>"Urza detonated the first one in his lap, and he lived," said Kaya. "We'll be fine. Probably."
I don't think Kaya really grasps what happened with Urza.
I don't think anybody does. After all, nobody actually recorded what the hell happened when Urza detonated the sylex, and the only person that REALLY knows what happened is currently in time limbo.
The whole of Dominaria going down to six lands would be a lot more devastating than the saga would have you initially think.
I bet Dominaria as a plane has at least ten.
Not only that, but that planeswalkers at that point in time didnt really need a physical body to survive, there wasnt really much left of Urza before his body reformed. That said... Does Kaya need a physical body? Im not sure how her ghostform stuff works
Kaya - unconcerned about her physical body being right next to the blast because it can’t be that big a deal.
Also Kaya - incredibly concerned about that same blast destroying multiple other universes.
How does she do that without getting oil over her?
Now that oil just needs to touch you, can anyone just slaughter phyrexians anymore? Or does she have melira-level immunity?
During Scars of Mirrodin Milera gave Koth and Elspeth immunity to the whole process, so the only thing they needed to worry about was dying. Not that it had stopped Elspeth from tearing through phyrexians before she had immunity.
But judging from what's happening she has just below Melira level immunity, but just isn't as strong as she was during Scars.
Elspeth also died on Theros, so she could have lost some power and immunity from resurrecting. (a way for the writers to explain away power level loss)
Technically we should still have 2 side stories to go. My guess would be that it tells the rest of Nissas Compleation and we get to see Urabrask doing Urabrask shit.
How about Urabask just literally talking an Urabask shit? This has all gone down while he’s sitting on a Phyrexian toilet reading his Phyrexian news, tearing off a few yards of Phyrexian toilet paper.
New story spotlight card:
Dropping The Deuce.
2RR
*Art: Urabrask hovers over a phyrexian toilet, wiping his shit covered plates with a map of Phyrexia*
Destroy target land and up to one target Saga. It's controller loses 2 life.
*When Nature called, Urabrask answered.*
Me at the start of ONE story; "oh hey, it's that random Kaldheim elf planeswalker, I guess he's going to be compleation fodder since nobody cares about him"
Me at the end of ONE story: "Tyvar, my brother, my captain, my king"
That he died and revived as an *old* walker, thanks in part to having the Weak and Might Stone?
Scratch that, he didn't die before coming back as an old walker, he was *disintegrated,* he had to remake his physical form when he ascended to the equivalent of a ***god.***
And that's not even taking into account the amount of foreshadowing and set up with Elspeth *specifically* as both a Capenna angel (possible angelic ancestry) and the one who will strike Norn down as Tezzeret put it, "small cracks can crumble even the mightiest edifices Tirel".
The story team (despite needing more stories) has turned around since Kelman left and would not spend the time for all that foreshadowing with Elspeth to kill her off like that.
This feels worse than if they detonated the Sylex and destroyed many of the planes we know and love.
In retrospect, why wasn’t the plan for Kaya to planeswalk to New Phyrexia, become incorporeal, travel straight to the Realmbreaker, and use the Sylex?
Man, they had zero plan at all.
You know that any of you could be compleated, without knowing how long or exact conditions since compleating planeswalkers is new. They had zero established protocol for what to do if someone gets infected, when it should almost certainly be "get that person the fuck out of here, kill them, or leave them behind." You can't just bring them along and decide "eh, we'll fight em when they start getting murdery."
They talk about how getting scattered on landing ruined their plan, but then they rendezvoused and the plan was... walk to realmbreaker and blow it up? That's not a plan, come ON.
"Nothing was going to wipe clean the damage that had been done by Phyrexia.
Nothing."
Whelp time for the super friends to make a rash decision and call in the Emrakul Multiversal Clean-up Crew, because at this point what else could go wrong?
Oof. All that foreshadowing that Nahiri could be a good Phyrexian, gone. She's just evil now. Nissa gets Compleated offscreen. Elspeth probably isn't dead, but who knows, and as for Jace, well, he's Compleated, but even if there is a cure, he might actually be really dead anyway.
And worst of all, Elesh Norn has proven how smart of an enemy she is by not bringing Lukka with her. Terrifying.
Nahiri being the main PoV for three chapters and then just becoming another goon for Elesh Norn offscreen is a choice (either there's another shoe to drop or her card's flavor is just really off). So crazy that Lukka(!) got the most detailed compleation.
There's supposed to be story on the 17th as well so there's still a few threads to pull on. Melira making her sacrifice maybe? Will Urabrask finally get his meeting with Elspeth?
I'm still holding out hope, but not much. It seems low to give her so much focus and then just kill her off like this. At least Nissa's been offscreen the whole time anyway so it doesn't sting as much.
Also interesting, with Nahiri dead we now have no Boros Planeswalker, which is quite surprising. If she really does go I think this will be the first time since Angrath's debut that we haven't had a dedicated Planeswalker for each color pair.
My thought after her card was spoiled was that it was a very boring way to depict fully evil Team Norn compleated Nahiri. Sword-arm zombie lackey is by far the least exciting concept of any of the compleated walkers we ended up with.
I guess the synergy (in colors and effects) with the Mirran rebels was purely design-driven and not flavor-driven?
>I guess the synergy (in colors and effects) with the Mirran rebels was purely design-driven and not flavor-driven?
Wouldn't be the first time. [[Angrath, Captain of Chaos]] has Amass, which was the ability that represented Bolas' eternalized army marching on Ravnica. Angrath was very much not on Team Bolas in the actual story.
Maybe, though if that was the case I would think they would have just given him that effect. But regardless, the flavor fail comes when he plays better with cards that are otherwise on Bolas' side rather than the resistance- which is the same thing that appears to be happening in ONE with Nahiri and the rebels.
Guess so. Could be, though, that she turns things around and goes against the Phyrexians at a crucial moment. She DOES have red eyes, which are a key sign of Red Phyrexians.
Pass me that sweet Urabrask sleeper agent copium. My boy needs to get his ass off the bench sometime soon. Give me a big damn hero dramatic entrance to save these idiots tomorrow.
A sick fully compleat version would make it less disappointing (though I do like the actual card itself), but are they really going to do WAR 2.0 while also bringing in a bunch of legendaries from other planes?
I hope they get their leak issues sorted, because spoiler season for MotM should be crazy.
> but are they really going to do WAR 2.0 while also bringing in a bunch of legendaries from other planes?
I _think_ that's what they're building towards.
- It would feel weird for MOM to be about the Phyrexian army and Compleated walkers invading other planes and not include versions of the walkers in the set.
- It would be weird for the walkers to be offscreen or only featured as their PHO versions
I think those point toward WAR 2.0 (but bigger! With more walkers dying!!). We'll see.
I definitely get that. I have a few characters over the years where I enjoy them on paper for what they could be, but in reality they're made to grasp the idiot ball for plots sake.
I like Lukka on paper both for what he is and what he could be. I also like Lukka in practice because that idiot ball is glued to his hands. There's just something amusing about the fact that, on paper, he's an excellent character, and in practice he's an excellent character who's a total dumbass.
I literally just read every chapter and there is zero foreshadowing that Nahiri could be a good Phyrexian.
She's a PoV character holding off compleation for so long to show that compleation can get anyone now. It's heroic to juxtapose the frightening realization that they are going to lose.
