MtG Lore, Story, and Interpretation

This is some baby's first moral relativism shit.

White's revulsion to black isn't some hippy "oh no someone died" crap. White's revulsion to black is about black's selfishness. White isn't afraid to kill people - hell, white isn't afraid to kill ALL the people. Black kills people for personal gain, that's the problem.

>Now we will both dwell in oblivion.
That sounds like "just moving". Oblivion sounds pretty dead to me. Bounce spells bounce creatures that were summoned, and cover nonsummoned creatures in dangerous aether. Mages "bounce" a bunch of dragon engines in Brothers War and those things didn't just get sent home.

Also yeah white gets wrath-effects, but some would argue an eternity in the void (most exile spells), or as a "living statue" might be worse (see Arrest). Shit's fucked up.

You see baby's first moral relativism, I see blatant hypocrisy.
>eternal torment for The Greater Good is better than killing for selfish reasons

MtG is super inconsistent about the in-world mechanics of its magic, so I'm sure you can find something that justifies it. Just like you can find a million different supported models of what memory is, what spells are, and how summoning works. That doesn't change what bounce magic is meant to represent.

You're not doing much to contradict the "baby's first moral relativism" impression.

Every color hsd to be capable killing things from a gameplay perspective so there has to be some flavor justification. The other colors have issues with black's usage of its abilities philosophically, not that it can do it. Thats why its the only color that consistently gets unconditional kill for example.

Blue makes stuff go to another place, it doesn't necessarily care where. In some cases, that means washing stuff away with a tidal wave. In other cases, it means banishing someone to oblivion or some other plane of existence. It varies a great deal. It doesn't care as long as the person is out of its way for the moment and doesn't interfere in its plans.

White's different, in that it does care. It gets rid of people by imprisoning them, frequently by banishing them to another plane of existence just like blue. However, white wants you to stay there for good so that you don't interfere with what it creates. White has jailers who keep other creatures locked away for as long as they exist, as well as spells that outright lock someone away forever.

White gets rid of people because they disrupt with the greater good, blue gets rid of people because they put kinks in the plan, black gets rid of people because they have something to gain from it, red gets rid of people because they want to at that moment in time and green gets rid of people because they were destined to die in that fashion, or because they play their role in nature by dying in that way.

Eh, that's fair.

Uh, okay. Just don't agree with you then. I find selfish murder as bad as unjustified sentencing.

Thsts the diffdrence between white and blsck philosophicslly. White justifies its actions as morally driven. Ehite putd you away becausr you did something wrong like attacked, or makes a trade in value which makes the exile okay, or gives you a way out if you can find it, or only destroys thingd to even the odds over s greater force. Black believes thats not only limiting your power level, but also fake bullshit white made up to prevent others from moving up.

>White justifies its actions as morally driven.

This is key. It may justify them, but they may or may not actually be moral.

>Anyone else notice how every color is, in lore, as brutal as the others?

The colors are not tied to an objective morality system.

Not according to the player's morality, no.

The genocidal rampage of Innistrad's angels is white for the most part, as an example. I mean, we obviously find it insane but according to the twisted programming of Avacyn, it is best for everyone and morally the best course of action.

Yep. Black and the other colors recognises the other colors do these things but blsck realizes that they are unnecessarily limiting themselves. Blue thinks its savage to outright kill things, green doesnt like to take things before their time as dictated by nature, red kills things but does so without thought or calculation, and obviously white feels that its morally wrong to kill things outright without justification.

It's Green that doesn't really get villains. There've been some G/x baddies, but Vorinclex is the closest to a mono-G one I can think of and he was probably the least important praetor.

I was sad when kaladesh didnt have a green villain because I not8
Iced this as well. I wish i could say maybe next time, but the set up forbphyrexia is too obvious to not follow up on it and they set up green as too friendly with the technology on this world I feel. There is a fsction of elves who shun the tech, though. The bishtahar iirc. Maybe thats set up for that.

Maybe we'll get a green villain on Dominaria. Seems like any time they want to make G sinister they need to add B though. Like, Garruk would have worked fine as a "deadliest game" Planeswalker hunting murder machine in mono-G.

Lorwyn's elves made for pretty good green villains. I mean, yeah, they were also black, but the way they were evil was still pretty green. Green's belief that people can't escape the nature they're born into can easily translate into the "some (most) kinds of people are just naturally and totally inferior (and don't really deserve to live)" idea that the turboracist elves cling to.

