A thought I’ve been having, what if Vraska isn’t the first walker Bolas sent to find Orazca? Bolas wouldn’t want to go and potentially get trapped, but he’d have no problem sending minions until someone succeeded. Angrath could be a former minion who failed to find the eternal sun, has given up, and now wants to leave (a very BR attitude). I wouldn’t put it past Bolas to send a new walker every few decades until someone got him what he wanted. On that note, major theory-crafting upcoming.
Bolas wants the sun, but wont risk getting trapped. So he sends a minion, the vampire pw Elenda, to get it for him. She succeeds in retrieving it from Ixilan, but loses it to “a winged beast” (Ugin?) daunted by the prospect of having to voyage after it again, she allies w/ a local monarch to form the legion of dusk, introduces vampirism to Torrezon and, under the guise of a religious mandate, uses the legion as a means to an end towards finding the sun for Bolas. In the time she takes to do all this, Bolas has grown tired of waiting and assumes Elenda failed. He finds a young Angrath (and maybe even other walkers we don’t know about in a long succession) and offers the deal “go here, find the city and i’ll give you ___”. After a couple decades or so, Bolas gives up on Angrath and makes the offer to his latest pw dupe, Vraska.
Probably totally off base but I think it would be a cool back plot that ties a lot of threads together and makes for some great story moments. Especially for Vraska (Bolas didnt think i was special? I was just the latest?)
Good story today, cool to get a vampire pov and celebrity couple Vrace is fun. I really like how the one event portrayed in “River’s Rebuke” tied everyone’s story together.
I’m starting to wonder if we’re greatly overthinking the importance of Arguel and Aclazotz. This story showed us that Mavren Fein is the legion visionary searching for Orazca and our cast of characters seems preety full. Don’t get me wrong I think it would be awesome to see a demon bat god but I kind of wonder if Arguel and his temple run are more of a feature of the world than a plot point.
Great story, great character building. Pretty surprised the whole Jace/Vraska thing is actually happening but I dig it. I'll second that the winged being taking away the immortal sun gives some more credence to the Ugin theory. Still a lot of other possibilities though.
Cool story today, good cliffhanger ending. Kumena is the best kind of villain in that he's one with understandable motivations. I wonder if every faction is going to have a "good" representative and a "bad" representative. Vraska is our protagonist while Angrath seems like a walking disaster. Huatli seems like a chill chick while the Sun emperor comes off a little shady, and even though the shapers overall seem fairly benevolent Kumena is clearly ruthless. Maybe in the legion we'll see Arguel as a more moderate force while Vona is butchering away? It would be kind of cool if WOTC showed that there were heroes and villains in every part of this conflict. Even if they don't though I'm really enjoying Ixalan so far.
I liked the story. Interaction between Jace and Vraska is fun and its cool learning more about her character.
As for Bolas's agent, I'm hoping we finally see Ramaz in story. Although idk how we'll fit him in. I think Angrath is a lock and the leaked boosters suggest Ajani is in Rivals. That's 2 pw already in a small set. Although it leaves the option of 3 pw in a small set, a walker showing up in story but not in card form, or (plot twist) Ajani is Bolas's agent!!! (Jk bout that last one)
I just realized that the race for Orazca is clearly the race for the One Piece.
I'm hyped for the MTG shichibukai
On a serious note, good story is good. This was a well written and interesting introduction to "Blank slate Jace" that I really enjoyed. Seeing the way he views Gideon and Liliana (as shown by how they manifest themselves to him through illusion) was pretty cool. I also really liked introduction of Vraska and thought her reaction to seeing Jace was pretty reasonable for what we know of her character. I was already pretty into the world of Ixalan and I'm digging the story so far too.
I've been thinking about a temur or 4 color build for a while and the idea of bring to light is very interesting, looking forward to what your testing w/ bring to light reveals. My main concern about leaving jund colors would actually be losing Horror of the broken lands since that card is so consistantly great for me, i wish the 4 color builds were less clunky.
I think we probably will get a wild west plane at some point. Dwarves as prospectors, bounty counters as a mechanic, goblin outlaws, it practically makes itself.
I wonder if the Minotaur is the stranded pw Angrath. I say this only because we haven't seen/heard minotaurs mentioned anywhere else in the news about Ixalan. Additionally, we know Angrath is part of the pirate faction, that pw often appear as a "face" for booster packs, and that BR (the seemingly likely colors for Angrath) are the go-to minotaur colors.
