Magic Story Lore: To Be Continued Edition

But there's already an Eldrazi in it.
It just costs XGU.

Who's idea was this and how much more can we pay them to keep going?

Chandra telling Jace not to think with his dick was actually a pretty good moment.

It'd be nice if they could manage that kind of tone with her more often--informal, but not sounding like what a 40-year-old thinks a 20-year-old talks like.

>Gideon is fucking Shirou
God fucking damn it

>Hazoret see Gideon's death

Are they really going to kill the only member of the Gatewatch who is written half compentently?

RIP Gideon.

> S-stop Gideon-kun! Y-your barrier is too thiiiick!
> A-Aaah... White mana~ if this flows inside me, I'll definitely get the populate mechanic...
The writing seems kind of... Different this time, does it?

It was co-writen by Doug and Alison, and yeah it feels like two people wrote it and didn't compare notes.

It's not just that
I mean the part where Samut was being kept on edge inside the sarcophagus, that makes sense for the final trial.
But Haz and Gid sharing a passionate kiss before he purges her leylines and her "spear" falls from her "hand"...

I think there's something racy going on, but I cant quite put my finger on it.

> People complain about Gatewatch
> WotC: We've heard your complaints, and you'll be seeing less of the Gatewatch!
> All this means is they kill the best character and continue to shove the remaining 4/5ths down our throats

he "crossed" erebos and it ended with all his friends dead, famously on the card Tragic Arrogance.

Gideon is a Godling, hence the Gods of Theros and the Gods of Amonkhet being so friendly with him and knowing his true name, because its written on the Leyline like magics that make up part of his being.

but he's no true god, only half, and Hazoret has "seen" his death

>godling
>implying

Liliana is the best member of the gatewatch followed by Gideon and then Jace.

especially story Jace, card Jace is an asshole Story Jace is a complicated nerd.

Nissa has gotten better, and Chandra is just okay as the light hearted quick to fight memeber of the team.

unfortunatly all the people not in the gatewatch (Ajani kind of counts for this) are much more interesting.

Elspeth, one of the most complicated modern characters and possibly the best
AJani as well
Nahiri and Sorin for being "typical" Old walkers in a world without them
Vraska for being a Justice Vigilante (coming back!)
and motherfucking Ob Nixilis, AKA a self aware amalgam of Skeletor and Megatron.

Gideon is clearly a Nyxborn and it was made fairly clear to use from day fucking 0.

his constant obsession and relation to Gods and their kinship with him is the biggest fucking giveaway, and his "somewhat indestructibility" solidifies it.

he's specifically a Nyxborn sired by either Heliod or Iroas.

its very obvious, two characters in Magic have inexplicable abilites that are far and beyond anyone else's

and that is Elspeth and Gideon, and both have the stories constantly remind us of them.

Gideon with his complete indestructiblity (though it seems a God can turn it off)

and Elspeth with her insane strength and ability to channel White Mana more than even a God OF White Mana.

Gideons is easy to figure out, he's fucking Hercules.

Elspeth's probably alot darker in origin, she's most likely a fucking Phyrexian experiment in White mana on a plane that's not Mirrodin (so they didn't have access to it naturally)

I feel like I missed a story. Did Chandra and Gideon appear from nowhere??

they were looking for dissenters at the end of the last time we saw them.

How does that even work? I mean, on Amonkhet the gods are essentially bundle of Leylines tightly wound together, that's how Nissa survived Kefnet. Then again, Xenagos was able to become a god, so there's a good chance it's not the same on Theros.

That's one of the gods Bolas murdered, I'm sure of it

Goddammit, if they kill off Gideon just to replace his segments with more of Chandra's shitty banter I'm so gonna be done with this shit. And I don't even read the stories for the fucking Gatewatch, I just want to know more about the current plane.

> That's right Gideon. Take my spear~ and shove it deep into my belly!
> Hazorat... I can't just impale a god! You might die!
> It's okay~ Hazorat practiced lots on herself while waiting for the God-Pharoah... But now I want Gideon's white mana to fill me up and make me a mother again!
> Hazorat...
> Ha-haaa~ I shouldn't have ever been using that silly thing on the trial members in the first place~ I deserve to be impaled, after all the times I did it to them~

It's subtle, but it's there. I think there's something shonky going on with Hazorat's personality.

I thought the invincibility was part of his magic.
And each planeswalker is a prodigy or has special abilities of some kind.

I think the only way for Samut to ignite is if Djeru dies. She's invested too much into that sole task for anything else to ignite her. So Djeru might end up as High-Class Undead-Pharaoh Boss, if anything is lucky to remain of the plane after Bolas.

