MTG STORY: OBEY THE LAW EDITION

>tfw you keep coming to story threads hoping there’s a green text that’s on par with Old Man Gideon

this story only has five

Nobody knows where that poster went, maybe he planeswalked on. Here, have an old one.

He gets mindraped by Jace and sendt to the island he came from

Is Azor America?
>travels to other places bringing "perfect systems"
>never holds himself responsible
>nations collapse thanks to his intervention

Nah, America does it for the Oil and the money.
Azor does it because he's a lawfag and enjoys it

No. He's an oldwalker. Oldwalkers are just dicks.

So Jace is now going to go against Bolas and Ugin at the same time?

Really disappointed if how Azor got handled. Finally we find the top sphinx of the multiverse and he is a sobbing mess cowering at freaking Jace. I get he is literally the only one in the multiverse that has authority over a guy with the hugest boner for authority, but to dispatch him to an Island without giving him a chance to atone for his 'sins'.

It also irks me how the vampires keep getting labeled as the bad guys. Like, they are not even pretending all the four factions stand on the same ground when it comes to preference inside WotC.

Good Ol' British Empire. Or if you prefer, as father, as son.

To be fair here comes their FemJesus to give them a speech. We have an evil vamp, a neutral vampire that's more zealous than evil, and the designated moral highround vampire.
It's boring but not inherently anti-vampire

He's commentary in any sort of imperialism, whether it's the modern attitude of the US, the actions of the Spanish and Portuguese Conquistadors or the widespread influence of the British Empire.

#Resist

Again, Angrath did nothing wrong. Best planeswalker on Ixalan by far

why would he go against Ugin?

I really hope Mavren does not pull off a "NotMuhMessiah" and tries to murder Elenda like Vona will obviously do. I can accept him being in a struggle when Elenda tells him the Legion has been misguided, but would like him to stop Vona at the crucial moment.

The Bad
>Mavren Fein does nothing, says nothing, accomplishes nothing, and plays second fiddle to a character nobody cares about, Vona.
>The "Battle" between Azor and Jace was absolutely pathetic. Perhaps after ten thousand years he may not be as sprightly as Vraska in a straight fight, but he doesn't even put up a decent argument as to why planes like Ravnica needed his intervention. This is, of course, not taking into account how terribly fucked Ravnica would have been without the Guildpact 10,000 years ago. (It would likely have resulted in Rakdos eventually murderfucking the entire plane.) You owe this character more respect, nuWotC.
>Dumb cunt Hautli still hasn't fucking clued into the fact that maybe Ghirapur isn't Orazca, unless I'm missing something.
>Tishana is still alive.

The Good
>Ugin and Azor working together has now been confirmed. The plan doesn't really many any sense, since Ugin wasn't acting as if he had set a trap for Bolas back in Tarkir when he went and got himself killed or whatever, but whatever, it's cool.
>Angrath ripping off the motherfucking head of Huatli's stronk independent dinosaur.
>Angrath literally doing anything at any time.
>Despite being tossed around like a bitch, Kumena, champ that he is, remains a-okay.
>Azor probably isn't done for yet. We still haven't seen the card art for Sphinx's Decree, so I wouldn't discount him as a complete bitch just this second. He'll probably come back and slap down someone. He'd fucking better.

3/10

Sphinx's Decree isn't a story card, therefore it's likely just a piece of irrelevant flavor to make Azor seem cool to non-lore fags.

perhaps he will return when Gideon's story arc begins

It's got both Azor and Huatli on it, I think you're wrong. I hope you're wrong, at least.

>The plan doesn't really many any sense
it looked more like Bolas outschemed Ugin and attacked him before he could be lured to the place where Azor could draw him into jail. Ugin did not appear to have expected Bolas back on Tarkir

Last story Huatli figured out that it wasn't Orazca she saw in her visions because they are so different.

>all the factions have a representative harnessing the power of the immortal sun simultaneously
>azor spread law across the planes but never took responsibility for the systems failing after he left
>jace mindrapes azor to guard useless island forever
>vraska is about to learn the truth about nicol bolas

>There's a metric fuckton of planes in the multiverse
>Walkers could go anywhere
>Nah how about we keep them all within a small confined number of planes, that's way easier to write than if a character fucked off to an unknown place and their affairs were left unresolved, only to be seen 6 years later when we visit a brand new plane that they went to
Like, dude.

Well, this pretty much confirms their plan for dealing with Bolas

So Azor was the first living thing to have hieromancy, then taught other planes how to use it?

