MTG Salvation

Quote from fleshrum »

"Time travel three times"?

It was spelled out on another version of the card. To time travel you put or remove a time counter from each suspend card you owe and each permanent that has a time counter on it.

Not shown here but they also have a variation of partner, Doctors Compion- You can have two commanders as long as the other is the doctor.

This my own personal guessing based on how much storyline they have, how much each walkers was used as a special legend for their world, how likely we would see that walkers homeplane in a set (so how likely we would see the character again as a legend) and how much design space their gimmicks have to draw from.

Who I think will remain sparked (spoilers for length);


Those I think are desparked;

Those I feel unsure about or I see both reasons for either choice;

Does confirm she lost her spark, I believe that was up in the air.

The original invasion also had an actual Mary Sue (and not what people who just like using it as buzz words) literally rewrite the ending to the story so Yawgmoth would lose and the heroes could win so imo the bar wasn't too high to begin with for phyrexia being taken down fully satisfying.

Overall I liked this ending, I do think Phyrexia was really built up and Wizards plot points always can be hit or miss so I felt like this was the best we could get. Again we need more stories to explain and detail stuff (the praetors ect) so I hope this soft-reset of storylines and how much better these stories where get wizards to give more room to authors if this how they wanna tell the story. I want more answers on some stuff but I am willing to wait and see what Aftermath tells us. Some of the stuff talked about here and just my thoughts;


The oil and Norn- How I read things is *for the invasion* the oil was wired to Norn since they where compleating a lot of phyrexians on a mass scale and likely another praetor or someone could take it over if Norn was taken out ect but since Phyrexia was phased out the signal is fully lost. That said I kinda wish it just disarmed the oil and they still have to fight/kill off the remaining phyrexians and not just have them become unmoving. On the othere hand leaves it open to either a phyrexian somehow returning from being phased out and re-activating it or some new villain will be able to hack it and maybe have lesser phyrexia to come back as a smaller threat.

The planes being connected- We have to wait and see if that ends up being the case, I do think that seems to be it as the angels seemed to used the leftover omen paths to travel and the Nahiri story did mention she was weakening the fabric of the multiverse.

The last of the Mirrans- It was noted that after Norn down the rebellion she had captured all the remaining Mirrans but some had been dragged off to be experimented on and likely left behind if not compleated, which might be a interesting hook, a mirran who had been left behind and half-compleated.

Ajani and Nissa- I don't mind if we have them needing to deal with the after effect of being healed, such as they can't fully get rid of all the phyrexia metal and Teferi comment about Ajani deserving some rest before he has to deal with what he did as a phyrexian. If they just recover all fine I'll be disappointed but I've said from when Tamiyo got oiled that I wouldn't mind if they got cured. Related I do like that while Elspeth has found peace, as an angel the human self of her has died.

Zhalfir- Neat to see Zhalfir now as its own "plane" and hopefully means we could see it outside of also needing to make it part of Dominaria. I did tear up at Teferi offering the surviving Mirrans a new home there and will be interesting to see how Zhalfir and new Mirrodin work out. Kinda cool that Zhalfir also took on the 5 suns from Mirrodin. And while she won't live to see her people thrive I'm glad Melira got to die saving people and knowing her people where safe and had found "home".

Quote from soramaro »

I actually liked the ending for Tamiyo though. I hope she's not just some kind of recording, but an actual living, non-corporeal consciousness. Maybe she can't planeswalk anymore, but since she doesn't have a biological body anymore, she could technically be taken through the Blind Eternities, right? That would be a neat concept for her character going forward. (Can regular spirits/kami cross between planes, by the way? It feels like they should, but I don't think we've seen it happen)

From the legends of Kamigawa article;

He (Nashi) also finds great comfort in the stories his mother has collected around the Multiverse and would like nothing more than to see it for himself one day.

When I saw this I thought maybe Nashi would inherit Tamiyo spark or something if she died, but if the planes end up connected for non-walkers to travel I could see Nashi taking on Tamiyos role as a story mage and traveler with the saga creature of Tamiyo coming along.

There is a discussion about race swapping a character when adapting something from one medium to another. However that discussion requires good faith, maturity and nuance all three of salvation historically has lacked in similar discussion and even in this forum.

Anyways after the history of the term Hobbits being halflings in magic is funny, though I agree that both should have just been kithkin for backward support.

I'm guessing Elspeth will use halo and the sylex as a legacy weapon 2.0 that will unleash a purifying/healing wave instead of a destructive one. Some of the walkers will be healed but have to deal with thier actions as a phyrexian, while some will truly die, one (Tamiyo) will escape and be the plot thread they leave for phyrexia to maybe return and the blast will stabilize the Realmbreaker so the multiverse is now connected.

The time travel thing felt more like y'all where trying to fit fit a square peg in a round hole with the whole "well Magic copies Marvel and Endgame had time travel so MoM will have time travel" logic. As caulkwrangler said Teferi unphasing Zhalfir will likely be a key in them winning which is why Teferi is being featured.

Quote from Moppi »

Good frikkin Gawd... Jace's decision in "Inconceivable Losses" make me want to strangle him FCOL...

ps. Wait... we still have 3 main story entries, right? Or the 1st two Commander related ones counted to the 5-main story count?

Typically we get 5 main stories and 5 world building stories. The main 5 are the ones written by Seanan McGuire so so far we have gotten 3 main and 3 worldbuidling one as the Lukka story seem to take the slot of a world building story.

Quote from Ryperior74 »

I see little desk lamp things crawling from Jace. I think he’s compleated in this photo (explains oil counters)

1) I think the "desk lamp" things are eyes and 2) might be shadows ect but Jace's right hand is looking mechanical too.

