MTG Salvation

For the record, seeing Jace freak out at his own powers tickles me.
along with yelling "Useless Island!" that was almost as Meta as Bolas' musings on the Gatewatch,

in past Commander sets, we've gotten brief explanations of the new characters. nothing substantial, just a paragraph-or-two-long breakdown of who they are and where they are from. and the majority of it comes from the inserts that come with the decks.

so maybe we should ask if someone that purchases the decks could post the bios from those inserts?

Remember, Ob Nix said that you must always take the telepath out first.
Bolas was just following the natural strategy.

Stories where the bad guys win, and you KNOW they're going to win, are very fun and almost cathartic to read when handled well.

Prime examples of this are The Thran and Nemesis, two of the most beloved stories in Magic lore.

The sense of dread and despair that increases as the story progresses, where every minor victory by the heroes is fleeting and short lived (if they get a victory at all), and you as a reader know things are not going to end well, can make for great storytelling.

So far, the stories of the fall of Amonkhet have been absolutely delicious. And Bolas Himself hasn't even arrived yet.

If it gets us Phil Foglio and Matt Cavota back on MTG card art, then I'm all in.

The story mentioned that he manipulated the leylines of the Gods so they would be more loyal to him.
Anyone else see a connection between this and Nissa's leyline revelations?

in any case, the story was awesome, and the first thought I had upon reading was "yeah the Gatewatch is about to get their asses handed to them. On a platter."

New story today, focusing on Samut and Djeru.

Seems like Nissa's vision of the three children disappearing into the desert was literal.

Would't be surprised to see a Djeru card in the next set.

As for the story, it had some decent parts, but a bit too much exposition for my liking. You'd think Samut discovering the truth about Bolas would have more resonance.

Quote from SecretInfiltrator »

I thought this might be the right place to ask whether we have any ideas on whether and when there will be a Planeswalker's Guide to Amonkhet.

I'd like to see one of their D&D sourcebook thingies done on Amonkhet, and specifically, a part describing the trials.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

The writers are really finding their stride with these Amonkhet stories.
even the one about Nissa and her new blue side - as much as everyone complained about it - was a marked improvement over, say, anything from BFZ.

We're seeing some real growth here for beefslab, as he is being forced to take a good, hard look in the mirror and question his motivations and M.O.

I also thought the trial was a very new and interesting take on the black ethos, especially the how and why of members of the team sacrificing themselves for the sake of the crop. this would normally be a white thing, but it made sense in the black trial.

and I know it won't happen, but now I'm interested in seeing what the other gods would tell Gids about himself if given the opportunity.

Quote from void_nothing »

Midway through today's storyline and every woman Gideon has encountered, including Oketra, has flirted with him.

well, he is the Beefslab, after all...

Eh it wouldn't be the first time someone thought they had Bolas in a trap and he flipped the trap on them.

Jace has reason to be cold to Liliana even if he has no clue about her current relationship with Bolas, if one even exists. He has just regained all his memories, and his full personality. He is fully aware of how *****ty she is, even without Bolas or demons in the picture. She's his manipulative, abusive ex. He speaks directly to Gideon, not Chandra or Karn or Teferi or the Weather light crew when warning about Liliana. Gideon, directly, personally. He never even says that the mission is the manipulation, he even agrees that the Cabal needs to be stopped and Belz needs to die, he says that Liliana is manipulating Gideon. This isn't about Amonkhet or the gatewatch or her demons, its about how Liliana treated Jace, how he fell for her, and how he senses Gideon doing the same. Jace fell for her because he needed somebody in his life, because he was as alone as anyone could be, and that was her in. Gideon, OTOH, is exactly the sort of person who could see a glimmer of decency in her, real or illusionary, and think "I can fix her". He's been on that path, letting himself trust her, seeing the " good" in her, feeling for her, all set. He hasn't gotten to a romantic level yet, but I expect Liliana to push him in that direction, because that's what she does. Tragically, it may actually end up being genuine this time before Bolas forces her to his side.

If Liliana isn't there, I garauntee Jace acts differently.

Quote from AnImAr_ »

I haven't read the story yet, but the spelling of Sylex should tick people off already.

Eh, I kind of view that like the spelling difference between Czar and Tsar.

Jace being reserved seems reasonable to me, especially with Liliana's presence there. Also the Multani + Chandra scene was just the best.

We also know that in this time Gideon and Liliana went to Caligo, defeated Josu Vess, and then traveled to Benalia, got picked up by the Weatherlight, went to Jamuura, and helped Teferi with his puzzle. That has to have taken more than a few days.

New story is up and it followed up last weeks;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/return-dominaria-episode-9-2018-05-09?/

Jaya sighed. "A long time ago, I went to Regatha, helped a few people, got drunk, talked a lot, apparently did some very impressive pyromancy, then left. Two hundred years later, I went back and found they'd started a religion based on me." She folded her arms and admitted, "It was all a little embarrassing, frankly."

^^^OMG I'm laughing so hard at this.

-Looks like Jaya stayed at Mother Luti out of sense of duty and brand management.

-Karn is looking for the Cylix to bomb New Phyrexia.

-The weathlight arrives so the gang is all together.

-Chandra helps Multani wake, which is nice since it shows a nice connections between red and green. Very Moana too.

-The Chandra/Nissa ship just keeps getting more wind.

-I love that Multani seems jealous over them using a seed from Molimo.

-Jhoira used a mana rig to somehow get Teferi spark back?

-And the timelines are all connected with Jace popping in and popping out.

-I wonder if Jace told everyone about Vraska or if he's keeping it quite. And damn he gave the coldest shoulder to Liliana, she is just not having a good times this set.

-Very odd seeing Jace dismiss Lilaiana and for Gideon to defend her.

-Raff gets it about planeswalkers lol

-I like the all circle idea with Teferi, he fought Bolas and later lost his spark and now he's going to regain his spark in order to help fight Bolas.

This story really got the plot going and I like see all of our hero together. Really good story imo.

The writing style fits her, quick and unorganized. Where as with Teferi, it was collected and deliberately slower.

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

So Issue 9 Get Everyone Together, 10 Assault on Base, 11 Fight Belzenlok and 12 Bolas Appears?

I may be a strange one but I had assumed from the announcement of the general plot outline of Dominaria that all three of those last points would be in one chapter. That's mostly because I'm sticking to the belief that Belzenlok isn't supposed to feel like a threat. So the pace has been rather on point from my perspective. I was expecting 10ish stories about gathering everyone together, because while every story needs some kind of central conflict we can obvious see and point at; after Amonkhet I was expecting 1-3 blocks about gathering and fixing people so they would be ready for the next Bolas event.

Quote from mapccu »

Didn't like the hand waving that Chandra just stumbles accross Jaya's aether trail on dominaria.

Honestly I expect nothing less from (a member of) the Gatewatch.

Blindly stumbling on the answer to their problems has been their modus operandi from day one.

suspected all along about Mother Luti. Quite a few of the predictions by this group have been spot on. hope this doesn't mean MTG storylines are getting to be too predictable.

I am not sure we can call Luti being Jaya a huge prediction, mysterious Pyromancy Master, lives in a Cult to Jaya without being an official member of it and understands Chandra is a Planeswalker and tells her to go help her friends, the bigger twist would for her to not be Jaya I think.