MTG Salvation

Final Aether Revolt story is up.

Check it out here.

Wow. very nice, touching character moments to finish the tale. Gideon is really growing into a leader, and we get some real growth for Chandra and Nissa.

Looks like Ajani will be a noshow in Amonkhet...and Bolas is about to get in Datazz.

Calling it now: Gatewatch takes an L next block.

excellent story. I'm partial to the tales where the lowly "normal guy" outwits the mighty Planeswalker (or other being at that level) by basically turning their own arrogance against them. Tetsuo Umezawa besting Bolas and Xantcha thwarting Gix both come to mind.
Now that Rashmi has an inkling about Planeswalkers and the multiverse, it looks like Miss Saheeli and the Jacetus League Gatewatch have got some 'splainin' to do...

new workout goals for next year: I want my wife to call me Beefslab. Just once. I'll also settle for "Mancake."

Looks like they're downplaying Chandra's pre-Eldrazi past with Gideon. They might have had something brewing , but now it appears as if he has been friendzoned. bummer.

So now the gatewatch get their own spot which happens to be Jace's Living Guildpact office? It's the new hall of Jacetus! These jokes just write themselves!

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I wonder if the Eldrazi would have eventually turned their attention to artificial planes like Serra's realm, Old Phyrexia and Mirrodin.
they suposedly represent the cycle of death and rebirth, but does that apply to planes that aren't "Natural"?

Quote from Glamdring804 »

[quote from="Quannage »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/675516-magic-story-articles-discussion-soi-emn-no?comment=2415"]
I wonder though, if the Eldrazi could have repaired the rifts.

Nah, I think the Eldrazi would've just razed the source of the problem before all the rifts threatened the multiverse. if ANY plane needed some Eidazi-ing, it would be Dominaria.

Of course, Gideon could utter two words that world add a ton of depth and intrigue to his character...

"Hail Bolas."

By the way...this line was awesome.

Enough doom talk. More how-we-win-this talk, please. I'm gonna go burn things.

Chandra just leaped up a few spots on my favorite Planeswalker list.

other quotes I found enjoyable:

Manipulated correctly, friends were like better zombies.

But now I wonder...just what exactly was that scroll that Tamiyo used and Emrakul corrupted?

I enjoyed the story quite a bit. The battle was well choreographed, and of course Nahiri would have an answer for everything Sorin threw at her. she's had quite a bit of time to scout him.

And It is poetic justice that Nahiri leaves Sorin encased in stone, helpless to stop an Eldrazi from razing his plane. That's exactly how he left her.

I beg to differ on the whole "She's a Villain from now on" thing,though. Okay, she went a bit overboard in her revenge scheme, and we assume she's going to go after Ugin next. So for those two instances, we can say she is the villain. But aside from that, what are her goals and plans? I don't see her as the "conquering worlds" type. Maybe since she's WR now, she's out to do some interplanar vigilante justice or something, but that makes her a possible antagonist, but not a villain. And I'm quite sure we're going to see her again after She has her showdown with Ugin, so how can she be villainous once her thirst for revenge is satiated?

Quote from Glamdring804 »

Quote from Jay13x »

At worst, Kaburi and I might just mess with you.

Unfortunately, we've already been told the forum censor software can't be used to auto-replace "Jacetus League" with "Gatewatch"

Hilarity would have ensued.

Imagine if it did it with this thread title. "Should Gatewatch be banned?" That would have made for an interesting topic.

that would be opening up a whole nother can of worms...

Quote from Catherine Cook »

Why is this "unsettling news"? It's an occupational choice. People make those all the time.

Well, Catherine, when you make a occupational *choice*, you would probably speak differently than this:

What's next for me? I don't know yet, and that's kind of exciting. I'm certainly interested in industry jobs and would welcome anything you want to point me toward. But I've got a little time right now for the kinds of creative side projects I haven't been able to pursue.

Really does not look like it was his choice to quit.

A really good one today:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/return-dominaria-episode-7-2018-04-25

Basically Teferi's backstory between Mending and now.

Feels like the old books.

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.

See my way of reading it is that Urza is the kind of guy who would make an elaborate complex deathtrap for one of his students as a way to unwind from a long day of fighting the Phyrexian incursion.

Like, some people play sudoku, some build tiny ships in bottles. Urza makes elaborate dangerous booby trapped ruins.

