MTG Salvation

I've seen that, with Amonkhet, the Player's Guide is hosted on the Magic site in pdf:
http://media.wizards.com/2017/images/magic/amonkhet_players_guide-en.pdf
Am i wrong, or this is the first and only time the player's guide is provided online, without the need to buy a fat pack?

The Italian falvour texts are almost the same as the English ones.
Pretty bad translation of The "Insect" Gods, though... they are translated something like The Divine "Insects"...

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Slivers are originally from Rath, they arrived on Dominaria with the Overlay. It's unclear if they are still present there.
The slivers plane post-mending seems to be Shandalar, since Magic 2014.
And we know the real threat to Dominaria are the Sarpadian thrulls... the Phyrexian feared them, too!

The original slivers were still on Dominaria at the time of the events of Time Spiral, and were in the process of creating a new collective mind.

I missed it! Good to know (well, not really... I hate slivers!)

Slivers are originally from Rath, they arrived on Dominaria with the Overlay. It's unclear if they are still present there.
The slivers plane post-mending seems to be Shandalar, since Magic 2014.
And we know the real threat to Dominaria are the Sarpadian thrulls... the Phyrexian feared them, too!

Hi there! With the spoiler about Commander and the new O-Kagachi card, I think this is a good moment to post this little fan made map of Kamigawa.
First of all, I didn't draw it, it's the work of a really excellent artist, Francesca Baerald (I'm not sure I can post a link to her site, I didn't read anything about it in the rules). I found all the information needed to give the greatest detail to it in the novels, vignettes, fat pack and cards themselves.
Obviously I had to guess the location of some minor place (like Miren or Tomb of Urami), but the general direction of the major locations are all there. We know that Eiganjo is at the center, Takenuma swamp in the west, Sokenzan in the south, Jukai in the east and Minamo in the north.
Let me know what you think!
(Especially you, Squirle Master )

The TLDR for those just joining:

Urza is basically the Batman of the MTG franchise, with the same caveats, story templating, moral ambiquity and everything else that people adore about DC's 'Dark Knight'.

Fin.

I find it funny that Bolas reforged the black blade and sabotaged it and builded up the story of it, but he didn't do counter measures on anything related to the Amonkhet gods. He knew he could enter in conflict with the gods again in hour of devastation, yet, the spear of Hazoret could potentially damage hin, there was no counter measures to stop the eternal gods from say someone who could also control zombies or someone who could take Liliana's mind... There was also no really safe way to stop the stil living gods in hour in case the 3 slaved gods didn't showed up? (i mean if something that bolas didn't predicted in his mastermind plan without that looked "flawless")

Also chandra used the Immortal sun (now i m guilty of not reading the end of ixalan) but if the immortal sun could be used soo easily wasn't Azor and Ugin plans flawed? Isn't the immortal sun basicaly a stone carved with law magic and some other spells? Imo it would be ok if only some people were alowed to use it directly by Azor, the way it was presented looks like Ixalan would have ended really bad for Azor if bolas showed hinself and used some mind reading on the Parun...

The first one is live on the Mothership.

Maro hasn't mentioned Ramaz in 4 years, which is a bad sign. It means the players aren't asking him about Ramaz often in the last 4 years. Though 4 years ago he ranked 9th for planeswalkers we know of and want to see. I'm guessing he was just never really popular enough to make the same jump the other duels planeswalkers did.

Just want to jump in to say that a "relatable character" is not a character "just like you". If you can relate only to someone that is the same as you, then you have almost no empathy and should start working on that.
A relatable character is a character whose traits you can recognize, can understand what he/she does and why, wether that character is human or not it doesn't matter.

As for who is the most popular character, my opinion is that most people just play the game and don't care about the plot (in this forum we are only a minority of the playerbase) so design, exposure and most importantly power level are more important than plot and characterization. In a world where Jace, the mind sculptor has been the most powerful planeswalker for a long time or where Ugin, the spirit dragon might single-handedly win you games, it is no wonder who will come on top in popularity contest.
On the other hand, you can have a great character like Davriel, but when most people see a card like Davriel, rogue shadowmage as the only introduction to the character, you can be sure that he is not going to win any popularity contest anytime soon.
EDIT: if WotC decided to print a literally unnamed planeswalker with a "-X you win the game" that can be activated right away with doubling season, that one would become instantly the most popular character. Even if it has no characterization whatsoever and no relevance to the plot.

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I was always under the impression that the reason Wizards led with human planeswalkers was that they were popular because people could find pieces of themselves so to speak in these characters. As an example with the new set Ral Zarek is revealed to be in a realtionship to Tomik, appealing to that demographic. Narset has Autism, Gideon shows classic signs of recovery from abuse and tragedy, Huatli is inspired by an area of Latin America. Things like that are why I thought they were more prominent?

Nothing wrong that thouugh I should note that most of the time its White Characters getting all the screen time besides Tarkir. Chandra pre Teferi only human providing diversity to the Gatewatch and if you don't know Chandra suppose to be Indian well can you really tell? I mean did anyone think she was anything but White pre Kaladesh?

