I don't think we are gonna get Oath of Jaya, I think we are gonna get Jaya-Wan Kenobi.
I'm not so sure Jaya will make it through the story alive. Considering the goggles she's wearing in the art are then shown to be worn by Chandra in her Duel Decks card. Not to mention Teferi's broken staff is then seen as being mended in the splash art - held together by a tie-knot made of Jaya's/Mother Luti's robes.
It's mentioned that sparkless Teferi's broken staff and sparked Teferi's unbroken staff is symbolism.
If Jace used the word "date" in the Ravnican language, wouldn't the Ixalani listener hear a similar concept in their language?
No one is actually speaking English after all.
I think.
Linguistics in fantasy worlds, no matter if medieval-like or steampunk, are weird. Planeswalkers are special, but how anyone from one of the factions of Ixalan understands what folks from another faction are saying? Ravnica is worldwide city, there shouldn't exist single Ravnican language. It kinda is shown in Mazirek's story, but it's still not enough.
A singular 'common' language makes a lot of sense on Ravnica. As a plane its almost as connected as we are, but it's all ruled by a singular city that would need a common language to function. There are certain to be languages other than common and possibly various dialects, but out of all planes a common language makes the most sense on Ravinica.
I don't think we are gonna get Oath of Jaya, I think we are gonna get Jaya-Wan Kenobi.
I'm not so sure Jaya will make it through the story alive. Considering the goggles she's wearing in the art are then shown to be worn by Chandra in her Duel Decks card. Not to mention Teferi's broken staff is then seen as being mended in the splash art - held together by a tie-knot made of Jaya's/Mother Luti's robes.
It's mentioned that sparkless Teferi's broken staff and sparked Teferi's unbroken staff is symbolism.
*cough* Yes that is why I said she is gonna be Jaya-Wan Kenobi, remember what happened to Old Ben in Episode 4.
I don't know if I believe the voting process was necessarily rigged...
But after reading the stories I am more convinced than ever before that there was simply no way that the Creative team was going to let the Vampires take control of the City.
Even had they won the popular vote, having a lone champion maddeningly 'claim' Orazca by herself and get eaten by a dinosaur is hardly my definition of the faction 'controlling the city'.
Even the Pirate ending and 'occupation' of the city seemed rather tenuous; a single pirate crew claiming themselves emperors is hardly the Brazen Coalition stronghold I was imagining.
Simply put, with the story they were telling and with the uncomfortable consequences of colonialism well known by the general public, there was simply no way the Creative team could allow either the Brazen Coalition or the Legion of Dusk claim Orazca's power for themselves and create a permanent occupation of the great city-
I understand and accept that. However I would have preferred then that the prize implied for winning such a contest were something different than a trope that either conflicted with our modern sensibilities or implied themes of colonial oppression. It's no fun knowing that your faction can't possibly win because of the terrible historical precedent already set. I mean, with how simplistic and un-nuanced Vona, even saint Elenda was, even I was secretly hoping that the Merfolk would get their cake and eat it too. I was loyal to my colour combo, but my colour combo seemed black and white rather than shades of grey. lol
I would have prefered that a Vampire win would have meant a profitable trade-deal between more sympathetic Vampires and the native inhabitants of Ixalan (the continent), allowing a port where Vampires had a small colony where Ixalaners got Torrezon goods and vice-versa. Even the ending we got had the only real and natural progression of Ixalan's plot; the change of setting to Torezon.
Next time we visit Ixalan, I predict that the cards will depict both Ixalan and Torrezon, with conflict occurring on the latter and perhaps ending with a forceful change in Torrezon's regime to a more peaceful one. -and Hautli would ensure Ixalan had better management as well by the second-visit's end.
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Story snippets were pretty meh. The "vampire win" is vona solo claiming the city and immediately "dying." I thought she would have begun siring another race of vampires feom the sun empire to build a new vampire superpower to war with elenda et al. But no, can't have that.
