As I recall, they tried to do these cards - without the humorous flavor, of course - in Future Sight, but couldn't. I'm glad to finally see them.
I think what keeps "Last Strike" from being a black-bordered keyword is that it is explicitly a drawback keyword, and (if memory serves), Wizards has backed away from doing those (other than Defender, which is basically grandfathered in) for a variety of reasons.
-Huatli confirms that the Sun Empire knights don't kill but do give their foes to the dinosaurs to eat... and Vona is dead.
From my reading, this isn't actually confirmed - Huatli left a disabled Vona behind while she summoned dinosaurs to eat her, but then immediately left. Vona was not killed "on screen" so to speak, so we can't definitively count Vona out of the race yet.
Maybe it's less the head injury and more being close to a massive source of magic that is bring back his memories.
That was also my interpretation - especially if we assume the Immortal Sun somehow resonates with planeswalkers.
By the way, Jace speculated that the Immortal Sun might be something that was brought to Ixalan - I'm willing to bet that's the writers telling us that this is an extraplanar artifact, and is definitely more fuel for the Ugin theory.
Now if it was one or two cards I might have ignored it. But four cards?
New theory: The bat god is active but somehow restrained by whatever is hiding in Orazca. Taking whatever power there is a very bad idea according to Headwater Sentries. Possibly this dark god will become free? Also Judging but what is happening to Arguel, a faction of the vampires might defect and follow the bat god.
Yes you are reading this right. I am speculating that Ixalan is basically a rebooted Zendikar even down to the vamps being the servants of dark "deities". What do people think? Is Jace gonna unleash yet another terror in the multiverse?
More fuel for your theory is the fact that Vraska was sent on this journey by Bolas. While the reason could be something simple like "enable Bolas to seize the power of Orazca", there's a very good chance the endgame is something more complex and more sinister. (Bolas seems to be addicted to complexity.) Unleashing a demon god of Night for unclear reasons would be very Bolas-esque.
Remember the complaints in the past about planes being the playgrounds of planeswalkers? Well, I guess that's really what a number of them are if you dig deeper into their past.
Oh yeah. Pretty much every plane we visit has a planeswalker past contributing to the modern conditions.
That's an excellent point, but to be fair, I would argue that it's actually realistic. For tens of thousands of years, you had godlike Oldwalkers running all over the Multiverse. At this point, I'd be surprised if you could find a plane that wasn't partly or totally shaped by the actions of one or more planeswalkers in the past.
Star of Extinction intrigues me. While it is obviously a shout-out to the K-T Extinction Event, I'm curious as to whether it is something that will have plot significance in Rivals of Ixalan.
Particularly because Wizards doesn't seem to be able to help themselves when it comes to wanting apocalyptic events to hit their planes.
All evidence suggests that Amonkhet suffered some major plane-wide disaster at some point in the past (the Curse of Wandering, the God's reactions when Bolas arrived - that they must not fail again, that sort of thing). I believe discovering the truth of whatever occurred will be at the heart of a Return to Amonkhet. Since a Return set will likely have an archaeology / sifting through ruins and robbing tombs component (so as to capture the "Eqypt as a dead civilization" tropes), discovering what doom befell the ancient civilizations of Amonkhet seems like an obvious plot hook.
I found it interesting that Jace had a brief recollection of Alhammarret (well, his mind in any case). I wonder if after he recovers from his presumed amnesia in Ixalan, he will regain some or all of his lost memories? That could be the hook to a future set on Vryn - maybe the Fall 2018 set?
I'm also curious as to whether the rest of the Gatewatch (sans Jace and Liliana) returned to Ravnica, or if they also blind-jumped. Regardless, I imagine we will probably see most of the team back together on Dominaria next year to meet up with Ajani and plan their next move.
BUT THE FLAVOR TEXT ON HALF OF THESE CARDS ARE AWFUL.
"Liliana always knew that Jace's illusions would come in handy." I honest to god threw up in my mouth.
