Magic Story: RETURN TO DOMINARIA: EPISODE 1

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/return-dominaria-episode-1-2018-03-21

Realised there is currently no thread for the new Magic story. Let's' discuss.

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The idea of a story in a plane whose thene is "history" featuring a villain whose MO is taking credit for big historical figures is pretty fucking good tbqh.

I was legit shocked at the end.

I liked. Pretty good first story.

>nissa and chandra finally gtfo
Lore is saved

Is this signalling the return of Adolf Nissa?

I actuslly felt bad for Chandra. She such a dumb pure person, even if shes often written like shit, so seeing her realize someone she thought was her friend be such a shitty person in contrast and fuck her over was just a little sad. Its like someone kicking Forrest Gump in the balls.

>Ends with Liliana killing him and letting someone else take the credit

>the less developed characters fucked off to hopefully have redemptive solo arcs for their personalities in the distant future
>liliana's story is coming full circle in many ways
>gideon's along for the ride
>fucking dominaria nostalgia errywhere

It's definitely a good start. But Amonkhet also kicked off pretty well, so let's see if it can maintain this momentum.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ex4ClzZ3oBM

KARN SOUNDS LIKE OPTIMUS PRIME

You know, for all the shit we (me definitely included) have given Dominaria before learning any ironclad details, now that preview season has started I'm hype as shit. The BIGGEST things I was mad about (mostly the lore fuckery we got from advanced previews) is already being addressed in this.

Power of Garfield, I guess.

The Lord giveth.

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Quads confirm.

It's clear that the guy genuinely is a good designer though. I'm happy he came back, even if just for one set.

summarize me how did they got there

Prose is far better. Nissa is written very differently, but honestly any change to her personality is positive, severely autistic lesbian was kind of boring.
There's also noticeably very little le random SJW moments other than Jhoira wanting to dance.

>the gatewatch thought squaring up to bolas on amonkhet was a good idea
>ajani advises against it
>they ignored him
>predictably, they all got their shit slapped but good and were lucky to survive
>jace fucked off to have a side story on ixalan
>the rest ended up on dominaria

Chandra will be back sometime in the next 11 weeks. She has a card in the set.

Man I really like that Liliana art near the bottom. The best thing Magic has is the level of realism some of the card art hits. Instagram dime in a dark gothic setting, but not in a way that makes it look cheesy or simplistic. Nice.

Chandra only has a planeswalker deck card, since Jaya is the token red planeswalker

>”Lucky enough to survive”

Bolas let them go because he has plans for them. The art book says as much.

Wait am I misremembering? I thought Nissa stayed behind on Amonkhet after the fight with Bolas.

Can I get a quick rundown of this week's story?

This one?

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If Chandra shows up at all it's gonna be in the same context Gideon was part of the Ixilan story. I'm curious if we're gonna follow Nissa or Chandra next set or if we'll actually get back to back sets in the same plane right after block design dies. would be interesting.

>belzenlok's forces have acquire the one and only blackblade
>jhoira is about to exhume the weatherlight from the oceans
>nissa and chandra fucked off, leaving liliana and gideon alone on dominaria
>liliana stops off in what remains of her childhood home to try and heal gideon
>she returns to her very mansion to see that some necromantic shit went down
>belzenlok knew liliana would be coming and turned her brother josu into a lich under his service

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Still seems unlikely that they'd to a PW deck for a character that fucks off out of the story before the set even releases.

>Lili's last demon is writing himself into Dominarian history in place of other mono-B baddies. He's taken control of the Cabal from Kuberr and has expanded it massively.
>Jhoira is salvaging the Weatherlight
>Jacewatch arrive on Dominaria less their lead singer after getting their asses beat by Bolas. >Nissa quits entirely because Lili is just using the crew to get shot of her demon pacts
>Chandra leaves temporarily to git gud
>Lili takes Chad into her hometown to try and heal his sucking chest wound
>They fight some Cabal zombies and find out that Lili's zombie brother is one of the demon's generals.

Chandra is probably off to learn from granny Jaya. She'll be running through the Shivan mountains with Jaya on her back whispering pyromancy wisdom in her ear for the next couple of stories. After learning how to burns rocks while standing on one hand she'll return with Jaya to join the team.

Probably Chandra. Nissa sounded like she's heading back to Zendikar, and I wouldn't expect another return there so soon, especially since it'd be jumping from post-apocalypse plane to post-apocalypse plane.

