After the whole errata to get rid of the Lord creature type, it's dumb that they're bringing in Noble.
Why is that? Based on the official multi-layered reasoning to get rid of the "lord" creature type, of course (which you can find here, under July 17, 2007. ). Why is "noble" dumb when it follows none of the multiple reasons "lord" was removed to begin with?
I'm not arguing that the color pie is being broken or anything. I'm saying that white, black, and red do a MUCH better job killing creatures. Oko's +1 is giving me repeatable removal which is VERY uncharacteristic of UG. Also, UG is hands down the weakest color pair in cube so this will likely find a home there.
It's not killing them, though. It's turning them into 3/3 creatures. Is that useful? Abso-frigging-lutely. It's not removal, however, it's debuffing something; if a card turned creatures' activated and passive abilities off but left them able to attack and block, that isn't removal, either. You still have a 3/3 creature to deal with, and that's not just some inconsequential threat much of the time. 3/3 vanilla creatures are right where vanilla creatures become large enough to matter.
Am I the only one around here wondering why his name literally means "eye" in most Slavic languages (and esperanto)? I thought Ravnica was the supposed Slavic plane.
It's also Japanese for "fool", or "indecent", or "indelicate", or slang for "angry". There are also quite a few South American languages associated with the Amazon river region where "oko" means "water". And in one Indo-European language it means "fruit". So I'm not sure the name coincidentally sharing similar roots to Ravnica's language roots for one meaning, while having quite a few other meanings as well, is indicative of much.
We also don't know what plane Oko comes from. The Forbes article implies he's not from Eldraine.
Am I reading this right? The +1 is usually just Beast Within. That's pretty ridiculous for UG, the color combo that is the utter worst at removal.
Whaaaa? Blue and green are THE two colors of polymorphing effects. Virtually every card in Magic that transforms a card from what it is into a (usually vanilla) creature of some sort is either blue, green, or blue/green. Additionally, blue is the primary color of turning artifacts into creatures, including doing so to remove its text box to shut it off. While green is one of the major artifact-hate colors, along with red. Usually, the creatures blue or green turn a card into is a 1/1 (like a frog) or a 3/3. The +1 uptick effect on Oko is about as quintessential a UG form of effect as you can get for removal.
****'s sake, Zendikar again? When are we going to see New Phyrexia?
My thought wxactly. Karn picked up the Cylex on Dominaria to blow up Mirrodin/New PHyrexia for good. I wanna see that.
My guess is this is on purpose. If the Phyrexians end up the next big bad again--which certainly isn't outside the realms of possibility and are a beloved enemy to boot--they'll likely slow roll revelations of the Phyrexians once again spreading across the multiverse. Probably more sneakily this time, especially if they have the help of Tezzeret and have modern planar portal tech to mess with (since they know about planar portal tech, and would be deeply invested in learning how to do it with the multiverse's new rules).
Then, Karn end up doing his thing with the Cylex, and possibly learns that hey, destroying New Phyrexia not only isn't going to do what he thinks, but might end up making things worse?
Insert more story and drama to build to resolution involving the Phyrexians that doesn't revolve around nuking an entire plane all over again.
One thing to note about the Eldrazi is that they’ve been marketing failures in each iteration they’ve existed. They essentially ruined Zendikar 1 drafting (which is a pretty big deal because drafting moves a lot more packs than just straight selling alone); Emrakul one also got booted from commander because the only card that format needs less is Griselbrand. Eldrazi 2 overran every format except Standard, then Emrakul managed claim Standard to by being the cherry on top of the mistake now called Kaladesh block. The end result is one point on another in the past decade(ish) there has been a problem in every format that could be tied back to Eldrazi cards.
Like, maybe we see Emrakul again one day because the story demands it, but through and through, the Eldrazi tribe as a whole has nothing but bad publicity behind them because they were a problem in of themselves or helped push an existing problem over the top. And this is coming from a guy who’s favorite tribe is the Eldrazi.
