Looks like the "heroes" hadn't quite comprehended that Liliana is well... a psychopathic mass murderer.
Which really shows how little they know her. Even Jace.
She's got an oldwalker's mind trapped in a neowalker's body - the only other PW we know like that is Bolas himself, and he's not exactly the most sane either. In point of fact, NONE of the oldwalkers were actually pictures of sanity, they were all more or less immortal gods that could do as they pleased without fear of death or consequences. Liliana, despite being intricately involved with death and undeath, is completely terrified of dying herself after what happened with her brother. She took out the demonic contract in the first place to prevent herself from dying. Truthfully, her key drive is control over herself. She refuses even death's control over her, she bristles at the control of the Raven Man and the Veil, and she is trying to regain her control over her soul from the demons she bartered it to.
I don't think she's a "Psychopathic Mass Murderer", I think she's terrified (albeit only inwardly) of the mistakes she's made in her past - her brother, the contract, the veil, etc - mistakes that she made to try and assert her control but only managed to control her, and she's now she's finally breaking free of them. Add to that the fact that remembers being an oldwalker and HAVING all that control and then losing it, and she becomes even more obsessive and fearful of losing more.
Lili's a sociopath with delusions of grandeur and a massive fear f death, sure, but not a psychopathic mass murderer.
Nahiri, Sorin, and Ugin are all oldwalkers...
To your point though, Nahiri and Sorin are both on the verge of insanity (for reasons not necessarily tied to just being an oldwalker).
Looks like the "heroes" hadn't quite comprehended that Liliana is well... a psychopathic mass murderer.
Which really shows how little they know her. Even Jace.
She's got an oldwalker's mind trapped in a neowalker's body - the only other PW we know like that is Bolas himself, and he's not exactly the most sane either. In point of fact, NONE of the oldwalkers were actually pictures of sanity.
Well there's also the original gatewatch. Nahiri who kills numerous vampires because of her grudge with Sorin an then summons Emrakul presumably to destroy the plane for good measure. Sorin who kills almost everyone he ever encounters except inexplicably Jace, and Ugin who the only things we know about him are that he's Bolas's enemy and that he helped seal the eldrazi so we assume he's good but really might be completely evil too cause we just don't actually know.
The fight was anticlimactic, consider how awesome Rak showed up in the previous story. I was expecting him to at least escape, and then if he's hunted down during/after Bola's fight it would be a lot more satisfying.
I got CHILLS from watching the Hour trailer. The three gods look mutated, horrible, and dear Hazoret, she's gonna die like her sister Bontu. Looks like there will be cards depicting their demises.
One Demon vs. Five Planeswalkers, who do you really think wins?
I like the way it played out. Demon owns Liliana, actually makes her lose control of her emotions. Then rest of the gatewatch attacks, gains upper hand on Demon. Liliana recovers and brutally kills Razaketh by animating all the animals and having them tear him apart. Definitely a gross and painful way to die.
Its good development- its the first time we've really seen all five of them work together well in tandem to bring down an enemy. And it also sets up for Bolas's return (and presumed complete victory over them). There won't be any excuses here- their powers work fine, as we just saw. They work together fine, as we just saw. So if Bolas does what we think Bolas is going to do, its more proof of how ungodly badass he is, not that the Gatewatch got somehow nerfed by the situation.
I do agree with this the more I think about it. Their encounter with Ob Nixilis showed 3 of them getting handled easily. Chandra jumps in and surprises Ob enough for them to escape. Add in a 5th walker via Liliana and this makes sense. Beyond that, they have now had time to learn how to use their powers in tandem. Against Ob their teamwork was still disjointed and he was able to pick them off.
This is the first time that the power of teamwork actually felt believable to me. It also makes me wonder about the strength of Razaketh in comparison to Ob Nixilis or vice versa. I would like to think Ob is much more powerful...
The thing about Razaketh's size does seem odd. In the art he is clearly massive. But then the part about him just knocking into Chandra doesn't add up. Something his size would seem to annihilate her if contact was made at speed. Then you have the scene of the crocodiles pulling him into the river. I thought that made him seem smaller than the art depicted as well. But, I suppose if you consider the size of this crocodile of the crossing or this scaled behemoth crocodile...perhaps it could make sense...