Wait, where's Otaria?

Right side.

That's a lot of water

Or Jaya just wants to die, and refuses to train her, but Chandra doesn't need it, because she is already perfect in every way.

You're probably right. It's possible Jaya goes to help round up and/or teach Chandra after the events of this story too, if all goes well for her and the gatewatch.

I wouldd be interested in seeing Ob Nixilis and Nahiri get into some shit and something something Nahiri faceplants back on Zendikar and she and Nissa (and probably Ugin, he was still there right?) get into some shit over all the metaplanar crap going on.

Apparently I am literally visually impaired.

That's honestly pretty perfect.

to be fair, the island is labeled in the sea and several sites on the island are made prominent, unlike things like Shiv and Benalia where the whole nation is just one label.

Also possible. She'll then make a last stand from afar and project her pyromantic avatar into the final conflict. Then she'll die of sadness.

So the story spotlight cards are
>Broken Bond
>Final Parting
>Settle the Score
>In Bolas's Clutches
anyone think OP's pic might be broken bond? Anyone taking bets on who or what is actually in bolas's clutches? I'm thinking settle the score is probably lili taking down her last demon and/or Josu unless another conflict is set up immediately in part two. this story made the cabal sound like the major antagonists of the block.

Theory: By killing Belzenlok, Liliana falls for Bolas' trap (something something Raven Man) and is forced onto his side

>In Bolas's Clutches

My first thought was Karn. Getting abducted by villains is kind of his thing at this point, you know? Having Bolas show up and reveal he grabbed Nissa the second she 'walked off Dominaria would give Liliana an opportunity to win back her trust by rescuing her, though, if WotC actually wants to keep the Gatewatch together.

>broken bond
Probably Nissa and Chandra leaving, yeah.

>final parting
Liliana dispatching of Josu, once and for all

>settle the score
Possibly Liliana dealing with Belzenlok, but I doubt that.

>in bolas' clutches
Hell if I know. What DOESN'T Bolas want besides old age?

my bet's on the Weatherlight. even if it can't actually jump between planes anymore, he could use an inanimate form of transportation for his inanimate army to go through his planar gate that can only transport inanimate objects.

>>Final Parting

I'm gonna be a downer and say this is probably Jaya dying.

>even if it can't actually jump between planes anymore,
I'm sure Bolas can find a way collapsing Zendikar would probably do it

Actually, now that I think about it, that would finally give Bolas a motive for releasing the Eldrazi.

Agreed, clever start to things. Bodes well.

I TOLD YOU
I TOLD YOU SO MANY TIMES LADS

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>same context Gideon was part of the Ixilan story.
Huh, he was in Ixalan?

the story, at the end

Next block is Ravnica for sure.

hopefully. Does this mean we will have a Return to the Return of Zendikar block after Chandra's block?

He was in Ixalan as a hallucination Jace kept having when he was alone on the island, which I think was 's point.

Heck, I dropped it. Thanks for the heads up.

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Kinda. Last story, last part, when Jace planeswalks onto the Weatherlight and Gideon walks in stopping Jaya from asking some burning questions.

Too early (except if you believe the rumors that WotC will sell Magic and this is the last hurrah)

>Dropping the Ixalan story
it was pretty good tho

>Lily at the forefront of the story
>New art appearing in the trailer
There's no way we'll get a planeswalker as good as her Innistrad one, right?

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Nah, but her EMN card is gud for zombospam

The weird thing is that that is not how Otaria looked. Nor was it that big.
It looks stretched out from what it once was.
I blame Karona, that sounds like something she did.

WHERE ARE MY ZOMBIES
WHERE IS MY CUTE LILY
THIS SET IS A FUCKIN JOAK

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MAGIC IS DEAAAAAD

No. It's just not aimed at me.

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Have to admit, Gideon’s reaction to seeing Jace alive was pretty good.

Ixalan story in general was pretty good. Hope we keep this trend. Todays story is a good start though.

>>In Bolas's Clutches
>my bet's on the Weatherlight.
Wouldn't that imply that Bolas is somehow influencing Jhoira to salvage and repair/rebuild the Weatherlight?

