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Thread: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

  1. #21

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    As a follow up, Azor is the same Sphinx who founded the Azorious guild on Ravnica thousands? of years ago. He traveled the multiverse spreading his policies and gave up his spark to make the Immortal Sun so he could...lord over the Land Before Time Plus Pirates? Not sure what.

    ----

    It does look like I was mistaken in my prior post about the Amonkhet storyline with Liliana, which had been relayed to me by similarly cynical fans of the story. Bolas appeared to finally open the main Gate to the Afterlife (to the outer Wastes realms of Amonkhet) during the Hour of Devastation (as the sun settled between Bolas horns). The Gate opened and Rakazeth flew through, then cut his own arm open to bleed into the main river of the city. The river turned into blood which killed everything in it, starting the ritual of the Hour of Devastation. Raka then wanted to confront Liliana.

    She was mind controlled to confront Rakazeth, immediately losing control of her body to walk across the river. He manipulated her until the Jacewatch was able to break his control. She attacked Rakazeth with a torrent of zombie crocodiles (freshly killed by the river of blood) to rend him apart. Then Liliana decided to have the zombies eat Raka, which also had the effect of not letting him reanimate through Amonkhet's planar curse. Liliana felt empowered, full, and relished her independence and being free of the control of others. Jace puked.

    I believe at this point, the Terminator horde also flooded the city through the now open gate, and the rest of the story proceeds largely as described. Except with the citizens being slaughtered by Termiantors in the background.
    Quote Originally Posted by Acclimation View Post
    I about died from laughter when I was watching my feature match and the commentators called Tinfins a difficult and challenging deck.

    I'm not saying it's the easiest deck to play, but the plan is so linear that I could probably get white girl wasted and still beat people with the deck.
    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    Imagine the trauma of a man who has seen Mom into Crusader enough to mainboard three Cabal Pits.

  2. #22

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Barook View Post
    I do wonder what Bolas' endgame is, aside from getting his old powers back, now that he has his army of magical Terminator zombies.
    So, here's the thing: no matter the medium, no matter the story, Evil Genius Masterminds (EGMs) are always bad.

    There's a few reasons:
    • It's impossible to write a character smarter than yourself. Authors generally aren't geniuses, so the EGM is usually hamstrung by being smart but not a savant or a true genius.
    • It's difficult to organically convey intelligence. The storytelling truism "show, don't tell" doesn't really work with EGMs because their threat is predicated on being very, very smart, so in order to establish that threat you have to figure out how to show them being very smart. There's a laundry list of tropes that can be used to indicate general intelligence but most of them (fluency in multiple languages, advanced puzzle solving ability, etc) don't crop up naturally in most people's daily lives. You can therefore either chose to contrive something - i.e., instead of eating breakfast, the EGM solves three Rubik's Cubes simultaneously while reading ancient philosophical texts in their original languages - or just have one of the characters say, "Wow, this guy is super smart!" Neither is particularly compelling.
    • Authors tend to associate being a mastermind with grand, potentially convoluted plans. This is the Tzeentch Effect: you can make a character seem smarter by making them mysterious and attributing convoluted plans to them, but it's also a storytelling crutch that allows authors to make shit up on the fly and then retroactively have the EGM declare, "That was my clever plan all along!". This is especially enticing in an environment where story needs might change over the long term or where there's pressure to draw out the current plot for an extended period of time.

    All this means that Bolas doesn't likely have a defined end game any more concrete than wanting all of his old power back. The details can be filled in as necessary and he can be inserted into plots as a cameo to play up what a mastermind he is by making his schemes seem sprawling and complicated. That means he's kind of a bad character because, more than many other characters, there's basically no restrictions on where you can use him or what he can do and a lot of temptation to have bad things be "It was Bolas all along!" to reinforce how smart and scheming and whatever he is.

  3. #23
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    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies View Post
    [*]It's impossible to write a character smarter than yourself. Authors generally aren't geniuses, so the EGM is usually hamstrung by being smart but not a savant or a true genius.
    I strongly disagree with this. It's not impossible, just more difficult. Keep in mind, that as an author, you have the "blessing" of all the foreknowledge in the world. So, you can imbue characters with everything they need, or more. You don't need to be a genius to write a genius. You just need to know how to craft one. It's a skill, like any other.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies View Post
    All this means that Bolas doesn't likely have a defined end game any more concrete than wanting all of his old power back. The details can be filled in as necessary and he can be inserted into plots as a cameo to play up what a mastermind he is by making his schemes seem sprawling and complicated. That means he's kind of a bad character because, more than many other characters, there's basically no restrictions on where you can use him or what he can do and a lot of temptation to have bad things be "It was Bolas all along!" to reinforce how smart and scheming and whatever he is.
    I agree with the rest of your points. I think the fundamental issue besides, of course, sub-par writing, is that the entire plot, and every character in it, is about as moralistically and motivationally shallow as any you could find. Like every poor fantasy series, everyone (besides maybe Liliana from time to time) is afflicted with fantastic moral clarity. No one has any doubt about which side anyone is on and so there isn't really any reason to bother detailing why anyone is doing anything. To that point, there don't seem to be any real motivations besides perhaps some shallow "back-story" that yields a mostly one dimensional pastiche of a character.