Thats why it would have worked brilliantly on kaladesh. The world is fueled by this natural energy, its not hard to envision a green character that dislikes that energy being harnessed and tampered with to power metal trinkets and puppets. I legit wanted to do a planeshift kaladesh dnd campaign just to flesh out this concept because i think its so sweet but I dont know shit about dnd.

Eh, green doesnt believe anything natural doesnt deserve to live. Thats the part of the lorwyn elves that made them black. That they were so much more beautiful/powerful then the other tribes on lorwyn that they could excercise any right over them.

Yeah, that's one of the better executions of a green villain that they've done. I think the problem Green has with villians is that the most obvious option is "Big survival-of-the-fittest hungry dude" followed by "eco-terrorist", and beyond that you have to get a lot more creative.

Yeah, there are plenty of good G/B villains. Lorwynn Elves, Phyrexian Glissa, Garruk, Vraska, seems like probably Mazirek whenever we go back to Ravnica again. Probably even more that I'm forgetting.

Survival of the fittest could mean a lot of things. Imagine socially darwinist empire building elves or something.

Social darwinism isnt green, at least not something green does by itself. The popular idea of what survival of the fittest means is actually black in Magic, the idea that only the best and strongest should survive. Green believes that being fit doesnt just mean you have the most power. Its why the card Survival of the Fittest does what it actually does.

To be fair to other user, it's an understandable confusion. Green does really like being the biggest and the strongest.

Fair enough

Green does believe that the biggest, strongest and most efficient creatures should be at the top of the food chain. It just doesn't believe that is an ideal that all creatures should pursue. Some things are meant to be small and insignificant, some things aren't meant to achieve greatness. There's nothing wrong with that, in the eyes of green.

Black and green agree on the idea of the survival of the fittest but while black uses that as justification for "I need to do whatever it takes to be the best," green doesn't agree with and says "maybe you weren't meant to be the fittest and it's totally okay if you aren't."

SOM green would disagree (and that is mono G, not GB)

That's because Phyrexia seriously fucks up whatever color it interacts with.

I wouldn't say Phyrexian green is typical mono-green at all.

They already did that story years ago with Mirri, and it read like a disgusting furry fanfic. Today it would probably be even worse, but the tumblr fanbase would like it. It would also create a huge outrage here about muh SJWs ruining our games.

He wasnt wuite on point, the sifferenxe between bla k snd green philosophicslly is blsxk believes survical of the fittedt means thst only the steonest survive. Green believes that you are most fit when fitting into whatever niche you need to fill, whether that is an apex predator with brute strength or a worm that survives by hiding in the dirt.
Of course, in new Phyrexia, everything is tinged with black, and so Vorinclex leans on the social darwinist aspect. So yes hes just the might makes right type in mono green. Coincidentally, so was rhonas though in a less blatantly evil way, another green character tinged by black. The main difference philosophically is black believes there should be no weaklings, whereas green when it isnt affected by blacks philosophy believes even the lowliest creatures can fill a role.

It's still perfectly within green's sphere.

Green's survival of the fittest is "let nature take its course" and that includes the strong eating the weak (so long as it is for nature-y purposes).

What's interesting is that Vorinclex and his Vicious Swarm don't seem to value the small and insignificant. That is, Phyrexia doesn't seem to have room for a bottom on its food chain.
>All other lifeforms should be eliminated or subsumed into Phyrexia, the ultimate "species." But unlike other Phyrexians, they believe this should be accomplished through an accelerated natural selection—a monstrous simulation of the predator-prey cycle in which all prey are predators themselves.

Did someone ask for garbage fanfiction, complete with special-snowflake OC?

Self-deprecation is even less funny than replying to yourself. Cease and desist.

Don't be a fucking twat, wait for a snowflake thread or don't post that stuff at all.

Stepping around the snowflakes, I actually really like that layout and character building advice for a fanwalker. Trying to boil down the basic concept to three words, sketching out a short story for their background and then picking some cards that reflect their abilities and temperament really helps build a picture of what that walker is like
Is there a template for these? Could I have it?

White is authoritarian. It cares about order, peace, and structure.
Blue is progressive. It looks to the future, seeking to innovate and transform.

Black is libertarian. It focuses on the potential of the self, and dismisses the constraints of society.
Green is conservative. It wants to preserve the natural order. It values tradition.