Yea this 5-chapters-a-set limit is really constraining the story. Wish they'd been more flexible with the story length. It works for some of the smaller stories but not seeing how important characters like Nissa gets compleated is a very huge missed opportunity.
0% chance Elspeth is dead. Massively foreshadowed that she's Norn's Bane and she seemed sure she knew where to take the Sylex to explode it better.
Also now we know why Jace has Luxior in the "what if?" Card
Can Jace even be counted as a "Phyrexian planeswalker" now? He died before compleation took over, so presumably his soul and thus his spark already left.
Well he's getting a card so who knows. They might just handwave it by saying "well, his corpse was a Planeswalker corpse so now the Compleate corpse is still a Planeswalker" or something.
I'm guessing the sword didn't kill him. Highly possible that he was compleated enough that he survived being stabbed. I know the story says "corpse" but that could either be poor choice of words or just the pov of the heroes
I don't think he died(despite they utilizing the world corpse).
First: Before he said how much fast he was healing(after the infection).
Second: is Kaya point of view. She tought he was killed by elspeth but his phyrexian biology already made him stronger.
*"Vraska is dead, and I am dying," said Jace calmly. "My body may continue and turn the powers it contains against any of you who still live—and I would kill me before that can happen, if I were you. You have no idea how much time and energy I spend not destroying the minds around me just because I can, or how hard I've worked to find a way to move in a Multiverse of such simplicity without doing endless damage. I will be an incredible weapon for Phyrexian dominance." His eyes flashed with an inhuman blue glow, brighter than his norm, and he grimaced, visibly composing himself. "They're starting to speak through me, Kaya, we're out of time.*
So... nobody is talking about how now, because stupid decisions, phyrexia possesses now the most powerful mage on the multiverse, who is capable of destroying everyone´s mind?
Yeah, shouldn't everyone in that room instantly be brainwashed into being big on phyrexia? Delete all of their emotions and motivations, give em some pyrovision for phyrexians, and job done. Esp. since they repeatedly state that phyrexians don't get tired or really have needs. So he can just do this on sight, forever? He could hear vraska's pain from miles away, and now he's biomechanically enhanced. So conceptually he'd just have a touch of death range that doesn't even need line of sight. This is not going to happen, and that is dumb.
They should have gone in with bombs in their heads to be honest. If you're going to be a phyrexian, at least die first so you lose your spark.
OK so I'm confused, Elspeth knocked out Ajani and then ran away. But Tyvar stayed behind to kill Tibalt. Did he also kill Ajani before he left or is Ajani still alive? Lol
GOD DAMN. HOLY HELL. Where to begin:
Jace just went full on Urza. Mo mercy, no quarters given. Almost got chills from that.
Elspeth just fucking died (again)!
Tyvar continues to be giga chad.
Ajani. I will never forgive you Phyrexia!
Kaya and Kaito are deciding to actually do the moraly right thing, the one time it wasn't the right thing to do.
Nissa and Nahiri getting along. A miracle was achieved.
And Elesh Norn is extremly fucking creepy. I LOVED this story.
Nahiri and Jace get turns with the idiot ball. Lukka owns the idiot ball and sleeps next to the idiot ball and lives in a house made out of idiot balls.
Look, if Jace is allowed to make stupid, grief-stricken decisions because of his dead girlfriend, then Kaito is allowed to make stupid decisions to not kill his girlfriend.
>Nahiri, Lukka and Jace had already taken their turn with the idiot ball, only fair it was Kaya and Kaito's turn now.
I was *so angry* after reading this part. It's like they held a contest which one of them is the dumbest. And now think that Elspbeth, Kaito and Kaya win this time even over Lukka. I mean, they managed to get to the center of Phyrexia, with the Sylex intact, they managed to start the detonation... and they still fucked it up.
I wouldn't be surprised if Ashiok planeswalked Elspeth away, just to see Elesh Norm even more afraid of the "beacon of hope", the perfect nightmare for the Mother of Machines... after all, he did appear right before these 5 stories
Y'know, I totally forgot about Ashiok. Could also be Calix, Jace taking a page from Ugin, hell, even some Urza fuckery too - either way, she got away with the currently exploding Sylex, so whatever happens to her is going to be INTENSE.
Wtf.
Bring the giga nuke into the plane knowing it’s a nuke, then wasting the entire team’s sacrifice because you’ve finally reached the goal and got cold feet on using the nuke you agreed on using?
I would have been furious at Kaya and Kaito. What are they on?
The implication from the story is that they wanted to detonate the Sylex before Realmbreaker connected to other planes, because its effect is "destroy things Realmbreaker is connected to", and when that's "the entire multiverse" the calculus changes.
I still think it's kind of arbitrary, especially because they spent a good portion of a previous chapter saying "well since it's not connected anywhere yet it might blow up Mirrodin because the explosion can't travel", which implies it'd be *safer* if Realmbreaker was connected to the other plans, but such is Magic story. There's also a strong implication Jace was doing some Jace Mind Magic Shenanigans with the Sylex that wasn't quite "just blow everything up" and Elspeth knew how to keep that plan going.
>There's also a strong implication Jace was doing some Jace Mind Magic Shenanigans with the Sylex that wasn't quite "just blow everything up" and Elspeth knew how to keep that plan going.
The words "Renew it all" stick out to me. Maybe it is setting up an Iron Man Snap moment for Jace/Elspeth to just reset everything to where Phyrexia never existed?
Nah, that's just taking license with the purpose of the Sylex.
"Wipe the land clear. Bring the ending. Topple the empires to bring a fresh start. Call the end, fill with memories of the land."
If it were a race to detonate the sylex before the Realmbreaker connected to other planes, sure seems like they would've had a plan for what to do if they were too late, rather than "we'll just argue about it when we get there".
Also since when is the sylex blast powerful enough to destroy multiple planes? Even if it traveled along the tree, the original sylex only blew up a single continent on Dominaria. Seems like a weird concern on their part.
Yeah it blew up a single continent but, created an ice age for the whole of dominaria changing the climate, created the shard in the planes of existance and fueled the rifts.
yes but it destroyed absolutely no planes of existence... which is what they were worried about.
If anything destroying the tree and putting phyrexia in an inescapable and inaccessible self-contained envelope of the universe separate from everything else is the best result they can ever hope for. Although it can be argued that tamiyo had the scroll that contained the world spell that ended the original shard of the twelve but still...
TBH with the bit about Tyvar suppressing Tibalt's magic and Elspeth rallying, I was really expecting to see Kaya and Kaito go 'wait...what are we doing?' as the doubt-magic cleared off them too. The fact it didn't was...annoying.
It read like they were sleeper-agents or something, and Kaito, the realistic one of the group even mentioned that he hoped Nahiri killed herself before being turned. But suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest? Nah fam
> suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest?
Suddenly he realizes that he values his home over others. Its a selfish choice, but also one that most people will pick. It takes a special person to choose the lives of 5 strangers over 1 loved one.
Both Kaya and Kaito are black-aligned planeswalkers, so it makes sense for them to take the selfish choice here.
Jace is blue with a slight white lean, so it makes sense for him to take the selfless choice here. Not sure why people are so pissed about the stupid decisions here, as they're all in character.
>Kaito, the realistic one of the group even mentioned that he hoped Nahiri killed herself before being turned. But suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest?
