The first +1 on Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord dissuades blocking and makes up for the life loss. It's nice to see black get an Ophidian that feels black in all the right ways. And common? Whoo, I sure would've gotten this question wrong if I had to guess its rarity in one of the Great Designer Searches.
Slightly altering one of Mark Corrigan's best lines: "if there isn't room here for people who find physically fit and provocatively dressed women attractive, then what sort of a hippy free-for-all is this?""
Gideon is definitely on Theros at the moment that he actually perishes. We know that planeswalkers follow the rules of the afterlife of the plane they are currently on when they die, and the card Heartwarming Redemption shows Gideon going by Kytheon, dressed in Therosi civilian clothing, talking to who I'm sure must be Kytheon's Irregulars, who were killed in Gideon's origin story (as seen on Tragic Arrogance). Which, if that's all correct, means that Gideon is in the Underworld of Theros. The same place that Elspeth, Knight-Errant is. The same place that is ruled by Erebos, God of the Dead, the character whose antagonism shaped Kytheon, Hero of Akros into the the heroic Gideon we know today by killing his friends, the Irregulars.
Now I had previously thought that Gideon wouldn't die because it would leave his story in an unsatisfying place. He has run from his past in Theros since he's become a planeswalker, and I felt that there should be some struggle for him to face on Theros to complete the "invincible brat becomes stoic protector" arc. But that was assuming that if he died, it would be on Ravnica because The Immortal Sun wouldn't let him leave so he'd just be a ghost on Agryem. But if the Immortal Sun is deactivated/destroyed/moved to the Meditation Realm or whatever happens to it within a few hours of Gideon taking on the punitive damages of Liliana's breach of contract, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that he could planeswalk (espcially with help of his friends such as Jace helping his mind stay clear in spite of the pain for instance) to Theros and be laid to Rest in Peace there.
Y'all remember the Wrath of Khan? Spock sacrifices himself to save the rest of the crew, allowing the character to go out in what Leonard Nimoy described as a "blaze of glory." But then the next movie comes out two years later and was called the Search for Spock, was directed by Nimoy, and had Spock resurrected at the end. The character only finally left us when the actor did, in 2015, so Spock still had more than 30 years left when it first looked like he was gone. And while that might seem like that would take the stakes out of that death scene, it is still one of the most iconic and beloved scenes in all of Star Trek, which I'm pretty sure is what WotC would like to emulate if they could.
So yeah, I'm calling it. Ajani and company go to Theros to rescue Elspeth and Gideon from the Underworld. The Search for Gideon is a bit of an one-the-nose reference, but it doesn't sound like a bad set title (to me). Surrounding factors I'm less sure about but make sense to me:
1.) Phyrexia corrupts Theros. The contrast is so extreme that the compleated Therosi would be satisfyingly unnerving. Like how it's eerier to see a possessed child's doll than to see a possessed suit of armor, the insidiousness is more apparent the less threatening the thing was to begin with. Which leads to...
2.) Erebos fights Elesh Norn. Other than Xenagos and Elspeth, the gods haven't fought anything that could defeat even one of them. Elesh Norn's Phyrexia actually has the power to kill all of the Gods. So, desperate times call for desperate measures, and maybe Erebos either willingly lets the dead return to fight alongside the rest of Theros to stop the compleation, or maybe he gets killed (expunged? "killed" seems off considering the blurry line between dead and alive here) and then all the denizens of the Underworld are free to leave.
3.) Xenagos gets out too and becomes another looming multiverse threat. That way even if there is a victory and Theros is saved, there could still be enough fallout where the story continues to have a struggle while still feeling like the Theros-Phyrexia conflict has concluded.
So yeah, I'm in total denial about Gideon's death. If this was the real world, I'd try to move to the next stage of grief, but this is fiction, baby! Resurrections are fair game! Look, he's the soul of the Gatewatch, easily the most heroic of all of them, embodying the concept of using your strength of body and will to shelter the innocent from those who would overpower them. He'd be a one-man Gatewatch if no one had joined his cause, and I don't think that applies to any other member. Writing him out of the story would be like writing Superman out of the Justice League story, since they are both the most physically powerful and morally righteous of their groups who leads the group in an emotional sense. And wouldn't you know it? Superman died and was resurrected in the recent DC movies.
