Magic Story Lore Thread: Three Down One to Go Edition

Also the Army of the Dead Animals

>Liliana sees and feels through her zombie hordes.
That's some crazy shit.

Source? It still felt underwhelming.

Liliana going full evil-autistic was neat, also Jace being a pussy was neat.

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>reddit

Of course.

I can respect her doing what she could in one story. He at least got way more than the other demons; Kothophed I can kind of understand because we already knew it from her backstory and he's the first one, but Griselbrand just got one-shotted while he was still off-balance from getting out of the Helvault.

>Also if that Raven Man isn't Urza
>Implying it isn't Mishra

Wow, Razaketh ain't shit compared to Ob Nixilis.

>Raven Man
I thought that today's story made it pretty clear that he's just part of her psyche that she projects another face onto so that she doesn't have to confront the fact that it's always been her making those choices

user, it's the main Magic fansite now.

Of course WOTC employees post there.

>The demon that the entire Gatewatch had to fight together against
>isn't shit compared to the demon that Liliana drive-by'd?

I can't wait until Gix returns and just slaps the Gatewatch around like they're nothing.

Old Phyrexia is dead. Let it go phyrexiafag.

not him, but i think it would be cool to see old phyrexia return if only to clash with new phyrexia. like, would they unite and form an ultimate phyrexia? or would each side disagree with each other's organization of rule and fight? i'd be hype either way especially if it meant getting some oldschool phyrexian designs.

I'll be honest, I was just expecting some magical realm stuff to happen at any moment:

>Liliana getting mind controlled and being forced to kneel and bark like a dog

>Razaketh's comments like "looking younger suits you"

>Liliana going through the mud and blood and coming out soaking wet

>Liliana feeling what the dead animals feel and giggling

LIKE SERIOUSLY I was half expecting someone to take off their pants half way through

Depends if old Phyrexia had negators. If so, New Phyrexia is screwed

are the negators that strong? i wasn't around for that era of magic i just like to read up on lore on the various wikis.
and because of that i always hope that someday they'll make phyrexia being descendants of the thran relevant someday.

Negators were designed to specifically kill Oldwalkers

New Phyrexia has Obliterators, which are apparently Negators but improved.
>inb4 someone says Negators could kill Oldwalkers while Obliterators can't
They're both basically sparkbane weapons. Against each other it'd just be monster vs monster and the Obliterators would probably tear the Negators a new one.

?
Her origins story he has knowledge she does not, that makes it seem like he is an outside entity.

>Where the esis root used to grow?"
>She scowled. "How did you know…wait 'Used to grow?'"
>"You don't know? They burned it."
>"The raiders?"

I don't know her origina story very well. Was she on Dominaria Pre or Post invasion?

I do not know Dominaria timeline that well, I am not sure.

Razaketh actually put up way more of a fight than the other two.

Kothoped got vaped in like two panels when Lili took the Veil for herself, indicating yes, he was a fucking dumbass.

Griselbrand got killed offscreen without even a real description of the fight because Liliana tracked him down and vaporized him while he was still woozy from his year in the Helvault.

Razaketh did a considerably better job than either of them, and it's pretty clear even with the Veil she would have been ten kinds of fucked if she hadn't convinced four do-gooders to come back her up for this fight.

I think this is mostly serving as a slight blow-softener of the team getting a victory early in and thinking "we can do this" right before the real bad guy bounces in and pushes their shit in hard. If Razaketh trounced them they'd need to beat a retreat before Nicky B even graced them with his presence but this win sets up for things going south fast, particularly since I still feel like Lili, who has gotten what she wanted, will bail on the others when it's clear they can't take Bolas. She has some slight fondness for the others because they're useful but Lili's only real loyalty is to her own survival.

I'm also wondering if three ego-affirming wins with a fourth and final line to her contract is...foreshadowing how things go in the fourth and final round.

Post Invasion, I think. She's some... 220 years old, I think? Giving 60-70 years after the Mending, which was enough for her to grow into an old woman long before meeting Jace.

Honestly, this guy seems like he might be as much of a pushover as the others.