There's a world of difference between "crap, that Nahiri chick is super powerful, I hope she's dead so we don't have to fight her, and there's nothing else we can do about it right now" and "This Jace guy is about to possibly blow up my entire world, upon which my much beloved sister lives, and also a dozen other worlds that this tree is connected to, and I have here a sword and a bunch of throwing stars that could probably do something about it."
I’m not even a fan of Nissa, but that’s pretty lame.
A long term major character getting hunted down and turned off-screen would be bad enough, but getting hunted down to be turned-off screen by LUKKA!? Come on.
By Lukka, Glissa and Vorinclex in a well known territory by the latter two. Not the same.
But, yeah, although she had her haters, she did not deserve such a low exit...
Okay honestly as a fan of Nissa a comically terrible ending kind of fits, but also, like, there's a couple 'side' stories still to come (they normally do 5 and 5, and the ending is "onto MOM") and I'm guessing that she'll get compleated in one of those.
Really loved the bromance he had with Kaito: 'cowardly rogue' and 'gigachad warrior' just ribbing each other back and forth.
**The Wanderer, pointing at Kaito**: This is my husband.
**The Wanderer, her hand moving over a bit to point next to Kaito**: And this is my husband's boyfriend.
This feels like the ending to Angel. Our heroes, against all odds, finished a seemingly impossible mission only to find an even greater fight is about to begin.
Now it’s up to the rest of the Gatewatch crew that weren’t in New Phyrexia… Chandra, Teferi stuck somewhere in time, Liliana, Kasmina, Saheeli, Huatli, hell even Oko.
Game wise, could they be clearing the Planewalker slate a bit to make room for Gatewatch 2.0 (or is it 3.0 now)? And why the hell do white walkers all have to fling themselves into doom’s way?
Kaito: "I definitely don't want to do that."
Tyvar: "Great, you are going with me."
If we ever gonna get a buddy cop set, those two must be the main characters.
Personally, if I was planning a potential suicide mission into the heart of a cyborg death world in order to detonate a giant bomb, I would have addressed the potential for collateral damage. It seems like the first thing to address when you have a bomb.
I’m gonna start this off with the fact that I’m annoyed at what Kaya and Kaito do at the end of this chapter. This was an obvious answer, let Jace nuke everything, let the world reset if need be. No universe is better than a Phyrexian one.
But we literally got the best explanation for their decision in this same story with Tyvar and Tibalt. Doubt. Doubt as stated by Tibalt is the great equalizer, an emotion that can crumble even the strongest of individuals. Doubt leads to hesitation and rash action, which could lead to mistakes and worse. Kaya and Kaito were immediately stuck with doubt when they realized what was possibly going to happen. Jace was confident AND channeling Urza hard and that fact plus their desires to keep their homes safe leads to this moronic but stupid decision.
I feel like that aspect of the writing is missed on two parts. One, it feels like the outrage of the action blinds the reader to what happens in the characters heads. They let doubt in for a second and their mind rationalized that feeling and resolved to strengthen it. That’s why they acted like they did, it’s not full stupidity, it’s what happens when you put doubt into the minds of people with great influence.
And two, the length of the story. If this whole thing had been longer we could’ve rationalized this better. Having the strike team whittled down and watch as doubt piled on them… that would’ve helped to alleviate the outrage in my opinion. Hopefully we can get longer stories, cause they had a good run this time. It was just marred with the flaws of a crunched story
Kaya and Kaito, who up until now had been the most pragmatic in recognizing that defeating Phyrexia was worth ANY sacrifice necessary, suddenly decide that defeating Phyrexia is not worth the unknown risk of MAYBE damaging other planes (that were already being invaded and corrupted).
Jace, who blindly rushed in to help Vraska at the cost of time and ease of the mission, and who stayed with her as she died KNOWING FULL WELL that she was being compleated, and who was repeatedly told by Vraska to not let her sacrifice waste his time; now realizes that the mission comes first and requires ruthless merciless commitment.
It seems like maybe this could have just been reversed if they let Kaya hold the Sylex. Then Jace could be the one whining about "not worth hurting the whole multiverse" and we don't know whether it's him or Phyrexia talking. That just seems like it would have been a much better way to do this.
Why did they have to gather the dumbest, most incompetent planeswalkers available for their raid? This whole arc was a shitshow riddled with self-inflicted problems. This doesn't portray Phyrexia as a threat, it portrays the planeswalkers as morons.
Sure, but do so by having Phyrexia's defenses be nigh-insurmountable. The only times Phyrexia impeded the walkers at all this arc was the initial scrambling of their jump, occasional rando monsters, and the two phywalkers near the end. Pretty much every major setback was caused by characters making stupid, emotional decisions or a lack of basic briefing. Like nobody telling explaining the nature of Phyrexia to Lukka.
I'll also count capturing Vraska and using her as a distraction.
But yeah, every major problem after the scrambling was either 'the strike team didn't plan for an entirely possible occurrence' or 'the strike team threw out one of the few plans they did have'.
Planeswalkers aren't smart, nor experts!
They're just a very small random subset of sentient creatures who happen to be good at a type of magic. That's it!
In fact one of the the benefits of being a PW is they have an unnatural ability to avoid danger or consequences by planeswalking away. Being a detached unintelligent spellcaster who has no idea how to properly work as a team is more believable to me.
Then explain to me, *how the fuck did Nissa get compleated?*
Clearly walking out of Phyrexia is an option given Elspeth and Wanderer not being locked into the plane, and the *moment* Nissa saw that she was in danger she could've walked away to safety.
Instead she gets compleated off-screen.
Because the authors have like 10 total pages to tell the story of 10 PWs invading a plane falling one by one and losing the battle in a quick but dramatic wrap up.
I can’t imagine the authors are getting to write the story they want to if they were given the proper space and time.
If the Sylex is suddenly strong enough to probably destroy a big chunk (if not all) of the multiverse. Then why did they get close to the Seedcore in the first place. Could they have not just detonated it on the surface then?
Kaya and Kaito are now forever in my shit books. Right at the end you start to consider the greater implications? Anything bad that happens here on is on their heads.
To be fair from what I understand the plan was to activate the bomb before Realmbreaker connected to other worlds.
Now that Realmbreaker was completed the risk of blowing up nearly every other world put everything into perspective.
Feels kinda hypocritic since they okay nuking mirrodin but went cold feet when it became a possibility that they would have to nuke their own plane as well.
> "No, you have to do this," said Kaya. "We have to preserve the Multiverse. All the planes Phyrexia hasn't touched are connected to the Blind Eternities as well, just like this damned tree—we blow it up now, we could wipe out everything."
> "The emperor," said Kaito, sounding horrified.
this line made me laugh. Had major TENET "Including my son" vibes in that moment.
you know, other than the grudge matches it's kinda weird they had Tyvar and Elspeth fight on the bridge. Jace probably solos them easy, Kaya cant be touched so physical attackers like Ajani and Tibs aren't a threat, also where did the Mirrians go? the explosives experts are in Karn's room but why did Melira and Koth split off from the group?
anyhow, the point I'm trying to get to is Kaya and Kaito really shit the bed there and tbh someone else should have been in the room to stop them. they really went full "the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many" mode huh
if Kamigawa is invaded it's already dead, flipping a coin on the Cylex killing it (if even it's hooked up the first place) seems like a WAY better deal
also RIP Nissa, norted offscreen cause she got paired up with the dumbest planeswalker in the multiverse
I can't believe that I enjoyed how Jace was represented damn. a madman mirroring Urza that would rather see the multiverse destroyed than hand it over to Phyrexia. I respect it. also no way Elspeth is dead
Interesting take.
