You just went and glossed over what I also said at the end my post:
Quote from Thief »
Look I'm still going to enjoy her character even if she is a Sue because I'm not going to let that taint what I view of her. Its kind of like the people who get flustered about her being considered a villain, which she clearly is, but associate that as a negative connotation instead of rolling with it and enjoying the character that way. Nahiri is similar to Liliana in being a villain but can still have fans because they are an interesting character.
This has nothing to do with anything. Nobody is interested in whether you're personally invested in her or not, we're discussing her Sueness. And you jumping to that just seems defensive to me. We're supposed to discuss the sueness and you didn't even do the litmus test right. I assume btw that you're using this test, in which case Onering has the better grasp of the situation. It's also telling that you didn't engage with anything he said and instead posted an unrelated comic.
If you care about the OSP video, you should at least have noticed its core point. The common link between Mary Sue archetypes is that the world revolves around them, in service to whatever their traits are, for the reader to live out a power fantasy. Magic: the Gathering does not revolve around Liliana this way, she has just been a prominent main character recently, which is standard faire in writing. Her capabilities and edgy traits are also near mundane in the Magic universe, meaning she's not the centre of the brand at all.
Don't conflate Mary Sues with main characters. Sueness has to do with a whole world being used to serve a character fantasy. Main characters are just the writing's primary object of interest. The two things are different.
You mean that Amonketh, Dominaria and WAR didn't revolve around Liliana?
Welp, considering now there's like three people in the Multiverse who DON'T hate Liliana, I think the Mary Sue argument can be put to bed.
Oh, no! I wonder what the consequences of that are going to be? /s
Liliana will say that she is sorry, she will do something to make those characters believe her and we will all move on.
From what I listened to the audio book and taking notes, there is only one story they essentially setup with Liliana post-war, 'Pursued by Bounty Hunters'. That is unless they write something that doesn't factor in the book's elements which wouldn't be expected.
Oh, noooooooooo, I wonder will she manage to get out of that one virtually unharmed?! /s
I’m just going to say that most works of fiction that are considered great do not just kill large numbers of characters. They use death sparingly and impactfully. I don’t know how others feel about it but it didn’t take long before death became a joke in Game of Thrones. Killing well liked characters too often can be a great way to lose a ton of your fans. They killed Gideon and if their Facebook poll is to be considered it had a great impact on people because he rolled over arguably better characters in all of his rounds so far. Just because you don’t like the gatewatch doesn’t mean they need to die. And not to mention the only reason you know any of this is because of leaks. Had it not been for that you would go into reading the novel still thinking that almost anyone could die and it would be way more satisfying. You’re only complaining because you recurved an incomplete version before having the opportunity to consume it as it was meant to be.
And people wonder why WotC gets so upset about leaks.
Again, I'll throw the word ''consequences''.
The Gatewatch hasn't faced any real consequences for their action through the entire saga. What made Urza saga better is that characters made stupid decision and they've payed for them with their lives. There was a feeling of actual stakes at play. Why would I, after WAR, ever feel that there will be any real stakes in future mtg stories? Plane will be in danger, planeswalkers will roflstomp the threat, an illusion of consequence (X randoms had died) will be thrown at us and we're moving on to the next story with the same formula. There is no more tension left. Will Jace die facing Garruk? No, ofc he won't, character deaths are being avoided like the plague. Will the Raven Man fulfill whatever his plan was? No, ofc he won't, the Gatewatch will stop him with no real loses. How do I know that? Because that has been the bloody formula since BFZ!
A plane is facing a threat -> Gatewatch beats the threat -> illusion of consequence is thrown in our faces (what does killing the titans mean? how will kaladesh function now?) -> onto the next story. Neither Amonketh had any real consequences for our characters. Jace lost his memory and then regained it in the same block, Nissa went a way and came back 2 blocks later without anyone noticing that she was gone, the rest just went their own way.
