Ob probably doesn't know that Nissa exists but could have harmed her anyway as a side affect. I think that what he's doing has something to do with the thing that he found underground. Any guesses to what it is anyway?
The Green Leyline of Zendikar? I don't think the Leylines Gideon got Jace to investigate are related to the Hedrons (I think that's another minor plot for Ugin and Sorin now). The Oath conveniently displays a planeswalker of each color except for the one Ob Nixilis is.
Given Nissa is likely to regain Ashaya later (meaning the Green Leyline can be restored in this case), it's possible the Leylines can be used as something against Ulamog (Imprison or Force Out). It's possible Ob Nixilis was only testing things out when he meddled with the Green Leyline but in reality needed the Black Leyline to restore his spark.
Nothing substantial until we get the actual story/details though. Gideon fighting and fighting and not sleeping is not helping plot progression though.
So you think ob found the green leyline of zendikar?
Finally a good story. Gideon's stories were getting too repetitive, and Nissa was just plain boring. Jace is starting to become more and more interesting to me, not sure if it is because I'm somehow blue-aligned and I like the way he thinks or because every story that he is in feels original. If I would have to bet, I would say that it is last option. Even a character that does not wield mind magic such as Gideon can be made interesting if done properly. One good example from the top of my head is Lord Henry Baltimore, the monster hunter created by Mike Mignola. Every story he is in is basically a tale of him slicing and shooting stuff, and yet they feel different and original everytime because of the setting.
We lack a proper setting for Gideon and Nissa, they (the creative team) just don't know what to do with them and keep repeating the same formula of fighting eldrazis again and again, while Jace at least has different missions, tasks, and solve his problems in a variety of ways.
One critic that I have to the story is that I feel that the worshippers of Ulamog were just shoehorned there to show a little bit of Jace's capabilities as a mind mage and illusionist. It would have been a lot better if they took this UR to develop a little bit the relationship between Jace, Jori En and the worshippers (without we knowing that they are worshippers) and in the next UR get the big reveal, maybe with a little more development as in the way Jace fought them. I think it was just too rushed, which is funny, given that they have plenty of time and are developing the plot at glacial speed. I liked to see Ulamog though, even for a short time.
While I think that all of Nissa's recent stories have been major lame-o (which is surprising because I enjoyed Kimberly Kreines's work on Tarkir), I actually enjoyed all of Gideon's stories with exception to the last one. I really think it has to do with the writer. Ari Levitch, for me, has proven himself to be a fantastic writer. He has taken Gideon, who has the potential to be a pretty bland archetype of a white character and developed some really great and emotional stories for him. Gideon's origin was my favorite by far. James Wyatt's take on Gideon and the slaughter at the refuge, though, was incredibly boring and repetitive for me. He even made Jace into a negative, pessimistic douche. Doug's portrayal of Jace was much more consistent with his history, most likely because Doug has been writing for Jace for years.
I liked this story, even if it was a bit short and didn't advance the plot that much. However, I do have a problem with the Eldrazi worshipers.
The Eldrazi don't use minions aside from their own spawn. These clerics not only worshiped the Eldrazi, but they are allied with them. Ulamog wouldn't differentiate between people running at him with swords and people following him. His mere presence should have annihilated them all.
This does, however, mean we might see Zendikari wielding a strange form of Eldrazi magic. If this happens, I will be uber-excited.
Also... how do they even know the Eye still exists? If the Eldrazi spawned around there, chances are it would have been one of the first landmarks to be destroyed, no?
I liked this story, even if it was a bit short and didn't advance the plot that much. However, I do have a problem with the Eldrazi worshipers.
The Eldrazi don't use minions aside from their own spawn. These clerics not only worshiped the Eldrazi, but they are allied with them. Ulamog wouldn't differentiate between people running at him with swords and people following him. His mere presence should have annihilated them all.
He wasn't close enough to annihilate them. They didn't exactly have help from the Eldrazi, it looks more like they were just being ignored by them as long as they kept finding other people to feed them.
The eldrazi probably don't even register those worshippers. They just consume whatever they can, which sometimes happens to be some helpless people chained to something.
And the worshippers interpret that as accepting their sacrifices.
I liked this story, even if it was a bit short and didn't advance the plot that much. However, I do have a problem with the Eldrazi worshipers.
The Eldrazi don't use minions aside from their own spawn. These clerics not only worshiped the Eldrazi, but they are allied with them. Ulamog wouldn't differentiate between people running at him with swords and people following him. His mere presence should have annihilated them all.