Another thing is, Eldrazi are not likely to EVER return to Zendikar. FFS, one time they visited that world they were imprisoned, and then when they escaped, two of their kind were killed and the other fled. IF they ever bring non-Emrakul eldrazi back, I'd say it's highly likely they'll avoid the plane of Zendikar like the plague. From their alien perspective, that is the one plane ever shown in Magic's lore where their kind was able to be DESTROYED. Predators, especially smarter predators, don't return to places where it's too risky to feed. They look for food elsewhere.
They made it sound very much like it was a kaiju world. Moreover, Mark Rosewater said on the stream that you get to "build your own monsters". So I'm guessing it's some sort of put out a kaiju that's pretty basic and hard to kill, then throw more and more things on it to make it something unique to your deck and/or this particular game.
Sure. Like Kaladesh made you feel like an inventor. Except that the only mechanic that made you feel like an inventor, Fabricate, barely appeared in Kaladesh and wasn't even in Aether Reborn.
Now, maybe if this Monster Set has Host and Augment or something very similar, then we're talking. Otherwise, you're not actually making anything.
I mean, you can by as cynical as you want, I'm just saying MaRo literally said the "new mechanic we've never done before" lets you "build your own monster". Take that as you will. But the set is focused on being a monster world, and you get to build your own monsters, so...
They made it sound very much like it was a kaiju world. Moreover, Mark Rosewater said on the stream that you get to "build your own monsters". So I'm guessing it's some sort of put out a kaiju that's pretty basic and hard to kill, then throw more and more things on it to make it something unique to your deck and/or this particular game.
Another issue I might add is that: Because Ravnica is part of this large wheel that gets spun to see where we land on next, we don't sit on a plane longer than we have to. That instead of us getting to learn about many minor planeswalker characters in the lore and then those characters dying to the elderspell, we instead just see a wispy spark with what might as well have a number attached to it like 'Planeswalker Spark #1333', which doesn't matter to the average person. Its also a hurdle in writing stories that the greater the devastation the harder it is for the average person to wrap their mind around the very concept. Sure a planet could be blown up with millions on it, that it might elicit some emotional response, but its not going to be as hard felt as something that hits closer to home.
To give a perfect example the set has provided: 1000 Nameless Planeswalkers Vs 1 Dack Fayden.
As consider that while there are deaths in the thousands, you and me are not really attached to another nobody dying that makes up a statistic. But what clearly struck a cord with people was Dack Fayden dying. A character that only people who read the comics, played legacy, played vintage would even known.
See, I don't see that as an issue, as much as what is often effective storytelling when making a series.
Once again, look at the Lord of the Rings books (and movies, I suppose). We only single two major characters actually die. Boromir, and Theoden. That's it. Throughout the entire series, with major battle during intense warfare where people are dying all around the protagonists, only a pair of them die.
Why so few?
Because in these longer stories, especially ones involving war, you can show many people dying in the background, and the stakes might not seem as high to start with. Then someone important dies in a major battle. Theoden. Dack. That pulls you into the moment of seeing someone you recognize die, and also highlighting that oh $%#!&, all those other people in the background are dying, too. Here's someone who's story we DO know paying the ultimate cost. Well, all those other people who have full lives and stories we'll never get to hear also had their life snuffed out.
Killing a Domri to make the stakes of spark harvesting being lethal puts the ball in motion.
Warfare going on with untold numbers dying pulls attention to the background.
Sparks flying to the Elderspell shows you that a disturbingly large number of planeswalkers whose stories we do not, and will now never know, are also dying, just like Domri.
Dack dying pulls it into focus that this means anyone we know could also die.
Now the sparks flying in the background have more meaning, because Dack made it apparent that damn, these people are also planeswalkers, who have wandered the multiverse on their own adventures, within their own story, and their lives are being snuffed out left and right, and we can actually physically SEE the essence of their lives flying toward this threat, Bolas, powering the spell.
Just like seeing someone like Theoden dies puts the stakes of all the nameless soldiers and knights perishing in this terrible war who we've never met, and will never know, into focus. Theodon shows that any one of the people in this war can die.
