If Creative is stupid enough to do this - and that, my friends, is something I have little doubts about...
I firmly believe we are already seeing the shift towards comics-style storytelling (either because there is an MTG movie on the horizon, because super hero moves are huge right now, or - most likely - some combination of the two), so I think a "Legion of Doom" probably is inevitable, regardless of how cliche it might be. Likewise, Bolas becoming a Thanos / Darkseid-esque mastermind manipulating the other villains from behind the scenes also seems highly likely. (Heck, between whatever he was doing back in the original "Zendikar" and "Scars of Mirrodin" blocks and his involvement in Liliana's demonic pacts, he is pretty much already doing that.)
Since character versus their mirror archetype battles are a staple trope (and recalling that Ashiok was loosely conceived to be a Shadow Archetype to Jace with the intention of fighting Jace), I think some or all of MarkXero's proposed match-ups could eventually happen. I'm very dubious about all of this, but I don't think that's it's automatically a bad idea (in theory, at least). As said, it would have to be written in a very careful and organic way, or it will feel very, very, forced.
Last thought - I wonder if the original proposal for M16 (focusing on MtG's villains) that later turned into Magic Origins would have been about laying the foundations for a future villain team?
That said, even though this story was better and it reads better, the overall plot seems terrible. We are reaching the end of the line here, two stories to go, and I don't feel like nothing is/was at stake. The only important death that I can remember from the Eldrazi menace was the older Captain Commander Vorik, and I actually cared about his death when it happened. After that though? Just random, unknown zendikari. Cannon fodder. People who are not people, but plot devices to give us a feel that 'a lot of people died', when in truth nobody that actually matters did.
A plane is being leveled by the multiversal threat of alien creatures that can manipulate time and space, and yet we have a serialized story much akin to comic books where not a single important character can die lest we dissapoint some readers that like that character in particular. I think Ob Nixilis was mismanaged after Ulamog was released, I think the pacing of this whole block was terrible (glacial in the beggining, lightning fast towards the end), major characters such as Ugin are nowhere to be seen (really, I can't think of a single thing to justify Ugin's absence), and overall there is a feeling that nothing is at stake. They will beat the eldrazi, they will say there were terrible losses and the plane will take years to recover or whatever, but the truth is that you have to show these losses, not just talk about them.
A shame. Not only the eldrazi are going down for good, but they are doing so without any real long-term effects.
Yeah, maybe there will be terrible consequences due to their deaths for the health of the multiverse. It doesn't matter. That would always come afterwards. You have to show us now that they are menacing for us to even care about them. I had some hope after the representation of Kozilek in The Blight We Were Born For. But now, well...
I basically agree with all of this. What concerns me is the open admission that superhero comics / movies and the affiliated tropes are going to be the model for storytelling going forward. (Okay, that isn't exactly what MaRo has said, but I believe, at the end of the day, that is what is happening in Creative.) I like superhero comics and movies a lot, but I'll be the first to admit they (usually) aren't exactly high art - in this day and age, they are more akin to a Harlequin Romance (stock characters, recycled and formulaic plots, etc.) Likewise, Magic's storytelling has rarely been top-notch - BUT it has had some high points (Jeff Grubb's work, etc.), and I always thought that was the level of storytelling Magic should aspire to - not that of a random X-Men comic.
Wizards and Hasbro are a business, and playing into pop culture expectations and chasing the Zeitgeist is part of the business model - I understand this. But I firmly believe Magic can have its "Justice League" without compromising its roots in Fantasy literature (A band of heroes coming together for common cause is at least as old as "Jason and the Argonauts"). Hell, instead of trading one set of cliches (fantasy cliches) for another, arguable even more tired cliches (superhero comics), I'd like to see Magic storytelling try to rise above them and chart its own course. Part of that means it needs to be willing to sacrifice characters and settings IF (but only if) the story would be better for it. But since certain characters and settings are popular (and just as important - marketable), it's unlikely they'll be done away with permanently. Were the "Scars of Mirrodin" block be done now, I'm not certain Wizards would even kill off Venser. (Elspeth, yes, but that's clearly part of a larger story.)
Having said all of that, I do think this block was a victim of the conversion from three sets to two sets. The lightning-fast pacing of Oath strongly feels like they had to consolidate the story planned for a 2nd and 3rd set into a single set.
