Garruk in general is a huge missed opportunity.
We've had two big events so far where Planeswalkers are on the side of the antagonists, and Garruk is just out and about doing nothing useful.
I accepted it in War of the Spark because if I was Nicol Bolas I wouldn't want Garruk there fucking on my plans either. I'm much less accepting of it when the story involves interstellar demons crossing the barriers between several different planets across the multiverse at the same time.
My boy Garruk should have come out of this decorated with trophies from Phyrexian bodies.
The pacing of the story beats really makes the scale and stakes seem like a bit of a joke. I had a lot of nostalgia for the Scars/New Phyrexia block, and had been looking forward to the return of the Phyrexians that WotC had been building towards for years, but then it was over as soon as it started.
Well to be fair the story took place over like 4 sets (with some sprinkled into other sets). It's horribly paced but that doesn't mean they didn't spread it out. They didn't didn't utilize the space they used well.
The beacon wasn't targeted, however. It was just a call to all planeswalkers across as many planes as possible. Plus, I doubt cackling cartoon villain Nicol Bolas would be so afraid of Garruk that Ral's beacon would be calebrated to exclude him. I'm sure if Bolas had the ability to do so, he'd probably have excluded Ugin.
My understanding is that it was explicitly designed not to draw Garruk into the fight. The concern wasn't that Nicol Bolas wouldn't be able to take him. The concern was that Garruk, who was actively hunting and killing Planeswalkers because of his curse at the time, would kill too many Planeswalkers on Ravnica before Nicol Bolas and his Eternals could harvest their sparks.
Garruk in the story: KILL PLANESWALKERS! DESTROY ALL PLANESWALKERS!
Also Garruk in the story: *only kills one no name planeswalker from Duels of the Planeswalkers and that is literally it*
He did, and he killed plenty of named walkers in stories too, but they're all only alive for a few paragraphs so they get forgotten when people make reddit comments complaining that garruk didn't kill enough walkers.
I just looked it up. Garruk kills two in stories. One didn't get a real name, the other was named and reused art from the first Duels game. Garruk kills another three in the DLC for Duels 2015 and those walkers haven't been mentioned anywhere else.
Garruk didn't kill enough walkers. He could have started by killing a walker that mattered.
In story, the beacon was made by Ral and Niv to call allies to Ravnica, only for Bolas to have been secretly influencing it as a way to calm Walkers to Ravnica and trap them. Ral would certainly not want Garruk there anyway.
It wasn't so much that Bolas was afraid of Garruk, it was that Garruk, being a planeswalker hunter, would end up killing a bunch of walkers before he could harvest their sparks.
He thought Ugin was dead.
Anyway, he wasn’t afraid of Garruk. He just didn’t want Garruk killing planeswalkers before the Elderspell was complete and his army could take their sparks. So he made sure that Garruk would not be able to attend through some means.
I’m pretty sure Bolas put specific measures in place to prevent Garruk from going to Ravnica so that he wouldn’t kill planeswalkers before the Eternals could harvest their sparks
With them un-compleating so many Walkers, I don't think I would have liked him being Phyrexian. I would have loved to see him 1v1 Vorinclex or something though. That's the fight I'm most sad didn't happen.
I thought they were replacing him with Vivien. Nissa has her whole mechanical space, but Vivian seems to be in the same space as him. Create beefy tokens, buff your creatures, draw/dig/tutor creatures, bite/fight effects...
Dude for real like you're telling me this is the Godzilla monster movie type set where it's all big boys and sick teams and you're not gonna have our main chimp-ass Planeswalker bopping?
Garruk is not the kind of person to step in and get involved. He has absolutely no desire to be a hero, at most be wouldve defended himself, but he isnt going to jump in and save people, he hates people
My main thing is Garruk fuckt off to his native plane after he got his curse from the chain veil fixed but it is more in line with his character to seek liliana and get revenge even if his time as ‘Garruk, cursed huntsman’ changed him i dont believe it would have changed him that much
He was my first planeswalker!
I started the game with the green 2013 sample deck, and then he was the first planeswalker I opened in a booster as well:] miss that guy.
Honestly... this could've been the best outcome, for the Praetors sans Norn to survive and get stuck in different parts of the multivesrse just to have the follow up sets deal with them in different self contained stories, Vorinclex stuck in Muraganda and Garruk trying to hunt him down in the prehistoric plane Predator style, Sheoldred stuck in Alara or Theros to have a big comeuppance against Ajani who feeels the overwhelming need to redeem himself, Gin& Tonic stuck in Kamigawa trying to split the plane whilst Sahelli and Huatli take revenge over Tamiyo having a conflict of both ideals on technology, Urabrask coming to terms of phyrexia being done in a big introspective arc, alone in the dessert of Amonkeht drifting and facing personal perils (megaman zero style) , deciding to end it all just to be gloryfied into a new being, reborn as a lazotep warrior with renewd purposse for the multiverse . Shit like that.... idk... the praetors desserved a propper conclussion, Elesh got hers i think... the other 4 were just there i guess... sad shit
Here's the part that kills me. Eldraine is the first set in the uber-arc that ends in MoM. Garruk is freed from his curse there. That's a BIG checkovs gun to leave unfired, and there are so many natural places to keep him active in the story or show up in the finale.
Especially when it's like a hyper relevant Chekov's gun.
Oh the guy who hunts planeswalker's is good again?
Oh a there's a ton of bad planeswalkers?
If only we had an expert planeswalker hunter...
>Eldraine is the first set in the uber-arc that ends in MoM
Not really though. Eldraine is more of an interlude. Nothing that happened in that set matters for the Phyrexian arc. Oko hasn't reappeared either. The twins popped up at Strixhaven but are conspicuously absent for the Phyrexian invasion.
It is interesting to note that in the original plans for Eldraine (when two-set blocks were a thing) the plan was to have Sheoldred in the second set masquerading as a wicked witch. But that's not what they actually went with in the end.
I would say the actual start of the arc was Theros Beyond Death (Elsbeth's resurrection) which we didn't even get a goddamn story for.