I think the fact that she didn't use the veil but did go a little axe crazy is more likely the foreshadowing to how liliana's demon contract character arc plays out. if she can kill number four without the veil but gets even more murdery, it may lead to the curse of the veil being more sinister than anticipated, or she finds out that the demon contract was the only reason she wasn't getting as monstery as Garruk and Ob Nixilis did.

>Raven Man says he'll only leave her be when she's destroyed all four demons
>She didn't start seeing Raven Man again until the Veil took hold of her

You might actually be onto something there, user. It would be a neat ironic twist in that the contract she was so desperate to get out of was the only thing keeping her safe from the weapon she used to get out of it.

She saw the raven man before sparking.

Raven Man will be Yawgmoth using Urza's visage because he's vindictive like that. Anything less would be pointless hype.

Lili kills her demons, goes back to dominaria, and Raven Man manifests using her body and the Chain Veil, and is given a planeswalker card that is the picture of Urza, but the name of Yawgmoth. And just like that we have both an Urza and Yawgmoth card finally.

>Putting Yawgmoth in card form
>Not knowing we already have an Urza card

>there're people who still think wotc will bring back yawgmoth, gix, old phyrexia or urza

It's time to move on, guys. Best you can hope is a reprint, conmemorative card or some flavor text, but not bringing them back to life

>How did you know
Implies that it was knowledge that she already had
>You don't know? They burned it.
Never actually confirmed, could easily have been an assumption she made.

Blind Seer doesn't count.

Gix was never confirmed dead by any measure and we're going back to Dominaria. It could happen. Weirder things have.

Does it actually explain how each of Liliana's demons knows about the other? I thought planes were all cut off from one another now.

I thought the results of each deal were used to the broker the next deal.

To be fair to Razzie, he had Liliana dead to rights. Chain Veil or not, she was fucked before the others showed up to help. And even then, it was a pretty hard fight, all told and given that it's a single story. They all had to expend a great deal of energy to bring him down.

Poor Liliana, though. She hasn't helped herself get back on to the telepathic dick with her animal amusements.

Also, it casts a remark Bolas made in Agents of Artifice into new light. He said he wasn't interested in helping her get out of her demon deal. Supposedly because a quartet of them might be trouble even for him... but in truth? We now know that he already had arranged with Razzie the Amonkhet thing. Of COURSE he wasn't interested in helping her kill the four of them, it would be directly counter to his own plans.

Obby's an ex-Oldwalker. Makes sense that he's a good deal tougher, he has a lot more mana bonds to draw on, and he's also remarkably intelligent.

Yawgy is dead as a doornail. He's not coming back. He is utterly and completely dead, his tomb leaking corruption into the land around it.

I'm completely pulling this out of my ass, but since demons are black mana construct they can sense when black creatures are nearby or feel when someone is surrounded by a black aura/curse/deal.

How does him know the other demons names is beyond me, perhaps Bolas told him?

Now, demons are intelligent and crafty and they know other planes exist beyond theirs but they're so BLACK that they don't even care, their only motivation is to make people suffer or whatever, pretty one dimensional.

>To be fair to Razzie, he had Liliana dead to rights. Chain Veil or not, she was fucked before the others showed up to help. And even then, it was a pretty hard fight, all told and given that it's a single story. They all had to expend a great deal of energy to bring him down.

IMO they should have split the story in two, so it "feels" like it took them two stories (weeks irl) to take Razz down.

I kinda liked the gore descriptions (hurr edgy), with that kind of details it doesn't feel like a Cartoon Network show.

How did you know is referencing he knew were the root was, but "used to grow:" hints that she wasn't aware that it was burned down

>mind controlled and being forced to kneel and bark like a dog
Unzips pants.

>"looking younger suits you"
Not my thing. Will ignore.

>mud and blood
nope.jpg

>Liliana feeling what the dead animals feel and giggling
Boner poison.

It's hard to say how successful Liliana would of been if she started with the veil. I think it would of protected her at least.

Women writing young adult fiction always devolves into fetishes.

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She's post-Invasion, IIRC not long after Scourge's plotline - so Dominaria is going to shit but isn't yet complete shit.

