MTG Salvation

Quote from KickinChicken »

I am assuming these will be a Secret Lair, then half a year later be reinterpreted as Universes Within and be on The List.

This is starting to be predictable.

I wouldn't be surprised if they appear on The List, but unlike other Secret Lairs, they probably won't get the Universes Within treatment on account of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms being a standard set, Pioneer legal and everything. These characters are part of that same setting, so all that they need to do is commission new artwork that doesn't use the actors' likeness (assuming that their contracts stipulate this is a one time thing) and they're already as kosher as any other D&D related cards they've printed thus far.

The main reason Universes Within is necessary is to prevent another Reserved List from happening for copyright reasons, but D&D is WotC's other major fantasy product and they totally own the rights to it just like Magic. Whether you like them crossing the streams or not, the legal necessity that spawned Universes Within doesn't apply here.

The error was the same as the error of printing the now banned card at all: calling the war a "jihad" is a misunderstanding of what that word even means. It is not the same thing as a crusade. Moreover it plays into stereotypes of the middle east, which are a problem even outside the context of colonialism. The book is still good, and its point of making the exact start of the "true" conflict ambiguous is a fascinating theme; but the portrayal of Mishra's kingdom and its relationship with Kroog is still problematic. Just because you inserted a controversial theme into a book on purpose does not mean you handled the topic well and without error.

Quote from Ryperior74 »

Overhearing The Who Kayla thing

i Was confused as well from the comic depiction but I did a little research and some people stepped up to me (one of which here)

The comic book which the art came from is not canon and the offical novel is a recon of that

from The offical novel I believe there’s only 2 details we got of her and that’s “raven black hair” and “brown eyes”

The original novel, awesome as it is, is no more perfect than anything else. I said it in the other thread, but the original novel references Arabian Nights as much as it does Antiquities, with Mishra's side being represented by primarily Arab stand-ins (right down to having a sultan and using other Arabian terms). Due to the writer failing to describe the people of Kroog in the same level of detail, they default to being white in the reader's mind. This carries some uncomfortable (and likely unintended) connotations about white western people VS the Arab world, made worse by the novel name dropping one of the seven cards banned in 2020 for being insensitive, Jihad. Making Kayla and other characters from Kroog black helps at least mitigate some of these unfortunate implications from the novel, even though there is no going back and removing the reference in the book to the banned card. Its no more of a retcon than the novel itself was for the comic, and speaking as a Vorthos who is arguably more interested in this property for its story than its gameplay, this was a golden opportunity to help fix the errors of Magic's older lore without necessarily contradicting it. I'm glad they did this.

Quote from Mana Goat »

It would take a deeper look back into the books but off the top of my head she was described as being raven haired with eyes that were liquid pools of darkness. Which makes me think she was similar in appearance to someone of Asian descent.

In all honestly I not going to get too nitpicky about it and just assume that her ethnicity is in constant flux due to Teferi running around in the past.

Kayla Bin-Kroog is the narrator of the novel-- the book uses an Epistolary format where the book is a history of the conflict written by her after the fact in order to set the record straight for future Dominarian historians who are short of first hand accounts of the war and the events leading up to it (it doesn't get much more first hand than Urza's own wife). Consequently, IIRC she doesn't spend much time describing her own appearance, and what she does say doesn't really clarify her skin tone. Since this is her first appearance on a card, as far as the game is concerned the comic is irrelevant (I believe they have retconned comic book characters' appearance before). Hence the decision to finally clarify it and bring the character's appearance up to date with the new art direction for Dominaria. You might have noticed from other sets that Argivian people are more mixed race than previously? Well, I think there is a reason for that, and its rooted in the novel itself.

See, the books at this time loved making references to cards from the sets it was based on, and The Brothers War is no exception. Except the writer decided to not only reference Antiquities, but also Arabian Nights. Mishra commands a bunch of tribes whose appearance and culture is described quite explicitly, and even use Arabic terminology. This isn't in itself a problem-- heck, it makes it clear that Argive as a continent always had multiple races living there. It becomes a problem when you read the book and find out that one of the cards that was name dropped is one of the seven that were banned in 2020 for being culturally insensitive. Its name starts with a J. Since the book declines to describe the race of the Argivians, most readers would default to seeing them as white due to the prevalence of white people in card art at the time and in the fantasy genre as a whole. So you get this uncomfortable real world context of white western people VS Arab peoples for the whole conflict that I don't think the author was intentionally going for, but its there nevertheless thanks especially to the use of the J word. There is no going back and rewriting the book to remove the reference, but now that we're getting new sets set on Dominaria, they can at least mitigate some of the implications by explicitly showing Argivians that aren't pasty skinned like Urza and Mishra. Making Urza's own wife black in particular helps with the recontextualization. It also helps with the complaints that we see black soldiers and knights in other Dominarian kingdoms like Benalia. Black people on Dominaria aren't just found on the Jamurran continent now, and this is a golden opportunity to show that they never were.