Gideon pays the ultimate price by sacrificing himself to try to save those he cares about, showing that even the heroes, the protagonists, had their lives at stake in this.
Boromir pays the ultimate price by sacrificing himself to try to let the Fellowship escape, showing that even the heroes, the protagonists, had their lives at stake in this.
See, all the planeswalkers put on cards?
Those are the centers of the story, and it's a loooooong, ongoing story, like a major serial. So like Avatar, the Last Airbender types of long-term storytelling, battles in ongoing warfare going on all around the whole time. Yet, with basically none of the protagonists themselves dying. Not even many of the side characters.
Because as the story ends, we, the reader, the viewer, see that these were the people whose story we were seeing the entire time, possibly being told by them, individually or collectively, in the aftermath.
The planeswalkers we see in print are, by and large, the major focal points of the narrative. Some will die here and there, but on the whole, as with the vast majority of long-term storytelling serials, overwhelmingly they will not. Yet, the background characters, including the unnamed, can quite ably show stakes.
It seems to me that an awful lot of people are, in the current time we're in, used to absurdly high-stakes narratives like The Walking Dead and A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), which are extreme outliers all said and done, are the best way to show stakes. When that is demonstrably not remotely close to the case.
So, much like a lot of ongoing narratives at the moment, it seems an awful lot of people built narratives up in their head tremendously. And of course, as is virtually always the case, those narratives will not be matched by the narratives that tend to be told on the page or on screen, save in those extreme outliers like a Song of Ice and Fire.
But the very fact that many, many, many planeswalker sparks are portrayed as flying to power the Elderspell means an awful lot of people on par with the 35 planeswalkers printed in the set who survived whose stories we've never heard, died in this war. Meaning Bolas largely carried through with his threat, and had he not been beaten, it would have ended extremely poorly for the Multiverse. Those are stakes. It's ok to not like how the story was told, but the consistent assertions that there were no stakes, or that the stakes mostly being shown by off-screen deaths of the unknown is "wrong" or "bad storytelling" demonstrably flies in the face of some of the greatest narratives of this type ever written. Where the protagonists survive these horrors as others do not, save the day or simply survive to the end, yet the stakes remained there the whole time. While the Magic narrative is relatively middle-of-the-road and not particularly special, all said, the decision to only kill off a handful of protagonists while killing off scores of powerful people in the background, does not a low-stakes narrative make.
If Bolas is without a spark what's the need of Ugin to keep company of Bolas of all eternity as a jailer? He can't planeswalk anyway anymore (and also unable to use any sort of magic too apparently). And also why is Ugin trapped forever with Bolas in the realm if he is still a planeswalker?
Where is it stated that Ugin stays trapped in the Meditation Realm with Bolas?
So Maro said the Eternals kill when they despark someone. We have a 'Despark' card with two big Eternals apparently desparking 'someone,' but that someone appears later on a card in a different area.
I hope this is cleared up at some point.
Yeah. But there's kind of a major exception here. This is literally the person who created the very eternals and their lethal spark removal. We know from other spark removals, that normally it doesn't appear that removing a spark specifically kills (see: Teferi and Azor). But we have it stated that canon, eternals do kill when they remove a spark.
What is the one being in the entire Multiverse who might very well not die from the magic they implanted into these lazotep-coated zombies that turn spark harvesting into a lethal endeavor?
I would say the person who put the magic there in the first place is the single most logical being to be immune to that particular negative, and therefore Bolas, and Bolas alone surviving having an eternal harvesting his spark makes perfect sense.
I respectfully disagree. Nobody cares about nameless masses, killing them just won't yield the right emotional response. To give the feeling that victory only came at a high price, you just have to kill off a bunch of popular protagonists. I hate to be one of those guys who keep comparing Magic's storyline to MCU, but look at Infinity War and tell me: would the movie impact the viewers nearly as much if Thanos's snap still occurred but all the heroes were among the "lucky" half of the universe?
