MTG Story Thread

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/renewal-2017-02-01

The Aether Revolt arc comes to an end! An actually kind of boring end. Hell, Dark Intimations didn't even factor into this story, so why was it a Story Spotlight card to begin with? Are we getting a second epilogue/Amonkhet prologue that will feature it? In any case, I'm still fairly excited for Amonkhet in a few months.

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Please for the love of FUCK let Amonket have the Nimbus Maze Cycle. That would be so fucking awesome!!!

I agree. Lots of crazy lands from TS that need to have full cycles. Though honestly, I'd like them to give us the other half of the tango lands as well.

Tldr?

>Filler pretending to be character development and none of it serving the plot
>Plot
>Filler pretending to be character development and none of it serving the plot
>Filler pretending to be character development and none of it serving the plot
>Filler pretending to be character development and none of it serving the plot

I was hoping they'd do something with Yahenni but instead she just died, with some weird implication of reincarnation that doesn't amount to anything.

For a moment I thought Nissa's revelation would result in Yahenni's spark igniting, but alas

"I can feel that once, long ago, she distrusted people she didn't understand. It is an old echo, but I can sense just how frightened she was, and how that fear kept her from becoming close with others.

Until the Gatewatch. Until me.

I'm thankful she didn't confront me with these old, long-gone feelings out loud. I'm thankful she didn't use me as a basin in which to spill her guilt for her actions in the past. She would rather work through her problems on her own without needing me for validation. A lesser person might. But she would never do that. She observes and grows on her own, for the sake of bettering herself.

She is extraordinary."

So they're subtly acknowledging racist Nissa, but also sweeping it under the rug. Cute.

Amonkhet is a plane created by Bolas before the Mending

>previously on the Chandra show: Chandra am become the missile, Tezzeret loses.
>Ajani joins the gatewatch, Jace am become the teleprompter
>ajani says no fight bolas, we need more friends for more teamwork
>everyone agrees ajani's stupid and fighting bolas in the seat if his power is a great idea
>yahenni's dying again, for reals
>penultimate party, everything must go, hey random kid in the back, take half my money!
>nissa and yahenni have a moment
>chandra's mom insists she leave after they patch up kirans mural, tears
>nissa says high to a skywhale
>nissa and chandra have a moment
>nissa sees a new aetherborn be born, it's kinda sorta not entirely unlike yahenni
>chandra snores

>We know it's Bolas and we know where he is.
>Let's go kick his ass asap Chandra says
>No, he's to powerfull and makes me shit bricks. Let's gather info and allies, meet up again in a couple of weeks and procrastinate some more says Ajani
>Thanks for your input Ajani, why don't you go ahead to the party, we'll join you soon... So now that he's gone what do you guys think says Gideon
>Bolas is smarter than al of us, if we wait he'll soon know that we know so we should act now while he doesn't know that we know he doesn't know say Jace and Liliana
>Whatever says Nissa
>Right, so we all agree then, fuck Ajani we go now

shit, forgot:
>chandra's mom is on the consul
>chandra and her mom leave baral in a hole, forever

Next up, Nissa learns how to eat out a firecotch.

>forever
second Kaladesh block, guess who will return?

>Baral is punished for being mean
>Gatewatch decides to got to Amonkhet asap
>Yaheeni is Oprah
>Pia has Lost Legacy alter
>Nissa is high

Dovin.

Seriously though, I liked this story a lot. I liked that they tried new things with these stories, especially Yahenni's POV. All the walkers got to do their thing and we got to explore a neat world. Kaladesh was a welcome change of scenery from the usual grimdark, a breather if you will. If every plane is dark, dangerous and scary then none of them are special and since Amonkhet looks to be a high-stakes plane, it was good to see a plane full of normals. Plus we got color-pie approved character development, which I personally liked a lot. Overall, both KLD and AER stories were good reads in my book and despite having a bit of a quality sag in the middle they were enojyable.

The Yahenni bit was fun. A neat look at what it's like to be an aetherborn, that transitioned into a rare moment for Nissa to actually do something interesting.

And like points out, they even manage to acknowledge some of Nissa's old elf-racism in a way that more or less ties into her current character.

there were a couple cringey ones, especially when it came to the characterization of chandra in KLD, but I agree. I hope this is a sign of the writing staff hitting their stride and not just a fluke of the setting.

though my theiry of needing three or fewer gatewatch members to make a story not suffer makes me dubious of the whole team voting to tackle amonkhet.

Amonkhet prediction: Jace still wears his heavy cloak even in the desert.