So yeah... this change shouldn't come as a surprise, and I as a Vorthos welcome it.

Truthfully, even the Oldwalkers had more difficulty moving companions from plane to plane than some people seem to remember. In Planeswalker, we learn that many planeswalkers Urza knew had traveling companions to keep them sane (much like Xantcha), but many of the crazier ones were those who spent their immortality alone. Meanwhile, to planeswalk with Xantcha he had to come up with a solution based on artifice. And it was only because as a Phyrexian, Xantcha was more comfortable than most with the idea of having her body modified that to make it work. In the very next book, because of Xantcha's death Urza is forced to come up with different solutions altogether. His first idea-- petrify people so they can survive the Blind Eternities then restore them-- actually got some people killed because even stone can get cracked by the Aether. It takes him the entire book to figure out more safe methods, culminating in his ultimate creation, the Weatherlight.

Meanwhile other planeswalkers from Dominaria seem to prefer the companionship of other planeswalkers to keep them sane, or to just settle down somewhere like Freyalise and Bolas. So most of them don't have Urza's particular skill for planeshifting non-planeswalkers around. Teferi may or may not have the knowledge due to being tutored by Urza himself, but by the time he was a full fledged planeswalker, Jhoira was already captaining Weatherlight. Venser in the newer lore had some ideas of how to recreate Weatherlight's planeshifting engine, but Koth forced him to fight on New Phyrexia where he gave up his life for Karn's. I haven't read the Ice Age books, but I get the impression that Jaya never learned the skill either, if only because she was never the scholarly type of mage (more a mercenary, really). And Lilliana definitely never learned how to do it, since she looks down on non-planeswalkers. Karn, if he knows how to do it, probably has a similar attitude to Koth about the technology. He's seen two too many inter-planar wars in his long existence. So that means that at the moment, all of the Oldwalkers that know or have joined the Gatewatch lack the skill even when they were at the height of their power, and Kaya finding a BS way of shifting people through the Eternities is actually not unprecedented in the lore. In fact I would say it actually makes more sense than Urza's final non-artifice method described in Timeshifted: turn the person two dimensional while in the Eternities. And I only just now realized that's a meta joke about the game...

The problem is that the only sources claiming that they planned on this being a Godzilla-like situation are untrustworthy by default, because all of them are Wizards employees. Even disregarding the crossover aspect of this Secret Lair, you are forgetting that this Lair also breaks a promise that Secret Lairs would be for reprints only. I also don't think it makes any sense for them to omit the "canon" names for spoiler purposes because why would they care? Seriously, it wouldn't actually spoil anything, because many legendary creatures from the Commander products have no tie in with the story or future settings they plan on using. Heck, Future Sight deliberately contained cards from future sets in order to create hype for the game's future. In a similar veign its no secret the upcoming Norse themed set is almost certainly based on one of the planes from Planechase, just like Tarkir was. So not only does it not matter to them, they could have used the name reveal to hype future products.

Furthermore, that's not their official reason. Their official excuse is that it would ruin the aesthetics of the cards, which is a strange and dubious argument to make when it would be no different aesthetically than on the Godzilla cards; AND this is the same company that keeps the back of the cards unchanged after 25 years because it would represent a cheating issue if they so much as removed the accidental pen stroke on the back of every Magic card. It is also a direct violation of rule 201.1, the name of the card is in the left hand corner of the card. The true name apparently isn't even on the card! Rule 201.5 was created for the Ikoria promo cards specifically to mitigate this problem, and those cards are already out in the wild. Why not use that rule, even if it was just an empty box under the "crossover" name lacking the official name of the cards, if only to show that they were not the final product? The rules exist to facilitate the game, not to be ignored when its inconvenient for aesthetic purposes. That sets a precedent arguably worse than a neo-reserved list. This should be a game first, a collectable second. If it was intended purely to be a collectable, it should be silver bordered. That's literally what the silver border was made for.

And finally, I don't buy that this is simply a result of poor planning. That is, I don't think its the case that they created the cards before creating their "official" names, simply because we all know how long it takes for Wizards to get a card through the process of design, development, getting artwork commissioned, templating, and sent to the printers. In the time it took for them to do all that, they had plenty of time to come up with some kind of official name for them, perhaps even a tiny bit of lore and flavor text. And if they have, omitting that information from the initial announcement is so misleading I can't imagine their marketing department signing off on such stupidity. I really do think they are trying to save face by misrepresenting how these cards came to exist in the format they were revealed in. All the evidence we need for that is in the original announcement itself, the screenshots of the cards, and the way WotC has done things in the past. Saving face with post-hoc excuses isn't out of character for them, sadly.