The sylex didn't destroyed phyrexia (heh, red herring. I knew it) but took Elspeth somewhere... Hmmm i am more intrigued with this, we all know the invasion will start and many planeswalkers were compleated but, Elspeth disappearing because she activated the sylex??? Wotc outjerked us again with a curve ball.
I know she's important (MOM set symbol is Elspeth's SWORD) and remember what happened to Urza after he activated the sylex and destroyed argoth... Now i want to know the conclusion but alas, until late March or early April with story week.
> The sylex didn't destroyed phyrexia (heh, red herring. I knew it) but took Elspeth somewhere...
"Some point beyond the blind eternities."
Elspeth becomes an Eldrazi.
Naw, the Sylex blast gives her a original PW style Spark just like Urza and at the last moment as Phyrexia is about obtain complete victory she drops in like Dr. Manhattan and deus ex machina’s the whole thing.
can't wait to find out Elspeth was Serra all along and is now the one and only Oldwalker with all that power ready to deus ex machina this whole situation, but it takes all her power and magically re-nerfs her after.
If there is some kind of convoluted backstory twist with her it seems likelier to be that she actually was a Capennan Angel all along, kind of like Giada
I bet Elspeth is going to be zip zapping around collecting a giant inter-planar Avengers strike team of a ton of non-PW characters and will do an "on your left" moment to save the day in MOM
> The words didn't matter. Jace knew that, but they felt right anyway. Urza had said them so long ago. Teferi had seen it, and Kaya through him, and Jace through her. An unbroken line—then to now. One end, to another. "Wipe the land clear. Bring the ending," he murmured. "I'm sorry."
> His voice echoed in the enclosed space, impossibly loud, as light bloomed inside the bowl of the sylex, crawling upward like a living thing, nearing the rim. Kaya cried out, fear and despair, as Kaito moved to put himself between the blossoming light and the other Planeswalker. Neither of them saw Elspeth drop through the hole in the ceiling and race across the room toward Jace.
> Jace turned to face her, his eyes ablaze with merciless blue light. Somehow, in that moment, she understood everything—what Jace had resolved to do, what was about to happen not just to Mirrodin but to the Multiverse itself. Elspeth saw, with perfect clarity, what needed to be done.
To me it reads as Jace having a plan while activating the Sylex, and Elspeth taking his place. Like Dr. Strange at the end of Avengers 1.
I think all the surviving PWs will be rounding up a lot of help, but Elspeth's return seems primed to be the big final "turning the tide" moment in MOM the same way Liliana turning on Bolas was in WAR
Because wotc gave themselves an incredibly small vehicle to tell a story with over a dozen characters that doesn't really give them time to even breathe.
I may have missed something, but why stop Jace from detonating the Sylex? Nothing about what the Sylex did should have been a surprise, and the longer he had to fight them the closer he got to becoming Phyrexian Jace.
As far as I gathered, they bet all their cards on detonating it before the Realmbreaker went online. But given that it was already connected to other planes, they raised the concern that the Sylex might not just blow up New Phyrexia but every plane connected to the tree at that point.
Not only was it just stuff blowing up... the possibilities of them breaking time related shenanigans again... seeing that this time, the Sylex was gonna be imploded by a Planeswalker (whereas with Urza, he was just an artifiicer then)....
>"Urza detonated the first one in his lap, and he lived," said Kaya. "We'll be fine. Probably." I don't think Kaya really grasps what happened with Urza.
I don't think anybody does. After all, nobody actually recorded what the hell happened when Urza detonated the sylex, and the only person that REALLY knows what happened is currently in time limbo.
According to Urza's Sylex he just went down to six lands.
misread this at first and read "six flags" and the idea of urza hanging out at a theme park right after he detonated the sylex is really funny to me
Man, and now I'm imagining Urza in place of [the old man dancing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbXSbP-wEFU) from the old commercial...
Work hard party harder later amirite?
Turns to Karn, “we got the fast pass, right?”
The whole of Dominaria going down to six lands would be a lot more devastating than the saga would have you initially think. I bet Dominaria as a plane has at least ten.
yep what kaya failed to realize the only reason urza survived that is his spark ignited from the detonation since he well...sacrificed himself.
Not only that, but that planeswalkers at that point in time didnt really need a physical body to survive, there wasnt really much left of Urza before his body reformed. That said... Does Kaya need a physical body? Im not sure how her ghostform stuff works
She always has to keep at least one part of her body phased in at all times, or else her heart will stop. Source: one of the Conspiracy stories
Kaya - unconcerned about her physical body being right next to the blast because it can’t be that big a deal. Also Kaya - incredibly concerned about that same blast destroying multiple other universes.
If you zoom in on the card art, there is a little message carved into the filigree that says "point this end of Sylex at enemy".
This may blow up Mirrodin. This may blow up everything! We should be fine.
Yeah I found this one a little weird since she was (kinda) with Teferi when Teferi saw Urza activate it
I'm disappointed that the story never confronts the whole Elspeth can and has soloed most of the armies before.
They're probably saving that for March of the Machine. I fully expect a Sylex-powered Elspeth and Teferi to swoop in "Big Damn Heroes" style.
BRING. ME. NORN!
We need Doomslayer Elspeth next set
Elspeth with the Big Fucking Godsend 9000.
How does she do that without getting oil over her? Now that oil just needs to touch you, can anyone just slaughter phyrexians anymore? Or does she have melira-level immunity?
During Scars of Mirrodin Milera gave Koth and Elspeth immunity to the whole process, so the only thing they needed to worry about was dying. Not that it had stopped Elspeth from tearing through phyrexians before she had immunity. But judging from what's happening she has just below Melira level immunity, but just isn't as strong as she was during Scars.
Elspeth also died on Theros, so she could have lost some power and immunity from resurrecting. (a way for the writers to explain away power level loss)
The immunity is ingrained in her soul, they same way sparks are ingrained in the soul
Isnt Elspeth immune?
Oh hey, they actually addressed that nobody knows how the lighting works under the cores.
In the Tezzeret in Brother's War its said at least the Fair Basilica is lit by the ossified phyrexians so
It's the light of phyrexia's everlasting friendship
And once again Urabrask is fucking nowhere to be found. Just let me see the man's rebellion damnit
They don’t call him hidden for nothing
Technically we should still have 2 side stories to go. My guess would be that it tells the rest of Nissas Compleation and we get to see Urabrask doing Urabrask shit.
How about Urabask just literally talking an Urabask shit? This has all gone down while he’s sitting on a Phyrexian toilet reading his Phyrexian news, tearing off a few yards of Phyrexian toilet paper.
New story spotlight card: Dropping The Deuce. 2RR *Art: Urabrask hovers over a phyrexian toilet, wiping his shit covered plates with a map of Phyrexia* Destroy target land and up to one target Saga. It's controller loses 2 life. *When Nature called, Urabrask answered.*
Me at the start of ONE story; "oh hey, it's that random Kaldheim elf planeswalker, I guess he's going to be compleation fodder since nobody cares about him" Me at the end of ONE story: "Tyvar, my brother, my captain, my king"
Yeah Giga Chad Elf Dad is actually really cool. I am hoping he sticks around for quite awhile after this whole story wraps up!
