Not sure exactly why this is mythic when Hornet Queen was much stronger. Sure you get 6 power and 11 toughness on the board, but it isn't all that threatening. Could have at least be a 4/5, I don't know.
Seriously, I'm close to linking that topic in my sig at this point.
You win the "I never read comments about past blocks and always believe I am correct in assessment while not understanding the concept behind cards and why people think they're bad" title.
And yes, while it is a long title, it goes to show how little you know/care/understand about past cards.
If you had any semblance of intellect, or the knowledge at least required to understand my problems with this card, you would have bothered to read up on it. But you didn't, don't, and won't.
I don't feel abrasive in posting this, as you were just as much. So when you respond to my comment, with the equal ignorance I am positive will ensue, keep in mind my silence towards it will be out of respect of not being banned, rather than (easily) proving you wrong.
HINT (since you won't be able to work it out on your own): there was a certain Mythic in the original block that was not received well for its rarity. This, while not Mythic, is said card 2.0
Wow. This is sure a post that someone made. But don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.
Yeah, I'm not sure either. I think the answer is meant to be either "Sigarda" or something more druid-y, like spirits of nature or, as you suggested, the plane itself. That might be something that we don't get complete clarity on until the relevant Story article(s).
In Dark Ascension, Avacyn went missing and all the demons and monsters started pigging out on humans. In SOI and EMN, it seems that Avacyn and Emrakul are killing/consuming everything, human and monsters alike. It's conceivable that after Eldritch Moon, humans could even be in a better relative position vs. the various monsters than they were before original Innistrad block, if Avacyn and Emrakul took more of a toll on the monsters than the humans. We don't have adequate information to conclude either way.
The newly-spoiled Providence (here if card tags don't work for it when you read this) seems to be further support for a story theory. Its flavor text and the carved tree/Gryff shrine comports with the theory that some combination of the Order of Saint Traft, Sigarda, and the Flight of Herons will replace the Avacynian church in post-cataclysm Innistrad, with a turn to old Shamanic/Druidic magic as a replacement for Avacyn's power. We already know Sigarda's flight and some humans were starting to dabble in that during Avacyn's imprisonment in the Helvault, and it looks like creative is paying that off now.
I love the new art, but I don't imagine this will see constructed play. The reason one plays Dispel is mainly to counter instant-speed threats/card advantage like Company/Secure the Wastes/White Sun's Zenith/Sphinx's Revelation, and to win counter wars in blue control mirrors, right? Countering spot removal seems more like a fringe benefit to that kind of effect, not something you'd usually dedicate sideboard cards to.
EVERYTHING up to this point pretty much indicates that Nahiri is out for revenge. Sees pretty much every quote in SOI, as well as the latest two URs she featured in.
The only thing that could possibly muddle this is a single line in the artbook, which states that she stated to Sorin that he could save Innistrad by suiciding. Yet, we have no way of knowing if she's telling the truth or lying. Even if she was telling the truth, that doesn't erase the fact that her primary objective is revenge.
Working on that note, if you think she's a hero, you have serious problems. No amount of suffering she went through justifes purging Innistrad into a fate worse than death for thousands of inoccent bystranders.
(The thread title, for those wondering, is an old joke on slanted newspaper headlines, probably made most popular by Marvel Comics' J. Jonah Jameson repeatedly printing the headline "Spider Man: Threat or Menace?")
I think the art book gave us just enough information to keep the Nahiri debate roiling; it's possible we may never get enough information to really settle it. We now know that she proposes a plan to deal with Emrakul, but we don't know, for example, when she came up with that plan, how plausible it is, whether she could have, or even tried to, come up with any other plans more likely to succeed or involving fewer dead innocents, etc.
I think the least charitable interpretation is that this was really all about revenge, and any Emrakul plan she came up with was just about exacting poetic justice on Sorin by calling on him to sacrifice himself as she had. Her plan may have been last-minute, half-assed, unlikely to work, or even chosen over better, less apocalyptic plans because this is the one that hurts Sorin the most. Under that set of facts, her actions in Shadow Over Innistrad are unequivocally monstrous. The best one could say about her would be that it's not hard to understand how she became a monster, going from betrayal to thousand-year imprisonment to finding the multiverse and herself inexplicably altered and the Eldrazi free and killing everything. And I guess that if the people of the plane Emrakul would have gone to instead of Innistrad ever heard what she did, they'd be putting her face on money and naming kids after her, but from a more objective standpoint there'd be no getting around the fact she'd be a monster.
The most charitable interpretation of what we know is that whatever "sacrifice Sorin" plan she came up with would actually have worked, was the only Eldrazi solution she could think of, and somehow required that Sorin, specifically, "sacrifice" himself in whatever sense that's meant (thus necessitating the choice of Innistrad, and meaning that a volunteer or Nahiri herself couldn't have sacrificed themselves to stop Emrakul). Under that set of facts, it's not hard to argue that Nahiri would be doing the right thing (putting the Emrakul trolley on a track that runs over half of Innistrad and then stops, instead of running over entire planes forever), albeit at least partially for really horrible reasons (we do know that making Sorin suffer was at least a major desire of hers, if not the only one).
Personally, I suspect it's somewhere in between, but probably closer to the monstrous/vengeance end of the spectrum. If I had to guess, I'd say she probably had a plan for dealing with Emrakul in mind the whole time, but that she thought of a plan that would really hurt Sorin and ran with it, without stopping to consider better alternatives. It seems like she's angry/crazed enough that stopping Emrakul probably isn't much more to her than a way to justify her actions, and a plan for stopping Emrakul that we've seen no hints of and conveniently requires Sorin to sacrfice himself seems too convenient to Nahiri's vengeance motive to also be the best plan.