Quote from Rosy Dumplings »

This is the part that I was very unhappy with... and it happens to be flat-out untrue.

On the blogatog entry answering several questions about the TWD promos, Maro SPECIFICALLY states that the new functional reprint version and the previous secret lair version would be mutually exclusive, that the oracle page on gatherer would specifically state that the two versions are the exact same card for the purpose of deck building restrictions. Mechanically, these cards work like Zilortha in that a new version without crossover art CAN be made but just hasn’t been announced yet.

That you have to visit Blogatog to get this important information is definitely a point of criticism as this point has not been properly communicated to the masses but this specific problem is still a non-issue.

That's only because they are backpedaling. IF their original intention was to do this the same way as the Godzilla cards, they would have used the same formatting as the Godzilla cards, with the "unofficial" name for the crossover art version on top and the "official" card name in the frame underneath. Doing it any other way WILL lead to confusion about how many copies of a card you can actually put in your deck. You shouldn't have to look on Gatherer to see that the Crossover version is the same card as the "canon" version of the card. In fact, that's why the Godzilla cards are formatted the way they are, to ensure everyone is on the same page that they are just promotional artwork versions, not an entirely different card. The fact they didn't do that this time suggests they didn't have plans for a "canon" version until the public told WotC to go Fork themselves. Which is the problem: some shareholder told them to do this, MaRo has enough integrity to know this was a bad idea, so he's now making promises I'm not sure he is actually able to make no matter how much clout he has as lead game designer. Hopefully he does, but the formatting of the cards does not bode well for this being the same situation as the Godzilla cards. And even if they do the retroactive "LOLZ it was promo art all along" lie, the fact they are formatted improperly (according to their own rules!) will cause confusion and be a legitimate cause for criticism by players going into the future.

Quote from Cranky »

Quote from TheOnlyOne652089 »

So far i could buy basically all the singles i am interested in for each set for just around 50 bucks , even foils, Magic was never cheaper as its now, if you dodge and avoid all the fancy "expensive" special products that nobody really needs anyway

I think it is important to highlight this. All of the whale-hunting and niche-filling they're doing makes the game DRAMATICALLY less expensive for the average player. The average player wins. The whales win(?). Those niche players win. WotC wins.

No, we don't win. You know why? Because the Walking Dead cards are effectively on their own version of the Reserved List. The characters are not owned by Wizards of the Coast. When the license runs out, WotC can no longer print these cards, which means their price will dramatically increase just like the rest of the cards on the Reserved List. The problem you aren't seeing is that its short term gain for all parties, but the damage is to the long term health of the game.

The only difference between these cards and the actual Reserved List is that the original list promised there would be no functional reprints, whereas here they can almost certainly make functional reprints. But that doesn't really solve the problem. Lets say hypothetically they get the Star Wars license and Darth Vader manages to become Legacy viable or even a staple. There is a very limited supply of Darth Vader cards, and when Disney yanks the license, they can't print any more of him. BUT they could print a functionally identical card, lets say Lord Soth from Dragonlance (because that's a property Wizards owns). That doesn't really solve the problem, because now Legacy players can potentially play with two copies of Vader and four of Soth, and this could be a degenerate deck. Or you could see Commander decks with a Soth as commander and a Vader in the deck as backup, leading to potential degenerate plays there as well. Hypothetical, of course, because these cards don't exist, but they show why you can't solve the problem with functional reprints. You shouldn't impose a Reserved List on your game to begin with.

Contrast this with the approach taken with previous crossovers. The silver bordered cards can't be played in tournaments at all, so the My Little Pony cards present no threat to tournament play or Commander at all. Likewise, when the Toho license runs out, that just means they cannot reprint Luminous Broodmoth with Mothra's name and artwork on it. But they can still print Luminous Broodmoth and you can't put more than four of that card in your deck just because there are Mothra art versions out there. Its not a functional reprint, its literally the same card. Also, I mentioned Dragonlance above, and we know there will be a Forgotten Realms expansion next year. This is also a kind of crossover, but importantly its not an inter-company crossover. There is no issue with licensing. When inevitably Drizzt Do'Urden becomes a staple of Commander or even other formats (as we all know he will be) he's not going to enter the Honorary Reserved List, because he's a character WotC actually owns. As long as they own D&D, they can crossover with these properties whenever they feel like, and even in terms of flavor few people are going to complain because they're from the same genre as Magic. They're High Fantasy, while The Walking Dead is not. Actually, the most complaining I see over the D&D crossovers is from D&D players, and only because they're getting impatient for a 5e take on Dark Sun (or at least Planescape). Otherwise, the Ravnica crossover didn't bother MtG players at all, and the Theros book was actually fairly popular. It doesn't ruin anyone's immersion, and they can reprint those books indefinitely, for the same reason they will be able to reprint Forgotten Realms cards indefinitely.