Quote from SimicNuggets »

Despite being well-written, even an actual fantasy author in Martha Wells can't bypass mtg creative's mandate of feeding us stories that fit too conveniently together.

Was still enjoyable tho. 7/10. Nice seeing Teferi again.

Yeah. She is a good writer, but I think that in this format, even bringing back the old writers (not King, but ScottMcG, for example) would make this return work.

It is just too rushed, too simple in contrast to anything we were used to with this characters.

Frankly, it feels like Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett's second-to-last novel snd a farewell to Ankh-Morpork characters. The characters like Moist, Vetinari, Vimes are all there, but feel weird.

Quote from 5colors »

Quote from Volrath »

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 still surprised people use Jacetus League, figured that horse had finally died.

It will never go away as long as the MTG story is basicly a saturday morning cartoon.

Quote from Volrath »

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 still surprised people use Jacetus League, figured that horse had finally died.

Quote from ryuplaneswalker »

That would be like being a hermit

You have, an entire infinite Multiverse except for a small group of worlds in the Dominarian Shard area of the Multiverse to play in.

; the very act would be an admission of defeat.

Or it is cheating a bunch of schlubs who think they are a big deal because they are a major power on a single world.

Besides, remember that Lili was used to near omnipotency,

Yes she has hundreds of years of experience and doesn't apparently understand basic concepts like. "If I can see this easily visible loophole the guy who made the contract and the 4 demons." and can't think far ahead enough to understand that even if killing the 4 demons worked that all she did was trade them 4 for the chain veil.

If you're used to getting your way, you aren't going to run from problems, you try to solve them. If she did do as you say, she wouldn't be true to character;

You assume the Demons -are a problem- for her. In the entirety of the Lore there has been -ONE SINGULAR EXAMPLE- of the Demons calling in on her debt..which was when she tried to kill one. She already had her way because she could planeswalk to a world across the Multiverse in a Shard of worlds that the Demons have no access too. What are they going to do..tattle and call Nicol Bolas to fetch you? Cause he would totally do that, and even if you wanted them to not be able to call on you at all..The first one you offed already could not do that so you could just kill the other 3 and leave the last stuck in the HeliVault, thus completely negating the Bolas Clause of the Contract.

Yes she is being true to her character, and that is my problem..her character is a massive idiot who should know better and they chose her as the "black rep" in the Gatewatch despite her not fitting into it, if the writing staff were remotely competent Liliana would get killed at some point between now and Vraska shanking Nicol with The Blackblade.

Your suggestion is based on the single assumption that the demons can't reach through planes. That's like betting your life on the belief that these ancient and rather clever beings (never assume an enemy is stupid) do not have a way to leash a Planeswalker, and despite this made a deal anyway; would a bank offer a loan if they didn't have some way to collect? Betting everything on this, and then giving up your agency and the advantage of a preemptive strike, plus pissing off your debtors by hiding somewhere and not listening to them would be extremely stupid. It's clear the demons can communicate through planes; how would Kothoped even command Liliana to get the Chain Veil in the first place? And if they can communicate, they can easily plot. Liliana's actions is based on the same reasoning as to why every single superpower in history (Roman Imperium, USA, Kingdom of France, HRE, British Empire, China's Imperial Dynasties, Ottoman Empire etc) launches pre-emptive strikes on forces that can potentially be threats rather than just reacting to them; it's just a more reliable method with a greater success rate at protecting your own interests, even if it can fail at times.