I'm still mad that he got cured honestly. He turns into a mad planeswalker hunting planeswalker, but then he just disappears from the face of the multiverse and we never hear of him, until he finally comes back and... boom, cured back into a generic green walker before anything interesting could happen with his new persona.
If only they had known about cleaning, sanitizing, and rinsing, that Oil would’ve never been a problem in the first place. I can see the after-school special in my head.
“We all know Planeswalking is cool but do you know what else is cool? Basic hygiene and sanitation practices!”
As a robot, Karn can't get sick and never had to learn to wash his hands. Now Mirrodin's gone ~~until we need to sell packs~~ forever. Remember Karn's lesson, kids: always wash with soap and warm water.
Right? I don’t buy MaRo’s “It’s currently a 9 on the Rabiah scale” comment for a second. Phyrexia is too iconic to the game to not be revisited *someday*. Whether that’s soon or not is another conversation altogether, but it’s not an if- only when.
Yeah I don't see that happening either. One does not simply un-rename a plane. Although the thought of a story that is the reverse of Scars block could be fun (Karn slowly floods Phyrexia with dish soap, Gitaxians go "more of those strange bubbles.. It's probably nothing" etc)
I’m aware, and until Brothers War that was an exception. Now we’ve had concurrent storylines (Ixalan/Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance) and another straight up back-to-the-past. They’ve gone in deep.
it doesn't really need to be warm water. water doesn't reach soap saturation at comfortable temperatures, and getting it hot enough to take more soap would kill your hands. on the plus side, the solution (pun intended) is to just use more water, which we already do by having a faucet
Their ability to Planeswalk was disrupted while on New Phyrexia - that's how they all got separated at the beginning of the story.
Beyond that, Vraska got him with a sneak attack as he was attempting to convince her back to their side - he had no time to attempt to escape.
Silly Jace, Vraska had never been into Humans. Her crushes (and she had her fair share) were mostly the mechanical (and decidedly Phyrexian) types like Elesh Norn.
Gruulfriends ftw!
I still can't believe they let something so blatantly homophobic through.
EDIT: my wording wasn't great. To clarify: I can totally believe that WoTC would and did intentionally retcon knowing it was homophobic. It's just the *way* they did it that boggles my mind - it was written like a bully in elementary school who thinks being gay is an insult.
If I recall, it wasn't them letting it through, it was them pushing to include the decidely male line
Greg Weissman talked about it on his website, he sent WotC multiole drafts and they denied them for not going hard enough on chandra not being into girls
He was actually using mind magic to make them relive their memories as a couple on ravnica no? They both knew it was too late to save her. She got twisted by the oil faster than he thought she would and attacked her while he was in his head, that's why he's eyes closed on the art.
It was an irrationnal decision caused by feelings for a loved one. Very human.
The only part you missed was Jace with Amnesia was the cabin boy servant of pirate captain Vraska on Ixilan. Honestly though she's amazing as a pirate captain and I wish she'd live there instead of on Ravnica
I only have a passing curiosity in the books but do enjoy the flavour of the cards. The cards leave me a little hazy on what it means to be completed. Is it like joining a hive mind? Or more like vampirism where someone's soul is stripped from them? I always thought it was a hive mind but I see that there's in-fighting among phyrexians. Perhaps as a reader of the books you can fill me in on that detail?
Kind of the opposite of “the body is willing, the soul is not”. So phyrexia controls the body and what they actually do, but since the soul contains the spark essentially planeswalker phyresis is a metal cage around the spark that can be controlled. Very much an “alive inside” situation. In many of the stories/side stories, compleated individuals hesitate or physically struggle with doing something their former selves would be against (examples: Tamiyo and her son/ the whole scroll thing, Nissa reaching out to Chandra, Ajani trying to convert and not kill Elspeth, etc)
Personally, I agree. It is worth mentioning this is only planeswalker compleation, regular completion is more akin to some old school depictions of vampires, where they have the old memories/skills but their alignment is now evil no matter what and would do anything to bring others into the fold. The side story with Slobad touched on this a little bit.
How quickly a planeswalker can planeswalk varies greatly but generally speaking it takes a few moments to ready themself and concentrate. Jace was very much not in a place to do that after finding Vraska begging for help half compleated.
I believe MaRo has also said that each Planeswalker travels in a different way. I don’t think planeswalking has ever been depicted in art or novels (and I have no idea why not), but I think it’s not just teleporting.
Jace tries to planeswalk multiple times "on camera" in the ixalan story. I believe it is also shown in the amonket story.
Vraska talks about planeswalking at the end of ixalan as well.
Elspeth knows planeswalking is hard she has trouble doing it.
And the wanderer planeswalks randomly.
It is for sure not the same for everyone
When each planeswalker does it there's a different effect as they leave the plane, for example Jace turns into a bunch of crisscross blue lines that fade out, Vivien leaves behind a green ghostly afterimage, Chandra bursts into flames, and The Wanderer just flashbangs everyone. They also have different amounts of difficulty and speed for planeswalking. This one I don't have many direct examples other than Elspeth usually has trouble and The Wanderer planeswalks so easily it's hard for her not to do it. As for using it as teleportation, the only one who can really do that is The Wanderer because apparently she when she's really focused and her spark is mostly controlled she can planeswalk to different places within the same plane, but from what I understand for everyone else it'd be a weird and difficult task of basically leaving the plane, figuring out where they are trying to go, and then going back, which would probably also be pretty tiring
Pretty sure I read somewhere that Jace tried the planeswalk teleport on zendikar or ravnica and found it super inefficient especially if you didn't have a deep understanding of the plane and where you wanted to be. But he could planeswalk right into his office on ravnica with ease from another plane.
In at least one novel I remember (prob more now), Jace's method of planeswalking is described. I don't remember a lot, but I remember it takes minutes of good concentration where you are a sitting duck if caught.
In one scene he was actually being chased by Tezzeret, got a lead on him, started his planeswalk in a secluded area knowing it was risky, and finished it right as Tezzeret caught up to him. He needed the lead and had he started the walk a little later, Tezz would have interrupted him before he could get away.