He's stuck on an island full of bird crap forever.

Basically. Not that we'll ever understand the nuance behind all that now that Azor has been introduced and dealt with within two weeks of story. I don't even think WOTC could do much more with Azor as a character, but completely shutting that down is a pretty shitty deal.

Which is completely retarded. We know that imperialism wrecks local cultures, it's done because it can be incredibly profitable. But, either way why in the fuck is wizards trying to have stories with moral lessons when their primary product is a children's card game? Hell they aren't even pushing a moral, just shittily trying to have it as a metaphor for something that has already been proven

I actually thought Azor was a good depiction of an oldwalker. These beings where ageless and near-omnipotent. That obviously affects ones sanity. He didn't need any argument beyond "I am the law!" because he could do what he pleased. Oldwalkers were often really messed up in the head because of all the power and just planeswalked around the multiverse being dicks too everyone.

That would be awesome.

Our boy Dovin will save him and learn true hieromancy from him

>what if we take Bolas
>And lock him somewhere else
>it worked for Eldrazi

t. Umezawa

There's 'arrogant and incomprehensible' and then there's 'stamping your feet'. Guess which one is ill-fitting and poorly written.

Didn't the feet stamping start after Jace bitchslapped him protecting his waifu's honor? I assumed Jace was messing with his mind. I'll have to reread that part.

>Every set now revolves around stopping Nicol Bolas
>Despite the literal unbeatable magic aids beginning to come back.

I wonder if Azor knows about Old Phyrexia and the shenanigans that happened on Dominaria.

There have been no hints of Phyrexians coming back for at least the past 4 blocks. Why does everybody think they're coming back? I've been playing this game since Tempest. I've had enough phyrexians for a lifetime. I don't want them back.

>Why does everybody think they're coming back?
Because they already came back? That and Elspeth needs to suffer even more.

>Elspeth needs to suffer even more.

Truer words have never been written.

>Because they already came back?
Yes I know. They're on New Phyrexia/Mirrodin. Let them stay there.

>>Dumb cunt Hautli still hasn't fucking clued into the fact that maybe Ghirapur isn't Orazca, unless I'm missing something.
you are missing something because she very explicitly says "oh i guess that wasn't orazca that I saw" when she sees orazca
my only complaint with the story is azor is kind of a bitch, but i think it's (somewhat) justified because they were trying to push the angle of Jace being powered up by the guildpact against a sparkless azor.
Guildpact was pre-mending too so there was probably juicy shit in there.
It's not a good as old stories, but I'm currently cautiously optimistic towards how the story's going.
Not to mention I don't see why anyone gives a single shit about Kumena, he was an incredibly boring 1-note villain and the story isn't bad enough to warrant rooting for him out of spite like with ob

This alone is why I'm convinced the first plane to get attacked by New Phyrexia, should it happen, is Theros. Especially since Kruphix basically said if they attacked Theros would be fucked.

>Especially since Kruphix basically said if they attacked Theros would be fucked.
I thought it was something about them all being half-enchantment so it wouldn't matter.

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/kruphixs-insight-2014-06-11

>And the human Elspeth...she came here from a place called Phyrexia, an entire world of flayed skin and twisted metal, ruled over by vicious, monstrous beings who style themselves gods. It is an affront to nature, a dark parody of life that corrupts all it touches and touches everything in time. And it has already made its way from one world to others.Kruphix looked out into Nyx, night staring into night. If any of these things come here, to our world, he said, even the gods may be powerless to stop them. And all your prayers, all your pleas, will fall on the deaf ears of a silent sky as this world is rent asunder or remade or worse

huh
I guess they do go off of belief so if all the normal people got compleated then the gods would be fucked.

I think it more had to do with Kruphix realizing that as strong as the Gods thought they were there are much stronger beings out there.

Worse, the praetors achieve god typing and a three way brawl of theros hods, egypt gods, and metal gods selling the new mtg board game

Its an arc. Its the nicol bolas arc. We'll get to phyrexians again eventually. instead of leaving loose ends open for half a decade or more they are trying to make a serial narrative.

Phyrexia can be everywhere where Karn has traveled

Well guess where we're going next!

I don't think it's just that Jace has authority because Azor has a boner for authority, it's because the magic of the Guildpact forces Azor to submit. This is why the Orzhov Ghost Council aren't idiots. They made sure they had a loophole where they wouldn't be bound by the magic. Azor was too stupid to include a back door for himself.

Azor did it because he could. Oldwalker, user. It's no different to Sorin, to Nahiri, to Urza, to Ugin, to Bolas.

