Do we really need some cliche scene with Josu pushing little Lili on a swing or some crap to believe that she values Josu? He's her brother. People generally value their family VERY highly. As I've said about the perspective second black legendary card: Josu is just a tool. They could have put any number of things in his place and gotten to the same result. So no they didn't need to show sibling bonding scenes or anything of that sort as it wasn't important. It was enough that she was trying so hard to find the cure for him. The point of the early part of the story was to give her a reason to do anything to dodge death even to the point of selling her soul to demons (and doing god knows what for Bolas to get him to help her). Not everything needs to be shown. Most writers I've encountered, including MaRo and Doug via their blogs, say that if something isn't absolutely necessary for the sake of the story it should be cut. Showing her healing, sibling scenes, her later duel with the Raven Man (in which he was not taken out, just defeated) none of these things were necessary for the story they were trying to tell here.
The only reason I found this story to be meh was because I just don't care for Liliana. Not that she's a bad character or anything or that I actively dislike her, I just don't care.
Still think the Raven man is a walker and Kothophed is the legendary. For the people who are complaining that no one in the story was likable that's kinda the point. I will say that early Lilli is fine. She's just trying to save her brother. However after the incident with Josu everyone is a villain so we're not supposed to be liking them.
To the one who asked about her age after the mending: I'm pretty sure that age caught up to most of the walkers after the mending. Someone like Caranthir might have more info on that though.
Also: I don't think there's any reason to think Kothophed is from Shandalar. He obviously knows about walkers which means it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he receives info from across the multiverse.
Red: An emotion manipulator. They say they want to express more of reds other aspects and less of the RAWRSMASHERVRYTANG!!! They've done that a little with Enthralling Victor but I think they could go further. Someone able to make other creatures appear more fearsome, represented as making a creature unable to block or giving a creature Menace or something along those lines. Someone with love spells, that can make someone temporarily fall in love with them.
I saw earlier in the thread someone mention a shapeshifter walker. I think the Raven Man is the perfect option.
I think Blue has the opposite problem of Red. Red has several walkers focused on the elements at it's disposal. Chandra, Koth etc. Blue has Kiora as a hydromancer and only kinda as well as a dead cryomancer. Wind, water, ice, time(although difficult to pull off fairly.) are all at Blue's disposal.
I think it's also possible that some spell mastery cards might require more spells in the grave, which can allow print for stronger effects.
I could also maybe see spell mastery for creature spells require creatures on the battlefield, rather than in the graveyard, spell mastery for artifacts require artifacts on the battlefield, and spell mastery for enchantments require enchantments on the battlefield.
If they do expand this to a "Cardtype" Mastery mechanic I doubt they will do it in this set. Including them all together seems like a quick way to make for extremely complicated board-states that they don't like happening.
"So, there’s a small downside to working behind the scenes. You work on something for a while and then you assume that things you were familiar with made it to print only to learn later that, between the time you saw it and it got released, things changed.
When I was involved in Dragon’s Maze, one of the end results of the running of the maze was a realigning of the universe putting Ravnica at the center. Turns out, that didn’t happen. The creative team went down a different path with Jace ending up the Living Guildpact.
This is a lengthy way of me explaining that I said something that was wrong and I don’t want people quoting me when I was factually incorrect. Ravnica is not the center of the universe (just in my heart). Hopefully, I haven’t just doomed the plane of Ravnica to armageddon. : )
I apologize for the mistake."
-MaRo
I actually just saw this right before you posted coincidentally and I'm reminded of a post somewhere (in this thread I think?) about someone saying that Ravnica feels like the center of the multiverse because of how often it's being shown off lately. Weird.
I know I said somewhere that I didn't think he meant it literally but from a storytelling perspective. It's interesting to know that they were actually thinking of literally shifting the multiverse around. I can just imagine the rage over that.
"So, there’s a small downside to working behind the scenes. You work on something for a while and then you assume that things you were familiar with made it to print only to learn later that, between the time you saw it and it got released, things changed.
When I was involved in Dragon’s Maze, one of the end results of the running of the maze was a realigning of the universe putting Ravnica at the center. Turns out, that didn’t happen. The creative team went down a different path with Jace ending up the Living Guildpact.