That's not quite right, though - Emrakul's only reference in BFZ is Vestige of Emrakul, whose name and flavor text do suggest that Emrakul actually is gone. Meanwhile, Kozilek received Herald of Kozilek, Kozilek's Channeler, and Kozilek's Sentinel, and both the names and flavor text of the Herald and Channeler strongly suggest Kozilek is still around and is hidden somewhere.
Although never confirmed to my knowledge, it has long been rumored that "E" (originally intended for Mirrodin, for those that do not follow the above link) was intended to represent costs that could only be paid for with colorless mana.
Others have already said this, but I think the reason very little seems to be happening in each of these stories is... they aren't stories. Or rather, they aren't standalone stories - they are actually single chapters in a virtual Battle for Zendikar novel. This story was about Gideon coming to the conclusion that the only course of action was to take back Sea Gate, which will presumably be a major set-piece of the story to come, and convincing Tazri (and by extension, the rest of the Zendikari) that was their only remaining course of action. That, along with Gideon being made the effective leader of what's left of Zendikar, are important developments. They don't move the overall plot forward very much, but they do set the course for everything that happens next.
Here's the thing - as players, we know the big-picture focus is on the planewalkers, and we know their actions are going to be the deciding factor. But - for the purposes of establishing the context of the block and the cards within it, WotC needs to set up what all the rest of the inhabitants of Zendikar (i.e. all of the other non-Eldrazi cards in the block) are doing while the planeswalkers are doing their thing. My guess is, the battle to re-take Sea Gate and whatever follows from it is that thing. We'll see in next few stories how survivors from all over Zendikar come together to form an army to retake Sea Gate, and then from there, try retake the rest of the plane.
So yes, in terms of actual events, very little happened - but I believe we saw things we needed to see to in order to set up everything else to come. Which is the appropriate amount of content for a single chapter in a larger work. As for the quality of the storytelling - that's a different argument, and there I am far more critical.
This was solid, and the turn towards offense was very cinematic. It reminded me of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves where one of the men complained that the the Sheriff took their stuff. "Well, then we take it back."
Question, maybe this has been addressed before. If the Eldrazi are "unknowable" and no one can communicate with them, how do we know their names?
My assumption is that "Ulamog", "Kozilek", and "Emrakul" are merely names that Planeswalkers (perhaps even Ugin, Sorin, and Nahiri) gave to the Titans long ago. As for those names, and even the term "Eldrazi", being common knowledge all of a sudden... you got me there.
The Eldrazi having human traits would make them look a) silly and over-the-top (a stereotypical comic villain, essentially) or b) like a second Phyrexia.
For the story Creative's telling, the Eldrazi are already silly and over the top. Pretty sure I've said this in other threads, or maybe even this one (it's all a blur to me now), but the way they're written, they're pretty clearly meant to be villainous, and all that "they're unfathomable monsters!!!!" diatribe is exactly that, just nonsense. It's not shown by the narrative and is just fluff. They might as well be Cobra Commander.
Also, I have suggested previously that Phyrexia would've been better for the story they want to tell.
If you survived a volcano eruption or a tidal wave, you'd most likely be happy. And even if you're watching from afar, you can be happy about a bunch of people saving others from their certain deaths in a natural disaster.
See, that would be fine and good if the Eldrazi were a one and done villain. But there's 2 other titans out there that we should care about, and this story's been hanging for 6 years. Creative's failed to deliver on what they describe the Eldrazi as, and in doing so, they've already failed in future uses of the Eldrazi because they can't even eat Zendikar when there's no oldwalkers around.
The Eldrazi are "merely" incomprehensible, they are not "Mary/Marty Stu".
I agree. You actually need some kind of character to be as such.
Creatures beyond comprehension by definition cannot be Mary/Marty Sues/Stus. They are designed to be invincible monsters.
Couple of thoughts here:
1. I agree with your assessment of the Eldrazi up to a point - they aren't really incomprehensible per se. Their goals are very clear: devour a plane; move to another plane; lather, rinse and repeat. That's the Galactus influence. The Lovecraftian influence is their alien biology and alien thought processes and methods. (But see Point 3 below).
2. Phyrexia is not interchangeable with the Eldrazi because the purpose of (New) Phyrexia is to be the Virus or the Corrupter - the enemy that turns you into them piece by piece. The purpose of the Eldrazi (stripped of trappings) is to be a Natural Disaster that can be fought, to some extent. And that brings me to...