Series did a better job with diversity when Urza and Gerrard were steering the franchise quite honestly. Which made Magic stand out honestly cause most Fantasy back in the day was pretty white lol. All downhill since we entered the Gatewatch Era quite frankly.

That's a decent point, the Weatherlight crew (including those who went bad) consisted of (in part) a goblin (Squee), a minotaur (Tahngarth), a cat warrior (Mirri), two people of color (Sisay and Crovax), a maro-sorcerer (Multani) and an artifact golem (Karn). After Tempest and Masques blocks, going into Invasion block, the main crew consisted of three males (Gerrard, Tahngarth, Squee [1 human, 2 non-human]), three females (Sisay, Hanna, Orim [3 human]), and a maro-sorcerer and artifact golem (Multani and Karn).

The Weatherlight crew was arguably the most diverse main cast of characters Wizards had, or has had. And each of the crew had a purpose and a plot.

But still. Let's get a centaur planeswalker.

Lol I never thought of Daretti as Italian.

Has pizza been mentioned in any magic setting so far?

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Eh, I don't agree with any of that. Killing off Bolas wouldn't really be all that great, both from a narrative sense and a moral sense being imprisoned without power is a better end. And he in general has always been a weak villain, acting like this is somehow a new thing is rather silly. They just were trying to make the most of a bad character.

And they failed. Miserably. They made the most of him in Amonkhet. He was mustache twirlingly over the top, but he was effective. They did a terrible job before that, and they did a terrible job this set. There were flashes where they did well, with him brushing Gideon aside and shattering the blackblade, but overall he just failed and looked like a chump. And while imprisoning him without power is a better punishment, it's really stupid to do, as it leaves him a window to come back. It's also not what they actually did. They imprisoned him without a spark, so he can't planeswalkers and he has less power, but he's still Nicol Bolas Elder Dragon. He still is nigh immortal and graced with magnificent powers. He had basically all his powers before sparking. It's just such a clear case of a story decision being made for meta reasons over what's right for the story. What's right for the story would have been ending the threat he poses to the multiverse. They didn't. And we've already seen lesser beings get their spark back, so Bolas, an immortal genius and one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse, is almost assured to do so narratively, and absolutely going to do so when wizards decides its time.

Did you not finish the novel? Because your comments on his power read like you did t finish but were just told what happened. Bolas is indeed completely without power he couldn't even muster the simplest of healing spells. Should they have killed him? Honestly no and for the exact reason they gave in the novel he died once before and came back killing him with anything less than a soul destroying method would be more pointless than imprisonment.

I'm choosing to believe that he was temporarily weakened from the shock of losing his spark and being depleted after casting the elder spell, because the alternative explanation is stupid. Bolas did not derive his power from his spark, nor did it increase his longevity. The post mending spark only grants the ability to planeswalk, unlike the oldwalker spark. That was the entire point of all of Bolas plans. We see all the other harvested walkers die, and Bolas become severely weakened, so it seems likely that being harvested is a shock to the system that kills most people, but Bolas being an elder dragon let's him live. He will eventually recover. It's possible, of course, that they've decided to retcons the nature of the spark for no reason, but that would be stupid.

And you need to go back and check out why Bolas was able to come back last time. Umezawa tricked him to have an out of body experience and follow him to the meditation realm so he could trap his spirit there by killing his body. Bolas' spirit didn't escape to the meditation realm, his spirit went there to kill Umezawa and this was what allowed Umezawa to kill his body. We have zero evidence that killing Bolas while his spirit is in his body would fail to kill his spirit. All it proves is that if Bolas' spirit is in the meditation realm, you can kill his body and trap him there.

Why is the alternative explination of Ugin seal/stealing his powers stupid? If you meant to stupid idea of it being tied to his spark I can see why you would think its stupid, but as that isn't what was implied at all by the fact that he was stil casting spells after his spark was gone but not after Ugin did whatever he did to him it makes no sense to assume the spark connection.

I can't find the exact source but it seems that Bolas' body was destoryed while he was in the meditation realm and he was defeated in the meditation realm. If this is the case then 100% killing him doesn't work. If not the I still have questions about what exactly happened but in story we saw a dragon survive the destruction of its body and then be reborn. This dragon wasn't even an elder dragon and Ugin strongly hints that as an elder dragon Bolas wouldn't need the same convoluted plots Niv used and could pull it off with completely different convoluted plots. Even flat out saying he could have come back as a Spirit Dragon like Ugin.

If you want to choose to believe something completely outside, or even contradictory to what we are told in lore you need a much better argument than "Doing the thing they said was a bad idea, for reasons, would have been a much better idea than what they actually did."