People talking about "stakes." Well, here are the stakes: if Bolas had won, the Multiverse would have been his forever, and he would reign over infinite Planes and infinite lives with an iron fist for eternity.
Who lives and who dies on Ravnica are not the stakes. The stakes aren't the number of named Planeswalkers we lose in this battle. The stakes are what happens if Bolas wins.
Now, we can debate whether or not our losses on Ravnica reflected, emotionally, the GRAVITY of those stakes. But the stakes in MTG's story have never been higher. Not even in Apocalypse.
Now, let's compare War of the Spark to other MTG finales.
Mirrodin: No heroes truly died in the final battle with Memnarch. Slobad lived, Raksha lived, Bruenna lived. Main heroine Glissa died briefly but came back. The world ended, but everyone came out okay. Bosh died back in Darksteel, but that was 5 years before the final clash.
Kamigawa: Widely considered to be one of the best blocks story-wise. Toshi, Michiko, Kyodai... All the good guys live. All of them. The only deaths in the finale were baddies; O-Kagachi and Mochi. Big Bad Konda didn't technically die, but I'll include him here anyway because he still got destroyed. But among the good guys, even randos like Pearl-Ear, Riko, and Sharp-Ear -- everyone comes out of the big final battle okay.
Ravnica Block: Kos dies in book 2, but his ghost is back as the main character in Book 3 so it doesn't really count. Feather, Pivlic, Faun, And Jarad all come out at the end. Jarad as a zombie, granted, but he's around. The only serious deaths in the final book are Nephilim and villains like Augustin, Momir, and Lyzolda.
Coldsnap (End of the Ice Age Block): Just the villain and Lovisa Coldeyes, but admittedly Lovisa's kind of hurt. (She went out like a badass, though. )
Time Spiral: Along with Apocalypse and War of the Spark, this is the Big One, with the whole Multiverse at stake and a vast host of heroes arrayed against the big threat. But really, among the heroes, only Freyalise and Jeska die. Windgrace sacrifices his spark.
Alara: Big huge planar war, but if I recall correctly, all the good guys live. Jazal dies, but that's at the beginning, and key to kicking off the actual plot.
Zendikar (Both blocks): No carded characters die save for villains Ulamog and Kozilek.
...I could go on through each and every block, but this post is already stretching long and you all likely get the idea. So let's go back to Apocalypse, the Big One that people love to bring up.
Villains Yawgmoth and Crovax both die. Among the heroes, we lose Urza and Gerrard, who are extremely significant. But after that... Who? Bo Levar and Commander Guff? I guarantee you that more people care about Dack dying than ever cared about those two. Eladmiri and Lin Sivvi go as well, if I recall, but those are legendary creatures, and in War of The Spark we can balance them off with the corruption (and perhaps... destruction?) of other beloved legends like the God-Eternals, esp. Oketra.
More named characters die in Apocalypse than in War of the Spark, certainly. But not by all that much.
----
In the end, War of the Spark delivers the casualty of the hero, which is something that (if my memory is complete) only Apocalypse and Time Spiral Block can claim as well. Gideon, meanwhile, was not just a member of the Gatewatch. He was the leader, and along with Liliana, one of the two heroes of this final story.
Would I have liked to see Nissa, Vivien, Jaya, and Jace bite it as well? Absolutely. But the fact that they don't doesn't ruin the story for me. It would just have made it better if they had.
But in the end, Magic stories have always have a pattern of most of the cast walking out of even the most apocalyptic cataclysms intact.
I just want to say that this is the worst example and the greatest reach that I've seen so far.
You're comparing this story to the older ones and yet you choose to exclude the entirety of the Urza saga, focusing only on the ending, to try to prove a point. Apocalypse is being brought up because it is the end of a years long saga, just like WAR is.
Those of you who have seen some of my other posts know that I get a bit wordy. But whatevs, I will word it up again.
Stakes. Stakes, man.