    It's just tropes interacting with other tropes and the story ends up as interesting as you imagine that would be. So, what is Bolas' plan? To be bad. And everyone else's job is to be good, because they want to stop Bolas being bad. There isn't anything else to the story, I don't think. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't read that shit because it is written terribly and I can't go back to reading that sort of stuff.
    "The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
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  4. #24

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    The latest story update suggests that in the near future we're getting Return to Ravnica 2 with Nicol Bolas vs Niv Mizzet

  5. #25

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Is there a way for Niv Mizzet to get his own spark? Think they confirmed he's not a walker previously but maybe he can use the Immortal Sun to eat someone else's spark.
    Quote Originally Posted by Acclimation View Post
    I about died from laughter when I was watching my feature match and the commentators called Tinfins a difficult and challenging deck.

    I'm not saying it's the easiest deck to play, but the plan is so linear that I could probably get white girl wasted and still beat people with the deck.
    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    Imagine the trauma of a man who has seen Mom into Crusader enough to mainboard three Cabal Pits.

  6. #26

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Historically, sparks were difficult to get because they had to be transferred from someone who had one already while that person was still alive. Memnarch essentially had to use the entire core of Mirrodin to power a machine to extract Glissa's spark and transfer it to himself, for example.

    I highly doubt the Immortal Sun would allow spark transfers - if it did, Azor could have used it to get his own spark back.

  7. #27

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies View Post
    Historically, sparks were difficult to get because they had to be transferred from someone who had one already while that person was still alive. Memnarch essentially had to use the entire core of Mirrodin to power a machine to extract Glissa's spark and transfer it to himself, for example.

    I highly doubt the Immortal Sun would allow spark transfers - if it did, Azor could have used it to get his own spark back.
    I think Azors spark is essentially gone forever (it got sacrificed to create the immortal sun) but it's implied that it can transfer sparks between other people somehow (similar to the mechanism you describe), because it's stated that he would get a spark back after Azor and Ugin captured Bolas with it.

    Why he didn't steal someone elses spark with the immortal sun in the meantime could be any number of reasons
    - He's not a PW anymore so he doesn't have the means/ability to do it
    - He doesn't know how and he needs Ugin's help
    - There hasn't been any other PW on Ixalan for him to steal the spark of (the only PW who seems to be a non-recent arrival is Angrath)
    - Even if he could technically steal someone's spark all the PWs are stronger than him and can defeat him (because he isn't a PW anymore), so he can't
    - Even if he could steal someone's spark he can't leave Ixalan because the Immortal Sun is still there, so there's no reason for him to try

  8. #28

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    The latest story update suggests that in the near future we're getting Return to Ravnica 2 with Nicol Bolas vs Niv Mizzet
    Let`s hope the bring in some more sweet Golgari graveyard style or Dredge cards :D

  9. #29

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    I think Azors spark is essentially gone forever (it got sacrificed to create the immortal sun) but it's implied that it can transfer sparks between other people somehow (similar to the mechanism you describe), because it's stated that he would get a spark back after Azor and Ugin captured Bolas with it.

    Why he didn't steal someone elses spark with the immortal sun in the meantime could be any number of reasons
    - He's not a PW anymore so he doesn't have the means/ability to do it
    - He doesn't know how and he needs Ugin's help
    - There hasn't been any other PW on Ixalan for him to steal the spark of (the only PW who seems to be a non-recent arrival is Angrath)
    - Even if he could technically steal someone's spark all the PWs are stronger than him and can defeat him (because he isn't a PW anymore), so he can't
    - Even if he could steal someone's spark he can't leave Ixalan because the Immortal Sun is still there, so there's no reason for him to try
    I think the story was meant to imply that Ugin was using Azor by telling him what he wanted to hear, and therefore that the promise Azor would get his spark back was likely empty. The bit about Ugin trying to make Azor feel like a friend jumped out at me as making Azor seem like a tool.

  10. #30

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies View Post
    I think the story was meant to imply that Ugin was using Azor by telling him what he wanted to hear, and therefore that the promise Azor would get his spark back was likely empty. The bit about Ugin trying to make Azor feel like a friend jumped out at me as making Azor seem like a tool.
    Perhaps, but from what I know of the story this would be extremely out of character for Ugin

  11. #31
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    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Bump!

    I saw a little bit implying that Liliana's contract with the demon team became a contract with Bolas when she killed the last demon.
    Anyone care to fill the rest of us in on the plot in Dominaria?

  12. #32
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    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    The latest story update suggests that in the near future we're getting Return to Ravnica 2 with Nicol Bolas vs Niv Mizzet
    this i would genuinely be excited about

    Where do you guys read up on storylines?

  13. #33
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    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by bruizar View Post
    this i would genuinely be excited about

    Where do you guys read up on storylines?
    WotC's homepage (have fun searching that PoS).

    Also, wouldn't Bolas completely wreck Niz Mizzet in terms of powerlevels? Unless we get another shitty asspull with Izzet tech, similiar to the Eldrazi Titan BBQ party.

  14. #34

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew View Post
    Bump!

    I saw a little bit implying that Liliana's contract with the demon team became a contract with Bolas when she killed the last demon.
    Anyone care to fill the rest of us in on the plot in Dominaria?
    It's implied in the art / flavour text for In Bolas' Clutches but as of the latest dominaria story update they haven't killed the demon yet

  15. #35

    Re: Current MtG Storyline - Cliff's Notes

    Quote Originally Posted by Barook View Post
    WotC's homepage (have fun searching that PoS).

    Also, wouldn't Bolas completely wreck Niz Mizzet in terms of powerlevels? Unless we get another shitty asspull with Izzet tech, similiar to the Eldrazi Titan BBQ party.

    Bro nobody can stand up to wacky teeny bopper electricity goblins and steampunk goggles.

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