"Bolas remade this plane in his image. He has the advantage here. We must approach carefully." Thanks captain obvious.
"I was promised an afterlife, not this. Samut was right. The God-Pharaoh lied." Did you need the second half? Honestly, the first sentence would have had a nice ambiance to it. It would have been short and sweet. But no... this set has some real trash flavor text. Why Wizards? Why?! This has been trending since at LEAST Dragons of Tarkir.
Yeah, I kind of agree with you here. Do think it's the pseudo name-dropping that gets to you? That seems like at least half of it.
I believe the awkward flavor text is a consequence of the decision (made after Theros, so the Khans block actually would be where it started) to explicitly explain the story-line through the cards so that even people who don't read the stories on the website can follow every aspect of the plot. Thus, flavor text now frequently over-explains things.
As for the set itself, I believe it's better than most first impressions. Although the power level is lower than previous sets(not necessarily a bad thing), the removal is actually decent. (Can you believe Unsummon hasn't been printed in a standard set since M13?) Right now, I'm taking it as a hopeful sign that future sets will also have a better suite of removal.
So... Bolas didn't destroy the plane, it was already like that when he arrived.
The gods of Amonkhet saw the dragon hovering outside the protection of the Hekma. They climbed to the tops of their highest vantage points and armed themselves for battle. They were determined not to fail this time. No monster could defeat the eight gods of Amonkhet. Not when Naktamun was all that remained.
Interesting, especially since it seems that this was the first time the gods saw Bolas.
Yet, there is a plothole at this point: if Bolas killed all adults in the city, who etched the ancient writings on the abandoned temple and also in the temple outside of the barrier?
I hope that they will delve deeper into the backstory of Amonkhet.
That's an excellent point. Hopefully, that's intended to be a legitimate mystery and not an oversight or lack of communication between writers or Creative and the writers.
As a side note, those Archenemy lands (which are probably also the HOU Basic Lands) adds further fuel to the idea that any future return to Amonkhet will be a focus on the "Egypt as a dead civilization of ruins and curses and traps" tropes instead of the living Egypt of the Pharaohs.
As others have suggested, I can see Samut being the sole survivor of Amonkhet. (Being the sole survivor of your people is a major superhero trope, after all. See Superman, the Martian Manhunter, etc.)
I really don't get the confusion on leylines. It's just basically saying that the Gods are tied to the plane. Using water as an analogy, rivers are leylines, lakes are the Gods. Or possibly they're a dense intersection of leylines.
You wouldn't at least find it weird if someone describe a lake as "a tightly woven collection of rivers" rather than "a mass of water"?
Think of it more like "the lake and the river are both made of H2O molecules."
But that's not what was said and not what people take issue with.
A leyline pretty much always (ie every time I've ever seen it referred to except in this exact story) refers to a large thing that possesses tremendous power. This implies that there are also little leylines that can be woven into relatively small objects. It is very much outside of the norm in a strange way and not for any apparent reason. Its like being given a wicker basket a being told it is woven out of tree trunks, that would be a weird redefinition of tree trunk and you'd probably ask if the person who said it knew what a tree trunk was and maybe they meant something else.
One possibility here is that the use of the term "leyline", which has a specific meaning, in this story, is because we are seeing things from Nissa's perspective. As a green mage heavily tied to the land, it makes sense that she would think of currents of mana (which is what we are all really talking about, I think) in terms of something she is most familiar with. To put it another way, Nissa's power is to manipulate currents of mana, and in this story, she figured out how to create a brand new and different type of one. Someone like Jace would probably conceptualize what Nissa did as as some form of essence alteration or magical reprogramming, but to green-oriented Nissa, she perceived what she did in terms of leylines.
Or maybe I'm giving the Creative Team too much credit.
What exactly is the sigificance of the number 8? 8 feels like a weird number in a magic context, especially considering the existing gods being 5 mono colored. I wonder if theres any reason or if its just arbitrary or tying into somethig besides colors. I also wonder how they were forgotten-- do they work like Theros gods and die off when they are no longer worshipped, or were they outright killed or maybe mummified or otherwise incapacitated, tying into their more physical nature than the Theros gods?