Merfolk felt okayish, but the tension between tishana/Kumena is wholly hand waved away. That's a shame because the infighting gave the faction depth and perspective. A one liner would have gone a long way here to suggest a fragmenting of the group or a reconciliation after tishana saves Kumena.
The pirates capturing the city also rang hollow for me. It's not a port city and requires river access - which is still controlled by the merfolk. It's a crew of a single ship.
Out of all of these, the only ones even set up in a position storyline wise to even put up a fight for the city is the sun empire. They have a standing army, intent to expand, and appropriate leadership. Why bother even giving this to us... it kind of cheapened the whole experience and feels like a grade schooler ran with a few paragraphs from some high level notes of the story.
yep, seems kind of obvious the sun empire was set up since it leads into a new story while all the others are the ending of stories.
I know its not "cannon" but Vona getting eaten/killed in 1 line of text is so lame for someone who had almost died a few times.
To be fair, it sounds like she was eaten by a hasted Ghalta or Etali. Vona's player probably just didn't have enough life to activate her ability anymore after having to use it to save her so many times prior.
Yeah, this is a weak ending to a weak story. I'm glad the structure is changing.
They really either couldn't or didn't think of sensible, coherent ways for the vampires or pirates to come out winning. The River Heralds one was okay, and showed a little bit more effort. But the Sun Empire story we got as canon certainly made the most sense from a story development point.
I don't think there's any need to posit "fixing" as an explanation for excessively hasty and undercooked story decisions. Who knows, maybe if one of the other factions had won, their ending would have gotten edited up into a better conclusion (gosh, imagine if the vamps had really won, and then we'd gotten that Vona story -- what a kick to the nuts that would have been!). But generally, I think this just demonstrates why "multiple ending" stunts like this one are almost always a bad idea. When you spend time on four options, you just don't have the time or commitment you need to make any single one of them as good a conclusion as it could be.
So who thought that the vampire ending would be anything but a slap in the face had vampires won? Like, I don't even want to imagine the outrage that would have plagued these forums.
Having that said the other endings were lukewarm at best, but then again so was the sun empire one (they just go into the city, there's no fighting, no diplomatic maneuvering with the merfolk no... nothing) so eh.
I think the question as to whether the contest was rigged or not kind of misses a much more interesting question:
Why would there be an incentive for the company to want the story and contest to end in a particular way?
What makes the story of Ixalan so different and problematic from other faction blocks such as Ravnica or Tarkir?
What makes this kind of story so difficult to tell?
Despite Creative’s explanation that the Ixalan block was not a Colonialism story...
It was a Colonialism story.
And this made things inherently problematic in terms of making each faction equally sympathetic to both the audience and storytellers.
Even the conflict between ‘Vrace’ and Azor dwelt on colonialist conflicting themes as to the right to meddle in affairs of a land and people not your own. Aka planeswalkers
A card game and handful of short stories is simply not the best medium to describe the kind of complexity a well-done story on Colonialism, it’s themes and conflicts. Particularly if the players supposedly chose which faction “gets to control the golden city at the end”.
Even had my Legion won, and even if Creative wrote a piece that did show them ruling Orazca, I would have still felt internally frustrated and disappointed as the win is neither noble, justified, or could possibly be allowed to remain the status quo.
Even by winning, Players supporting the Legion of Dusk would have felt as though they had lost.
This is the problem with such a story. There’s more interesting themes to it too.
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When I saw a Pirates ending, I thought Beckett-Brass would be there since she has the largest fleet, then I saw a mere ship worth of crew "believing" they own a city surrounded by merfolks. Their celebration will be short, but I foresee new a commander coming named "Malcolm and Breeches".
Vampire's ending doesn't conflict with any of the other, so I think it's alright to see it as canon, but weak nonetheless. I do like how Mavren Fein was begging for forgiveness from Elenda, he will probably show up against in the Torrezon invasion story.