Oh and here’s the new art of reprints from the commander decks.

Assuming the fake clues are hinted at, I think the fakes are #3 and #12 (Azra and Gravestorm), since they're the only two ones that end in an "!" in the video proper. Two anomalies, two fakes, it fits. Also, other sentences with !s include "post your guesses" and "you got this", hinting to the mystery and its solution. And 3/12 is an as yet unused power/toughness combo...

As an aside, though I do think the Azra is fake, it's technically not impossible to have one in Ravnica due to the omenpaths.

Quote from LearnedLurker »

My money's on Extort, given the setting.

Wouldn't that make the color identity at least partially , when none of the decks feature that combination of colors?

Spoilers!

Quote from 5colors »

Quote from Ryperior74 »

had No idea Orangutan's are native to ravnica

Its an Edgar Allen Poe reference.

*slaps forehead*
How the heck did I miss that? I'm gonna have to have a notch taken off my Poe fanboy card!

Bless that man. He inspired me to create my own Native American fan set: https://mullerornis.medium.com/magic-the-gathering-aqalax-ee26d5aea5ce

Quote from Flisch »

Well, that was about to be expected quality-wise, so let's not go into the same old as always. My favorite part was when it was said the Mycotyrant has been trying to find a way into the core since forever, and Malcom and Breeches find him, run for ten meters and immediately end up in the core. Lol, rofl and lmfao.

Besides that, it's funny how they upgraded "every character has read the script" into "every character has read the author's notes". The Oltec had never been colonized. The Fomori certainly tried, but ultimately failed. The post-colonization trauma does not exist in Ixalan's core (and neither on its surface, except ironically enough for the pirates who -also ironically enough- never get the narrative treatment of "victims of colonization") and yet Wayta and that Oltec character what's-their-face get all preachy on Quint.

Not only did it not make sense in the story/worldbuilding and was unearned by the characters voicing it, but it was also beyond blunt, like the story took a short break and talked directly at the camera. Remember: A sledgehammer is not a good writing utensil.

Also not entirely sure about the Abuelo stuff and why they used gnomes. I think Myr would have been a better fit. Sure, the term also comes from greek, but it's an MtG invention and as such is less tied to RL mythology and culture. (Also, would have been cute if both known occurences of Myr show up in hollow worlds.



Something else entirely: I am completely flabberghasted how much they fumbled the original idea of an underground set. Sure, it's in the name and I guess there's caves, but beyond that, nothing about the set screams "the theme is underground" to me. If you had asked me what it was about, creatively AND mechanically, I would have shrugged and said "hollow world???". But the mechanics are just basic adventure, like original Ixalan, and crafting which honestly felt more like an "artifacts matter" inclusion than an "underground -> minecraft -> crafting" association.

They made this set because people have been asking about underground sets, but this ain't it, neither creatively nor mechanically. Watch Maro bring exactly this up in his post-mortem.

I can't agree on many of these points. The Fomori definitely colonized the Oltec, the Planeswalker's guide explicitely says that they were in power in the core for a long time (and the diminishing of the inner sun weakened the god's connection to the core, so they weren't able to help or at least give the people there some solace).

The Night War is the title of an epic poem that spans three centuries of history, charting the beginning of Olanem Teq's work to build a resistance through the end of the struggle that followed. The war scoured the Core but saw the Komon Winaq victorious.

So the Fomori were in power for at least three centuries, probably quite some time longer. Sounds to me like it would leave some serious trauma, especially with the evidence of the colonization still very much visible in the core, the loss of the inner sun for a while and the gods not being available at the time. So "sledgehammer"? Yeah maybe. But people reacting sensitive to such subjects is not that surprising. "Unearned" though? I don't see it. The trauma of the pirates should probably be explored more, but their colonization was pretty recent in contrast, and they are not a unified culture with its own historians and scholars that could analyze what happened to them. In addition to that I think their need for freedom and their strong survivalist instincts are a result of the trauma of being colonized by the vampires (I think as much was even hinted at in the guide). They pretty much didn't have the time or motivation for much introspection in that regard and instead projected it outwards.

The mycotyrant is pretty much everywhere in the caves, so Malcolm and Breeches coming across it and then (after a pretty long march while they were already underground at the start) finding one of the entrances is not that strange to me. Now why the Mycotyrant seemingly can't open the entrances itself, I don't know, but there could be any number of reasons. Even the guide states though that it is already pressing on multiple entrances, so it is not like it doesn't know their location.

I am also more iffy on "abuelo" being a word the Oltec use than "gnome". I thought it was pretty well established in the guide that this is a loanword they explicitely took to remind themselves of where this technology comes from by virtue of it being so foreign to them. Seems reasonable to me.

I also think the set covered many if not most underground tropes pretty well. "Hollow world" definitely can be part of an underground theme overall, so I don't mind the prominence of the core. Caves, the multiple cards showing mining, deep chasms, underground threats (like being caught in a flooding cavern or falling rocks, as well as dangerous lifeforms like the Mycotyrant), ancient cultures and artifacts hidden throughout the underground, adaptations to that kind of world (the deep goblins for example)... that was all present. The set was not JUST an underground set, but the theme was definitely recognizable. And mechanically the various forms of Descent showed the underground part of the set well.

I don't know, normally even if I don't agree with you I at least can see where you are coming from, but this is just accentuating the negative even if there isn't that much (in my opinion) to accentuate. I thought this Planeswalker's Guide was a surprising treat, they really worked on the worldbuilding a lot, and I personally was positively surprised by it. Ixalan went from one of my less liked to one of my favorite planes through this set.

The way they're described here I fully expect them to show up in the space set now.

I'm guessing it's an Indiana Jones reference.