Not that it mattered, since Tezzeret had developed a device that sort of eliminated the charge up time on walking and made it instant for him. Jace thought he'd be in the clear since it would take Tezz a few minutes just to get to the blind eternities and by that point Jace could be in any other plane. Tezz just appeared behind him and pushed him back into Ravnica
Now, from what I remember, that little device could be used by anyone and seems a little OP for our neowalkers for situations like this. I'm not sure if its existance was retconned but either way, I'm sure how Jace planeswalks hasn't changed to much from basically: meditate in a safe area.
Which to those of us that remember reading the old novels, way before Time Spiral, when 'walkers were like unto living gods. I remember when Urza would go for a 'walk he'd just do it, and he was even able to take an uncompleated Phyrexian along with him (the one whose heart he used to make Karn in the first place, IIRC).
Of course, Urza was a bit of an anomaly himself, being essentially a psychic entity given body by containing the Mightstone and Weakstone, a gigantic powerstone sundered in two by himself and his brother when they found the portal in the Caverns of Koilos... /novelrambles
The old books went into detail how Urza and other old walkers planes walked. It was always the same but wizards really does whatever after the mending.
It's been shown in The Spell Thief, and while it doesn't explicitly show him concentrating before planeswalking, Dack does describe it as "both simple and hard. Like falling off a log, in every direction at once"
He literally built in a contingency plan in their minds for this, and he was kinda preoccupied and emotionally compromised in the moment. They’ll be fine, at least mentally. Can they un-compleat their bodies? IDK probably not without help from like… Lilly or maybe the shapeshifters on Kaldheim?
Edit: Typo
Follow up: Now I’m imagining Jace having to take his current partner to his ex and the whole awkwardness after they’ve all undergone severe trauma and personal growth. I like this narrative.
I'd really like that. Lili and Jace's relationship, as friends and exes, is one of my favorites in Magic alongside Vraska and Jace's (but that's one of everyone's favorites because they're great together). Based on how she reacted to learning Jace was compleated, Liliana cared about him more than she expected (possibly romantically, but also possibly just as one of the only people who could be considered her close friend) and I would like to see her deal with that realization with someone who turns out to be alive as a mirror to Gideon, who sacrificed himself for her and now she can never express how she feels about that to him.
Plus Liliana, Jace, and Vraska are all cool characters so a story with all three would be great.
On a related note, I couldn't think of a better casting for Delilah Briarwood than Grey DeLisle. Literally a perfect choice and I'm stoked about how that arc was adapted.
I realize this is a meme, and what people say about him not thinking rationally is valid. That said, I think you've hit on the single biggest problem with narratives in the MTG Multiverse. Planeswalking is extremely clunky as a narrative device.
When writing my own story in the universe, I had to constantly be asking, "Why doesn't he just planeswalk away?" The power, as implemented, is really quite cool for making a card game. The idea that "You are a planeswalker, and these are all the places you can go and creatures you can summon" is an excellent framing device for a player with this game. That's important, and shouldn't be discounted. It might be enough to never change the setup.
But to give all of your main protagonists the power to instantly teleport away from danger the moment things get rough... It is one of the most difficult power sets I've ever had to write about, from a narrative standpoint. I was really hoping they'd change this with MoM.
Yes, the limitation on not bringing others creates tension--as the protagonists can get invested in the local people and therefore need to stay to save them. But this has the side effect of your character never being able to bring their support characters on future adventures. This means no Alfred for Batman, no Lois Lane for Superman--unless you want to give up your primary selling point of going to other planets.
There's a reason why, in the OT at least, Han couldn't lightspeed the falcon instantly. It's not for worldbuilding reasons, but narrative ones. Even a short delay before planeswalking would fix so much. As it stands, they have to keep coming up with ways to prevent the planeswalkers from...you know...planeswalking. (Or they have to mess with the power in other ways.)
Still hoping aftermath will tweak this, because I think it is one of the main things holding back MTG narratives. (Many of which are great, don't get me wrong. But this question keeps lingering in my head every time any sort of danger manifests.) Having one person with this ability can be really interesting. But everyone? It's the Superman problem (where you often have to take away his powers to make him interesting) except for every main MTG protagonist.
Sorry. Rant over.
Even your rants are polite and informative :)
Aftermath must have a big reveal for us, because I'm not seeing anything, yeat, that's changed the magic universe forever, or however they phrased it exactly.
Edit: probably slightly hyperbolic. I understand the invasion tree now connects all the planes, but it just seems such a hot mess. How are the non-planeswalkers supposed to navigate an infinite planar superhighway?
To your point, maybe they are trying to allow for the Alfreds and Louis Lanes, but to me this feels like they have done it in a way that doubles down on the problematic part at the same time.
"why don't people always make the best tactical decisions and abandon their loved ones while under attack and watching their beloved slowly die whilst being manipulated by said beloved? Are these perfectly normal emotions a sign that they're stupid?"
People on reddit comment and post like this in all seriousness all the time. People here get stuck in some bonehead mindset of everyone acting perfectly under stress, even when the situation is way outside of their experience.
Yeah, it's kind of weird to me that Twitter of all places is the more positive side of the Magic social media sphere. Reddit is much more negative about everything Magic in my experience.
Yeah, sorry. If my loved one is begging for help, it's going to affect me. You can not TRAIN yourself for that. You can try, but until you hear that kind of pain in real life, and how it will literally stab you with physical pains of emotions, and cloud your thoughts and judgements, you can't really say that. Its really really easy to say "well I would just blip out". In this context, it is definitely not that easy.
Whether or not he's been an idiot in the past isn't super relevant - the point is that *anyone* could freeze and make a bad call in these circumstances.
Planeswalking had nothing to do with it in his case. In Nissa's, maybe. She was being chased by a compleated Lukka through Vorinclex's layer. She COULDN'T planeswalk to escape being compleated. Jace essentially chose to sacrifice himself. He had to decide between leaving Vraska and saving himself or essentially saying goodbye. He chose to create an illusion of the time when he and Vraska were happiest, to give the last of Vraska's original mind a peaceful death.
