But why would you go back to A? As soon as you affect the timeline, you have already entered B. If you then fast forward to the present you're still in B.
I mean in the end it doesn't even matter. The mechanic of how timelines are handled is the same. The only difference is where the timetraveler ends up, which is arbitrary and only tangentially related to the timetravel itself.
I'd argue the most important part of a time travel story is the time traveler returning to his future to see what happened.
And that's why I mentioned it being a specific way to handle time travel. Your actions may have created another world, but you're not part of that alternate future, so you go back to your original. That's the least confusing and plot hole-inducing way to handle it, imo.
Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the timetravel though? If you're not going to see the altered future, why even write a story about it.
Personally, I find the "branching timelines" approach to be the best way to handle time travel. You go into the past to change something? Oops, you didn't actually change anything. All you did was create a new universe; the old one still exists. That way you avoid all the annoying paradoxes that comes with this plot.
I may like this approach best because of how Dragonball handled it.
I feel like that approach is too much "Have my cake and eat it too. " Like you get to do all of the fun time line changing things but then you say "Well technically it's just a different timeline"
Isn't that exactly what happened Tarkir did, though? Basically all Sarkhan accomplished was switching from one universe to a parallel one. Otherwise the Temur/Atarka shamans wouldn't be able to see the alternate nows.
Nooooooot really.
When you go back forward in time, you realize you didn't actually change anything beyond creating a separate universe that you have to go to an abandon the one you normally inhabit.
Lets say some apocalypse happened in your home timeline, A. You go back into A's past and change it. Then you go back forward into A's future, only to see nothing about A has changed. Meanwhile, the changes you caused in the past split off from A to create a B universe where the changes stuck. So A is still awful and you're still stuck there.
But why would you go back to A? As soon as you affect the timeline, you have already entered B. If you then fast forward to the present you're still in B.
I mean in the end it doesn't even matter. The mechanic of how timelines are handled is the same. The only difference is where the timetraveler ends up, which is arbitrary and only tangentially related to the timetravel itself.
Personally, I find the "branching timelines" approach to be the best way to handle time travel. You go into the past to change something? Oops, you didn't actually change anything. All you did was create a new universe; the old one still exists. That way you avoid all the annoying paradoxes that comes with this plot.
I may like this approach best because of how Dragonball handled it.
I feel like that approach is too much "Have my cake and eat it too. " Like you get to do all of the fun time line changing things but then you say "Well technically it's just a different timeline"
Isn't that exactly what happened Tarkir did, though? Basically all Sarkhan accomplished was switching from one universe to a parallel one. Otherwise the Temur/Atarka shamans wouldn't be able to see the alternate nows.
I think it would be cool if Liliana's first planeswalk plane would have one of her demons, maybe even the last one as some sort of foreshadowing/teaser to her story arc.
Springjack has a German translation (Springbock), which is the actual animal that inspired the springjacks, while only the hind legs resemble a bunny. Instead they forcibly kept the questionable pun and made the kithkin knights ride bunnies, making every single card with springjacks in its name sound ridiculous.
Considering that Springboks are from africa, and thus have no business being in a setting like Lorwyn and that they look nothing like Springjacks at all, I doubt there is a meaningful connection between the two. Unless of course you have a source.
Scatter the Seeds pretty much translates to Scatter the Semen. In a similar way, Samenschaukehexe, or Seedcradle Witch sound like a witch in charge handling male testicles.
Samen is a perfectly normal german word for "seeds". I don't see why they would have to forcefully find a different word for it, just because some people giggle at the word "Samen" like a bunch of preschoolers.
You must find the german Tail Slash hilarious.
Silumgar, the Drifting Death translates to Silumgar, der driftende Tod. This might seem ok, except for "driftend" not being an actual German word and almost exclusively referring to racing sports. Just picture Dragonlord Silumgar driving a golden Mercedes convertible and leaving tire marks on some parking lot.
