War of the Spark has HOW MANY PLANESWALKERS!?

OmegaLolrus

Mburn7 said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Etan0Winters said:

ZW2007- said:

Reading the novella, I didn't get the impression that Davriel Cane was a Vader wannabe. I'm optimistic that it could be the Raven Man even though he probably doesn't exist.

In the beginning of the novella we see that Davriel dressed up like Vader and called himself "the lord of the manor" as part of his dealings with the town through the church. 

Hmm... I always thought that the Raven Man was actually Bolas and how Bolas directed, controlled, and monitored Liliana. 

I've been thinking that might be the case recently. I was reading the Amonkhet story for the first time and the Raven Man makes a big deal about killing all her demons so she can be free. And then Dominaria... well, killing all the demons really plays directly into Bolas' hands.

Yeah, I suspect the Raven Man is related to Bolas in some way as well.  Elder Dragons are known to occasionally shapeshift (although Bolas has showed scorn for that in the past).

The only issue with that theory I have is the why.  Bolas is a skilled necromancer himself with no need/desire for a lackey, and there is no way he could have been planning a way to regain his spark so many centuries before the Mending. Otherwise the Raven Man has played Liliana into his hands so perfectly its hard to believe they aren't related.

To me, the issue is less that he needs a lackey (I mean, he does have Tezzeret and is manipulating a bunch of other ones), but this is a lot of subterfuge for not a lot of return on investment.

Raven Man's been working on Liliana for a long time (unless I'm mistaken), and I think of Bolas wanted a super-powered lackey, there are other ways to get one... Whatever power she's wielding isn't going to be comparable to Bolas, he's not going to want someone around that's more powerful than him, bound only by a contract... And if she's not super-powered... What purpose does she serve?

Sure, she generates some mixed feelings in the Gatewatch, but they're a recent annoyance. Raven Man's been at this a while.

Hoping we'll see some pay off in War of the Spark... I have this gut feeling that Liliana doesn't make it through this. She winds up making a sacrifice play or something (having spent too much time around Beefslab).

wereotter

The Raven Man has been manipulating Liliana since before her spark ignited, though, so unless Bolas knew she had a latent planeswalker spark, it's hard to know why he's create that figure and use it to manipulate her. Also the fact that she's the only one that can see him makes me think he isn't and never was a corporeal being. Definitely someone has messed with her mind at some point.

OmegaLolrus

wereotter said:

The Raven Man has been manipulating Liliana since before her spark ignited, though, so unless Bolas knew she had a latent planeswalker spark, it's hard to know why he's create that figure and use it to manipulate her. Also the fact that she's the only one that can see him makes me think he isn't and never was a corporeal being. Definitely someone has messed with her mind at some point.

Ah, good point... wasn't he the one that told Liliana to get the stuff for the remedy that wound up killing her brother?

Mburn7

OmegaLolrus said:

wereotter said:

The Raven Man has been manipulating Liliana since before her spark ignited, though, so unless Bolas knew she had a latent planeswalker spark, it's hard to know why he's create that figure and use it to manipulate her. Also the fact that she's the only one that can see him makes me think he isn't and never was a corporeal being. Definitely someone has messed with her mind at some point.

Ah, good point... wasn't he the one that told Liliana to get the stuff for the remedy that wound up killing her brother?

Yup.  And he's the one that told her to go to Bolas for the contract.  And the one that helped her get the Chain Veil and break free from Kolthoped.  And the one that stopped Jace from reading/infecting her mind when he went crazy on Innistrad.  And the one who took control of her corpse to activate the Chain Veil and save her on Amonkhet (she was swallowed by a Sandwurm)

I really can't wait to find out who this dude is and what he's been up to.  I really hope it isn't just a "lol Bolas plays the long game" thing because its so obvious it would be no fun.

Etan0Winters

We already know that Bolas has been playing Lili for a long time, and we know that he's been watching the Gatewatch, and we know that he's the strongest known telepath, and his longterm manipulations are on the scale of shaping entire civilizations. We also know that the Raven Man has been a passenger with Liliana across several planes. 

If Bolas couldn't have seen Lili's potential before she sparked, then who could have?

... what did Emrakul see that made her play a game of chess? Whatever it was, it was IN the Gatewatch.

Bolas wasn't always so obvious an antagonist. 

Brakkis

Etan0Winters said:

We already know that Bolas has been playing Lili for a long time, and we know that he's been watching the Gatewatch, and we know that he's the strongest known telepath, and his longterm manipulations are on the scale of shaping entire civilizations. We also know that the Raven Man has been a passenger with Liliana across several planes. 