They won't be able to do that with mechanically unique inter-company crossover cards that aren't done as artwork alters like the Godzilla cards, and that's what makes this legitimately aggravating for players of Commander and older formats that are already plagued by the original Reserved List.

If anything, the Forgotten Realms crossover will be a bigger issue from a canon perspective, because they've always insisted that Earth is not a plane in the multiverse, but if I recall my Realms lore correctly it does have terrestrial connections in its backstory. But at least its an IP WotC actually owns, so there's no psuedo-reserved list concerns, and canon can sort itself out. Which is what canon is supposed to do.

Now, if Lilliana starts referring to zombies as "walkers", that's when we'll have a problem.

Quote from enzie »

I really don't think we are. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien

Yes you literally are. To quote Webster itself:

What’s the difference between connotation and denotation ?

Connotation and denotation are easily confused, and the fact that neither word is particularly common in everyday use makes it difficult for many people to get a firm grip on the difference between them. While each of these two words has several possible meanings, they are notably distinct from each other in all senses. Denotation is concerned with explicit meaning, and connotation tends to be concerned with implicit meaning. The word home, for instance, has a denotation of “the place (such as a house or apartment) where a person lives,” but it may additionally have many connotations (such as “warmth,” “security,” or “childhood”) for some people.

By definition, all a dictionary can do (or at least, all they traditionally attempt to do) is give you the denotation of a word. But using a word that's technically accurate without taking into account the connotation of it... well, if nothing else it leads to arguments like this. Every time.

The sources I've already linked you to show that at minimum, no one considers the alternative definitions of "alien" relevant anymore, and at worst, consider them inappropriate. The term is no longer used in at least two states in the US, and the news has stopped using it as well. Again, I'm just saying that as a matter of fact to show the status of the word in actual usage. Similarly, on TVTropes and all other websites I am aware of that talk about fiction, the word "alien" always gets used in an SF context, not fantasy (unless a franchise wants to cross the two genres for whatever reason) let alone more "realistic" genres. That further reinforces that the old definitions no longer apply in 99.9% of all English contexts.

Moreover, the term "alien invasion" is even more specific, to the point that if you look it up on TVTropes, I guarantee you won't find a single example that doesn't come from science fiction.

Quote from Maritrakul - Swallower of Lore »

I don't care about connotation. I can't base my language about subjective prejudice about words.

You should. Language is just a tool for communicating our thoughts, and if you don't care what people think a word means based on their "prejudices" as you call them, you are only setting yourself up for misunderstanding and unwinnable arguments in the future like this one. There is literally nothing more that can be said on the subject. Take it not as a criticism, but as life advice. Language must convey those prejudices, or it would be impoverished in its ability to convey emotion.

So we agree it can't be used to metal coat (lapislazzuli would not even produce a metallic pigment for what I can see). I know you still think it's just painted gauze, but I really think, in-lore, it's a metal plate, metal coating, with "metal" meaning "of metal", not "of metal appearance".

What? Of course it can be used to coat metal, there just isn't any reason to think the Eternals are metal plated based on the artwork on the cards. Again, their bodies look exactly like a mummy without wrappings covering them, and no armor either. The face of a mummy is defined by the bone structure, which tends to be much more angular than the bones + the facial muscles. The issue is that those facial muscles lose most of their mass when they dry out. That plus the blue sheen gives the Eternals a neat look, but their bodies are clearly so thin that if they were covered in metal, it would have the protective value of tinfoil. A sword blow would simply crush their bones even if it couldn't cut through it. And we see that they can, so why argue the point?

"Metallic mineral" explictly indicates a mineral metallic in composition.

Nope, like I said metalloids like silicon are also considered "metallic" because of their properties. Furthermore, to qualify as a mineral it must be a pure chemical composition and almost always crystalline structure. This makes minerals, even minerals containing metals, very different from the pure metal. For instance, what makes pyrite different from iron is the presence of sulfide, which makes it far more brittle. Steel makers always try to remove sulfur impurities from the alloy for this reason. In fact, IIRC metallic minerals almosthave to contain non-metals or metalloids because one of the defining features of metals is their plasticity, or in other words their ability to deform before breaking. This means that only a few metals form crystalline structures, and the rest tend to form amorphous blobs in nature. Which is actually one of the things that makes them so useful-- you can shape them into exactly the forms you need to make tools.

