When it came time to enable Ninjas in Modern Horizons, I went back to Tormented Soul as an example of a simple creature we could change by giving it the changeling keyword.
time to enable Ninjas in Modern Horizons
Do I dare to believe?..
Liliana doesn't face consequences? Are you kidding? Everything we've seen of her since Origins is her trying (and in fact failing) to deal with consequences of her previous not-so-wise life choices. Every time she tries something she ends up in more and more trouble. Enslavement to Bolas is not a sudden twist 'to progress a narrative', it was logical conclusion. Ever since the contract she fought to regain her freedom, only to lose more and more of it.
We don't know how she was before the Mending, only that she is scared senseless by the prospect of death, because she knew full well what kind of afterlife to expect. Josu was expressive and very believable while describing it. Well, that fear wasn't much of the problem back then, but after the Mending, when she neared the end of her lifespan? It made her desperate, so she found a way to postpone death at a cost of a soul (which she hardly regretted that much at the moment) and some degree of servitude to her new masters. It was mentioned that they forced her to do many things, some of which were atrocious even by her standards. So even if killing Josu did not force her to assume the mask 'I'm evil and I don't care' that certainly did. Yes, that's a *****ty defense mechanism, and no one says she is a good person in the first place, but it still was the most logical one and there were basically no other way she could use, save for suicide variants.
After that every time we see her she tries to get out of the mess she gotten herself into, and each time she fails. Her plan to barter the Consortium for Bolas' help with the pacts not only failed quite spectacularly, but also left the new weight upon her conscience (and right until Ixalan story she acted accordingly).
Then there was the Veil, and even though it helped with some of the demons, it took another piece of her freedom - an incursion directly in her mind this time. Not only that, but the price of using the Veil was so steep and the prospects of continuous use so dire, that despite all the power it brought Liliana tried to get rid of it, only to discover that the Veil has even more control of her that she thought, and she is physically unable to part with it. Some time later we see her coming to Jace for help (being proud ***** that she is, she tried quite hard to not make it look like a plea for help, though), but here the whole Gatewatch arc starts and we basically don't see Liliana on her own ever since, so her personal line got tackled behind the whole Gatewatch bussiness.
Each of her sub-stories ends up in failure. Except may be the whole Garruk thing, but it is still in the air now. She is being hunted and if she happens to survive the WAR it still can backfire horribly. I'd say, that of all Gatewatchers (save for Jace, maybe) she actually faces the most consequences. She never actually succeeds.
Also it is sweet that you expect the Gatewatch to hate her. Jace has all the reason for it, of course (and I like to think that he still wasn't thinking straight at the moment he welcomed her to join, because that was kind of silly on his part). But others? They met her when she literally put her life in line to rescue them, and then stayed with them and saved their asses again and was badly hurt in the process. Even if they knew that her motivation has nothing to do with (most of) them, they still owe her. And she didn't even do anything bad to them. It's not like she forced them to Amonkhet or Dominaria - they decided on it together, her voice was hardly deciduous. She withheld some information, yes, and planned to use their goals to advance her own, but she still acted to advance their goals too, she never betrayed them or set up a trap or the like. On Amonkhet she tried to convince them to leave with her and it was obvious they couldn't do a thing at the moment. It was a sensible thing to do and though they are rightly sour about that, they don't really have a reason to actually be mad at her.
So yes, she is not a good person, she is very flawed, she runs from herself her whole life and that is what makes her a fascinating protagonist. She isn't juvenile or insecure,her story is not along the lines of classical 'coming of age', she faces different king of problems, makes different kind of hard choices, forms different kind of relationships and needs different kind of development, and all this is wonderful, though not often well written.
We have enough unequivocally good heroes and unequivocally bad villains, it's always nice to have something different. (Though I believe her Gatewatch-era characterization was mostly a failure, unfortunately)
(Yes, I love Liliana and am totally ready to die on this hill too)
Minor nitpick incoming: I don't like how the eternals are handled in this set artwise. I mean, they were created from the cream of the crop of Amonkhet, from a culture entirely devoted to perfecting various martial arts and combat styles. And they get consistently owned in art by run of the mill Boros legionnaires, wurms, trolls and even vines? What the...
Well, they didn't exactly keep the minds of most of them, thus why Lily is needed. A neigh indestructible mindless zombie is ultimately still a mindless zombie.
They still retain their skills. That was the whole point of Amonkhet. Bolas could have easily raised an army of living corpses, but the trials and the cartouches makde sure his undead fighters stay just as deadly as they were in life. This was actually a point in Hour of Devastation, where the eternals were mopping the floor with the living, because they were elite killer machines and even the best living fighters were at best evenly matched in a one on one.
