Jace's upcoming appearance on Dominaria is now confirmed. along with Karn, Jaya and Ajani and probably Lili, that gives us 5 walkers we can expect to see there.
Well Jace has been on Ixalan for a month or so, the story of Dominaria might run parallel to that time with Jace only showing up at the end.
the big question this brings up is whether Ugin tried to contact Azor in any way after his resurrection. (i guess the obvious answer is no). Ugin's first concern were Nahiri and the Eldrazi when he awoke. Why wouldn't he be as concerned with his now stranded ally and their plan to subdue THE GUY THAT JUST BEAT HIM WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE?
Well a few issues come to mind, Ugin maybe unable to now speak between planes post mending, he being unable to go to Ixalan without being trap and the very real possibility Bolas had already in some form killed or got rid of Azor or even Azor dying he was mortal.
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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"
Anybody else feel like Bolas' end game is a bit underwhelming?
Also, how do the Eldrazi fit into that end game?
I had assumed that the end game was getting his former power back. In the Amonkhet block he goes on about putting his plan in motion, to devour worlds to get his power back. Why is Ravnica important to that goal?
My question is; what does Ugin have that he thinks can kill Bolas? The story made it sound like an object, not a spell or anything immaterial, and did Bolas find out about it/steal it when he killed Ugin and picked his brain for Intel?
Anybody else feel like Bolas' end game is a bit underwhelming?
Also, how do the Eldrazi fit into that end game?
I had assumed that the end game was getting his former power back. In the Amonkhet block he goes on about putting his plan in motion, to devour worlds to get his power back. Why is Ravnica important to that goal?
The releasing of Eldrazi was only a test, if there are planeswalkers able to join and work together. The test was positive. Check.
Second stage: destroy that threat. Check.
End game: find a world worthy of my magnificence to rule: Ravnica. (I suppose Dominaria has now a bitter flavor for Nicol Bolas.)
- The original Tarkir story mentioned Bolas saying something to Ugin, Ugin looking dismayed, and Bolas laughing. Now we know what Bolas said.
- Ravnica makes sense as the elaborate plan for Bolas, since its probably the most populous and defensible plane in the known multiverse atm. He'd have to do some serious planning instead of just walking in and taking over like he does on most workds.
- So Jace is going to Niv-Mizzet. Who's right hand man is Ral Zarek. Who hates Jace and is working for Bolas. Uh. Oh.
- Speaking of which... Bolas is probably aware of Niv-Mizzet already considering Ral Zarek works for him. At the end of the Hour of Devastation story, Bolas was annoyed that Ral was taking too long to do something. Is killing/corrupting Mizzet that "something"?
- Jace realizing he's gotta truly be on Ravnica more and taking his role of Guildpact is a nice development too.
- I really really hope they don't try to make a tragic twist with Vraska's memories. Don't go too Game of Thrones on us, Wizards!
He was completely unperturbed by the idea of sacrificing his spark to achieve a vaguely conceptualised ‘good’. When that failed, he immediately set about creating law on Ixalan, not because there genuinely was a problem to solve, but because it would satisfy his own ego.
From the way he treated the people on the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane as a conscriptable welcome party he could muster and disperse at a whim, it is clear his actions are motivated more by a desire to BE a a source of ‘good’ than any actual concern for his ‘subjects’. Previous worlds like Ravnica and the plane with the one-handed elf may have been spared the worst because the laws there solved actual problems, others like the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane were purely ego projects with inevitably disastrous consequences.
Could Azor be gradually descending into senility even before Ixalan? It would explain his deteriorating work.
Also, Azor's opinion upon meeting Ugin isn't very rosy. calling him a friend seemed a bit tongue in cheek. Wondering if most MTG Vorthoses looking at Ugin as the "good" answer to Bolas might be a bit skewed?
There has been a distinct anti-oldwalker bias in Creative over the past couple of years. I suspect it's part of Wizards' drive to convince players (especially older ones) that neowalkers are better because they're nicer people or something.
Anyhow, great story, I can't wait to see that conversation between Niv-Mizzet and Jace. I wonder how Bolas-pawn Ral Zarek will factor into that?
