MtG Lore Thread

Speculation for the story of Amonkhet? Post spoilers too, there's no thread up so we might as well.

Bolas is going to say some existential crap that will make the gatewatch question what they are doing.

At least thats what I wish will happen.

Gideon dies

I could definitely see this happening. Bolas isn't going to end the storyline but I'd be surprised he doesn't end up the victor in some way by the end of Hour of Devastation.

Ajani isn't even on the plane
>let's hope the next block is an Ajani stand-alone block

Why is Tezzeret so beautiful

Why are there that many free spaces?

Is it wrong that I prefer new Jace to old Jace? post Gatewatch, Jace is a lot more human and relatable, while pre Gatewatch he was just a stuck-up dick most of the time.

WHEN

ARE

THEY

GOING

TO

SCISSOR

Jace didn't change at all.
The problem was that you never saw Jace because he was locked behind novels you had to pay for, and what showed up in flavor text was...decidedly unlike the character at all, and more 'generic blue mage flavor text' ala Ertai that they slapped Jace's name on because fuckknows why.

But we already had all those checked off.
It'll be an otherkin, obviously.
In all ways except physical, they are an atog.

This.
Honestly the whole Eldrazi thing put Creative in a pretty shitty situation. Once the decision to have Jace, Gideon, Nissa, and Chandra become Weatherlight 2.0 they had three choices.

1) Just let the Eldrazi be, despite 2 Gatewatch members being actively invested in Zendikar and the other two being fully aware of the goings-on. (Which would have been way worse)

2) Trapped the Eldrazi again, which would have made a rather unfulfilling end to the Eldrazi storyline. ("After thousands of years of Eldrazi trapped sleeping in Zendikar, and the plane going haywire, the Eldrazi... are trapped in Zendikar, and the plane is going haywire!)

or 3) Ended the Eldrazi in a permanent manner. Which they did. And tried a million ways to soften the blow (Having to use essentially Channel + Fireball, Chandra losing all sensation in her lower body after the spell, Emrakul getting away)

Honestly I think the biggest fuckup was having SOI/EMN literally right after BfZ/OAG. Give us, like, Kaladesh, maybe Amonkhet so we're left wondering where oh where has the biggest, baddest Eldrazi of them all gone. We had literally one set between Ulamog/Kozilek being killed and Emrakul trapping herself in the moon, and that set was fucking full of "It's Emrakul" clues.

>Bolas has a scheme going without any clear benefit
This box has been checked for nine straight years

the following elements will be all part of the main story:

-jacetice league
-bolas
-the gods ( what is the relationship they have with bolas? will it change?)
-the trial of the gods

otherwise they wouldn't have spoiled them first as a fundamental part of the plane lore.Holy hell they spoilered first the fact Kaladesh had a fucking fair and they menaged to put it in the center of the story.

I can't tell if you guys are serious or not. Are they really doing that now? I know I remember Ashiok getting retconned to "genderless" and then there was that Alesha B.S. (I'll be honest, I sold cards and got out of Magic for that whole block because of that). Are they really shoehorning that kind of stuff into each set now?

(I managed to find something saying one of the recent commanders is supposedly a gay couple, so probably won't buy that one, which is a shame, it had a decently interesting effect).

It also mentioned something about characters with Asperger's, ADD, and amputees but can't find anything about those (I'm ok with those three though, I'm just curious)

Why do you white boys get so ass blasted at seeing coloured folks in your setting.

I just read the spoiler thread (it's down now) and the majority of discussion was based around how wotc isn't "truly diverse" because they either have too many coloured folks (inistrad) or not enough white boys (kaladesh).

I just don't understand what the problem is. Doesn't affect your gameplay and it makes sense that an Indian theme plane would have coloured Bros.

Then there were people complaining about the lore in kaladesh and that it was just pandering to a female audience. I mean it sure was but that's fine, you've had MTG pander to white boys for years.

It makes very little sense to me how this can rustle anyone's jimmies especially when those people probably got pissed star wars had a black lead and found the Walls lack of Chinese mains refreshing.

All in all, if you're an overweight white guy with politically incorrect views you should just kill yourself because the rest of us have moved on.

Just look at this shit. I won't play a card game because a character is gay or trans. You guys should be paid to build echo Chambers or some shit

Reminder that Always Watching removes all downsides from exert.