If Bolas couldn't have seen Lili's potential before she sparked, then who could have?

... what did Emrakul see that made her play a game of chess? Whatever it was, it was IN the Gatewatch.

Bolas wasn't always so obvious an antagonist. 

The issue is she discovered her spark before the Mending. Bolas would have had no need, at that time, to cultivate other Planeswalkers and trigger their sparks. He only met Liliana after the Mending.

Thuran

Well, the raven man does look a little like urza in artwork depicting him. And urza is from dominaria, plays the long game, and knows old artifacts well....

ElfNeedsFood

Back to the mechanics of this, having companion Planeswalker supports like in TDW that are cards you cast like Hixus is a neat idea for the not so major Planeswalkers .

arNero

As someone who's no longer well-invested in Magic story (after Amonkhet block), the sheer amount of planeswalkers involved here only serves to annoy me.

Oh, sure, some in-game characters don't like Bolas (okay, "some" is a severe understatement), and if he's coming to Ravnica then maybe he will face some oppositions. But so, so MANY of the listed planeswalkers likely won't actually have any business with him no matter what (like, Narset. Uh, wait, neither Sarkhan nor Ajani ever told her about Bolas? Or Nixilis. Dude's already free to roam around and create chaos and death where he wants, why would he risk meeting Bolas? Nahiri and Sorin. Nahiri's all DONE about whatever **** she's gone through and probably should have no more business with the entire storyline, much less Bolas, and as much as I like(d) Sorin, seeing him free is a severe story cop-out).

I swear, this is a sign that Magic is dying to the point they had to mash two of their best IPs (planeswalkers and Ravnica) to fish out profit..... I kinda fear what may happen to PQ with regards to this......

OmegaLolrus

arNero said:

As someone who's no longer well-invested in Magic story (after Amonkhet block), the sheer amount of planeswalkers involved here only serves to annoy me.

Oh, sure, some in-game characters don't like Bolas (okay, "some" is a severe understatement), and if he's coming to Ravnica then maybe he will face some oppositions. But so, so MANY of the listed planeswalkers likely won't actually have any business with him no matter what (like, Narset. Uh, wait, neither Sarkhan nor Ajani ever told her about Bolas? Or Nixilis. Dude's already free to roam around and create chaos and death where he wants, why would he risk meeting Bolas? Nahiri and Sorin. Nahiri's all DONE about whatever tinykitty she's gone through and probably should have no more business with the entire storyline, much less Bolas, and as much as I like(d) Sorin, seeing him free is a severe story cop-out).

I swear, this is a sign that Magic is dying to the point they had to mash two of their best IPs (planeswalkers and Ravnica) to fish out profit..... I kinda fear what may happen to PQ with regards to this......

Details on the story are a little bit bit fuzzy, but they've been building to this for a while. In Kaladesh, we introduced the only way besides a Spark to move objects (not living) from plane to plane. In Amonkhet, we saw that Bolas has a huge army made of zombies that had been infused stone (hence allowing them to be moved by the Planar Bridge from Kaladesh). Ixalan showed us the Immortal Sun, which makes it impossible for a planeswalker to leave the plane it's on. Then we used Core Set 2019 to show Bolas' side of the story.

So you put this all together and the ballpark version of the War of the Spark storyline is: Bolas wants to become a god. The ritual involves razing Ravnica and harvesting Sparks from planeswalkers en masse. He's taken the Immortal Sun and his Eternal army to Ravnica with the Planar Bridge and is luring planeswalkers there to harvest (we assume). So Ravnica and almost every planeswalker in the multiverse burns and Bolas becomes a god.

...unless the Gatewatch stops them.

So yeah, it's a huge deal, but they've been building to this for a while... I think the last time they spent this much time building to a climax was the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria (though that went on a bit longer).

Long story short, I don't think Magic's dying. War of the Spark is the Infinity War of the Multiverse.

Etan0Winters

I like what they've done with the stories, but... really, Infinity War maybe isn't the best comparison. Look at what the movies have done to the actual Marvel Comics   

OmegaLolrus

Etan0Winters said:

I like what they've done with the stories, but... really, Infinity War maybe isn't the best comparison. Look at what the movies have done to the actual Marvel Comics   

I don't know, I think they do a good job of adapting one medium into another. You're never going to get as nuanced a plotline in a movie as you are in a comic that spans dozens, hundreds of issues. But that aside, it's not a fantastic analogy, I will grant you. And this is a totally different conversation.

