At this point Ugin as an Elder Dragon is the only thing redeemable about anything involving him. It would explain why the Tarkir **** are elder dragons and it would explain why he has the powers he has.

That's not how it works, though. You have to be born as an Elder Dragon, the little **** on Tarkir only got the Elder type in their second incarnations. It would also raise the question of why the other Tarkir dragons aren't Elders. And I mean, he clearly isn't as powerful as Bolas, so just being a big old dragon 'walker who turned his body into pure energy should probably account for his powers alright.

They had twenty years to flesh out the Elder Dragon War and shoot us more info on them, but just randomly making Ugin a Elder Dragon for cheap coolness now without any context would stink. My preferred explanation would be that he's a Lesser Elder who was sired by an Elder Dragon coming to Tarkir with one of the serpentine dragons that must have existed on Tarkir before the other dragons. This would explain why he resembles Bolas and why there are depictions of Asian style dragons on Tarkir, and it wouldn't contradict Bolas being the last surviving Elder.

My theory is that every plane has the capacity to develop Elder Dragons, but the ones on Dominiara were far more powerful than those of any other plane due to the fact that Dominaria is the Nexus of the Multiverse.

More out there is my idea that there may have been a Spirit Dragon on Dominara, more powerful than Ugin, who created the Dominarian Elders.

The elder dragons weren't native to Dominaria.
Bolas is reputedly older than that world itself.

Source: Time Spiral trilogy.

Oh, so they weren't? I thought I had read that somewhere, but couldn't find it, so thought I had got it wrong. Especially as it seemed only Bolas could planeswalk.

EDIT: Who actually said that in Time Spiral?

Only Bolas was a "Planeswalker." All of the Elder Dragon Legends could travel freely between the planes. It was much more common in the early days of Magic's story for vastly powerful beings to get around regardless of having a Spark or not. Basically if you had enough mana at your disposal, you could punch a hole from one plane to another without too much effort.

Well, yeah, but revision and stuff...

Sigh.

The tsrkir elders aren't real elders, they just used the word as a title rememeber?

I want Ugin to be a lesser elder. Specifically, I want him to be the offspring of Chromium and Piru. Especially considering the theory that Piru was the colorless elder (or lesser elder) to round out the cycle, it would be a perfect origin for Ugin, and a sweet callback to old lore.

Why Chromium specifically, tho?

I'd guess because Piru was Chromium's mate.

Yeah, Chromium and Piru are the only canon elder dragon couple.

AH, thanks for the clarification.

Most of the lore on them comes from the old comics, right?

Yeah.