Magic: the Gathering Wednesday Flavor General - "To the moon, Alice!" Edition

Oh. I thought she was saying that Jace implied she should not have opened the scroll.

>>Friends are like better Zombies
>>Plans to dominate the universe with HER Gatewatch
Never change Lilliana.

No, she was merely acknowledging that he was right in that it was scroll she shouldn't have opened, though it wasn't as pertinent to her being freaked the fuck out.

So- why do you think Emrakul chose to let herself get sealed away?

She fucking tells us.

>She paused her writing, considering the scroll. "This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet."

This is honestly one of the things I'm happiest about. Liliana and Jace was always a stupid ship, and now they're both moving on.

I'm kinda new to this stuff, does Veeky Forums read about magic anywhere besides the mtg articles page?

This turned out a lot better... Acceptable, no power of friendship, no killing 2 giants and all evil with one spell, I'm happy with this.

Pros: Emrakul sealing herself.

Cons: LITERALLY THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, although a bit twisted since it's how Lily sees it.

I liked the ending, didn't see that twist.
7/10

Oh also mind raped TamTam.

Holy fuck this piece of "writing" was fucking terrible.

LITERALLY THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP was like the best part. I laughed for about five minutes straight to Lilliana's "Friends are like better zombies" line.

Meanwhile on Fiora....

I have to wonder if that's because of something we don't know about the Eldrazi yet or Emrakul failing to comprehend that whatever she's trying to do doesn't work without Ulamog and Kozilek to drain and warp the world first?

At least Emeria's talk about entropy does imply that the Eldrazi Titans were playing some part in how natural planes might come to be, although given that they've just been unmaking inhibited planes left and right when not bound something seems to be wrong that possibly only Bolas and Ugin, if that, know about.

The jace parts were literally super OC fanfic snippets. I liked lily and Emrakuls parts.

>This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet.

What did she mean by this???
Also fuck everyone is bad at writing Liliana. Or Liliana is just not a good character. I don't know which but she is just so... ugh.

>friends are like better zombies
Lili's learning about strictly better, guys.

Good read, very good by UR standards.

Oh user-kun you're such a fucking faggot holy shit

Don't tell me you didn't laugh when Jace finally realized how insufferable he is.

Perhaps it was.
Perhaps it was just telling him that.

All of it was really bad but Jace's parts had good imagery that was kind of ruined by stuff like the fucked up Nissa actually speaking. I don't see what was good about Lilana's parts at all. It's so hard to take her seriously, she's such a caricature. I didn't like the attempt at self awareness about the Jace hate but besides that, that was the only part that seemed god awful about his parts. But that was a rather large section, so. I also thought the interaction with Emeria felt strangely pedestrian but whatever.

So Liliana genuinely likes Jace, right? Even from a somewhat perverse, "He belongs to me." point of view?

She likes Jace and his friends in the same way you like your shovels when it's time to dig a hole.

Can't deny it, I chuckled.

So, what did Gideon want?

actually surprising end.

I mean we knew emrakul was being sealed, but willingly throws it for a loop.

What is emrakul going to do in Innistrad 3: moon cocoon boogaloon

She is going to make the plane Better from her new throne

To be the little girl. Sadly, he cannot, as he is Lord Beefcake and can never be pretty.

>no power of friendship,
u wat, this was even more blatant about the power of friendship than OGW. Just because Liliana tries to be ironic about it doesn't change the fact that it's still her motivation for joining them. It doesn't even make sense here. Unless I missed it, it didn't feel like anypower of friendship teamwork shit even happened with here. She was unconscious from overuse of the Chain Veil during the climax. She even points out how Jace wasn't protecting her, just the members of the Gatewatch, and decided that she didn't care that he wasn't helping her because she didn't need it. Maybe if they'd forged some kind of chemistry between her and Nissa because of Nissa taking care of her whilst she was unconscious, maybe, but even that was the only person who did anything to help her specifically and they still end on the "Well I couldn't have done this without the power of teamwork!" note.

le feels man face

There is no word on how much I hated this block.

Basically everythign good on Innistrad was raped to death.

Emrakul choose to let herself be sealed, the amount of autism on that is cringeworthy.