Yep

...

You're such a fag, dude.

FACTS: There's going to be a new Planeswalker next set.

Gideon is going to die.

Emrakul is grooming Nissa.

Lilliana is opening up to trust.

Emrakul isn't grooming nissa so much as they have a connection, Emrakul is the mother of all creation (the ultimate personification of Green, before there even was Green) and Nissa is heavily attuned to that same thing.

he does look a bit like an ox headed god thats been corrupted as fuck

well duh, but she very well could be grooming her specifically for her penultimate release from innistrad

Why would she need to?
She probably put a way to release herself into the spell she was already altering to seal herself away, after all.

>Liliana is the best member of the gatewatch
are you fucking high? Liliana is a fucking terrible person. she's a selfish bitch and literally anything bad that happens to her is her own fault and anything good that happens to her is a failure of karma. She's not a bad character because she's a selfish bitch done well but she's a GODAWFUL protagonist. Jace is (unfortunately) leagues better than her in the story, and chandra and gideon have shown capacity for growth as characters that some writers can actually accomplish. Liliana and Nissa are shit tier, thought with Nissa that's mostly because she has the baggage of never having a concrete background or personality.

>Elspeth, one of the most complicated modern characters and possibly the best
okay, you are high. Elspeth is a shit character that consistently derails her supposed motivations and goals by just being a masochistic whiner.

yeah but that's sort of the easy route and you should know how wizards plays that shit

read the story, ya dolt.
She admits to her main reason for being on amonkhet and that's already a change of character for her.
She's growing into a foine ass BW PW

On the other hand, they seem to be pushing a connection between Nissa and Emrakul specifically since Origins.
Emrakul isn't doing this to get free. It's for SOMETHING else. Likely make her do Emrakul's purpose in her stead, or become a replacement Eldrazi considering they had Troop writing the last one and that sounds like something out of his Uncharted Realms

I dodn't follow the lore since the begginning of the jacetice league, why is Nissa blue too now? Does it have a reason in the story or did they just do that for gameplay purposes?

...

She become blue during the blue god's trial. To pass the trial she had to realize that thought is as important as instinct, or some such bullshit.

best character does not mean "highest morals" Liliana is the "best" character of the bunch because she's the most human and had a complicated, and very human/realistic mindset.

same with Elspeth, when I say "Best" I meant the complexity and how good their story arc's and how interesting their paths through life are.

So is Bolas gearing up to eat this plane or are these people going to be his zombie army or what? What's the deal here?

>mfw Bolas decides to try to invade and conquer Dominaria AGAIN
>mfw my whole lineage is waiting for him

Thank you, but it really is sounding like a bullshit out of the blue character development, was it dealt better then i am thinking or was it as bad as it sounds?

>out of the blue
nice

>Bolas invades Dominaria again
>Everything goes to shit, all planes collapse into each other
>Magic is over, go home, he ruined it

It was an...interesting article, by the best of their current writers.
Dare you enter Ken Troop's magical realm?
magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/hand-moves-2017-04-26

I mean, there's no reason to think she's going to be permanently blue going forward.

Gods are related to the collective unconscious of Theros more than mana from what I understand.

They basically have to work differently than Amonkhet gods because Return to Theros is going to be REALLY fucking boring if Heliod can't be a dick if Nissa doesn't want him to.

I thought the article was decent overall, but again I feel like they're nerfing Gideon for no reason.

One of his strengths in BFZ was that he's a good leader in small teams if not big armies and is smarter than he seems at times, being good with tactics and teamwork. Something Brazen COMPLETELY IGNORED so that Gideon would have a bad time in the Trial of Ambition.

He's also a soldier first and a mage second which means a no-magic hand-to-hand combat brawl should be almost ideal circumstances for him, but they're still not letting him be able to outfight Djeru despite the fact the dude's been going toe-to-toe with demons, vampires, elder gods and their spawn, and steam-jaegers and winning for the last year.

It's like, first it seems like they forgot Gideon even HAS magic besides his invincible aura (when was the last time he used Heiromancy at all? I'm pretty sure it was ORIGINS) and aren't letting him just do his thing as a warrior either, which is...bizarre.

I think his skill comes from disciplined strikes, so being driven into a rage would probably make him sloppy.

Yeah, I figure that's gotta be it, but it is kind of a letdown to see Gideon go from killing a giant mecha by himself with a simple creative application of his power to getting his butt kicked by everything he goes up against on this plane because reasons. I'd sorta been under the impression this was a more Gideon-focused set but he was much more on the ball in Kaladesh where he was just supporting the action.

Maybe Bolas Egypt and its inhabitants are just THAT tough.