I agree that, at least as they are presented thus far, the legion of dusk seems far and away like the most benevolent vampire faction we've seen in mtg to date. I would argue even more so than the Kalastria. Granted we only have an overview of them so far but compare them to all previous representations of vampires in mtg (and for that matter most representations of conquistadors in fiction) and these guys are presented as pretty benign. They just seem to have a very "if you're not with us, you're lost" kind of deal going on which is honestly more a general religious zealotry thing than a conquistador thing.
Edit: While I really like Ixalan so far, I definitely share Flish's concerns that it could decrease the chance of individual dinosaur and ocean planes. I've wanted Muraganda forever and a fully marine plane for even longer. Given WOTC's trend of basing planes off real world cultures I've come to think that if we get an ocean plane it will probably be based off Polynesian mythology rather than an "underwater world" trope. Being from Hawaii I'd be stoked for that too but it's not exactly what I had in mind and I get where Flish is coming from.
It would be cool if it turns out we're on Muraganda, but at the same time I think Ixalan is cool as a plane on it's own. Definitely interesting that they aren't telling us the name of the plane.
Was anyone else a little disturbed by Maro's article today saying Revolt was their least popular mechanic in KLD block? I've heard nothing but good things about revolt (mostly due to FP) but maybe i've just been living in a modern bubble. At any rate I don't think we should hold our breath for the easily balanced revolt counterspell I know some of us were hoping for.
I agree that it would be a nice change if Angrath weren't human. Also DINOSAUR HYPE. Little kid me would've lost it and adult me is still pretty stoked.
I really like the takes on vampires and merfolk in this plane.
Bolas wants the sun, but wont risk getting trapped. So he sends a minion, the vampire pw Elenda, to get it for him. She succeeds in retrieving it from Ixilan, but loses it to “a winged beast” (Ugin?) daunted by the prospect of having to voyage after it again, she allies w/ a local monarch to form the legion of dusk, introduces vampirism to Torrezon and, under the guise of a religious mandate, uses the legion as a means to an end towards finding the sun for Bolas. In the time she takes to do all this, Bolas has grown tired of waiting and assumes Elenda failed. He finds a young Angrath (and maybe even other walkers we don’t know about in a long succession) and offers the deal “go here, find the city and i’ll give you ___”. After a couple decades or so, Bolas gives up on Angrath and makes the offer to his latest pw dupe, Vraska.
Probably totally off base but I think it would be a cool back plot that ties a lot of threads together and makes for some great story moments. Especially for Vraska (Bolas didnt think i was special? I was just the latest?)
/Sorry for long post
I’m starting to wonder if we’re greatly overthinking the importance of Arguel and Aclazotz. This story showed us that Mavren Fein is the legion visionary searching for Orazca and our cast of characters seems preety full. Don’t get me wrong I think it would be awesome to see a demon bat god but I kind of wonder if Arguel and his temple run are more of a feature of the world than a plot point.
As for Bolas's agent, I'm hoping we finally see Ramaz in story. Although idk how we'll fit him in. I think Angrath is a lock and the leaked boosters suggest Ajani is in Rivals. That's 2 pw already in a small set. Although it leaves the option of 3 pw in a small set, a walker showing up in story but not in card form, or (plot twist) Ajani is Bolas's agent!!! (Jk bout that last one)
I'm hyped for the MTG shichibukai
On a serious note, good story is good. This was a well written and interesting introduction to "Blank slate Jace" that I really enjoyed. Seeing the way he views Gideon and Liliana (as shown by how they manifest themselves to him through illusion) was pretty cool. I also really liked introduction of Vraska and thought her reaction to seeing Jace was pretty reasonable for what we know of her character. I was already pretty into the world of Ixalan and I'm digging the story so far too.
Edit: While I really like Ixalan so far, I definitely share Flish's concerns that it could decrease the chance of individual dinosaur and ocean planes. I've wanted Muraganda forever and a fully marine plane for even longer. Given WOTC's trend of basing planes off real world cultures I've come to think that if we get an ocean plane it will probably be based off Polynesian mythology rather than an "underwater world" trope. Being from Hawaii I'd be stoked for that too but it's not exactly what I had in mind and I get where Flish is coming from.
I really like the takes on vampires and merfolk in this plane.