While the story overall is pretty nice, I do have some concerns:
Bolas is the known most powerful cunning enemy... Ugin and Azor are smart powerful planeswalkers... but Ugin and Azor plot their plan in a place where a simple human can hide and hear their plotting?
I kinda expected a much bigger end-game. My thoughts were that Bolaas wanted to trap each and every PW and rule the whole multi-verse alone.
Were the Eldrazi the tool Ugin planned on using against Bolas? That would explain his reluctance to get rid of them. Trap bolas on a plane, let the Eldrazi lose on it.
Anybody else feel like Bolas' end game is a bit underwhelming?
Also, how do the Eldrazi fit into that end game?
I had assumed that the end game was getting his former power back. In the Amonkhet block he goes on about putting his plan in motion, to devour worlds to get his power back. Why is Ravnica important to that goal?
Ravnica is a major centralized plane with advanced infrastructure, technology, and society, that might have even replaced Dominaria as THE plane in the multiverse (thanks to Dominaria's approximately fifty apocalypses. Taking that could be a key component to the overall plan.
Also, best I can understand, the Eldrazi were a test, somewhat. Bolas assumed a group of Walkers would come to confront them, and he could observe how they worked against a major, but largely mindless threat. I also think Bolas probably derives some sort of pleasure out of undoing Ugin's works.
Well a few issues come to mind, Ugin maybe unable to now speak between planes post mending, he being unable to go to Ixalan without being trap and the very real possibility Bolas had already in some form killed or got rid of Azor or even Azor dying he was mortal.
When Ugin woke, the first person he saw was Sorin and his news that the Eldrazi was free. It would only be fair to consider the Eldrazi an even bigger threat than even Nicol Bolas.
At any rate, to save Azor Ugin would have to relocate Bolas, inform Azor telepathically Bolas’ new location, then defeat an enemy that NEARLY KILLED HIM. At this point, there really wasn’t a lot of options as far as Azor was concerned.
He was completely unperturbed by the idea of sacrificing his spark to achieve a vaguely conceptualised ‘good’. When that failed, he immediately set about creating law on Ixalan, not because there genuinely was a problem to solve, but because it would satisfy his own ego.
From the way he treated the people on the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane as a conscriptable welcome party he could muster and disperse at a whim, it is clear his actions are motivated more by a desire to BE a a source of ‘good’ than any actual concern for his ‘subjects’. Previous worlds like Ravnica and the plane with the one-handed elf may have been spared the worst because the laws there solved actual problems, others like the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane were purely ego projects with inevitably disastrous consequences.
Could Azor be gradually descending into senility even before Ixalan? It would explain his deteriorating work.
I don't think it's fair to call it senile, because tha'ts assuming sphinx's minds operate like ours. Sphinx's by nature are more grandiose, sociopathic, and fanatically ideological. Azor's the ultimate deist. Here, I'll set it up, but you have to figure it out, and if you fail, its your own fault. The biggest flaw he has is he refuses to admit that a system of law that doesn't take the imperfect nature of its subjects into account isn't perfect.
Another hidden gem in the text that Wizards is so good at working in.
The statue, large in its own right, had been installed (rather too ostentatiously in Bolas's view) atop the largest building in the city—an official-looking marble hall that towered over the plaza.
If the guy who put his curved horn motif over every square inch of Amonkhet including GIANT VERSIONS OF IT TOWERING OVER THE WHOLE PLANE thinks something's ostentatious, I'm probably gonna believe it.
While the story overall is pretty nice, I do have some concerns:
Bolas is the known most powerful cunning enemy... Ugin and Azor are smart powerful planeswalkers... but Ugin and Azor plot their plan in a place where a simple human can hide and hear their plotting?
I kinda expected a much bigger end-game. My thoughts were that Bolaas wanted to trap each and every PW and rule the whole multi-verse alone.
Were the Eldrazi the tool Ugin planned on using against Bolas? That would explain his reluctance to get rid of them. Trap bolas on a plane, let the Eldrazi lose on it.