This is a lengthy way of me explaining that I said something that was wrong and I don’t want people quoting me when I was factually incorrect. Ravnica is not the center of the universe (just in my heart). Hopefully, I haven’t just doomed the plane of Ravnica to armageddon. : )
I think Silumgar's Scorn with Spell Mastery instead of the dragon clause is WAY to powerful. I mean WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY to powerful. They know that Silumgar's Scorn is powerful. They don't want Counterspell in Standard or Modern and if all you need is 2 spells it'll be basically like printing counterspell, at least for modern. This mechanic has huge potential... which means they're probably afraid of it.
Either MaRo or Doug said that there are no coincidences when asked about this connection. However I'm pretty sure Gideon didn't start it. However we do know that Hixus' mentor was a planeswalker which is why Hixus understood what was going on with Gideon. It's possible that The man who mentored Hixus is involved with the Order in some way.
I wonder, with the new storytelling, when is the soonest we will hear of Battle of Zendikar stories? Will we hear them as the set comes out or between origins and BFZ?
Eh. Probably September or at the very least late August. The set comes out October 2. Even after the 5 origins stories I would figure we'd get some about their first new world.
The title of Nissa's pretty legit looking card for Origins is "Vastwood Seer". But we know that Oran-Rief, the Vastwood is on Tazeem, and Nissa and the Joraga elves are supposed to be from Bala Ged. Did she go to college in the Vastwood or something?
Unless I'm missing something here.. Oran reif was printed in Zendikar, logic dictates that that is its most probable location
Tazeem and Bala Ged are locations within Zendikar.
I think Baral is a typical White bad guy. Sanctimonious, hypocritical, jerk who thinks his way is the only way and if you disagree you can go to hell. I think we'll probably get more on him in our eventual visit to Kaladesh starring Chandra.
The only reason I found this story to be meh was because I just don't care for Liliana. Not that she's a bad character or anything or that I actively dislike her, I just don't care.
WoopWoopWoop?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/uncharted-realms/magic-origins-new-era-2015-06-03
Jace is next. Then Gideon and Nissa.
From the art Lilli's looks like it could be a smaller Army of the Damned without Flashback.
To the one who asked about her age after the mending: I'm pretty sure that age caught up to most of the walkers after the mending. Someone like Caranthir might have more info on that though.
Also: I don't think there's any reason to think Kothophed is from Shandalar. He obviously knows about walkers which means it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he receives info from across the multiverse.
I saw earlier in the thread someone mention a shapeshifter walker. I think the Raven Man is the perfect option.
I think Blue has the opposite problem of Red. Red has several walkers focused on the elements at it's disposal. Chandra, Koth etc. Blue has Kiora as a hydromancer and only kinda as well as a dead cryomancer. Wind, water, ice, time(although difficult to pull off fairly.) are all at Blue's disposal.
If they do expand this to a "Cardtype" Mastery mechanic I doubt they will do it in this set. Including them all together seems like a quick way to make for extremely complicated board-states that they don't like happening.
I know I said somewhere that I didn't think he meant it literally but from a storytelling perspective. It's interesting to know that they were actually thinking of literally shifting the multiverse around. I can just imagine the rage over that.
"So, there’s a small downside to working behind the scenes. You work on something for a while and then you assume that things you were familiar with made it to print only to learn later that, between the time you saw it and it got released, things changed.
When I was involved in Dragon’s Maze, one of the end results of the running of the maze was a realigning of the universe putting Ravnica at the center. Turns out, that didn’t happen. The creative team went down a different path with Jace ending up the Living Guildpact.
This is a lengthy way of me explaining that I said something that was wrong and I don’t want people quoting me when I was factually incorrect. Ravnica is not the center of the universe (just in my heart). Hopefully, I haven’t just doomed the plane of Ravnica to armageddon. : )
I apologize for the mistake."
-MaRo
Eh. Probably September or at the very least late August. The set comes out October 2. Even after the 5 origins stories I would figure we'd get some about their first new world.
Tazeem and Bala Ged are locations within Zendikar.