All this applies even if we allow Lazotep to be a completely fictitious material. I'm not saying that its actually Lapis Lazuli, but it does have more in common with it than it does, say, oxidized copper, and nothing WOTC has said contradicts that notion.

enzie, I think with the spoiler of Pledge of Unity and the Bonds cycle we can finally say for sure that the Guilds are united against Bolas. You can clearly see members of just about every guild they could fit into the frame putting their hands on Gideon (or each other), including a member of the Gruul near the center of the piece, so that puts an end to that argument. I bet the Azorius are going to just treat Dovin Baan as a traitor or a renegade, but either way it looks like they will be teaming up with the Orzhov, who we know are against Bolas.

And it makes sense in-story too. The cards indicate that Bolas didn't see the significance of Nissa smashing his statue of himself, but that is presumably the moment when the guilds woke up and realized they all needed to be in this together. And then Niv-Mizzit resurrected himself, and that was that.

Quote from Maritrakul - Swallower of Lore »

First of all, pigment is to mix with water or oils to make paint or make up, not metallic coating, Lapis is not even a metal. Uses in history are also as precious stones, jewels, so nothing more than engraved or sculpted or mounted lapis...

Do you think I am unprepared to source my claims of it being used as a pigment in historic paints? The paint today is called ultramarine. Yes there is a synthetic variant, but its traditionally made with Lazurite, the compound in Lapis Lazuli that gives it its color.

"Mineral" does not mean "rock".
And poof! lucky me... Yesterday they posted this https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/bad-news-heroes-2019-04-11 and it says "metallic mineral".

Metallic doesn't mean metal either. Silicon is a metalloid, because it has properties of both metals and non-metals. If you learned about the periodic table in highschool chemistry you know this distinction. Besides, the writers on the Mothership screw up the lore all the time, like today when they thought they had shown Niv-Mizzit's death when they totally forgot to do so. Or the many, many mistakes MaRo makes, like that time he forgot Phyrexians were originally the Thrawn. My suspicion here is that someone in the story department had this idea about what Lazotep is that wasn't established during Amonkhet block, the artists were told that its like lazurite, the artists know what that is because they have been to art school, so the artists just treated it like a cool paintjob on the Eternals. Then a bunch of people wonder why the artists aren't treating it like armor plating. As far as they knew, it wsan't meant to be. At least, that is my guess.

Having Simics all fanatics about evolution, I don't think they don't want to explain anything that goes into more of a scifi sphere, I think it's just implicit they will not overstate differences between different planes humans, for the reason you said "to keep the characters as relatable as possible". The fact is, artificial or natural evolution, there are differences and sometimes they just implicitly admit it's genetics or evolution, for example the rare presence of mages on Kaladesh, Melira resistance to Phyresis, wings and limbs sprouting randomly, skin colour, etc... So a human race developing on a different plane, realistically, should have differences even bigger in regards to an alien human race.

They use or ignore science on the basis of Rule of Cool, and really always have. Some of the races like Vedalkin and Merfolk have had... interesting art histories, to say the least. The excuse for Vedalkin having six fingers on Kaladesh and only five on Ravnica and Esper is really a post-hoc justification for the early weirdness of four armed Mirran Vedalkin, for instance. And they only created the Vedalkin because they were unreasonably self-conscious about the traditional merfolk having tails... you get the idea. The lore can be rather slapdash at times, especially when you pull back the curtain and look at how the company developed everything. Sometimes they did so with loving care, sometimes the right hand didn't even care what the left hand was doing.

Quote from enzie »

Quote from Maritrakul - Swallower of Lore »

That seems actually a pretty personal prejudice on the word "alien", which I highly doubt 99% of people in the world has. It means foreign, stranger, the same meaning it had in latin, and it's only denoting a characteristic of origin, of provenance. Taking in example Lovecraft: he still used the word correctly for the Old Ones, they are aliens, but he also used "inconceivable", "monstrous", "horrendous", "revolting" for the characteristics you seem to blend in the meaning of "alien". Even in scifi it just means "from another world" and not "green monster from space". About Planeswalkers, you might see at the end of one of my repliy I explicitly wrote "alien planeswalkers": because most of those on Ravnica are aliens right now.

This. Just because we use 'alien' to refer to 'outer space extraterrestrials that don't look human' so much, does not mean that's the only correct usage of the word. Superman is an alien, and referred to as such many, many times throughout his history, despite a totally human appearance. 'Outer space aliens' falls under the umbrella term of 'alien', but its general usage is for anything foreign to your world. Whether that world is your country, planet, plane, etc.. That isn't some niche use of the word, but rather the intended definition that has been linked in some people's brains to mean 'from outer space', but that isn't correct.