River Heralds is the most complete, although still not enough to cover the fact that this Golden City reclamation was done by single digit people instead of a full war, which is nonsense given the importance of the City. Where's Kumena and other merfolks anyway?
But base on the endings, none of the factions could stand against the Sun Empire once the Emperor arrived, so we can almost see these "endings" as sequential leading to Sun Empire's triumph. Yes, separated endings were written, but all lead to the same result, I believe it's intended like the Nine Rivers into the ocean. Once against WotC tricked us like with New Phyrexia. (Though given Karn is still alive and dandy, Mirrodin Pure could still happen)
The other endings made it so the sun empire would try again on getting orzaca plus dinosaurs ending is the only ending of ten4 that easily sets it up for a revisited
Vampires: right after Vona takes it for a little bit she then all the sudden gets eaten by one of the two
And then no one owns the city (ofcoarse then sun empire would come by later)
Pirates: they just turn the city particularly Azor's sanctum into a regular old pub (sun empires would probably raid and win later)
Merfolk: they are focusing on the water part the city popped out from and renaming the city to golden waters(by what I'm seeig doesn't necessary give full insurance they will keep the city forever and sun empire could over thrown the merfolk since they know them better than the pirates.)
The only one of those endings that seemed even remotely plausible/thought out was merfolk. After Tishana called in the rest of the merfolk they could have organized a real defense of the city and possibly could have held off the Sun Empire. The River Heralds might be far fewer than the Empire's warriors, but given a defensive position and the city's inherent magic they could plausibly have managed.
There's frankly no way the Belligerent's crew could have held the city, and even if Vona hadn't been utterly punked by a dinosaur, there's no way she could have fought off the Sun Empire army on her own...
Either of those endings would have ultimately lead to the Sun Empire claiming Orazca anyhow.
well I had a far longer post written up but I clicked a wrong button and lost it all so summery time
I don't know if I believe the voting process was necessarily rigged...
I don't want to say rigged either..but the entire process does not feel like it was done in good faith after those alternate endings effectively lead to "The Sun Empire wins none of the voting of Geocaching actually mattered."
Despite Creative’s explanation that the Ixalan block was not a Colonialism story...
It was a Colonialism story.
And I am "completely unreasonable" for not taking WOTC at their word right?
A card game and handful of short stories is simply not the best medium to describe the kind of complexity a well-done story on Colonialism, it’s themes and conflicts. Particularly if the players supposedly chose which faction “gets to control the golden city at the end”.
Which is why if they were "uncomfortable" with the implications of half the groups involved winning they shouldn't have had the stupid "players choose who win." Especially when you completely Whitewash the "grey" of the other two factions..because painting "Grey vs Grey" conflicts and then completely crapping on one of the groups morality while not at all touching the others is a really good way to get the fanbase to completely go for the guys you crap on. Wrestling fans get to see this happen aaaaallll the time.
Yeah, this is a weak ending to a weak story. I'm glad the structure is changing.
The structure changes are only going to make the problem worse, now we are going to have the majority of the block storylines happen in half the time..and instead of at least having a few cliff hangers in the middle of the block. Now the entire plot is going to be spoiled before the first story even begins.
Yeah, this is a weak ending to a weak story. I'm glad the structure is changing.
The structure changes are only going to make the problem worse, now we are going to have the majority of the block storylines happen in half the time..and instead of at least having a few cliff hangers in the middle of the block. Now the entire plot is going to be spoiled before the first story even begins.
I think they might be referring to the switch to bringing in actual writers like they're doing for Dominaria, rather than the change to the 3+1 set/"Block" structure.
Thats the part I dont quite understand. Why do/ the storiess AFTER the set is spoiled? Shouldnt it be the other way around?
MaRo is on the record saying that they can't do this because the stories from the block that comes after would steal the spotlight from the current set.
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Yeah, this is a weak ending to a weak story. I'm glad the structure is changing.