Everytime Liliana speak I want to kill her.

Everytime Liliana insult Gideon I want to kill her harder.

Fuck you WoC.

I don't really think it counts as a POWER OF TEAMWORK victory when the thing you're fighting takes over one of your buddies and forces you to win

I think she also like Jace when she wants a hole or two filled.

It wasn't, but Liliana LITERALLY talks about the power of friendship. Teamwork was how they took out Kozilek and Ulamog, but here Liliana LITERALLY is motivated by it to join the Gatewatch, and that's the literal kind of literally. It's practically lampshaded

>Emrakul choose to let herself be sealed, the amount of autism on that is cringeworthy.
Opinions: the buzzwordsening. That was the best part about this story. They nailed the incomprehensibility of the actions of a cosmic horror. And the best part is that it, in my opinion, it does not feel random. It feels important. Whether it's to set up Return to Return to Innistrad or hint at something related to the nature of the Eldrazi, it doesn't feel like they just picked some random twist to show how impossible she is to understand. It feels important and almost scary, we just don't know what it means or why. That's perfect. They really nailed it.

There's definitely more to learn about the fuckers. I'm especially concerned about the Chain Veil calling Ermakrul "the World Creator."

I'm tired of the fucking Eldrazi, both in gameplay and in the story the should have killed them along with New Shitrexia and never spoke of them anymore but no, we have to get Saint Emrakul the Too Pure for this World Eldritch Horror wait on the Moon for when the world will be ready for her or her brother come back.

>they still end on the "Well I couldn't have done this without the power of teamwork!" note.

It seemed obvious to me that, after failing to stop Emrakul even with the Veil, Liliana saw how the Gatewatch did together what she couldn't do alone and decided she wanted to use that for herself.

>What more could she do, with powerful friends like these? What more could she conquer, what more could she obtain?

Why does it even matter "in the gameplay". Eldrazi isn't s thing in any format except for like, legacy or something now so the creature type doesn't matter, nor does their colorlessness which are both basically flavor text, and the Eldrazi have distinct different gameplay mechanics every time they show up, so its not like there's some mechanical relevance.

Besides that, the kind of story told in SOI and EMN were a totally different kind of story than the one told in ROE, BFZ, and OGW so unless just reading the word 'Eldrazi" triggers you then there isn't anything tangible to trigger you there. The only annoying thing is there Sonny so many times you can say something is too incomprehensible eor horrible to understand or whatever. But considering the works the Eldrazi are derived from are plagued by similar overuse of that concept and associated language, I think they can be forgiven for that.

SOI and EMN, especially, really got the Lovecraft feel down, with the creeping horror mystery feel of SOI. I think EMN did kind of lose it a bit and faded back into ROE/BFZ/OGW type feels, but I think this finale really fixed that. I just wish the details were more present in the cards and general promotional information because without them it really just does feel like ROE round 4 without it. But Innistrad is the perfect place for Eldrazi so any set p thy need to get them there they should take.

"Power of Friendship" is used to describe bullshit asspulls accomplished by nothing more than "MUH FRIENDS".

What Lili is fucking talking about is how fucking strong her own personal guard of planeswalkers would be, all accomplished by being considered a 'friend'.

It doesn't MATTER if shes being ironic about it. It's sill the motivation for it and what was actually happening. Its like ironic shitposting is still shitposting to out it simply. Acknowledging the silliness of the power of friendship or using the power of friendship to further your own ends is still acknowledging and using the concept.

Shadows over Innistrad actually did Lovecraftian horror much better than Eldritch Moon did. Eldritch Moon went full cosmic and body horror, which honestly isn't really Lovecraft's thing. And even then it's hard to tell Lovecraft style stories in a setting like Magic the Gathering mostly because the characters actually have the power to fight back.

Sorta.

The Emeria construct is by Jace's admission his own mind trying to parse the emanations of Emrakul's will. Something that isn't the mouth of Emrakul herself, but aims to be a messenger, an envoy that can express Emrakul's will in terms comprehensible to a lesser being.

It was the case that Jace was essentially sheltering the minds of the entire Gatewatch plus Tamiyo within his own, and I believe Nissa and Tamiyo both had their minds encroached upon by spaghetti-chan. Emeria writing in the scroll is most likely Jace's mental adventure portraying one of Emrakul's machinations that are unfolding in actuality.