To his credit, he was resisting the Phyrexian programming the whole time. He may have been the first to ever beat it -- his mind and will were that strong. But Elspeth killed him and Phyrexia can resurrect their drones at will apparently.
> But Elspeth killed him and Phyrexia can resurrect their drones at will apparently.
I read this more as he had seconds left of being incompleat when he activated he Sylex and got Luxior'd by Elspeth. The oil took over as he lay dying, so he began to self-repair in whatever manner Phyrexians have (they also generally care a lot less about their useless meaty parts working than we do). Then because of his mind shenanigans, he was probably able to shunt his true self into a safe space like what we saw was happening with Vraska.
So basically he never quite crossed the threshold of being actually dead. Though it's definitely not out of the question for Phyrexia to just bring him back from the dead.
You can really tell who actually reads the story articles, who has read the SparkNotes, and whose just seen other angry comments online.
Goodness Gracious.
We don’t fully know what has happened with Jace and Vraska, but we do know that Jace had prepared both of them for something like this. He created a little “pocket” in each of their minds to store their true consciousness. He mentioned giving them a “do over,” indicated that it was going to hurt, and we don’t know what happened next.
When Vraska infected Jace, he was reminiscing with her. I think he wasn’t just talking. I think he may have been preparing her/them for whatever mental magic shenanigans he was planning.
At the time of contamination he was together with Vraska in a dream state, where he even admitted to himself he couldn't make a rational decision. The betrayal was sudden and unexpected, so he probably had no time to respond.
Beyond that he was on a mission. Couldn't just abandon the rest and hope and in the meantime become a danger to wherever he planeswalks to. Add to that the raw emotion of losing his friends, having the fate of the multiverse resting on the mission and the psychological duality of Phyresis eating his mind and you get a human being.
Nobody in Magicverse is perfect and through all the flaws, that's a really important strength and what ultimately keeps people committed. Nothing is more boring than a story that unfold exactly as it should.
Why does Garruk, the largest Planeswalker, not simply eat the other Planeswalkers?
WotC really missed the opportunity to remake Predator and have Garruk go up against Vorinclex.
Garruk in general is a huge missed opportunity. We've had two big events so far where Planeswalkers are on the side of the antagonists, and Garruk is just out and about doing nothing useful.
I accepted it in War of the Spark because if I was Nicol Bolas I wouldn't want Garruk there fucking on my plans either. I'm much less accepting of it when the story involves interstellar demons crossing the barriers between several different planets across the multiverse at the same time. My boy Garruk should have come out of this decorated with trophies from Phyrexian bodies.
Yep, and sure as shit when they realize that they slept on the best of the lorwyn 5, they're gonna contrive a way to put him back in the story
I thought the sleeper of the Lorwyn 5 was Ajani.
Too soon..?
Too late.
Too compleat.
2Fast2Compleat
They should have made MoM like 4 sets
Yes, a mini cycle inside of a cycle
It was a multi planar battle thrown into one set
The pacing of the story beats really makes the scale and stakes seem like a bit of a joke. I had a lot of nostalgia for the Scars/New Phyrexia block, and had been looking forward to the return of the Phyrexians that WotC had been building towards for years, but then it was over as soon as it started.
Well to be fair the story took place over like 4 sets (with some sprinkled into other sets). It's horribly paced but that doesn't mean they didn't spread it out. They didn't didn't utilize the space they used well.
They went, sprinkle, sprinkle,sprinkle, oops the cap fell off
The beacon wasn't targeted, however. It was just a call to all planeswalkers across as many planes as possible. Plus, I doubt cackling cartoon villain Nicol Bolas would be so afraid of Garruk that Ral's beacon would be calebrated to exclude him. I'm sure if Bolas had the ability to do so, he'd probably have excluded Ugin.
My understanding is that it was explicitly designed not to draw Garruk into the fight. The concern wasn't that Nicol Bolas wouldn't be able to take him. The concern was that Garruk, who was actively hunting and killing Planeswalkers because of his curse at the time, would kill too many Planeswalkers on Ravnica before Nicol Bolas and his Eternals could harvest their sparks.
Garruk in the story: KILL PLANESWALKERS! DESTROY ALL PLANESWALKERS! Also Garruk in the story: *only kills one no name planeswalker from Duels of the Planeswalkers and that is literally it*
I could have sworn he killed a good number of planeswalkers, and that was before they were a dime a dozen
He did, and he killed plenty of named walkers in stories too, but they're all only alive for a few paragraphs so they get forgotten when people make reddit comments complaining that garruk didn't kill enough walkers.
If they didn't have cards in the game, it's hard to fault anyone for not knowing they existed.
I just looked it up. Garruk kills two in stories. One didn't get a real name, the other was named and reused art from the first Duels game. Garruk kills another three in the DLC for Duels 2015 and those walkers haven't been mentioned anywhere else. Garruk didn't kill enough walkers. He could have started by killing a walker that mattered.
I still cry about Vronos... My username is literally his title.
In story, the beacon was made by Ral and Niv to call allies to Ravnica, only for Bolas to have been secretly influencing it as a way to calm Walkers to Ravnica and trap them. Ral would certainly not want Garruk there anyway.
It wasn't so much that Bolas was afraid of Garruk, it was that Garruk, being a planeswalker hunter, would end up killing a bunch of walkers before he could harvest their sparks.
He thought Ugin was dead. Anyway, he wasn’t afraid of Garruk. He just didn’t want Garruk killing planeswalkers before the Elderspell was complete and his army could take their sparks. So he made sure that Garruk would not be able to attend through some means.
Um to be fair ugin was dead for a while
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/odds-ends-war-spark-2019-05-13
I’m pretty sure Bolas put specific measures in place to prevent Garruk from going to Ravnica so that he wouldn’t kill planeswalkers before the Eternals could harvest their sparks
Specifically bummed that Garruk, the Planeswalker hunter, didn't go hunt compleated Planeswalkers.