The structure changes are only going to make the problem worse, now we are going to have the majority of the block storylines happen in half the time..and instead of at least having a few cliff hangers in the middle of the block. Now the entire plot is going to be spoiled before the first story even begins.
I think they might be referring to the switch to bringing in actual writers like they're doing for Dominaria, rather than the change to the 3+1 set/"Block" structure.
*shrug* I don't think it is going to solve any of the problems the writing has, the actual wordsmithing won't be as meh but GRR Martin couldn't make Vona's "take over the city story" good.
Rigged confirmed as far as I'm concerned. Only the Sun Empire ending made any sense with the story we had read so far and as a bridge of the next story.
Heralds: would have made a decent bridge by setting up conflict, but it throws out everything we know about Tishana and makes her conflict with Kumena pointless. No way this could have been used.
Vamps: Well, first of all, they don't even win. While it jives with everything we know about Vona, it provides no bridge to the next story.Clearly would not have been used.
Pirates: The pirates winning by default because everyone else left fits for pirates, very Jack Sparrow, but provides no bridge to the next story. The pirates never functioned as a coherent faction aside from the beligerent crew, which was an extension of Vrace.
Yea, like I predicted, only the Sun Empire ending made any sense, and it was the only one that was ever going to "win" for that reason.
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In the wake of the Ixalan Story’s ending, and especially after seeing the alternate endings, I have to double down on my claim that Kumena (at least, in the web version of the RIX story) was right all along. Even Tishana realized that, in the merfolk alternate ending. It was infuriating, the way she strolled around the city like she owned it, with her “we were here first” attitude.
No, you miserable old wretch. Kumena was there first. And he was first because he was the only one with the backbone to step up and take action. You tried to stop him, remember? Kumena took the risk, awoke the city, faced down the Legion of Dusk's leaders alone, and took the fall, and you would have just swooped in like a buzzard and taken the credit.
But that was the alternate ending. In the real ending, the merfolk make absolutely no attempt to secure the city at all. Um... what? Tishana apparently believes that Apatzec will just play nice, and lets him walk right in with his army and take the greatest source of power on the plane for his expanding Empire. So she’s a dangerous fool either way, and her idiocy continues to imperil her people. The other River Heralds need to stop taking her senile babbling for wisdom and tell her to step down. And if she doesn’t, then Kumena or someone else willing to lead should depose her and take over before she gets all her people killed.
In the end, Kumena was 100% right. About everything.
For all the hype about how finding Orazca and the Immortal Sun would unleash catastrophe, that turned out (like so much else in this story) to be a dud. And not only were the merfolk's fears of awakening Orazca utterly unfounded in the end (at least as far as the story itself indicates, rendering their entire stance in the conflict pointless), but the vampires, pirates, and Sun Empire would all have reached it first if Kumena hadn't. If Tishana and the other merfolk had only listened to Kumena's harping months ago, they could have claimed the city and driven their enemies out before the race for Orazca even became a contest.
The only things Kumena did wrong were 1.) waiting as long as he did, and 2.) losing control of the Sun once he had it. Out of all his people, he was the one who stepped up and took initiative, so they're hardly in any place to castigate him.
Kumena was presented to us as a villain--not in terms of evil, but in terms of misguided motives and short-sightedness. But those flaws were contingent on the assumption that opening Orazca was indeed a very bad, dangerous idea. The card spoilers of the Elder Dinosaurs (and the Primal Calamity in particular) seemed to suggest that yes, Kumena was indeed dangerously misguided and the doomsayers were right all along. But then the story completely dropped that thread and Zacama became a pony. So what we're left with is Kumena standing utterly vindicated.
It's Tishana, not Kumena, who should be disgraced after this; it's Tishana, not Kumena, who owes her people an apology. Now the Heralds ought to ditch the old fool and rally behind the only one of their leaders who actually stepped up to lead when it mattered.
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"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
In the wake of the Ixalan Story’s ending, and especially after seeing the alternate endings, I have to double down on my claim that Kumena (at least, in the web version of the RIX story) was right all along. Even Tishana realized that, in the merfolk alternate ending. It was infuriating, the way she strolled around the city like she owned it, with her “we were here first” attitude.
No, you miserable old wretch. Kumena was there first. And he was first because he was the only one with the backbone to step up and take action. You tried to stop him, remember? Kumena took the risk, awoke the city, faced down the Legion of Dusk's leaders alone, and took the fall, and you would have just swooped in like a buzzard and taken the credit.
But that was the alternate ending. In the real ending, the merfolk make absolutely no attempt to secure the city at all. Um... what? Tishana apparently believes that Apatzec will just play nice, and lets him walk right in with his army and take the greatest source of power on the plane for his expanding Empire. So she’s a dangerous fool either way, and her idiocy continues to imperil her people. The other River Heralds need to stop taking her senile babbling for wisdom and tell her to step down. And if she doesn’t, then Kumena or someone else willing to lead should depose her and take over before she gets all her people killed.
/venting.
River Herald politics. They aren’t pretty.
I'm pretty sure when she said "we were here first." She meant that they as a people lived on Ixalan or in that area prior to the rise of the empire. I dont think she was referencing the race for the city.
You're not wrong. Kumena, in spite of being kind of an ********, was correct. It's unfortunate that they only wanted to write little blurbs instead of full sized endings. A more appropriate victory for them would have been Kumena not getting thrown out of a window but actually managing to hold his foes off and being the one to stake the claim after the sun was taken.
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I'm not so sure Jaya will make it through the story alive. Considering the goggles she's wearing in the art are then shown to be worn by Chandra in her Duel Decks card. Not to mention Teferi's broken staff is then seen as being mended in the splash art - held together by a tie-knot made of Jaya's/Mother Luti's robes.
It's mentioned that sparkless Teferi's broken staff and sparked Teferi's unbroken staff is symbolism.
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*cough* Yes that is why I said she is gonna be Jaya-Wan Kenobi, remember what happened to Old Ben in Episode 4.
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read the alternate endings to Rivals of Ixalan here.
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I know its not "cannon" but Vona getting eaten/killed in 1 line of text is so lame for someone who had almost died a few times.
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But after reading the stories I am more convinced than ever before that there was simply no way that the Creative team was going to let the Vampires take control of the City.
Even had they won the popular vote, having a lone champion maddeningly 'claim' Orazca by herself and get eaten by a dinosaur is hardly my definition of the faction 'controlling the city'.
Even the Pirate ending and 'occupation' of the city seemed rather tenuous; a single pirate crew claiming themselves emperors is hardly the Brazen Coalition stronghold I was imagining.
Simply put, with the story they were telling and with the uncomfortable consequences of colonialism well known by the general public, there was simply no way the Creative team could allow either the Brazen Coalition or the Legion of Dusk claim Orazca's power for themselves and create a permanent occupation of the great city-
I understand and accept that. However I would have preferred then that the prize implied for winning such a contest were something different than a trope that either conflicted with our modern sensibilities or implied themes of colonial oppression. It's no fun knowing that your faction can't possibly win because of the terrible historical precedent already set. I mean, with how simplistic and un-nuanced Vona, even saint Elenda was, even I was secretly hoping that the Merfolk would get their cake and eat it too. I was loyal to my colour combo, but my colour combo seemed black and white rather than shades of grey. lol
I would have prefered that a Vampire win would have meant a profitable trade-deal between more sympathetic Vampires and the native inhabitants of Ixalan (the continent), allowing a port where Vampires had a small colony where Ixalaners got Torrezon goods and vice-versa. Even the ending we got had the only real and natural progression of Ixalan's plot; the change of setting to Torezon.
Next time we visit Ixalan, I predict that the cards will depict both Ixalan and Torrezon, with conflict occurring on the latter and perhaps ending with a forceful change in Torrezon's regime to a more peaceful one. -and Hautli would ensure Ixalan had better management as well by the second-visit's end.