Have to? I will respectfully disagree. Look at Lord of the Rings. Exactly two big characters died. Two. Boromir in the second act, and Theoden in the third. Exactly no other major heroes died. Not a one. The entire Fellowship save Boromir survived from start to finish. Yet, the stakes remained high. Why? Because so many people who were in the background perished. Not the protagonists. Those the protagonists were trying to help/save. Even the BBEG didn't die. Sauron simply had his power stripped from him, and was doomed to live out the rest of his days as the shattered echo of his former self. Sauron LIVED at the end of LotR.
Star Wars, same thing. Exactly one hero died in the original trilogy, and then only in the first act as a noble sacrifice. One. Obi-Wan. That's it. Then, at the very end, Vader died redeeming himself as Anakin. Thaaaaaat's it. Every single other protagonist lived. All of them. Every other death that increased the stakes were of background characters.
Same with quite a large number of stories, including war-time narratives.
It seems like so many now feel that without The Walking Dead or A Game of Thrones levels of death, the stakes simply aren't high enough. When that is demonstrably not the norm for successful and nuanced narratives delivering great material throughout history; note I'm not giving my opinion about the quality of the Magic narrative at all here. It's ok, not great, not terrible. Pretty run of the mill, really, in many ways.
But killing off a bunch of protagonists on-screen?
Nah. Not necessary in the least to tell a high-stakes story.
Large numbers of background characters perishing consistently makes a story feel high stakes, historically speaking. A single major face character perishing as a noble sacrifice is very often the only death needed to make a story feel high stakes, in addition to the casualties of non-protagonists all around the cast of protagonists.
And the MCU? Yes, the snap felt high-stakes. Although many comic fans will certainly tell you, it's extremely unlikely they remain dusted. Additionally, the MCU storyline is an extreme outlier. It's rather rare that many of the protagonists of an extended narrative perish all of a sudden in a final battle like that.
So yeah. I must simply agree to disagree, here. The sheer number of evocative, high stakes narratives where hardly any protagonists perish is stunning, and they're not lesser stories because they didn't "have to kill off a bunch of popular protagonists" to make their story feel high stakes.
So a desparked Bolas somehow gets to the meditation plane.....another execption to the rules.....because Ugin shenanigans
Well. We already know Bolas in the lore has some sort of intense connection to the Meditation Realm, and that his mortal form outside of that is a reborn form he basically cloned to escape from being trapped between the Meditation Realm and the material world of Dominaria as a spirit once before, while he was dead. And that after doing so, he suddenly had a large gem between his horns, and another one even larger floating between the horns of the Meditation Realm itself, that are likely connected somehow.
Additionally, the Meditation Realm doesn't work like other planes; Tetsuo Umezawa and Ayesha Tanaka transported to it as non-walkers, before. And Bolas himself transported his spirit to it while dead.
So yeah. Actually. The Meditation Realm appears to be very unique and special in that regards far as planes in the Magic multiverse are concerned. Not like other planes, despite walkers being able to find it. But they only appear to be able to find it when invited by someone; only Ugin and Bolas appear to have found it on their own.
MaRo: "getting desparked by an eternal is lethal 100%"
Novel and cards: "Ehm... No it isn't..."
I mean, there are always exceptions that prove the rule. Bolas is an oldwalker, not a neowalker, and he's an Elder Dragon which likely adds all manner of extra constitution to survive really awful physical and spiritual harm. And Bolas has had shenanigans revolving around his spark before. So it's entirely possible he is, in fact, one of the extremely rare exceptions. Additionally... he literally MADE the spark harvesting by the eternals, which is, as far as we can tell, uniquely lethal (that is, taking a spark normally, as opposed to with an eternal, is not lethal). If there's any one being in the Multiverse that would either have a failsafe built in, or simply know how to survive having an eternal harvest their spark, it's Nicol Bolas. The individual who CREATED the magics that caused the eternals' harvesting to be lethal.
So yeah. There are completely reasonable explanations why Nicol Bolas would survive what is otherwise a lethal process.
So Rakdos acts as a ‚Deus Demon Ex Machina‘. How does this make sense?