One thing I really, really liked about Star Wars: Rogue One was the concept of ‘stakes.’ The fate of the universe hinges on this one team pulling off the impossible. And as they start proving successful, we’re feeling good, until, uh oh, one of them dies. Okay, well, that’s just one. And then another main character dies. And then another. And another. Suddenly, you realize this is *for real*. The Good Guys have gone up against the Bad Guys, and you begin to realize there’s a chance the Good Guys don’t make it out. Every moment, every death, has gravitas now, even though we’ve only just met them. Now we see just how powerful and dangerous the Empire is. Now we see why the galaxy is right to fear them. So much death and loss, and then, at the very end . . . Hope.
I can’t remember another movie like that. Maybe the original Magnificent Seven, with Brenner? In LOTR, none of the major characters really died apart from Theoden and Boromir.
Rogue One is arguably on of the worst movies to use as an example of setting the stakes well.
As a prequel, we knew the team would succeed in their mission because we'd already seen the results of their success in a movie that came out long prior to Rogue One. There was never a chance of failure.
You could argue that the deaths raise the stakes, but even that falls through when you put a bit more thought into it:
Who dies? Characters introduced specifically for this movie who we have no prior interest in (a small step above no name background characters since they are our central protagonists for this single movie).
Why do they die? Simple, the Star Wars franchise has experience with prequel-related plot holes. By killing off any and all new 'important' characters introduced in this prequel, they avoid the question of where these 'important' people were during the movies that followed them and why they weren't helping out. And we know this is the case, because they used that same tactic with the Solo movie and killing off characters in it.
With no chance of failure and the no chance for brand new characters to survive, how were the stakes high again?
I mean, would people really be happier with the War of the Spark storyline if instead of what we have we got 5 brand new planeswalkers that worked together to beat Bolas but all/most were killed in the process/
You look at Rogue One in isolation. Then the movie has high stakes for everyone involved. Rogue One has high stakes in it. If the good guys fail things go bad. Just because it is a prequel doesn't mean that the stakes in the movie itself aren't high. The story and the characters can't predict the future. To them the stakes are high.
Those of you who have seen some of my other posts know that I get a bit wordy. But whatevs, I will word it up again.
Stakes. Stakes, man.
One thing I really, really liked about Star Wars: Rogue One was the concept of ‘stakes.’ The fate of the universe hinges on this one team pulling off the impossible. And as they start proving successful, we’re feeling good, until, uh oh, one of them dies. Okay, well, that’s just one. And then another main character dies. And then another. And another. Suddenly, you realize this is *for real*. The Good Guys have gone up against the Bad Guys, and you begin to realize there’s a chance the Good Guys don’t make it out. Every moment, every death, has gravitas now, even though we’ve only just met them. Now we see just how powerful and dangerous the Empire is. Now we see why the galaxy is right to fear them. So much death and loss, and then, at the very end . . . Hope.
I can’t remember another movie like that. Maybe the original Magnificent Seven, with Brenner? In LOTR, none of the major characters really died apart from Theoden and Boromir.
Let’s look at the Yawgmoth/Urza storyline, now. Like Bolas, Yawgmoth plotted for millenia. Already a god of one plane, he wanted to finally conquer Dominaria, too. In The Thran, many people perish, including a planeswalker, Dyfed, and the woman who built the shining star for the Thran Empire, Rebbec. Then thousands of years later Yawgmoth plays Mishra against Urza, leading to a devastating war that sees the loss of sons, of friends, and brothers. Then Urza plots against Yawgmoth, and creates the Legacy and the human counterpart, which also involves years of hardship.