I hope gruulfriends becomes canon

Ajani gives them a stern warning, Jace and Lili both underline how much a threat Bolas is.

and they still think trying to bushwhack him is the play.

well, to be honest, it worked for Tetsuo, so maybe it IS the play?

doubtful, they'd need a real heavy hitter like Elspeth.

they just don't have a Super powerful Melee DPS yet.

I'm still thinking the Nayan Sandwich that has been brewing since BFZ is more Chandra's speed.

I liked Kaladesh's story overall. There were some bits I'd change, but a lot of that came down to some character voice fine-tuning in that Chandra and Liliana need to avoid speaking more "modern" than the other characters like they sometimes did.

Does seem like they're putting up some serious red flags that the Gatewatch are gonna get their shit pushed in on Amonkhet, although I'm personally hoping that it's going to be one of those "the heroes are badly defeated and scattered, allowing for an arc where the team members are isolated underdogs and get development before reuniting" things.

Because if it's just Bolas curb-stomping them and someone dying before the rest get away, I've got a sinking feeling it's gonna be Gideon that dies and I really like Gideon now.

That plus the acknowledgement of the pre-mending era was a step in the right direction. It makes the story feel less like a retcon and more like a sequel to the old ones.

>needing three or fewer gatewatch members to make a story not suffer
How do you figure?

>"the heroes are badly defeated and scattered, allowing for an arc where the team members are isolated underdogs and get development before reuniting"
Yes please. We can expect that the Gatewatch won't win straight away because the second set is titled 'Hour of Devastation' but I'd like to see them stubmle into a big defeat then grow from it rather than the usual 'first we were losing but then we won' thing. Also Gideon is really likeable recently which makes everyone calling him variations on beefslab a tad annoying.

Gideon has been a favorite of mine too, he feels really grounded and a complex character. Different from Chandra that acts like a 14 year trapped in an adult body.

I will be really sad if he is the one to bite the sand in Amonkhet, specially because if would be an almost repeat of his ignition moment: his hubris, or rather underestimating Bolas, led to tragedy.

Tbh, they most probably will use it as a mirror to said moment: when he first ignited, he lost all that was precious to him and had a chance to redeem himself. Now, by sacrificing himself, he will save those who are precious to him.

I think the main cast is safe for at least 5 blocks after they swore an the oath. I'd be really surprised if they killed one of the main 5 (6) after so many years of marketing them.
They are doing the origin mirroring thing though, now that you mention it, but so far they have had some growth moments. Chandra confronted Baral but now she's more in-control of herself and Nissa slowly getting over her aspergers. It'd be a shame if Gideon died before we got to see him grown from the experience that sparked him.

The story for this block was okay. Some home runs balanced out some big fails.

The worldbuilding on Kaladesh is 10/10, which isn't that surprising considering the worldbuilding has been unbelievably good since Theros, which was merely 8/10. I liked the Ayn Rand themes and the rebellion, though I wish there was some way for the rebellion storyline to last a lot longer, but sadly there's only two sets in a block.

Dovin Baan was probably the best thing from this block. He's my favorite new planeswalker in a long, long time. My only complaint is with his last scene. There was clearly a lot of friction between him and Tezzeret, and I wish that had come to a head. Not with him openly defying Tezz and becoming a good guy, but more like him making a mistake allowing the Consul forces to lose, later revealing that he made the mistake on purpose.

Tezzeret is my favorite planeswalker. I loved that they had him as the Grand Consul of their new artifact world, presumably with the help of Bolas, but it's unfortunate that it didn't last long enough. I didn't like how irrational and tempermental he was in this block. Tezzeret is a cruel guy, but he's not that brash. He's not red. The battle with Liliana was really good and I wish it lasted longer.

Chandra is cute but they are overdoing her quirks a LOT and it makes her a little too unrealistic. I think they should have had Pia die. Lili's jokes were a little much as well, though in general I like how they are writing her.

I really hope they are setting up the Gatewatch to get their shit kicked in. I was pretty mad with the Gatewatch Justice League shit, but the end of the SoI story was so good that it made up for it, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Tezzeret's defeat was a little too clean and I'm hoping that's to set up a crushing victory for Bolas on Amonkhet.

Dovin was the boss. First time he appeared I thought he was just an autist and expected him to shout Bazinga at any moment. Later when we saw him after the confiscation, weaving his way through the city fixing everything in his path was great and when he stared down Tezz it was amazing. He's Lawful Neutral done right. My only gripe is when he broke character on Jace's/Kari Zev's story where he bowed before planeswalking away from Chandra. No other story suggests he would tease someone like that. He doesn't even take the time to listen to people thanking him so seeing gloat about doing his job all of a sudden felt wrong to me.