3. I speculated about this before, but I am certain now that, despite what Wizards has said, this story is really Howardian and not Lovecraftian in tone - valor and cunning triumphing over inhuman force and impossible odds. The Eldrazi are not written to be invincible monsters - they are written to be seemingly-invincible monsters are heroes are meant to find a way to beat anyway (see Galactus again). Whether the victory ends up being plausible or not depends entirely on the quality of the writing. (I'm not optimistic, but that's a separate argument.)
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
5. However, I agree your larger premise - too much of the threat of the Eldrazi has been told, not shown, and (again, like Galactus) if they don't achieve a victory somewhere, they cease to be a credible threat. (Actually, "tell, not show" has been a HUGE problem in MtG storytelling since forever. See, just for example: Slobad's death (seriously, you DON'T kill major characters off-camera - that's a huge storytelling no-no), Jaya's possible death, the re-establishment of the Guilds on Ravnica, basically everything re: Sorin Markov, etc.)
Also in this precise setting I dislike action scenes for being destructive to lovecraftian feel. "Eldrazi destroyed some scenery, heroes arrived, beaten them without getting any lasting damage to themselves" doesn't add up to outworldy horrors.
My suspicion is the block will be more Howardian than Lovecraftian in tone (e.g. valor and cunning can triumph over inhuman monstrosities, as in the works of Robert E. Howard). Magic's storylines have always had very "superhero comic book"-style storytelling (MaRo has often compared the Planeswalkers to superheroes for the purposes of storytelling), which is generally antithetical to true Lovecraftian themes (e.g. cosmic insignificance and hopelessness).
In other words, the heroes will achieve some victory (even if it is extremely Pyrrhic), because that is the nature of the narrative. (I also recall the Eldrazi being compared to Marvel Comics' Galactus, and it bears mentioning that Marvel's superheroes always find a way to stop Galactus from consuming the Earth, no matter how impossible that should be, because that is the kind of narrative being told.)
On a meta-level, while having the planeswalkers struggle in the face of their own completely inability to stop otherworldly horror and ultimately be forced to face their own limitations would (to my mind) make for interesting reading, I don't think Wizards wants to go in that direction because for people who only superficially pay attention to story elements, it makes those characters seem weak and ineffectual. ("Heroes make a last-ditch desperate effort to save a universe. But they fail." That is a terrible tagline from a PR / marketing standpoint when you are trying to build up your heroes.)
...Unless all of the characters gradually coming to terms with their own impotence against the Eldrazi and losing Zendikar is a catalyst for the creation of some kind of Planeswalker Justice League - where the characters have their own solo adventures but join forces to face bigger threats - and that is going to be the new status quo going forward.
My off-the-cuff theory is that while his spawn are running around doing things piecemeal, Ulamog is attacking the heart of Zendikar (whatever exactly that means) directly, attempting to drain the entire plane at once. That would explain Nissa's severed ties to Zendikar and set up a "Final Boss Encounter" with Ulamog at the heart of Zendikar for the second set in the block.
My back-up theory is that Ob Nixilis is now doing something to hasten the destruction of Zendikar.
Core sets used to be able to have any set cards in them, hence the Soul of x cards.
My point is that Darksteel Citadel in m15 means it wasn't explicitly associated with Mirrodin, as you said. Which means it could just show up in Origins because Wizards wants it there.
Or they could flavor it for Kaladesh or whatever. You can't just write it off as a possibility (unless it's out of the crunch).
M15 was a normal core set, that could have reprints from anywhere. For Origins they specifically stated that finding reprints was tougher than normal because they wanted to show cards from the 10 Origins planes only. Since 3 are new ones, that means ALL of our reprints have to be from Dominaria, Bant, Innistrad, Theros, Lorwyn, Zendikar or Ravnica. They also stated Darksteel only exists in Mirrodin, and since Mirrodin is not one of those planes it can be confirmed to be out of Origins. The fact that it was printed in M15 doesn't matter.
I disagree with your reasoning, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Just so that we are all on the same page, StarlightWizard isn't speculating - Sam Stoddard was pretty clear on that issue here:
Relevant quotes:
"Nothing from Tarkir, Mirrodin, Kamigawa, or the various other planes was allowed."
"Even if Darksteel Reactor is the perfect card to put into a set, we can't just put it anywhere—it has to go someplace where Darksteel exists, which is (as of now) only Mirrodin/New Phyrexia. We can make a card that is functionally identical, but that name has to go."