This does, however, mean we might see Zendikari wielding a strange form of Eldrazi magic. If this happens, I will be uber-excited.
Also... how do they even know the Eye still exists? If the Eldrazi spawned around there, chances are it would have been one of the first landmarks to be destroyed, no?
The Eldrazi did in fact at one time enslave the vampires.
I liked this story, even if it was a bit short and didn't advance the plot that much. However, I do have a problem with the Eldrazi worshipers.
The Eldrazi don't use minions aside from their own spawn. These clerics not only worshiped the Eldrazi, but they are allied with them. Ulamog wouldn't differentiate between people running at him with swords and people following him. His mere presence should have annihilated them all.
He wasn't close enough to annihilate them. They didn't exactly have help from the Eldrazi, it looks more like they were just being ignored by them as long as they kept finding other people to feed them.
That was exactly the problem. Ulamog wouldn't just ignore them, even if they offered him sacrifices. He would om nom nom them just the same.
That was exactly the problem. Ulamog wouldn't just ignore them, even if they offered him sacrifices. He would om nom nom them just the same.
The Eldrazi ignore basically everybody. Ulamog didn't "accept their sacrifices" or anything, he just never noticed their existence because a small cult is hardly the same as a city.
So you kind of have to think about the worshipers to understand them. I think there are two possibilities.
1) The worshipers are more like the elves and humans of Naya. They worship the great beasts basically from afar leaving a gift here and there.
2) Just because they're incomprehensible to us doesn't mean they don't understand us. It could be more like Galactus and the Silver Surfer. A sort of "you're useful I'll eat you last." sort of thing.
While the story was good, I do have one question; why can't Jace just Planeswalk to the Eye? He said he could 'walk back to Sea Gate and he has been to the Eye.
Neowalkers aren't precise with the landings, as the others have said they have to be really familiar with the location. He's been to Sea Gate multiple times (including way back after he left Akoum after helping open the Eye). He's only been to the Eye once, and he was only there for a short time.
Also, Plot!
I'm curious as to what they'll find in the Eye.
Additionally (and this is just me being fan-theory-ish), it's probably easier for him to connect with a place that produces blue mana (Like, say, a gate, by the sea) than a place that produces no mana at all.
Ob probably doesn't know that Nissa exists but could have harmed her anyway as a side affect. I think that what he's doing has something to do with the thing that he found underground. Any guesses to what it is anyway?
The Green Leyline of Zendikar? I don't think the Leylines Gideon got Jace to investigate are related to the Hedrons (I think that's another minor plot for Ugin and Sorin now). The Oath conveniently displays a planeswalker of each color except for the one Ob Nixilis is.
Given Nissa is likely to regain Ashaya later (meaning the Green Leyline can be restored in this case), it's possible the Leylines can be used as something against Ulamog (Imprison or Force Out). It's possible Ob Nixilis was only testing things out when he meddled with the Green Leyline but in reality needed the Black Leyline to restore his spark.
Nothing substantial until we get the actual story/details though. Gideon fighting and fighting and not sleeping is not helping plot progression though.
So you think ob found the green leyline of zendikar?
I think he just found a link related to the Green Leylines. I'm pretty sure those can't be found easily (and there are more of them) and Ob had a lot of free time on Zendikar to find one flower.
Perhaps that gives a direction to how the Eldrazi destroy planes - they "search out" (by that I mean sense than annihilate the area around it) these link/anchors, disrupting the flow of mana of the plane. OB was just a lot more precise about it, except he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing either, since he only cares about "I've got some power back".
I mean, why would the Eldrazi Titans bother with "scouting" with Spawn/Scions and Lesser Eldrazi instead of just annihilating the plane by moving about? They can annihilate lives and landscape around it, but the structure that keeps a plane up (and its mana flowing) might have needed more "precision". Ulamog took 2 years and considering Zendikar's hostility and constantly shifting landscapes, might have made it a harder task than any other plane. The smaller Eldrazi actually help speed up the process a lot faster. Few beings can even do what the Eldrazi are doing (pretty sure Ob only destroyed the lives on planes, but not the planes themselves and it took him forever to achieve what Ulamog might have done several times on the same plane over the two years).
It has some basis, but not enough information for confirmation. I wonder if Ugin knows this if it is true, though.