Don't forget that on Amonkhet it was one city's worth army of undead agains that same city's living population. And they had their training for how long, 20 years, 50? Ravnica is just SO MUCH bigger in terms of sheer numbers. And it is not exactly peaceful world. Maybe somewhere like Kaladesh resistance would be less, but here with 10 guilds in constant weapon race? Even if we scratch off all the civilians (many of whom are still somewhat capable in combat, though) we have TEN armies, with skills, weapons, strategies honed over 10 millenia. They are bound to have some elite units and troops matching or sometimes surpassing Eternals in combat skills. It's a miracle and a testament to the Eternals' outstanding abilities that they've got that serpentine nest' denizens beaten hard enough on THEIR territory to make them mobilize all reserves and drive them into alliance.
Gonti would like a word with you.
And the process of choosing and extracting the power is basically Thoughtseize. Even the life loss is included.
OK, I admit I totally forgot about Gonti. I'm still not sure the effect isn't (in MaRo's words) a "break" or at least a "bend" in black, but I do feel a bit more comfortable with him being just black now. Thanks!
I... never said they were mutually exclusive. Saying "it wasn't just vengeance" clearly says that she's doing both. Are you saying that luring them to some random unrelated plane would have been better? Presuming that they'd be populated as well.
She wasn't trying to kill him. She wanted to drag him back to Zendikar.
And locking someone up forever when someone is trying to make you honor your promise to me is an overreaction. Don't make promises you can't keep, especially when you're making promises just to serve your own interests.
Actually, no. At this point she did not need his help ("She did not, in fact, need Sorin's help. Not anymore.") and kept fighting him to 'earn his respect'. She didn't plan to kill him either, but Sorin had no way to know that and, given that he was significantly weakened at the moment, the fight was dangerous for him..
So locking someone who is actively beating you is clearly self-defence, especially if the fact that it happens to be forever isn't something you can control.
(And even that he did only after Nahiri started to overpower Avacyn in battle, so it was also to protect Avacyn and Innistrad, not only himself.)
Though they all (including Ugin and actually most Oldwalkers) totally are absolute ********s, this I can't argue.
Black can use certain kinds of mind magic for sure, but I don't think it can steal spells, that seems very blue to me. I tried to find an existing Magic card that captures what Davriel's magic does (both mechanically and in terms of flavor) and the only really good fit seems to be Psychic Intrusion.
With that said, I fully accept that not every planeswalker card has to be all colors of the character. This just isn't what I expected after reading the novella, that's all.
Gonti would like a word with you.
And the process of choosing and extracting the power is basically Thoughtseize. Even the life loss is included.
But it seems that right now Davriel just decided to not show his true abilities (which is quite wise) and is playing the role of a good-for-nothing shadowmage (i wonder, whose powers he had stolen, btw) which happens to go well with his fancy shadowy coat.
Unless MaRo has confirmed that Adapt counts as the returning mechanic (also wasn't the returning mechanic supposed to be from the guild itself like Selesnya and Convoke?) it's all but certain that Azorious is Detain, which would be right in line with all the uninspired-creature centric mechanics this set is bringing to the table.
'Undertuning' seems intentional in the way 'you have to attack but are you really sure you want to attack me?', which seems quite fun in casual politics-heavy games.
A pity it has nothing to do with lands, though.
I'm so glad to see Tawnos. Partially because I just like him, mostly - because now eventual arriving of Ashnod becomes more likely (and Ashnod besides being wonderful character by herself has the potential to be the most unusual and unique artificer).
By the way, I don't think flavor is bad here. Young Tawnos certainly could be red - he was eager, enthusiastic and open-hearted, it suits him. Though I'd expect 'small harmless things doing amazing tricks' kind of theme for him. Copying abilities seems cool mechanically, but a bit stretched from the flavor standpoint.
time to enable Ninjas in Modern Horizons
Do I dare to believe?..
We don't know how she was before the Mending, only that she is scared senseless by the prospect of death, because she knew full well what kind of afterlife to expect. Josu was expressive and very believable while describing it. Well, that fear wasn't much of the problem back then, but after the Mending, when she neared the end of her lifespan? It made her desperate, so she found a way to postpone death at a cost of a soul (which she hardly regretted that much at the moment) and some degree of servitude to her new masters. It was mentioned that they forced her to do many things, some of which were atrocious even by her standards. So even if killing Josu did not force her to assume the mask 'I'm evil and I don't care' that certainly did. Yes, that's a *****ty defense mechanism, and no one says she is a good person in the first place, but it still was the most logical one and there were basically no other way she could use, save for suicide variants.
After that every time we see her she tries to get out of the mess she gotten herself into, and each time she fails. Her plan to barter the Consortium for Bolas' help with the pacts not only failed quite spectacularly, but also left the new weight upon her conscience (and right until Ixalan story she acted accordingly).