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Reminder that the Jacetice league will defeat the evil male oppressor with the power of friendship and diversity and that Gideon will die and jace will be cast out for having penises.

Is everyone forgetting the point of Amonkhet? Rebirth into zombies? The demon will be back. They made it a point to make it look like he was torn to shreds. Besides with the death of jace getting spoiled they will be upsetting 75% of their base.

Au contraire, my pessimistic friend.

He's not dead, just mindwiped. Spoilers put him as an amnesiac in Ixalan.

Well those are some amazing pieces of artwork.

Also, the Jacetice League getting their shit kicked and Jace getting mind raped is the best thing that has happend post-Origins.

Plus, Dominaria and the new Un-set. Fuck. Consider me fucking hype

>death of jace
What?

No death, but he definitely get BTFO.

They made note of that in the story - Liliana specifically tore him to shreds so he WOULDN'T reanimate.

Well, it's not like jace didn't have this EXACT SAME THING already happen to him before.

To be fair, he's also done this exact same thing to himself a few times.

Ouch, now that's some next level hate to have an entire card dedicated to fucking over a single character.

It's a cycle. The "Nissa's Defeat" destroys a forest or a green Planeswalker, if it's a Nissa Planeswalker draw a card.

They deserved it.

Looks like it's going to be a cycle of "fuck over something that shares my color" like that cycle of Theros cards that only worked on things that were the same color. Only these get rider effects against Gatewatchers. Starting off with a strictly better Gainsay, which probably won't see much play but might be a dece sideboard card if certain things happen in Modern and is a flavor homerun.

Looks like we're not only going to see the Gatewatch get BTFO by Bolas, but that he's specifically going to beat all of them while crushing them with the very things they're good at.

What is it with Jace and getting his mind fucked? Sphinx did it to him multiple times, he did it to himself multiple times, Razaketh did it to him, Bolas did it to him now multiple times, Emmy-chan did it do him.

He's a magnet for this shit.

The extra bonus for Gatewatch destruction is pure flavor and I love it.

He's a telepath. He's constantly listening to everyone else's thoughts as well as his own. It's not that he's a magnet, it's that he is by his very nature susceptible to influence from outside sources, but also still dumb enough to not practice some proper defenses for it.

>defense
>Nicol Bolas

Pick one.

>Jace hurled the entire force of his will into a mental lunge. His mind screamed into the ice, and nobody heard. Like a closing fist, he snapped shut the grid of thought, trying to block Bolas before he-
>Oh, dear Heaven!
>Jace's mind quailed before the greatest power he had ever felt. The innermost depths of Alhammarret's psyche, the very core of the wizard's being, had been nothing, a gentle springtime gust to the roaring hurricane that was this single tendril of the dragon's mind.
>Bolas pushed, Jace squeezed, and for just an instant - precious little time, yet a far more impressive feat than Jace would ever realise - the young mage held fast.
>Sweat poured from his brow and froze, forming a tiny hedge of his hair. His head pounded, and the sky and snow turned gray before his fading vision. In seconds, what little mana remained to be tapped underground was gone.
>His breathing came in short and ragged casps, the frigid air burning his lungs. His stomach knotted, his fists clenched inside their gloves. He felt a capillary burst in his left eye, heard something pop deep in his sinuses. He felt a liquid warmth running from his nose, a warmth that didn't last long before it, too, began to freeze.
>Still the pressure grew, the mind-tendril shifting in his grasp, and Jace knew, without knowing how he knew, that the dragon had not yet begun to struggle.
>With a defeated gasp, he tumbled to the ground. His body shook, and the ice and snow around him turned pink with blood.

Bolas wants to flatten him, Bolas is going to flatten him.

Ob Nixilis is one of the most powerful planeswalker that we've seen, if not the most powerful
Karn is probably stronger but he's not a REAL planeswalker

Obby's not the most powerful. He's just several cuts above the Gatewatch.

>ObNix is the most powerful

Bolas is a cheater, he doesn't count

Ugin as well.

