MTG Salvation

Liliana doesn't face consequences? Are you kidding? Everything we've seen of her since Origins is her trying (and in fact failing) to deal with consequences of her previous not-so-wise life choices. Every time she tries something she ends up in more and more trouble. Enslavement to Bolas is not a sudden twist 'to progress a narrative', it was logical conclusion. Ever since the contract she fought to regain her freedom, only to lose more and more of it.
We don't know how she was before the Mending, only that she is scared senseless by the prospect of death, because she knew full well what kind of afterlife to expect. Josu was expressive and very believable while describing it. Well, that fear wasn't much of the problem back then, but after the Mending, when she neared the end of her lifespan? It made her desperate, so she found a way to postpone death at a cost of a soul (which she hardly regretted that much at the moment) and some degree of servitude to her new masters. It was mentioned that they forced her to do many things, some of which were atrocious even by her standards. So even if killing Josu did not force her to assume the mask 'I'm evil and I don't care' that certainly did. Yes, that's a *****ty defense mechanism, and no one says she is a good person in the first place, but it still was the most logical one and there were basically no other way she could use, save for suicide variants.
After that every time we see her she tries to get out of the mess she gotten herself into, and each time she fails. Her plan to barter the Consortium for Bolas' help with the pacts not only failed quite spectacularly, but also left the new weight upon her conscience (and right until Ixalan story she acted accordingly).
Then there was the Veil, and even though it helped with some of the demons, it took another piece of her freedom - an incursion directly in her mind this time. Not only that, but the price of using the Veil was so steep and the prospects of continuous use so dire, that despite all the power it brought Liliana tried to get rid of it, only to discover that the Veil has even more control of her that she thought, and she is physically unable to part with it. Some time later we see her coming to Jace for help (being proud ***** that she is, she tried quite hard to not make it look like a plea for help, though), but here the whole Gatewatch arc starts and we basically don't see Liliana on her own ever since, so her personal line got tackled behind the whole Gatewatch bussiness.
Each of her sub-stories ends up in failure. Except may be the whole Garruk thing, but it is still in the air now. She is being hunted and if she happens to survive the WAR it still can backfire horribly. I'd say, that of all Gatewatchers (save for Jace, maybe) she actually faces the most consequences. She never actually succeeds.

Also it is sweet that you expect the Gatewatch to hate her. Jace has all the reason for it, of course (and I like to think that he still wasn't thinking straight at the moment he welcomed her to join, because that was kind of silly on his part). But others? They met her when she literally put her life in line to rescue them, and then stayed with them and saved their asses again and was badly hurt in the process. Even if they knew that her motivation has nothing to do with (most of) them, they still owe her. And she didn't even do anything bad to them. It's not like she forced them to Amonkhet or Dominaria - they decided on it together, her voice was hardly deciduous. She withheld some information, yes, and planned to use their goals to advance her own, but she still acted to advance their goals too, she never betrayed them or set up a trap or the like. On Amonkhet she tried to convince them to leave with her and it was obvious they couldn't do a thing at the moment. It was a sensible thing to do and though they are rightly sour about that, they don't really have a reason to actually be mad at her.

So yes, she is not a good person, she is very flawed, she runs from herself her whole life and that is what makes her a fascinating protagonist. She isn't juvenile or insecure,her story is not along the lines of classical 'coming of age', she faces different king of problems, makes different kind of hard choices, forms different kind of relationships and needs different kind of development, and all this is wonderful, though not often well written.

We have enough unequivocally good heroes and unequivocally bad villains, it's always nice to have something different. (Though I believe her Gatewatch-era characterization was mostly a failure, unfortunately)

(Yes, I love Liliana and am totally ready to die on this hill too)

Quote from Descendant of Urza »

Black can use certain kinds of mind magic for sure, but I don't think it can steal spells, that seems very blue to me. I tried to find an existing Magic card that captures what Davriel's magic does (both mechanically and in terms of flavor) and the only really good fit seems to be Psychic Intrusion.
With that said, I fully accept that not every planeswalker card has to be all colors of the character. This just isn't what I expected after reading the novella, that's all.