Why does the immortal founder of a 10,000 year old organization he formed, who is experiencing his home being invaded by a force trying to tear it down, and directly threatening the very existence of his Cult--without giving the power to him, Rakdos, personally--temporarily ally with someone who is aligned with his current goals of crushing the invading army of lazotep-covered undead and its draconic leader?
Why is that? Based on the official multi-layered reasoning to get rid of the "lord" creature type, of course (which you can find here, under July 17, 2007. ). Why is "noble" dumb when it follows none of the multiple reasons "lord" was removed to begin with?
It's not killing them, though. It's turning them into 3/3 creatures. Is that useful? Abso-frigging-lutely. It's not removal, however, it's debuffing something; if a card turned creatures' activated and passive abilities off but left them able to attack and block, that isn't removal, either. You still have a 3/3 creature to deal with, and that's not just some inconsequential threat much of the time. 3/3 vanilla creatures are right where vanilla creatures become large enough to matter.
It's also Japanese for "fool", or "indecent", or "indelicate", or slang for "angry". There are also quite a few South American languages associated with the Amazon river region where "oko" means "water". And in one Indo-European language it means "fruit". So I'm not sure the name coincidentally sharing similar roots to Ravnica's language roots for one meaning, while having quite a few other meanings as well, is indicative of much.
We also don't know what plane Oko comes from. The Forbes article implies he's not from Eldraine.
Whaaaa? Blue and green are THE two colors of polymorphing effects. Virtually every card in Magic that transforms a card from what it is into a (usually vanilla) creature of some sort is either blue, green, or blue/green. Additionally, blue is the primary color of turning artifacts into creatures, including doing so to remove its text box to shut it off. While green is one of the major artifact-hate colors, along with red. Usually, the creatures blue or green turn a card into is a 1/1 (like a frog) or a 3/3. The +1 uptick effect on Oko is about as quintessential a UG form of effect as you can get for removal.
My guess is this is on purpose. If the Phyrexians end up the next big bad again--which certainly isn't outside the realms of possibility and are a beloved enemy to boot--they'll likely slow roll revelations of the Phyrexians once again spreading across the multiverse. Probably more sneakily this time, especially if they have the help of Tezzeret and have modern planar portal tech to mess with (since they know about planar portal tech, and would be deeply invested in learning how to do it with the multiverse's new rules).
Then, Karn end up doing his thing with the Cylex, and possibly learns that hey, destroying New Phyrexia not only isn't going to do what he thinks, but might end up making things worse?
Insert more story and drama to build to resolution involving the Phyrexians that doesn't revolve around nuking an entire plane all over again.
Another thing is, Eldrazi are not likely to EVER return to Zendikar. FFS, one time they visited that world they were imprisoned, and then when they escaped, two of their kind were killed and the other fled. IF they ever bring non-Emrakul eldrazi back, I'd say it's highly likely they'll avoid the plane of Zendikar like the plague. From their alien perspective, that is the one plane ever shown in Magic's lore where their kind was able to be DESTROYED. Predators, especially smarter predators, don't return to places where it's too risky to feed. They look for food elsewhere.
I mean, you can by as cynical as you want, I'm just saying MaRo literally said the "new mechanic we've never done before" lets you "build your own monster". Take that as you will. But the set is focused on being a monster world, and you get to build your own monsters, so...
See, I don't see that as an issue, as much as what is often effective storytelling when making a series.
Once again, look at the Lord of the Rings books (and movies, I suppose). We only single two major characters actually die. Boromir, and Theoden. That's it. Throughout the entire series, with major battle during intense warfare where people are dying all around the protagonists, only a pair of them die.
Why so few?
Because in these longer stories, especially ones involving war, you can show many people dying in the background, and the stakes might not seem as high to start with. Then someone important dies in a major battle. Theoden. Dack. That pulls you into the moment of seeing someone you recognize die, and also highlighting that oh $%#!&, all those other people in the background are dying, too. Here's someone who's story we DO know paying the ultimate cost. Well, all those other people who have full lives and stories we'll never get to hear also had their life snuffed out.