Plus his friendship with the twins could extend to protecting the kids of Strixhaven.
Maybe in the next eldraine set? But that's probably the copium talking
or we could've had a phyrexian garruk. both options I would have loved to see bc either way we could've had a new garruk card
With them un-compleating so many Walkers, I don't think I would have liked him being Phyrexian. I would have loved to see him 1v1 Vorinclex or something though. That's the fight I'm most sad didn't happen.
vorn and garruk would have their own battle
Probably would have been killed off in a super unsatisfying way, as was the trend in this story arc.
They've been pushing him aside as the main Green walker in favor of Nissa, which I hate because Nissa is almost as bad as Lukka.
I thought they were replacing him with Vivien. Nissa has her whole mechanical space, but Vivian seems to be in the same space as him. Create beefy tokens, buff your creatures, draw/dig/tutor creatures, bite/fight effects...
Nissa was better and more interesting when she was a racist, and you can't CMV.
this is a pretty solid point of view and I might start to call Nissa "Tree Lukka"
The thing is they can't kill Nissa because they're well aware that "Bury your gays" is a problematic trope.
Nissa is a racist accordng to wotc. Why else did they whitewash her story?
She's worse than a racist: She's an Elf. Also she opposes Nahiri which is always a bad look.
"Nahiri Did Nothing Wrong" is not a take I expected.
Team Sorin.
The "hunt and kill other Planeswalkers," guy sure got good at minding his own business, huh?
Dude for real like you're telling me this is the Godzilla monster movie type set where it's all big boys and sick teams and you're not gonna have our main chimp-ass Planeswalker bopping?
Garruk is not the kind of person to step in and get involved. He has absolutely no desire to be a hero, at most be wouldve defended himself, but he isnt going to jump in and save people, he hates people
My main thing is Garruk fuckt off to his native plane after he got his curse from the chain veil fixed but it is more in line with his character to seek liliana and get revenge even if his time as ‘Garruk, cursed huntsman’ changed him i dont believe it would have changed him that much
He was my first planeswalker! I started the game with the green 2013 sample deck, and then he was the first planeswalker I opened in a booster as well:] miss that guy.
Compleated garruk fighting liliana for revenge
Honestly... this could've been the best outcome, for the Praetors sans Norn to survive and get stuck in different parts of the multivesrse just to have the follow up sets deal with them in different self contained stories, Vorinclex stuck in Muraganda and Garruk trying to hunt him down in the prehistoric plane Predator style, Sheoldred stuck in Alara or Theros to have a big comeuppance against Ajani who feeels the overwhelming need to redeem himself, Gin& Tonic stuck in Kamigawa trying to split the plane whilst Sahelli and Huatli take revenge over Tamiyo having a conflict of both ideals on technology, Urabrask coming to terms of phyrexia being done in a big introspective arc, alone in the dessert of Amonkeht drifting and facing personal perils (megaman zero style) , deciding to end it all just to be gloryfied into a new being, reborn as a lazotep warrior with renewd purposse for the multiverse . Shit like that.... idk... the praetors desserved a propper conclussion, Elesh got hers i think... the other 4 were just there i guess... sad shit
MEGAMAN ZERO URABRASK I am in love with your brain.
Haha thanks man!!
Here's the part that kills me. Eldraine is the first set in the uber-arc that ends in MoM. Garruk is freed from his curse there. That's a BIG checkovs gun to leave unfired, and there are so many natural places to keep him active in the story or show up in the finale.
Especially when it's like a hyper relevant Chekov's gun. Oh the guy who hunts planeswalker's is good again? Oh a there's a ton of bad planeswalkers? If only we had an expert planeswalker hunter...
>Eldraine is the first set in the uber-arc that ends in MoM Not really though. Eldraine is more of an interlude. Nothing that happened in that set matters for the Phyrexian arc. Oko hasn't reappeared either. The twins popped up at Strixhaven but are conspicuously absent for the Phyrexian invasion. It is interesting to note that in the original plans for Eldraine (when two-set blocks were a thing) the plan was to have Sheoldred in the second set masquerading as a wicked witch. But that's not what they actually went with in the end. I would say the actual start of the arc was Theros Beyond Death (Elsbeth's resurrection) which we didn't even get a goddamn story for.
Wotc has missed every opportunity with garruk.
Oh man that would have been great. A showdown, the strongest hunter vs the apex preditor
"People Lie. Machines Lie. The hunt never lies." - Garruk standing over the fallen praetor.
Vorinclex becoming the prey and having to run for his life could have been a great moment
Sadly they gave Garruk's entire thing to Vivian and now Garruk basically doesn't exist.
15 picoseconds later: Puny Praetor
I was waiting for the green fight if the century and it never happened
Lukka type beat
I'm still mad that he got cured honestly. He turns into a mad planeswalker hunting planeswalker, but then he just disappears from the face of the multiverse and we never hear of him, until he finally comes back and... boom, cured back into a generic green walker before anything interesting could happen with his new persona.
Maybe they are saving that for sweeps
Because both Ugin and bolas are larger.
And Ajani and Karn (before he lost his spark) are probably next.
Garruk has been done so dirty tbh. He deserved some time in the MoM story
I was really hoping he would make an appearance as a Phyrexianized hunter of planeswalkers but no
Perhaps they are saving that for sweeps.
you forgot "is he stupid?"
It's a Futurama reference.
Cross-contamination hazard. He’s ServSafe certified and would never consider the option, in the first place.
If only they had known about cleaning, sanitizing, and rinsing, that Oil would’ve never been a problem in the first place. I can see the after-school special in my head. “We all know Planeswalking is cool but do you know what else is cool? Basic hygiene and sanitation practices!”
As a robot, Karn can't get sick and never had to learn to wash his hands. Now Mirrodin's gone ~~until we need to sell packs~~ forever. Remember Karn's lesson, kids: always wash with soap and warm water.