Perhaps that gives a direction to how the Eldrazi destroy planes - they "search out" (by that I mean sense than annihilate the area around it) these link/anchors, disrupting the flow of mana of the plane. OB was just a lot more precise about it, except he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing either, since he only cares about "I've got some power back".
This is a huge problem with the writing. We don't know what they're after, and we don't know why they do what they do, yet we're supposed to be invested enough in the story to be happy when the planeswalkers win. Look, there's a reason Galactus is humanoid and can talk. He's not meant to succeed, so by giving him people attributes, you can payoff stories with him. The reason Lovecraftian horrors are in incomprehensible shapes and have unfathomable motivations is because they're not meant to be fought.
If only Brian Tinsman and Brady Dommermuth were still around.
Perhaps that gives a direction to how the Eldrazi destroy planes - they "search out" (by that I mean sense than annihilate the area around it) these link/anchors, disrupting the flow of mana of the plane. OB was just a lot more precise about it, except he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing either, since he only cares about "I've got some power back".
This is a huge problem with the writing. We don't know what they're after, and we don't know why they do what they do, yet we're supposed to be invested enough in the story to be happy when the planeswalkers win. Look, there's a reason Galactus is humanoid and can talk. He's not meant to succeed, so by giving him people attributes, you can payoff stories with him. The reason Lovecraftian horrors are in incomprehensible shapes and have unfathomable motivations is because they're not meant to be fought.
If only Brian Tinsman and Brady Dommermuth were still around.
Well, I guess we're supposed to be happy that we saved a plane from forces beyond comprehension. It's not a matter of understanding the Eldrazi, it's being invested enough in Zendikar to cheer that we can defy the (lack of) logic of the Eldrazi threat without understanding it.
To be fair, all the fighting so far is against the Lesser Eldrazi. Only the Titans seem to be bestowed with the mystery of the lovecraftian horrors, anything lesser can use similar powers but assume the form of something that can be resisted. This isn't an army of Lovecraftian Horrors, it's one of them and its mystery creation of army of "shadows", which can be killed. If they were all as incomprehensible as Ulamog itself, Zendikar didn't even need the two years to be devoid of all life.
Lastly, the structure of a plane is not knowledge unique to the Eldrazi, it might have been possible for other powerful-enough beings to understand it as well. We can effectively learn and utilize it to prevent the destruction of the plane, but ultimately, we didn't fight off the Eldrazi or understood anything about them at all. For all we (don't) know, the Eldrazi have no idea what or how they're destroying planes either.
All because we don't understand how they work/think doesn't automatically equate to them knowing everything and more than us. Even things that can't be fought have weaknesses. Even things that don't have weaknesses can be stopped.
The Eldrazi are "merely" incomprehensible, they are not "Mary/Marty Stu".
This is a huge problem with the writing. We don't know what they're after, and we don't know why they do what they do, yet we're supposed to be invested enough in the story to be happy when the planeswalkers win.
The eldrazi are a "force of nature" in the sense that they don't have any agenda, they're just destroying everything because that's what they do. If you survived a volcano eruption or a tidal wave, you'd most likely be happy. And even if you're watching from afar, you can be happy about a bunch of people saving others from their certain deaths in a natural disaster. An entire plane's existence being endangered is probably enough to get people invested in the story. The Eldrazi having human traits would make them look a) silly and over-the-top (a stereotypical comic villain, essentially) or b) like a second Phyrexia.
So in a sense Eldrazi are GREEN aligned sicne they are motivated by instinct.
Eitherway i dobut Zendikar been saved will diminish the threat of the Eldrazi because theya aren't going to be destroyed but imprisioned, well in Ulamog's case3 msot likelly.
Also theya ren't lovecraftian horros, only inspired by them so they don't need to follow the same ideology or ruels as Lovecraft.They jsut need to be threatning and be the antagonists and i'm fine with it so far.
I'm really ashamed of my self as a Vorthos but I seemed to have missed this. But when did the other two titans leave Zendikar? Someone was telling me this a year ago but didn't have a source and now it seems to be true. Was there some uncharted realms or something?
I'm really ashamed of my self as a Vorthos but I seemed to have missed this. But when did the other two titans leave Zendikar? Someone was telling me this a year ago but didn't have a source and now it seems to be true. Was there some uncharted realms or something?
No. It's been basically speculative the whole time but over the weekend it was said that Ulamog was the only one on Zendikar. When Nissa released the seal that kept them bound to Zendikar the titans stuck around for a while then, at least as I understand it, Emrakul and Kozilek just kind of disappeared.