Then there was the Veil, and even though it helped with some of the demons, it took another piece of her freedom - an incursion directly in her mind this time. Not only that, but the price of using the Veil was so steep and the prospects of continuous use so dire, that despite all the power it brought Liliana tried to get rid of it, only to discover that the Veil has even more control of her that she thought, and she is physically unable to part with it. Some time later we see her coming to Jace for help (being proud ***** that she is, she tried quite hard to not make it look like a plea for help, though), but here the whole Gatewatch arc starts and we basically don't see Liliana on her own ever since, so her personal line got tackled behind the whole Gatewatch bussiness.
Each of her sub-stories ends up in failure. Except may be the whole Garruk thing, but it is still in the air now. She is being hunted and if she happens to survive the WAR it still can backfire horribly. I'd say, that of all Gatewatchers (save for Jace, maybe) she actually faces the most consequences. She never actually succeeds.
Also it is sweet that you expect the Gatewatch to hate her. Jace has all the reason for it, of course (and I like to think that he still wasn't thinking straight at the moment he welcomed her to join, because that was kind of silly on his part). But others? They met her when she literally put her life in line to rescue them, and then stayed with them and saved their asses again and was badly hurt in the process. Even if they knew that her motivation has nothing to do with (most of) them, they still owe her. And she didn't even do anything bad to them. It's not like she forced them to Amonkhet or Dominaria - they decided on it together, her voice was hardly deciduous. She withheld some information, yes, and planned to use their goals to advance her own, but she still acted to advance their goals too, she never betrayed them or set up a trap or the like. On Amonkhet she tried to convince them to leave with her and it was obvious they couldn't do a thing at the moment. It was a sensible thing to do and though they are rightly sour about that, they don't really have a reason to actually be mad at her.
So yes, she is not a good person, she is very flawed, she runs from herself her whole life and that is what makes her a fascinating protagonist. She isn't juvenile or insecure,her story is not along the lines of classical 'coming of age', she faces different king of problems, makes different kind of hard choices, forms different kind of relationships and needs different kind of development, and all this is wonderful, though not often well written.
We have enough unequivocally good heroes and unequivocally bad villains, it's always nice to have something different. (Though I believe her Gatewatch-era characterization was mostly a failure, unfortunately)
(Yes, I love Liliana and am totally ready to die on this hill too)
Don't forget that on Amonkhet it was one city's worth army of undead agains that same city's living population. And they had their training for how long, 20 years, 50? Ravnica is just SO MUCH bigger in terms of sheer numbers. And it is not exactly peaceful world. Maybe somewhere like Kaladesh resistance would be less, but here with 10 guilds in constant weapon race? Even if we scratch off all the civilians (many of whom are still somewhat capable in combat, though) we have TEN armies, with skills, weapons, strategies honed over 10 millenia. They are bound to have some elite units and troops matching or sometimes surpassing Eternals in combat skills. It's a miracle and a testament to the Eternals' outstanding abilities that they've got that serpentine nest' denizens beaten hard enough on THEIR territory to make them mobilize all reserves and drive them into alliance.
Well, to make you maybe even more comfortable: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/178527097023/do-you-think-we-could-see-more-of-blacks-ability#notes
It seems casting opponent's cards from their library is in-color for black, just not very common.
(Though I hope the next Davriel's card would be UB, it surely suits him more)
Actually, no. At this point she did not need his help ("She did not, in fact, need Sorin's help. Not anymore.") and kept fighting him to 'earn his respect'. She didn't plan to kill him either, but Sorin had no way to know that and, given that he was significantly weakened at the moment, the fight was dangerous for him..
So locking someone who is actively beating you is clearly self-defence, especially if the fact that it happens to be forever isn't something you can control.
(And even that he did only after Nahiri started to overpower Avacyn in battle, so it was also to protect Avacyn and Innistrad, not only himself.)
Though they all (including Ugin and actually most Oldwalkers) totally are absolute ********s, this I can't argue.
Gonti would like a word with you.
And the process of choosing and extracting the power is basically Thoughtseize. Even the life loss is included.
But it seems that right now Davriel just decided to not show his true abilities (which is quite wise) and is playing the role of a good-for-nothing shadowmage (i wonder, whose powers he had stolen, btw) which happens to go well with his fancy shadowy coat.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/181274624848/youve-said-that-ravnica-allegiance-has-a#notes
He confirmed. Though I'm not sure if it was ever stated that GRA would have only one returning mechanic.
A pity it has nothing to do with lands, though.
By the way, I don't think flavor is bad here. Young Tawnos certainly could be red - he was eager, enthusiastic and open-hearted, it suits him. Though I'd expect 'small harmless things doing amazing tricks' kind of theme for him. Copying abilities seems cool mechanically, but a bit stretched from the flavor standpoint.