The two of you aren't wrong, but you are missing the point. This is the difference between connotation and denotation. It is because of connotation that the anglo-saxon word for fecal matter is treated as profanity, while the Latin word for the same is not. In fact, you can do the same exercise for most English profanity; all of them have neutral alternatives that usually come from French or Latin. The connotation of the word "alien" in the English language is informed by the adoption of it for describing extraterrestrials in science fiction, horror fiction, and even astrobiology and similar sciences. This is why few English speakers use it to refer to fellow human beings anymore, and why its slowly being phased out of legalese in some places. How speakers of other languages use it is irrelevant. Whatever its origins, it is quickly becoming a false friend. More than half of all native English speakers will understand what I mean, and that is all that matters.

Quote from Maritrakul - Swallower of Lore »

Sure, but while it is certainly inspired by Lapislazzuli, a stone can't be used to create a coating like the one we see on Eternals.

Actually, that's exactly how it was used in history. It was ground up and used as a paint or as makeup (think of Cleopatra's signature blue eyeliner-- that isn't a Hollywood invention, she actually wore that stuff, and Lapis Lazuli was the primary pigment). You might be confused by the overall appearance of the Eternals, which is highly angular like someone wearing armor plating, but that's actually just what mummified bodies look like underneath their wrappings. The thing that made me suspicious from the beginning is that they look too gaunt to be covered in thick metal. In fact, they are so gaunt because they are mummies.

We even saw kind of an ancient-magicesque-egyptian foundry in which melted lazotep is dripped. While everything has a fusion temperature, a thing that can be melted, used for coating and is metallic in the final facies seems more metallic to me in its nature than simply rocky.

Again, Lapis Lazuli actually does look like that. That sheen is what makes it a semi-precious stone. As for the melting and stuff, I didn't say it actually was Lapis Lazuli, just that WOTC isn't hiding their inspirations, and that there is no real indication that its supposed to be a metal. They call it a "mineral," but if it were purified into a metal they would most likely just call it that or call it an alloy. "Mineral" conventionally indicates rock. Besides, if it were metal, you wouldn't want to apply it to flesh in a molten state. It would be so hot it would instantly burn the mummy. Its more likely that the Lazotep is combined with a resin or paint to bind it to the mummified tissue, and that's what Nissa saw. Either way, they haven't indicated it to be protective, except from the Eternities.

"Alien" means what I said and there is nothing to reprimand about the use I made of the word "alien".

Except that's not what the word connotates. At least, not 99% of the time (the last 1% is when people are discussing immigration issues, and since that's politics I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole). Usually it refers to extraterrestrials, or experiences that are so strange and so foreign to normal experience that nothing else quite fits. And often in fiction it will be used in both senses at once, such as in Lovecraftian fiction. It is very unusual for native English speakers to use the word to refer to foreigners, because it sounds either antiquated, overly technical, or dehumanizing. And Planeswalkers and planar travelers in Mt:G are usually pretty similar in this regard.

About the probability of humans having different biological traits it's a totally different discussion. Thinking Humans are on nearly every plane I assumed they are the product of parallel evolution throughout the multiverse (we know the real reason is a creative one, but in lore I assumed this), so I also assumed there must be different traits, so while they are apparently mostly similar, there should be biological differences; talking realistically even humans on Earth have some substantial biological differences: I'd expect humans in different UNIVERSES to be at least different in some ways. And reading the Humans page on MTG wiki I see there are biological differences, for example in lifespan or even physical evident differences (not talking about Mirrans obviously...). I mean, they could even have organs in different places for all we know.

I'll grant you that Mirrans have slightly different biology because Mirrodin is weird that way. But at the end of the day this is mostly a Fantasy game, not a SF game, so I wouldn't expect something like the Theory of Evolution to always apply like you would expect it to. Most exceptions to the rule that "humans are humans" have a specific explanation attached, like Keldons having done genetic engineering/eugenics in the past to make themselves super bulky in preparation for the Phyrexian invasion. Given that a lot of visual retcons were made to Ravnica in the first sequel block, I can't even tell if the lifespan weirdness of OG Ravnica still applies or whether its been retconned into oblivion to prevent people from getting confused. After all, "humans are humans" is a storytelling rule to try and keep the characters as relatable as possible. Its also the reason most of the planeswalkers are human, for better or worse.

Quote from VoidTimeWalker »

From Nissa's trial, it seemed to indicate that the Amonkhet gods were multiple leylines of mana wrapped together. That Bolas was able to reprogram them messing with how they are entangled. If they are concentrated mana from one plane, how are they able to leave that plane?