In case you're wondering, yes I did read the article and it did suggest otherwise. But they felt like leading questions from the interviewer, more like "You guys aren't stupid like the Avengers movies who kill 69% of the universe's population, just to bring them back in the next movie, are you? Because if you were that would be dumb and I'd hate you and I'd never want to learn how to play your game for losers." and then Gavin Verhey was like "We, um, don't do that ALL the time, so you're still allowed to like us." and then they were like "Good, we'll put that Gideon is dead forever and always in the title, and if he returns at a later date we'll sue your ass for damages caused by the lack of faith our readers since you erred in your reporting. That was a binding oral agreement you just put on your entire company in perpetuity, Gavin, so watch yourself." So, yeah, I think Gavin just said what the interviewer was nudging him to say, because the interviewer thought that the readers would like hearing that this death is final. Gavin knew that by the time Gideon comes back no one would remember this article, including the people who wrote and edited it.
Now I had previously thought that Gideon wouldn't die because it would leave his story in an unsatisfying place. He has run from his past in Theros since he's become a planeswalker, and I felt that there should be some struggle for him to face on Theros to complete the "invincible brat becomes stoic protector" arc. But that was assuming that if he died, it would be on Ravnica because The Immortal Sun wouldn't let him leave so he'd just be a ghost on Agryem. But if the Immortal Sun is deactivated/destroyed/moved to the Meditation Realm or whatever happens to it within a few hours of Gideon taking on the punitive damages of Liliana's breach of contract, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that he could planeswalk (espcially with help of his friends such as Jace helping his mind stay clear in spite of the pain for instance) to Theros and be laid to Rest in Peace there.
Y'all remember the Wrath of Khan? Spock sacrifices himself to save the rest of the crew, allowing the character to go out in what Leonard Nimoy described as a "blaze of glory." But then the next movie comes out two years later and was called the Search for Spock, was directed by Nimoy, and had Spock resurrected at the end. The character only finally left us when the actor did, in 2015, so Spock still had more than 30 years left when it first looked like he was gone. And while that might seem like that would take the stakes out of that death scene, it is still one of the most iconic and beloved scenes in all of Star Trek, which I'm pretty sure is what WotC would like to emulate if they could.
So yeah, I'm calling it. Ajani and company go to Theros to rescue Elspeth and Gideon from the Underworld. The Search for Gideon is a bit of an one-the-nose reference, but it doesn't sound like a bad set title (to me). Surrounding factors I'm less sure about but make sense to me:
1.) Phyrexia corrupts Theros. The contrast is so extreme that the compleated Therosi would be satisfyingly unnerving. Like how it's eerier to see a possessed child's doll than to see a possessed suit of armor, the insidiousness is more apparent the less threatening the thing was to begin with. Which leads to...
2.) Erebos fights Elesh Norn. Other than Xenagos and Elspeth, the gods haven't fought anything that could defeat even one of them. Elesh Norn's Phyrexia actually has the power to kill all of the Gods. So, desperate times call for desperate measures, and maybe Erebos either willingly lets the dead return to fight alongside the rest of Theros to stop the compleation, or maybe he gets killed (expunged? "killed" seems off considering the blurry line between dead and alive here) and then all the denizens of the Underworld are free to leave.
3.) Xenagos gets out too and becomes another looming multiverse threat. That way even if there is a victory and Theros is saved, there could still be enough fallout where the story continues to have a struggle while still feeling like the Theros-Phyrexia conflict has concluded.
So yeah, I'm in total denial about Gideon's death. If this was the real world, I'd try to move to the next stage of grief, but this is fiction, baby! Resurrections are fair game! Look, he's the soul of the Gatewatch, easily the most heroic of all of them, embodying the concept of using your strength of body and will to shelter the innocent from those who would overpower them. He'd be a one-man Gatewatch if no one had joined his cause, and I don't think that applies to any other member. Writing him out of the story would be like writing Superman out of the Justice League story, since they are both the most physically powerful and morally righteous of their groups who leads the group in an emotional sense. And wouldn't you know it? Superman died and was resurrected in the recent DC movies.
In case you're wondering, yes I did read the article and it did suggest otherwise. But they felt like leading questions from the interviewer, more like "You guys aren't stupid like the Avengers movies who kill 69% of the universe's population, just to bring them back in the next movie, are you? Because if you were that would be dumb and I'd hate you and I'd never want to learn how to play your game for losers." and then Gavin Verhey was like "We, um, don't do that ALL the time, so you're still allowed to like us." and then they were like "Good, we'll put that Gideon is dead forever and always in the title, and if he returns at a later date we'll sue your ass for damages caused by the lack of faith our readers since you erred in your reporting. That was a binding oral agreement you just put on your entire company in perpetuity, Gavin, so watch yourself." So, yeah, I think Gavin just said what the interviewer was nudging him to say, because the interviewer thought that the readers would like hearing that this death is final. Gavin knew that by the time Gideon comes back no one would remember this article, including the people who wrote and edited it.