I would also argue that Lili is a far cleverer character than Vraska (and the rest of the Gatewatch, though that isn't saying much; Jace is academically smarter, but Lili plots better) due to the sole fact that she actually does plan ahead. For example she tries to manipulate Jace to look through the demon deal, manipulates the Gatewatch into solving her problems, making people trust her by using selective honesty and etc. Sure her plans backfire, but that's a chance for good character development (in this new story, Lili was forced into being honest with Gideon more than she was comfortable with, showing emotional weakness due to the events around her brother and having her absolutely hating that Gideon can see it). Vraska just improvises her way out and uses the ability to petrify as a crutch. She was following a broken compass until Jace came along! Her leadership abilities were essentially given to her by Bolas, as the crew worked for her because of her supreme competence in navigating and sailing. Not to mention that as a character, her motivations are very mundane, she just longs for social acceptance (hates people seeing her as the evil gorgon, wants to lead the Golgari in order to give her people a place etc), which is hardly a black trait. If anything, seeing Vraska interact with the Gatewatch would be just adding another voice to their group-think chamber (as she would love acceptance into such an elite social group; her crush on Jace would be just a bonus). Seeing Vraska interact with Lili however would be super interesting, as Lili is essentially someone with Vraska's reputation who just doesn't care; they're complete opposites as Vraska longs for someone to understand her and her experiences, whereas Lili loathes any sign of pity or empathy from others as she sees it as simply a self admission of weakness that is recognized by others. Yet despite all this she enjoys Jace's company and being his friend/lover, and cannot bring herself to completely dismiss them as mere tools. Inner character tension is always great for development, whereas someone like Vraska currently only has a bland acceptance storyline. She wants something, getting that something (leadership abilities recognized, a place in society) does not in any way conflict with her character at all. Having her introduced to a different worldview altogether would however possibly cause character tension; would a part of Vraska want to have Liliana's apparent supreme self-confidence and irreverence of society?

Lili creates tension within the Gatewatch, and therefore creates valuable plot points between characters and gives an opportunity to flesh out everyone better. Just look at Gideon's development in this new storyline (although one could argue that it's also because they have a far better writer this time round, having him with a buddy like Jace would just offer more of the same since Gideon's beliefs, world view, goals, opinions of a character and etc would not be challenged).

Quote from Quannage »

Quote from Perkunas687 »

Was it discussed somewhere by Wizards why, on the 25th anniversary and on the most prominent plane in Magic history, they decided to only do a one set block? A lot of our issues with representation of other Dominaria things and the rushed story could have been solved by having more than one set. Seems strange to me. I mean, we're still having four sets a year, right? They couldn't dedicate at least two for such a big anniversary? Shrug.

MaRo said that the 2-set paradigm was kind of a fail, so that's part of why they switched to one big set at a time.
HOWEVER, he also said that Creative was no longer beholden to the "New block, new plane" standard. so they do have the freedom to have back-to-back big sets on the same plane, if the storyline dictates. So there is a possibility, however slim, that the next set will still be on Dominaria.

This right here. We don't know what plane the next non-Core Standard set will be on. While it's likely that it won't be Dominaria, it's too soon to get upset about Dominaria being only one set.

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

In Bolas's Clutches - yeap, we all saw it coming, how in the name of holy **** did Lili not? This even happens when you get a loan, that's what guarantors are. Idiot. She might be a strong necromancer, but she ain't clever.

I knew Chandra wasn't gone entirely, too. I assume she finds Karn, sees him reanimate Multani, finds the rest of her gang and brings Karn into the fold again so he can have an awkward conversation with Jhoira that she already knows the conclusion of.

Goddamn home run for the set flavour wise, power wise, stoked to be grabbing a box.

It's not the matter of how clever you are; when you have no options, people will go to loan sharks as a desperate move even if they know it's dangerous. Lili really didn't want to die, and any alternative was better (to her and many people in the world probably; if you knew they could gain eternal youth and nearly unlimited power, wouldn't you bet it all on shady deals with cosmic beings who do not have your best interests at heart, and give up something as opaque as your soul?). This also plays into Lili's character flaw, which is her pride and belief in her own power; she always thought she could get out of any situation. It's actually good characterization for a pre-mending planeswalker IMO. If you were a walker who was formerly nearly omnipotent, that has to do something to one's ego.

One could argue that Bolas suffers the same arrogance; sure he's incredibly intelligent and powerful, but given Liliana's success rate at killing things that have bound her to contracts, surely it'd be smarter to dangle a carrot in front of her along with the stick? Bind her to his service for now, but create a really believable promise to free her from it if she accomplishes certain tasks for him (and even teach her a little something; he's supposed to be this fountain of knowledge after all, he can give out a tiny morsel of power). And if Lili accomplishes the task, keep the promise, it costs him nothing and he can keep a powerful necromancer on retainer knowing she doesn't want to betray him if she can keep getting more power for herself by serving him loyally. If Bolas is smart, he should know that finding out a person's true motivation, then using it as a leash for that person is the best way to manipulate them; they can be aware of it, but they'll still help you as long as their goals align with yours.