Fuck meant to respond to

Well, I try to look at it rationally. Amonkheti humans are in peak physical condition because every waking moment is spent training for this specific fight, Djeru was armed and Gideon was not, and Gideon's armor and weapon were confiscated along with his magic for this fight. So those are disadvantages.

On the other hand Gideon regularly took on Eldrazi scions capable of tearing human beings apart like tissue paper in hand-to-hand combat while functioning on about one hour of sleep a night because he was simultaneously fighting the gruul and rakdos on the Boros's behalf, and he has ALSO been in combat (and REAL combat as opposed to Amonkhet's training) since he was a small child, so I still feel like he's jobbing way too hard on this plane.

Use it wisely.

I wanna give Hazorat a hug, like the awkward, perverted christmas cake she is.

Did I somehow miss the part where they mentioned Emrakul by name or was that edited in after the fact? I swear to the God-Pharaoh that wasn't there the first time I read it.

You apparently did.
It wasn't in today's article.
It was in the one a few weeks back, and was always there.
See

I am so confused then.

I'm not gonna lie, if Troop made a short novel about ladies having a phantasmagorical adventure I would read it.

>The God-Pharaoh isn't here, we won't know what he's capable of until he arrives, and every single one of you is going to help me rescue my friend because none of you have a plan to do anything otherwise.

>I'll take "i fucking told you so" for ten, Alex.

Thank you.

Emrakul is helping Nissa out for ill-defined reasons. Despite the whole locked-herself-in-the-moon thing.
In a previous story (also written by Troop), Emrakul claimed all the walkers present were 'her pieces, and always were.' Now she's asking Nissa if she's a pawn or a queen - but it's a nonquestion, because she should be a player rather than a piece.
Thus the thoughts about Emrakul trying to groom Nissa to be a new Eldrazi - if the walkers are but pieces, and Emrakul is a player, what does it mean for Nissa to be a player rather than a piece?

Hm. Nissa has pretty consistently seemed like the Gatewatcher who's always on point in these last few blocks, and her only real weakness has been being an introvert. If she gets Karn'd into an Eldrazi that'll be bad news for her buddies.

Nah, this is WotC we're talking about.
She'll just have the ability to make her titan-form human sized and elflike for the near future while she gets used to the change, with her lesser appendages just so happening to be identical in form and size. She just doesn't stick them into planes unless they need an army of nissas for whatever purpose. This, of course, just means they can shove elf token making on her cards and not claim it involves her being Elf Hitler, it's her fighting with more of herself

I dunno, Magic does kinda have a fetish for "hey, you liked this character, right? Here's their body-horrored and utterly insane monster incarnation that is a villain now."

Yes, but now they've got Main Characters.
Main Characters won't get bodyhorrored away for more than a set before coming back.
It'll either be 'we gots to stop this' or 'free powerup' depending on how they go with it

I mean if you think about it, this plane is Nicol Bolas' personal corruption hentai
> Otreka is a pure archer, who's now sharing herself with everyone
> Bontu's so yandere she demands a heart from people she takes an interest in.
> Snake boi is the traditional bara male.
> Hazorat used to be a mother-figure, now is frantically devoted and mindbroken to serving God-Pharoah
> You know Ibis dude knows about that kinky shit, you know what I'm saying

It does seem...interesting that Hazoret used to be a mother goddess and now the fluff mentions she specifically believes Nicol Bolas is her father.

See , and The whole Hazorat the pervert thing isn't even a fucking joke.

I suppose even Dominia's most ancient evil has fetishes.
And it's even something comparatively tame, at least compared to ol' Yawgy's love of pithing and vivisection.

Well I mean we had a clue...
gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=188971

>jace has been planning very hard
>planning a way to sniff lilis asshole
perfect lore and perfect character
blue/10

>"the old writings also called you "The Pervert", and I'm going to admit, I don't know what to make of that."

You know, Lili's admission today means at some point she explained the whole demon thing to the others.

>"She pacted with FOUR DEMON LORDS!"
>"What, in a row?"

> M-mommydom is an important part of any childrearing effort!
> Alright, I changed my mind, I like what Bolas did
> Lili competing for 'who's the biggest mana slut' with Nissa

The background behind Nissa looked exactly like the outside world—the dark, purple sky, the odd flashes of light, the looming shadow of Emrakul, Liliana and her zombies. Nissa stood in agony in the center. She screamed. She writhed. Twisting, contorting, shaking, but those were not the only injuries done to her. There was something...wriggling...on her hands.
As Jace peered closer, he noticed Nissa's fingers had tiny fingers growing on them, tens of tiny fingers extending out of each finger. And then he saw hair-thin fingers growing out of the tiny fingers. He shuddered, but as he saw her eyes he let out an involuntary scream. From each of Nissa's eye sockets protruded several tiny eye shoots, and out of each eye shoot grew several tinier ones. Green energy flashed out of her eyes and hands, but interlaced in the green was a dark, violent purple.

