Veering off the topic of the most recent story for a moment.
I think I read in passing either in this thread or elsewhere that the events unfolding now began a mere DAY after the arrival of the GW.
If that is true, how the hell did Ajani plan to assemble an army of Planeswalkers to combat Bolas in 24 hours?
You're right about the Amonkhet story beginning right after Aether Revolt (and a day or two before Hour of Devastation), but Ajani's plan was to meet up in a few weeks, with allies and a strategy. The rest of the Gatewatch jumped the gun.
From the Aether Revolt "Renewal" story:
"Please," he said. "Don't go to Amonkhet. Not yet. Stay here, or go find allies elsewhere. In the morning we can pick a rendezvous point. We can meet up in a few weeks' time, count our allies, compare notes, and plan our next move."
We got a few new pages from the entertainment weekly preview, one of those pages mentions something new for me, the gods have cartouches too, this is the first time we heard of this, or am I missing something?
I believe this is the first we're hearing of them, as I don't recall them being mentioned in the flashback story. That said, it's yet to be seen if that's actually the case, or something that got changed in the official story.
Speaking of one off stories and Ravnica, am I the only one who wants a single set where we go back to Ravnica, and we just see the mess Jace's absence caused? I think that would make a good gatewatch-less set, could be used as a jumping point for Vraska and Ral (and maybe others) to enter the main story, and be a compelling reason for Jace to actually go do his job. Though I digress...
Yeah, this is largely what I was hoping for as well, though it depends on how they translate this to the story. While I never thought it made sense for the gatewatch to always respond to everything together, I also hated it when planeswalkers largely traveled solo and just interacted with each other by happenstance. So long as they maintain a healthy medium that's true to the characters and story - like Elspeth and Ajani traveling together as friends without a home, or Koth bringing planeswalkers to aid against the Phyrexians.
The intro to the story is literally Bolas planeswalking onto Amonkhet. That said, he has definitely been here, and is almost certainly responsible for some, if not all of the destruction on Amonkhet. As pointed out by someone earlier, the gods attack him immediately, indicating he's not only been there before, but he did something to warrant the attack.
What I'm really hoping for out of this is some solid world building. There's so many planes I want to delve into, and judging by the reception from last week's "Pride of the Kraul" story, I'm not the only one. If wizards plays their cards right, and keeps their expectations realistic, they can have the best of both worlds here. For players of the TCG, they get to visit planes, away from the gatewatch and really explore the settings they've come to know and love. Wizards has repeatedly said that the majority of their player base's playing habits are cyclical. Having something that keeps their established players interested and invested even if the current block isn't for them could prove invaluable. On the flip side, the added accessibility of a F2P MMO will of course introduce droves of players to the worlds of MTG, and presumably move players onto the TCG.
I can't say I've personally played Cryptic's other games, but I have played Star Trek Online. Having never been invested in the setting, I will say that they did get the sense of exploration down quite nicely. If they can retain that feel and do it in a way that's true to magic and without draconian micro-transactions, I think this can be a real winner.
While there's no evidence that he was ever Mardu, in the Khans of Tarkir timeline he had defected to the Sultai. In the current timeline, he stays with the Jeskai, so if anything, this could hint towards what could have been his path.
I feel like this story would have been more effective if it came before the last one. That said, it was a nice change of pace, and there were definitely some nice pieces of information. The pacing and they way they're foreshadowing and seeding things to come, this block has been a better mystery than SOI. The next story will have a lot to get through to wrap up the set, but if last weeks' story, Brazen, is anything to go by, they're perfectly capable of fitting multiple spotlight moments within a single story.
Sometimes I feel like Creative fears it shot itself in the foot with the mending (it didn't) that it has this agenda of making a mockery out of the entire multiverse and lore for the sake of making Neo-walkers appear as powerful as Oldwalkers without having to retcon the mending.
I think a lot of decisions Creative made have proven to be somewhat incompatible with the current story, like Jace being the Living Guildpact. The guy is essentially to Ravnica what the President is to the USA; someone who can't just up and disappear as he wishes without telling someone where he's going, for how long, how do they get a hold of him in case of emergency, etc, etc.
I still believe that Ravnica 3 (inevitable in my opinion) will show the consequences of his disappearing acts. It just strikes me as something that, even if I were to assume creative was that bad at what they are doing (wich I'm not), they would still use in a future story. There was too much foreshadowing already for this not to happen. And the fact that Jace was missing too often and became rather lazy in fulfilling his duties already was acknowledged by several character like Ral Zarek and Teysa. Strikes me as odd if they didn't actually want to go this route.
I would love this to happen. He's the only member of the gatewatch (well, I guess we can count Chandra in the mix now, too) who has ties to continuously visit a plane. Him not being there and grossly ignoring his duties is really getting on my nerves. I know Kaladesh block through Amonkhet has only been a few weeks of in-universe time, but between that, BFZ, and SOI blocks, he's only gone back once or twice?