Red is an outlier. Red has no political affiliation, but in combination with another color represents passionate extremist groups.

Monowhite: Hilary Clinton.
Boros (WR): Hitler.
Jeskai (WUR): Mao.

Monoblack: Ayn Rand.
Dimir (UB): Julian Assange.
Jund (BRG): Trump.

The current pope is probably Bant. The Buddha is colorless.

The only templates available are the more detailed ones.

That poster's are so simple, despite being aesthetically pleasing, that I wouldn't say a template's required for that format.

I'd argue Hitler was more Mardu, there's a lot of Black in the Nazi's philosophy, usually on the behalf of the state (hence the interactions with white)

New to magic lore here, who is Ramos and what is a dragon engine? Sounds pretty cool.

Also, what is the biggest (or probably the biggest) creature in magic, size-wise. Probably Genju of the Realkm followed by Worldspine Wurm?

Sorry, no template. I stitched them together in paint.net. The fonts are "Beleren" for the titling, and "MatrixBook" for the text. Can't really give you much more than that.

I think the snowflake threads have burned themselves out for good this time. It was only ever group masturbation - not even a proper circlejerk. Last one, I promise.

Ramos is a creation of Mishra, back from the Brothers War on Dominaria between him and Urza, a famous artificer planeswalker
A dragon engine isn't really a specific type of construct so much as it denotes that Ramos is an entirely artificial dragon. Also he does generate power for you so in a way he is a draconic engine that powers your spells

mtg.gamepedia.com/Ramos
mtg.gamepedia.com/Dragon#Dragon_engines

In short, dragons are artificial dragons native to the original plane of Phyrexia before it came into Yawgmoth's possession. Their precise origins are unknown, but they might related to the unknown draconic planeswalker that once made the plane.

Ramos is a particularly well-known dragon engine that ended up on the world of Mercadia, important to many of the world's religions. The story is rather complicated but essentially, it is responsible for bringing many human and merfolk refugees from the plane of Dominaria to the plane of Mercadia in an ancient conflict known as the Brothers' War, a battle between the brothers Urza (you'll see this name a lot in old lore) and Mishra.

Also, be wary of the wiki I linked, it misses out a lot of details and is outright incorrect in a few places.

discord.gg/YQDVRU

If they burned out, it's because most of the discussion takes place on a Discord instead. We should have another thread at some point though, I don't think anyone would mind that.

Dragon engines were artificial (robotic) dragons created during the Brothers' War, a plane-spanning contract between two artificers, Urza and Mishra. Ramos was one such dragon engine, and one of the few survivors of the war. In the millennia that followed, Ramos protected the people who lived in the devastated lands, and was worshipped by them.

Emrakul. She's the single most powerful being in the lore (save M̤̮̖̟ͅa̡̮r̹͔͉͈i̧͈̙͈̘̻t̬͇͕́ͅ ̜͍L͚̱̘͚a͚̟͓ge). Her card is, appropriately, the most powerful creature ever printed.

The largest creature is likely one of the following:
>The leviathan planeswalker that Nicol Bolas fought eons ago. What is left of its horns are the Talon Gates, in image related.
>Any of the three Eldrazi titans, each of which are meant to be impossibly massive. Emrakul herself dwarfs the city of Thraben.
>Marit Lage, an ancient sorceress possessing the form of a massive, tentacled monstrosity not very different from the Eldrazi, frozen solid beneath the ice of Dominaria.

>Also, what is the biggest (or probably the biggest) creature in magic, size-wise.

Thanks for the answers, I'll definitely be reading more.
Worldspine is probably bigger than Emrakul though.

I am returning to the lore after being gone for a while, can someone sum up what happened?
Last I checked, we were fighting round 1 against the eldrazi (first time on zendikar).