"Driften" is actually a german word, although it's used less frequently than the english equivalent. A more common usage is the derived version "abdriften".
Sliver apparently were untranslatable, so they made up the word "Remasuri" to describe them. Therefore Sliver Overlord became Remasuri-Oberkommandant and Sliver Legion became Remasuri-Heerschar.
Drake are also impossible to translate, we call them Scaeda instead.
Remasuri is debatable (I guess Splitter could have worked ok.), but would you really rather have Drakes be "Erpel"? Drake is simply a derivative of dragon, and in german you only have "Drache". I don't see the problem here, considering the options.
I would cite Butterfly effect, although it also had its "fate" elements in it, but you would probably dismiss it as not popular enough. Back to the Future does not strike me as a serious movie at all, so I don't see how it applies here. And Terminator is not really worse than the Tarkir storyline. I'd say they're about even.
There's also homestuck, which may be hard to take serious due to its goofy nature, but it does timetravel really well. There are no wishy-washy explanations for things the author didn't care about, and the only plotholes are genuine mistakes and not "eh, I don't care" excuses. (Note that for this argument I only talk about timetravel, the fact that in homestuck babies can survive entering the atmosphere of a planet riding a meteor has nothing to do with the time travel logic of the setting.)
I like butterfly effect, but it's really inconsistent in how it treats time travel. For example, when he tries to invoke stigmata to his fellow cellmate, they wouldn't have appeared in the present, they would have always been there (in order to be consistent with the way the diary passages normally work).
Oh yeah, that scene.
Still, I think it qualifies, because Vorthospike asked for a story that wasn't completely ridiculous and Butterfly effect fits that bill in my opinion, even if it has its... moments.
There was a very brief time when we didn't have walls and instead we had creatures with defenders.
And it was good.
And then Wizards said they bring back walls, because they make so much flavour sense, except that nothing, literally nothing about them makes sense within the game.
They shouldn't even be creatures!
As for talking about personal interpretations, I like to imagine games in Magic to be actually about two armies or factions fighting it out over a long period of time. This removes so many flavour issues you might have. Each creatue represents an army, so you can explain how a bunch of squirrels can kill Emrakul, because each squirrel token would represent a whole swarm. Also the timeframe makes situations in which 6 spells or effects are on the stack plausible.
Unfortunately, that headcanon is so much removed from actual canon that it'll never catch on, but it lets me sleep at night.
Sarkhan saves Ugin, therefore he was never born in the new timeline, but the old timeline still exists, because it and Sarkhan HAVE to exist in order for Sarkhan to have never been born. Confusing? Yes. But it tracks. And yet, Sarkhan wasn't born in the new timeline, yet Narset and everyone else WAS? Which is it Magic?!
I believe when Sarkhan says he was never born, he means that he was born in a non-existant timeline, therefore his birth has never happened, therefore he was never born. He's basically talking about himself, not his doppelganger in Tarkir 2.0, who I expect to actually have been born. It could be that Sarkhan 2.0 however never triggered his spark and probably even died before the DTK events.
Or maybe Sarkhan 2.0 was never born, while everyone else is. Apparently the multiverse is extremely arbitrary with this kind of stuff.
The heart of it is the new timeline: it makes no sense.
Sloppily handled time travel is like that.
Fixed that for you.
Can you name some popular time travel fiction that isn't completely ridiculous? Honestly the Tarkir plotline makes more sense than any of the Back to the Future or Terminator movies.
I would cite Butterfly effect, although it also had its "fate" elements in it, but you would probably dismiss it as not popular enough. Back to the Future does not strike me as a serious movie at all, so I don't see how it applies here. And Terminator is not really worse than the Tarkir storyline. I'd say they're about even.
There's also homestuck, which may be hard to take serious due to its goofy nature, but it does timetravel really well. There are no wishy-washy explanations for things the author didn't care about, and the only plotholes are genuine mistakes and not "eh, I don't care" excuses. (Note that for this argument I only talk about timetravel, the fact that in homestuck babies can survive entering the atmosphere of a planet riding a meteor has nothing to do with the time travel logic of the setting.)