Emrakul is Emrakul is Emrakul forever.

Jace didn't know where the thought came from, but even in its nonsense it felt true. Forever and ever and ev...

"Negglish pthoniki ab'ahor!" gibberish words spouted from Nissa, or if not gibberish then no language Jace had ever heard. As she spoke, her head spasmed, and in between words her tongue would loll out of her mouth. What are those things on her tongue? Oh, no. No no no no. I am hitting the limit of details I want to notice. No, I am well past the limit.

As nonsense and spittle spewed from her mouth, rational words began to infiltrate the gibberish. "Shigg epsi-everything chut'ghb ends! Gilma-everything chts-dies!" The spasms subsided, her voice gaining strength and poise. Now the energy emanating from her was all purple, a deep purple with no green to be found. She raised her head and arms to the sky and shouted.

"Growth! Growth is the answer! The only answer! Entropy cannot lose. But must it win? Of course sacrifice must be made. Why do they fight it? Eternity without sacrifice offers only the screaming torpor. Blood must be churned, churned thick. Why do they fear life? Why do they fear truth?"

Nissa uttering recognizable words made no appreciable impact on Jace's ability to understand her. Even though he knew it was useless, he reached to her mind to mind. Nissa, help me. Help me understand. What are you saying?

Nissa shifted and brought her gaze to meet Jace's directly through the window. She sees me. Jace shivered, frozen to the spot. He could not move, could not look away. Her eyes glowed darkly purple. She spoke directly to him. "I can do anything I want. Anything at all. Remember that. The only thing saving you is..." the purple glow faded, the nimbus around her dissipating, "...I don't want anything."

She stared at him for long seconds, her face distorted and grotesque as her extra eye shoots continued to squirm. The window mercifully faded to stone.

Not gonna be surprised if it turns out the Titans were once Oldwalkers who tried to do something really important and ended up paying for it really badly.

I think thats going to be the reveal around emmy and co. That for she wants to turn Nissa into a titan because she is a planeswalker.

It seems their biggest problem was 'not telling anyone else what they were doing'
Also means Ugin is trying to do the same thing as them, most likely. Not necessarily for altruistic reasons, either, what with being an Elder Dragon
Personally, I feel there's three ways they could go with him - he's A) Bolas's personal rival from the Elder Dragon War that he thought he killed but woops, walker, B) about as much of a powermonger as Bolas but better at hiding it, seeking to become an Eldrazi (possibly alongside A), C) literally nega-Bolas, due to temporal fuckery from the Time Spiral Crisis throwing him into the past. He's another universe's Bolas who was NOT a selfish dickbag, different appearance because oldwalkers could do that and it stuck afterwards

Or maybe the spark came from a 4th titan.

I suspect A and B are both true, although it might be kind of an Aizen/Urahara (sorry for the /a/ reference) situation where there's two geniuses that figure out something that could be a game-changer in the cosmology of the world. One wants to take his time and study it because he desires to understand more than he wishes to dominate, while the other sees the opportunity for power and seizes it, and despises the other for being his equal in so many ways but not having the stomach to take power for himself.

I do wonder if they're going to give Bolas a motivation of some sort for WHY in particular he's so obsessed with accumulating power. Does he have an agenda for when he's a god again? Does he need one to be a good bad guy?

Do these story articles come out every week?

Are we gonna be in full on HoD speculation territory this time next week?

I think there's a delay now, which bugs me. I can't wait a month for Hazorat to cum buckets at the sight of her God-Daddy, only to be plunged into despair from him being a massive dickbag.

No, I think the Eldrazi being too big and incoherent to properly interact with people is an important feature to get the horror down. The Emrakuls Jace and Nissa have interacted with are purely a product of their own minds struggling to grasp the true form.

Of course just because I like the idea doesn't mean it's true.

these stories are literally worse than saturday morning cartoons

the gatewatch were a colossal mistake.

It could only improved by becoming an over the top anime, complete with the silly slice of life omakes.

I hope they get a dog.

They have a cat now, but they didn't bring him along because he wanted "a plan" and "allies" before fighting the reigning king bastard of People Not to be Fucked With in the multiverse.

>Does he have an agenda for when he's a god again?
Not that we've seen. If he has one, he hasn't said anything about it. Bolas seems very much to be a "one step at a time" thing.

Toppa Tengen Gatewatch Lagann?