https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/annou ... ill-be-one

Sucks to be Venser.

Slobad is wearing Bosh, but honestly, I'm not surprised. Not that I feel particularly strongly, but one of the primary reasons I give so little of a damn about this story and set is the lack of sanctity given to anything.

The boom comics have been way better than the mess we've had since, well War of the Spark, essentially.

Meanwhile, a reiteration that we're here. All I can ask is you take it one day at a time and let us help if you ever need help carrying your weight.

Haven't kept up with the Boom comics, perhaps I should

Thank you, sorry for bringing down the mood.

They really make the most of the resources at hand. And no lie, they make some decidedly bold choices I wouldn't think WotC would.
The most recent Nahiri story was very very good. It's a one shot.

Seeing these first spoilers after The Brothers' War are just a reminder how bad magic story is right now.....sadface.

Also: can't anyone just stay dead anymore? I used to be surprised when an old character made a suprise appearance. Seeing Ertai again (though weird as he was completely obliterated) was kind of fun....but now Slobad and even Venser....come on.

I thought Slobad was weird. I thought he was going to look like the Mirrodin Goblins (with frog-like faces), and instead they made him the old-fashioned look. Are there 2 variations of Goblins in Mirrodin/New Phyrexia?

So there's also the thing where they showed the ten planeswalker characters in the set:

Jace, Kaito, Kaya, Koth, Lukka, Nahiri, Nissa, Tyvar, Vrassa and the Wanderer. Five will apparently get compleated, with Koth being explicitly safe (So at least they're respecting something).

From some cards spoiled, we know a few...



While there's a define lack of sanctity bit going on, at least it's done via Phyrexians. If it were a Belzenlok and the "Cabal" doing it, then I'd be losing it. The Phyrexians at least have a history of this kind of thing with Belbe... and Mishra... This is honestly better treatment of Slobad by the creative team compared to Scars of Mirrodin. With what Scars did to the OG Mirrodin group, they're kind written into a corner into having to desecrate things a bit (not that it helps with some of the recent previous arcs, but in this particular arc, they almost have no option but to be).

Yeah, if Venser was lucky he'd be tossed into the vats, but he's a recognisable character so this desecration feels raw.

And that's where Eldraine comes in.

On reflection, I guess the reason all these compleations feel so unsatisfying is because a lot of these characters we've had for more than a decade and we've been through a lot with them. For it to end the way it is, it feels cheap and blatantly shocking.

The previous times they did this sort of thing, Gerrard had been around, what? 2-3 years?

Too many of these characters and choices don't feel right because the characters they're doing this to had nothing to do with this plot until they suddenly did. They desperately needed to keep a better partition on their stories for this stupid fiasco.

Just punishing people for getting invested at this point.

Venser doesn't really bug me unless he's made a PW still. Like, you leave a perfectly good planeswalker corpse (well, less one heart) in the core of Phyrexia, they're gonna make a biomechanical terror out of it. Most of the others are more or less unsatisfying ideas, and some like Emps seem flagrantly bad choices.

Also, did the math, Gerrard was introduced in Weatherlight. We had him for Rath, technically during Urza's, Through Masques, and then in Invasion block itself, so he'd been about 4 years when he bit it in Apocalypse. Which somehow felt bigger than much more time with our current stable.

Slobad would likely be part of Urbasks faction right? I really dont mind him back, his off screen death was bs in Scars.



I agree with this and considering the card is called "Venser, Corpse Puppet" it even adds more to phyrexia is making him ...a corpse puppet that just being driven around.

For me, it's a bit boring because this feels like the relative trend for every for every franchise at the moment. "Subvert expectations" has kinda killed any expectations for new offerings for most IPs like Star Wars. I'm just more forgiving with MtG at the moment, because they're rotating through their main big bads and Phyrexians were the last ones left. And the Phyrexians already have a pre-established tendency for this kind of thing.

Generally speaking, though, it does feel like there are characters dragged in without a much of a plan of what to do with them and then BLAM, compleated. However, it's not a pure cynical fest, but more of a WWI drag in to me. They wanted to go to Kamigawa, and thus felt obliged to bring in Tamiyo. They want to use their main characters, but the Gatewatch stuff ends up with technicalities that they should include a bunch of people they didn't plan for. The more disconcerting thing is that the likes of Tamiyo and Ajani usually offer points of view that conflict with the main cast, and would many times probably be a wiser, if not more boring, course of action. It more seems the writers just don't know how to handle that, and bodes ill of any character that ever matures a bit.

I think the biggest problem is that switching to the MCU storytelling method means that the Main Characters have to be part of every story, even the ones unrelated to them. At the same time, the status quo for the MCs can't change in any meaningful way because they've turned the main characters into faces of the brand, so you end up in a situation like this where there are no real stakes for the central characters involved.

The flip side to that is what if there were stakes? Stakes that could only be appreciated after the resolution. How in gods' earth are we supposed to feel about that? It would be empty and unsatisfying no matter how you cut it.

You write off a bunch of characters that resonated with folks but that had no tension built into their condition. In the moment, they just die but it feels contrived.

When Hanna died, you felt that. When the walkers get compleated, I'm just angry and disgusted. Not at the antagonists, but at the writers. Who are the real villains here?

It also didn't help that the replacement squad lined up in the wings suck more than they don't. They can't carry the franchise going forward. (Actually, also a problem cribbed from Marvel)