The heart of it is the new timeline: it makes no sense.
Sloppily handled time travel is like that.
Fixed that for you.
I mean, it's a bit naive to expect such a complex theme to be handled properly in Magic, where story usually takes so many backseats it ends up the rear trunk, but blaming this on time travel itself is just bad, because there are ways to make time travel make sense and enhance story.
It's just that in order to pull it off, you often have to base the entire setting and story around the time travel element, which Magic obviously can't do. And instead of trying to get close, they just abandoned the idea of "making sense" altogether and just slapped as many ill-informed tropes into the story as they could.
As for the original poster's points:
First off, the entire block was set around time travel. It was not concepted to bring back Ugin. That was only done because it worked so wonderfully with timetravel and because it so nicely ties into the current sotry arc with the Eldrazi etc. The base concept for the block, before any creative person sat down to flesh it out, however, was always around time travel.
Second, you may find this annoying, sure, but as Wolfaxe has said, being "insulted" is a bit too much.
Also, in german they translated hellion into "Teufelsbraten", literally "Devil's Roast" and is usually used to describe a very naughty and mischievious child.
Too clever by a half then, since hellion means "mischievous child" in every English usage except MTG.
Oh. I knew Hellion meant something similar, but I wasn't aware it is also applied to children exclusively.
Well then, I still can't take hellions seriously, whether german or not.
I think Annihilator can be fine, if it is restricted by rarity and amount of sacrificed permanents. If even a common has annihilator 2, you can expect the mechanic to be unfun, because 8 mana is not impossible to cast in limited, especially in ROE and if it's a common it will likely show up a couple of times.
Annihilator should have had 1 by default and only the legendary Eldrazi should have been allowed to have 2 or at the very very most 3.
Honestly as the land types generally only matter for fetches, if they simple made fetches that where based on something else besides land type (example " tap sac: search your library for a gate or basic land that can produce red or blue mana and put it into play untapped") it would solve the problem while staying clear of the reserve list.
Still can't make legendary dual lands with basic land types without adding at least one additional line of rules text without violating the reserved list. Supertypes DO NOT MATTER when it comes to it. Neither do subtypes. For example, they can't make a Fork effect in red, and the only difference being a different name and the arcane subtype. They need to either change the casting cost or add a line of rules text. Preferably both.
For example:
Arcane Fork 2RR
Instant - Arcane
Copy target instant or sorcery spell on the stack, the copy is red.
Splice onto Arcane: 2RR
Is fine.
Arcane Fork RR
Instant - Arcane
Copy target instant or sorcery spell on the stack, the copy is red.
Is not fine.
Another Bodyguard 5WW
Creature - Human Soldier
3/6
Vigilance
As long as Another Bodyguard is untapped, all damage that would be dealt to you is dealt to Another Bodyguard instead.
is fine.
Another Bodyguard. 3WW
Legendary Creature - Kor Soldier
2/5
As long as Another Bodyguard is untapped, all damage that would be dealt to you by unblocked creatures is dealt to Another Bodyguard instead.
Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the timetravel though? If you're not going to see the altered future, why even write a story about it.
But why would you go back to A? As soon as you affect the timeline, you have already entered B. If you then fast forward to the present you're still in B.
I mean in the end it doesn't even matter. The mechanic of how timelines are handled is the same. The only difference is where the timetraveler ends up, which is arbitrary and only tangentially related to the timetravel itself.
Isn't that exactly what happened Tarkir did, though? Basically all Sarkhan accomplished was switching from one universe to a parallel one. Otherwise the Temur/Atarka shamans wouldn't be able to see the alternate nows.
I'm not following you here. Why would that disqualify Innistrad exactly?