Alright, this topic is kind of sprawling across multiple threads right now, so let's take a swing at concentrating the debate in one place.
What do you think Nahiri's motives are?
How much of a plan to deal with Emrakul, if any, do you think she had?
What bearing do the answers to those questions have on the morality of her actions and your judgment of her as character?
Is Nahiri the hero we need or the hero we deserve?
(EDIT: The above line is a joke, a nonsense question/Batman reference thrown into a list that was already running long in an attempt to take the whole thing less seriously. It seems to be having the exact opposite effect)
What does that distinction even mean?
Lets' discuss! Please feel free to paste in arguments from other threads if you don't feel like re-typing them, and please feel encouraged to propose elaborate, multidimensional trolley problems.
I do not agree with this at all. Again, the alternative was not "if I do nothing, then Emrakul will just sit in the blind eternities and never harm another plane again." No, SOME plane somewhere is doomed. The deaths and destruction are a sunk cost that is already going to be paid by some world in the future. If you have a plan to deal with Emrakul and you choose the target, the deaths are not on you even if you fail.
Indeed the deaths will happen but the fact that Nahiri chose to point Em somewhere makes her evil regardless of whether or not she had a plan for sealing. Its like the philosophical trolley problem. Deaths are going to happen regardless but if you chose not to act in any way you are not culpable for the deaths. If instead Nahiri had just drawn Em to Innistrad and immediately sealed her then sure all is hunkey dorey. But she didn't. She drew Emrakul to Innistrad first and foremost for her own petty, and let me stress PETTY, revenge. I'll also repeat that there is little sense that Nahiri intended to seal Em to begin with. Oh and let's not forget that Nahiri is the reason for the madness of the angels who slaughtered even more people. No there is no redemption for Nahiri.
This is actually, AFAIK, a pretty unusual response to the trolley problem. Most people say that, yes, the right thing to do is to throw the switch and redirect the trolley onto the track with fewer people on it.
Honestly I think Tamiyo is more Black than White but Wizards can't seem to follow through on the idea that Black isn't evil. What White character is going to say "I don't care about helping people, I'd rather just study stuff"? She could easily be a relatively noble Sutai character.
It's the Prime Directive from Star Trek, basically.
Ancient Grudge's flavor text was a goofy attempt at justifying the name on reprint, new Prey Upon flavor text is some world-building story background. I honestly don't see the similarity.
I think the art book gave us just enough information to keep the Nahiri debate roiling; it's possible we may never get enough information to really settle it. We now know that she proposes a plan to deal with Emrakul, but we don't know, for example, when she came up with that plan, how plausible it is, whether she could have, or even tried to, come up with any other plans more likely to succeed or involving fewer dead innocents, etc.
I think the least charitable interpretation is that this was really all about revenge, and any Emrakul plan she came up with was just about exacting poetic justice on Sorin by calling on him to sacrifice himself as she had. Her plan may have been last-minute, half-assed, unlikely to work, or even chosen over better, less apocalyptic plans because this is the one that hurts Sorin the most. Under that set of facts, her actions in Shadow Over Innistrad are unequivocally monstrous. The best one could say about her would be that it's not hard to understand how she became a monster, going from betrayal to thousand-year imprisonment to finding the multiverse and herself inexplicably altered and the Eldrazi free and killing everything. And I guess that if the people of the plane Emrakul would have gone to instead of Innistrad ever heard what she did, they'd be putting her face on money and naming kids after her, but from a more objective standpoint there'd be no getting around the fact she'd be a monster.
The most charitable interpretation of what we know is that whatever "sacrifice Sorin" plan she came up with would actually have worked, was the only Eldrazi solution she could think of, and somehow required that Sorin, specifically, "sacrifice" himself in whatever sense that's meant (thus necessitating the choice of Innistrad, and meaning that a volunteer or Nahiri herself couldn't have sacrificed themselves to stop Emrakul). Under that set of facts, it's not hard to argue that Nahiri would be doing the right thing (putting the Emrakul trolley on a track that runs over half of Innistrad and then stops, instead of running over entire planes forever), albeit at least partially for really horrible reasons (we do know that making Sorin suffer was at least a major desire of hers, if not the only one).
Personally, I suspect it's somewhere in between, but probably closer to the monstrous/vengeance end of the spectrum. If I had to guess, I'd say she probably had a plan for dealing with Emrakul in mind the whole time, but that she thought of a plan that would really hurt Sorin and ran with it, without stopping to consider better alternatives. It seems like she's angry/crazed enough that stopping Emrakul probably isn't much more to her than a way to justify her actions, and a plan for stopping Emrakul that we've seen no hints of and conveniently requires Sorin to sacrfice himself seems too convenient to Nahiri's vengeance motive to also be the best plan.
What do you think Nahiri's motives are?
How much of a plan to deal with Emrakul, if any, do you think she had?
What bearing do the answers to those questions have on the morality of her actions and your judgment of her as character?
Is Nahiri the hero we need or the hero we deserve?
(EDIT: The above line is a joke, a nonsense question/Batman reference thrown into a list that was already running long in an attempt to take the whole thing less seriously. It seems to be having the exact opposite effect)
What does that distinction even mean?
Lets' discuss! Please feel free to paste in arguments from other threads if you don't feel like re-typing them, and please feel encouraged to propose elaborate, multidimensional trolley problems.