Also, if Dovin could just planeswalk in and out of Chandra's ship, why couldn't the Gatewatch planeswalk straight to the planar bridge and be done with the aerial blockade and the like?

Tez was brash because he is desperate, an Elder dragon is breathing on him and he's already failed once.

he didn't planeswalk in, he jetpacked and cut his way in.

and he wasn't bowing in a gloating way, he was legitimatly bowing, the guy meant zero malice to it

Okay I reread that and you're right, he didn't planeswalk in. His exit was pretty out of character though.

'Chandra couldn't hit something she couldn't see. She angrily slipped on her goggles, only to see Dovin in the act of giving a slight bow.
"At that time, the crew should commence proper evacuation protocols," he said. "Farewell."
And then he began to shimmer and fade. He was planeswalking away.
"Nooo!" Chandra flung a last-ditch blast of fire, but it sailed through the vedalken's disappearing form. He was gone."

Dovin is usually very stiff-backed and unemotional. Why would he bow and say farewell? Chandra is an outlaw and if Dovin would have had her captured if he could. Why would he waste time bowing whishing Chandra to 'fare well' when he has no respect for a criminal?

I agree, though I didn't like the scene as a whole. I think his arc with Tezzeret should have payed off rather than him just doing a thing and disappearing.

>Yahenni gave her car to grandma

I thought Tezzeret was very abhorrent this block, but the reveal last chapter that this was just an act because the Kaladeshi seem to work better when under pressure. It still came out as overdone. Hope Bolas is merciful with his parcial success; he might have lost Kaladesh, but he got the mechanism that allowed the Planar Bridge to work.

And I agree, Dovin stole the show everytime he was in the scene. My favorite Planeswalker behind Tamiyo.

Something I didn't liked was that apparently all women in Kaladesh are goody two shoes, while most men are evil caricatures. I mean, take a look at Kambal and tell me he doesn't look corrupt. Meanwhile Pia, Padeen, the pirate girl and granny could do no wrong.

I'm not saying that all those women should have been men, but they could have had men in the side of the Renegates and women on the side of consul. Also, the conflict of the Consulate vs. Renegates was much more Black & White than it should have been.

Overall, just like SoI and EdM, I liked the story and was a fan of the ending, but the pacing suffered a lot with the lack of a proper mid act. The story takes a lot of time to get going and then it gets directly to the climax.

>I mean, take a look at Kambal and tell me he doesn't look corrupt.
>white black
>literally the Consul of bribery
Wow, it's almost like that was on purpose or something.

Dovin had no need to capture her, also its simply polite to bow, it isn't an emotional thing.


he told her to evacuate the vehicle and that her little plot was over, its likely he knew the odds of beating her (and then Gideon) were slim, so he didn't attempt it.

>Nimbus Maze art is added at the end of the story
>River of Tears cycle gets printed in Amokhet instead
post yfw

I love that an Aetherborn wake is basically just the dying person running around throwing all their cool shit at people.

I still feel like the Aetherborn's way of life is more red than black.

Like, "we're going to die in the very near future, so let's spend every waking moment having fun and then leave all our shit to the new kids when we're gone" seems very, very red to me.

if anything they're BR
>tfw no good BR legendaries or planeswalkers yet

>River of tears
>Literally my favourite land that I shove into all my decks that can run it

I don't think we will see a River of Tears cycle because it' only makes sense in u/b. Black has sorceries and blue has instants.

Nimbus Maze is a predecessor to Glacial Fortress, so we won't be seeing that.

Enemy and ally both have 2 dual lands (plus uncommon taplands) so I don't expect any duals in Amonket, unless they are linear to a certain strategy (like Spire of Industry)

It won't even look as cool without the Future Sight border, who cares.

River of tears is so flavorful though, I just need more. If you don't play a land then the river just keeps being wet ans going so it taps for blue (water).

But if you play a land then the river will "soak" the land and tap for black instead, because wet land = swamp.

It's ingenious.

To be fair, Sorin in OG Zendikar (and probably his oldwalker days) was mono-black and he was mainly a hedonist in a sense that he always wanted to see me worlds and events.

Daretti isn't outright evil or anything is he? I just recall him having a shit fit since the Academy looked down upon him and some guy stole his work.

True, but his main thing was "I'm going to live forever and I happen to like the multiverse because it's where I live and keep all my stuff, so I'd best make sure nothing too bad happens to it." Sorta the opposite of the Aetherborn in that he did nice things because he is nearly immortal and tries to keep things stable out of enlightened self-interest.