I'm really ashamed of my self as a Vorthos but I seemed to have missed this. But when did the other two titans leave Zendikar? Someone was telling me this a year ago but didn't have a source and now it seems to be true. Was there some uncharted realms or something?
No. It's been basically speculative the whole time but over the weekend it was said that Ulamog was the only one on Zendikar. When Nissa released the seal that kept them bound to Zendikar the titans stuck around for a while then, at least as I understand it, Emrakul and Kozilek just kind of disappeared.
Actually, the first mention of the other two titans leaving Zendikar was mentioned in last year's Checking In on the Planeswalkers in the blurb about Gideon's happenings.
Seeking allies to defeat the Eldrazi. In the two years since the voracious Eldrazi arose, Gideon has been on a mission to gather Planeswalkers to help stop them. Zendikar is not Gideon's home plane, but he knows the Eldrazi could threaten lives across many planes. He wants to take them head-on, and that means he'll need powerful compatriots at his side. The Eldrazi titans have made few appearances on Zendikar lately, and may actually have moved off into the Blind Eternities. But the brood lineages of Eldrazi spawn still threaten the plane, and Gideon intends to return as soon as he can.
I'm really ashamed of my self as a Vorthos but I seemed to have missed this. But when did the other two titans leave Zendikar? Someone was telling me this a year ago but didn't have a source and now it seems to be true. Was there some uncharted realms or something?
No. It's been basically speculative the whole time but over the weekend it was said that Ulamog was the only one on Zendikar. When Nissa released the seal that kept them bound to Zendikar the titans stuck around for a while then, at least as I understand it, Emrakul and Kozilek just kind of disappeared.
Wasn't it stated that he was the only one believed to be on Zendikar?
So you think ob found the green leyline of zendikar?
While I think that all of Nissa's recent stories have been major lame-o (which is surprising because I enjoyed Kimberly Kreines's work on Tarkir), I actually enjoyed all of Gideon's stories with exception to the last one. I really think it has to do with the writer. Ari Levitch, for me, has proven himself to be a fantastic writer. He has taken Gideon, who has the potential to be a pretty bland archetype of a white character and developed some really great and emotional stories for him. Gideon's origin was my favorite by far. James Wyatt's take on Gideon and the slaughter at the refuge, though, was incredibly boring and repetitive for me. He even made Jace into a negative, pessimistic douche. Doug's portrayal of Jace was much more consistent with his history, most likely because Doug has been writing for Jace for years.
I would have never caught. That's amazing! Continuing to use a crazy cleric character for crazy cult shenanigans.
The Eldrazi don't use minions aside from their own spawn. These clerics not only worshiped the Eldrazi, but they are allied with them. Ulamog wouldn't differentiate between people running at him with swords and people following him. His mere presence should have annihilated them all.
This does, however, mean we might see Zendikari wielding a strange form of Eldrazi magic. If this happens, I will be uber-excited.
Also... how do they even know the Eye still exists? If the Eldrazi spawned around there, chances are it would have been one of the first landmarks to be destroyed, no?
He wasn't close enough to annihilate them. They didn't exactly have help from the Eldrazi, it looks more like they were just being ignored by them as long as they kept finding other people to feed them.
And the worshippers interpret that as accepting their sacrifices.
The Eldrazi did in fact at one time enslave the vampires.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Ayli confirmed planeswalker. She appears in the flavour text of a Shadowmoor card. I guess now we know what happened to Nahiri.
The Eldrazi ignore basically everybody. Ulamog didn't "accept their sacrifices" or anything, he just never noticed their existence because a small cult is hardly the same as a city.
1) The worshipers are more like the elves and humans of Naya. They worship the great beasts basically from afar leaving a gift here and there.
2) Just because they're incomprehensible to us doesn't mean they don't understand us. It could be more like Galactus and the Silver Surfer. A sort of "you're useful I'll eat you last." sort of thing.
Additionally (and this is just me being fan-theory-ish), it's probably easier for him to connect with a place that produces blue mana (Like, say, a gate, by the sea) than a place that produces no mana at all.
I think he just found a link related to the Green Leylines. I'm pretty sure those can't be found easily (and there are more of them) and Ob had a lot of free time on Zendikar to find one flower.
