MTG Lore.

[Dice_Box]

This is the thread to talk about the lore of the game. From the latest set right back to the days where Walkers could not be killed by suck trivial issues as having their heads removed this the place for all your questions. Say friend and enter. Oh wait, wrong lore.

[Tylert]

WHo's the walker who got his head cut and did not die?

[Pilhas]

Going to leave this here for the lore fans: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...E4A5ShpI0YA2db

Great rundown of worlds

[French Alters]

WHo's the walker who got his head cut and did not die?

Urza, when he fought against Gerard. You can see the moment in the illustration of Phyrexian Arena.

[Renasce]

WHo's the walker who got his head cut and did not die?

Urza, when he fought against Gerard. You can see the moment in the illustration of Phyrexian Arena.

Happened to Teferi too, when he tried to reason with Radha.

And his entire body got turned into a disassembled meaty jigsaw puzzle by Bolas.

Urza also had a few instances of experiencing similar damage that he easily recovered, such as having one of his own mechanical buzzsaw birds turned on him and activated while inside his stomach.

Planeswalkers in the old days were not actually still physical beings - they were energy creatures who projected a physical body. Normally such things were considered recoverable wounds by a pre-Mending walker (Not in the sense that they just walked on like nothing happened, but a bit of mana and they were good as new), save for a few instances. A planeswalker's ability to heal their physical body was vast, but not unlimited, and prolonged exposure to the bird mentioned above would have destroyed Urza's body, had he not been saved by a friend. The other thing that could permanently damage them was anything that would affect the energy that constituted their being. Urza couldn't recover after getting his head cut off in the incident French Alters described, because the weapon used was one created by Yawgmoth specifically to prevent this. And exposure to the rifts during the Mending also killed a lot of walkers - those who were lucky only had their Spark destroyed, but most were killed outright.

As for other things that could kill a planeswalker, Urza made Soul Bombs that required a Spark to be charged, and one of these killed Tevesh Szat. He also had failsafes built into the Titan Suits which killed Taysir. Yawgmoth, when he appeared on Dominaria, did so in the form of a gigantic cloud of "anti-life" that killed everything it touched and brought anything dead within it back to life. This cloud killed Commodore Guff. It also showcased another way that a planeswalker could die - they could sacrifice themselves by creating a spell powerful enough that it required them to throw away their very existence. Bo Levar did this in order to save an underwater city from Yawgmoth's death cloud. And, of course, planeswalkers could kill other planeswalkers, but only with great difficulty in most cases. A few also had unique weaknesses - Urza's gemstone eyes contained all of his being, so removing them immediately killed him. Clasping them together, however, reconstituted his physical body in an instant.

[Barook]

Is anybody else pissed how poorly the Eldrazi were handled in BFZ block?

First 3 of the more powerful oldwalkers couldn't do more than imprison them. They were Eldritch beings of vast power.

Now 2 out of 3 titans got rather uneventfully gibbed by a bunch of hedrons, Leylines and Chandra frying them to a crisp. Lame.

I hate the new Avenger-style storyline telling, yet it seems to become their new modus operandi. Which wouldn't be as bad if all of its current members weren't all insufferable assholes:

- Gideon always encourages other people to charge into battle - which isn't hard when you can simply turn on your God Mode while everybody else around you is dying.

- Jace is Jace. Fuck him.

- Nissa was Elf Hitler before. Since you can't have Hitler as a main character and because she wasn't liked anyway thanks to shitty cards + shitty personality, they retconned her so hard that she became even more shallow. Now it's all about ASHAYA and losing her connection to Zendikar every 5 minutes while being as useless as human possible.

- Chandra is a Jaya Ballard wannabe. I miss Jaya. Her flavortexts were one of my favorites. Chandra just doesn't deliver.

Not to mention everyone of the Oathwatch except Gideon is responsible for releasing the Eldrazi in the first place.

[French Alters]

Not to mention everyone of the Oathwatch except Gideon is responsible for releasing the Eldrazi in the first place.

Technically, Bolas is responsible for everything by manipulating them. But I agree with your analysis on the New Walkers. Even Sorin is kind of shallow, even if he is a pre-mending PW. Hell, even Ugin is kind of shallow, only speaking in riddles and doesn't give a f**k about anything except "we might be able to reason the Eldrazi, or just emprison them; it worked good last time". So in fact, the whole lore after Dominaria kinda sucks =/

[Barook]

Technically, Bolas is responsible for everything by manipulating them. But I agree with your analysis on the New Walkers. Even Sorin is kind of shallow, even if he is a pre-mending PW. Hell, even Ugin is kind of shallow, only speaking in riddles and doesn't give a f**k about anything except "we might be able to reason the Eldrazi, or just emprison them; it worked good last time". So in fact, the whole lore after Dominaria kinda sucks =/

Ugin's deal is more of a "Even if we can kill the Eldrazi, we don't know what happens afterwards since we don't understand them."

Nicol Bolas is a pretty shitty villain, too. He always schemes for the sake of scheming, yet we have to see any payoff for that.

The interesting thing they set up about Sorin is that something happened to Nahiri and he knows.