Umezawa told Bolas he was going to kill him, killed his second in command, said he was going to the meditation realm, and vanished. Bolas, perfectly healthy, separated his own spirit from his body to go to the meditation realm to pursue him. Umezawa had not yet left and took the opportunity to blow up Bolas citadel to kill his body, then went to the meditation realm to kill his spirit. He owns spirit Bolas and thinks he's killed him. He is able to do so because Bolas cannot planeswalk after his body has been killed and his Mana has been severed. Flash forward to Time Spiral and we find out that a trace amount of Bolas Spirit manage to survive because of the Madaran time rift. The growth of the rift enabled his spirit to take on a weak human form. He then used Vensers spark to gain more power, and pulled his sleeping body through the time rift before umezawa kills it in the past. His resurrection relied entirely on the time rift. First, it kept him from being totally destroyed. Second, it's growth enabled him to become more than a harmless shadow of a spirit. Third, it enabled him to retrieve his body from the past. Characters present in this story had knowledge of this (Karn, and especially Teferi).

So we know Ugin is full of *****, because if Bolas' had a way to restore himself he would have done so without having to rely on events outside of his control and every bit as convoluted as Nivs. He didn't even plan the first step, he got lucky that the rift saved enough of his spirit, and then got lucky again that enough plane wrecking disasters happened to cause the time rift crisis and grow the rifts thus causing his spirit to grow. And he'd have certainly done it much, much earlier. The evidence is clear, Ugin is wrong. That's why I said it's stupid. Characters present in this story should know this, Teferi especially as he ******* witnessed it. That's either one of two things, an intentional retcon created solely so that they could have a reason not to kill Bolas (a major retcon for the character btw, that changes fairly recent history), or the author/creative making a huge plot mistake. The former is cynical and the latter is stupid. Neither are good narrative reasons for this happening.

Had they killed Bolas after he desparked, he'd have been dead. Even had he managed to somehow, at the last minute, decouple his spirit from his body and send it to the meditation plane, we would at worst be in the same spot we are now, Bolas trapped on the meditation plane, except he'd just be a spirit instead of alive. If his spirit stayed on Ravnica, Kaya was on hand to finish the job.

They went out of their way to come up with a reason not to kill Bolas, and it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Maybe Ugin is just lying and is taking a risk solely because he doesn't want to kill his brother, but why anyone would go along with that is a mystery. There is no evidence that Bolas is permanently neutered and will not recover, so this plan relies on Ugin staying on the meditation realm and keeping Bolas weak. What happens when Ugin is inevitably required to leave to face a major threat? Bolas recovers. And Bolas on Alara was a planar threat before he powered up a bit off the maelstrom.

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You're also arguing based on your own personal opinion against the research WotC has done on the matter, while comparing two rather wildly different franchises to try and make the point. Pokemon and Alien are both named after the non human entities, they're clearly the focus. That doesn't mean that generally humans aren't more popular (bear in mind that none of those franchises are devoid of humans) or even that in the specific case of MtG that non humans are more popular.

I'm not arguing from personal opinion. I'm arguing from observations across multiple franchises. There is a slight trend towards liking humans more, but it's nowhere, nowhere near as strong as people claim it is. Humans are able to empathize with cubes for crying out loud.

Jace become popular because he was the posterchild since his inception and shoved down everyones throats since the start. The gatewatch rose in popularity (though most members were chosen by popularity in the first place) because they featured extensively in the storyline. The pattern repeats itself time and time again.

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Reading the names of the dead PW makes me say: planeswalkers of the multiverse, don't choose white as your color, is bad for your life!

White lives matter.

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Human PWs: 33

Dragon PWs: 2
Elf PWs: 2 (One is half-human)
Cat warrior PWs: 2
Werewolf PWs: 1 (Also human)
Minotaur PWs: 1
Kor PWs: 1
Merfolk PWs: 1
Vampire PWs: 1 (Previously human)
Demon PWs: 1 (Previously human)
Moonfolk PWs: 1
Devil PWs: 1 (Half-human, also previously human)
Gorgon PWs: 1
Satyr PWs: 1
Goblin PWs: 1
Vedalken Pws: 1
Golem PWs: 1
Unknown PWs: 1 (Possibly human)
Meanwhile: No orc, no dwarf, no giant, no ogre, no viashino, no centaur, no kithkin, no angel (yes, I know the soul problem), no treefolk, no naga, no harpy, no faerie, no mutant (but Koth and Tezzeret are not regular humans), no sphynx (at least not proper), no elemental (do they have the old "no soul" problem like regular undead?)

Added a few obvious addendum to show how even fewer there are as even among the more fantastical. That there are those that have human ancestry or may.

Specifically: Freyalise is canonically half-elf born. Arlinn is still human unless in werewolf form. Sorin Markov is a human whose spark ignited upon being transformed into a vampire. Ob Nixilis was a human who obtained the chain veil previously but went demon. Tibalt was a human until he casted a spell that turned him half-devil. The Wanderer can be anything but the simple answer is they are a human and that them secretly being an Eldrazi or being a returned Elspeth is part of the myth built up around them based on the speculation of others.