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
Merfolk felt okayish, but the tension between tishana/Kumena is wholly hand waved away. That's a shame because the infighting gave the faction depth and perspective. A one liner would have gone a long way here to suggest a fragmenting of the group or a reconciliation after tishana saves Kumena.
The pirates capturing the city also rang hollow for me. It's not a port city and requires river access - which is still controlled by the merfolk. It's a crew of a single ship.
Out of all of these, the only ones even set up in a position storyline wise to even put up a fight for the city is the sun empire. They have a standing army, intent to expand, and appropriate leadership. Why bother even giving this to us... it kind of cheapened the whole experience and feels like a grade schooler ran with a few paragraphs from some high level notes of the story.
Story change can't come soon enough.
To be fair, it sounds like she was eaten by a hasted Ghalta or Etali. Vona's player probably just didn't have enough life to activate her ability anymore after having to use it to save her so many times prior.
They really either couldn't or didn't think of sensible, coherent ways for the vampires or pirates to come out winning. The River Heralds one was okay, and showed a little bit more effort. But the Sun Empire story we got as canon certainly made the most sense from a story development point.
I don't think there's any need to posit "fixing" as an explanation for excessively hasty and undercooked story decisions. Who knows, maybe if one of the other factions had won, their ending would have gotten edited up into a better conclusion (gosh, imagine if the vamps had really won, and then we'd gotten that Vona story -- what a kick to the nuts that would have been!). But generally, I think this just demonstrates why "multiple ending" stunts like this one are almost always a bad idea. When you spend time on four options, you just don't have the time or commitment you need to make any single one of them as good a conclusion as it could be.
Having that said the other endings were lukewarm at best, but then again so was the sun empire one (they just go into the city, there's no fighting, no diplomatic maneuvering with the merfolk no... nothing) so eh.
Why would there be an incentive for the company to want the story and contest to end in a particular way?
What makes the story of Ixalan so different and problematic from other faction blocks such as Ravnica or Tarkir?
What makes this kind of story so difficult to tell?
Despite Creative’s explanation that the Ixalan block was not a Colonialism story...
It was a Colonialism story.
And this made things inherently problematic in terms of making each faction equally sympathetic to both the audience and storytellers.
Even the conflict between ‘Vrace’ and Azor dwelt on colonialist conflicting themes as to the right to meddle in affairs of a land and people not your own. Aka planeswalkers
A card game and handful of short stories is simply not the best medium to describe the kind of complexity a well-done story on Colonialism, it’s themes and conflicts. Particularly if the players supposedly chose which faction “gets to control the golden city at the end”.
Even had my Legion won, and even if Creative wrote a piece that did show them ruling Orazca, I would have still felt internally frustrated and disappointed as the win is neither noble, justified, or could possibly be allowed to remain the status quo.
Even by winning, Players supporting the Legion of Dusk would have felt as though they had lost.
This is the problem with such a story. There’s more interesting themes to it too.
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
Vampire's ending doesn't conflict with any of the other, so I think it's alright to see it as canon, but weak nonetheless. I do like how Mavren Fein was begging for forgiveness from Elenda, he will probably show up against in the Torrezon invasion story.
River Heralds is the most complete, although still not enough to cover the fact that this Golden City reclamation was done by single digit people instead of a full war, which is nonsense given the importance of the City. Where's Kumena and other merfolks anyway?
But base on the endings, none of the factions could stand against the Sun Empire once the Emperor arrived, so we can almost see these "endings" as sequential leading to Sun Empire's triumph. Yes, separated endings were written, but all lead to the same result, I believe it's intended like the Nine Rivers into the ocean. Once against WotC tricked us like with New Phyrexia. (Though given Karn is still alive and dandy, Mirrodin Pure could still happen)
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Well it looked like t was somewhat rigged
The other endings made it so the sun empire would try again on getting orzaca plus dinosaurs ending is the only ending of ten4 that easily sets it up for a revisited
Vampires: right after Vona takes it for a little bit she then all the sudden gets eaten by one of the two
And then no one owns the city (ofcoarse then sun empire would come by later)
Pirates: they just turn the city particularly Azor's sanctum into a regular old pub (sun empires would probably raid and win later)
Merfolk: they are focusing on the water part the city popped out from and renaming the city to golden waters(by what I'm seeig doesn't necessary give full insurance they will keep the city forever and sun empire could over thrown the merfolk since they know them better than the pirates.)