I know it's just a byproduct of the nature of planeswalkers, but still, I just can't wait for the gatewatch to have more members so we can believably have characters come in and out of the main story. I find it extremely jarring for everyone to get up and leave when they have other obligations. I'd love to see Koth again, but if he showed up I would be pissed, since leaving New Phyrexia would be against his character.
On a whole though, these recent stories have just made it more clear that above all else, it's not that I dislike the gatewatch as a concept, or even the fact that they exhibit powers and abilities well above that of a plane-bound mage. It's their cavalier attitude that gets to me. I can't wait for Bolas to take them down a peg.
As a side note, am I the only one hoping that Ixalan block takes place concurrently as Amonkhet, and features Ajani as the sole Gatewatch member?
Pretty sure the Rakshasa were all male. All the ones on cards appeared to be male and the one shown in the stories, I believe conspiring with Taigam pre-time****ery, was also male.
Location: In the desert outside a distant Dromoka fortress
Action: A FEMALE SILUMGAR-CLAN RAKSHASA stands amid several fallen DROMOKA-CLAN SOLDIERS. The rakshasa has markings like that of a leopard on dark fur. She is raising her arms as though pulling on the strings of puppets. In response to her magical command, two of the Dromoka dead are rising as zombies.
Focus: The rakshasa
Mood: You have failed in life. Now you will serve in death.
Amonkhet has male angels, I thought creative had said that all angels in the multiverse were female and all demons were male. If this rule has been thrown out will we see female demons one day?
How powerful are angels and demons in comparison to gods? On Theros it was pretty clear that the demons and archons were second fiddle but here it's lloking like Razaketh may be at least equal in power and prestige to the Amonkhetu Pantheon.
Are there other patches of civilization on Amonkhet? The world actually looks like it is thriving with life, giant spiders, enormous sandwurms, Shefet monitors, dune beetles. For a dying world Amonket's deserts support a massive and diverse population of large species, sure there are zombies everywhere, but if people could scrape by in Grixis couldn't they do the same in a world that clearly supports other lifeforms?
I know for a lot of these questions we don't really have the information to craft firm answers so they are more thought experiments than anything else.
To build up on what ChrisBP7 and MinaHarcourt said,
1) Tarkir had female demons.
2) Razaketh is definitely a unique case, as he has been built into Bolas' manufactured narrative for the plane.
3) There definitely used to be, some flavor text mentions it. We don't know if Bolas wiped them out, or if there are any other cities out there still, but we don't know.
I agree that many planes should know, but recent planes all have pretty good reasons for them not being well known, or known at all.
- Amonkhet. Everyone's too young.
- Kaladesh. Planeswalkers are inherently magic users, which is a big no-no.
- Innistrad. Too much on their plate, people probably assume anyone that looks different is some evil horror trying to kill them, and stay away. Nissa looks human enough.
- Zendikar. See above.
Today's story was likely the best and my favorite of all of then so far.
I still want to know more about the Raven Man. He can't be there physically, so is he tied into the Veil? But he appeared before the Veil. Who knows!
Also, very excited to see more of Razaketh. The author did a great job of helping me visualize just how creepy and powerful Razaketh must be.
And Razaketh comes after Hazoret? Unlikely, but might he be one of the other three gods?
The raven man has been appearing long before Liliana had the chain veil. Even before she was a necromancer, even. I imagine it'll eventually be a major plot point, but for now I'm happy learning a bit more.
On a whole, while I liked this story, and the dynamic between Jace and Liliana is indeed showcased well, this story didn't do much to make me like them as characters. Liliana and Jace's motives are both painfully obvious, and while I'm interested in seeing how this plays out, the fact that Jace himself is guessing things that we as readers have mused with for years, isn't doing their characterizations any favors.
As someone who likes the idea of the gatewatch, and a consistent cast of characters, I'm happy with this change. While I'm definitely fatigued of the "core 5", and understand the desire to have them be ever present for marketing and story reasons, it's just not healthy for the game.
What I'm hoping for is yes, less printings of the core 5 planeswalkers (I think their current involvement in the story and depiction of cards is just fine), but also that the next block takes place concurrently as Amonkhet block, and follows Ajani, as the sole Gatewatch representative. The creative team said that their story model was inspired by serialized TV shows - I can't remember the last time I saw a show that didn't have an A plot and a B plot. There's no reason WotC can't adopt that model here. Core set of walkers? Check. Room for new/returning walkers? Check. Continuous story with reoccurring characters? Check. They would be able to keep all the benefits of having a consistent cast, while also addressing Gatewatch fatigue. It really would be the best compromise.
The main issue there is that when this is done in tv and in books it flows well because the cuts can be short and jumping back and forth doesn't take very long. A 6 month gap between/during jumps breaks up the flow too much imo to keep the feel of contiguous timelines. This is why in most successful fantasy I've read even when it jumps to different plots the time tends to have little or no overlap.