Ob is in Garruk and Elspeth's weight division.
>Bolas, Ugin.
>Karn, Nahiri, Sorin, Liliana with the Veil
>Ob, Elspeth, Garruk,
>Gideon, Sarkhan, Liliana without the Veil.
>Chandra, Tezzeret, Ajani
>The rest of the losers

I'd only put Tezzie up with Ajani and company if he has time to prep, really. He's more like Batman than Superman, he needs to prep with his artifice.

Rest of the list looks fairly reasonable, though there'd be HUGE gaps between some tiers.

I loved the edgy gory bits, it's an old Magic I haven't heard of since Onslaught and Kamigawa, the primal kind that's just downright ugly to see, the kind that makes men throw up on instinct. I acknowledge that Magic exists and it's nice to see it pop up every now and then when we're not busy overthrowing the Kaladeshian bourgeoisie or watching crazy evil exes raise a rabble and seal vampires in rocks. Even Eldrazi usually just turn stuff to dust. Hidetsugu eating a spirit dragon for the glory of his demon master or Marrow-Gnawer just imploding bloodily from violating his blood pact were far more real and horrific than the Eldrazi ever were.

I'm going to absolutely put this into my Baral deck where most of the time it'll be (u) counter target counterspell.

Why does Veeky Forums hate the gatewatch so much?

Because Wizards wants us to like them.

I like them desu, I want to eat Lili's gaping old lady cunt

Sorry Maro, I'm way too hype to point out their flaws. Read some old lore threads.

Jace is my wifu

>Gideon
Retconned beyond any sort of recognizability, as well as having all the appeal of a moral do-gooder sucked away by having him be generic Greek Adonis hearthrob who seems to get uglier with each printing, for some reason. instead of the wet-blanket old guy veteran type he came in as.
>Jace
Overexposure. This in turn is ultimately a problem that hits the Gatewatch across the board with almost everyone, even those who like them.
>Liliana
Evil cunt who has gotten away with literally everything horrible she's ever done for no reason whatsoever. Also that whole Garruk controversy because women can't be hurt by physical contact even if they're objectively reprehensible pieces of shit.
>Chandra
Hoo boy. First, anybody who thought a Jaya Ballard knockoff clone was a good idea clearly doesn't understand why people liked Jaya Ballard at all. A character known exclusively for funny fire-related one-liners on cards has no appeal or business trying to be a genuine character. She's a stupid, childish, immature brat who has absolutely nothing appealing going for her as a character, and the fact that she's a redheaded sometimes attractive in card art gives her a fandom that should otherwise be completely out and out rejecting her. Baral's only mistake was not killing her quickly enough to prevent her spark from going off.
>Nissa
Retconned beyond any sort of recognizability, but with Nissa it's even worse. Not only was she turned into a bland piece of cardboard who can only utter the words 'Leyline' and 'Nature', but the fact that she was a Joraga supremacist has been shuffled away just because Wizards needed her to be an unambiguous good guy, even though Green is in desperate need of some moral grey, and a redemption arc for her would have been a completely reasonable direction to take her character. Nowadays she's just an expositor for whatever plane they're on, then kindly fucks off to do really cringeworthy shipping bait.

>Ajani
Nobody dislikes Ajani, he's the motherfucking best.

Because they've been shoved down our throats and travel as a pack when they really shouldn't.
Thankfully, they seem to have learned what the thing they're copying knew from the start: to not just use the same exact characters all the damn time. They're trying to copy comic books, but that doesn't work because if you don't want to read about one fuck you can read about a different one, but not with Magic. WIth Magic under the Gatewatch you're stuck with the same plot for six months. And the same characters no matter what. It's more similar to the Marvel movies than comic books, and they vary up who's being used - they didn't have all the Avengers in all the movies all the time once they became a group, because that would be boring. They did individual shit, and had things with new fucks. If they want to copy this shit, they need to do it correctly, instead of half-assed.

Truly spoken. Ajani is indeed the best, even on planes where everything is dumb.

The Gatewatch are a shameless, cynical Avengers ripoff. It's obvious they we're spawned in some awful corporate boardroom. They just wanted to make money by turning MTG into a game about super heroes.

I honestly would prefer that if Wizards insisted on main characters, have it be Ajani and Tamiyo on high-fantasy adventures.