They really need to print better answers this set or we are fucked.
I play U/B control summonings. The deck is 90% removal and even i find it hard to keep up with creature focused (standard) decks. Will I have to start mainboarding enchantments that stop permanents from untapping? Might help with exert and embalm

As long as it's "realistic" (for lack of a better word). You know, no abbo vikings or ginger ninjas. Stuff like that.

>you've had MTG pander to white boys for years.

there was a time when "appealing to your customer base rather than people who aren't interested in the product" was just good sense

Or maybe middle aged neckbeard living with their mum aren't buying enough so their expand their audiences.

Maybe the player base has expanded.

Just pandering to your target audience is going to run dry eventually.

Whatever their reasoning it still doesn't give excuse to the waves of drooling autists getting angry about fictional characters in a fictional setting for a children's card game.

KYS

You liberal scum always have to bring politics into everything. You fucking shills have infested every fucking board on this website.

Grow up my man.
It's a children's card game.

If it pisses you off a brown woman is in an Indian plane you have serious autism.

There's even one guy in this thread who won't play a card he likes because the character is gay. Wtf is this shit. High school?

Lads, it's time you got over yourselves and accepted people with different colour or sexual orientation are still people at the day and deserve to represented in media. Especially when being white is becoming more and more of a minority

Good job ignoring the entire conversation. The issue is not with creating diversity, but doing so for transparently cynical reasons.

>There's even one guy in this thread who won't play a card he likes because the character is gay. Wtf is this shit. High school?

it's called integrity

you hypocrites always say take a stand against things you disapprove of. guess fucking what, people are taking a stand.

don't like it, do you? it scares you.

He's taking a stand by not playing a card he likes. Who's suffering here? Wotc don't care.

Fuck their player base is growing, you should be happy. Your shitty little hobby isn't going to die. As that player base grows so does the demographic of the audience.

I'm not baiting or trolling. What do you mean by integrity?

Cuz to me it makes perfect sense and seems very logical that a) a plane as warm as India is going to have brown people b) black people can show up in heavily white populated areas (inistrad) c) some people are gay

Please explain how "I won't play this card because the character is gay" has anything to do with transparent cynical design flaws?

Or "I'm unhappy that the leads in this set are brown women from a plane that's very much like India" has anything to do with transparent cynical design?

Or "the people of kaladesh weren't oppressed the consulate were good guys" when they were clearly not sharing the aether out fairly, kidnapped inventors, killed inventors and were all being manipulated by tez.

You would have to be a very small and narrow minded person to get offended by this shit.

No-one is complaining about dark-skinned people being in Kaladesh, please take your strawman elsewhere.

mummy-kins and transdragons

I'd have to dig it up, but MaRo confirmed flavor mistakes in dropping BfZ before SOI.
I'm not sure how that would have worked, but presumably they could have changed the writing and forced it to work.

Surprised you missed this.

Can't wait for more RWx decks!

My original comment wasn't directly intended for this thread desu. The amonkhet spoiler thread up earlier was rife with it. This was the next best place to seek answers. There's still that one guy who won't play a card with a gay character. Which is absurd.

While I personally disagree with him, its no more absurd than the belly-achers of your ilk who boycott stores whose CEO's say things you don't like. You can't support one but not the other.

>unless you get in line and stop complaining, you're a piece of living garbage

This is how the wageslave mentality creeps in.
Shoo shoo cyberpunk.

You are welcome to complain. I'm merely pointing out that you are criticizing that poster for doing precisely what you (or the people associated with your ideology) do.

Tbh not having fantasy greeks or romans be gay lovers is immersion breaking. I'm glad they're keeping the culture close to history.

I wish they'd gone further.
Why is Ajani straight?

I'm the user you replied to. While I agree that boycotting a store for something a CEO has said is silly and basically pointless at this time I would boycott a store if the CEO said some touchy shit that would relate to said business. An example would be the CEO of Walmart saying something along the lines that blacks are lazy and he wouldn't employ them I would rightly boycott such a store.

The premise is the same, you don't give a company business when they make decisions you don't agree with. That is what both the other poster is doing and what you are doing in that hypothetical.

