Are the Eldrazi the ultimate "we're running out of ideas" race?

But alarm and far kit were just ravnica with threw colours instead of two

Classic nerdery: Lovingly describe the magic systems, culture, flora and fauna, and general traits of a setting, then completely fail to tell a compelling story using the wonderful toolbox they spent so much time creating.

I mean, it's a card game so it's more acceptable to focus on the feel and evocative nature of mildly-derivative fantasy than usual for this hobby, but it's still kind of disappointing that [group of planeswalkers] solves [incredible problem] while being [badass in a way appropriate to their color].

Urza was pretty cool.

do you think return to kamigawa will be eldrazi vs spirits ?

But user, Eldrazi are no more

IMO, the Eldrazi never felt THAT much like Lovecraft until they brought them to Innistrad. His work is almost like the intersection of Cosmic horror and Gothic horror.

Nah. They day we get D&D block is when they are done with new ideas.

...you mean original zendikar?

The day the top standard decks are Beholder Ramp and Illithid Control.

>BfZ - Eldrazi do War of the Worlds
>SoI - Eldrazi do Lovecraftian Horror

Two very different things, and only the latter was done well. With all the Titans accounted for now too we're not going to see the Eldrazi again for another ten years or so.

They did them in two shades of flavor, war of the worlds and spooky scary. I'd say the ideas are still clearly flowing, they just need their magic fiction division to go back to college and practice their craft some more.

I also refuse to accept Kaladesh as "steampunk", its got the pretty and advanced tech paradise built on layers of oppression and strict tyranny hidden under part down, but the machinery is way more arcane then technical.

These right here. I think the Eldrazi could be a much greater idea if the writers handled them even semi-competently. As it stands they've become the blustering Saturday morning cartoon villain foil to the saturday morning Jacetice League avengers.

That was essentially Zendikar pre-tentacling.

>Beholder Ramp
Nah, Beholders would be Aggro...because the entire race is omnicidal, even to other beholders.

Ultimately, they were the least characterized of Magic's major villains at the moment, so in a way I understand why they were ultimately the ones that proved the Starter Villain pack of the Gatewatch phase of magic's story.

It is a letdown to see them shift so quickly from "nothing can stop them" to "four pretty ok mages working together can take down the lot" but on the other hand I feel like it'd have been worse if Bolas or New Phyrexia had to be the ones that jobbed to establish the Gatewatch can get shit done. The Eldrazi are ultimately kaiju from a human perspective; they might have some higher purpose going on, but if the narrative pulls that "beyond your comprehension" bullshit then it might as well not exist, so there's nothing going on there that we can make any sense of beyond "find a plane and eat it." Bolas and NPH can at least lend themselves to more involved plotlines. Not the least of which because NPH and Bolas at least have it set so that it doesn't require any kind of lore-bending to stymie their plans like they ended up making by having the Eldrazi be hyped up as unbeatable.

Not really. People have a REALLY hard time understanding Cthulhu style monsters aren't something you should be able to fight.
So when companies (Vidya, Board, Card, or other wise) want the good guys to triumph over the "Horrors-beyond-space-and-time". They start down the path of Your-doing-it-wrong already.

I still want to see what they will do with the Eldrazi. Ugin mentioned some bad things happening if they were killed, so maybe that will come to a head.

In the "Dunwhich Horror the characters beat the shit out of the eldritch monster. In "The Shunned House", the prot kills the horrible vampire-horror with a flame thrower.

In Lovecrafts own stories, sometimes the protagonists won.

[Eldrazi Lore Question!]

So Emrakul couldn't(?) take his brood with her when she crossed from Zendikar to Innistrad.
When she got there she starting turning people into her new broodlings.

Does this mean that the millions of full-eldrazi broodlings back on Zendikar were previous inhabitance?

Do the three titans create spawn difference ways?

Explain, please.

They generate spawn/scions/drones and they warp the inhabitants. All three have their own different signatures, but all three make them pretty much the same way.

Ravnica was just Sarapadia with an extra color

Ulamog and Kozilek spawn their own brood. Emrakul turns the inhabitants into her brood.

My headcanon is since they are native to outside the multiverse, they adapt themselves to fit the "theme" of whatever plane they are on, hence why Ulamog and Kozliek were essentially big monsters on the DnD world and why Emrakul is the spooky tentacle monster on the Horror world

>Emrakul is a 13/13 because 13 is the number of power on Innistrad

>Cthulhu wasn't beaten by being rammed with a boat

And the aformentioned creatures were utter shit as far as eldrith horror power level is concerned.

Even Cthulhu himself is far from being a top dog in the cosmic playground.

Even bearing in mind the exceptions you mentioned, one of the central theme of Cthulhu's mythos is how utterly powerless and vulnerable humanity is faced to these entities.

Introducing a story in which humanity ultimately defeats these horrors is in itself enough to foil this theme.

Aside from some loose design motifs they don't strike me as lovecraftian at all.

It all depends on your sense of scale. A "triumphant" Lovecraftian story is one where the cosmic horror is knocked out for a thousand years. To humans, that's a huge victory for generations to come. For that cosmic horror, that was barely a flinch.

Even when you pull an Old Man Henderson and straight up kill a god, it is usually with a lot of planning, a lot of guts/insanity, and a huge pile of luck.

As for the Magic storyline, I would've honestly preferred if the Jacetice League had failed/ran away, and the Zendikari themselves concocted a huge and convoluted plan. It would've been better than babby's-first-teamup plan the Gatewatch concocted for the Eldrazi.

Basically this. Eldrazi are viewed through the lens of the plane they're on. Zendikar was adventure world, thus they played out that way. Emrakul showed up in Innistrad, so it makes sense to tweak her to be in theme of a horror world.

I'm liking this theory the more I hear it. It also makes sense in some way. Eldrazi feed off of mana of planes, so it makes sense for them to take on some aspects of that plane.

Thus Emrakul on Zendikar makes spawn and has a brood as 'normal', since that's what the bountiful wilderness of Zendikar encourages. Then on Innistrad, the mana is less plentiful, so creating a bunch of spawn doesn't work as well. Instead the more subtle mana works better for corrupting and twisting existing creatures instead.

Except even in a cosmic horror themed block, Emrakul is imprisoned in the same space of time that we discover she's responsible for the madness. There's absolutely no horror in it, no overwhelming dread or crushing insignificance in the face of the Multiverse. Just a big bad tentacle monster getting locked up in the moon by the heroes.

>Even when you pull an Old Man Henderson

Given that that story was both made up and displayed an amazing ignorance of the setting...