[iamajellydonut]

The interesting thing they set up about Sorin is that something happened to Nahiri and he knows.

If only I could be compelled to give a shit.

[French Alters]

If only I could be compelled to give a shit.

Yeah that's the problem with the post-mending Lore. We aren't compelled to give a shit about any of the characters...

[Renasce]

Yeah that's the problem with the post-mending Lore. We aren't compelled to give a shit about any of the characters...

Did you read any of the stories about the Weatherlight crew? There's a scene early on in Mercadian Masques where they're being attacked by a bunch of soldiers, a Cateran Enforcer (As in, the guy on that exact card) and some giant. Some dumb stuff happens, end result is that Karn is trying to dance with the giant (Because he's a pacifist), and all the soldiers and the Cateran are bowing to Squee because he's a goblins and goblins are in charge in Mercadia, so apparently any goblin can just walk in and give orders. Squee tells the Cateran to dance with the giant instead. It does. This actually happens. They start dancing.

Everything with those guys just reads like a bad sitcom in the MtG universe. The post-Mending lore is terrible, but at least it's not trying to be funny. Wizards trying to be funny is just painful.

[Darkenslight]

Did you read any of the stories about the Weatherlight crew? There's a scene early on in Mercadian Masques where they're being attacked by a bunch of soldiers, a Cateran Enforcer (As in, the guy on that exact card) and some giant. Some dumb stuff happens, end result is that Karn is trying to dance with the giant (Because he's a pacifist), and all the soldiers and the Cateran are bowing to Squee because he's a goblins and goblins are in charge in Mercadia, so apparently any goblin can just walk in and give orders. Squee tells the Cateran to dance with the giant instead. It does. This actually happens. They start dancing.

Everything with those guys just reads like a bad sitcom in the MtG universe. The post-Mending lore is terrible, but at least it's not trying to be funny. Wizards trying to be funny is just painful.

See also: the abominationt hat is the end of the Apocalypse novel.

[Renasce]

See also: the abominationt hat is the end of the Apocalypse novel.

The entire Invasion block was a joke in terms of story. While I agree that Apocalypse (The whole thing, really) was terrible, they all had terrible moments. Invasion had everything focused on the Weatherlight Crew, with a fight scene even worse than the one I described. The only good parts to do with them was when Hanna died - this lead to some excellent scenes with Barrin and Urza, which showed just how far Urza was gone. Tsabo Tavoc was also a weirdly sexual villain for someone who was more machine than alive and was just... Weird. Planeshift had most of the stuff involving the Nine Titans, which was just painful. Especially Commodore Guff (Hur hur, fourth wall jokes) and Tevesh Szat (I am so evil you guys, SO EVIL, so evil, evilevilevil, murdermurder - yes, Urza planned for him to be like that, but why were the others willing to spend even a second with this guy?). And Agnate just trusting the obvious villain Dralnu who, oh look, was totally a villain.

Then you have, ugh, Apocalypse. Urza turning evil in way that was so poorly written that it felt like he hated Phyrexia one moment and then a couple minutes later decided that he loved it - far removed from the slow building of his admiration for them in the Urza block novels. You have the whole fight scene in the Ninth Sphere, which was just awful and way too long. You have the Weatherlight ship turning sentient (WHY?), you have the Diabolus Ex Machina of Yawgmoth's death cloud, followed by the Deus Ex Machina of the living ship. It was just terrible, terrible, terrible. The only good things about those block novels were the moments between Barrin and Urza before the Nine Titans stuff (MECHS IN MAGIC! WHY? WHO KNOWS!), Crovax still being awesomely creepy and insane, Bo Levar and Eladamri being a BAMF alongside the girl whose name I always misspell, so I won't even try. But yes, holy crap, it was bad.

Point being, there's some good stuff in old Magic lore like the Urza block novels, Nemesis, Kamigawa block novels, Chainer's Torment (Well, I liked it, at least), etc., but there sure is enough crap to go around as well.

[Bobmans]

MtG Lore, so bad it is painful, but without it cards would be empty vessels of mechanics. I don't give a shit about the story. But stuff actually have a good flavour to it. Phyrexia, Karn, Weatherlight, Urza, Akroma, Grizelbrand, Yawgmoth, Ugin, Jace, etc all speak to the imagination. Reading the story would only piss me off for destroying how i imagine it.

[Dice_Box]

I read them 11 years ago so I might be remembering with rose tinted glasses, but Kamigawa's story was much better then the set. I enjoyed it greatly. I actually found the books the other day. Might read them again.

[Renasce]

MtG Lore, so bad it is painful, but without it cards would be empty vessels of mechanics. I don't give a shit about the story. But stuff actually have a good flavour to it. Phyrexia, Karn, Weatherlight, Urza, Akroma, Grizelbrand, Yawgmoth, Ugin, Jace, etc all speak to the imagination. Reading the story would only piss me off for destroying how i imagine it.

It's not all bad. I can warmly recommend The Brothers' War, for a great example of doing a lot with very little. It's a good fantasy novel that basically serves as the story of Antiquities, written many years after the set came out. It's great.