1. Agreed - that was a weak bit of plot contrivance, although it led to a very funny visual
2. My guess is that an invasion of Ravnica is only the end of Phase 1. On a related note, does anyone else think that conquering Ravnica with an army of Eternals is entirely unreasonable? We don't know the size of either the Eternal army or Ravnica's population, but I can't imagine the Eternal army numbers anything more than a few tens of thousands, while Ravnica very likely has a population in the millions or even billions (depending upon the size). The Boros Legion alone could conceivably have more members than Bolas's Eternal Army.
3. I doubt that was the endgame, but based on Azor's belief that he could regain his spark later, trapping Bolas may only have been the first step in Ugin's plan. (Or Ugin was misleading Azor...)
Unsure what to think about this lates article. There was cringe-worthy writing in the beginning that appeared pretty simplistic but it got better towards the end. We now know for sure that a third Ravnica set is in the works and it will include The Immortal Sun, Nicol Bolas, Amonkhet Eternals and the Gatewatch teaming up with Niv-mizzet at the very least.
Oh, and Dominaria is already looking like it will have a major “The Council of Elrond/Rivendell” plot complete with gathering allies and heroic scheming.
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
I just thought of one possible endgame on Ravnica. Its probably very absurd and hilariously unlikely. I doubt Jace has considered it yet if at all, but if events led this way, it'd be funny, and I'd definitely be pitching it if I was in Wizards creative.
If one or more guild leaders are destroyed on Ravnica (say for example, Niv-Mizzet in a big dragon fight, leaving a void in Izzet leadership) and if they could somehow trick Nicol Bolas into agreeing to take over as guild leader without understanding what that might mean for him, then perhaps the ancient powerful law magic of the guildpact could bind Nicol Bolas into doing things he doesn't want to do for the greater good of the city, like giving up control of his undead army over to all of the guild leaders combined for the common defense of Ravnica, handing the immortal sun over to the living guildpact, etc. Oh and perhaps Bolas's time could be occupied (wasted) by being commanded to watch over every little problem and issue that arises in his new guild, etc. "But Bolas is Grixis!" Maybe not anymore, if the Ravnican law magic suppresses Bolas' selfish desires.
It also wouldn't get rid of Bolas as an enemy, it would just stick him into a "in case of story emergency, break open glass" case next to Emrakul. Years down the road, if we need Bolas to run amok again, then we just need something to go wrong with the law magic, or Nicol Bolas to figure a way out of being a guild leader, then he can peace out back to his meditation plane to plan his next 1,000 year convoluted scheme for interplanar domination.
Oh man. Vraska is so dead. Don't agree to a date after the apocalypse is averted. That's a foolproof way to get yourself killed part of the way through.
"A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness."
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
2. My guess is that an invasion of Ravnica is only the end of Phase 1. On a related note, does anyone else think that conquering Ravnica with an army of Eternals is entirely unreasonable? We don't know the size of either the Eternal army or Ravnica's population, but I can't imagine the Eternal army numbers anything more than a few tens of thousands, while Ravnica very likely has a population in the millions or even billions (depending upon the size). The Boros Legion alone could conceivably have more members than Bolas's Eternal Army.
Who says the goal is to conquer? My guess would be that there is something on/in Ravnica that he wants. Remember Nissa's vision that seems to appears to related to this impending invasion:
A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness.
Perhaps he intends to use the sun to unlock what keeps said something sealed. Or it could mean that he wants to destroy Ravnica altogether.
Wait a minute... Mark Rosewater has claimed multiple times on Blogatog that the Nephilim weren't meant to be unique creatures. Could Bolas intend to release more of them. Maybe even make them into eternals given this Vision of Nissa's:
She closed her eyes against the onslaught, but still the images came tumbling through her head, crumpling her in mid-air. A falling dragon. Giants, covered in metallic blue, stomping through streets. A massive flash of light, consuming a world.
The falling dragon could be Niv Mizzet or Bolas (probably Niv), the metallic blue giants could be eternalized Nephilim (they absorb what they eat, so eating eternals might eternalize them), and the flash of light consuming the world could be the introduction of the Immortal Sun and its planeswalker binding effect to Ravnica.
If that's the case, then maybe the vision in between these two visions also refers to Ravnica:
The scenes shifted faster now, barely even an image forming before being replaced. A fizzling torch (Gruul?). A broken clock with a clean face. A mummified head facing backward atop a mummified body. A split tree, its sap oozing into the ground (Selesnya?). A shattered shield, its shiny metallic pieces torn and scattered.