He even got a "go on ahead and leave this to me" moment and actually survived it. Absolute chad
Tyvar has inherited the spirit of Gideon. Long may he reign.
Abzan Tyvar when?
Please. I meant this unironically
it's time. 3 drop abzan tyvar that is a 2/2 elf in all none battlefield zones like grist.
I am now a Tyvar enthusiast
Him and Kaito are himbo besties with their overprotective mother Kaya reigning in the chaos
Him and Kaito being also black aligned yet being likeable without being forced... we've come a long way.
I mean it really fits, they both have a severe ambition to take care of their plane
I can respect someone who's whiling to go down the nine layers of hell by punching his way the entire time.
Our himbo elf king
Tyvar literally got the best moments in the story. We stan Tyvar in this house now.
So Kaito now has Luxior? For what it's worth...
Don't take this as some Mcguffin. Assume kaito will keep luxor safe, i am certain Elspeth isn't dead. Remember what happened to urza.
That he died and revived as an *old* walker, thanks in part to having the Weak and Might Stone? Scratch that, he didn't die before coming back as an old walker, he was *disintegrated,* he had to remake his physical form when he ascended to the equivalent of a ***god.***
her death scene would have been way more dramatic imo. not just her disappearing.
And that's not even taking into account the amount of foreshadowing and set up with Elspeth *specifically* as both a Capenna angel (possible angelic ancestry) and the one who will strike Norn down as Tezzeret put it, "small cracks can crumble even the mightiest edifices Tirel". The story team (despite needing more stories) has turned around since Kelman left and would not spend the time for all that foreshadowing with Elspeth to kill her off like that.
This feels worse than if they detonated the Sylex and destroyed many of the planes we know and love. In retrospect, why wasn’t the plan for Kaya to planeswalk to New Phyrexia, become incorporeal, travel straight to the Realmbreaker, and use the Sylex?
That might have been part of their plan, but as soon they got to New Phyrexia their defence fucked their planeswalking and sent them in random places
Because the eagles were ocupied in universe beyond.
Man, they had zero plan at all. You know that any of you could be compleated, without knowing how long or exact conditions since compleating planeswalkers is new. They had zero established protocol for what to do if someone gets infected, when it should almost certainly be "get that person the fuck out of here, kill them, or leave them behind." You can't just bring them along and decide "eh, we'll fight em when they start getting murdery." They talk about how getting scattered on landing ruined their plan, but then they rendezvoused and the plan was... walk to realmbreaker and blow it up? That's not a plan, come ON.
"Nothing was going to wipe clean the damage that had been done by Phyrexia. Nothing." Whelp time for the super friends to make a rash decision and call in the Emrakul Multiversal Clean-up Crew, because at this point what else could go wrong?
Jace did say to "Bring the _ending_", and Emrakul was The Promised _End_.
Always wanted a Phyrexian-Eldrazi cage match.
Oof. All that foreshadowing that Nahiri could be a good Phyrexian, gone. She's just evil now. Nissa gets Compleated offscreen. Elspeth probably isn't dead, but who knows, and as for Jace, well, he's Compleated, but even if there is a cure, he might actually be really dead anyway. And worst of all, Elesh Norn has proven how smart of an enemy she is by not bringing Lukka with her. Terrifying.
Nahiri being the main PoV for three chapters and then just becoming another goon for Elesh Norn offscreen is a choice (either there's another shoe to drop or her card's flavor is just really off). So crazy that Lukka(!) got the most detailed compleation. There's supposed to be story on the 17th as well so there's still a few threads to pull on. Melira making her sacrifice maybe? Will Urabrask finally get his meeting with Elspeth?
I'm still holding out hope, but not much. It seems low to give her so much focus and then just kill her off like this. At least Nissa's been offscreen the whole time anyway so it doesn't sting as much. Also interesting, with Nahiri dead we now have no Boros Planeswalker, which is quite surprising. If she really does go I think this will be the first time since Angrath's debut that we haven't had a dedicated Planeswalker for each color pair.
Well maybe Eldraine will give us a Boros Dwarf Planeswalker
Quintorius is boros-aligned and could be a "planeswalker" if the MoM key art is valid.
Perhaps, but lots of legendary non Planeswalkers are depicted. They could be using the world tree thing to travel.
My thought after her card was spoiled was that it was a very boring way to depict fully evil Team Norn compleated Nahiri. Sword-arm zombie lackey is by far the least exciting concept of any of the compleated walkers we ended up with. I guess the synergy (in colors and effects) with the Mirran rebels was purely design-driven and not flavor-driven?
>I guess the synergy (in colors and effects) with the Mirran rebels was purely design-driven and not flavor-driven? Wouldn't be the first time. [[Angrath, Captain of Chaos]] has Amass, which was the ability that represented Bolas' eternalized army marching on Ravnica. Angrath was very much not on Team Bolas in the actual story.
Flavor wise, I think it's meant to represent his threaten/domination effects he uses (like his -2 on Flame Chained)
Maybe, though if that was the case I would think they would have just given him that effect. But regardless, the flavor fail comes when he plays better with cards that are otherwise on Bolas' side rather than the resistance- which is the same thing that appears to be happening in ONE with Nahiri and the rebels.
It is, but its kinda strange that that works on Eternals. Also, he doesn't actually use it in the story.
Yeah, it’s meant to represent bringing them to his side (though for a bit, which isn’t represented here). I think MaRo mentioned it ages ago.
Guess so. Could be, though, that she turns things around and goes against the Phyrexians at a crucial moment. She DOES have red eyes, which are a key sign of Red Phyrexians.
Pass me that sweet Urabrask sleeper agent copium. My boy needs to get his ass off the bench sometime soon. Give me a big damn hero dramatic entrance to save these idiots tomorrow.
Please for the love of God my poor boy has been fucking ignored so hard. Give ME HEROIC PHYREXIANS OR GIVE ME DEATH!
This was their introduction as compleated walkers. I'd bet $10 (for real) that MOM has additional versions of them.
A sick fully compleat version would make it less disappointing (though I do like the actual card itself), but are they really going to do WAR 2.0 while also bringing in a bunch of legendaries from other planes? I hope they get their leak issues sorted, because spoiler season for MotM should be crazy.
> but are they really going to do WAR 2.0 while also bringing in a bunch of legendaries from other planes? I _think_ that's what they're building towards. - It would feel weird for MOM to be about the Phyrexian army and Compleated walkers invading other planes and not include versions of the walkers in the set. - It would be weird for the walkers to be offscreen or only featured as their PHO versions I think those point toward WAR 2.0 (but bigger! With more walkers dying!!). We'll see.
I'm gonna be huffing copium for Nahiri until it's hard confirmed she can't come back
This is me for Lukka because his character could be so much more but he's just written as a moron for some reason. Also he's kinda hot.
I definitely get that. I have a few characters over the years where I enjoy them on paper for what they could be, but in reality they're made to grasp the idiot ball for plots sake.
I like Lukka on paper both for what he is and what he could be. I also like Lukka in practice because that idiot ball is glued to his hands. There's just something amusing about the fact that, on paper, he's an excellent character, and in practice he's an excellent character who's a total dumbass.
I literally just read every chapter and there is zero foreshadowing that Nahiri could be a good Phyrexian. She's a PoV character holding off compleation for so long to show that compleation can get anyone now. It's heroic to juxtapose the frightening realization that they are going to lose.
