a twist in contrast with Homeland's ending.
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Is anything good ever going to happen in a Magic storyline ever again? The Phyrexians have overrun Mirrodin, the Eldrazi are coming to destroy Zendikar and the rest of existence, Bant is no more...
And you can't tell anything from the picture.
It is Innistrad after all. Maybe the Angels favor black. Who knows?
Making the block's narrative end with "monsters eat everyone, the end" is a dissatisfying story arc, is too much of a retread of the past two blocks, and doesn't make sense in the greater scheme, as the antagonists on Innistrad aren't a threat to the multiverse as a whole in the same way as the Eldrazi and Phyrexians. There was a purpose to leaving those villains in a position of power, to create a "rogues' gallery" of potential threats to reappear in the future. Innistrad's issues are local. What happens on the plane is highly unlikely to affect anything outside it on a scale larger than the personal experiences of individual planeswalkers. These villains don't serve any purpose by persisting beyond the story arc during which we see them.
Not to mention that we haven't actually seen Avacyn yet, or the "normal" state of the plane balanced between light and dark. We started with the dark side already having gained more ground, and Dark Ascension will push that even further. Ending the block with more darkness makes little sense, since there's nothing to contrast it to. We need to be able to see the good times for the bad times to have more weight to them, and vice versa.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
I think Avacyn will destroy the night in some fashion.
What really surprises me is the entire removal of DFCs. I could see this ending up in some kind of "humans are the greatest monsters" sort of ending.
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I seriously hope the way Avacyn looks is just to give her the image of a gothic, heavy metal angel getting ready to kick horror-monster behind. >w<
Last time it went large-small-large, it went "happy adventure land", "mana filled happy adventure land", "DEAD MANA ELDRAZI OVERRUN SAD DEFENSE LAND."
Note how all the mechanics in Zendikar-Worldwake were completely replaced in Rise. Morbid and Transform are going to disappear in Avacyn Restored to tell a bit of a different story.
"dark gothic scary land" into "darker gothic scary land" into "BRIGHT ALL-DAY HOLY LAND OF BEAUTIFULNESS" is my guess.
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basically the story ends, and you think the surviving good guys are out of the woods, but then at the very end there's some dark reminder that the horror isn't necessarily over yet.
Think Carrie's hand reaching out of the grave to freak the heck out of Sue.
Is it possible that AVR might have that kind of twist?
Click the pic for more info.
Given the general tone of the set, it's entirely possible that Avacyn's rule isn't as benevolent as we've been led to expect. Life under Avacyn's leadership may simply be the lesser of two (three, four) evils. She could be a heavy-handed, totalitarian dictator for all we know. Her only motive for (Possibly) destroying the werewolves (the only tribe reliant on DFCs) maysimply be hatred.
Here's some baseless speculation:
While her crusade led to better lives for all humans, the remnants of the creatures destroyed, the mana of ambition and freedom she has worked so hard to expunge has led to the creation of her greatest foes. Demons, and their lesser spawn, devils, do more damage to the plane and people of Innistrad than any other menace Avacyn's Church has worked so hard to destroy. In an final, desperate effort to stem the tide, Avacyn herself enters into battle.
Unfortunately, the Church, and Avacyn herself, underestimated the power of the demonic hordes. As the Martyr Saints (eg. St Traft) destroy nests of demons and thier cults, others are born, maturing within the bowels of the earth. One day the Church launches a great assault, destroying many demons and thier followers. All is well for a time, until a new demon awakes; Griselbrand. Avacyn's equal in power, she has no choice but to fight him herself in an eternal battle for the souls of Innistrad. While she is so occupied, the boosted power she provided to the people's natural faith magic wanes, along with the wards powered from her own personal pool of power.
Then, one day, a woman enters the plane. Her name is Liliana Vess.