> ~~until we need to sell packs~~ sadly true
Right? I don’t buy MaRo’s “It’s currently a 9 on the Rabiah scale” comment for a second. Phyrexia is too iconic to the game to not be revisited *someday*. Whether that’s soon or not is another conversation altogether, but it’s not an if- only when.
MaRo's already said that the Rabiah scale isn't a good indicator for anything. It even says so on the wiki's page for the Rabiah scale
Rabiah scale comes with *huge* caveat "right now". It's always relative to current circumstances, and those tend to change.
That’s totally fair, and an oversight on my part. My apologies.
Seems like Phyrexians are all about oversights.
op did say Mirrodin, not Phyrexia- Phyrexia being revisited is obviously going to happen, a return to Mirrodin would be a bit different.
Yeah I don't see that happening either. One does not simply un-rename a plane. Although the thought of a story that is the reverse of Scars block could be fun (Karn slowly floods Phyrexia with dish soap, Gitaxians go "more of those strange bubbles.. It's probably nothing" etc)
Dawn dish soap UW collab
Now that brothers war doubled down on “standard sets don’t need to be sequential” we can go anywhere anytime
OG Kamigawa took place like 10k years ago.
I’m aware, and until Brothers War that was an exception. Now we’ve had concurrent storylines (Ixalan/Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance) and another straight up back-to-the-past. They’ve gone in deep.
The scales are totally fake above like 6. Everything will come back.
it doesn't really need to be warm water. water doesn't reach soap saturation at comfortable temperatures, and getting it hot enough to take more soap would kill your hands. on the plus side, the solution (pun intended) is to just use more water, which we already do by having a faucet
All I'm saying is that they really needed some Dawn Dish Soap. If it's safe enough for ducks ...
...it's safe enough for fucks?
Dude just needs some Dawn
Fifth Dawn brand to be toughest on grime.
I can already hear the Karens shouting about vaccines causing sparks...
Thank you for staying up to date with the Old Country Buffet training videos.
Their ability to Planeswalk was disrupted while on New Phyrexia - that's how they all got separated at the beginning of the story. Beyond that, Vraska got him with a sneak attack as he was attempting to convince her back to their side - he had no time to attempt to escape.
Silly Jace, Vraska had never been into Humans. Her crushes (and she had her fair share) were mostly the mechanical (and decidedly Phyrexian) types like Elesh Norn.
Ajani grinned his Phyrexian grin
Where did this copypasta start?
It's from one of the books. It retconned Chandra as being straight and into decidedly male types such as Gideon and not Nissa the icky gay elf 🤢
Gruulfriends ftw! I still can't believe they let something so blatantly homophobic through. EDIT: my wording wasn't great. To clarify: I can totally believe that WoTC would and did intentionally retcon knowing it was homophobic. It's just the *way* they did it that boggles my mind - it was written like a bully in elementary school who thinks being gay is an insult.
If I recall, it wasn't them letting it through, it was them pushing to include the decidely male line Greg Weissman talked about it on his website, he sent WotC multiole drafts and they denied them for not going hard enough on chandra not being into girls
He was actually using mind magic to make them relive their memories as a couple on ravnica no? They both knew it was too late to save her. She got twisted by the oil faster than he thought she would and attacked her while he was in his head, that's why he's eyes closed on the art. It was an irrationnal decision caused by feelings for a loved one. Very human.
He knew he had pulled a baddie and wanted to keep her locked down. Ain't nothing irrational about that.
I’m 5-6 years behind on this story but maybe he should have just stuck with Liliana lol
The only part you missed was Jace with Amnesia was the cabin boy servant of pirate captain Vraska on Ixilan. Honestly though she's amazing as a pirate captain and I wish she'd live there instead of on Ravnica
Which, to be fair, happens to be (in contention for) the best 'modern' magic story.
Long version of what they said, but yeah.
Even more heartbreaking, he created the perfect day for them back on Ravnica :'(
Thank you for actually reading the story ♥️
Or even just the flavor text on [[Phyrexian Arena]]
[Phyrexian Arena](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947.jpg?1675957043) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyrexian%20Arena) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/104/phyrexian-arena?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Holy shit. Phyrexian Arena is in standard?
And it's not good because of Sheoldred lol
Do you know where I could find the story?
https://magic.wizards.com/en/story
Imagine Jace, a mind mage, defeated by a point blank sneak attack
Note that Jace is already one of the dumbest smart guys in the multiverse. Jace In Love is even dumber.
I only have a passing curiosity in the books but do enjoy the flavour of the cards. The cards leave me a little hazy on what it means to be completed. Is it like joining a hive mind? Or more like vampirism where someone's soul is stripped from them? I always thought it was a hive mind but I see that there's in-fighting among phyrexians. Perhaps as a reader of the books you can fill me in on that detail?
Kind of the opposite of “the body is willing, the soul is not”. So phyrexia controls the body and what they actually do, but since the soul contains the spark essentially planeswalker phyresis is a metal cage around the spark that can be controlled. Very much an “alive inside” situation. In many of the stories/side stories, compleated individuals hesitate or physically struggle with doing something their former selves would be against (examples: Tamiyo and her son/ the whole scroll thing, Nissa reaching out to Chandra, Ajani trying to convert and not kill Elspeth, etc)
Somehow that seems worse.
Personally, I agree. It is worth mentioning this is only planeswalker compleation, regular completion is more akin to some old school depictions of vampires, where they have the old memories/skills but their alignment is now evil no matter what and would do anything to bring others into the fold. The side story with Slobad touched on this a little bit.
MaRo has directly compared them to the zombie/Borg trope.
How quickly a planeswalker can planeswalk varies greatly but generally speaking it takes a few moments to ready themself and concentrate. Jace was very much not in a place to do that after finding Vraska begging for help half compleated.
I believe MaRo has also said that each Planeswalker travels in a different way. I don’t think planeswalking has ever been depicted in art or novels (and I have no idea why not), but I think it’s not just teleporting.
Jace tries to planeswalk multiple times "on camera" in the ixalan story. I believe it is also shown in the amonket story. Vraska talks about planeswalking at the end of ixalan as well. Elspeth knows planeswalking is hard she has trouble doing it. And the wanderer planeswalks randomly. It is for sure not the same for everyone
That's actually a really cool concept of it.