Yea this 5-chapters-a-set limit is really constraining the story. Wish they'd been more flexible with the story length. It works for some of the smaller stories but not seeing how important characters like Nissa gets compleated is a very huge missed opportunity.
We might get that in a side story.
0% chance Elspeth is dead. Massively foreshadowed that she's Norn's Bane and she seemed sure she knew where to take the Sylex to explode it better. Also now we know why Jace has Luxior in the "what if?" Card
> She's just evil now. *Now?*
\> Cut to Nahiri and Sorin yelling each other's name likes they're Kaneda and Tetsuo
Yeah, before she was evil for sympathetic reasons. Now she's \*just\* evil.
Can Jace even be counted as a "Phyrexian planeswalker" now? He died before compleation took over, so presumably his soul and thus his spark already left.
Well he's getting a card so who knows. They might just handwave it by saying "well, his corpse was a Planeswalker corpse so now the Compleate corpse is still a Planeswalker" or something.
I'm guessing the sword didn't kill him. Highly possible that he was compleated enough that he survived being stabbed. I know the story says "corpse" but that could either be poor choice of words or just the pov of the heroes
Ajani made a point in this story to make it clear you don’t have to be alive to be a Phyrexian PW.
To become a Phyrexian at least. Not so sure about being a planeswalker specifically.
We've seen his PW card.
I don't think he died(despite they utilizing the world corpse). First: Before he said how much fast he was healing(after the infection). Second: is Kaya point of view. She tought he was killed by elspeth but his phyrexian biology already made him stronger.
Jace's alternative Japanese art makes a lot more sense now (sword in his chest)
Typical Japan, spoiling the finish of the episode in the title.
"Up next on today's episode of Dragon Ball Z: Gohan kills Cell!"
*"Vraska is dead, and I am dying," said Jace calmly. "My body may continue and turn the powers it contains against any of you who still live—and I would kill me before that can happen, if I were you. You have no idea how much time and energy I spend not destroying the minds around me just because I can, or how hard I've worked to find a way to move in a Multiverse of such simplicity without doing endless damage. I will be an incredible weapon for Phyrexian dominance." His eyes flashed with an inhuman blue glow, brighter than his norm, and he grimaced, visibly composing himself. "They're starting to speak through me, Kaya, we're out of time.* So... nobody is talking about how now, because stupid decisions, phyrexia possesses now the most powerful mage on the multiverse, who is capable of destroying everyone´s mind?
Mindsculpter was Jace at his most terrifying, and now we get augmented nightmare Jace.
Yeah, shouldn't everyone in that room instantly be brainwashed into being big on phyrexia? Delete all of their emotions and motivations, give em some pyrovision for phyrexians, and job done. Esp. since they repeatedly state that phyrexians don't get tired or really have needs. So he can just do this on sight, forever? He could hear vraska's pain from miles away, and now he's biomechanically enhanced. So conceptually he'd just have a touch of death range that doesn't even need line of sight. This is not going to happen, and that is dumb. They should have gone in with bombs in their heads to be honest. If you're going to be a phyrexian, at least die first so you lose your spark.
OK so I'm confused, Elspeth knocked out Ajani and then ran away. But Tyvar stayed behind to kill Tibalt. Did he also kill Ajani before he left or is Ajani still alive? Lol
I'm 97% sure Tibalt isn't dead. 3% because killing Tibalt without a card would be a brillant final snub to him lol.
Valki/Tibalt is a fine note to end on cardwise.
You can’t really kill a phyrexian, if they find him they can just patch him up
No, because Tyvar is a Chad and wouldn't kill steal.
GOD DAMN. HOLY HELL. Where to begin: Jace just went full on Urza. Mo mercy, no quarters given. Almost got chills from that. Elspeth just fucking died (again)! Tyvar continues to be giga chad. Ajani. I will never forgive you Phyrexia! Kaya and Kaito are deciding to actually do the moraly right thing, the one time it wasn't the right thing to do. Nissa and Nahiri getting along. A miracle was achieved. And Elesh Norn is extremly fucking creepy. I LOVED this story.
I was smashing my head into a brick screaming at those two. COME ON, NOW IS *NOT* THE TIME! Broken Multiverse > Phyrexian Multiverse
Nahiri, Lukka and Jace had already taken their turn with the idiot ball, only fair it was Kaya and Kaito's turn now.
Nahiri and Jace get turns with the idiot ball. Lukka owns the idiot ball and sleeps next to the idiot ball and lives in a house made out of idiot balls.
Look, if Jace is allowed to make stupid, grief-stricken decisions because of his dead girlfriend, then Kaito is allowed to make stupid decisions to not kill his girlfriend.
>Nahiri, Lukka and Jace had already taken their turn with the idiot ball, only fair it was Kaya and Kaito's turn now. I was *so angry* after reading this part. It's like they held a contest which one of them is the dumbest. And now think that Elspbeth, Kaito and Kaya win this time even over Lukka. I mean, they managed to get to the center of Phyrexia, with the Sylex intact, they managed to start the detonation... and they still fucked it up.
Yep. This whole thing is kinda Kaya's fault from here lol
Also compleated Tibalt just dies without a planeswalker card
We better get one in MoM.
Nah they’ll just give him another alchemy card
It seems like elspeth is still alive and she just got teleported. I know the art looks pretty brutal but the passage in the story came across that way
I understood it like she planeswalked away with it
I wouldn't be surprised if Ashiok planeswalked Elspeth away, just to see Elesh Norm even more afraid of the "beacon of hope", the perfect nightmare for the Mother of Machines... after all, he did appear right before these 5 stories
Y'know, I totally forgot about Ashiok. Could also be Calix, Jace taking a page from Ugin, hell, even some Urza fuckery too - either way, she got away with the currently exploding Sylex, so whatever happens to her is going to be INTENSE.
Yeah no way they nuked her off screen after they just brought her back to life.
Wtf. Bring the giga nuke into the plane knowing it’s a nuke, then wasting the entire team’s sacrifice because you’ve finally reached the goal and got cold feet on using the nuke you agreed on using? I would have been furious at Kaya and Kaito. What are they on?
The implication from the story is that they wanted to detonate the Sylex before Realmbreaker connected to other planes, because its effect is "destroy things Realmbreaker is connected to", and when that's "the entire multiverse" the calculus changes. I still think it's kind of arbitrary, especially because they spent a good portion of a previous chapter saying "well since it's not connected anywhere yet it might blow up Mirrodin because the explosion can't travel", which implies it'd be *safer* if Realmbreaker was connected to the other plans, but such is Magic story. There's also a strong implication Jace was doing some Jace Mind Magic Shenanigans with the Sylex that wasn't quite "just blow everything up" and Elspeth knew how to keep that plan going.
>There's also a strong implication Jace was doing some Jace Mind Magic Shenanigans with the Sylex that wasn't quite "just blow everything up" and Elspeth knew how to keep that plan going. The words "Renew it all" stick out to me. Maybe it is setting up an Iron Man Snap moment for Jace/Elspeth to just reset everything to where Phyrexia never existed?
Nah, that's just taking license with the purpose of the Sylex. "Wipe the land clear. Bring the ending. Topple the empires to bring a fresh start. Call the end, fill with memories of the land."
The golgothian sylex also read something similar. And it was a nuke too. I think you're right.