We went back to Mirrodin, turns out there was an Phyrexian infestation. Mirrans versus Phyrexians, Phyrexians won and spread to all five colors.
Remember Sorin from Zendikar? We visited his homeplane, which was basically a stereotypical horror plane. Zombies, ghosts, werewolves and vampires were killing all humans but eventually the angel that Sorin had made to protect humanity returned and saved the day.
After that, we went back to Ravnica, where the planeswalker Jace was transformed into a living version of the Guildpact after solving the mysteries of the plane.
Then we went to Theros, a stereotypical Greek plane where Elspeth was killed by Not!Zeus after she slew a satyr that forced himself into godhood.
After that, we went to Tarkir, a world that covers stereotypical Asian cultures, with wedge clans that had wiped out dragons. After going back in time, Sarkhan, who is from the plane, restored the existence of dragons, who ended up ruling the clans and turning them into ally color clans.
Then we went back to Zendikar, where Ulamog and Kozilek were defeated by the Gatewatch, an organization containing Gideon, Jace, Chandra and Nissa.
Then we went back to Innistrad, where Sorin's angel went crazy and had to be put down by her daddy, with Emrakul turning up and getting trapped in the moon. Liliana joins the Gatewatch.
Then we go to Chandra's homeplane, where she overthrows the government and stops Tezerret from exploiting local technology to make planar portals. Ajani joins the Gatewatch.
Then finally, Amonkhet. The Gatewatch sans Ajani goes to Amonkhet, which is Not!Egypt to kill Nicol Bolas. Nicol Bolas arrives, wrecks his own plane and kicks the ass of all of the Gatewatch.

That's about it.

>his is up there with Visions right, where if it happened today the da base would cry Furry! instead of looking at it as a tragedy story, yeah?
As much as I'd think it'd be cool to see this (and frankly, most of the "cry furry" only comes from places like Veeky Forums anyway), at the same time I don't want to see one of the remaining few reoccurring characters to be diluted just like the fucking Planeswalkers were. I'm elated to see Mirri get some love again, but please don't turn her into part of the Jacetice League

>kicks the ass of all of the Gatewatch

Based Bolas.

Also, Bolas got an army of metal superzombies on Amonkhet, but the coolest one got shanked by some criminal.

>stereotypical Asian culture
Should be noted that the core inspiration was Mongolia and elements of China, so its quite distinct from Kamigawa. Also Dragons timeline is the worst timeline, Sarkhan's dragon fetish is so strong he committed genocide to get his dick up for some scaly fuckin'

And you skipped over the best part of Amonkhet: Bolas blowing the place up was all part of his original plan. He used the last moments of being an oldwalker to dominate the entire world, convert the gods into his servants and establish a society of ritualized combat and tests that's now produced an absolutely immense horde of intelligent zombies with all the skills and training they had in life. When he decided he'd seen enough, he disabled all the protections around his little training camp/city (allowing it to be swarmed by hordes of zombies that the plane just raises naturally), sent out three corrupted gods who killed all but one of their brothers (Hazoret aka dog mom is still alive so expect plenty of red if we ever see Amonkhet again) and then proceeded to absolutely maul the Gatewatch and drop some ominous hints about Ral Zarek (an Izzet walker, who's actually fully paid with the actual guild to boot, from Ravnica)

tl;dr? Bolas crashed his entire plane, with no survivors, because it was all part of his plan

Wasnt furry, alongside weaboo, one of the only two characters to beat Nicky B 1v1?

And guess who was the only Gatewatch member that didn't come to Amonkhet? In fact, guess which Gatewatch member actively said "we should wait before attacking Bolas, come find me on Dominaria in a bit because I'm going to try and get some backup"?
Still, if Dominaria goes the way I'm hoping it does it should make for a good story at least

If you enjoy that you should really read the story where it happens, Bolas spends no small amount of it just insulting the Gatewatch, both in his own head and straight to their faces. Its great

He "beat" him using highly contrived methods in a way that is non-replicable.

>Buddha is colorless
10/10 post

>Dominaria set details revealed
>time travel to bring back old favorite
>oh hey! Alternate timeline and time travel stress turns them into planeswalkers!!!
>all the old characters get revived as planeswalkers
>you're a planeswalker, and you're a planeswalker, and you're a planeswalker
>new stories every week, and the writing is perplexingly getting worse

You mean weeb or furry?

Trump is definitely just Rakdos lol

Red is more libertarian than black. Black is perfectly find with authoritarian systems of government so long as it's at the top. Blue is very opposed to change. This is why it is so reactive. Green is find with change (evolution etc), just not with technology.

Color philosophies don't map cleanly political ideology because they are fantasy archetypes, not things people actually believe.

I was thinking this because nazis definitely have blue more than red imo. Maybe the big H man himself had some red in him but nazis in general were definitely partially blue mo.

Aha lol Donald DRUMPFT haha

Bolas vs Niv-Mizzet when?