Killing a Domri to make the stakes of spark harvesting being lethal puts the ball in motion.
Warfare going on with untold numbers dying pulls attention to the background.
Sparks flying to the Elderspell shows you that a disturbingly large number of planeswalkers whose stories we do not, and will now never know, are also dying, just like Domri.
Dack dying pulls it into focus that this means anyone we know could also die.
Now the sparks flying in the background have more meaning, because Dack made it apparent that damn, these people are also planeswalkers, who have wandered the multiverse on their own adventures, within their own story, and their lives are being snuffed out left and right, and we can actually physically SEE the essence of their lives flying toward this threat, Bolas, powering the spell.
Just like seeing someone like Theoden dies puts the stakes of all the nameless soldiers and knights perishing in this terrible war who we've never met, and will never know, into focus. Theodon shows that any one of the people in this war can die.
Gideon pays the ultimate price by sacrificing himself to try to save those he cares about, showing that even the heroes, the protagonists, had their lives at stake in this.
Boromir pays the ultimate price by sacrificing himself to try to let the Fellowship escape, showing that even the heroes, the protagonists, had their lives at stake in this.
See, all the planeswalkers put on cards?
Those are the centers of the story, and it's a loooooong, ongoing story, like a major serial. So like Avatar, the Last Airbender types of long-term storytelling, battles in ongoing warfare going on all around the whole time. Yet, with basically none of the protagonists themselves dying. Not even many of the side characters.
Because as the story ends, we, the reader, the viewer, see that these were the people whose story we were seeing the entire time, possibly being told by them, individually or collectively, in the aftermath.
The planeswalkers we see in print are, by and large, the major focal points of the narrative. Some will die here and there, but on the whole, as with the vast majority of long-term storytelling serials, overwhelmingly they will not. Yet, the background characters, including the unnamed, can quite ably show stakes.
It seems to me that an awful lot of people are, in the current time we're in, used to absurdly high-stakes narratives like The Walking Dead and A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), which are extreme outliers all said and done, are the best way to show stakes. When that is demonstrably not remotely close to the case.
So, much like a lot of ongoing narratives at the moment, it seems an awful lot of people built narratives up in their head tremendously. And of course, as is virtually always the case, those narratives will not be matched by the narratives that tend to be told on the page or on screen, save in those extreme outliers like a Song of Ice and Fire.
But the very fact that many, many, many planeswalker sparks are portrayed as flying to power the Elderspell means an awful lot of people on par with the 35 planeswalkers printed in the set who survived whose stories we've never heard, died in this war. Meaning Bolas largely carried through with his threat, and had he not been beaten, it would have ended extremely poorly for the Multiverse. Those are stakes. It's ok to not like how the story was told, but the consistent assertions that there were no stakes, or that the stakes mostly being shown by off-screen deaths of the unknown is "wrong" or "bad storytelling" demonstrably flies in the face of some of the greatest narratives of this type ever written. Where the protagonists survive these horrors as others do not, save the day or simply survive to the end, yet the stakes remained there the whole time. While the Magic narrative is relatively middle-of-the-road and not particularly special, all said, the decision to only kill off a handful of protagonists while killing off scores of powerful people in the background, does not a low-stakes narrative make.
Where is it stated that Ugin stays trapped in the Meditation Realm with Bolas?
Yeah. But there's kind of a major exception here. This is literally the person who created the very eternals and their lethal spark removal. We know from other spark removals, that normally it doesn't appear that removing a spark specifically kills (see: Teferi and Azor). But we have it stated that canon, eternals do kill when they remove a spark.
What is the one being in the entire Multiverse who might very well not die from the magic they implanted into these lazotep-coated zombies that turn spark harvesting into a lethal endeavor?
I would say the person who put the magic there in the first place is the single most logical being to be immune to that particular negative, and therefore Bolas, and Bolas alone surviving having an eternal harvesting his spark makes perfect sense.