At any rate it does seem to be the case that there are, as Ugin suggested, wheels within wheels when it comes to Eldrazi. Emrakul's behavior is driven by something greater, something with actual purpose, that the devastation she brings with her isn't meant to be exploited by revenge-driven planeswalkers. To allow herself to be imprisoned within the moon might hint at a desire not to be manipulated by outside forces as it undermines whatever purpose she serves in the grand design of the multiverse.

Long story short: going to jail is preferential to absorbing a plane whose time has not yet come.

So was Ugin right? Seems like the Eldrazi did have a greater purpose.

>It's a "fucktarded anons" episode

If you don't think this was the best magic story in a while then you've got irreparably shit taste.

When all the deck here are Something Ulamog Something yes you get tired of the ELdrazi.

Bolas is enough for the story Eldrazi and New Pirexia and all their fall should be killed like the fucking autist they are.

I'd like to see you unironically defend shit lines like "Friends are like better zombies" and the Jace self hatred shit. The latter bugs the shitbout of me because Jace isn't actually portrayed like that in the stories, its how Jace haters view him, and it's so obvious it was an attempt to be self aggrandizing by creative by playing off the hatred for Jace. Jace seriously doesn't act like that or interact with characters like that.

What the fuck format are you playing where literally every deck is an Ulamog deck. Ignoring that hating an individual Titan shouldn't somehow make it so you hate Eldrazi in general in the first place. It isn't wizards or creator's fault if that's the reason.

Did I fucking say she was being 'ironic'?

She's talking about the power of manipulation and tools and shit. Please don't tell me you can't see a difference between friendship and manipulation. And don't fucking call it being ironic again.

>implying Jace isn't condescending
>implying
>Jace
>isn't
>condescending

MY LITTLE user CAN'T BE THIS FUCKING RETARDED

Eldrazi was a stupid idea, resurretting Phyrexia was a stupid idea after people litterly had to shit brick to see it dead and you being born user was the stupidest idea ever.

They actually weren't unmaking inhabited planes left and right - we've seen them on three planes total. An unnamed plane where Sorin and Nahiri encountered Ulamog (and just Ulamog), Zendikar, and now Innistrad.
The first one had some sort of habitation, but we don't know how much or much of anything about the plane - just that there was a small population there and that Ulamog ate it. The other two planes? The Eldrazi were lured there specifically in both cases, and may well not have ever gone to those planes on their own

And from what everything's been said of the Eldrazi, it honestly seems like the idea of them being the multiverse's method of reprocessing old, dying planes into new ones may well be the case, in which case neither Innistrad or Zendikar would have been at risk had the Eldrazi not been lured there (and they only stayed there because they WERE there), while the Unnamed Plane was a place that was basically dead as it was.

That's what I got out of this story. It also gives reasons why she just bailed from Zendikar when freed vs staying.

I also felt like Emrakul was leagues above Kozilek & Ulamog. As if they did the dirty work, the preparations, but she alone ultimately fulfills the true purpose of the eldrazi.

This story really had Lili go full eye-rolling black caricature, but her characterization in prior stories was a rather tasteful look at how black does what it does because it honestly fears dying like a punk bitch and losing everything it worked for.

It's kinda scummy hearing such cliched mental gymnastics from her about friends as tools, but I can't help but think by Kaladesh we're going to get a corny line from her about how she may think of the Gatewatch as a private army, but that they're -her- private army and no one but her should have the privilege to go queen bitch all over them.

Really though the whole Gatewatch is made up of caricatures. Chandra has been simplified to a goddamn pyromaniac ffs. If there's a criticism I would level at the SOI block's writing (ignoring the B-plots involving normal Innistradi people dealing with Innistradi bullshit, since I kinda glossed over anything not concerning the Eldrazi arc), it's that it really felt like depth and nuance only occurred in characters who weren't part of the gatewatch.

You didn't say it and I didn't say you said it, it's the tone of the fucking story. How is going "Yes, I believe in the upper friendship. *inks to the audience*" more acceptable than "Yes, I believe in the power of friendship!"? The answer is it isnt and it shouldn't be to you if you don't like that matter concept in the first place.