I feel like the fight shows they learned lessons from the last demon that 4 of the 5 fought, Jace stayed out of sight, Gideon was used as secret weapon while Chandra and Nissa were throwing haymakers. Lili shows her true face to the gatewatch, and they react in a very hypocritical way, they were going to kill the demon, how brutal it is matters very little. I mean they are on this plane to assassinate another walker.
Only issue I have with today's story is how Razaketh was built up. Stronger than RussellBrand and Kothoped, and and G-Brand was dueling a being in Avacyn that was pwning Jace and Tamiyo with relative ease. Nowhere did it feel like Raz was stronger than RussellBrand.
We don't have a sense of scale for power right now. Are the Gatewatch really powerful mages and warriors? Are they superheroes on the level of the Justice League or the Avengers? Are they gods? Something more than that?
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I'm almost positive that of the three images we got two of them are of the same Locust god. The scarab god looks like a beast! Interesting to note that the scarab and locust god don't seem to have the golden heads their 5 siblings do. Is it possible the gold mask heads were something added to the 5 gods by Bolas? (Or perhaps removed from the other 3 by Bolas).
I really enjoyed today's story (though I agree with everything that Razaketh went down a little easier than expected) beyond his control of Lili he didn't display any magical abilities and was more like a big beast than anything else. I suppose it's possible he is more about deal/ritual magic though. That would explain why he was powerful enough to control Lili and turn the Luxa to blood but has trouble spell-casting in the middle of a battle. At any rate, Razaketh certainly upped the ante for Lili's demons (admittedly Griselbrand and Kothophed set a low bar) and I think we should always have assumed they were saving the best for last. Meaning of Lili's demon loansharks Belzenlok should be the one who really sticks it to her.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I think we got the answer to what the other three gods are, in the Announcement trailer today.
So if we take the archenemy image and the trailer it seems like this:
left: scarab god
middle: scorpion god
right: locust god
I think that the middle and right are the same character. The middle has a distinctly locust/grasshopper head.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, two of the images I provided are indeed of the locust god, the second was meant as a reference to the archenemy picture, which I was referring to when I said from left to right.
The scorpion we saw on the archenemy picture is interestingly nowhere to be found in the trailer, or am I missing something?
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Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Silly of them to judge Liliana for overkill of a freaking demon.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, what exactly were they expecting? Maybe Jace will start to really understand that his gal pal is a horrifying mass-murdering villain. Sociopath, Psychopath -- finding the right label doesn't really matter as much as her actual behavior, and the fact that she truly enjoys murdering the crap out of anyone who gets in her way.
And I agree that her extremely inhuman moral outlook fits the pattern of the other ex-Oldwalkers we've met. None of them seem to have a healthy regard for the value of non-planeswalker life, even Ugin (who seems so committed to his cosmic/neutral perspective that he doesn't really care about what happens to people on Zendikar or Tarkir).
Structurally, I think this story is doing a great job setting up for the Bolas showdown. This shows them triumphing over a powerful foe through teamwork, but not without strains from their clashing personalities. It was very similar to the teamwork scenes as they fought the Eldrazi, though obviously on a smaller scale. The difference here, though, is that Razaketh was just a miniboss, and Bolas is in an entirely different tier. The buildup for this arc continues to be delicious.
I don't think its so much the overkill of Razaketh that disturbed the Gatewatch, but rather this is the first time they've gotten a full look at the true Liliana. The one that corrupted Garruk, tortured Thalia and her soldiers, and who knows how many other atrocities across the Multiverse in her lifetime. The one who's name is an anagram for "A Villainess" and her characterization description being simply "she's a *****." All they'd ever seen before is the anti-hero play-nice with the kids Liliana. Its probably pretty jarring to watch her powers being used in that dark, terrifying, disturbing way. And it probably leaves a thought in the back of each of their minds- what's Lili going to do when she kills her fourth demon and becomes free of her pact?