Maybe even the one that begins this whole sequence:
She saw a young man, his face erased, stumbling among a garden of statues (Jace's memory flood? specifically when he remembers his first meeting with Vraska). High above the man a growing cloud of dusk attacked the sun (Vona taking the Sun?). From somewhere outside the garden there was a mighty roar (the elder dinos awakening?).
Any thoughts?
Also, I feel obligated to mention how Huatli only felt 5 heartbeats when she sensed the elder dinosaurs. Where is number 6 (probably Zacama)?
[...]
In "The Hand That Moves" from Amonkhet
[...]
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
That's an important catch, given what we now know. It makes sense that if Nicol Bolas wants to dominate Ravnica, he'll have to destroy the Guildpact. I doubt that dominating a single plane, albeit an important one, is the end of Bolas' plans though. My understanding is that early drafts of the RtR storyline had Ravnica become the new centre of the Multiverse. As others have speculated, what if they were saving that story beat for later? Ruling the literal centre of everything? Now that's a goal worthy of Nicol Bolas.
On a meta level, Wizards clearly wants to pass the torch of Magic's main plane from Dominaria to Ravnica. If Bolas destroys the Guildpact, then Ravnica becomes the perfect blank lore-canvas. They get to keep the diverse, developed, (and popular) urban setting, but they rid themselves of the restrictions that every character and story needs a basis in the guild system. They also get to have the climax of their current story happen on a plane that both recent and long-enfranchised players care about, and where their flagship characters are based. It's marketing genius, and it makes me frankly excited for the future of the story.
Also, Azor's opinion upon meeting Ugin isn't very rosy. calling him a friend seemed a bit tongue in cheek. Wondering if most MTG Vorthoses looking at Ugin as the "good" answer to Bolas might be a bit skewed?
There has been a distinct anti-oldwalker bias in Creative over the past couple of years. I suspect it's part of Wizards' drive to convince players (especially older ones) that neowalkers are better because they're nicer people or something.
Well, not all oldwalkers. Jaya, Karn, and Teferi are/were oldwalkers, right? Then again, compared to the likes of Ugin and Azor, they're pretty young still. So maybe it's a bias against the unfathomably ancient.
But I don't think Ugin's actions have ever been good--or evil. As I said before, he's so concerned about the gestalt Multiverse that the fates of individual entities--or individual planes--just can't matter to him as long as they're not part of a trend.
Which admittedly brings up an interesting contrast. Ugin is portrayed as being unable to see the trees for the forest...but perhaps Creative, with their human constraints, have difficulties seeing the forest for the trees?
Also, Azor's opinion upon meeting Ugin isn't very rosy. calling him a friend seemed a bit tongue in cheek. Wondering if most MTG Vorthoses looking at Ugin as the "good" answer to Bolas might be a bit skewed?
There has been a distinct anti-oldwalker bias in Creative over the past couple of years. I suspect it's part of Wizards' drive to convince players (especially older ones) that neowalkers are better because they're nicer people or something.
Well, not all oldwalkers. Jaya, Karn, and Teferi are/were oldwalkers, right? Then again, compared to the likes of Ugin and Azor, they're pretty young still. So maybe it's a bias against the unfathomably ancient.
But I don't think Ugin's actions have ever been good--or evil. As I said before, he's so concerned about the gestalt Multiverse that the fates of individual entities--or individual planes--just can't matter to him as long as they're not part of a trend.
Which admittedly brings up an interesting contrast. Ugin is portrayed as being unable to see the trees for the forest...but perhaps Creative, with their human constraints, have difficulties seeing the forest for the trees?
We have no idea what Jaya was like as a Planeswalker. We got one glimpse of her right after she ascended. Although Jodah did say she was extremely reckless, which doesn't bode well with Tamiyo's "We don't know how big our feet are" analogy. Times a billion since Tamiyo doesn't have a clue what it was like BEFORE the mending.