Ignoring that actually says she believes the things shes saying to manipulate them in part, again flatting the tone of the story to highlight the irony of the situation.

One of the old flavor philosophies about counterspells was that they were supposed to be cocky, smug, and superior in their approach. Since Jace is resident blue mage, he got a lot of these insufferable one liners attributed to him even though that's not how he actually acts in any other medium

Jace haters (rightfully) dislike the "Jace feigned interest" "Ugin's arguments were...unconvincing", "I prefer to learn from the failures of others" smugness, and those same people are thus highly unlikely to go and read stories involving someone they already don't like

It's a huge flavor fail on wizards part and I think they've outright said it was a mistake to attribute those quotes to Jace since that's not really who he is, the smug quips shit is more red/blue and the sneering condescension is more black/blue

You make an interesting point, which does raise a question...

If that's the case, what's Ugin been playing at by organizing ways to trap the Eldrazi? I get the feeling that dragon knows a lot more than he deigns to share with the kids.

He isn't anymore so than any other character. In fact as of late they tend to write him as almosy overly incompetent and vulnerable, in the sense of youthful uncertainty. That's kind of the opposite of being condescending. Random snippets of flavor text don't very accurately match the portrayel of the characters in the stories. Jace doesn't make the kind of quips you see on Counterspell. You an compare that to his interactions with Chandra in this story, for example.

>emrakul just wants friends but the plane wasn't ready for friendship
A lonely cosmic horror that just wants some buddies, finally something in this v whole fucking story we didn't see coming.

So Tamiyo's spell was a Final Judgment rewritten to a... Swords to Plowshares maybe?
I'd say Scour From Existence for flavor reasons, but it's an Instant. Angelic Edict or Iona's Judgment?

Rewritten to Imprisoned on the Moon, dumbo

Well, it could well be that Tarkir's not exactly a young plane, if you get what I mean.

Maybe he was afraid tarkir was on their short list.

Liliana is a character I really love the concept of but, but she just never delivers on it in he way I'd like. She wants to be a femme fatale type character but she just doesn't do it right. I imagine a character like that classic noir female at comes to the detective's office but shes just a bad person that Ike's do bad things. the motivation of black character being fear of death is brilliant but it barel matters.

I don't trust Elder Dragon even when coroless they are more backstabbing than Liliana.

It was an Armageddon rewritten to 'Add C to your mana pool for each land on the battlefield, then untap four lands'

>mfw Dominaria is far beyond even the Eldrazi's ability to recycle the plane

It was from Serra's realm, so it was probably Planar Collapse.

>Emrakul rewrote a spell to work like she wanted
Guys, emrakul is R&D

I believe the scroll was probably Planar Collapse.

No clue what it was rewritten to.

Someone make "look at me I'm r and D" with a scribble of Emrakul on it, stat

> planar collapse doesn't destroy everything
Stupid

That is a possibility, although Ugin's utter importance to Tarkir's cosmology suggests to me he forged that plane himself and could do so again if he had to.

I'm leaning towards . The elder dragon spirit oldwalker, what was basically hitting the superpower lottery back in the day, caught wind of something still more powerful than the godlike oldwalkers, and figured out how to capture them for study.

I think Ugin was trying to work out the mechanics of how planes oldwalkers don't create are born and die. Lord knows what he could've done with that kind of knowledge and his powers if Bolas hadn't iced him before he could study them.

Might give some insight on why Bolas set them free, too. Planes being made or unmade sounds like EXACTLY the kind of energy shenanigans he needs to catapult himself back to godhood.

Yeah, the utterly one dimensional nature of the Gatewatch members (barring Jace, who at least is allowed to have red lovey dive feelings for Liliana and anger and frustration at his own image) is disappointing since the side characters like Thalia, Rem, and Odric are shown to have depth

Thalia has been monowhite twice now, but is still allowed to be angry and spiteful without demanding she shift colors immediately to red.

It's been since what, Kamigawa since we had a mono Black character that was unequivocally a good guy and not an edgy anti hero or straight up villain edgelord?