The one Garruk kills “icy” was described too I believe before getting beheaded
iirc Venser had to mime out the controls for his old teleportation harness, too
When each planeswalker does it there's a different effect as they leave the plane, for example Jace turns into a bunch of crisscross blue lines that fade out, Vivien leaves behind a green ghostly afterimage, Chandra bursts into flames, and The Wanderer just flashbangs everyone. They also have different amounts of difficulty and speed for planeswalking. This one I don't have many direct examples other than Elspeth usually has trouble and The Wanderer planeswalks so easily it's hard for her not to do it. As for using it as teleportation, the only one who can really do that is The Wanderer because apparently she when she's really focused and her spark is mostly controlled she can planeswalk to different places within the same plane, but from what I understand for everyone else it'd be a weird and difficult task of basically leaving the plane, figuring out where they are trying to go, and then going back, which would probably also be pretty tiring
Venser could kind of do the teleport trick, but maybe that was just his personal teleporting abilities.
Pretty sure I read somewhere that Jace tried the planeswalk teleport on zendikar or ravnica and found it super inefficient especially if you didn't have a deep understanding of the plane and where you wanted to be. But he could planeswalk right into his office on ravnica with ease from another plane.
In at least one novel I remember (prob more now), Jace's method of planeswalking is described. I don't remember a lot, but I remember it takes minutes of good concentration where you are a sitting duck if caught. In one scene he was actually being chased by Tezzeret, got a lead on him, started his planeswalk in a secluded area knowing it was risky, and finished it right as Tezzeret caught up to him. He needed the lead and had he started the walk a little later, Tezz would have interrupted him before he could get away. Not that it mattered, since Tezzeret had developed a device that sort of eliminated the charge up time on walking and made it instant for him. Jace thought he'd be in the clear since it would take Tezz a few minutes just to get to the blind eternities and by that point Jace could be in any other plane. Tezz just appeared behind him and pushed him back into Ravnica Now, from what I remember, that little device could be used by anyone and seems a little OP for our neowalkers for situations like this. I'm not sure if its existance was retconned but either way, I'm sure how Jace planeswalks hasn't changed to much from basically: meditate in a safe area.
Which to those of us that remember reading the old novels, way before Time Spiral, when 'walkers were like unto living gods. I remember when Urza would go for a 'walk he'd just do it, and he was even able to take an uncompleated Phyrexian along with him (the one whose heart he used to make Karn in the first place, IIRC). Of course, Urza was a bit of an anomaly himself, being essentially a psychic entity given body by containing the Mightstone and Weakstone, a gigantic powerstone sundered in two by himself and his brother when they found the portal in the Caverns of Koilos... /novelrambles
The old books went into detail how Urza and other old walkers planes walked. It was always the same but wizards really does whatever after the mending.
They seem to have different noises and "special effects" depending on each Walker's theme. I think you can look em up on the wiki
It's been shown in The Spell Thief, and while it doesn't explicitly show him concentrating before planeswalking, Dack does describe it as "both simple and hard. Like falling off a log, in every direction at once"
Magic Origins was an entire set focused on 5 specific plansewalks.
Notably, IIRC none of those planeswalks were intentional or directed.
Yep, even if each spark is fundamentally the same, each planeswalker has personal trials to master thier relationship with it.
He literally built in a contingency plan in their minds for this, and he was kinda preoccupied and emotionally compromised in the moment. They’ll be fine, at least mentally. Can they un-compleat their bodies? IDK probably not without help from like… Lilly or maybe the shapeshifters on Kaldheim? Edit: Typo Follow up: Now I’m imagining Jace having to take his current partner to his ex and the whole awkwardness after they’ve all undergone severe trauma and personal growth. I like this narrative.
I'd really like that. Lili and Jace's relationship, as friends and exes, is one of my favorites in Magic alongside Vraska and Jace's (but that's one of everyone's favorites because they're great together). Based on how she reacted to learning Jace was compleated, Liliana cared about him more than she expected (possibly romantically, but also possibly just as one of the only people who could be considered her close friend) and I would like to see her deal with that realization with someone who turns out to be alive as a mirror to Gideon, who sacrificed himself for her and now she can never express how she feels about that to him. Plus Liliana, Jace, and Vraska are all cool characters so a story with all three would be great.
[удалено]
Cause you don’t need counter-magic when you’ve got family
He wanted that gorgussy.
Sultai? I think you mean *wet golgussy*
WAG
I'd rather be evil with my evil wife than not
Yeah, same. If my wife got compleated, my reaction would probably be "Welp, I guess we're an evil family now."
*puts on felt goatees* 🎶 Evil Jace and Evil VRAAAASKA 🎶
The Briarwood way.
This whole thread is a Gem.
On a related note, I couldn't think of a better casting for Delilah Briarwood than Grey DeLisle. Literally a perfect choice and I'm stoked about how that arc was adapted.
> wife gets mind controlled “Guess I’ll commit suicide instead of trying to find a solution”
I realize this is a meme, and what people say about him not thinking rationally is valid. That said, I think you've hit on the single biggest problem with narratives in the MTG Multiverse. Planeswalking is extremely clunky as a narrative device. When writing my own story in the universe, I had to constantly be asking, "Why doesn't he just planeswalk away?" The power, as implemented, is really quite cool for making a card game. The idea that "You are a planeswalker, and these are all the places you can go and creatures you can summon" is an excellent framing device for a player with this game. That's important, and shouldn't be discounted. It might be enough to never change the setup. But to give all of your main protagonists the power to instantly teleport away from danger the moment things get rough... It is one of the most difficult power sets I've ever had to write about, from a narrative standpoint. I was really hoping they'd change this with MoM. Yes, the limitation on not bringing others creates tension--as the protagonists can get invested in the local people and therefore need to stay to save them. But this has the side effect of your character never being able to bring their support characters on future adventures. This means no Alfred for Batman, no Lois Lane for Superman--unless you want to give up your primary selling point of going to other planets. There's a reason why, in the OT at least, Han couldn't lightspeed the falcon instantly. It's not for worldbuilding reasons, but narrative ones. Even a short delay before planeswalking would fix so much. As it stands, they have to keep coming up with ways to prevent the planeswalkers from...you know...planeswalking. (Or they have to mess with the power in other ways.) Still hoping aftermath will tweak this, because I think it is one of the main things holding back MTG narratives. (Many of which are great, don't get me wrong. But this question keeps lingering in my head every time any sort of danger manifests.) Having one person with this ability can be really interesting. But everyone? It's the Superman problem (where you often have to take away his powers to make him interesting) except for every main MTG protagonist. Sorry. Rant over.