Like a lot of people, Im dying to know what all this means. Some really great puzzle pieces being weaved together here, like rhe significance of the young or the silent sphinxes that all build towards the reveal.
Right now, I am assuming the 8 gods is a reference to the Ogdoad of Egyptian mythology:
As for the Sphinxes, I am assuming Bolas somehow silenced them because they remember the truth (as they are presumably older than 20 or 30 years). As to why he simply didn't kill them all - that's a good question, and I am hoping there is a good answer.
Yeah, I like the new Nissa mechanically, but it really feels like she was made UG because they couldn't think of another mono-G variant (no wonder, there are so many monogreen Nissas by now). I'd rather have seen a new Naga planeswalker or something.
Alternatively, we could be witnessing a shift in Nissa's character in this block. The stories have been playing up Nissa's connection to Jace (as being Nissa's second-most significant relationship after her connection to Chandra), so this might be a legitimately-foreshadowed shift.
In general, this could mark the beginning of Wizard's willingness to explore secondary colors for the non-Ajani members of the Gatewatch (e.g. Jace's well-documented use of white magic in the lore).
Two things - on the culture and "weird" debate, I find it interesting that Egyptian mythology is considered to be a one of the 'Big 3' in the West (just the USA?) alongside Greco-Roman and Norse mythology. I would argue that it's really Ancient Egyptian culture (or at least a Hollywood version thereof) that people are familiar with. How much of Egyptian mythology do most people really know? Sure - Ra, Osiris, Set, Thoth, Bast, Anubis (especially) and animal-headed gods in general turns, maybe the Book of the Dead... but after that, how much is really familiar? How many mythological entities from Egyptian mythology other than the Gods themselves and the Sphinx is the average person - even the average Fantasy buff or role-player - really aware of? (Am I selling everyone short here? That's not my intention.)
On the story side - Throne of the God-Pharaoh names four Hours - the Hour of Revelation, Hour of Glory, Hour of Promise, and Hour of Eternity. I'm assuming Hour of Devastation is the final, fifth Hour - perhaps unknown to the average citizen of Amonkhet? Any thoughts about this? Does each Hour correspond to a God?
Hapatra being Cleopatra now confirms what Temmet implied, that on Amonkhet Viziers are stand-ins for historical Pharaohs (since Amonkhet only has one Pharaoh: Bolas).
Does this mean we can expect Viziers for Ramses, Nefertiti and maybe Akhenaten? (Or even the historical Scorpion King?)
And while I'm at it, I'd love cards to see cards referencing Ozymandias (the poem), Imhotep (movie version and historic version), the Book of the Dead, Ammit, Apophis, and Djoser.
I think what keeps "Last Strike" from being a black-bordered keyword is that it is explicitly a drawback keyword, and (if memory serves), Wizards has backed away from doing those (other than Defender, which is basically grandfathered in) for a variety of reasons.
More than you would think - for example, two of the Islands in Merfolk vs. Goblins have prominent trees on them.
Having said that - I love the idea that it's a green ramp spell that is biased towards fetching Forests.
From my reading, this isn't actually confirmed - Huatli left a disabled Vona behind while she summoned dinosaurs to eat her, but then immediately left. Vona was not killed "on screen" so to speak, so we can't definitively count Vona out of the race yet.
That was also my interpretation - especially if we assume the Immortal Sun somehow resonates with planeswalkers.
By the way, Jace speculated that the Immortal Sun might be something that was brought to Ixalan - I'm willing to bet that's the writers telling us that this is an extraplanar artifact, and is definitely more fuel for the Ugin theory.
I think you are on to something here, although Headwater Sentries might also have a connection to Star of Extinction.