IIRC, Leylines don't just exist on planes, but between the planes in the Blind Eternities. In fact, naturally occurring planes exist on mana lines in the Eternities, while artificial planes like Mirrodin and Serra's realm did not, and that's actually what makes them unstable. A plane needs a constant supply of mana to exist. But since both Ravnica and Amonkhet are naturally occurring planes, it should be possible for a god to step through a portal on one to another without much issue. It might even be the reason that the Gruul can have a God-Pig now, because previously Ravnica had no visible gods like Amonkhet and Theros did. It might be that allowing Gods move from one plane to another alters the nature of the plane to allow them to exist there. But that's just my speculation.

Quote from enzie »

For one, he used the word 'probably', he didn't state it definitively. But, the point was that either way, whether they have different biology or not, they are still alien. Alien just means foreign to the world. Also, just because the end result is the same (zombies) doesn't mean the process or magic behind it is. The curse of wandering on amonkhet could be weird magic that the golgari don't know how to control in the same way. Or, the manner in which they regenerate might be different, and therefore they don't know how to stop it.

My problem with this is that it is all speculation, not based on any known lore or canonical facts. The canonical fact is that Ravincan soldiers are able to keep up with them in combat. It doesn't matter how many people have a problem with this if they can't articulate a good reason Boros soldiers shouldn't be able to. The only thing left to ask is why, and whether or not the Eternal's ability to regenerate really makes a difference. I think what makes a difference is the God Eternals. The rank and fodder don't matter, because they are commanded by Lilliana anyway.

If the argument was 'who would win, the entire plane of Amonkhet denizens or the entire plane of Ravnica denizens?' then most of the points would be valid. But, it's not just the regular Amonkhet as normal zombies. It's also Bolas and his magic, and they aren't even trying to conquer the entire plane. Just control a small portion until his zombie assassins jump a few hundred/thousand people. Not to mention any help he's getting from the azorius, golgari, gruul, orzhov, etc.. to start. Dovin may have previously enacted some laws that are hindering some of the resistance, Domri's raids might be diverting attention, Orzhov is in shambles from Kaya setting all the spirits free, etc.. Ravnica isn't at full strength.

I think you are overstating things. In fact, the only guild that is really on Bolas's side (and we can clearly see this on the cards) is the Azorius, and I think even they are actually neutral. I'll get to that. The Gruul are shown fighting Eternals. I think they are just in it for the End Raze and will fight anyone who gets in the way of demolishing the cityscape. That presumably incudes Bolas, because Bolas is a tyrant and Domri Rade firmly believes in anarchy. Its even in his title. The Orzhov aren't on Bolas' side because Kaya is on Bolas's kill list, and her lieutenant was always suspicious of Kaya's actions. So we see the Orzhov fighting for Ravnica. And we have yet to see much spoiled about the Golgari's role, but we know it won't work to Bolas's favor because Vraska is a sleeper agent for Jace. Has been since Ixalan.

And as for the Azorius, we already know Chandra is going to burn Dovin's face off arrest Dovin Baan and pull a Nahiri to his Sorin. Somehow. Besides that, its been stated that Dovin has already betrayed Bolas in his own (currently unknown) way, because Dovin had his own agenda for the city that only included Bolas out of convenience. Once Dovin had no more use for their alliance, he severed it. That's why I think that other than the thopters, which can be reprogrammed, the Azorius are actually neutral when the war starts. Dovin Baan clearly appreciates Ravnica for what it is and what it could be. So any laws he would pass would most likely serve his own agenda, not Bolas's invasion plans. Besides that, the Azorius are ultimately still servant to the declarations of the Living Guildpact, and Jace is Bolas's second biggest enemy, right beneath Ugin. Besides that, it was spoiled (leaked?) that Niv-Mizzet will be coming back and inhereting the role of Living Guildpact from Jace, and like I said earlier, Niv is almost certainly smarter than even Bolas.

So again, that just leaves the God Eternals as Bolas's one ace in the hole. Even he isn't the big threat here, because he only thinks of himself as the smartest guy in existence. But it was always my pet theory that he never conquered more of Dominaria because he couldn't really threaten the combined forces of Urza, Teferi, and Freyalise. Everything besides the God Eternals has been building up to Bolas being betrayed by numerous lieutenants he was counting on, such as Vraska and Lilliana, and for people he thought were dead to come back to haunt him (Jace, Ugin, and probably Niv). Bolas is incredibly arrogant and tends to underestimate his enemies and their guile. He underestimated Ajani on Alara, Tetsuo Umezawa on Dominaria, underestimated the threat of the Time Rifts after being resurrected (note: he figured he could run off to another plane when Teferi and crew had already figured out that the entire multiverse was at stake), and now it looks like he's underestimating the Gatewatch and their allies by assuming that they will be easy prey for the Eternals, even when one of his own lieutenants can phase through matter like a ghost. Bolas is screwed, its obvious that WOTC has smartly set his plan up for failure over several years of storytelling.