I take no responsibility for the truth of facts in the above passage. I stayed as close to what we know as possible, but if I fudged the details accidentally, I apologise. If that indeed is the truth, I claim full responsibility and dibs on the 'I told you so'
Decks:GU Evolver, W Modern Knights
Apprentice of Spell Manipulation
Archester: Frontier of Steam
I think if the ending of this story was going to be "Avacyn comes back and all is well", they would have given a more cryptic name to the 3rd set, something like "Wrath of Angels" or "Light Reclaimed" or something like that. That would keep us guessing as to just HOW the good guys win in the end, does Avacyn come back? Do the Humans realize that they had the power within to overcome the darkness all along, and that their "faith magic" was not fueled by Avacyn after all?
But the fact that they gave us that very specific name "Avacyn Restored" practically BEGS the story to have a twist, otherwise they give the whole story away with the name of the 3rd set, before we've even read the 2nd chapter. For the sake of good storytelling, the name "Avacyn Restored" HAS to be misleading, since the name implies all-is-well, so the only way to make that interesting is to have that not truly be the case.
EDIT: And before someone says "what about New Phyrexia", that's exactly the reason why they had to keep the name New Phyrexia secret until after the 2nd chapter of the block's story had been told, so they didn't spoil the ending. I can't imagine that they went to such great lengths to protect the secret of the ending to Mirrodin's story, and then would give away the ending to Innistrad like it's no big deal.
The set itself has to convey the story.
B) Innistrad is clearly a self-contained story. Mirrodin and Zendikar are left on cliff hangers because they are meant to be sequeled later on.
I wish that the vampires, the werewolves, and other baddies are the ones that would be facing extinction, and the humans exacting glorious revenge.
I don't want to see another bad ending third straight in a row (fourth if you consider merged Alara as bad).
A random brain fart got me thinking...
I mean, within the course of the story it is revealed that Avacyn and Griselbrand gets killed or something and within the course of the story the Vampire elders (or maybe with Sorin?) realizes that without Avacyn to balance out the demons the Vampires are soon going to be overrun as the demons are spewed out by Innistrad's mana.
They use some vampire blood from an old vampire (maybe Sorin's "father", I read somewhere that the Vampires were created out of Avacyn's blood?) to make a pseudo Avacyn and that's why the Avacyn we see on the revealed art looks more gothic....
Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
Twists can only happen when they are unexpected. Because of Magic's history of downer endings, the expected ending for each set is, by default, an unhappy one (except Kamigawa, but no one seems to remember that). By "spoiling" the end, they've already expected that everyone will expect a twist and that Innistrad will have yet another downer ending. Ever since AVR's name was revealed, roughly 7 out of 10 posters said that something doesn't fit. A majority of people are expecting a twist, which is terrible: twists are supposed to be unforeseeable!
Thus, two justifiable "twists" are possible: 1) The ending is happy (something we completely don't expect to begin with) or 2) There is no twist (which is a twist in itself, because by expecting a twist you've basically guessed the ending, and that defeats the purpose of having a twist in the first place)
My brain hurts from meta-twisting.
Don't get me wrong. I don't know how this will end, and I'm with the camp that believes this will be a happy ending, but you have to admire how Wizards plays with our mind by purposely making us second guess (or third guess, even) something which was supposed to be "an obvious giveaway of the plot".
How well do you do against one?
Angels become the bad guys: No one expects the Angelic Inquisition/Purge! (Meaning, they come to clean house of EVERYTHING.)
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
I must admit that this was one of the thing that came into my mind when I saw the promo art. If that is Avacyn, she looks far more belligerent than your average expected angel of salvation.
On the other hand, angels gone batcrap crazy with purification? We had this in Magic already, with Serra's Realm and the lunatic archangel Radiant.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Imagine the kind of evil any church could do if thier god came and helped "purge" those who were "evil". It is a genocide from the other side's view.
I imagine the werewolf tribe will either be gone or permanently transformed, due to no DFC.
Either that or this set will have a "end of days for Innistrad" feel. Avacyn vs "Liliana's Second Master".
On Modern Masters 2:
Will be kept until 12/31/2013 to prove if Right or Wrong.Proven right 1/27/2013Oh Serra~! This theory is so twisted, I'm digging it. And what's funny is that we have all the ingredients for it to come true.
If this block was indeed inspired by Homelands as I read somewhere, what a twist in contrast with Homeland's ending.
Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast