I'm about to fall asleep, but as a minor point, if someone provides a base for something, it's not 'completely baseless.'
Anyway, it's long established that oldwalker bodies were manifestations of their center of conciousness. Meaning, that center was who they were, all else was what they made. That's why they could become huge in size, change species or shape, heal their chosen shape instantaneously, etc. Of importance: Their chosen body/shape/form was physical flesh.
Why's that important? The way to kill an oldwalker was to essentially paralyze their 'center.' Yawgmoth stabbed Dyfed in the brain. As long as her brain kept being scrambled, since she gave herself a physical brain, she couldn't think to planeswalk because Yawgmoth's stirring machine just kept on going. She chose to die when she had the chance. Ugin was set upon by surprise with fire and lightning, which were damaging his chosen physical form, until, like Dyfed, he couldn't gather his conciousness to do anything about it and remained in his chosen form as he healed. Szat was immobilized by surprise electronics and sucked away into a powerstone. Notably, no physical body was left behind, because he was the energy of his center of conciousness, or his spark. EDIT: His body may have remained and his spark and conciousness absorbed. Will have to check. Note further that Glacian's unsparked planeswalker spark was absorbed into a powerstone. And he remained concious in the stone.
The suits Urza gave were for walker protection because, again, things could happen to their chosen forms that would keep them from being able to react. If they breathed poison air, and chose to have lungs, the pain and impact could actually kill them before they could make the concious choice to leave. Notably, Windgrace and Freyalise end up ditching their suits because they didn't want Urza to suck them into powerstones. And they survived despite the lack of suits. In fact, they did a whole lot of killing on Phyrexia without their suits.
So if they chose to have physical forms, those physical forms were susceptible to damage and the like like anything else. But if that damage didn't prevent them from being able to *think* or *focus*, then they could likely survive. It's why it's largely only planeswalkers that could do in planeswalkers. I remember having a discussion with someone about this years ago. This is a link to our back and forth, hopefully that's allowed in forum rules: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/537465-question-about-urzas-planeswalker-spark
And also, when Teferi became mortal, he notably said he needed to eat and get used to needing to eat again.
Several times in the books I've read, oldwalkers are described as centers of conciousness, thought/energy existing without form, until they take a form. They're also described as taking forms because they're used to being that way and it's easier to interact with the world that way. Even traveling through the Blind Eternities they were described in that 'energy' way.
So I would say it's pretty much not baseless to say slow time water would have no effect on Teferi. He could become a wombat, with all different non-human physical pieces. Meaning all new cells and whatnot. Which means no part of him would still be impacted by the water since no part of him that ingested that water existed while he was a wombat. Which means that everytime he changed form or took form, that new form was not the body that ingested the water or anything else. It's the same reason it was the height of stupidity that Karn had Phyrexian oil still after sparking.
I could likely get receipts given enough time for the energy/center of conciousness thing, but I have a wedding to go to this weekend and I'm confident in my memory and recollection. But if you'd like, I can eventually track down where I read it all.
EDIT: This back and forth is obviously the same problem Wizards had with godlike walkers. Trying to humanize what is no longer human leads to a lot of debate as to what is, and what is not. I miss the oldwalkers, and yet, sometimes I don't.
To some extent, we're debating semantics here. We've both acknowledged that oldwalkers could shapeshift and heal themselves at will, and also didn't age or need to eat/drink/sleep (with the exception of Sorin, who still needed to drink blood as a result of his vampiric nature). We've also both acknowledged that oldwalkers could be wounded, incapacitated, or outright killed by significant and/or sustained damage to their physical forms. The former point leads you to conclude that oldwalkers weren't physical beings at all, but the latter point leads me to disagree. If they were beings of pure energy/consciousness, they wouldn't have needed to have any physical body at all, they could've chosen to simply exist as a disembodied thoughtform. Yet that clearly wasn't the case. If oldwalkers were reliant on a 'center' to exist, and that center had to be made of physical matter that was structured in a certain way (almost always an organic brain, except for one case where it was a set of powerstones), then I would say they're fundamentally physical (and with the exceptions of Urza and Karn, fundamentally organic) beings, even if their physical forms were incredibly malleable.
As for your assertion that the slow time water wouldn't affect Teferi because he could choose to shapeshift, I'll admit that it's not completely baseless, but I do think it's fairly dubious logic for a setting in which magical shapeshifting exists. Werewolves can shapeshift too - as can anyone affected by a polymorph spell, for that matter - but I'd imagine they could still be poisoned or affected by magical substances. When werewolves are killed, they automatically revert to human form, which shows that their original body remains their default/baseline state even when they're magically transformed. And it's been shown that oldwalkers, like werewolves, would revert back to their original forms when they died or became incapacitated: Someone else mentioned that Windgrace reverted back to his original form when he was stunned by a cannon blast, and while I'm not sure what happened to Tevesh Szat's body when he was killed, Taysir was killed the same way and left a corpse behind. If they were energy beings, you'd expect their bodies to simply disappear when they died, or at least remain in whatever form they were in at the time. (Windgrace was even worried that necromancers would resurrect Taysir and had to perform a ritual to keep that from happening, which seems like something that definitely shouldn't have been at all possible if he'd been a being of pure consciousness.) Also, when the Mending happened, oldwalkers started aging from whatever age they'd been when they first sparked, which further indicates that their original bodies were still their true forms. That alone could explain why Teferi is still affected by the slow time water: when the Mending happened, his body would have reverted to the condition it was in when he sparked, when he'd just been exposed to massive quantities of the water.
And again, if oldwalkers were simply thoughtforms who chose to take on a physical shape when it suited them, why would Bolas need to leave a physical body behind when he astrally projected? Why would killing that physical body result in his death when his consciousness was elsewhere? Why would Bolas' ghost (which only existed because he was tied to a temporal rift) have needed to manipulate the timestream to save his old body from destruction in order to come back to life, instead of simply willing a new body into existence? Conversely, how could oldwalkers be knocked unconscious or rendered comatose at all? Wouldn't Teferi and Ugin simply cease to exist if they stopped being conscious?
(Of course, the real life answer is simply that the old stories were never all that consistent to begin with, and the exact nature of planeswalkers seemed to vary from story to story back then. This confusion is further compounded by Urza - the single most well-known planeswalker of the pre-Mending era - being an exceptionally strange and unique case, since he was basically a lich whose essence was housed in a pair of powerstones rather than a typical oldwalker. But I think my interpretation is more consistent with how the current MtG creative team views and portrays the pre-Mending era.)
On Teferi's slow ageing, He was caught in a slow time bubble and while he was in there, he technically sparked( he was unaware of his change and aged normally after that solely because he though he should). When he was returned to being mortal, his body may have still had some imprint of temporal energy that rendered his now mortal body slow aging. Him being at the heart of a time rift may have also caused his slow aging.
I'd like to point out that Belzenlok is supposed to be overblown. He's trying to rewrite history to make himself seem more bad than he actually is. Us being on the other side of the fourth wall know he disnt do those things. We know he's not Lord of the Wastes or the Doom of Fools, because we were there. But the average Dominaria doesn't. He's an elder demon and at least powerful enough to help give Lili immortality but he's not as big and bad as he and his cult are puffing him up to be.
AUTUMTWILIGHT for all your claim of loving Teferi and dredging up what he said in Timespiral your comments on his powers lead me to wonder if you read the novels after timespiral; planar chaos and furute sight. When Teferi gave up his spark he wasn't just a normal mage, he was stripped of a majority of his power. So asking him to perform significant fears of magecraft seems ridiculous if you're familiar with what he's been through.
AUTUMTWILIGHT for all your claim of loving Teferi and dredging up what he said in Timespiral your comments on his powers lead me to wonder if you read the novels after timespiral; planar chaos and furute sight. When Teferi gave up his spark he wasn't just a normal mage, he was stripped of a majority of his power. So asking him to perform significant fears of magecraft seems ridiculous if you're familiar with what he's been through.
??? Yes, he is not an Oldwalker anymore. Let me ask a question if you don't know who Jodah and Teferi were before hand would any think they are Archmagi and significantly more powerful and experienced then Raff?
Jodah contributed one hold spell or power word: stun.
Teferi has only frozen stuff for small amounts of time. And cannot stop a sand wave 10 years of waiting for this? That is a letdown.
Meanwhile Raff has cast illusion magic, shield magic and apparently knows a spell that can get information out of people's mind. So why is Raff so much more versatile and getting show off depth of knowledge that Teferi and Jodah don't get to? So far all I asked is for Teferi to show the ability to fly, shield and telepathy skills he learned in the past before so not even new abilities here. All these seems to be skill Raff possess but sure significant feats of magic...SMFH.
And as for its okay if Teferi struggles and fails? Yeah that was what Time Spiral was they took pretty much everything from the character. I don't need to see him broken down more, its time for the rise. I want feats and wins and a showcase of intelligence, skill and power but apparently its wrong to ask they start immediately giving Teferi some of those. Meanwhile Jhoira is shown as the smartest and most competent person around from the start. She raises the Weatherlight, she organizes the team to fight Belzenlok, she leads the hunt for the spy at the Academy, She solved the maze, and she gets Teferi spark back. So far her only failing is not getting Danitha Capahsen to join the team. That is quite a good deal of accomplishments, and you expect Teferi to catch up how?
Who here really thinks Belzenlok is a big enough threat that a Resparked Teferi, Karn and Jaya cannot roll over him pretty easily? Not to mention WOTC is obviously going to let Lili get the final blow so how much chance do those three returning Oldwalkers get to shine? What I am supposed to be impressed with Teferi freezing a bunch of no name mooks. That doesn't account for Gideon, Jace and Chandra all getting a chance to shine as well cause you know WOTC won't leave their Golden Children out. Furthermore, we know Bolas is coming so its going to end on a Neutral at best. Cause Bolas is obviously leaving with Lili and cannot be defeated here.
AUTUMTWILIGHT for all your claim of loving Teferi and dredging up what he said in Timespiral your comments on his powers lead me to wonder if you read the novels after timespiral; planar chaos and furute sight. When Teferi gave up his spark he wasn't just a normal mage, he was stripped of a majority of his power. So asking him to perform significant fears of magecraft seems ridiculous if you're familiar with what he's been through.
??? Yes, he is not an Oldwalker anymore. Let me ask a question if you don't know who Jodah and Teferi were before hand would any think they are Archmagi and significantly more powerful and experienced then Raff?
Jodah contributed one hold spell or power word: stun.
Teferi has only frozen stuff for small amounts of time. And cannot stop a sand wave 10 years of waiting for this? That is a letdown.
Meanwhile Raff has cast illusion magic, shield magic and apparently knows a spell that can get information out of people's mind. So why is Raff so much more versatile and getting show off depth of knowledge that Teferi and Jodah don't get to? So far all I asked is for Teferi to show the ability to fly, shield and telepathy skills he learned in the past before so not even new abilities here. All these seems to be skill Raff possess but sure significant feats of magic...SMFH.
And as for its okay if Teferi struggles and fails? Yeah that was what Time Spiral was they took pretty much everything from the character. I don't need to see him broken down more, its time for the rise. I want feats and wins and a showcase of intelligence, skill and power but apparently its wrong to ask they start immediately giving Teferi some of those. Meanwhile Jhoira is shown as the smartest and most competent person around from the start. She raises the Weatherlight, she organizes the team to fight Belzenlok, she leads the hunt for the spy at the Academy, She solved the maze, and she gets Teferi spark back. So far her only failing is not getting Danitha Capahsen to join the team. That is quite a good deal of accomplishments, and you expect Teferi to catch up how?
Who here really thinks Belzenlok is a big enough threat that a Resparked Teferi, Karn and Jaya cannot roll over him pretty easily? Not to mention WOTC is obviously going to let Lili get the final blow so how much chance do those three returning Oldwalkers get to shine? What I am supposed to be impressed with Teferi freezing a bunch of no name mooks. That doesn't account for Gideon, Jace and Chandra all getting a chance to shine as well cause you know WOTC won't leave their Golden Children out. Furthermore, we know Bolas is coming so its going to end on a Neutral at best. Cause Bolas is obviously leaving with Lili and cannot be defeated here.
Why bring up characters' and their traits that I wasn't talking about. My comment was specifically about Teferi and your complaint about his powers. Why are you attaching the title archmage to Teferi? He is given two titles here Timebender and Hero of Dominaria, he has proven to be one of those and the other I assume is yet to come. Your disappointment in Teferi seems to be that everyone is more or less how we last saw them and the last time we saw Teferi he was very weak, not even capable of his normal(school days) level of spellcraft.
If you were expecting Teferi, Temporal Archmage then you haven't payed attention to his last arc so its hard to believe you are invested in this character.
I expect him to be significantly better then Raff and not need to have his hand held to get everything done. Again I don't consider putting up a shield or flying as significant feats of magic. Nor do I consider stop a wave of sand as that special. I am not asking him to move a subcontinent again. Jhoira has got plenty of done while not being the most powerful person around by herself. What has Teferi done by himself? They didn't even let him get his own **** spark back.
As for Time Spiral? Yeah and Jaya was dead at the end of Time Spiral. Your point is what, WOTC never changes their minds and retcons? Characters cannot get stronger and build themselves back up after a defeat? Or did we miss the last story where Jace did just that and culminated in crushing Azor in magical combat and creating an Anti Bolas Plan. All in what 6 months? Teferi has had 60 years and your like no its fine he is still weak and has gotten basically nothing done on his own. WOTC wants a pat on the back for diversity and hyped this return but have shown Teferi as weak, not especially smart and incapable of getting much done without help. Meanwhile Jhoira is shown as the smartest and most competent character in the story from the jump. I am not suppose to notice this double standard? As I said its clear Wells loves Jhoira, so far I have not been convinced she really loves the character of Teferi like she claimed in the interview.
Teferi didn't struggle and fail. The guy spent the time since the Mending having a family and searching for a way to return Zhalfir (in his own words, he can't erase his mistakes, but he's putting in the effort to balance his account).
And he seems to have been fairly successful at both (considering he's trying to track down artfacts made by and solve puzzles designed by Urza). He tacked down where one of the artifacts is. He and his daughter disarmed large parts of Urza's death trap ruin. He and his daughter took the time to figure out all the dead ends and false leads in the ruin. He and his daughter even figured out how to solve the last puzzle bar one detail (a detail which, shocker, they missed on their first attempt trying to use the solution). He made one attempt to deal with the sinking plateau and then was presented a reason to not need to try again. He's been incredibly successful, just not necessarily on his first attempt at a new solution idea or on his first thought to try and save everybody in the group when the entire plateau they were on was sinking!
All Jhoira did is show up and take the train of thought Niambi was already on (something else in the room is the key to the equation) and finish it. Other than that, Jhoira and the neo-weatherlight crew just served to defend from the ruin's onslaught.
And what's Jhoira's successes? She recently found the Weatherlight, paid to have it recovered, and provided the seed to rebuild it's hull. She tracked down one member of her crew, was turned down by another and took an inexperienced volunteer in her place (just to have a Capashen), and somehow got Teferi's spark. Arvad and Tiana (and eventually Slimefoot, given what we know) ended up as part of her crew largely due to a series of lucky events outside of Jhoira's crew. And while she did have a potential back up plan in the event the powerstone was drained, she got very lucky that Tiana was able to restart it since Jhoira really didn't want to use her backup option.
And considering you get so upset that Jhoira rebounded a singular no-name mook's spell when Jodah didn't seem to care about said spell (that or Jhoira just has better a reaction time) and was actually able to remove said mook as a threat, I would think you'd be impressed at Teferi freezing a whole bunch of them.
Also, I'm pretty sure Gideon is gonna get the final blow on Belzenlok. They've set up the Blackblade as a Chekov's gun, there's direct reference in flavor text that Gideon is going to wield it (especially given that they've removed his usual weapon), Liliana can't use the chain veil so soon after unmaking Josu, and the idea of a soul drinker (the Blackblade) being able to kill Belzenlok and an elder dragon was brought up.
Does it matter my point is Teferi wont so how is he shining in this story precisely.
Great one artifact in 60 years so impressive. And a daughter with a character we never met before amazing.
He didn't get his own spark back. He won't strike the final blow against Belzenlok. Not that I consider Belz much of a threat at this point.
No I am anime fan and comic fan. A named character beating up mooks never impresses me. And that is a pretty lame highlight for Teferi in this story. As noted last storyline had Jace hand Azor his *** now that is something to celebrate as a Jace Fan. Then he comes up with a plan to help against Bolas including doing so good of job with Vraksa memories that Bolas doesn't notice.. That is the type of showcase of power, skill and intelligence, I expect from a character that WOTC claims to care about and we all know that they care about Jace as he is the Poster Boy.
In contrast, the only good thing about Teferi so far is the dialogue that is pretty spot on. Everything else is bad. His intelligence, power and skill have all been downgraded in my book too far so other characters can shine whereas nothing about Jhoira has been downgraded at all. Ergo I see nothing that validates WOTC and their loving of patting themselves on the back for representation.
One can only shine by being the one to last hit the BBEG? That's news to me. I thought people could shine by using their talents to accomplish a necessary deed effectively and entertainingly.
One of Urza's artifacts. In a ruin he designed to be deadly if not cautiously approached, and take an absurd amount of time to search (note of incorrect corridors and large number of distraction chambers Teferi mentions in addition to the death traps). A ruin that he had to track down from what seems to be almost no information. And all of this seemingly in direct opposition to Urza planning specifically for him.
Yes, he doesn't get his own spark back. Now, why might he not want to get his own spark back? He certainly doesn't seem to be trying to get it back (favoring an attempt to track down Urza's artifacts, Jhoira certainly doesn't seem to think he will want his spark back, and Teferi doesn't seem to look fondly back on his days as a planeswalker:
Teferi lifted his brows, but said kindly, "Oh, believe me, I've had plenty of experience cleaning up past mistakes. And when you spend so much of your life as an immortal Planeswalker, the mistakes tend to be grand in scope. It isn't possible to erase them, but with effort you can eventually balance your account."
We don't yet know why he isn't keen on the idea of being a planeswalker again, but that seems likely to be addressed in a future story. But here's the thing, he didn't just stop trying to bring back Zhalfir because he lost and didn't want his spark back. He persevered and got 99% of the way to this first artifact in what appears to be direct opposition to Urza's plans. How is being one to make the most progress in beating one of Urza's plans (and then finishing said beating the plan with a little help) not impressive?
Honestly, if he had beaten a plan Urza had made to specially stop him without any assisstance, we'd just have complaints here about Urza being misrepresented and how Teferi shouldn't have had a chance in the world.
And you could have fooled me that you don't care about characters beating up mooks considering all the hubbub you made over Jhoira rebounding one such mook's spell rather than Jodah doing it or her figuring out such a mook's plans while Jodah was busy dealing with the fallout of that mook having killed students (putting the other academies on alert, seeing if there was any possible way to revive the dead, and checking to see if the seals on important areas/items had been broken). You know, doing the things that are his job to do first and foremost.
Beat the final boss no, do something more impressive then freezing some mooks absolutely. Especially when a character has been beatdown as much as Teferi seems to have been from Time Spiral until now.
Well if Time Spiral matters he said if he had his spark back he could get Zhalfir so if the plan it get Zhalfir back I see no reason why he take resparking off the table as an option. Especially if he is weak now he cannot fly, shield or stop a wave of sand. It certainly cannot hurt can it. Thus as I said the main reason he seems to not want it back is so Jhoira doesn't look bad for first not telling him about it and second planning to use it to Rez the Weatherlight. Cause that make her look like a **** and we cannot have that. This story is all about making Jhoira look as good as possible.
He has spent a lot of time working on the traps. Jhoira just shows up looks at the equations jumps to Ghost some how after talking to the daughter. Meanwhile instead of working on the problem with them...Teferi is shown to not be smart enough to help and is thus relegated to chatting with Gideon and Lili.
My problem with that scene is Jodah being so slow to react and not protecting himself. Not the fact that Jhoira can block some random mooks spell or ability that is to be expected.
The only double standard is from you. Jhoira wasn't in a weakened state at the end of timespiral so she should still be awesome. Jace had an actual character arc where he grew as a person regaining old power. Teferi was last seen in a weak state and has yet to have any kind of character development arc. As an actual fan of Teferi I would have been very disappointed if when they reintroduced him he was perfectly fine as though nothing from Timespiral had ever happened, because that's how you ruin a character undue the on screen growth they had. If at the end of this story he hasn't done anything worthy of the title Hero of Dominaria, they I will be very disappointed. Until then they have been on point keeping his character as we should remember him rather than having massive changes off screen.
The only double standard is from you. Jhoira wasn't in a weakened state at the end of timespiral so she should still be awesome. Jace had an actual character arc where he grew as a person regaining old power. Teferi was last seen in a weak state and has yet to have any kind of character development arc. As an actual fan of Teferi I would have been very disappointed if when they reintroduced him he was perfectly fine as though nothing from Timespiral had ever happened, because that's how you ruin a character undue the on screen growth they had. If at the end of this story he hasn't done anything worthy of the title Hero of Dominaria, they I will be very disappointed. Until then they have been on point keeping his character as we should remember him rather than having massive changes off screen.
He has one massive change. A daughter with a character that was made for this story as we never met the wife beforehand.
So then I take it you would be disappointed if Teferi's main contribution this arc is freezing some mooks?
What do you think about him not wanting his spark back since unlike me your an "actual fan" so can you explain that one to me?
It doesn't logically compute at first when I heard this I thought the daughter would be super young or something which makes resparking and going off plane not make much sense or that he had simply given up on trying to get Zhalfir back and a was a a depressed hermit. Here he is super weak and the daughter is 50+ and the wife is presumably dead and he is still trying to get Zhalfir back so what your thoughts on this matter.
The only double standard is from you. Jhoira wasn't in a weakened state at the end of timespiral so she should still be awesome. Jace had an actual character arc where he grew as a person regaining old power. Teferi was last seen in a weak state and has yet to have any kind of character development arc. As an actual fan of Teferi I would have been very disappointed if when they reintroduced him he was perfectly fine as though nothing from Timespiral had ever happened, because that's how you ruin a character undue the on screen growth they had. If at the end of this story he hasn't done anything worthy of the title Hero of Dominaria, they I will be very disappointed. Until then they have been on point keeping his character as we should remember him rather than having massive changes off screen.
He has one massive change. A daughter with a character that was made for this story as we never met the wife beforehand.
So then I take it you would be disappointed if Teferi's main contribution this arc is freezing some mooks?
What do you think about him not wanting his spark back since unlike me your an "actual fan" so can you explain that one to me?
It doesn't logically compute at first when I heard this I thought the daughter would be super young or something which makes resparking and going off plane not make much sense or that he had simply given up on trying to get Zhalfir back and a was a a depressed hermit. Here he is super weak and the daughter is 50+ and the wife is presumably dead and he is still trying to get Zhalfir back so what your thoughts on this matter.
Notic how i didnt complain about you chiming in on that part, I agree there and a few other parts. If his total contribution is freezing mooks I will be disappointed because they have proclaimed him Hero of Dominaria. Him not wanting his spark back is a strange thing. If he had moved on and became a true family man I could see him not wanting that kind of responsibility. However with how he was depicted it seems odd that Jhoira would think he doesn't want his spark back. Also how she got it at all could be really annoying. If they hand wave how she got it and why he wouldn't want it, it will be a black stain on a so far amazing story.
He tried freezing the sand. It failed because the entire plateau was sinking. And he didn't have an opportunity to try something else to save everyone before the weatherlight arrived and became a ready solution. We don't know if he can fly anymore, but, as flying really only helps save himself and one additional person max, I wouldn't expect him to use it there. As for a shield, can they even be used to lift people for an extended period? Would they not simply fall as the caster falls? And even if they can be used to levitate, how many people can such a shield support for an extended period, or, in other words, how useful would using a shield have actually been to save the group.
And again, he got one try before he had no need to try again.
As for why he'd be less interested in getting his Spark back, perchance his statement in time spiral was made under the assumption of oldwalker level powers and he's since learned that the neo-walker sparks aren't quite as powerful and can't do the job any longer (and he has no desire to accrue more planeswalker level mistakes while he's still making up for those he previously made).
He learned and disarmed almost all of the traps from the entrance to the final chamber. He searched every nook and cranny in the ruin, found the final chamber, and personally narrowed down the final puzzle to two possible parts (and he was right, both were part of the puzzle) and only missed the third and final part because he had no reason yet to even suspect ghosts until after their first attempt at the equation (which is where the story starts).
He didn't sit out of the equation talk because he was dumb (that would be Gideon according to the story). Gideon then started a conversation with Teferi, and that conversation kept him out of the equation talk. And I don't blame him for carrying on a conversation with two planeswalkers like he had been and whom he can clearly sympathize with over this shared nature.
And as for how Jhoira gets to ghosts, let's review Niambi's own thoughts on the matter:
"I was wrong, it's not a mathematical problem. Or if it is, it isn't the floating blocks that are the key."
Niambi had reason to suspect that something else was playing into the equation, and knew that her father had narrowed the puzzle down to the blocks and/or the grid. Not exactly difficult to make the jump to 'What if there's something you couldn't see?' and, knowing that Teferi can see things out of phase, making the next jump to 'What if it's something naturally invisible (ghosts)?'
The main reason I see Teferi not wanting his spark back is actually stated in the chapter:
Teferi lifted his brows, but said kindly, "Oh, believe me, I've had plenty of experience cleaning up past mistakes. And when you spend so much of your life as an immortal Planeswalker, the mistakes tend to be grand in scope. It isn't possible to erase them, but with effort you can eventually balance your account."
He's trying to make up for past mistakes and isn't keen on being a planeswalker again since that brings the potential of further mistakes 'grand in scope.'
So you have a problem with Jodah (Archmage) not reacting very quickly to the spell of a random mook? Here's a few options for you:
Being cast by a mook, the spell presented no real danger to Jodah and therefore elicited no reaction.
Seemingly in charge of at least one Tolarian Academy, Jodah (playing more the role of administrator/teacher for a while now), is a bit out of practice with combat magics and isn't as quick on the draw anymore. This is reflected in his proposition to Jhoira:
"Nine people died. Next time it could be more." He looked down at her, seemed to really focus on her for the first time. "You could stay here and help us. With you, and your friend Sisay, we could find every Cabal cultist in the Spice Isles."
Note, 'find every Cabal cultist,' not 'take the fight to Belzenlok,' or, 'push the Cabal back to Urborg.' Jhoira, on the other hand, is actively interested in fighting the good fight and has better reflexes as a result.
It is worth noting, however, that the whole 'battle' between the group and cultist took mere seconds at most. So it's not like Jodah was particularly slow with the hold person (he also levitated the paralyzed cultist to where he'd be interrogated, so that's 2 spells he cast over your initial interpretation of 0).
Personally, I favor the former interpretation over the latter.
The only double standard is from you. Jhoira wasn't in a weakened state at the end of timespiral so she should still be awesome. Jace had an actual character arc where he grew as a person regaining old power. Teferi was last seen in a weak state and has yet to have any kind of character development arc. As an actual fan of Teferi I would have been very disappointed if when they reintroduced him he was perfectly fine as though nothing from Timespiral had ever happened, because that's how you ruin a character undue the on screen growth they had. If at the end of this story he hasn't done anything worthy of the title Hero of Dominaria, they I will be very disappointed. Until then they have been on point keeping his character as we should remember him rather than having massive changes off screen.
He has one massive change. A daughter with a character that was made for this story as we never met the wife beforehand.
So then I take it you would be disappointed if Teferi's main contribution this arc is freezing some mooks?
What do you think about him not wanting his spark back since unlike me your an "actual fan" so can you explain that one to me?
It doesn't logically compute at first when I heard this I thought the daughter would be super young or something which makes resparking and going off plane not make much sense or that he had simply given up on trying to get Zhalfir back and a was a a depressed hermit. Here he is super weak and the daughter is 50+ and the wife is presumably dead and he is still trying to get Zhalfir back so what your thoughts on this matter.
Notic how i didnt complain about you chiming in on that part, I agree there and a few other parts. If his total contribution is freezing mooks I will be disappointed because they have proclaimed him Hero of Dominaria. Him not wanting his spark back is a strange thing. If he had moved on and became a true family man I could see him not wanting that kind of responsibility. However with how he was depicted it seems odd that Jhoira would think he doesn't want his spark back. Also how she got it at all could be really annoying. If they hand wave how she got it and why he wouldn't want it, it will be a black stain on a so far amazing story.
Well I am glad we can find some common ground. I like keeping my expectations low and preemptively complaining. Perhaps, I am being a tad overzealous here but I just have that sinking feeling.
Yeah lets just say if she got it before Jeska finished fixing the rift there by losing Zhalfir among the Blind Eternities. There will be no recovery for Jhoira as a character in my book. Cause there is zero way you can say he wouldn't want it during Time Spiral.
Just reading the last few pages I get the feeling that you guys are discussing the same point with the same arguments, just different words. Autumn is obviously not going to move from the established position so I don't see the point of trying.
I do agree that the stories feel rushed, but I remain hopeful in assuming it was originally meant to cover 2 sets and had to be condensed into one set worth of stories. One major point I dislike in the writing, which has been brought up here as well, is how the dialogue is presented. Pretty much every single sentence (or a set of sentences by the same character) are either preceded or succeeded by some descriptor. When two people are talking, I much prefer to have the dialogue without anything else (after it's established) and have the tone/emotions conveyed by the way the dialogue is written. It's clear who's saying what when it's just two people and you put each reply as a different paragraph and it keeps the reader immersed.
We seem to be assuming facts not in evidence with regard to the artifact recovered from Urza's monument - that its intended function is to help deal with time rifts. We are told that Teferi thinks it might be helpful toward this end. We don't know if he thinks so because that's what it was made for (which leads to the problems people seem to be having with when Urza squirreled it away and why) or because it has some other function that he thinks he might be able to repurpose to seal time rifts. My reading is that Urza discovered or created these artifacts and thought they might be useful but didn't have any immediate use for them. He realized, though, that Teferi, being a time mage, might want to get his hands on them. If he did, he would probably use them for non-Urza-sanctioned activities. Not acceptable. So, he set up elaborate protections to keep them out of Teferi's hands. That Urza's motives have anything to do with Zhalfir or time rifts is simply speculation at this point.
There is no point in trying to convince someone of something when they are determined to be unconvinced.
Of course, this is but my single opinion on the matter.
The set has played really well and I really think the gameplay is hitting the themes of the world really well. I played Jund, Red Black, splashing for Green and the mechanics of Historic were pretty powerful, though I did pull a lot of good artifacts, as well as legendary creatures and a Planeswalker in my colours.
Legendaries, Ancient artifacts or toys to dig up such artefacts, old stories and friends really do seem to matter in the gameplay and I enjoyed how, even though I only collected rather than played during Invasion and the other Dominarian Sets, It really did feel like a homecoming of sorts.
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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
This round we get the back story on Tetsuko and I really hope she gets a role in the story. I also like how her teleport ability seems to be a nod to her family origins being off plane. Also helps to show Bolas isn't all powerful.
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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"
Really loving those bios, they should do that more often...
Agreed I hope they do something like this for all the legends going forward (or at least the ones that don't get featured in the story).
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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"
Am i the only one bothered by the fact that Urza used ghosts? It feels like they added that so the Jacetus Leaque wouldn't be as useless as Ann Frank's drumkit in this story.
I'm not bothered by it. Urza was RGWUB. He would use ghosts if they served the purpose, and if the person he was using them against wasn't expecting it. Dude blew up Phyrexia using bombs which he powered by literally sucking the soul out of a demonic planeswalker that was nominally his ally. Urza was kind of nuts, and everyone who knew him called him insane at least once.
All oldwalkers were WUBRG all of them could use all five colors, most however still did not and still had far more connection to the colors they were as a mortal than the off colors, Nicol Bolas himself wanted to wipe W/G out of Madara so that Grixis mana was more plentiful.
Really loving those bios, they should do that more often, so stoked for the artbook that hopefully digs even deeper.
As much as I love Valduk and his story, I’m a little sad, that he and Radha are the only reference for elves in Keld.
Well the main plot is about Belzenlok so we really don't have time to get more of surface level look at these various countries/continents. Again another reason why using only oneset for this is bad. Not enough time to deal with how various countries have changed cause we got handle a new Cabal conquering the Plane. I for one would have loved to dig down more into a Keldon Civil War or the various Magic Academies.
I have heard some say Tetsuko should get the final blow on Bolas. She, Samut and Ugin do have the biggest grievances I suppose against the Elder Dragon. Killed My Whole Family, Damned my Whole Plane and Killed me essentially.
Well the main plot is about Belzenlok so we really don't have time to get more of surface level look at these various countries/continents. Again another reason why using only oneset for this is bad. Not enough time to deal with how various countries have changed cause we got handle a new Cabal conquering the Plane. I for one would have loved to dig down more into a Keldon Civil War or the various Magic Academies.
Yeah, it's the one world, where a book would have been great. I'm really hoping that the artbook does them all justice.
They should have done something like the flavor text cabal, just an elvish barbarian with flavor text explaining how they fit in the modern keldon society.
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Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
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To some extent, we're debating semantics here. We've both acknowledged that oldwalkers could shapeshift and heal themselves at will, and also didn't age or need to eat/drink/sleep (with the exception of Sorin, who still needed to drink blood as a result of his vampiric nature). We've also both acknowledged that oldwalkers could be wounded, incapacitated, or outright killed by significant and/or sustained damage to their physical forms. The former point leads you to conclude that oldwalkers weren't physical beings at all, but the latter point leads me to disagree. If they were beings of pure energy/consciousness, they wouldn't have needed to have any physical body at all, they could've chosen to simply exist as a disembodied thoughtform. Yet that clearly wasn't the case. If oldwalkers were reliant on a 'center' to exist, and that center had to be made of physical matter that was structured in a certain way (almost always an organic brain, except for one case where it was a set of powerstones), then I would say they're fundamentally physical (and with the exceptions of Urza and Karn, fundamentally organic) beings, even if their physical forms were incredibly malleable.
As for your assertion that the slow time water wouldn't affect Teferi because he could choose to shapeshift, I'll admit that it's not completely baseless, but I do think it's fairly dubious logic for a setting in which magical shapeshifting exists. Werewolves can shapeshift too - as can anyone affected by a polymorph spell, for that matter - but I'd imagine they could still be poisoned or affected by magical substances. When werewolves are killed, they automatically revert to human form, which shows that their original body remains their default/baseline state even when they're magically transformed. And it's been shown that oldwalkers, like werewolves, would revert back to their original forms when they died or became incapacitated: Someone else mentioned that Windgrace reverted back to his original form when he was stunned by a cannon blast, and while I'm not sure what happened to Tevesh Szat's body when he was killed, Taysir was killed the same way and left a corpse behind. If they were energy beings, you'd expect their bodies to simply disappear when they died, or at least remain in whatever form they were in at the time. (Windgrace was even worried that necromancers would resurrect Taysir and had to perform a ritual to keep that from happening, which seems like something that definitely shouldn't have been at all possible if he'd been a being of pure consciousness.) Also, when the Mending happened, oldwalkers started aging from whatever age they'd been when they first sparked, which further indicates that their original bodies were still their true forms. That alone could explain why Teferi is still affected by the slow time water: when the Mending happened, his body would have reverted to the condition it was in when he sparked, when he'd just been exposed to massive quantities of the water.
And again, if oldwalkers were simply thoughtforms who chose to take on a physical shape when it suited them, why would Bolas need to leave a physical body behind when he astrally projected? Why would killing that physical body result in his death when his consciousness was elsewhere? Why would Bolas' ghost (which only existed because he was tied to a temporal rift) have needed to manipulate the timestream to save his old body from destruction in order to come back to life, instead of simply willing a new body into existence? Conversely, how could oldwalkers be knocked unconscious or rendered comatose at all? Wouldn't Teferi and Ugin simply cease to exist if they stopped being conscious?
(Of course, the real life answer is simply that the old stories were never all that consistent to begin with, and the exact nature of planeswalkers seemed to vary from story to story back then. This confusion is further compounded by Urza - the single most well-known planeswalker of the pre-Mending era - being an exceptionally strange and unique case, since he was basically a lich whose essence was housed in a pair of powerstones rather than a typical oldwalker. But I think my interpretation is more consistent with how the current MtG creative team views and portrays the pre-Mending era.)
??? Yes, he is not an Oldwalker anymore. Let me ask a question if you don't know who Jodah and Teferi were before hand would any think they are Archmagi and significantly more powerful and experienced then Raff?
Jodah contributed one hold spell or power word: stun.
Teferi has only frozen stuff for small amounts of time. And cannot stop a sand wave 10 years of waiting for this? That is a letdown.
Meanwhile Raff has cast illusion magic, shield magic and apparently knows a spell that can get information out of people's mind. So why is Raff so much more versatile and getting show off depth of knowledge that Teferi and Jodah don't get to? So far all I asked is for Teferi to show the ability to fly, shield and telepathy skills he learned in the past before so not even new abilities here. All these seems to be skill Raff possess but sure significant feats of magic...SMFH.
And as for its okay if Teferi struggles and fails? Yeah that was what Time Spiral was they took pretty much everything from the character. I don't need to see him broken down more, its time for the rise. I want feats and wins and a showcase of intelligence, skill and power but apparently its wrong to ask they start immediately giving Teferi some of those. Meanwhile Jhoira is shown as the smartest and most competent person around from the start. She raises the Weatherlight, she organizes the team to fight Belzenlok, she leads the hunt for the spy at the Academy, She solved the maze, and she gets Teferi spark back. So far her only failing is not getting Danitha Capahsen to join the team. That is quite a good deal of accomplishments, and you expect Teferi to catch up how?
Who here really thinks Belzenlok is a big enough threat that a Resparked Teferi, Karn and Jaya cannot roll over him pretty easily? Not to mention WOTC is obviously going to let Lili get the final blow so how much chance do those three returning Oldwalkers get to shine? What I am supposed to be impressed with Teferi freezing a bunch of no name mooks. That doesn't account for Gideon, Jace and Chandra all getting a chance to shine as well cause you know WOTC won't leave their Golden Children out. Furthermore, we know Bolas is coming so its going to end on a Neutral at best. Cause Bolas is obviously leaving with Lili and cannot be defeated here.
If you were expecting Teferi, Temporal Archmage then you haven't payed attention to his last arc so its hard to believe you are invested in this character.
As for Time Spiral? Yeah and Jaya was dead at the end of Time Spiral. Your point is what, WOTC never changes their minds and retcons? Characters cannot get stronger and build themselves back up after a defeat? Or did we miss the last story where Jace did just that and culminated in crushing Azor in magical combat and creating an Anti Bolas Plan. All in what 6 months? Teferi has had 60 years and your like no its fine he is still weak and has gotten basically nothing done on his own. WOTC wants a pat on the back for diversity and hyped this return but have shown Teferi as weak, not especially smart and incapable of getting much done without help. Meanwhile Jhoira is shown as the smartest and most competent character in the story from the jump. I am not suppose to notice this double standard? As I said its clear Wells loves Jhoira, so far I have not been convinced she really loves the character of Teferi like she claimed in the interview.
And he seems to have been fairly successful at both (considering he's trying to track down artfacts made by and solve puzzles designed by Urza). He tacked down where one of the artifacts is. He and his daughter disarmed large parts of Urza's death trap ruin. He and his daughter took the time to figure out all the dead ends and false leads in the ruin. He and his daughter even figured out how to solve the last puzzle bar one detail (a detail which, shocker, they missed on their first attempt trying to use the solution). He made one attempt to deal with the sinking plateau and then was presented a reason to not need to try again. He's been incredibly successful, just not necessarily on his first attempt at a new solution idea or on his first thought to try and save everybody in the group when the entire plateau they were on was sinking!
All Jhoira did is show up and take the train of thought Niambi was already on (something else in the room is the key to the equation) and finish it. Other than that, Jhoira and the neo-weatherlight crew just served to defend from the ruin's onslaught.
And what's Jhoira's successes? She recently found the Weatherlight, paid to have it recovered, and provided the seed to rebuild it's hull. She tracked down one member of her crew, was turned down by another and took an inexperienced volunteer in her place (just to have a Capashen), and somehow got Teferi's spark. Arvad and Tiana (and eventually Slimefoot, given what we know) ended up as part of her crew largely due to a series of lucky events outside of Jhoira's crew. And while she did have a potential back up plan in the event the powerstone was drained, she got very lucky that Tiana was able to restart it since Jhoira really didn't want to use her backup option.
And considering you get so upset that Jhoira rebounded a singular no-name mook's spell when Jodah didn't seem to care about said spell (that or Jhoira just has better a reaction time) and was actually able to remove said mook as a threat, I would think you'd be impressed at Teferi freezing a whole bunch of them.
Also, I'm pretty sure Gideon is gonna get the final blow on Belzenlok. They've set up the Blackblade as a Chekov's gun, there's direct reference in flavor text that Gideon is going to wield it (especially given that they've removed his usual weapon), Liliana can't use the chain veil so soon after unmaking Josu, and the idea of a soul drinker (the Blackblade) being able to kill Belzenlok and an elder dragon was brought up.
Great one artifact in 60 years so impressive. And a daughter with a character we never met before amazing.
He didn't get his own spark back. He won't strike the final blow against Belzenlok. Not that I consider Belz much of a threat at this point.
No I am anime fan and comic fan. A named character beating up mooks never impresses me. And that is a pretty lame highlight for Teferi in this story. As noted last storyline had Jace hand Azor his *** now that is something to celebrate as a Jace Fan. Then he comes up with a plan to help against Bolas including doing so good of job with Vraksa memories that Bolas doesn't notice.. That is the type of showcase of power, skill and intelligence, I expect from a character that WOTC claims to care about and we all know that they care about Jace as he is the Poster Boy.
In contrast, the only good thing about Teferi so far is the dialogue that is pretty spot on. Everything else is bad. His intelligence, power and skill have all been downgraded in my book too far so other characters can shine whereas nothing about Jhoira has been downgraded at all. Ergo I see nothing that validates WOTC and their loving of patting themselves on the back for representation.
One of Urza's artifacts. In a ruin he designed to be deadly if not cautiously approached, and take an absurd amount of time to search (note of incorrect corridors and large number of distraction chambers Teferi mentions in addition to the death traps). A ruin that he had to track down from what seems to be almost no information. And all of this seemingly in direct opposition to Urza planning specifically for him.
Yes, he doesn't get his own spark back. Now, why might he not want to get his own spark back? He certainly doesn't seem to be trying to get it back (favoring an attempt to track down Urza's artifacts, Jhoira certainly doesn't seem to think he will want his spark back, and Teferi doesn't seem to look fondly back on his days as a planeswalker:
Teferi lifted his brows, but said kindly, "Oh, believe me, I've had plenty of experience cleaning up past mistakes. And when you spend so much of your life as an immortal Planeswalker, the mistakes tend to be grand in scope. It isn't possible to erase them, but with effort you can eventually balance your account."
We don't yet know why he isn't keen on the idea of being a planeswalker again, but that seems likely to be addressed in a future story. But here's the thing, he didn't just stop trying to bring back Zhalfir because he lost and didn't want his spark back. He persevered and got 99% of the way to this first artifact in what appears to be direct opposition to Urza's plans. How is being one to make the most progress in beating one of Urza's plans (and then finishing said beating the plan with a little help) not impressive?
Honestly, if he had beaten a plan Urza had made to specially stop him without any assisstance, we'd just have complaints here about Urza being misrepresented and how Teferi shouldn't have had a chance in the world.
And you could have fooled me that you don't care about characters beating up mooks considering all the hubbub you made over Jhoira rebounding one such mook's spell rather than Jodah doing it or her figuring out such a mook's plans while Jodah was busy dealing with the fallout of that mook having killed students (putting the other academies on alert, seeing if there was any possible way to revive the dead, and checking to see if the seals on important areas/items had been broken). You know, doing the things that are his job to do first and foremost.
Well if Time Spiral matters he said if he had his spark back he could get Zhalfir so if the plan it get Zhalfir back I see no reason why he take resparking off the table as an option. Especially if he is weak now he cannot fly, shield or stop a wave of sand. It certainly cannot hurt can it. Thus as I said the main reason he seems to not want it back is so Jhoira doesn't look bad for first not telling him about it and second planning to use it to Rez the Weatherlight. Cause that make her look like a **** and we cannot have that. This story is all about making Jhoira look as good as possible.
He has spent a lot of time working on the traps. Jhoira just shows up looks at the equations jumps to Ghost some how after talking to the daughter. Meanwhile instead of working on the problem with them...Teferi is shown to not be smart enough to help and is thus relegated to chatting with Gideon and Lili.
My problem with that scene is Jodah being so slow to react and not protecting himself. Not the fact that Jhoira can block some random mooks spell or ability that is to be expected.
He has one massive change. A daughter with a character that was made for this story as we never met the wife beforehand.
So then I take it you would be disappointed if Teferi's main contribution this arc is freezing some mooks?
What do you think about him not wanting his spark back since unlike me your an "actual fan" so can you explain that one to me?
It doesn't logically compute at first when I heard this I thought the daughter would be super young or something which makes resparking and going off plane not make much sense or that he had simply given up on trying to get Zhalfir back and a was a a depressed hermit. Here he is super weak and the daughter is 50+ and the wife is presumably dead and he is still trying to get Zhalfir back so what your thoughts on this matter.
And again, he got one try before he had no need to try again.
As for why he'd be less interested in getting his Spark back, perchance his statement in time spiral was made under the assumption of oldwalker level powers and he's since learned that the neo-walker sparks aren't quite as powerful and can't do the job any longer (and he has no desire to accrue more planeswalker level mistakes while he's still making up for those he previously made).
He learned and disarmed almost all of the traps from the entrance to the final chamber. He searched every nook and cranny in the ruin, found the final chamber, and personally narrowed down the final puzzle to two possible parts (and he was right, both were part of the puzzle) and only missed the third and final part because he had no reason yet to even suspect ghosts until after their first attempt at the equation (which is where the story starts).
He didn't sit out of the equation talk because he was dumb (that would be Gideon according to the story). Gideon then started a conversation with Teferi, and that conversation kept him out of the equation talk. And I don't blame him for carrying on a conversation with two planeswalkers like he had been and whom he can clearly sympathize with over this shared nature.
And as for how Jhoira gets to ghosts, let's review Niambi's own thoughts on the matter:
"I was wrong, it's not a mathematical problem. Or if it is, it isn't the floating blocks that are the key."
Niambi had reason to suspect that something else was playing into the equation, and knew that her father had narrowed the puzzle down to the blocks and/or the grid. Not exactly difficult to make the jump to 'What if there's something you couldn't see?' and, knowing that Teferi can see things out of phase, making the next jump to 'What if it's something naturally invisible (ghosts)?'
The main reason I see Teferi not wanting his spark back is actually stated in the chapter:
Teferi lifted his brows, but said kindly, "Oh, believe me, I've had plenty of experience cleaning up past mistakes. And when you spend so much of your life as an immortal Planeswalker, the mistakes tend to be grand in scope. It isn't possible to erase them, but with effort you can eventually balance your account."
He's trying to make up for past mistakes and isn't keen on being a planeswalker again since that brings the potential of further mistakes 'grand in scope.'
So you have a problem with Jodah (Archmage) not reacting very quickly to the spell of a random mook? Here's a few options for you:
Being cast by a mook, the spell presented no real danger to Jodah and therefore elicited no reaction.
Seemingly in charge of at least one Tolarian Academy, Jodah (playing more the role of administrator/teacher for a while now), is a bit out of practice with combat magics and isn't as quick on the draw anymore. This is reflected in his proposition to Jhoira:
"Nine people died. Next time it could be more." He looked down at her, seemed to really focus on her for the first time. "You could stay here and help us. With you, and your friend Sisay, we could find every Cabal cultist in the Spice Isles."
Note, 'find every Cabal cultist,' not 'take the fight to Belzenlok,' or, 'push the Cabal back to Urborg.' Jhoira, on the other hand, is actively interested in fighting the good fight and has better reflexes as a result.
It is worth noting, however, that the whole 'battle' between the group and cultist took mere seconds at most. So it's not like Jodah was particularly slow with the hold person (he also levitated the paralyzed cultist to where he'd be interrogated, so that's 2 spells he cast over your initial interpretation of 0).
Personally, I favor the former interpretation over the latter.
Well I am glad we can find some common ground. I like keeping my expectations low and preemptively complaining. Perhaps, I am being a tad overzealous here but I just have that sinking feeling.
Yeah lets just say if she got it before Jeska finished fixing the rift there by losing Zhalfir among the Blind Eternities. There will be no recovery for Jhoira as a character in my book. Cause there is zero way you can say he wouldn't want it during Time Spiral.
I do agree that the stories feel rushed, but I remain hopeful in assuming it was originally meant to cover 2 sets and had to be condensed into one set worth of stories. One major point I dislike in the writing, which has been brought up here as well, is how the dialogue is presented. Pretty much every single sentence (or a set of sentences by the same character) are either preceded or succeeded by some descriptor. When two people are talking, I much prefer to have the dialogue without anything else (after it's established) and have the tone/emotions conveyed by the way the dialogue is written. It's clear who's saying what when it's just two people and you put each reply as a different paragraph and it keeps the reader immersed.
RWU
GUB
WBR
URG
BGW
Of course, this is but my single opinion on the matter.
The set has played really well and I really think the gameplay is hitting the themes of the world really well. I played Jund, Red Black, splashing for Green and the mechanics of Historic were pretty powerful, though I did pull a lot of good artifacts, as well as legendary creatures and a Planeswalker in my colours.
Legendaries, Ancient artifacts or toys to dig up such artefacts, old stories and friends really do seem to matter in the gameplay and I enjoyed how, even though I only collected rather than played during Invasion and the other Dominarian Sets, It really did feel like a homecoming of sorts.
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
https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/988096358480515077
This round we get the back story on Tetsuko and I really hope she gets a role in the story. I also like how her teleport ability seems to be a nod to her family origins being off plane. Also helps to show Bolas isn't all powerful.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
As much as I love Valduk and his story, I’m a little sad, that he and Radha are the only reference for elves in Keld.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.
Agreed I hope they do something like this for all the legends going forward (or at least the ones that don't get featured in the story).
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
All oldwalkers were WUBRG all of them could use all five colors, most however still did not and still had far more connection to the colors they were as a mortal than the off colors, Nicol Bolas himself wanted to wipe W/G out of Madara so that Grixis mana was more plentiful.
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
Well the main plot is about Belzenlok so we really don't have time to get more of surface level look at these various countries/continents. Again another reason why using only oneset for this is bad. Not enough time to deal with how various countries have changed cause we got handle a new Cabal conquering the Plane. I for one would have loved to dig down more into a Keldon Civil War or the various Magic Academies.
I have heard some say Tetsuko should get the final blow on Bolas. She, Samut and Ugin do have the biggest grievances I suppose against the Elder Dragon. Killed My Whole Family, Damned my Whole Plane and Killed me essentially.
Yeah, it's the one world, where a book would have been great. I'm really hoping that the artbook does them all justice.
They should have done something like the flavor text cabal, just an elvish barbarian with flavor text explaining how they fit in the modern keldon society.
Thanks to DarkNightCavalier from Heroes of the Plane Studios for this sick Signature.