I don't think its so much the overkill of Razaketh that disturbed the Gatewatch, but rather this is the first time they've gotten a full look at the true Liliana. The one that corrupted Garruk, tortured Thalia and her soldiers, and who knows how many other atrocities across the Multiverse in her lifetime. The one who's name is an anagram for "A Villainess" and her characterization description being simply "she's a *****." All they'd ever seen before is the anti-hero play-nice with the kids Liliana. Its probably pretty jarring to watch her powers being used in that dark, terrifying, disturbing way. And it probably leaves a thought in the back of each of their minds- what's Lili going to do when she kills her fourth demon and becomes free of her pact?
I'd fully expect her to leave the gatewatch to pursue her own goals. Right now in her mind (even if they don't know) she struck a deal: she'll lend her power to their cause as long as they help her kill demons. Once that agreement is fulfilled, she'll need a reason to keep helping them, and its not going to be "defending the multiverse is just the right thing to do"
I think we got the answer to what the other three gods are, in the Announcement trailer today.
So if we take the archenemy image and the trailer it seems like this:
left: scarab god
middle: scorpion god
right: locust god
I think that the middle and right are the same character. The middle has a distinctly locust/grasshopper head.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, two of the images I provided are indeed of the locust god, the second was meant as a reference to the archenemy picture, which I was referring to when I said from left to right.
The scorpion we saw on the archenemy picture is interestingly nowhere to be found in the trailer, or am I missing something?
I was actually wondering if that was a frog head w/ a sarcophogus on it's back. That way we'd have a locust god for the plague of locusts, a frog god for the plage of frogs, and a scarab god for..idk, disease? I hadn't even thought of it being a scorpion tail. Definitely interested to see the third god now.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
The Hour of Devastation trailer is too... dark for my tastes. Like actually "dark" despite there being two suns. The massive amounts of bugs certainly don't help. I'm also not a fan of the god-killing. I'm not attached to Hazoret in any capacity but I'd rather not see that happening to her, whatever that may be. That creature type is used in too loose a fashion for my tastes.
But Bolas though. Can we have him do something amazing? That would be nice.
I hear what people are saying with Razaketh going down to easy, although I'm of a slightly different opinion. Normally I'd be more curious as to why the demon didn't not use magic in the battle (aside from Lili's contract), but I think there's actually a pretty solid explanation for it. Jace said in the middle of the fight that he had been trying to interrupt the contract's connection for the past ten minutes. That means that for the entire fight, Razaketh had to fight to keep control of Lili (albeit fighting to varying extents). Between that mental struggle, Chandra's fireballs and Nissa's elementals, it's now wonder that the guy couldn't focus on using other kinds of magic. Not to mention the near constant of surprise factor of planeswalker after planeswalker showing up. Seriously, first the guy gets blasted in the back of the head, then gets sucker punched by some elementals, then gets mentally assault by who know's what (Jace was invisible still), and to top it all off some indestructible beefslab just appears out of thin air waving a shiny whip thing. Even as smart and experienced as Razaketh may have been, that would put anyone off guard (okay, maybe not Bolas or Ugin, but still).
Seeing what happened to the other three gods it almost looks like Hazorets corruption was a favor compared to how the missing gods look. I wonder if they had different heads before since Nissa didn't mention anthropoids when she found out about the 8 gods.
I hear what people are saying with Razaketh going down to easy, although I'm of a slightly different opinion. Normally I'd be more curious as to why the demon didn't not use magic in the battle (aside from Lili's contract), but I think there's actually a pretty solid explanation for it. Jace said in the middle of the fight that he had been trying to interrupt the contract's connection for the past ten minutes. That means that for the entire fight, Razaketh had to fight to keep control of Lili (albeit fighting to varying extents). Between that mental struggle, Chandra's fireballs and Nissa's elementals, it's now wonder that the guy couldn't focus on using other kinds of magic. Not to mention the near constant of surprise factor of planeswalker after planeswalker showing up. Seriously, first the guy gets blasted in the back of the head, then gets sucker punched by some elementals, then gets mentally assault by who know's what (Jace was invisible still), and to top it all off some indestructible beefslab just appears out of thin air waving a shiny whip thing. Even as smart and experienced as Razaketh may have been, that would put anyone off guard (okay, maybe not Bolas or Ugin, but still).