Nazis are primarily WB (which is the best color combo for representing tribalism dynamics). I think R is the best fit for a third color, going by their military tactics (blitzkreig is quintessential red, same with going around France's defensive line through a neutral country) and their leadership (namely hitler, very emotional and chaotic).

Glissa was a minor villain in New Phyrexia and Vraska is looking to be the main baddie of Ixalan.

What a one sided fight that would be.

>Return to dominaria is just Ajani trying to find out the plane weaboo was from.
>He gets wrong information and goes to ixalan and does whatever
>return to Kamigawa
I am hard

Hillary is monoblack as fuck. She doesn't really have ideals and doesn't crave peace and is instead basically POWER AT ANY COST while Trump seems more Abzan or Mardu. Red is libertarian or perhaps anarchist since it's about freedom. Black is similar, but also finds a way to thrive in authoritarian society since its users can manipulate power there. Black is the least political. Blue doesn't care about social progress at all.

But Ajani knows about Kamigawa? He hangs out with Narset, Sarkhan, Tamiyo and her husband there.

To be perfectly honest, I agreed with Jace's reasoning about going to Amonkhet and attacking Bolas immediately.

I don't think it was going to work, mind. But I agreed with the logic.

Bolas is older than them, stronger than them, and smarter than them. It wouldn't matter how much planning or preparation they did, because he would do more of it and he would do it better. That approach is doomed to fail at the outset. Trying it won't work.

However, doing the other option, which is jumping in feet first without taking the time to plan (and thus denying Bolas any time to counter-plan/ruse them), isn't going to work either. Because Bolas is an Elder Dragon Planeswalker who will fuck their shit up harder than Mishra cucked Urza, because he is older than them, stronger than them, and smarter than them.

Both options would have resulted in failure. They chose the latter, but I am of the firm belief that the former would have had the exact same result. As it was, if they had taken even a couple of days or a week to plan, Amonkhet would have fallen completely anyway by the time they got there.

>You mean weeb or furry?
Both.

Umezawa beat him because Bolas was stuck in one place and spending his time in his Meditation Realm.

Ajani beat him by using a fragment of the Conflux (which no longer exists because Bolas absorbed the rest of it, and Ajani doesn't have anywhere near enough power to even dream of getting close to what that tiny fragment gave him) to summon forth another Bolas, and there can only be one.

DUDE
WEED
LMAO

>Blue is very opposed to change
Nope. Blue's reactiveness is just supposed to represent it "thinking fast."

They're both BG

Blue is very opposed to changes in its plan. Almost always, blue is progressing towards some goal and has a plan in place about how to get there. Blue is all about causing change but only in the name of making the plan a reality. Anything that gets in the way of the plan is super bad.

Serra and the Angels having an aversion to black may involve them being literal constructs of white mana.

But muh subjective morality, user.

I'd buy angels not liking black mana because it could actual fuck with them. Serra just overreacts though.

Black mana doesn't kill people. People kill people, Serra!

So all the people/sphinxes on Esper made a choice to replace body parts with Etherium right?
It's not like on Mirrodin where people are born with metal bits.... So who is going around and shoving metal plates onto the animals, like the birds and drakes?

Isn't Niv-Mizzet the same type of dragon as Bolas?
He's certainly smarter and stronger than the rest of the dragons on Ravnica, none of them come close to him.

These folks, I guess.

Fuck no. Big Daddy Nicky B is the last actual elder Dragon. Nivy here is just a smart ass dragon.

So, for the record, Tarkir's Dragonlords are also a different type of Elder Dragons?

Actually a better question is how doe the people of Esper replace body parts with Etherium? Breya here is missing a good portion of her chest so I don't think you just cut-n-replace.

They're completely unrelated to dragons.

Niv-Mizzet is one of the few remaining dragons on that plane.
Remember Zhur-taa Ancient? Ravnican dragons had a similiar fuckheugness to them, to the point where the rest of the plane had to band together and hunt them into nonexistance, the few that remain are the smaller breeds since that makes them better at running and hiding.
Nig-mizzle is an exception to the rule.

Elder Dragons go way, way back.
And you're looking at it wrong anyways, almost every plane has it's unique traits to their creatures, Dragonlords are their own variant(kind of, since it's just a title for the alphas), much like Hellkites aren't found on every plane.

How does Emrakul mind control a flying blue asain into trapping "her" giant tentacled ass into a floating rock?
Fukken. Magic.

All I know is that I can't fap to it.