So we can rule out Darksteel Citadel and any other land reprint that isn't flavor-neutral or could be associated with one of Origin's 10 planes. My personal hope is that we see four other new lands associated with some of the less familiar planes like Vryn, but I agree that Evolving Wilds is highly-likely.
2
I firmly believe we are already seeing the shift towards comics-style storytelling (either because there is an MTG movie on the horizon, because super hero moves are huge right now, or - most likely - some combination of the two), so I think a "Legion of Doom" probably is inevitable, regardless of how cliche it might be. Likewise, Bolas becoming a Thanos / Darkseid-esque mastermind manipulating the other villains from behind the scenes also seems highly likely. (Heck, between whatever he was doing back in the original "Zendikar" and "Scars of Mirrodin" blocks and his involvement in Liliana's demonic pacts, he is pretty much already doing that.)
Since character versus their mirror archetype battles are a staple trope (and recalling that Ashiok was loosely conceived to be a Shadow Archetype to Jace with the intention of fighting Jace), I think some or all of MarkXero's proposed match-ups could eventually happen. I'm very dubious about all of this, but I don't think that's it's automatically a bad idea (in theory, at least). As said, it would have to be written in a very careful and organic way, or it will feel very, very, forced.
Last thought - I wonder if the original proposal for M16 (focusing on MtG's villains) that later turned into Magic Origins would have been about laying the foundations for a future villain team?
6
I basically agree with all of this. What concerns me is the open admission that superhero comics / movies and the affiliated tropes are going to be the model for storytelling going forward. (Okay, that isn't exactly what MaRo has said, but I believe, at the end of the day, that is what is happening in Creative.) I like superhero comics and movies a lot, but I'll be the first to admit they (usually) aren't exactly high art - in this day and age, they are more akin to a Harlequin Romance (stock characters, recycled and formulaic plots, etc.) Likewise, Magic's storytelling has rarely been top-notch - BUT it has had some high points (Jeff Grubb's work, etc.), and I always thought that was the level of storytelling Magic should aspire to - not that of a random X-Men comic.
Wizards and Hasbro are a business, and playing into pop culture expectations and chasing the Zeitgeist is part of the business model - I understand this. But I firmly believe Magic can have its "Justice League" without compromising its roots in Fantasy literature (A band of heroes coming together for common cause is at least as old as "Jason and the Argonauts"). Hell, instead of trading one set of cliches (fantasy cliches) for another, arguable even more tired cliches (superhero comics), I'd like to see Magic storytelling try to rise above them and chart its own course. Part of that means it needs to be willing to sacrifice characters and settings IF (but only if) the story would be better for it. But since certain characters and settings are popular (and just as important - marketable), it's unlikely they'll be done away with permanently. Were the "Scars of Mirrodin" block be done now, I'm not certain Wizards would even kill off Venser. (Elspeth, yes, but that's clearly part of a larger story.)
Having said all of that, I do think this block was a victim of the conversion from three sets to two sets. The lightning-fast pacing of Oath strongly feels like they had to consolidate the story planned for a 2nd and 3rd set into a single set.
2
2
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr289
Although never confirmed to my knowledge, it has long been rumored that "E" (originally intended for Mirrodin, for those that do not follow the above link) was intended to represent costs that could only be paid for with colorless mana.
4
Here's the thing - as players, we know the big-picture focus is on the planewalkers, and we know their actions are going to be the deciding factor. But - for the purposes of establishing the context of the block and the cards within it, WotC needs to set up what all the rest of the inhabitants of Zendikar (i.e. all of the other non-Eldrazi cards in the block) are doing while the planeswalkers are doing their thing. My guess is, the battle to re-take Sea Gate and whatever follows from it is that thing. We'll see in next few stories how survivors from all over Zendikar come together to form an army to retake Sea Gate, and then from there, try retake the rest of the plane.
So yes, in terms of actual events, very little happened - but I believe we saw things we needed to see to in order to set up everything else to come. Which is the appropriate amount of content for a single chapter in a larger work. As for the quality of the storytelling - that's a different argument, and there I am far more critical.
1
My assumption is that "Ulamog", "Kozilek", and "Emrakul" are merely names that Planeswalkers (perhaps even Ugin, Sorin, and Nahiri) gave to the Titans long ago. As for those names, and even the term "Eldrazi", being common knowledge all of a sudden... you got me there.