Of the original Weatherlight crew, we have: Rofellos, who died before Tempest; Crovax, who turned from friend to evil, dangerous foe; Mirri, who died to save the man she loved on Rath, who she knew would never love her back; Tahngarth, who was tortured and disfigured by Volrath, before saving his people and being seen as a hero; Hanna, who Gerrard Capashen loved, who died horribly from Phyrexian plague during the Invasion; Orim, the healer who saw her friends suffer and die around her; Ertai, who was abandoned and turned to evil on Rath, before being killed by Squee; Squee, who was constantly killed over and over again for Crovax’s amusement; Starke, who betrayed and then was blinded, and killed on Mercadia; Karn, who was forced to kill as a pacifist, who saw so much time pass and was made to forget it, and who ‘died’ to end Yawgmoth; Sisay, who was tasked with the Legacy and struggled her whole life to do her duty; and Gerrard Capashen, whose whole life was suffering, who lost his family, his friends, his love, and gave his life to finally defeat Yawgmoth.
Then we have the Nine Titans who attacked Phyrexia itself: Urza, Lord Windgrace, Tevesh Szat, Taysir, Commodore Guff, Kristina of the Woods, Daria, Freyalise, and Bo Levar.
For years we were introduced to these characters. Many of us who played at the time really became attached to specific characters (in my case, Gerrard Capashen and Karn). The stories drove the sets, and the sets drove the stories.
Going into the Invasion, we had 10 Weatherlight ‘crew’ (including Multani, excluding Starke, Mirri, and Rofellos who had already died) still alive, and all nine of the Nine Titans. These were named characters, with more-or-less fleshed out backgrounds.
How many were left by the end of Apocalypse? 6 out of 10 ‘Weatherlight crew’ (Crovax, Hanna, Ertai, and Gerrard all died), and 2 out of 9 of the Nine Titans (Bo Levar, Guff, Szat, Taysir, Kristina, Daria, and Urza all died).
Out of 19 named, well-known characters, only ***8*** survive the events of Invasion block, survive the death of Yawgmoth. That’s only three sets.
Why? Because it was the culmination of the Yawgmoth/Legacy story. It was an Ending. It was the dividing line between what happened before and what would happen after. It’s the ending cutscene of a video game. For the story to have gravitas, for the Ineffable Yawgmoth to be seen as the absolute danger and evil that he was, we had to have *stakes*. If only one Weatherlight crew member died (Gerrard) and only two of the Titans died, well, what did we ever have to worry about? What was all the commotion about? Was the Empire really so scary, if no one died to bring it down in Rogue One?
We’re not looking at thrown-away deaths. These deaths served a story purpose, more than one, and it made sense because their deaths made their lives, and the story, matter.
So when I see 36 planeswalker cards for War of the Spark, when I see card art of sparks flying all over the place, when I see an army designed for the sole purpose of killing walkers and extracting their sparks, I’m expecting something a little more than three walkers, one of which we never really got to see in a regular set, losing their lives. These are mortals after all, right? And Gideon didn’t die due to desparking, as far as I know. So only two named walkers were desparked and killed?
I’m not taking a shot at people’s preferred planeswalkers, but: Isn’t Nissa’s story about wrapped up, just as Gideon’s was? Weren’t we all ready for Jaya to kick the bucket? (I haven’t read the novel spoilers, so I don’t know if this happens) What about Ajani? His life seems to have been geared to stopping Bolas. Why is he still around? Out of the five walkers who led guilds for Bolas, only one, Domri, is betrayed and killed? What about Dovin and Kaya, who we were told were only introduced earlier so that they could be in this set, and thus serve no other purpose? What is Kiora even doing anywhere these days? Vraska’s whole life was to lead her friends in Golgari; what is she going to do now?
And why introduce all these tertiary walkers with all the uncommon variations, when we have never heard of them before, if not to have them lose their lives to show walkers being killed?
The climax of Urza and Yawgmoth resulted in two broken planes, uncountable dead, and only 8 of 19 main characters being alive. The climax of Bolas and the Gatewatch results in . . . 33 of 36 named walkers surviving, one purposeless plane (Amonkhet), and one traumatized plane (Ravnica).