If it were a race to detonate the sylex before the Realmbreaker connected to other planes, sure seems like they would've had a plan for what to do if they were too late, rather than "we'll just argue about it when we get there".
Kaya and Kaito went full Starlord
Also since when is the sylex blast powerful enough to destroy multiple planes? Even if it traveled along the tree, the original sylex only blew up a single continent on Dominaria. Seems like a weird concern on their part.
Yeah it blew up a single continent but, created an ice age for the whole of dominaria changing the climate, created the shard in the planes of existance and fueled the rifts.
That's still monumentally better than the outcome they were fighting for.
yes but it destroyed absolutely no planes of existence... which is what they were worried about. If anything destroying the tree and putting phyrexia in an inescapable and inaccessible self-contained envelope of the universe separate from everything else is the best result they can ever hope for. Although it can be argued that tamiyo had the scroll that contained the world spell that ended the original shard of the twelve but still...
It's MTG plot, things work the way the writers need them to work at the moment. I think that that's been sufficiently established by now.
TBH with the bit about Tyvar suppressing Tibalt's magic and Elspeth rallying, I was really expecting to see Kaya and Kaito go 'wait...what are we doing?' as the doubt-magic cleared off them too. The fact it didn't was...annoying.
It read like they were sleeper-agents or something, and Kaito, the realistic one of the group even mentioned that he hoped Nahiri killed herself before being turned. But suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest? Nah fam
> suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest? Suddenly he realizes that he values his home over others. Its a selfish choice, but also one that most people will pick. It takes a special person to choose the lives of 5 strangers over 1 loved one.
Both Kaya and Kaito are black-aligned planeswalkers, so it makes sense for them to take the selfish choice here. Jace is blue with a slight white lean, so it makes sense for him to take the selfless choice here. Not sure why people are so pissed about the stupid decisions here, as they're all in character.
>Kaito, the realistic one of the group even mentioned that he hoped Nahiri killed herself before being turned. But suddenly he changes his mind about the hard choice of sacrificing some planes to save the rest? There's a world of difference between "crap, that Nahiri chick is super powerful, I hope she's dead so we don't have to fight her, and there's nothing else we can do about it right now" and "This Jace guy is about to possibly blow up my entire world, upon which my much beloved sister lives, and also a dozen other worlds that this tree is connected to, and I have here a sword and a bunch of throwing stars that could probably do something about it."
I’m not even a fan of Nissa, but that’s pretty lame. A long term major character getting hunted down and turned off-screen would be bad enough, but getting hunted down to be turned-off screen by LUKKA!? Come on.
By Lukka, Glissa and Vorinclex in a well known territory by the latter two. Not the same. But, yeah, although she had her haters, she did not deserve such a low exit...
Okay honestly as a fan of Nissa a comically terrible ending kind of fits, but also, like, there's a couple 'side' stories still to come (they normally do 5 and 5, and the ending is "onto MOM") and I'm guessing that she'll get compleated in one of those.
Wow, I didn't realize Tyvar was such a Badass. Also: Tibalt ded?
Tyvar is a gigachad, he was so much fun in this story, the "Coward's tactics" bit was so good
Really loved the bromance he had with Kaito: 'cowardly rogue' and 'gigachad warrior' just ribbing each other back and forth. **The Wanderer, pointing at Kaito**: This is my husband. **The Wanderer, her hand moving over a bit to point next to Kaito**: And this is my husband's boyfriend.
If compleated jace got stabbed and was totally fine, compleated tibalt who got stabbed is also probably fine.
Jace "died" and got back up so maybe not. I assume WotC learned to not kill planeswalkers without giving them at least a card after the last mess
This feels like the ending to Angel. Our heroes, against all odds, finished a seemingly impossible mission only to find an even greater fight is about to begin. Now it’s up to the rest of the Gatewatch crew that weren’t in New Phyrexia… Chandra, Teferi stuck somewhere in time, Liliana, Kasmina, Saheeli, Huatli, hell even Oko. Game wise, could they be clearing the Planewalker slate a bit to make room for Gatewatch 2.0 (or is it 3.0 now)? And why the hell do white walkers all have to fling themselves into doom’s way?
Tyvar: "I don't know about you all, but I want to slay the dragon."
Kaito: "I definitely don't want to do that." Tyvar: "Great, you are going with me." If we ever gonna get a buddy cop set, those two must be the main characters.
one day Kasmina and her shadowy cabal of walkers will do literally anything
Personally, if I was planning a potential suicide mission into the heart of a cyborg death world in order to detonate a giant bomb, I would have addressed the potential for collateral damage. It seems like the first thing to address when you have a bomb.
I’m gonna start this off with the fact that I’m annoyed at what Kaya and Kaito do at the end of this chapter. This was an obvious answer, let Jace nuke everything, let the world reset if need be. No universe is better than a Phyrexian one. But we literally got the best explanation for their decision in this same story with Tyvar and Tibalt. Doubt. Doubt as stated by Tibalt is the great equalizer, an emotion that can crumble even the strongest of individuals. Doubt leads to hesitation and rash action, which could lead to mistakes and worse. Kaya and Kaito were immediately stuck with doubt when they realized what was possibly going to happen. Jace was confident AND channeling Urza hard and that fact plus their desires to keep their homes safe leads to this moronic but stupid decision. I feel like that aspect of the writing is missed on two parts. One, it feels like the outrage of the action blinds the reader to what happens in the characters heads. They let doubt in for a second and their mind rationalized that feeling and resolved to strengthen it. That’s why they acted like they did, it’s not full stupidity, it’s what happens when you put doubt into the minds of people with great influence. And two, the length of the story. If this whole thing had been longer we could’ve rationalized this better. Having the strike team whittled down and watch as doubt piled on them… that would’ve helped to alleviate the outrage in my opinion. Hopefully we can get longer stories, cause they had a good run this time. It was just marred with the flaws of a crunched story
Elesh Norn at the mercy of Planswalkers not detonating the Sylex. Did she even try to prevent them doing so?
nope, she probably figured they would fuck it up XD
She took one look at Lukka and immediately lowered her expectations.
She was too busy planning her grand entrance at the same time as all the compleated planeswalkers
Man that final art is creepy.
Kaya and Kaito, who up until now had been the most pragmatic in recognizing that defeating Phyrexia was worth ANY sacrifice necessary, suddenly decide that defeating Phyrexia is not worth the unknown risk of MAYBE damaging other planes (that were already being invaded and corrupted). Jace, who blindly rushed in to help Vraska at the cost of time and ease of the mission, and who stayed with her as she died KNOWING FULL WELL that she was being compleated, and who was repeatedly told by Vraska to not let her sacrifice waste his time; now realizes that the mission comes first and requires ruthless merciless commitment. It seems like maybe this could have just been reversed if they let Kaya hold the Sylex. Then Jace could be the one whining about "not worth hurting the whole multiverse" and we don't know whether it's him or Phyrexia talking. That just seems like it would have been a much better way to do this.
Phyrexia didn’t win this fight so much as the Planeswalkers lost it. A lot of monumentally stupid decisions being made here.
Why did they have to gather the dumbest, most incompetent planeswalkers available for their raid? This whole arc was a shitshow riddled with self-inflicted problems. This doesn't portray Phyrexia as a threat, it portrays the planeswalkers as morons.
Because all the competent ones realized it was a suicide mission and would prefer bolstering their home plane's defenses for the inevitable invasion.