Etan0Winters

OmegaLolrus said:

Etan0Winters said:

I like what they've done with the stories, but... really, Infinity War maybe isn't the best comparison. Look at what the movies have done to the actual Marvel Comics   

I don't know, I think they do a good job of adapting one medium into another. You're never going to get as nuanced a plotline in a movie as you are in a comic that spans dozens, hundreds of issues. But that aside, it's not a fantastic analogy, I will grant you. And this is a totally different conversation.

The relevance is by way of providing a cautionary tale of what happens if you ignore or neglect the source of a good thing in favor of a short-term situation.

No one said that the first Iron Man movie would kill comic books, but no one cared about comic books enough to protect them either.

It would be nice if they cared enough about MGTG to preserve it. That's all I mean.

OmegaLolrus

Etan0Winters said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Etan0Winters said:

I like what they've done with the stories, but... really, Infinity War maybe isn't the best comparison. Look at what the movies have done to the actual Marvel Comics   

I don't know, I think they do a good job of adapting one medium into another. You're never going to get as nuanced a plotline in a movie as you are in a comic that spans dozens, hundreds of issues. But that aside, it's not a fantastic analogy, I will grant you. And this is a totally different conversation.

The relevance is by way of providing a cautionary tale of what happens if you ignore or neglect the source of a good thing in favor of a short-term situation.

No one said that the first Iron Man movie would kill comic books, but no one cared about comic books enough to protect them either.

It would be nice if they cared enough about MGTG to preserve it. That's all I mean.

Hrm, well, fair enough.

wereotter

arNero said:

As someone who's no longer well-invested in Magic story (after Amonkhet block), the sheer amount of planeswalkers involved here only serves to annoy me.

Oh, sure, some in-game characters don't like Bolas (okay, "some" is a severe understatement), and if he's coming to Ravnica then maybe he will face some oppositions. But so, so MANY of the listed planeswalkers likely won't actually have any business with him no matter what (like, Narset. Uh, wait, neither Sarkhan nor Ajani ever told her about Bolas? Or Nixilis. Dude's already free to roam around and create chaos and death where he wants, why would he risk meeting Bolas? Nahiri and Sorin. Nahiri's all DONE about whatever tinykitty she's gone through and probably should have no more business with the entire storyline, much less Bolas, and as much as I like(d) Sorin, seeing him free is a severe story cop-out).

I swear, this is a sign that Magic is dying to the point they had to mash two of their best IPs (planeswalkers and Ravnica) to fish out profit..... I kinda fear what may happen to PQ with regards to this......

Some of these I can explain the presence of, other I'm not so sure about.

Narset makes sense. She didn't need to be told by Sarkhan about Bolas as Tarkir happens to have the written history of the Khans timeline buried deep in the Ojutai clan library. It was learning the truth that the timeline has been altered that ignited Narset's spark, as such, she could know from those records or from Ugin himself about how Bolas killed Ugin, so both of them could have a bit of a vendetta against him.

Sorin and Nahiri may or may not know about how Bolas orchestrated the release of the eldrazi, a force responsible for the destruction of both of their worlds. Yes their own petty feud shares a lot of blame there too, but had they not been released in the first place, then both worlds would still be in tact. Arlinn, depending on how much she knows, could fall into this category too (also could easily be the one to have freed Sorin, since she's in the two colors best at destroying artifacts)

Others may have arrived as a result of Project Lightningbug acting as a beacon to tell other planeswalkers to come to Ravnica, and others still because Ajani told the crew on Kaladesh that he was going to go recruit help fighting Bolas. So Tamiyo is likely there by his persuasion as they're good friends. Jiang Yanggu might be there for that same reason.

Lastly we have at least one character who found himself there unwittingly in Teyo Verada. His spark literally just ignited and his initial planeswalker took him to Ravnica as this whole mess started to come to a head.

There are some characters whose presence confuses me too. Angrath potentially risking entrapment again after he JUST got off Ixalan after many years of trying to get back to his daughters. Ob Nixilis doesn't have much of a reason to be there either, except maybe because he wants to get even with the Gatewatch? Ashiok and Tybalt I think are characters who are there as people Bolas perhaps had waiting in the wings for if the Dimir and Rakdos guilds sided with him. Kiora is also an odd one as she's been giving the Gatewatch a pretty wide berth since her screw up on Zendikar.... so not sue what she's doing here now...