This was the grand climax of Bolas we were being ginned up for, for years? This is the modern-day equivalent of Yawgmoth’s defeat? As others have pointed out, what enemy could possibly compare to the Eldrazi and Bolas, in which only one Gatewatch member died against three planar threats? What enemy could possibly be as interesting and devastating as plane-destroying creatures and a god-dragon? I'm not bloodthirsty, I just want to be made to feel that there are actual stakes in Magic these days.
I’ll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I'd like to jump in before some smartass tries to use the argument ''well, Ravnica is in bad shape and its citizens are traumatized. Families were killed, homes destroyed blablabla''. Nobody cares! Do you know why? Because we, as readers, don't see those consequences. Even if they turn out to be in a story or two, nobody cares because in Fall we're on the next plane and the adventure continues.
It is like saying that BFZ was a loss because ''unknown titan slaying consequences'' which we will most likely never see (especially now when Ugin is out of the picture, supposedly sealed to guard Bolas, idk this is not spoiler talk but speculation). Those kinds of consequences, the one that you don't see nor are emotionally connected to, don't count, period.
Some are also defending the story by saying hundreds of nameless planeswalkers and thousands or millions of ravnicans are killed.
This might not even be the case either. The Dreadhorde did not go throughout the plane of Ravnica killing everyone. This battle primarily takes place in the Main city and primarily in the main center of that city and the eternals were going after planeswalkers and anyone else in the way. Many ravnicans evacuated. Possibly only dozens of nameless walkers were killed (gotta see the book for a number) and maybe only hundreds or a few thousand at most Ravnicans were killed. So even in that defense not much stakes were to be had.
Do we even know long this "war" took? As I'm getting a Seven Hour War vibe like from Half-Life series where it was quick and decisive.
Couple of hours at best.
From what we know, no guildmasters have died except for Domri but I doubt that anyone in Gruul really gives a crap about him. Only 3 named walkers had died and a bunch of random bystanders have probably died. So, this war had little to no actual consequences.
Guildmasters are fine which means that the political structure of the plane is fine. If anything, guilds are now closer than they've ever been.
Planeswalkers who are actual characters are fine, making the death count quite laughable indeed.
A small portion of the plane wide city is a mess, it will be repaired in a few days, no big deal.
The plane is more united than ever.
Yea, great WAR indeed. Such dire consequences, such impact on the plane, much wow!
Someone mentioned Rat. I don't know what role Rat plays in WAR but her spark will ignite in the next novel.
It is fairly obvious at this point. We even got a detailed design for the character.
That doesn't mean you need to kill off half the cast. No one is saying "death is bad", but just killing people for no good reason because you feel the stakes aren't enough is emotionally shallow writing.
And Urza's story killing so many people is one of many reasons why I don't think of it as good writing, it just feels needlessly bleak to generate edge.
Every death in Urza's story serves a purpose. Most importantly, it shows the reader that there are actual consequences and stakes at play, unlike here.
AUTUM, Kaya is a token character who is here for no other purpose than ''representation matters''. They are never going to kill her off because wotc nowadays fears any kind of backlash, just like MaRo's comment on not killing characters shows.
''intheinterim asked: Not that anyone expected a massacre or anything, but isn't the fact that only 3/37 named planeswalkers die in War of the Spark but lots of nameless planeswalkers die offscreen as to make the claim this battle was a costly toll on planeswalkers a bit of a cop-out?
The planeswalker cards were introduced in 2007. Since then three planeswalkers with cards have died (Venser, Xenagos and Elspeth). In one set, as many planeswalkers with cards died as the first *twelve years* since their introduction. How in the world is that a cop out?''
How? How can you be this out of touch with reality when your main argument is ''well, the same number of characters had died in one set as in the pass 12 years so it's not a cop out'' when barely no one died in those 12 years?! Theros alone had almost as many notable deaths as the war for the fate of the multiverse! We also can't count on Elspeth because they will bring her back so yea, 2 deaths in 12 years and 3 in the battle for the multiverse. The fact that you had 12 years to implement actual consequences and stakes into the story and the best that you came up with is ''We will kill a bunch of nameless randoms to make the war look tragic'' is both sad and mindblowing.