My thoughts as well. He excepted Liliana who he already taken measures to stop and not 4 other fairly powerful walkers with abilities he doesn't fully know. Bolas is too powerful to be that overwhelmed though.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I feel like the fight shows they learned lessons from the last demon that 4 of the 5 fought, Jace stayed out of sight, Gideon was used as secret weapon while Chandra and Nissa were throwing haymakers. Lili shows her true face to the gatewatch, and they react in a very hypocritical way, they were going to kill the demon, how brutal it is matters very little. I mean they are on this plane to assassinate another walker.
Are they though? What threw them off wasn't Liliana performing the act of killing Razaketh; it was the nature of the act.
She literally relished in "eating" the demon alive, and would have possibly continued doing it if Jace didn't pull her back to earth, so to speak.
Despite what they thought of her before, what they saw here shook their perception of her in a possibly permanent way, Jace included (despite his history with her).
The problem with Razaketh's defeat wasn't how he was defeated but the fact that he was defeated already when he just got formally introduced. Was expecting more buildup from him like causing some mroe mayham during the Hour of Devastation. Im still fine with it, jsut expected him to last more. The problem is that he ended up as a side villain instead of a main one.
Also about Liliana. She can change and be less psycho. Rememnber during Karladash when she spared a group of soldiers. I really hope that she will change more and even after defeating the final demon she still have atachment to the group, afetr all they went through together.
Also about Liliana. She can change and be less psycho. Rememnber during Karladash when she spared a group of soldiers. I really hope that she will change more and even after defeating the final demon she still have atachment to the group, afetr all they went through together.
Eh, that was just because the tone they were going for in Kaladesh was like an 80's GI Joe cartoon, nobody really died. So they had to dial Lili back in ways that (to me) weren't very believable. I'm enjoying this revelation of her real personality to her supposed comrades.
The problem with Razaketh is the problem with all MTG stories. They crowd too much material in one story.
For example, Xenagos and Elspeth were enough, why add all this nonsense about the Nyxborn war? We didn't need a plane-wide war every time. Leave it to Elspeth vs. Xenagos and his crime against the natural order of the world.
Now here we are… and it's Nicol Bolas AND Razaketh. The latter was a sub-boss which robbed him. Because Bolas was the main villain, they did away with Razaketh right off the bat before Bolas's arrival. Why not give the third demon his own block, and make hunting him as a team the focus? It's just too crammed for no reason and characters get undermined that way.
Bolas and what he did to Amonkhet is a big deal. The devastating things to come are a major deal. So Razaketh was not left with any plot room.
That said, I imagine his death will be the only accomplishment for the GW here. He was the calm before the storm. We're relieved Lilliana has only one demon left, only to get blindsided by a massive failure by the GW. As much as I know they must eventually fail, it's sad to think Amonkhet will lose. I imagine if the plane ends, Razaketh's murder wouldn't even matter much because he was doomed anyhow. So even that may not be a victory. We'll see.
The problem with Razaketh is the problem with all MTG stories. They crowd too much material in one story.
Get used to it, the schedule is what it is, and it won't change. They need to compress a lot of story into a short amount of words. The way I look at it is that this is a comic book, not a novel. A new villain can be introduced, hyped up, and defeated in two comic books.
On a side note, it also explains the power inconsistency, we're used to it in comic books. Sometimes you want an epic intergalactic fight and the heroes need to be stronger to compete, other times you need minor villains like mole man or whatever to be relevant, so the heroes need to be weaker.
When a new mtg story is up, I always wonder "ok, which one is it this time, the gatewatch that got their asses kicked by Ob Nixilis, the gatewatch that destroyed two eldrazi titans, or something in the middle like when they struggled to kill the demon on Amonkhet?"
The problem with Razaketh is the problem with all MTG stories. They crowd too much material in one story.
Get used to it, the schedule is what it is, and it won't change. They need to compress a lot of story into a short amount of words. The way I look at it is that this is a comic book, not a novel. A new villain can be introduced, hyped up, and defeated in two comic books.