Have to? I will respectfully disagree. Look at Lord of the Rings. Exactly two big characters died. Two. Boromir in the second act, and Theoden in the third. Exactly no other major heroes died. Not a one. The entire Fellowship save Boromir survived from start to finish. Yet, the stakes remained high. Why? Because so many people who were in the background perished. Not the protagonists. Those the protagonists were trying to help/save. Even the BBEG didn't die. Sauron simply had his power stripped from him, and was doomed to live out the rest of his days as the shattered echo of his former self. Sauron LIVED at the end of LotR.
Star Wars, same thing. Exactly one hero died in the original trilogy, and then only in the first act as a noble sacrifice. One. Obi-Wan. That's it. Then, at the very end, Vader died redeeming himself as Anakin. Thaaaaaat's it. Every single other protagonist lived. All of them. Every other death that increased the stakes were of background characters.
Same with quite a large number of stories, including war-time narratives.
It seems like so many now feel that without The Walking Dead or A Game of Thrones levels of death, the stakes simply aren't high enough. When that is demonstrably not the norm for successful and nuanced narratives delivering great material throughout history; note I'm not giving my opinion about the quality of the Magic narrative at all here. It's ok, not great, not terrible. Pretty run of the mill, really, in many ways.
But killing off a bunch of protagonists on-screen?
Nah. Not necessary in the least to tell a high-stakes story.
Large numbers of background characters perishing consistently makes a story feel high stakes, historically speaking. A single major face character perishing as a noble sacrifice is very often the only death needed to make a story feel high stakes, in addition to the casualties of non-protagonists all around the cast of protagonists.
And the MCU? Yes, the snap felt high-stakes. Although many comic fans will certainly tell you, it's extremely unlikely they remain dusted. Additionally, the MCU storyline is an extreme outlier. It's rather rare that many of the protagonists of an extended narrative perish all of a sudden in a final battle like that.
So yeah. I must simply agree to disagree, here. The sheer number of evocative, high stakes narratives where hardly any protagonists perish is stunning, and they're not lesser stories because they didn't "have to kill off a bunch of popular protagonists" to make their story feel high stakes.
Well. We already know Bolas in the lore has some sort of intense connection to the Meditation Realm, and that his mortal form outside of that is a reborn form he basically cloned to escape from being trapped between the Meditation Realm and the material world of Dominaria as a spirit once before, while he was dead. And that after doing so, he suddenly had a large gem between his horns, and another one even larger floating between the horns of the Meditation Realm itself, that are likely connected somehow.
Additionally, the Meditation Realm doesn't work like other planes; Tetsuo Umezawa and Ayesha Tanaka transported to it as non-walkers, before. And Bolas himself transported his spirit to it while dead.
So yeah. Actually. The Meditation Realm appears to be very unique and special in that regards far as planes in the Magic multiverse are concerned. Not like other planes, despite walkers being able to find it. But they only appear to be able to find it when invited by someone; only Ugin and Bolas appear to have found it on their own.
I mean, there are always exceptions that prove the rule. Bolas is an oldwalker, not a neowalker, and he's an Elder Dragon which likely adds all manner of extra constitution to survive really awful physical and spiritual harm. And Bolas has had shenanigans revolving around his spark before. So it's entirely possible he is, in fact, one of the extremely rare exceptions. Additionally... he literally MADE the spark harvesting by the eternals, which is, as far as we can tell, uniquely lethal (that is, taking a spark normally, as opposed to with an eternal, is not lethal). If there's any one being in the Multiverse that would either have a failsafe built in, or simply know how to survive having an eternal harvest their spark, it's Nicol Bolas. The individual who CREATED the magics that caused the eternals' harvesting to be lethal.
So yeah. There are completely reasonable explanations why Nicol Bolas would survive what is otherwise a lethal process.
Why does the immortal founder of a 10,000 year old organization he formed, who is experiencing his home being invaded by a force trying to tear it down, and directly threatening the very existence of his Cult--without giving the power to him, Rakdos, personally--temporarily ally with someone who is aligned with his current goals of crushing the invading army of lazotep-covered undead and its draconic leader?
No idea.