Teferi, however, had his moments of jerkery. A few in Mirage, plus, I mean, phasing out HIS homeland during the Invasion, which would have created tsunamis that affected the rest of the world. To be fair, I wouldn't have been keen to work with Urza either, but still, the guy caused catastrophies on a whim out of fairly tribalist desires. He was better in the Time Spiral block, but that's largely because Jhoira is a very, VERY effective morality pet.
Karn created his own metallic world on a whim and essentially kidnapped sapient races from other worlds to it to inhabit it.
They weren't nearly as bad as Azor was, but all three still had their moments.
[...]
In "The Hand That Moves" from Amonkhet
[...]
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
That's an important catch, given what we now know. It makes sense that if Nicol Bolas wants to dominate Ravnica, he'll have to destroy the Guildpact. I doubt that dominating a single plane, albeit an important one, is the end of Bolas' plans though. My understanding is that early drafts of the RtR storyline had Ravnica become the new centre of the Multiverse. As others have speculated, what if they were saving that story beat for later? Ruling the literal centre of everything? Now that's a goal worthy of Nicol Bolas.
On a meta level, Wizards clearly wants to pass the torch of Magic's main plane from Dominaria to Ravnica. If Bolas destroys the Guildpact, then Ravnica becomes the perfect blank lore-canvas. They get to keep the diverse, developed, (and popular) urban setting, but they rid themselves of the restrictions that every character and story needs a basis in the guild system. They also get to have the climax of their current story happen on a plane that both recent and long-enfranchised players care about, and where their flagship characters are based. It's marketing genius, and it makes me frankly excited for the future of the story.
I somehow doubt the guilds, in that scenario, would be abolished outright; they just wouldn't have their hieromantic (hierourgic?) basis. If they want to stick around (and they probably will...not to mention that the fanbase too will want them around in some fashion), they'll need to start treating the Gateless more amiably.
An interesting thought occurs to me, by the way--could shabby treatment of the Gateless have been in some way a direct result of Azor's original Guildpact? Azor seems more interested in creating rules-monuments to himself than in sustaining decent life, after all. Maybe he expected all of Ravnica to eventually be guilded.
I will confess that I had thoughts that Ravnica would ultimately undergo some sort of plane-shift and become a (still-habitable) moon of Dominaria. Maybe this won't be the case, but I'd still like to see the other multicolor stars, Alara and Tarkir, get some upcoming prominence. (Granted there's the problem of how to restore the khanates, since only the dragonlords, Vol, and Narset seem to know of them--and most of those have an investment of some sort in keeping the broods around.)
Karn created his own metallic world on a whim and essentially kidnapped sapient races from other worlds to it to inhabit it.
Karn created Argentum, but it was Memnarch that kidnapped the races and renamed it to Mirrodin.
Also, I loved this story. I liked that we saw glimpses of the impact Azor had had on his other "patron planes". I liked that they explained how Bolas found out about what Azor and Ugin were planning and why he went to Tarkir. I liked that they explained in great detail why Jace is taking away Vraska's memories, and what they plan to do. I like that Niv-Mizzet finally gets his chance of proving (or trying to prove, anyway) that he's the smartest derg that's ever lived. I like that Jace did in fact learn something from Azor where being the Living Guildpact is concerned. I like that the SS Sultai isn't scuttled, but merely dry-docked (assuming of course this isn't a sign that they'll kill her off later, which will make many a reader go ballistic by this point).
Karn created his own metallic world on a whim and essentially kidnapped sapient races from other worlds to it to inhabit it.
Karn did not kidnap sapient races to inhabit his world. That was Memnarch, he built the soul traps in hopes of fishing up an unsparked mortal so he could take it and join his creator. Karn's world only had one inhabitant besides himself, the blinkmoth, what/who/how they are is largely unknown.
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Well Jace has been on Ixalan for a month or so, the story of Dominaria might run parallel to that time with Jace only showing up at the end.
Well a few issues come to mind, Ugin maybe unable to now speak between planes post mending, he being unable to go to Ixalan without being trap and the very real possibility Bolas had already in some form killed or got rid of Azor or even Azor dying he was mortal.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Also, how do the Eldrazi fit into that end game?
I had assumed that the end game was getting his former power back. In the Amonkhet block he goes on about putting his plan in motion, to devour worlds to get his power back. Why is Ravnica important to that goal?