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There's frankly no way the Belligerent's crew could have held the city, and even if Vona hadn't been utterly punked by a dinosaur, there's no way she could have fought off the Sun Empire army on her own...
Either of those endings would have ultimately lead to the Sun Empire claiming Orazca anyhow.
I don't want to say rigged either..but the entire process does not feel like it was done in good faith after those alternate endings effectively lead to "The Sun Empire wins none of the voting of Geocaching actually mattered."
And I am "completely unreasonable" for not taking WOTC at their word right?
Which is why if they were "uncomfortable" with the implications of half the groups involved winning they shouldn't have had the stupid "players choose who win." Especially when you completely Whitewash the "grey" of the other two factions..because painting "Grey vs Grey" conflicts and then completely crapping on one of the groups morality while not at all touching the others is a really good way to get the fanbase to completely go for the guys you crap on. Wrestling fans get to see this happen aaaaallll the time.
The structure changes are only going to make the problem worse, now we are going to have the majority of the block storylines happen in half the time..and instead of at least having a few cliff hangers in the middle of the block. Now the entire plot is going to be spoiled before the first story even begins.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
I think they might be referring to the switch to bringing in actual writers like they're doing for Dominaria, rather than the change to the 3+1 set/"Block" structure.
MaRo is on the record saying that they can't do this because the stories from the block that comes after would steal the spotlight from the current set.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
*shrug* I don't think it is going to solve any of the problems the writing has, the actual wordsmithing won't be as meh but GRR Martin couldn't make Vona's "take over the city story" good.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Heralds: would have made a decent bridge by setting up conflict, but it throws out everything we know about Tishana and makes her conflict with Kumena pointless. No way this could have been used.
Vamps: Well, first of all, they don't even win. While it jives with everything we know about Vona, it provides no bridge to the next story.Clearly would not have been used.
Pirates: The pirates winning by default because everyone else left fits for pirates, very Jack Sparrow, but provides no bridge to the next story. The pirates never functioned as a coherent faction aside from the beligerent crew, which was an extension of Vrace.
Yea, like I predicted, only the Sun Empire ending made any sense, and it was the only one that was ever going to "win" for that reason.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
No, you miserable old wretch. Kumena was there first. And he was first because he was the only one with the backbone to step up and take action. You tried to stop him, remember? Kumena took the risk, awoke the city, faced down the Legion of Dusk's leaders alone, and took the fall, and you would have just swooped in like a buzzard and taken the credit.
But that was the alternate ending. In the real ending, the merfolk make absolutely no attempt to secure the city at all. Um... what? Tishana apparently believes that Apatzec will just play nice, and lets him walk right in with his army and take the greatest source of power on the plane for his expanding Empire. So she’s a dangerous fool either way, and her idiocy continues to imperil her people. The other River Heralds need to stop taking her senile babbling for wisdom and tell her to step down. And if she doesn’t, then Kumena or someone else willing to lead should depose her and take over before she gets all her people killed.
/venting.
River Herald politics. They aren’t pretty.
I'm pretty sure when she said "we were here first." She meant that they as a people lived on Ixalan or in that area prior to the rise of the empire. I dont think she was referencing the race for the city.
You're not wrong. Kumena, in spite of being kind of an ********, was correct. It's unfortunate that they only wanted to write little blurbs instead of full sized endings. A more appropriate victory for them would have been Kumena not getting thrown out of a window but actually managing to hold his foes off and being the one to stake the claim after the sun was taken.