Fair point, but we're currently at a 3 month gap between each piece of story, and TV series routinely go on break for 4-5 months, sometimes more, and when they do it, there's no updates on the story what-so-ever. I don't think a 6 month gap, where alternating, yet still relevant stories were being told, would be all that bad. I think they could make it work, though the way WotC tells stories through their products would certainly require some retooling to make it more seamless.
You're right about the Amonkhet story beginning right after Aether Revolt (and a day or two before Hour of Devastation), but Ajani's plan was to meet up in a few weeks, with allies and a strategy. The rest of the Gatewatch jumped the gun.
From the Aether Revolt "Renewal" story:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/renewal-2017-02-01
I believe this is the first we're hearing of them, as I don't recall them being mentioned in the flashback story. That said, it's yet to be seen if that's actually the case, or something that got changed in the official story.
Yeah, this is largely what I was hoping for as well, though it depends on how they translate this to the story. While I never thought it made sense for the gatewatch to always respond to everything together, I also hated it when planeswalkers largely traveled solo and just interacted with each other by happenstance. So long as they maintain a healthy medium that's true to the characters and story - like Elspeth and Ajani traveling together as friends without a home, or Koth bringing planeswalkers to aid against the Phyrexians.
What I'm really hoping for out of this is some solid world building. There's so many planes I want to delve into, and judging by the reception from last week's "Pride of the Kraul" story, I'm not the only one. If wizards plays their cards right, and keeps their expectations realistic, they can have the best of both worlds here. For players of the TCG, they get to visit planes, away from the gatewatch and really explore the settings they've come to know and love. Wizards has repeatedly said that the majority of their player base's playing habits are cyclical. Having something that keeps their established players interested and invested even if the current block isn't for them could prove invaluable. On the flip side, the added accessibility of a F2P MMO will of course introduce droves of players to the worlds of MTG, and presumably move players onto the TCG.
I can't say I've personally played Cryptic's other games, but I have played Star Trek Online. Having never been invested in the setting, I will say that they did get the sense of exploration down quite nicely. If they can retain that feel and do it in a way that's true to magic and without draconian micro-transactions, I think this can be a real winner.
I hate to disappoint you guys but that announcement is probably MTGO only, and announcement day is probably next week, as per this tweet:
https://twitter.com/TrickMTG/status/870701042802999299
"Watch for things the week of June 12"
MaRo also said it would be before Hour of Devastation spoilers started, so at least that rules out the last week of June... Yippie.
I would love this to happen. He's the only member of the gatewatch (well, I guess we can count Chandra in the mix now, too) who has ties to continuously visit a plane. Him not being there and grossly ignoring his duties is really getting on my nerves. I know Kaladesh block through Amonkhet has only been a few weeks of in-universe time, but between that, BFZ, and SOI blocks, he's only gone back once or twice?
I know it's just a byproduct of the nature of planeswalkers, but still, I just can't wait for the gatewatch to have more members so we can believably have characters come in and out of the main story. I find it extremely jarring for everyone to get up and leave when they have other obligations. I'd love to see Koth again, but if he showed up I would be pissed, since leaving New Phyrexia would be against his character.
On a whole though, these recent stories have just made it more clear that above all else, it's not that I dislike the gatewatch as a concept, or even the fact that they exhibit powers and abilities well above that of a plane-bound mage. It's their cavalier attitude that gets to me. I can't wait for Bolas to take them down a peg.
As a side note, am I the only one hoping that Ixalan block takes place concurrently as Amonkhet, and features Ajani as the sole Gatewatch member?
Nope.
Glint, Rakshasa Gravecaller had female demons.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/exploiting-art-descriptions-2015-04-22
From the art description for Rakshasa Gravecaller:
To build up on what ChrisBP7 and MinaHarcourt said,
1) Tarkir had female demons.
2) Razaketh is definitely a unique case, as he has been built into Bolas' manufactured narrative for the plane.
3) There definitely used to be, some flavor text mentions it. We don't know if Bolas wiped them out, or if there are any other cities out there still, but we don't know.
- Amonkhet. Everyone's too young.
- Kaladesh. Planeswalkers are inherently magic users, which is a big no-no.
- Innistrad. Too much on their plate, people probably assume anyone that looks different is some evil horror trying to kill them, and stay away. Nissa looks human enough.
- Zendikar. See above.
The raven man has been appearing long before Liliana had the chain veil. Even before she was a necromancer, even. I imagine it'll eventually be a major plot point, but for now I'm happy learning a bit more.
On a whole, while I liked this story, and the dynamic between Jace and Liliana is indeed showcased well, this story didn't do much to make me like them as characters. Liliana and Jace's motives are both painfully obvious, and while I'm interested in seeing how this plays out, the fact that Jace himself is guessing things that we as readers have mused with for years, isn't doing their characterizations any favors.
Fair point, but we're currently at a 3 month gap between each piece of story, and TV series routinely go on break for 4-5 months, sometimes more, and when they do it, there's no updates on the story what-so-ever. I don't think a 6 month gap, where alternating, yet still relevant stories were being told, would be all that bad. I think they could make it work, though the way WotC tells stories through their products would certainly require some retooling to make it more seamless.