Nah, he's just mad in a very destructive way.

while I think Naya sandwich is best sandwich, I think Gideon's chances to win the Chandrabowl are pretty slim, on top of all the spaghetti Chandra spills near Nissa I remember reading a bit about Chandra hugging Gideon and thinking something along the lines of "this hug would make me tingle on all the right places before but now it just feels sorta ok"

I dunno, Burn sorta seemed to go both ways, which I suspect Chandra does. I do remember the line you're talking about, although more than sorta OK it's Chandra thinking that Gideon holding her makes her feel safe, which could be a point in his favor or not. Burn certainly did show that Gideon and Chandra still have good chemistry if they go that direction.

And did basically confirm that however Chandra is feeling, Gideon does have feelings for her but recognizes there is a time and a place to unpack that and post-traumatic fight scene is not the time or place.

>just another day in the life of Gideon Jura

I don't know what angle WotC is doing since the stories are all over the place due to writer of the week bs, I feel each block should have one head writer that writes like 80% if the story and the other writers do side stories or character and then it shifts. But regardless, I feel they are going to pls out this love triangle for a while, but in the end Nissa will win because lesbian virtue signaling. Plus being bi gets you extra points for some retarded reason. Maybe I am wrong and maybe this is a plan B by WotC to see what more people want from these characters, do they want Chandra to be gay or straight. The if you told me in 2013 that mtg would have so much gender and race politics and virtue signaling I would have never got involved.

Mike is looking as suicidal as always

The red girl being bisexual is extremely in-character, personally, and given that Red is also the "there's enough of me for everyone" color with its affections I'm not sure there should be talk of winning or losing.

Frankly, though, I don't really see doing blocks based on non-european cultures as race politics.

Is he stoned in that pic?

I agree with you on the non European block, I am looking forward to Aztec world and Egypt world. It was the conspiracy plainswalk. Now I don't give too shits about the fact that she was black or a women. What pissed me off was WotC hired a black female nerd consultant to write the character. I make this argument in a world like Palino there is no reason why a black character would act differently than a white character in Palino. So why hire an "consultant", did you do that for the other non white plainswalkers. Just make a black female plainswalk stop with the fucking virtue signaling, SJW don't even have money to spend on this game.

>Gideon loves Chandra, but knows the civil war on her home plane after fighting her arch-nemesis is not the time to unpack that.
>Or when they fight the dragon god-king of not-egypt and nearly die
>Or when Ravnica burns around them in Bolas's inevitable counter-attack
>Eventually, Gideon realizes there is never going to be a right time unless he takes a leaf out of Chandra's book and goes with his gut and ends up making an anti-bolas rally he and Chandra are firing up very awkward for the soldiers he's making his heroic general's speech to

youtu.be/OPCI0CsbBzY

Galavant was the the best thing to happen to TV ever, forever unparalleled by any other show. I'd give an arm to have two more seasons of it

Man, it's really too bad that Wizards decided to call the Aetherborn "Non-binary" even though they are Agendered for SJW brownie points, because they are actually pretty interesting, especially the culture around "Penultimate Parties". Wish we had gotten to see more than Yahenni and a bit of Ghonti, honestly.

I was under the impression agender is one of the things under the non-binary umbrella term. It's a pretty broad category, from what I understand of it, and agender is part of it.

I did think the Aetherborn were pretty interesting as well, it's a shame that as often happens it's all about the humans even when you get beyond the planeswalkers. That's fine on Innistrad, the Humanity Is Fucked/Humanity FUCK YEAH plane, but on ones that aren't about every other species ganging up on humanity...

We never really did find out what Gonti got out of all this. They had a comfortable arrangement with Kambal, but now Pia's replaced him...

Part of me felt like they were flagging Chandra to die in this story. Just her last conversation with her about how "we'll see each other again and finish our art project" just screamed dead.

Jace and Chandra are the two planeswalkers people first think of most of the time, what with Jace sorta being considered the face and that long period where Jace and Chandra were kind of a paired set as rivals. I feel like Chandra's not going down unless they're willing to kill Jace, and I don't see that happening for a while yet.

Agender is one of those terms, but it's exactly what the Aetherborn are; they literally do not have genders or sexes. The word "Non-Binary" means that there is a Binary in the genders (i.e. Male and female) but the person doesn't fall on that scale; however since the Aetherborn literally do not have genders they can't be "non-binary".

Using "non-binary" shows they weren't thinking too deeply about the Aetherborn and just going for SJW brownie points. Which if they had just gone for "Agender" instead they still would have gotten the brownie points while showing they are actually thinking things through.

If a species with 3 genders was found, it would be accurate to call it non-binary. A species with no gender is, technically, non-binary and more specifically agender, but both are accurate descriptors even if one is more useful than the other

They totally did it for pandering though.