On a side note, it also explains the power inconsistency, we're used to it in comic books. Sometimes you want an epic intergalactic fight and the heroes need to be stronger to compete, other times you need minor villains like mole man or whatever to be relevant, so the heroes need to be weaker.
When a new mtg story is up, I always wonder "ok, which one is it this time, the gatewatch that got their asses kicked by Ob Nixilis, the gatewatch that destroyed two eldrazi titans, or something in the middle like when they struggled to kill the demon on Amonkhet?"
I'm thinking more of an episodic TV series, but yeah, same thing really for this purposes.
This dark, disturbing, death obsessed, gory story and plane are exactly what we need before we get pirates on dinosaurs and the return to classic fantasy.
I couldn't be happier
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Nahiri, Sorin, and Ugin are all oldwalkers...
To your point though, Nahiri and Sorin are both on the verge of insanity (for reasons not necessarily tied to just being an oldwalker).
Ugin and Bolas still seemed quite well composed.
Well there's also the original gatewatch. Nahiri who kills numerous vampires because of her grudge with Sorin an then summons Emrakul presumably to destroy the plane for good measure. Sorin who kills almost everyone he ever encounters except inexplicably Jace, and Ugin who the only things we know about him are that he's Bolas's enemy and that he helped seal the eldrazi so we assume he's good but really might be completely evil too cause we just don't actually know.
I got CHILLS from watching the Hour trailer. The three gods look mutated, horrible, and dear Hazoret, she's gonna die like her sister Bontu. Looks like there will be cards depicting their demises.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
I do agree with this the more I think about it. Their encounter with Ob Nixilis showed 3 of them getting handled easily. Chandra jumps in and surprises Ob enough for them to escape. Add in a 5th walker via Liliana and this makes sense. Beyond that, they have now had time to learn how to use their powers in tandem. Against Ob their teamwork was still disjointed and he was able to pick them off.
This is the first time that the power of teamwork actually felt believable to me. It also makes me wonder about the strength of Razaketh in comparison to Ob Nixilis or vice versa. I would like to think Ob is much more powerful...
The thing about Razaketh's size does seem odd. In the art he is clearly massive. But then the part about him just knocking into Chandra doesn't add up. Something his size would seem to annihilate her if contact was made at speed. Then you have the scene of the crocodiles pulling him into the river. I thought that made him seem smaller than the art depicted as well. But, I suppose if you consider the size of this crocodile of the crossing or this scaled behemoth crocodile...perhaps it could make sense...
I think that the middle and right are the same character. The middle has a distinctly locust/grasshopper head.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
We don't have a sense of scale for power right now. Are the Gatewatch really powerful mages and warriors? Are they superheroes on the level of the Justice League or the Avengers? Are they gods? Something more than that?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I really enjoyed today's story (though I agree with everything that Razaketh went down a little easier than expected) beyond his control of Lili he didn't display any magical abilities and was more like a big beast than anything else. I suppose it's possible he is more about deal/ritual magic though. That would explain why he was powerful enough to control Lili and turn the Luxa to blood but has trouble spell-casting in the middle of a battle. At any rate, Razaketh certainly upped the ante for Lili's demons (admittedly Griselbrand and Kothophed set a low bar) and I think we should always have assumed they were saving the best for last. Meaning of Lili's demon loansharks Belzenlok should be the one who really sticks it to her.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
Sorry for the misunderstanding, two of the images I provided are indeed of the locust god, the second was meant as a reference to the archenemy picture, which I was referring to when I said from left to right.
The scorpion we saw on the archenemy picture is interestingly nowhere to be found in the trailer, or am I missing something?
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, what exactly were they expecting? Maybe Jace will start to really understand that his gal pal is a horrifying mass-murdering villain. Sociopath, Psychopath -- finding the right label doesn't really matter as much as her actual behavior, and the fact that she truly enjoys murdering the crap out of anyone who gets in her way.
