https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2021-04-01

"Absurdophile" is my new favourite word.

The wider world actually seems kind of interesting.

I find the world at large to be much more intriguing than Strixhaven itself to be honest.

I find the creation of the elders peculiar. So now we have no less than three types of elder dragons: the originals, who were spawned of the Ur-Dragon (which, to my mind are the true Elder Dragons), the Tarkir elders who were the first ones spawned from Ugin's dragon tempests and are only elders to denote their age (which i personally find in no way to be worthy of the qualification 'elder' in the same way as the Dominaria Elder Dragons, made worst by the fact that Ugin is now an Elder himself, which makes the tarkir elders doubly weird) and now 5 new elders born from 'luminous spheres' of mana during the overlap of two planes (which to me personally falls somewhat in between the Tarkir elders and the Dominarian Elders in deserving the qualification of the 'elder' type: their creation is left somewhat ambivalent and may easily have involved the Ur-Dragon).

All three types are interestingly mana manifestations born in storm-like events (the wing beats of the Ur-dragon, the dragon storms and now these snarls)

Yes that is interesting. It has been a recurring theme for magic's dragons to be associated with storms and lightning.

I liked the Worldbuilding here, although a lack of info on the Blood Age is a little disappointing.

An interesting theory making the rounds right now is the Arcavios is a result of the Eldrazi recycling two planes together, based on the floating stone iconography and the diversity of sapient species.

The plane collision thing is lowkey confirmed (unless the writer didn't intend to use the word "planes"), but the Eldrazi being involved seems a bit of a stretch. They're a planar cleanup crew, doesn't make sense they'd fuze worlds together.

I guess elder dragons are just any dragon spawned naturally and not descended from other dragons?

I'm liking that the set isn't actually named for the plane this time around.

But that would make all the dragons on Tarkir elders, woudn't it?

I don't know how I feel about the dichotomy at these colleges. At prismari you have the red dean telling you that studying art isn't worth it, at a place of learning. Meanwhile over at silverquill they are arguing over whether you should help your allies or hurt your enemies. The themes feel pretty forced, like they're more personal opinions instead of fields of study. Some of them have the start of something decent though.

Lorehold: Focus on studying history and using it to debate the merits of different types of societies and whether a system can in actuality ever be truly stable, drop the whole "red mages are just in it for the indiana jones adventures" thing.
Quandrix: Debates around what is real and what is abstract, you can keep an emphasis on math.
Prismari: I think there's a lot of interesting discussion in art you can have, that prismari doesn't really touch on. I guess I would go with art as objective or subjective, with topics surrounding the importance of the human element and if art can be 'solved'.
Silverquill: This one is pretty difficult given the established factors. Modern america has some discussions on equity and equality if you want to make it a sociology course, but you can't really wedge that into the military ink poets or w/e they have going on. I guess the problem is that they're also an art college, except they don't really focus on the art itself as much as the utilization of it. uhh, make it about the ethics of how to make change I guess, instead of the efficacy of being naughty or nice. White silverquills can be the geneva conventions.
Witherbloom: uhh, something parasitic vs symbiotic relationships I guess.

there, now you have some nerdy topics you can publish research papers on, instead of an entire faculty bickering at you about what you should do with your life

These are literally real world debates in the subjects In art technique vs "results" is a very real debated and if math is a natural or man made thing was a very very boring week in class. Its all splashed with a layer of magic color pie stuff but you can find a lot of these similar debate in those fields.

I'm satisfied with Silverquill. It is pretty much Language and Comunications (which I chose) but rhetoric-based.

The "conflict" between the two sides of Prismari and Lorehold is however pretty shallow. Particularly frustrating in the latter given the legit ideological conflict (whereas history is random or a march to progress) that plays second fiddle to "lol I'm gonna plunder" and "boring lecture boring lecture"

Although that is the actual pull quote used in this article:


I think Silverquill makes sense as a general "is it better to be loved or feared" rhetorics thing, although I do think it comes together the weakest for me. Communications just hits different when it's also literally verbal magic. It's less impressive to make a crowd do your bidding with your words when your words also summon lethal ink elementals.

On the subject of Elder Dragons: the Tarkir Elders did warp the dragon storms to the point that all subsequent dragons resembled one of the Elders to the extent that they could be said to be a brood. If they had just made that clear from the start and let them be Elders on their original cards as well, I would have no issue with them. The Ugin retcon is far worse, in my opinion. I still maintain that he should have been Chromium's son. There would still have been the blood tie between them, but it would have required far less handwaving.