Liliana was looking to be R&D's attempt to actually showcase for once that "black is amoral not evil" is more than talk.

but noooope she's actually as autistic as Jace is and despite growing up a normal life and her Spark being derived from trying to save the life of her dying brother, the best analogy for "friend" her old hag of a mind can come up with is that they're zombies with ability text.

also her entire motivation for being a planeswalkers to not die seems retarded given that more than half the cast has immortality as a gimme, I find it hard to believe that becoming one of the most powerful planeswalkers in the multiverse is the only option to not die of old age when 1/1 elves and vampires get the same exact shtick for free.

I dislike liliana as a character even more because she literally can't keep her fucking mouth shut long enough to realize how stupid she is

Unlimited power and she just does a shitty Chandra impression. Immortality and all she's accomplished in two CENTURIES is something sorin could've given her in two minutes.

You know, if creative has actually thought this far ahead (I got his confrontation with the Gatewatch at the end of OGW to actually imply that they hadn't figured out the Eldrazi storyline yet with youthe " may not see the consequences in your time" line), that's a very sweet xonnection. Being able to create and destroy planes was probably one of the most iconic pow old walkers had. Acknowledging it in that way is very smart.

Honestly, my impression of things had been creative saw Liliana as evil and Sorin as the amoral one who is still nonetheless saving the universe, but now with this block...

>this was even more blatant about the power of friendship than OGW

user, I think he's referring to the fact, that Emmy-chan was sealed away, because she wanted to be sealed away. In fact they would have 100% lost, if Emrakul didn't want to be sealed away.

>the smug quips shit is more red/blue and the sneering condescension is more black/blue
This is really true. Honest no one would bat an eye if it said that Ral Zarek or Tezzeret said that shit, but it's weird coming from Jace after reading just about any story he's in.

>also her entire motivation for being a planeswalkers to not die seems retarded given that more than half the cast has immortality as a gimme, I find it hard to believe that becoming one of the most powerful planeswalkers in the multiverse is the only option to not die of old age when 1/1 elves and vampires get the same exact shtick for free.
Really? This is probably the best part of Lilana's character and is tragically underutilized and deemphasized in the face of her villain act. It's just not that simple. She already was a planeswalker, the mending happened, and she began to age again. There's many facets of her fear of death that makes it work perfectly as a sympathetic black character and for her especially. She doesn't want to grow old and die because it mwans losing her powers, but it also means she has to face her brother, own up to what she d to him in the afterlife as well as see his hideous image. She has to see all the people shes killed and manipulated in their death. She becomes just one of them as well. There's so many facets to this motivation. It's like poetry. But she is reduced to being a quip spouting, very unlikable bitch with NoE the occasional mention if her past to remjnd us we are supposed to like and sympathize with her despite all the bad shit she does. She has great motivation but the motivation isn't relevant or why shes bad. She just enjoys it. And that's not how you make a black hero.

My monies on his dead friends back, or having new friends. Or perhaps a better loop, to actually endure suffering/pain in combat in repentance for getting his friends killed. Would explain why he's always going around trying to inject himself in every situation without resorting to "he's a white character."

>> Be Gideon.

>>Every fucking block you are the only Idiot that goes around trying to save taxpayer.

>> Liliana consider you nothing more than a realdoll.

>> Had to keep with JAce autism because he is Maro ffucboi.

>> Chandra has more interest in girls than in you.

>> Nissa doesn't care.

>> You are littery a buttmonkey in shape and story.

Being Gideon is suffering.

You know, reminded me of another thing that bugged me with this story. They talk about how Gideon is the dumb muscle guy. He is the jock but we've no indication is dumb. I mean he was a street kid so he wouldn't be book smart, but he's noy like a blitherinvisiot. He's a practices and effective general and tactician. I guess Liliana doesn't technically know that but the point is its not like she has any reason to believe he is dumb. It feels like it's just the writers trying to force the characters into caricatures again.

at least jace likes his golden skin and hunky features.

Liliana's underestimating Gideon the same way Noyan Dar was. It happens to Gideon a lot.