OmegaLolrus

wereotter said:

arNero said:

As someone who's no longer well-invested in Magic story (after Amonkhet block), the sheer amount of planeswalkers involved here only serves to annoy me.

Oh, sure, some in-game characters don't like Bolas (okay, "some" is a severe understatement), and if he's coming to Ravnica then maybe he will face some oppositions. But so, so MANY of the listed planeswalkers likely won't actually have any business with him no matter what (like, Narset. Uh, wait, neither Sarkhan nor Ajani ever told her about Bolas? Or Nixilis. Dude's already free to roam around and create chaos and death where he wants, why would he risk meeting Bolas? Nahiri and Sorin. Nahiri's all DONE about whatever tinykitty she's gone through and probably should have no more business with the entire storyline, much less Bolas, and as much as I like(d) Sorin, seeing him free is a severe story cop-out).

I swear, this is a sign that Magic is dying to the point they had to mash two of their best IPs (planeswalkers and Ravnica) to fish out profit..... I kinda fear what may happen to PQ with regards to this......

Some of these I can explain the presence of, other I'm not so sure about.

Narset makes sense. She didn't need to be told by Sarkhan about Bolas as Tarkir happens to have the written history of the Khans timeline buried deep in the Ojutai clan library. It was learning the truth that the timeline has been altered that ignited Narset's spark, as such, she could know from those records or from Ugin himself about how Bolas killed Ugin, so both of them could have a bit of a vendetta against him.

Sorin and Nahiri may or may not know about how Bolas orchestrated the release of the eldrazi, a force responsible for the destruction of both of their worlds. Yes their own petty feud shares a lot of blame there too, but had they not been released in the first place, then both worlds would still be in tact. Arlinn, depending on how much she knows, could fall into this category too (also could easily be the one to have freed Sorin, since she's in the two colors best at destroying artifacts)

Others may have arrived as a result of Project Lightningbug acting as a beacon to tell other planeswalkers to come to Ravnica, and others still because Ajani told the crew on Kaladesh that he was going to go recruit help fighting Bolas. So Tamiyo is likely there by his persuasion as they're good friends. Jiang Yanggu might be there for that same reason.

Lastly we have at least one character who found himself there unwittingly in Teyo Verada. His spark literally just ignited and his initial planeswalker took him to Ravnica as this whole mess started to come to a head.

There are some characters whose presence confuses me too. Angrath potentially risking entrapment again after he JUST got off Ixalan after many years of trying to get back to his daughters. Ob Nixilis doesn't have much of a reason to be there either, except maybe because he wants to get even with the Gatewatch? Ashiok and Tybalt I think are characters who are there as people Bolas perhaps had waiting in the wings for if the Dimir and Rakdos guilds sided with him. Kiora is also an odd one as she's been giving the Gatewatch a pretty wide berth since her screw up on Zendikar.... so not sue what she's doing here now...

I assume the beacon is kind of like an annoying itch... you can ignore it for a while, but eventually you have to scratch it... And unless Ajani talked to them first, they have no idea that they're going to a plane where the Immortal Sun is keeping them trapped. I can see Angrath showing up there and just screaming, "NOT AGAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!" after he realized he couldn't leave.

And then going HAM on Bolas.

Unknown

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Mburn7

starfall said:

In 2 years Mark Rosewater is going to be writing a lot of articles which start "with hindsight, it was a foolish design decision to print so many planeswalkers in a set..."

Lets see how they are designed before we start calling it a mistake.  People thought Dominaria's Legendary theme wouldn't work (for similar reasons), and it turned out fine.

Unknown

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Mburn7

starfall said:

Mburn7 said:

starfall said:

In 2 years Mark Rosewater is going to be writing a lot of articles which start "with hindsight, it was a foolish design decision to print so many planeswalkers in a set..."

Lets see how they are designed before we start calling it a mistake.  People thought Dominaria's Legendary theme wouldn't work (for similar reasons), and it turned out fine.

Yeah, but before that, they thought that Kamigawa's Legendary theme wouldn't work (for similar reasons), and they were right.

That's why Dominaria's worked so well.  They learned from Kamigawa's mistakes.  The Legend-in-every-pack was their solution to the issues with Kamigawa's theme (which a lot of players didn't even realize was a theme).

Seeing as they are doing a Walker-in-every-pack for War and the balancing and design of recent sets has been pretty good, I see no reason to think War will go badly.

But, previews start next week.  So we'll be able to argue more effectively then.