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
The releasing of Eldrazi was only a test, if there are planeswalkers able to join and work together. The test was positive. Check.
Second stage: destroy that threat. Check.
End game: find a world worthy of my magnificence to rule: Ravnica. (I suppose Dominaria has now a bitter flavor for Nicol Bolas.)
- Ravnica makes sense as the elaborate plan for Bolas, since its probably the most populous and defensible plane in the known multiverse atm. He'd have to do some serious planning instead of just walking in and taking over like he does on most workds.
- So Jace is going to Niv-Mizzet. Who's right hand man is Ral Zarek. Who hates Jace and is working for Bolas. Uh. Oh.
- Speaking of which... Bolas is probably aware of Niv-Mizzet already considering Ral Zarek works for him. At the end of the Hour of Devastation story, Bolas was annoyed that Ral was taking too long to do something. Is killing/corrupting Mizzet that "something"?
- Jace realizing he's gotta truly be on Ravnica more and taking his role of Guildpact is a nice development too.
- I really really hope they don't try to make a tragic twist with Vraska's memories. Don't go too Game of Thrones on us, Wizards!
He was completely unperturbed by the idea of sacrificing his spark to achieve a vaguely conceptualised ‘good’. When that failed, he immediately set about creating law on Ixalan, not because there genuinely was a problem to solve, but because it would satisfy his own ego.
From the way he treated the people on the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane as a conscriptable welcome party he could muster and disperse at a whim, it is clear his actions are motivated more by a desire to BE a a source of ‘good’ than any actual concern for his ‘subjects’. Previous worlds like Ravnica and the plane with the one-handed elf may have been spared the worst because the laws there solved actual problems, others like the ‘Palace of Justice’ plane were purely ego projects with inevitably disastrous consequences.
Could Azor be gradually descending into senility even before Ixalan? It would explain his deteriorating work.
There has been a distinct anti-oldwalker bias in Creative over the past couple of years. I suspect it's part of Wizards' drive to convince players (especially older ones) that neowalkers are better because they're nicer people or something.
Anyhow, great story, I can't wait to see that conversation between Niv-Mizzet and Jace. I wonder how Bolas-pawn Ral Zarek will factor into that?
Ravnica is a major centralized plane with advanced infrastructure, technology, and society, that might have even replaced Dominaria as THE plane in the multiverse (thanks to Dominaria's approximately fifty apocalypses. Taking that could be a key component to the overall plan.
Also, best I can understand, the Eldrazi were a test, somewhat. Bolas assumed a group of Walkers would come to confront them, and he could observe how they worked against a major, but largely mindless threat. I also think Bolas probably derives some sort of pleasure out of undoing Ugin's works.
When Ugin woke, the first person he saw was Sorin and his news that the Eldrazi was free. It would only be fair to consider the Eldrazi an even bigger threat than even Nicol Bolas.
At any rate, to save Azor Ugin would have to relocate Bolas, inform Azor telepathically Bolas’ new location, then defeat an enemy that NEARLY KILLED HIM. At this point, there really wasn’t a lot of options as far as Azor was concerned.
I don't think it's fair to call it senile, because tha'ts assuming sphinx's minds operate like ours. Sphinx's by nature are more grandiose, sociopathic, and fanatically ideological. Azor's the ultimate deist. Here, I'll set it up, but you have to figure it out, and if you fail, its your own fault. The biggest flaw he has is he refuses to admit that a system of law that doesn't take the imperfect nature of its subjects into account isn't perfect.
If he hadn't been such a chatty cat he might've succeeded in trapping Bolas. Which would have prevented so much.
If the guy who put his curved horn motif over every square inch of Amonkhet including GIANT VERSIONS OF IT TOWERING OVER THE WHOLE PLANE thinks something's ostentatious, I'm probably gonna believe it.
1. Agreed - that was a weak bit of plot contrivance, although it led to a very funny visual
2. My guess is that an invasion of Ravnica is only the end of Phase 1. On a related note, does anyone else think that conquering Ravnica with an army of Eternals is entirely unreasonable? We don't know the size of either the Eternal army or Ravnica's population, but I can't imagine the Eternal army numbers anything more than a few tens of thousands, while Ravnica very likely has a population in the millions or even billions (depending upon the size). The Boros Legion alone could conceivably have more members than Bolas's Eternal Army.