He wasnt too stupid, he was the law! And since the guildpact is a sort of law...

I still want to know what happened to kumena. is he just dead? I mean that one temple gives flying and all right? why even dedicate two cards to him and all just to literally throw him out of the window.

>why even dedicate two cards to him and all just to literally throw him out of the window.
because mechanics (and people on cards) don't mesh well with the story, usually

mtg is for pedophiles

>Huatli: "You are AWFUL!"
>Angrath: "YOU MADE YOUR DINOSAUR STAND ON TOP OF ME!"

A++

No
Being a MtG judge is

No it's not

Jeremy, go home.

Angrath is best boy.

Just saying.

I read Ixalan for best dad. His lane last week about his daughters was priceless.

so let's recap;

>Over a 1000 yrs ago Azor and Ugin make a trap for Nicol Bolas
>Nicky somehow finds out about this and the keikaku fails (this may be why Bolas attacked Ugin on Tarkir in the 1st place)
>Ugin kinda dies but manages to somehow haunt Sarkhan in the future and wibbly wobbly timey wimey's himself into stasis
>Nothing much happens for a long time...
>Then Sorin comes along and wakes uncle Ugin and tells him that the Eldrazi kids are free and have made Nahiri cry by knocking over her sand castle
>Ugin grumbles but goes with Sorin to Zendikar and there meets Jace
>For some reason Ugin puts a virus in Jace that will trigger his walk to Ixalan, which Ugin knows is a trap, in case of Bolas shenanigans.
>Meanwhile, on Innistrad, Sorin is still stuck in a rock after Nahiri used her lunch money to pay the biggest Eldrazi kid to knock over Sorin's sand castle and forced him to watch

Is Ugin still somehow planning to trap Bolas somehow? He must realise that Bolas knows about Ixalan now and that it will never work. Was he just trying to prevent Nicky from finding out he's still alive? Why not just plant a mind erase spell in Jace? Why sent him anywhere?

I'm still waiting for either Bolas or Ugin to use time travel shenanigans to go back in time and be the one to create the original plane of Phyrexia.

>This sphinx may have lived a thousand lifetimes longer than her, but he was a fool, a cruel patriarch.

I'm pretty sure Ugin's using the Gatewatch as bait, setting them in Bolas' path to try and figure out what Big Nico is up to and work out his end game. Because the last time Bolas and Ugin clashed, Ugin got shit on. And that was when they were both Oldwalkers; Ugin now is a pale and weakened shadow and Bolas is still supercharged.

No way Ugin is going to go for a direct confrontation with Bolas, and no way is Ugin going to go anywhere he thinks Bolas might have set up another trap to turn him into a shitty ghost for another thousand years. The Gatewatch are just pebbles he's tossing into the water to see how the ripples form.

Nice story but not the best, I didn't like how the fight between Azor and Jace was handled, too simple but I'm not upset. 6.8/10

Someone make a Chad Bolas vs. Virgin Ugin pic please

>Not a Virgin Urza and a Chad Mishra

I like the idea behind how Jace wins, but I wish there had been more build-up to it.

>liking neowalkers

>tfw Gix will never return from the Blind Eternities and bitch slap every Neo-Walker and Elesh-Norn before declaring himself the new Father of Machines

>Jace is now a white knight
>Azor throws a tantrum and is written to be completely unrelatable bad guy
>Muh patriarchy
>Angrath and Huatli's dialogue
>Jace is stronger in mind magic than a millennia old sphinx
>Azor is apparently retarded
>Angrath and Huatli's dialogue

What an absolute dumpster fire
Just when I thought the writing was getting a little better

What if Jace lost/died and Azor took his place in the gatewatch?

Vraska bumps off Liliana to take the mantle of black walker

Ajani throws Huatli off a cliff and distracts Nissa with some candy and takes over green for a while

Chandra matures from a lolsorandumXD teenager and goes to take care of her elderly mother, leaving Angrath to take over red

Gideon is replaced by a new white female walker who doesn't grumble about kids and how much she hates evil all the time, instead insisting that if you're going to kill a thousand people, you better do it right. No loose ends.

>tries to make the argument against imperialism
>instead just proves that Azor was 100% correct and that natives can't actually do anything of value even when handed valuable tools of civilization.

Jesus. I'm not sure if WOTC's writing staff is just that stupid, or if in actuality there's an undercover redpilled writer doing this.