Gonti would like a word with you.
And the process of choosing and extracting the power is basically Thoughtseize. Even the life loss is included.

But it seems that right now Davriel just decided to not show his true abilities (which is quite wise) and is playing the role of a good-for-nothing shadowmage (i wonder, whose powers he had stolen, btw) which happens to go well with his fancy shadowy coat.

Quote from Zephyr Scarlet »

Unless MaRo has confirmed that Adapt counts as the returning mechanic (also wasn't the returning mechanic supposed to be from the guild itself like Selesnya and Convoke?) it's all but certain that Azorious is Detain, which would be right in line with all the uninspired-creature centric mechanics this set is bringing to the table.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/181274624848/youve-said-that-ravnica-allegiance-has-a#notes
He confirmed. Though I'm not sure if it was ever stated that GRA would have only one returning mechanic.

It’s an ad card


that said, it’s Theros


they can’t spoil it soon enough


Eldraine who

And just like that we have another completely wasted plot thread. I swear, Wizards just does not know what to do with their stories anymore. The cursed Garruk/planeswalker hunter plot went absolutely nowhere and accomplished nothing, it feels like they just used this as an opportunity to quickly handwave it away and be done with it, just like they rushed through the Eldrazi. Even Bolas came off somewhat rushed going into the end of it, though it was handled mostly better all the same.

a planeswalker running wild hunting other planeswalker no matter which side they are at... missed opportunity that they just randomly return him now.

would have loved a set where we have the typical good vs evil fight, where garruk randomly shows off, beheads the evil dude and moves on without anyone realizing what just happened. you know, let him make some random chaos here and there. but ok... guess we are back to good old boring walkers, not that they used him storywise anyways

I'll be honest I'm rapidly beoming not a fan of having some requisite number of colored artifacts in every single set now. It feels completely unnecessary on this equipment for example. Making this card artifact and black just feels like an answer seeking a question to me.

Whoever it was that mentioned in a different thread a possible similarity between Eldraine and the Fate series, I would like to offer you a cookie.

Day 109: Our excavation of the Edgewall ruins unearthed a bizarre trinket that seems to be made of glass. Even stranger, there seems to be a living rabbit inside. More investigation is pending.
Day 110: A scuffle broke out when one of our crewman tried to release the rabbit we unearthed yesterday by shattering the glass container. Situation currently nominal, but grumblings continue.
Day 111: They're all dead. Everyone has been devoured by the centuries of hunger cultivated within the rabbit demons prison. I can hear it outside, even now. Pyon...pyon...If anyone recovers this logbook, run. Flee for your lives, because if you hear the pyon, its too late...

Any further entries are obscured by shredded paper and dark red stains

Interesting legendary creatures, especially those that could potentially be a commander tend to be scrutinized far more critically than the average cards, and I myself found the art lacking. Queen Marchesa is obviously dressed in a similar style and looks a hell of a lot better if I may say

As to the argument that the set itself has an agenda, I must say that while I too feel at odds with just how many female knights are depicted, the set also gives us the maidens in distress tropes. I've always liked the "Joan of Arc" characters in fiction and games, so a powerful knight chick is appealing to me, but it's so abundant here it's kind of off putting.

She's rather frumpier than I imagined from the book considering generations of knights have been dying, literally, to please her.
Guess not every plane is populated by the likes of Teysa, Judith and Emmara.

Quote from FlossedBeaver »

I'm sorry you feel that pretty women are underrepresented in fantasy genres.

Again, I haven't read the novel, so I'm on shaky ground here, but - do we know how old she's supposed to be? Is it possible that her art is depicting just one solitary moment in the entire span of her lifetime, possibly in her older years? Is it possible that, in the years leading up to the moment of her depiction in the card, she was as beautiful as you insist she must be to match the narrative within your mind?

She's an elf.
You're going way out of your way to justify Dulcinea incarnate not being pretty. If not her, who?
Action women have been largely and understandably desexualized, and even seductress type characters are avoided and those we have to keep around like Liliana keep getting covered up further and posed in less glamorizing scenes than they used to. You may celebrate the abortion of harmless stereotypes if you must, but when the exemplar vessel of courtly love chivalry is not allowed to be beautiful ***** has gone too far.