Perhaps that gives a direction to how the Eldrazi destroy planes - they "search out" (by that I mean sense than annihilate the area around it) these link/anchors, disrupting the flow of mana of the plane. OB was just a lot more precise about it, except he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing either, since he only cares about "I've got some power back".
I mean, why would the Eldrazi Titans bother with "scouting" with Spawn/Scions and Lesser Eldrazi instead of just annihilating the plane by moving about? They can annihilate lives and landscape around it, but the structure that keeps a plane up (and its mana flowing) might have needed more "precision". Ulamog took 2 years and considering Zendikar's hostility and constantly shifting landscapes, might have made it a harder task than any other plane. The smaller Eldrazi actually help speed up the process a lot faster. Few beings can even do what the Eldrazi are doing (pretty sure Ob only destroyed the lives on planes, but not the planes themselves and it took him forever to achieve what Ulamog might have done several times on the same plane over the two years).
It has some basis, but not enough information for confirmation. I wonder if Ugin knows this if it is true, though.
This is a huge problem with the writing. We don't know what they're after, and we don't know why they do what they do, yet we're supposed to be invested enough in the story to be happy when the planeswalkers win. Look, there's a reason Galactus is humanoid and can talk. He's not meant to succeed, so by giving him people attributes, you can payoff stories with him. The reason Lovecraftian horrors are in incomprehensible shapes and have unfathomable motivations is because they're not meant to be fought.
If only Brian Tinsman and Brady Dommermuth were still around.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Well, I guess we're supposed to be happy that we saved a plane from forces beyond comprehension. It's not a matter of understanding the Eldrazi, it's being invested enough in Zendikar to cheer that we can defy the (lack of) logic of the Eldrazi threat without understanding it.
To be fair, all the fighting so far is against the Lesser Eldrazi. Only the Titans seem to be bestowed with the mystery of the lovecraftian horrors, anything lesser can use similar powers but assume the form of something that can be resisted. This isn't an army of Lovecraftian Horrors, it's one of them and its mystery creation of army of "shadows", which can be killed. If they were all as incomprehensible as Ulamog itself, Zendikar didn't even need the two years to be devoid of all life.
Lastly, the structure of a plane is not knowledge unique to the Eldrazi, it might have been possible for other powerful-enough beings to understand it as well. We can effectively learn and utilize it to prevent the destruction of the plane, but ultimately, we didn't fight off the Eldrazi or understood anything about them at all. For all we (don't) know, the Eldrazi have no idea what or how they're destroying planes either.
All because we don't understand how they work/think doesn't automatically equate to them knowing everything and more than us. Even things that can't be fought have weaknesses. Even things that don't have weaknesses can be stopped.
The Eldrazi are "merely" incomprehensible, they are not "Mary/Marty Stu".
EDIT: Fixed Wording Errors
The eldrazi are a "force of nature" in the sense that they don't have any agenda, they're just destroying everything because that's what they do. If you survived a volcano eruption or a tidal wave, you'd most likely be happy. And even if you're watching from afar, you can be happy about a bunch of people saving others from their certain deaths in a natural disaster. An entire plane's existence being endangered is probably enough to get people invested in the story. The Eldrazi having human traits would make them look a) silly and over-the-top (a stereotypical comic villain, essentially) or b) like a second Phyrexia.
Eitherway i dobut Zendikar been saved will diminish the threat of the Eldrazi because theya aren't going to be destroyed but imprisioned, well in Ulamog's case3 msot likelly.
Also theya ren't lovecraftian horros, only inspired by them so they don't need to follow the same ideology or ruels as Lovecraft.They jsut need to be threatning and be the antagonists and i'm fine with it so far.
Nicol Bolas, a balance of Vorthos and PowerUBR
Nath of the Gilt LeafBG
Others
Squee, Goblin of AwesomenessR
Nekusar, the Mindblazer!UBR
Vela the NightcladUB
I used to be a world champion, but then I took a wolf to the knee. And three Galvanic Blasts to the face.
Concerning when returning to Kamigawa would be acceptable
No. It's been basically speculative the whole time but over the weekend it was said that Ulamog was the only one on Zendikar. When Nissa released the seal that kept them bound to Zendikar the titans stuck around for a while then, at least as I understand it, Emrakul and Kozilek just kind of disappeared.
Actually, the first mention of the other two titans leaving Zendikar was mentioned in last year's Checking In on the Planeswalkers in the blurb about Gideon's happenings.
Wasn't it stated that he was the only one believed to be on Zendikar?
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control