Broken Bond is artifact/enchantment removal that puts lands into play. That seems very Nissa, so it could well be.
We don't know what Final Parting does yet. Something fairly simple. Either involves Josu or Jaya
Settle the Score exiles a creature and adds loyalty counters to a planeswalker. Either it's Liliana killing Belzenlok, or it's Bolas killing Tetsuko.
In Bolas's Clutches is steal any permanent and it's legendary. Fuck if I know what, though. Lilliana, Karn, Tetsuko, Jhoira, the Weatherlight...maybe even something that seems generic but turns out to not be (thus it turning legendary)
It sounds like the Cabal are indeed the major antagonists, but Bel is likely on Bolas's payroll.

>Bolas killing Tetsuko

Pls not this

He swore to exterminate every Umezawa.
There is an Umezawa, and Bolas keeps his word (to himself, at least)

I know that’s what he said, but I’m not sure I can handle the death of the Umezawa clan

Also, the Umezawa are clever. They may yet find a way to survive

When is this?

Well, considering it's Bolas, he said he would do that when he was still an oldwalker, and it's been 60 years since then, I'd say the fact that there IS an Umezawa at all is testament to that.

or he's just in good with belzenlok (he worked with razaketh directly and we know he set up liliana's pacts) who finds out about the weatherlight (and apparently has sticky fingers for legendary artifacts himself) and Bolas just shows up like "hey, nice boat. yoink." Jhoira was the Weatherlight's first captain and I'm pretty sure played a part in it's design/construction didn't she? she could just want to see her baby again.

It was posted with today's story, so I'm assuming it's current.

Jamuraa is fucking huge.

it is at worst from timespiral, but yeah probably current. tolaria west didn't exist earlier than that.

>In Bolas's Clutches is steal any permanent and it's legendary. Fuck if I know what, though. Lilliana, Karn, Tetsuko, Jhoira, the Weatherlight...
I'm pretty sure it's the Weatherlight, it makes sense. It's really was the missing piece. He's gonna need a vast supply of lifestock for his rib franchise and he can use the Weatherlight as a transport and delivery truck.

Is from between 450AR and...

It's current time you fuckwit.

>He's gonna need a vast supply of lifestock for his rib franchise
The Riblords still lurk among us...

...excellent.

The Weatherlight was part of the Legacy Weapon... huh.

HUH.

this prose was so much better than the hacks at the creative team have been putting it's not even funny

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Umezawa will get the Black Blade at the end of the story for sure, it makes to much sense.

Are all the cards spoiled already?

Reddit spacing, late answer when already answered and unnecessarily offensive. 0/10.

No, about half.

>it makes to much sense.
it doesn't really, but I support it 100%.

> inb4 Jitte comes hurling through the multiverse to protect Tetsuko

>HUH.
>not being aware of Bolas's ultimate plan
>not being aware of the great BBQ Rib Revelation

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what?

Almost like it was written by a professional author instead of a bunch of college dropout hacks.

I'm confused are you just making this up as you go or is there some amusing copypasta I could read somewhere?

read the first Kaladesh story, then read the actual Dominaria story. The difference in quality is staggering

Why don't they do the collected e.pub shit anymore? Makes it easier to read.

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Unfortunately that legendary thread was never screencapped. But those of us that were there that day will never forget.

What sets has Garfield lead designed outside Alpha?

Folks suck his cock for Ravnica and Innistrad but Maro was in charge of both of those.

Alpha (lead)
Arabian Nights (lead)
Revised Edition (lead)
Fourth Edition (lead)
Tempest
Urza's Saga
Odyssey
Torment (Odyssey concepts)
Deckmasters 2001
Judgment
Ravnica: City of Guilds
Innistrad
Unstable (uncredited)
Dominaria

Yeah, Dominarias is pretty fuckin' great.

>What sets has Garfield lead designed outside Alpha?
-Arabian Nights (lead)
-Revised Edition (lead)
-Fourth Edition (lead)
-Tempest
-Urza's Saga
-Odyssey
-Torment (Odyssey concepts)
-Deckmasters 2001
-Judgment
-Ravnica: City of Guilds
-Innistrad
-Unstable (uncredited)
-Dominaria

>Unstable (uncredited)
what

Also what are the novels worth reading?

So Garfield's kind of just super fucking based is what you're saying?

Basically, the joke was that Bolas' main plan was to use his zombie army to staff his chain of interplanar BBQ houses. The reason for the war between Bolas and the other Elder Dragons was over which BBQ style to use.

Memphis, of course.