And I agree that her extremely inhuman moral outlook fits the pattern of the other ex-Oldwalkers we've met. None of them seem to have a healthy regard for the value of non-planeswalker life, even Ugin (who seems so committed to his cosmic/neutral perspective that he doesn't really care about what happens to people on Zendikar or Tarkir).
Structurally, I think this story is doing a great job setting up for the Bolas showdown. This shows them triumphing over a powerful foe through teamwork, but not without strains from their clashing personalities. It was very similar to the teamwork scenes as they fought the Eldrazi, though obviously on a smaller scale. The difference here, though, is that Razaketh was just a miniboss, and Bolas is in an entirely different tier. The buildup for this arc continues to be delicious.
I'd fully expect her to leave the gatewatch to pursue her own goals. Right now in her mind (even if they don't know) she struck a deal: she'll lend her power to their cause as long as they help her kill demons. Once that agreement is fulfilled, she'll need a reason to keep helping them, and its not going to be "defending the multiverse is just the right thing to do"
I was actually wondering if that was a frog head w/ a sarcophogus on it's back. That way we'd have a locust god for the plague of locusts, a frog god for the plage of frogs, and a scarab god for..idk, disease? I hadn't even thought of it being a scorpion tail. Definitely interested to see the third god now.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
But Bolas though. Can we have him do something amazing? That would be nice.
"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
My thoughts as well. He excepted Liliana who he already taken measures to stop and not 4 other fairly powerful walkers with abilities he doesn't fully know. Bolas is too powerful to be that overwhelmed though.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Are they though? What threw them off wasn't Liliana performing the act of killing Razaketh; it was the nature of the act.
She literally relished in "eating" the demon alive, and would have possibly continued doing it if Jace didn't pull her back to earth, so to speak.
Despite what they thought of her before, what they saw here shook their perception of her in a possibly permanent way, Jace included (despite his history with her).
Also about Liliana. She can change and be less psycho. Rememnber during Karladash when she spared a group of soldiers. I really hope that she will change more and even after defeating the final demon she still have atachment to the group, afetr all they went through together.
Eh, that was just because the tone they were going for in Kaladesh was like an 80's GI Joe cartoon, nobody really died. So they had to dial Lili back in ways that (to me) weren't very believable. I'm enjoying this revelation of her real personality to her supposed comrades.
The problem with Razaketh is the problem with all MTG stories. They crowd too much material in one story.
For example, Xenagos and Elspeth were enough, why add all this nonsense about the Nyxborn war? We didn't need a plane-wide war every time. Leave it to Elspeth vs. Xenagos and his crime against the natural order of the world.
Now here we are… and it's Nicol Bolas AND Razaketh. The latter was a sub-boss which robbed him. Because Bolas was the main villain, they did away with Razaketh right off the bat before Bolas's arrival. Why not give the third demon his own block, and make hunting him as a team the focus? It's just too crammed for no reason and characters get undermined that way.
Bolas and what he did to Amonkhet is a big deal. The devastating things to come are a major deal. So Razaketh was not left with any plot room.
That said, I imagine his death will be the only accomplishment for the GW here. He was the calm before the storm. We're relieved Lilliana has only one demon left, only to get blindsided by a massive failure by the GW. As much as I know they must eventually fail, it's sad to think Amonkhet will lose. I imagine if the plane ends, Razaketh's murder wouldn't even matter much because he was doomed anyhow. So even that may not be a victory. We'll see.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Get used to it, the schedule is what it is, and it won't change. They need to compress a lot of story into a short amount of words. The way I look at it is that this is a comic book, not a novel. A new villain can be introduced, hyped up, and defeated in two comic books.
On a side note, it also explains the power inconsistency, we're used to it in comic books. Sometimes you want an epic intergalactic fight and the heroes need to be stronger to compete, other times you need minor villains like mole man or whatever to be relevant, so the heroes need to be weaker.
When a new mtg story is up, I always wonder "ok, which one is it this time, the gatewatch that got their asses kicked by Ob Nixilis, the gatewatch that destroyed two eldrazi titans, or something in the middle like when they struggled to kill the demon on Amonkhet?"
I'm thinking more of an episodic TV series, but yeah, same thing really for this purposes.
I couldn't be happier