How long before the real villains of MTG return?

Speaking of, where was he during Shadows/Eldritch?

Probably soon

The set will probably suck (like every return to X set has recently)

right after dominaria

probably right after dominaria, magic is going for nostalgic shit right now. its going to really suck because there will be no worthwhile cards since wizards new policy is make shitty stuff no one can use in eternal formats

shadows block was such a disappointment. made me decide to stop buying new sets

But user we just saw them.

>Phyrexian mana will never return
>they'll just make other shitty mechanics

hopefully never, WotC is just going to fuck it up

I think you mean
>phyrexian mana will be nerfed to the level of scars block commons across the board

Being reamed up and down by some eldrazi who decided to teach him the meaning of pain

or
Tibalt finds a new fetish
or
how a dom becomes a sub

Really? I know he's from there, but I wouldn't have placed Tibalt as someone who cares enough about Innistrad to not just fuck off to another plane when things go reality-disruptingly badly.

>Villains

You mean blessed perfection? Hopefully soon.

He revels in death and destruction, especially if Innistrad is in peril. He'd have a field day watching the angels go mad and the eldrazi fucking shit up.

I just want to see the phyrexian eldrazi slivers meme become reality

>All the loose plot threads that have yet to be answered.
Why Wizards?

Both of you shut the fuck up and stop making me sad. At least I still have Vault Skirge.

You know, Dominaria: Homecoming having a few references or reprints (All it does from dawn til dusk is make the soldier die) would be a good lead in to either a reemergence on another plane or a look back at New Phyrexia politics. Phyrexian holdouts that have been in hiding for 100 years somewhere, or a plane that has been at war with Phyrexian occupants since long ago. Sleepers were everywhere man.

Never, Yawgmoth is dead.

Unless you're referring to nuPhyrexians, who have nothing in common with real Phyrexians and are just dumb phazon mutants.

That's actually what happens.

... I think.

I don't understand why they don't just make RB Tibalt with +1 Phyrexian Arena.

Between two unbalanced things, it creates a balanced, standard printable and viable one.

Why wasn't he RB anyway, his deck in Duel Decks: Batman vs. Joker was RB.

Well the last we see of him is the duel deck against Sorin. I doubt challenging an oldwalker, especially Sorin, ended well for him.

>Sorin
>an oldwalker

I know canonically he was around for the pre-nerf spark but the fact that he's a shitty nuMagic character really triggers me using that term with him. Fug.

True Phyrexia was the true villain of magic for a long time, until they were defeated. New Phyrexia has little to nothing to do with them, and is at best A significant villain.

>Probably during/after Dominaria, given the plane's previous run in with them.
But Dominaria did not have a run in with the faction that's called Phyrexia right now, and is represented with the symbol in OP's pic. Dominaria had an invasion from a completely different and unrelated faction, and really the only thing True Phyrexia and new phyrexia share in common is a name.

That'd be like some immortal English knight who had some trouble when he ran into a powerful death-cult in Yorkshire deciding that he needed to invade New York because "they are the real threat, just look at the name"

That's just silly.

I'm torn between saying "not soon enough" and "hopefully never". I haven't touched MtG since Scars/New Phyrexia rotated out of standard and my wallet is thankful for it, but I do miss the Perfection.

Not soon enough my man. I sincerely hope that the plane finds some kind of equilibrium between it's first timeline and second timeline selves

>But Dominaria did not have a run in with the faction that's called Phyrexia right now, and is represented with the symbol in OP's pic.
Didn't old Phyrexia use the phi symbol first? I seem to see it at least on the forehead of Phyrexian Scuta, here.

Yeah, he's wrong about that. He's right about nuPhyrexia having nothing to do with the real Phyrexia, and just being a shitty marketing gimmick for one of the worst-conceived storylines in Magic history, but he is wrong about them being the first to use the Phi character. To be fair I don't think Phyrexia used the janky squiggly version in the OP though.

Naw, keep it with Never. The Eldrazi serve the exact same function in the narrative and Dominaria's triumph over the original phyrexians has been unwritten enough between Scrouge, Mirrodin and especially New Phyrexia.

Still waiting on the repercussions from killing titans, Ugin. You said there would be repercussions.

>The Eldrazi serve the exact same function
Well, the same but worse, I guess. As far as horrors go the Eldrazi are some of the blandest elder god types ever conceived.

Well, nuPhyrexia is ultimately sourced from the oil that leaked from Xantcha's Phyrexian heartstone, so that kinda counts as "something to do with the real Phyrexia." But eh. I like New Phyrexia, personally, particularly how Phyrexia was warped by exposure to different colors of mana.

The repercussion is that there's no more Titans to recycle the dying planes into new ones
A plane collapsing will probably cause a lot of problems in the Blind Eternities
Do you remember the last dying plane we saw? Amonkhet. And it is already decaying

And those three are the only titans that we know of. Eventually a titan or Emmy will have to show up. Along with Nicky B and his eternals. What's the next step in his plan? Will he and Ugin ever have another grand battle?

>True Phyrexia was the true villain of magic for a long time, until they were defeated. New Phyrexia has little to nothing to do with them, and is at best A significant villain.