I do think it's unlikely he spent much effort on trying to get into Ravnica. He probably stopped caring about it after he beat Ugin. I think the place only caught his attention again after the first guildpact broke and it became a kind of magical hub. Or, maybe he chose it as some kind of revenge against Azor. If the guildpact never broke, it seems just as likely he would have chosen Dominaria as his planeswalker trap instead.

Oh, there are good reasons for him to leave Dominaria alone. If nothing else, its too big. He wants the planeswalkers to be concentrated in one relatively small space, not scattered on a half dozen continents hiding from him. This also rules out trying it on Zendikar or Alara. Plus, try assassinating someone on the run in the Weatherlight. Yeah, there's just too many things that could go wrong for him on a plane which still has caches of superweapons left there by Urza "just in case" for the Phurexian invasion, and too many heroes willing to help foil his plans because Bolas has a reputation there.

Okay, before I start, I looked it up and Lazotep is almost certainly not a metal. WOTC based it off of the semi-precious stone Lapis Lazuli, which the Egyptians used in jewelry and apparently makeup. I also searched for information about what Lazotep is supposed to do for the Eternals, and all I can find is two things: protecting them from the Blind Eternities when they step through the planar bridge, and helping them keep their muscle memory unlike normal zombies. The leap from "mineral" to "metal" seems to be pure Vorthos speculation, not canon.

Quote from enzie »

He wasn't saying they are 'aliens', like from outer space. Anything that isn't native to your planet (or plane, in this case) is 'alien', even if they are still biologically the same race. If biologically identical humans somehow evolved on Mars, they'd still be aliens to Earth.

Excuse me, but he specifically said (and I bolded the important bit):

Quote from Maritrakul - Swallower of Lore »

These, as far as generic the parameter of HUMAN goes, are not Ravnica Humans, different biology probably...

Which again, would be true of humans Compleated by Phyrexia or corrupted by Emrakul, but they aren't. You probably won't be surprised to hear this, but we know that humans from different planes are biologically the same because the Phyrexian plane of Rath kidnapped humans from multiple planes, and only the Kor raised eyebrows (because only Zendikari have any experience with them). Its technically true that some races are found on Amonkhet but not Ravnica, but that's why I pointed out that Ravnica is more diverse. Its a moot point. And yes, Eternals are zombies, but even the ability to easily repair zombies is known to Ravincans (see: Dredge). The Ravincans have been preparing for war for so long the only surprise about this one is that its lead by a planeswalker (for reasons I will get to later).

This whole discussion is getting bogged down in details as if this was a real world fight. Most of these details, while mostly valid, are completely irrelevant. Unfortunately, the real reason being 'magic' and 'plot'. However, consider that the gatewatch defeated two eldrazi, that were absolutely wrecking an entire plane of people, many of whom had powerful magic due to the abundance of it on Zendikar. Bolas crushed the gatewatch with very little effort. The Eternals are simply acting as Bolas hands in this. He has to focus on other things, and can't be everywhere to harvest all the planeswalkers. However, he would have made sure they powerful enough to do the task he has assigned them to do. Whether that is through magic he personally gave them, magic the zombie gods are/have given them, or some other combination of reasons. So, instead of thinking 'can a zombie amonkhet human beat a ravnica soldier' you should be asking 'can a tool Bolas created, specifically for this purpose, beat a ravnica soldier?'. Whatever advantage you believe Ravnicans have (and I don't necessarily disagree with most of the points everyone has brought up) would have surely been accounted for by Bolas.

If people are complaining based on lore details that they misunderstand, I aim only to point out those mistakes. And when people make illogical arguments, I don't see any way to correct them without getting into detail. Do you?

He's been scouting out Ravnica for decades, if not centuries.

Decades, maybe, but distinctly not centuries. First of all, Bolas was dead up until 60 years ago, remember? He, in spiritual form, had to trick Venser and Jhoria into resurrecting him during the time rifts crisis. Before that, when he was running Madara he showed no interest in leaving Dominaria. In fact, it seemed like he was rooted there by the Madaran Rift. His power both created and stabilized it. Lastly, as I recall the original Guildpact before the Living Guildpact actually had a magical effect preventing planeswalkers from entering the plane, and any who left could not return. This is opposite to the Immortal Sun's effect, and something we've seen happen to other planes as well (i.e. when Urza accidentally created the Shard of Twelve Worlds and when Feroz deliberately created a barrier around Ulgothra). The original Guildpact lasted for thousands of years, and it was only broken by the Dimir sometime shortly before the rifts crisis/Mending. So all of that puts a hard limit on how much time Bolas has had to study Ravnica and plan all of this. 60 years or less.