More fuel for your theory is the fact that Vraska was sent on this journey by Bolas. While the reason could be something simple like "enable Bolas to seize the power of Orazca", there's a very good chance the endgame is something more complex and more sinister. (Bolas seems to be addicted to complexity.) Unleashing a demon god of Night for unclear reasons would be very Bolas-esque.
That's an excellent point, but to be fair, I would argue that it's actually realistic. For tens of thousands of years, you had godlike Oldwalkers running all over the Multiverse. At this point, I'd be surprised if you could find a plane that wasn't partly or totally shaped by the actions of one or more planeswalkers in the past.
Particularly because Wizards doesn't seem to be able to help themselves when it comes to wanting apocalyptic events to hit their planes.
I'm also curious as to whether the rest of the Gatewatch (sans Jace and Liliana) returned to Ravnica, or if they also blind-jumped. Regardless, I imagine we will probably see most of the team back together on Dominaria next year to meet up with Ajani and plan their next move.
I believe the awkward flavor text is a consequence of the decision (made after Theros, so the Khans block actually would be where it started) to explicitly explain the story-line through the cards so that even people who don't read the stories on the website can follow every aspect of the plot. Thus, flavor text now frequently over-explains things.
As for the set itself, I believe it's better than most first impressions. Although the power level is lower than previous sets(not necessarily a bad thing), the removal is actually decent. (Can you believe Unsummon hasn't been printed in a standard set since M13?) Right now, I'm taking it as a hopeful sign that future sets will also have a better suite of removal.
That's an excellent point. Hopefully, that's intended to be a legitimate mystery and not an oversight or lack of communication between writers or Creative and the writers.
As a side note, those Archenemy lands (which are probably also the HOU Basic Lands) adds further fuel to the idea that any future return to Amonkhet will be a focus on the "Egypt as a dead civilization of ruins and curses and traps" tropes instead of the living Egypt of the Pharaohs.
As others have suggested, I can see Samut being the sole survivor of Amonkhet. (Being the sole survivor of your people is a major superhero trope, after all. See Superman, the Martian Manhunter, etc.)
One possibility here is that the use of the term "leyline", which has a specific meaning, in this story, is because we are seeing things from Nissa's perspective. As a green mage heavily tied to the land, it makes sense that she would think of currents of mana (which is what we are all really talking about, I think) in terms of something she is most familiar with. To put it another way, Nissa's power is to manipulate currents of mana, and in this story, she figured out how to create a brand new and different type of one. Someone like Jace would probably conceptualize what Nissa did as as some form of essence alteration or magical reprogramming, but to green-oriented Nissa, she perceived what she did in terms of leylines.
Or maybe I'm giving the Creative Team too much credit.
Right now, I am assuming the 8 gods is a reference to the Ogdoad of Egyptian mythology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad_(Egyptian)
As for the Sphinxes, I am assuming Bolas somehow silenced them because they remember the truth (as they are presumably older than 20 or 30 years). As to why he simply didn't kill them all - that's a good question, and I am hoping there is a good answer.
Alternatively, we could be witnessing a shift in Nissa's character in this block. The stories have been playing up Nissa's connection to Jace (as being Nissa's second-most significant relationship after her connection to Chandra), so this might be a legitimately-foreshadowed shift.
In general, this could mark the beginning of Wizard's willingness to explore secondary colors for the non-Ajani members of the Gatewatch (e.g. Jace's well-documented use of white magic in the lore).
On the story side - Throne of the God-Pharaoh names four Hours - the Hour of Revelation, Hour of Glory, Hour of Promise, and Hour of Eternity. I'm assuming Hour of Devastation is the final, fifth Hour - perhaps unknown to the average citizen of Amonkhet? Any thoughts about this? Does each Hour correspond to a God?
Does this mean we can expect Viziers for Ramses, Nefertiti and maybe Akhenaten? (Or even the historical Scorpion King?)
And while I'm at it, I'd love cards to see cards referencing Ozymandias (the poem), Imhotep (movie version and historic version), the Book of the Dead, Ammit, Apophis, and Djoser.