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.
Um..screw the I dont DIE if an eternal takes my spark magic.....how about I (Bolas) make them so if they touch me I dont get desparked. Duh.. but thats logical, so is alot of things that Bolas should have done but alas...we must make him basically incompetent at some point (even though hes been planning this for decades) Im sorry some want to excuse it but it just rings hollow. Yes I know he had to be defeated but these circumstances they used are just to convenient. It could have been an actual battle but in the end it seems they're answer was "well he was distracted for a second. Its lame
Exactly this!
Bolas goes so far to make sure that Blackblade doesn't harm him but he forgets to make himself immune to his own Eternals? wtf?!
Man did I pick a good couple of days to drop off the forums and build a fence. I have not (yet) encountered any spoilers other than the cards themselves (thanks Mods).
Magic has a notoriously bad history in terms of moder, post BFZ, story, and frankly I never expected the WAR storyline to deviate from that drastically. I have been excited about the story but have intentionally kept my expectations low, that way whenever the plot looks good I am pleasantly surprised.
Fixed that for ya
Nah. If this is bad you can very safely throw the other stories out too. I think it’s good, and definitely better than the super old stuff.
You unironically think that the Gatewatch saga is better than the entirety of the Urza saga, from Thran until the very end?
Nothing I've seen convinces me that the Urza saga in general is really good, and the reasons people usually use to support it don't remotely resonate with me. You're welcome to try your pitch, but I expect you'll try to appeal to aspects of story that I consider plain bad like the rest.
Have you tried reading those books? It usually helps in forming a firm opinion.
Man did I pick a good couple of days to drop off the forums and build a fence. I have not (yet) encountered any spoilers other than the cards themselves (thanks Mods).
Magic has a notoriously bad history in terms of moder, post BFZ, story, and frankly I never expected the WAR storyline to deviate from that drastically. I have been excited about the story but have intentionally kept my expectations low, that way whenever the plot looks good I am pleasantly surprised.
Fixed that for ya
Nah. If this is bad you can very safely throw the other stories out too. I think it’s good, and definitely better than the super old stuff.
You unironically think that the Gatewatch saga is better than the entirety of the Urza saga, from Thran until the very end?
Man did I pick a good couple of days to drop off the forums and build a fence. I have not (yet) encountered any spoilers other than the cards themselves (thanks Mods).
Magic has a notoriously bad history in terms of moder, post BFZ, story, and frankly I never expected the WAR storyline to deviate from that drastically. I have been excited about the story but have intentionally kept my expectations low, that way whenever the plot looks good I am pleasantly surprised.
You mean that Amonketh, Dominaria and WAR didn't revolve around Liliana?
Oh, no! I wonder what the consequences of that are going to be? /s
Liliana will say that she is sorry, she will do something to make those characters believe her and we will all move on.
Oh, noooooooooo, I wonder will she manage to get out of that one virtually unharmed?! /s
Again, I'll throw the word ''consequences''.
The Gatewatch hasn't faced any real consequences for their action through the entire saga. What made Urza saga better is that characters made stupid decision and they've payed for them with their lives. There was a feeling of actual stakes at play. Why would I, after WAR, ever feel that there will be any real stakes in future mtg stories? Plane will be in danger, planeswalkers will roflstomp the threat, an illusion of consequence (X randoms had died) will be thrown at us and we're moving on to the next story with the same formula. There is no more tension left. Will Jace die facing Garruk? No, ofc he won't, character deaths are being avoided like the plague. Will the Raven Man fulfill whatever his plan was? No, ofc he won't, the Gatewatch will stop him with no real loses. How do I know that? Because that has been the bloody formula since BFZ!