3
Couple of thoughts here:
1. I agree with your assessment of the Eldrazi up to a point - they aren't really incomprehensible per se. Their goals are very clear: devour a plane; move to another plane; lather, rinse and repeat. That's the Galactus influence. The Lovecraftian influence is their alien biology and alien thought processes and methods. (But see Point 3 below).
2. Phyrexia is not interchangeable with the Eldrazi because the purpose of (New) Phyrexia is to be the Virus or the Corrupter - the enemy that turns you into them piece by piece. The purpose of the Eldrazi (stripped of trappings) is to be a Natural Disaster that can be fought, to some extent. And that brings me to...
3. I speculated about this before, but I am certain now that, despite what Wizards has said, this story is really Howardian and not Lovecraftian in tone - valor and cunning triumphing over inhuman force and impossible odds. The Eldrazi are not written to be invincible monsters - they are written to be seemingly-invincible monsters are heroes are meant to find a way to beat anyway (see Galactus again). Whether the victory ends up being plausible or not depends entirely on the quality of the writing. (I'm not optimistic, but that's a separate argument.)
4. IF Ulamog is beaten, that does nothing intrinsically to weaken the threat of the other Titans in the future because (A) Zendikar was chosen specifically due to its resistance to being devoured, and (B) any victory over Ulamog will likely take advantage of the Hedron infrastructure built by Oldwalkers. That's not a trick you can pull twice, so the hook for future Eldrazi stories is, "How can our heroes defeat a Titan without those advantages?"
5. However, I agree your larger premise - too much of the threat of the Eldrazi has been told, not shown, and (again, like Galactus) if they don't achieve a victory somewhere, they cease to be a credible threat. (Actually, "tell, not show" has been a HUGE problem in MtG storytelling since forever. See, just for example: Slobad's death (seriously, you DON'T kill major characters off-camera - that's a huge storytelling no-no), Jaya's possible death, the re-establishment of the Guilds on Ravnica, basically everything re: Sorin Markov, etc.)
2
My suspicion is the block will be more Howardian than Lovecraftian in tone (e.g. valor and cunning can triumph over inhuman monstrosities, as in the works of Robert E. Howard). Magic's storylines have always had very "superhero comic book"-style storytelling (MaRo has often compared the Planeswalkers to superheroes for the purposes of storytelling), which is generally antithetical to true Lovecraftian themes (e.g. cosmic insignificance and hopelessness).
In other words, the heroes will achieve some victory (even if it is extremely Pyrrhic), because that is the nature of the narrative. (I also recall the Eldrazi being compared to Marvel Comics' Galactus, and it bears mentioning that Marvel's superheroes always find a way to stop Galactus from consuming the Earth, no matter how impossible that should be, because that is the kind of narrative being told.)
On a meta-level, while having the planeswalkers struggle in the face of their own completely inability to stop otherworldly horror and ultimately be forced to face their own limitations would (to my mind) make for interesting reading, I don't think Wizards wants to go in that direction because for people who only superficially pay attention to story elements, it makes those characters seem weak and ineffectual. ("Heroes make a last-ditch desperate effort to save a universe. But they fail." That is a terrible tagline from a PR / marketing standpoint when you are trying to build up your heroes.)
...Unless all of the characters gradually coming to terms with their own impotence against the Eldrazi and losing Zendikar is a catalyst for the creation of some kind of Planeswalker Justice League - where the characters have their own solo adventures but join forces to face bigger threats - and that is going to be the new status quo going forward.
1
My back-up theory is that Ob Nixilis is now doing something to hasten the destruction of Zendikar.
1
Just so that we are all on the same page, StarlightWizard isn't speculating - Sam Stoddard was pretty clear on that issue here:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/reprints-magic-origins-2015-06-26
Relevant quotes:
"Nothing from Tarkir, Mirrodin, Kamigawa, or the various other planes was allowed."
"Even if Darksteel Reactor is the perfect card to put into a set, we can't just put it anywhere—it has to go someplace where Darksteel exists, which is (as of now) only Mirrodin/New Phyrexia. We can make a card that is functionally identical, but that name has to go."
So we can rule out Darksteel Citadel and any other land reprint that isn't flavor-neutral or could be associated with one of Origin's 10 planes. My personal hope is that we see four other new lands associated with some of the less familiar planes like Vryn, but I agree that Evolving Wilds is highly-likely.