That's your interpretation, but that's not how WotC is handling them. New Phyrexia is only the name of the plane. The inhabitants of New Phyrexia are "Phyrexians", not "New Phyrexians". We didn't get "New Phyrexian Crusader" or "New Phyrexian Obliterator", so it's a different story from New Yorkers.

>a shitty marketing gimmick for one of the worst-conceived storylines in Magic history

That's some real bad taste you've got their, friendo.

>What's the next step in his plan?
We don't know Da B ultimate goal but we do know what he currently needs: his pre-Mending power.
Now, that we know Amonkhet was not there to get him power but rather an army and that Kaladesh was there to create planar portals
Once Ral Zarek will have repaired the portal, Da B will probably use it to invade another plane, starting with Kaladesh, where the portal is
What will his next target be? Dominaria? It will surely be a plane that he can use to get power

Have you actually read Quest for Karn?

People actually read the novels?

That's a problem of a shitty author telling a story badly, rather than a bad story.

I suppose "exact same" is a bit of an overreach. Wizards needs to nut up and ruin some other beloved plane to give these fucks their teeth.

They should also have some design decisions (not allowing players to summon the titans, for example) to make them feel more powerful. Imagine how less powerful Yawgmoth or Urza would have felt if you could knock them with a path to exile or a ping from prodigal sorcerer.

Oh yes, young one. Once upon a time the fluff was the best thing about Magic. I understand it's hard to imagine given the last dozen years worth of content.

It can be two things. Indeed, it was both a bad idea and badly executed.

>it was both a bad idea and badly executed.

Nah. Phyrexia having the ability to corrupt things just from the oil was established canon. With survivability to that extent, it's a natural follow-through for them to return. Not to mention the fact it made it relevant that Xantcha's heartstone was used for Karn. It tied together a bunch of literary elements and foreshadowing.

Don't forget, they created Mirrodin to become New Phyrexia. It was planned that far back.

>They should also have some design decisions (not allowing players to summon the titans, for example) to make them feel more powerful.

Nah, being able to summon the Titans is fine. Remember, the true forms of the Eldrazi weren't the Titans, the Titans were just the biggest pieces of the Eldrazi on this side of the Blind Eternities. When you summon Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger, you're basically summoning the true Ulamog's right hand.

Not to mention, Emrakul 1.0 is easily one of the most powerful creature cards of all time. Being able to show off the power of the Eldrazi mechanically does a lot for giving that power weight to the average player. If Emrakul were this faceless thing that only gets alluded to in flavor text, it provides a lot less oomph than Emrakul showing up and ruining your life in an actual game.

Urza and Mishra are dead, though.

>Nah. Phyrexia having the ability to corrupt things just from the oil was established canon.

Incorrect. The Glistening Oil drove Memnarch mad. Memnarch was a pure machine, there was no precedent for it to affect organics, even organic metal- and indeed Karn was drenched in the stuff long before he was a Planeswalker, so if it was going to corrupt him it should have done it then. Furthermore, it didn't turn Memnarch into a dumb looking mutant, it just made him crazy. It was a badly-hamfisted and ultimately unnecessary method of reviving a threat that wasn't truly dead, and that had planar travel. Nothing was foreshadowed, simply retconned.

Even if it was planned exactly as you said it was, right down to Glistening Oil always being Phazon, it was still badly done. Having Slobad die on the way to his home planet and Glissa randomly turn into a mutant just so the editorially mandated nuwalker heroes can save the day was extremely tasteless, and killing main characters in a footnote is never good writing. Ultimately, the big bad bosses of the five colors (each a violation of what Phyrexia is in the first place, and each the blandest interpretation of "this color but evil" possible) ultimately proved completely pointless. Urabrask's thing of maybe being a good guy went nowhere.

Now please, answer the question. Did you or did you not read Quest for Karn?

Probably soon-ish.

I never want it to happen though. I really like Phyrexia and I don't want Wizards to fuck it up.

>Jace and co. unite to stop Phyrexia once and for all, over the course of one set!

>Incorrect. The Glistening Oil drove Memnarch mad. Memnarch was a pure machine
Memnarch is not a pure machine.

>there was no precedent for it to affect organics, even organic metal-
The Phyrexian Mask symbol is a stylized depiction of Glistening Oil pouring from a corrupted individual's eyes. We've seen organic beings corrupted in this fashion before, and they made a special note to depict it again during Time Spiral block.

>Urabrask's thing of maybe being a good guy went nowhere.
So far. You think every loose end needs to be tied up the second it's revealed?

I'll admit Glissa and Slobad were poorly handled, but that's not directly related to the idea of reviving Phyrexia.

>Now please, answer the question. Did you or did you not read Quest for Karn?
Yes, but I'm able to divorce the concept of a shitty author from the idea they were trying to portray.

Wasn't it implied Elesh Norn killed Urabrask or something? Though, I got the impression the reason Urabrask was sorta a good guy was a general incompatibility between Phyrexia and red mana, so Phyrexians like him probably keep cropping up anyway.