The unnatural trapping of the universe r cycling force made it all collapse on itself which forced the mending to save the universe. Bolas seeks to undo that somehow. Releasing the eldrazi is a start

It kinda looked to me like everyone in the gatewatch wants his dick, it's just

>Liliana just wants him for his body and FOUR DEMON LORDS IN A ROW
>Jace is an autist man-crushin' on his first-ever bro hard
>Sexual tension with Chandra is nothing new, unfortunately they agreed to spend a lot more time together RIGHT when Chandra decided to explore her bisexuality
>Nissa can't mind-link with him like she does with Jace and can't give him a fuckload of mana for massive damage like she does with Chandra so they don't have a dynamic beyond battle-buddies

What I'd love is a short story on Kaladesh about Gideon trolling the shit out of Liliana while keeping up his earnest, sincere interest in do-gooding so she refuses to believe he's smart enough to be messing with her.

I kind of got that but at the same time, it was obvious it was intentional characterization for Noyan dar. Here it doesn't feel like it was supposed to be her underestimating him, it just feels like we are supposed to believe he is a meathead. I can't really explain how Over he difference. Maybe because the Noyan Dar story had the set up of his misinterpretation of Gideon and the pay off in the same story, so we knew it was what they were going for. Here it feels like yeah, we are just supposed to accept that he is the one that's not smart, kind of like how we are supposed to accept Jace is a snarky sarcastic fedora even though that's not how he is actually characterized 90% of the time. I would say the same goes for Liliana and Chandra but both are pretty much always portrayed as their stereotype. I never read the purifying flame so I don't know how much better Chandra is there. And Nissa is just kind of there and generically elfy. Inoffensive but kind of bland. That in and of itself is probably bad knowing how she could have been given her previous characterization combined with her "reformed" one.

My issue wit it is that immortality isn't a big deal in a high fantasy setting like Magic and yet she chose easily the most obtuse way to go about acquiring it.

She wasn't born with it, which already seems a 50/50 crapshoot given how many fucking elves there are in the multiverse.

She didn't just become a vampire or lich or replace her fleshy bits with artifacts, despite Black being totally willing to do all three no questions asked.

No, she went and made a demonic pact with three of the most powerful demons in the multiverse, and then killed those demons (yet somehow she keeps the immortality despite violating the terms of a demonic contract which seems stupid since the people whose magic she is using to stay alive are dead)

Her story would be so much more compelling if her deal with the devil was portrayed as something incrediby stupid and naive, the consequences of rash youth that she now has to live with.

Instead of killing off kothophed, griselbrand, etc. make it so that she only stays young as long as the demons are alive to fulfill the contract, and if the pact fails she doesn't just start aging again, the years catch up with her all at once Doran Gray style. Now she's stuck babysitting demons lest they get offed and cause her to drop dead at age 200 should some do-gooder slay them

A power hungry planeswalker taking the first shot at immortality offered because they didn't realize it was a shitty deal and then having to live with the consequences of their actions would be much more compelling.

Her interactisons with people like sorin and nixilis and Bolas and nissa would be fucking hilarious too. Oh, you sold your immortal soul for something a fucking 1/1 vanilla creature gets for free? Boy you're retarded lily

I like to think the Chain Veil broke her and railed her into that whole LADY OF PROPHECY, ENDER OF WORLDS act.

Though I'll give her this, she's probably the best suited to leading, or at least coordinating, the Gatewatch, since she actually thinks in terms of plots and schemes rather than spontaneous action brought about by one member conveniently witnessing a wrongdoing they couldn't stand to let pass by them.

Plus she's old and has seen enough shit to know how to pragmatically approach situations. It's sheer luck that the Gatewatch shoved Emrakul into the moon, by all means Liliana was absolutely right to suggest that everyone just bail the fuck out of Innistrad if they valued their lives.

So while it's well documented that black loves to conduct itself in any fashion to get its results (the friendliest friend, the evilest evil, etc), I'd rather have her champion more nuanced aspects of a color that has been pegged hard as a color of nothing but evil.

Something that doesn't craft the image of mustache-twirling, yknow what I mean?

Well, today is bingo, near as I can tell.

Double bingo, if you loved Gisela and Bruna.

>Sorin saw all this happen before his very eyes while trapped in a pillar

I wonder what's going through his mind now that an Eldrazi Titan has been stored on his planes moon.