Just because it offends me that my fellow players for a hobby that I fucking love aren't happy to see brown characters or gay characters hardly associates me with the far left. Same I haven't associated any of these players (or yourself) with the far right.

(On a political note, both are fucking stupid and are being played by media and our overlords to create diversion and distraction)

At the end of the day the company has to progress with the world, if they don't they'll lose out in the long run and so will we as players.

Over the years my fnm has changed gradually and is almost unrecognizable to it's older self which the store and players agree is for the better. The smell was unbearable, we'd only have a handful of the same shitty lads who would spew racists and sexist shit at all opportunities. It was fowl. The hygiene was my biggest issue. You boys need to wash, and do it often. Now the store is a hub for all sorts of people, it's clean and smells great and we all usually go to the pub after and have a really good time.

>Just because it offends me that my fellow players for a hobby that I fucking love aren't happy to see brown characters or gay characters
This is precisely the problem. These things should be irrelevant. Why should someone be "happy" about a characters skin color or sexuality? Do you mean to say that some of these are "better" in your view? Skin color should be a stylistic choice, and a stylistic choice only. Sexuality should only come up if the topic of interpersonal relationships and romance is a core part of the narrative. Adding them in for diversity reasons is, at best, a transparently cynical move (And if you examine it, quite insulting, because it implies that certain groups are incapable of being invested in anything other than themselves), and at worst, and attempt at moral brow-beating. Neither case is welcome.

But there is a huge difference between "I don't like gays" and "this man has offended me inherently, my family friends and loved ones." Like I've been insulted and marginalised where as the card features a gay character and nothing else.

I get it what you're saying. The user in questions isn't ever going to a gay bar but user is only hurting himself by not playing a single card that he likes. He's still playing the game. He's still putting money in their pockets. For all they know everyone is happy with the gay characters.

I never said this man was smart. And I don't think you quite understand that some people are actually offended by the acceptance or normalization of homosexuality. So in that case, there would be no difference. This is to say nothing of the fact that the card in question is completely normal given the culture its representing, but again, never said this poster was smart.

Again, my point is that you cannot simultaneously criticize someone for not taking part in something they disagree with while yourself doing just that and maintain the moral high ground.

Why would someone be happy about seeing their own colour represented in things they like? I'm not sure maybe growing up and only seeing white guys as the hero has an affect on those of us who aren't white.

I find things all the more immersive if there is something I can relate to. Just as much as if there are things that are new to me or don't necessarily fit my world view. But being within a setting be that a movie, tv show, video game or anything and seeing a lack of diversity (that isn't justified) kind of pulls me away from the immersion.

I'm like you, makes me sick when politically correctness is shoe horned into something I like but at the same time seeing a lack of diversity or "white washing" is just as off putting.

>I'll be honest, I sold cards and got out of Magic for that whole block because of that

Jesus Christ man, how fucking autistic can you possibly be? "Oh no this one minor character in one setting thousands of years before the main storyline is trans? ABANDON FUCKING SHIP, SELL EVERYTHING, STOP PLAYING THE GAME!"

We can atleast agree user in question is a fucking idiot.
And I'll take the point that it's hypocritical to dismiss something or a business that doesn't agree with my views and then question anons as to why they are literal scum.

>Why would someone be happy about seeing their own colour represented in things they like?
This isn't what you originally said. You were upset that the poster in question wasn't happy. Of course people are free to be happy to see people like them represented in fiction, it would be absurd otherwise. Its when having one rather than the other is portrayed as some sort of ethical imperative is when it becomes a problem.

>I find things all the more immersive if there is something I can relate to.
If your empathy to a fictional character is primarily based on their skin color, genital configuration, or sexual preferences, then you have a problem. There are ideas and stories that resonate because they are common to all people. If you start with those, and add superficial diversity in a sensible way, there is no problem. Or if you want to explicitly tackle the problems surrounding it, e.g. it would be silly to criticize a movie about, say, Alan Turing, for exploring issues surrounding homosexuality. However, if you take a random popular fictional character, and make a new story in which it turns out they were gay all along with no prior hint as to this fact, and in fact, no prior mention of relationships at all, then that's when there's a problem.

What I have been, and will continue to say, is that when you add these things ham-handedly, it is obvious what you're doing and why, and that's what upsets people.