Elesh Norn raided Urabrask and Sheoldred's domains, but they very deliberately didn't say what happened to either of the Praetors themselves.

I'm pretty sure they're going to have to reveal the other Praetors survived, because otherwise we're left with Bant Phyrexia and that's probably against the law somewhere.

Not to mention, the whole thing about Elesh Norn attacking their domains was written before Atraxa was made. So either Atraxa happened earlier in the timeline or there's some uncertainty about the current state of the plane.

I read the Zendikar book by the same author, also known as Magic: Three Characters Walk In A Straight Line To Their Goal. Was I correct in assessing that Quest for Karn was basically the same?

so how did wizards manage to drop the ball so fucking hard on the eldrazi? could they not have found some better way of showing off the gatewatch than killing off the villain they'd been building for almost a decade?

They could, but capeshit sells a lot better among kids, so they went with that

Well it's a children's card game so I guess that makes sense.

>Did you or did you not read Quest for Karn?
Not that user, but I didn't. Got a pdf or ebook of it you can stick on Veeky Forums?

>killing off the villain they'd been building for almost a decade
>appeared in one block
What are you even talking about

>Yes, but I'm able to divorce the concept of a shitty author from the idea they were trying to portray.

That's called a good idea for a story with poor execution. Also known as bad writing.

Nobody was defending the writing.

>Memnarch is not a pure machine.
He was until he got mycosynth-ed. A large part of his mania was an attempt to restore his previous "perfection."

Did you read the original Mirrodin books?

They were saying the story wasn't bad. A poorly-written story is bad.

No, go further back. The discussion started from >one of the worst-conceived storylines

They were arguing about the concept for the storyline, which is not synonymous with how the storyline played out.

The culmination of his fight with Sorin was Tibalt fleeing the plane. Presumably he's wreaking havoc elsewhere and never thought to go back home.

Tibalt's life on Innistrad consisted of people looking down on him or trying to kill him. Anywhere else in the Multiverse, he's a devilish being to be feared. On Innistrad, he's a failed scientist who turned to torture because it's all he knows how to do.

Sorin is written decently well as far as new Magic story characters go. He has a decent character arc and he definitely acts like a guy who is used to being all powerful and above petty mortal squabbles.

Ah, you got me senpai. My bad.

Atraxa indicates a great deal of unity amongst the Phyrexians. Perhaps they just failed to integrate the Reds

The real question is how long before Gix Returns?

I worry if they ever brought Gix back he'd be around just to get smacked down by one of the Praetors to show how much cooler and better their new and improved Phyrexians are. Even if that wouldn't make any sense.

>Gix will never emerge from the blind eternities, kick the shit out of Norn, and declare himself the new Father of Machines

I don't think he could. Power creep is real.

Not a chance. They'd never kill off everyone's favorite shit-tier waifu just to appease the ten or so people still playing that actually remember Gix.

Nigga smacked around Urza, if the writing remained consistent he could easily.

I don't care if he comes back in canon. I just want a good Gix commander

Urza was mighty because of preptime wizardry and shit he had invented. Slapping around an old man isn't hard.

Didn't he have nigh infinite prep-time cause of tolaria time shenanigans?

Also, aren't there still some times bubbles with phyrexians in them?

He was a powerful pre-Mending 'walker. He appeared as an old man exclusively because he chose to, they weren't even constrained by physical form. I have no qualms about saying some neo-Phyrexian that thinks a post-Mending Karn is the end-all, be-all would get bitchslapped by Gix.

If the oil was just phazon, why didnt they use it before?

It just turns them into kinda generic villians. Not a bug fan of nuphyrexia.

>why didnt they use it before?
They did. But they didn;t really need it before.

It's only phazeon on Mirroden because everything is metal. I'm reading Nemesis right now, and OldPhyrexia needed to do surgeries on Crovax cause he wasn't made of metal.

Did anybody else read the Mercadian Masques novel? Volrath is such a little bitch in it.

>all this New Phyrexia hate
Old Phyrexia was superior, but new Phyrexia is still the best big bad we have now.

>but new Phyrexia is still the best big bad we have now.
I wouldn't say that, but they are the ones who are actually a massive planar threat.

Bolas just wants to get his Pre-mending powers back and the Eldrazi seem to serve an actual purpose. Phyrexia is the only one who actually wants to conquer/compleat everything.

I get the feeling we're going to see an ozymandias style story line soon to shake things up. One of the new heroes making some plane ending threat just to galvanize he gatewatch or something equally stupid.

I hope it involves slivers again cause they would be an easy mid level threat to resurrect like if Nissa wanted to be a cunt.

But once Bolas gets his power back, what does he intend to do with it?

Go back to reading his books?

He will regain his immortality. He just wants to live forever.

lol remember when this was a "strong" zombie

Forever is a lot of time. Is he likely to do anything sinister with it?

Very likely. He just got really upset at no longer being immortal when the mending happened and is now trying to save himself from death

Masques novel was one of the more boring ones. The only decent parts were Orim's chapters, just because she was kind of likeable I guess.

It's kind of funny when you contrast saturday morning cartoon Volrath from Masques, with his cool antihero version in Nemesis.