3. I doubt that was the endgame, but based on Azor's belief that he could regain his spark later, trapping Bolas may only have been the first step in Ugin's plan. (Or Ugin was misleading Azor...)
Oh, and Dominaria is already looking like it will have a major “The Council of Elrond/Rivendell” plot complete with gathering allies and heroic scheming.
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
If one or more guild leaders are destroyed on Ravnica (say for example, Niv-Mizzet in a big dragon fight, leaving a void in Izzet leadership) and if they could somehow trick Nicol Bolas into agreeing to take over as guild leader without understanding what that might mean for him, then perhaps the ancient powerful law magic of the guildpact could bind Nicol Bolas into doing things he doesn't want to do for the greater good of the city, like giving up control of his undead army over to all of the guild leaders combined for the common defense of Ravnica, handing the immortal sun over to the living guildpact, etc. Oh and perhaps Bolas's time could be occupied (wasted) by being commanded to watch over every little problem and issue that arises in his new guild, etc. "But Bolas is Grixis!" Maybe not anymore, if the Ravnican law magic suppresses Bolas' selfish desires.
It also wouldn't get rid of Bolas as an enemy, it would just stick him into a "in case of story emergency, break open glass" case next to Emrakul. Years down the road, if we need Bolas to run amok again, then we just need something to go wrong with the law magic, or Nicol Bolas to figure a way out of being a guild leader, then he can peace out back to his meditation plane to plan his next 1,000 year convoluted scheme for interplanar domination.
In "The Hand That Moves" from Amonkhet (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/hand-moves-2017-04-26), one of Nissa's visions is as follows:
"A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness."
That passage sounds suspiciously like the Immortal Sun being used to destroy the Guildpact. Which makes some sense - since the Immortal Sun contains Azor's spark, can it be used to undo Azor's other creations?
Who says the goal is to conquer? My guess would be that there is something on/in Ravnica that he wants. Remember Nissa's vision that seems to appears to related to this impending invasion:
A large golden disc, shaped and stylized like a sun, descending from the sky. The sun disc approached a large circular stone tablet covered with strange sigils, and the two discs merged, becoming a single golden disc. Cracks appeared in the golden disc, small at first, then widening, growing. The disc crumbled away into nothingness.
Perhaps he intends to use the sun to unlock what keeps said something sealed. Or it could mean that he wants to destroy Ravnica altogether.
Wait a minute... Mark Rosewater has claimed multiple times on Blogatog that the Nephilim weren't meant to be unique creatures. Could Bolas intend to release more of them. Maybe even make them into eternals given this Vision of Nissa's:
She closed her eyes against the onslaught, but still the images came tumbling through her head, crumpling her in mid-air. A falling dragon. Giants, covered in metallic blue, stomping through streets. A massive flash of light, consuming a world.
The falling dragon could be Niv Mizzet or Bolas (probably Niv), the metallic blue giants could be eternalized Nephilim (they absorb what they eat, so eating eternals might eternalize them), and the flash of light consuming the world could be the introduction of the Immortal Sun and its planeswalker binding effect to Ravnica.
If that's the case, then maybe the vision in between these two visions also refers to Ravnica:
The scenes shifted faster now, barely even an image forming before being replaced. A fizzling torch (Gruul?). A broken clock with a clean face. A mummified head facing backward atop a mummified body. A split tree, its sap oozing into the ground (Selesnya?). A shattered shield, its shiny metallic pieces torn and scattered.
Maybe even the one that begins this whole sequence:
She saw a young man, his face erased, stumbling among a garden of statues (Jace's memory flood? specifically when he remembers his first meeting with Vraska). High above the man a growing cloud of dusk attacked the sun (Vona taking the Sun?). From somewhere outside the garden there was a mighty roar (the elder dinos awakening?).
Any thoughts?
Also, I feel obligated to mention how Huatli only felt 5 heartbeats when she sensed the elder dinosaurs. Where is number 6 (probably Zacama)?