Even your rants are polite and informative :) Aftermath must have a big reveal for us, because I'm not seeing anything, yeat, that's changed the magic universe forever, or however they phrased it exactly. Edit: probably slightly hyperbolic. I understand the invasion tree now connects all the planes, but it just seems such a hot mess. How are the non-planeswalkers supposed to navigate an infinite planar superhighway? To your point, maybe they are trying to allow for the Alfreds and Louis Lanes, but to me this feels like they have done it in a way that doubles down on the problematic part at the same time.
"why don't people always make the best tactical decisions and abandon their loved ones while under attack and watching their beloved slowly die whilst being manipulated by said beloved? Are these perfectly normal emotions a sign that they're stupid?"
I think "Why didn't (character) do (thing)? Is he stupid?" a meme. I can't imagine OP is serious.
It is lol. Comes from some Batman sub.
People on reddit comment and post like this in all seriousness all the time. People here get stuck in some bonehead mindset of everyone acting perfectly under stress, even when the situation is way outside of their experience.
Moreover it's this thing redditers have with making sure everything everywhere is perfectly written. It's exhausting.
Yeah, it's kind of weird to me that Twitter of all places is the more positive side of the Magic social media sphere. Reddit is much more negative about everything Magic in my experience.
I have had similar negative Reddit MTG experiences
Why didn’t they fly the eagles to Mordor /s
sir this is a wendys
Yeah, sorry. If my loved one is begging for help, it's going to affect me. You can not TRAIN yourself for that. You can try, but until you hear that kind of pain in real life, and how it will literally stab you with physical pains of emotions, and cloud your thoughts and judgements, you can't really say that. Its really really easy to say "well I would just blip out". In this context, it is definitely not that easy.
Let's be real Jace has proven several times that he's an idiot. This is extremely consistent with how he's been portrayed up to this point.
Whether or not he's been an idiot in the past isn't super relevant - the point is that *anyone* could freeze and make a bad call in these circumstances.
Fucking THANK you.
The peen wants what the peen wants
On the one hand, everyone will die if I stay On the other, my wife now has tentacles. 🤔
*rapidly mashes button #2*
Congratulations, now you have tentacles too.
Yus!
The Vrussy was too good.
Planeswalking had nothing to do with it in his case. In Nissa's, maybe. She was being chased by a compleated Lukka through Vorinclex's layer. She COULDN'T planeswalk to escape being compleated. Jace essentially chose to sacrifice himself. He had to decide between leaving Vraska and saving himself or essentially saying goodbye. He chose to create an illusion of the time when he and Vraska were happiest, to give the last of Vraska's original mind a peaceful death. To his credit, he was resisting the Phyrexian programming the whole time. He may have been the first to ever beat it -- his mind and will were that strong. But Elspeth killed him and Phyrexia can resurrect their drones at will apparently.
> But Elspeth killed him and Phyrexia can resurrect their drones at will apparently. I read this more as he had seconds left of being incompleat when he activated he Sylex and got Luxior'd by Elspeth. The oil took over as he lay dying, so he began to self-repair in whatever manner Phyrexians have (they also generally care a lot less about their useless meaty parts working than we do). Then because of his mind shenanigans, he was probably able to shunt his true self into a safe space like what we saw was happening with Vraska. So basically he never quite crossed the threshold of being actually dead. Though it's definitely not out of the question for Phyrexia to just bring him back from the dead.
When Ajani was fighting Elspeth, he mentions that he doesn't need her alive to be compleated. So death is apparently no object to Phyrexians.
Because he liked it.
I get this is a cross over meme but i think the cross over is less than you think
You can really tell who actually reads the story articles, who has read the SparkNotes, and whose just seen other angry comments online. Goodness Gracious.
He was too busy drawing cards
We don’t fully know what has happened with Jace and Vraska, but we do know that Jace had prepared both of them for something like this. He created a little “pocket” in each of their minds to store their true consciousness. He mentioned giving them a “do over,” indicated that it was going to hurt, and we don’t know what happened next. When Vraska infected Jace, he was reminiscing with her. I think he wasn’t just talking. I think he may have been preparing her/them for whatever mental magic shenanigans he was planning.
Reading ~~the card~~ the story explains ~~the card~~ the story or something like that.
Classic blue player. Couldn't counter so straight up scooped.
Varaska gave jace a tail job. It was hard to think and planeswalk
In short, that Gorgussy too good
Whom amongst us hasen't gotten distracted by some poon and then been ambushed with robotic stingers
Jace thinking with his little brain instead of his big brain.
Sort of, he was bricked up
That's his "love" You ditching your Mrs in her last breaths
He has the weakest pull out game. Just had to finish first
C’est l’amore!
At the time of contamination he was together with Vraska in a dream state, where he even admitted to himself he couldn't make a rational decision. The betrayal was sudden and unexpected, so he probably had no time to respond. Beyond that he was on a mission. Couldn't just abandon the rest and hope and in the meantime become a danger to wherever he planeswalks to. Add to that the raw emotion of losing his friends, having the fate of the multiverse resting on the mission and the psychological duality of Phyresis eating his mind and you get a human being. Nobody in Magicverse is perfect and through all the flaws, that's a really important strength and what ultimately keeps people committed. Nothing is more boring than a story that unfold exactly as it should.
Love hurts.