To be fair, there was a lot of gayness in Theros if you knew where to look.

Ashiok had a yandere crush on a mortal man, the husband leader of Akros was strongly hinted to be bisexual, and Guardians of Meletis is a statue of a gay couple.

And then three years later we got Tiro and Kyranos or whatever they're called, two men getting all handsy with each other plastered over 1/5th of Wizards' new product.

Theros was super gay.

Thank you for being a perfect example of my "moral brow-beating" comment, to such a suspect degree I might accuse you of bait if I weren't so well acquainted with you lot.

Tiros and Kyranos WERE the Guardians of Meletis.

Nope no baiting.

Care to explain moral brow beating. I'm new to all this.

Moral-browbeating = "I have the right opinions. My opinions are the best opinions. Anyone who disagrees with me is less of a human being. People who disagree with me need to be shamed and 'fixed'. I will not consider any other opinion, because it is self-evident that mine are correct."

The gay characters are the greek kings. Because greeks.
Narset's autistic, but they didn't say it until someone asked them outright about it.
Daretti has no legs and has a mechanical wheelchair thingy what sprouts robot spider legs which is honestly kind of neat.

Ok I don't think I was that agressive. It's a fact we are all humans that deserve equal rights and respect. If you violate that you get called out on it. It's a wonderful time to be alive that everyone and their cat is calling faggots out like that

I won't forgive previous user for being a faggot and not liking a card because the character is gay

Ok, I guess I missed Narset and Daretti. I wouldn't have caught Narset if someone didn't say something, and I haven't even looked at my Daretti in forever, thanks!

Now, I apologize for riling people up. It was not my intent.

I admit that any choice of denying my business to the company is purely symbolic (outside of any mass action taken should they offend enough people on either side of a debate) but we each still have the right to support companies, or not, with our money as we see fit. We also all have the right to play or not play with our cards as we see fit.

For the record, I only stopped playing in those blocks and went back to it recently, after those sets rotated out. This was both a moral choice as well as a way to avoid causing problems/avoiding unwanted discussions. I love Kaladesh and I am super excited for Amonkhet. I made sure to pick up some of the new Innistrad cards too (I really got into game when Return to Ravnica came out).

I'll admit, I had completely forgotten about that card until I started digging around. I love Magic flavor text, but I haven't read as much from newer sets as I should have.

To be fair, you're not really helping your argument for "equal respect" when you're insulting someone else as a form of argument. Doubly so when you're arguing for something pro-gay but are repeatedly using a homophobic slur. Also, most people want everyone to have equal rights and respect, they just disagree as to what those rights are or should be, in a vast number of cases. That's a big part of why we have courts, a legislature, and government in general to begin with.

I feel Narset was done decently enough. It's there, but they don't actually shove it in your face with LOOKIT HER SHE'S GOT AUTISM, and the only place it was actually said was when someone contacted the author specifically asking about it - Wizards themselves didn't make a big deal about it.
To be fair, the same thing happened with Alesha - they wrote the one story and didn't go parading it around about LOOKIT OUR TRANS CHARACTER like some fucking companies do. And it COULD be read as 'my grandma was a total badass, who cares if it's a girl's name she was cool and I want to use that name'
Past year, year and a half though, yeah it's been growing more in your face.

I'm really hoping they bring Narset back, to be honest.

I admit, the way the community handled Alesha was more of an issue than WotC. The discussion was ALL over the place when Alesha came out.

I mean, if it's good for them business-wise, I can't fault them for taking that approach, even if I don't like it on a personal level. If it works for them, it's just good business sense.

there's so much sexual tension between every member of the gatewatch it's actually an amazing thing to behold

...

Goddamn. There's absolutely NO scenery in this set is there? When are we gonna see something else other than brown backgrounds and sand dunes?

fuck off. Search your own hobby, like playing vidya or something. We don't need you here

was that ashiok? I thought it was the god with whom ashiok dealed? Transforming your rival into a siren doesn't seemed to be a thing Ashiok does.

>then there was that Alesha B.S. (I'll be honest, I sold cards and got out of Magic for that whole block because of that).
bruh how exactly do you expect me to react to that

>Native character who is actually interesting
Add "and will never be a planeswalker" to that