That's an important catch, given what we now know. It makes sense that if Nicol Bolas wants to dominate Ravnica, he'll have to destroy the Guildpact. I doubt that dominating a single plane, albeit an important one, is the end of Bolas' plans though. My understanding is that early drafts of the RtR storyline had Ravnica become the new centre of the Multiverse. As others have speculated, what if they were saving that story beat for later? Ruling the literal centre of everything? Now that's a goal worthy of Nicol Bolas.
On a meta level, Wizards clearly wants to pass the torch of Magic's main plane from Dominaria to Ravnica. If Bolas destroys the Guildpact, then Ravnica becomes the perfect blank lore-canvas. They get to keep the diverse, developed, (and popular) urban setting, but they rid themselves of the restrictions that every character and story needs a basis in the guild system. They also get to have the climax of their current story happen on a plane that both recent and long-enfranchised players care about, and where their flagship characters are based. It's marketing genius, and it makes me frankly excited for the future of the story.
Well, not all oldwalkers. Jaya, Karn, and Teferi are/were oldwalkers, right? Then again, compared to the likes of Ugin and Azor, they're pretty young still. So maybe it's a bias against the unfathomably ancient.
But I don't think Ugin's actions have ever been good--or evil. As I said before, he's so concerned about the gestalt Multiverse that the fates of individual entities--or individual planes--just can't matter to him as long as they're not part of a trend.
Which admittedly brings up an interesting contrast. Ugin is portrayed as being unable to see the trees for the forest...but perhaps Creative, with their human constraints, have difficulties seeing the forest for the trees?
We have no idea what Jaya was like as a Planeswalker. We got one glimpse of her right after she ascended. Although Jodah did say she was extremely reckless, which doesn't bode well with Tamiyo's "We don't know how big our feet are" analogy. Times a billion since Tamiyo doesn't have a clue what it was like BEFORE the mending.
Teferi, however, had his moments of jerkery. A few in Mirage, plus, I mean, phasing out HIS homeland during the Invasion, which would have created tsunamis that affected the rest of the world. To be fair, I wouldn't have been keen to work with Urza either, but still, the guy caused catastrophies on a whim out of fairly tribalist desires. He was better in the Time Spiral block, but that's largely because Jhoira is a very, VERY effective morality pet.
Karn created his own metallic world on a whim and essentially kidnapped sapient races from other worlds to it to inhabit it.
They weren't nearly as bad as Azor was, but all three still had their moments.
I somehow doubt the guilds, in that scenario, would be abolished outright; they just wouldn't have their hieromantic (hierourgic?) basis. If they want to stick around (and they probably will...not to mention that the fanbase too will want them around in some fashion), they'll need to start treating the Gateless more amiably.
An interesting thought occurs to me, by the way--could shabby treatment of the Gateless have been in some way a direct result of Azor's original Guildpact? Azor seems more interested in creating rules-monuments to himself than in sustaining decent life, after all. Maybe he expected all of Ravnica to eventually be guilded.
I will confess that I had thoughts that Ravnica would ultimately undergo some sort of plane-shift and become a (still-habitable) moon of Dominaria. Maybe this won't be the case, but I'd still like to see the other multicolor stars, Alara and Tarkir, get some upcoming prominence. (Granted there's the problem of how to restore the khanates, since only the dragonlords, Vol, and Narset seem to know of them--and most of those have an investment of some sort in keeping the broods around.)
Karn created Argentum, but it was Memnarch that kidnapped the races and renamed it to Mirrodin.
Also, I loved this story. I liked that we saw glimpses of the impact Azor had had on his other "patron planes". I liked that they explained how Bolas found out about what Azor and Ugin were planning and why he went to Tarkir. I liked that they explained in great detail why Jace is taking away Vraska's memories, and what they plan to do. I like that Niv-Mizzet finally gets his chance of proving (or trying to prove, anyway) that he's the smartest derg that's ever lived. I like that Jace did in fact learn something from Azor where being the Living Guildpact is concerned. I like that the SS Sultai isn't scuttled, but merely dry-docked (assuming of course this isn't a sign that they'll kill her off later, which will make many a reader go ballistic by this point).