A plane is facing a threat -> Gatewatch beats the threat -> illusion of consequence is thrown in our faces (what does killing the titans mean? how will kaladesh function now?) -> onto the next story. Neither Amonketh had any real consequences for our characters. Jace lost his memory and then regained it in the same block, Nissa went a way and came back 2 blocks later without anyone noticing that she was gone, the rest just went their own way.
Amazon
I just want to say that this is the worst example and the greatest reach that I've seen so far.
You're comparing this story to the older ones and yet you choose to exclude the entirety of the Urza saga, focusing only on the ending, to try to prove a point. Apocalypse is being brought up because it is the end of a years long saga, just like WAR is.
You look at Rogue One in isolation. Then the movie has high stakes for everyone involved. Rogue One has high stakes in it. If the good guys fail things go bad. Just because it is a prequel doesn't mean that the stakes in the movie itself aren't high. The story and the characters can't predict the future. To them the stakes are high.
I'd like to jump in before some smartass tries to use the argument ''well, Ravnica is in bad shape and its citizens are traumatized. Families were killed, homes destroyed blablabla''. Nobody cares! Do you know why? Because we, as readers, don't see those consequences. Even if they turn out to be in a story or two, nobody cares because in Fall we're on the next plane and the adventure continues.
It is like saying that BFZ was a loss because ''unknown titan slaying consequences'' which we will most likely never see (especially now when Ugin is out of the picture, supposedly sealed to guard Bolas, idk this is not spoiler talk but speculation). Those kinds of consequences, the one that you don't see nor are emotionally connected to, don't count, period.
Couple of hours at best.
From what we know, no guildmasters have died except for Domri but I doubt that anyone in Gruul really gives a crap about him. Only 3 named walkers had died and a bunch of random bystanders have probably died. So, this war had little to no actual consequences.
Guildmasters are fine which means that the political structure of the plane is fine. If anything, guilds are now closer than they've ever been.
Planeswalkers who are actual characters are fine, making the death count quite laughable indeed.
A small portion of the plane wide city is a mess, it will be repaired in a few days, no big deal.
The plane is more united than ever.
Yea, great WAR indeed. Such dire consequences, such impact on the plane, much wow!
It is fairly obvious at this point. We even got a detailed design for the character.
Every death in Urza's story serves a purpose. Most importantly, it shows the reader that there are actual consequences and stakes at play, unlike here.
AUTUM, Kaya is a token character who is here for no other purpose than ''representation matters''. They are never going to kill her off because wotc nowadays fears any kind of backlash, just like MaRo's comment on not killing characters shows.
''intheinterim asked: Not that anyone expected a massacre or anything, but isn't the fact that only 3/37 named planeswalkers die in War of the Spark but lots of nameless planeswalkers die offscreen as to make the claim this battle was a costly toll on planeswalkers a bit of a cop-out?
The planeswalker cards were introduced in 2007. Since then three planeswalkers with cards have died (Venser, Xenagos and Elspeth). In one set, as many planeswalkers with cards died as the first *twelve years* since their introduction. How in the world is that a cop out?''
How? How can you be this out of touch with reality when your main argument is ''well, the same number of characters had died in one set as in the pass 12 years so it's not a cop out'' when barely no one died in those 12 years?! Theros alone had almost as many notable deaths as the war for the fate of the multiverse! We also can't count on Elspeth because they will bring her back so yea, 2 deaths in 12 years and 3 in the battle for the multiverse. The fact that you had 12 years to implement actual consequences and stakes into the story and the best that you came up with is ''We will kill a bunch of nameless randoms to make the war look tragic'' is both sad and mindblowing.
Exactly this!
Bolas goes so far to make sure that Blackblade doesn't harm him but he forgets to make himself immune to his own Eternals? wtf?!
Have you tried reading those books? It usually helps in forming a firm opinion.
You unironically think that the Gatewatch saga is better than the entirety of the Urza saga, from Thran until the very end?
Fixed that for ya