>getting tangled up in dragon schemes like amateurs who forgot one of the first rules
>laughingshadowrunners.jpg

I was about to disagree, then I remembered that Urza literally got cucked by Mishra when the latter gave the dick to his (entirely willing) wife, and the subsequent child was then raised by Urza.

Its obvious what azors plan was, the guildpact was meant to fail amd he was meant to get his spark back after ugin was supposed to beat bolas in fate reforged. Azor intended to run around the multiverse spreading law magic until the guildpact broke, leaving him to be the immortal living guildpact.

"Patriarch" means "male ruler/lawgiver", like how "matriarch" means "female ruler/lawgiver". Stop being so Tumblr.

I seriously doubt that Azor could have predicted the failure of the Guildpact to that extent even if it was his plan, which I doubt. It seems more like it was simply a plot between Azor (Original Sphinx Oldwalker) and an Elder Dragon Oldwalker to take out a rival Elder Dragon Oldwalker (who was also basically the biggest threat around, considering the Dragon War across the multiverse) that went sideways. Azor has the attitude of an Oldwalker: he leaves a world behind when he decides to move on (as he says, if things fuck up after he leaves he doesn't see it as his fault). Had the Guildpact failed in a hypothetical where Azor has his Spark it wouldn't make Azor the Living Guildpact (or at least there's no evidence that it would), there'd be no point because he had already moved on from Ravnica.

The situation in the story only occurred because when the failsafe triggered another Planeswalker wound up becoming the new actualisation of the Guildpact, and because Azor wrote himself into the original spell as a parun the Guildpact can enact its will on him.

What's interesting is that this also highlights how the Guildpact enchantment isn't limited to Ravnica and follows Jace around (I think one of the MtG story team said it would, but this is the first time it's happened on screen) - it affects any member of one of the guilds on any plane.

So does today's story just flat out state that the wotc writers have a white savior complex? I mean, Ravnica before Azor came along was a war torn battlefield of every kind of creature, while today it's a massive city with numerous citizens with high standards of living, and only occasional wars for territory.

I mean, were the natives of Ixalan just incapable of using the tools Azor gave them? It's clear that those natives couldn't handle that power, so what should Azor have stayed longer and properly taught them how? Because that's straight up textbook imperialism. Azor gave his gift of civilization to all these planes and they just squandered it.

And I mean you can't argue that these planes' peoples would have been able to develop their own civilizations in time, since the shred of ingenuity that would eventually establish that would have been able to 'feed' off Azor's gift to jumpstart their development.

Really all I'm getting from wotc's writers is that their opinion is that these poor brown people can't be trusted to work alone with tools- they either have to be constantly coddled or abandoned in the cold, which is a pretty disgusting ideology- the bigotry of low expectations.

So does this mean Jace can do his Guildpact Whammy on Vraska?

The general argument against Imperialism is that a rapid jump in technology without a corresponding jump in social and political dynamics has huge negative consequences. Couple that with the fact that most cases of such forced jumps are solely to benefit from an improved output from the populace and a lack of protections for that same populace, and the message is clear.

If you give people machineguns, air burst artillery, and chemical weapons but maintain mass charges as a tactic, a lot of people die.

No, she is not one of the original paruns

>replacing Gideon
Bad idea

I know what patriarch means. I'm upset about the fucking terrible quality of writing where it's like >here's a bunch of exposition >now we're going to literally just tell you just in case you didn't fucking get it

He's shown himself able to do it to any member of a guild, from the minions right up to the paruns. Shit, the very first time he ever used it was against Niv-Mizzet to order Niv not to go to war with the other guilds, and Niv was bound by that. If Vraska counts as part of a guild (instead of technically working for one as a mercenary or similar), then I don't see why it wouldn't work on her just as easily as anybody else if he decided to.

He can do it on non-paruns, or rather give orders that non-paruns have to follow. Teysa had him confirm and speak a bunch of laws just before she made her run at the Obzedat, and the simple fact of Jace agreeing with her that they were laws made them laws that let her bypass a whole host of security measures (only failing in the room where the Guildpact didn't work).

He could probably even make up new laws if he wanted to, and the guilds (and their members) would have to follow them. I don't think we've even come close to the limitations of what the Guildpact magic can do yet.

Same. I was kind of upset about him being tossed around but it sort of makes sense.

>>Jace is stronger in mind magic than a millennia old sphinx
(narratively) the first thing he does is nuke a sphinx's brain
i always assumed the guildpact was just something that let him dick around on ravnica not give him a powerup everywhere.

Azor never gave technology, though. Only laws and ended needless wars. Ixalan and the Sun were a special case because he had trapped himself there