Considering that Springboks are from africa, and thus have no business being in a setting like Lorwyn and that they look nothing like Springjacks at all, I doubt there is a meaningful connection between the two. Unless of course you have a source.
Samen is a perfectly normal german word for "seeds". I don't see why they would have to forcefully find a different word for it, just because some people giggle at the word "Samen" like a bunch of preschoolers.
You must find the german Tail Slash hilarious.
"Driften" is actually a german word, although it's used less frequently than the english equivalent. A more common usage is the derived version "abdriften".
Remasuri is debatable (I guess Splitter could have worked ok.), but would you really rather have Drakes be "Erpel"? Drake is simply a derivative of dragon, and in german you only have "Drache". I don't see the problem here, considering the options.
In all fairness, springjack is difficult to translate due to the double meaning of the word.
Oh yeah, that scene.
Still, I think it qualifies, because Vorthospike asked for a story that wasn't completely ridiculous and Butterfly effect fits that bill in my opinion, even if it has its... moments.
And it was good.
And then Wizards said they bring back walls, because they make so much flavour sense, except that nothing, literally nothing about them makes sense within the game.
They shouldn't even be creatures!
As for talking about personal interpretations, I like to imagine games in Magic to be actually about two armies or factions fighting it out over a long period of time. This removes so many flavour issues you might have. Each creatue represents an army, so you can explain how a bunch of squirrels can kill Emrakul, because each squirrel token would represent a whole swarm. Also the timeframe makes situations in which 6 spells or effects are on the stack plausible.
Unfortunately, that headcanon is so much removed from actual canon that it'll never catch on, but it lets me sleep at night.
I believe when Sarkhan says he was never born, he means that he was born in a non-existant timeline, therefore his birth has never happened, therefore he was never born. He's basically talking about himself, not his doppelganger in Tarkir 2.0, who I expect to actually have been born. It could be that Sarkhan 2.0 however never triggered his spark and probably even died before the DTK events.
Or maybe Sarkhan 2.0 was never born, while everyone else is. Apparently the multiverse is extremely arbitrary with this kind of stuff.
I would cite Butterfly effect, although it also had its "fate" elements in it, but you would probably dismiss it as not popular enough. Back to the Future does not strike me as a serious movie at all, so I don't see how it applies here. And Terminator is not really worse than the Tarkir storyline. I'd say they're about even.
There's also homestuck, which may be hard to take serious due to its goofy nature, but it does timetravel really well. There are no wishy-washy explanations for things the author didn't care about, and the only plotholes are genuine mistakes and not "eh, I don't care" excuses. (Note that for this argument I only talk about timetravel, the fact that in homestuck babies can survive entering the atmosphere of a planet riding a meteor has nothing to do with the time travel logic of the setting.)
Fixed that for you.
I mean, it's a bit naive to expect such a complex theme to be handled properly in Magic, where story usually takes so many backseats it ends up the rear trunk, but blaming this on time travel itself is just bad, because there are ways to make time travel make sense and enhance story.
It's just that in order to pull it off, you often have to base the entire setting and story around the time travel element, which Magic obviously can't do. And instead of trying to get close, they just abandoned the idea of "making sense" altogether and just slapped as many ill-informed tropes into the story as they could.
As for the original poster's points:
First off, the entire block was set around time travel. It was not concepted to bring back Ugin. That was only done because it worked so wonderfully with timetravel and because it so nicely ties into the current sotry arc with the Eldrazi etc. The base concept for the block, before any creative person sat down to flesh it out, however, was always around time travel.
Second, you may find this annoying, sure, but as Wolfaxe has said, being "insulted" is a bit too much.
Oh. I knew Hellion meant something similar, but I wasn't aware it is also applied to children exclusively.
Well then, I still can't take hellions seriously, whether german or not.
Annihilator should have had 1 by default and only the legendary Eldrazi should have been allowed to have 2 or at the very very most 3.
So basically Plague Sliver violated the reserved list?