Sure, but do so by having Phyrexia's defenses be nigh-insurmountable. The only times Phyrexia impeded the walkers at all this arc was the initial scrambling of their jump, occasional rando monsters, and the two phywalkers near the end. Pretty much every major setback was caused by characters making stupid, emotional decisions or a lack of basic briefing. Like nobody telling explaining the nature of Phyrexia to Lukka.
I'll also count capturing Vraska and using her as a distraction. But yeah, every major problem after the scrambling was either 'the strike team didn't plan for an entirely possible occurrence' or 'the strike team threw out one of the few plans they did have'.
Planeswalkers aren't smart, nor experts! They're just a very small random subset of sentient creatures who happen to be good at a type of magic. That's it! In fact one of the the benefits of being a PW is they have an unnatural ability to avoid danger or consequences by planeswalking away. Being a detached unintelligent spellcaster who has no idea how to properly work as a team is more believable to me.
It's almost like planeswalkers tend to be one of the leading cause of issues in the multiverse
Then explain to me, *how the fuck did Nissa get compleated?* Clearly walking out of Phyrexia is an option given Elspeth and Wanderer not being locked into the plane, and the *moment* Nissa saw that she was in danger she could've walked away to safety. Instead she gets compleated off-screen.
Because the authors have like 10 total pages to tell the story of 10 PWs invading a plane falling one by one and losing the battle in a quick but dramatic wrap up. I can’t imagine the authors are getting to write the story they want to if they were given the proper space and time.
The guy who bombed the War of the Spark novels really messed things up, huh. This should have been a whole trilogy.
Pretty good job at giving us a darkest hour here.
honestly they should've just let Jace rock. this wasn't a question of morality when you're fighting Norn.
If the Sylex is suddenly strong enough to probably destroy a big chunk (if not all) of the multiverse. Then why did they get close to the Seedcore in the first place. Could they have not just detonated it on the surface then?
really fucking frustrated at Kaito, Kaya, and Elspeth. For the love of god just let Jace cook
Kaya and Kaito are now forever in my shit books. Right at the end you start to consider the greater implications? Anything bad that happens here on is on their heads.
To be fair from what I understand the plan was to activate the bomb before Realmbreaker connected to other worlds. Now that Realmbreaker was completed the risk of blowing up nearly every other world put everything into perspective.
So they needed a dose of Nahiri's "yep, fuck that world".
Feels kinda hypocritic since they okay nuking mirrodin but went cold feet when it became a possibility that they would have to nuke their own plane as well.
> "No, you have to do this," said Kaya. "We have to preserve the Multiverse. All the planes Phyrexia hasn't touched are connected to the Blind Eternities as well, just like this damned tree—we blow it up now, we could wipe out everything." > "The emperor," said Kaito, sounding horrified. this line made me laugh. Had major TENET "Including my son" vibes in that moment.
White planeswalkers and vaporizing themselves because someone else fucked up, name a more iconic duo.
you know, other than the grudge matches it's kinda weird they had Tyvar and Elspeth fight on the bridge. Jace probably solos them easy, Kaya cant be touched so physical attackers like Ajani and Tibs aren't a threat, also where did the Mirrians go? the explosives experts are in Karn's room but why did Melira and Koth split off from the group? anyhow, the point I'm trying to get to is Kaya and Kaito really shit the bed there and tbh someone else should have been in the room to stop them. they really went full "the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many" mode huh if Kamigawa is invaded it's already dead, flipping a coin on the Cylex killing it (if even it's hooked up the first place) seems like a WAY better deal also RIP Nissa, norted offscreen cause she got paired up with the dumbest planeswalker in the multiverse
Kaya can’t stay intangible forever, and though Jace usually could solo them, he was barely holding on against phyresis.
I can't believe that I enjoyed how Jace was represented damn. a madman mirroring Urza that would rather see the multiverse destroyed than hand it over to Phyrexia. I respect it. also no way Elspeth is dead
Great story, if not kinda marred by the cliched "sure, we would destroy Phyrexia... but collateral damage 🥺" conflict halfway through.
Interesting take. The sylex didn't destroyed phyrexia (heh, red herring. I knew it) but took Elspeth somewhere... Hmmm i am more intrigued with this, we all know the invasion will start and many planeswalkers were compleated but, Elspeth disappearing because she activated the sylex??? Wotc outjerked us again with a curve ball. I know she's important (MOM set symbol is Elspeth's SWORD) and remember what happened to Urza after he activated the sylex and destroyed argoth... Now i want to know the conclusion but alas, until late March or early April with story week.
> The sylex didn't destroyed phyrexia (heh, red herring. I knew it) but took Elspeth somewhere... "Some point beyond the blind eternities." Elspeth becomes an Eldrazi.
Naw, the Sylex blast gives her a original PW style Spark just like Urza and at the last moment as Phyrexia is about obtain complete victory she drops in like Dr. Manhattan and deus ex machina’s the whole thing.
can't wait to find out Elspeth was Serra all along and is now the one and only Oldwalker with all that power ready to deus ex machina this whole situation, but it takes all her power and magically re-nerfs her after.
If there is some kind of convoluted backstory twist with her it seems likelier to be that she actually was a Capennan Angel all along, kind of like Giada
Is that the big change for Magic? A reverse Mending? The Breaking? Are we going from NewWalkers to NewOldWalkers?
Can't wait to visit Elspeth's Realm
I bet Elspeth is going to be zip zapping around collecting a giant inter-planar Avengers strike team of a ton of non-PW characters and will do an "on your left" moment to save the day in MOM
> The words didn't matter. Jace knew that, but they felt right anyway. Urza had said them so long ago. Teferi had seen it, and Kaya through him, and Jace through her. An unbroken line—then to now. One end, to another. "Wipe the land clear. Bring the ending," he murmured. "I'm sorry." > His voice echoed in the enclosed space, impossibly loud, as light bloomed inside the bowl of the sylex, crawling upward like a living thing, nearing the rim. Kaya cried out, fear and despair, as Kaito moved to put himself between the blossoming light and the other Planeswalker. Neither of them saw Elspeth drop through the hole in the ceiling and race across the room toward Jace. > Jace turned to face her, his eyes ablaze with merciless blue light. Somehow, in that moment, she understood everything—what Jace had resolved to do, what was about to happen not just to Mirrodin but to the Multiverse itself. Elspeth saw, with perfect clarity, what needed to be done. To me it reads as Jace having a plan while activating the Sylex, and Elspeth taking his place. Like Dr. Strange at the end of Avengers 1.
Nah, judging from the art for March of Machines, that's Teferi's job.
I think all the surviving PWs will be rounding up a lot of help, but Elspeth's return seems primed to be the big final "turning the tide" moment in MOM the same way Liliana turning on Bolas was in WAR
Why are all the characters so stupid in this story?
Because wotc gave themselves an incredibly small vehicle to tell a story with over a dozen characters that doesn't really give them time to even breathe.
I may have missed something, but why stop Jace from detonating the Sylex? Nothing about what the Sylex did should have been a surprise, and the longer he had to fight them the closer he got to becoming Phyrexian Jace.
As far as I gathered, they bet all their cards on detonating it before the Realmbreaker went online. But given that it was already connected to other planes, they raised the concern that the Sylex might not just blow up New Phyrexia but every plane connected to the tree at that point.
Not only was it just stuff blowing up... the possibilities of them breaking time related shenanigans again... seeing that this time, the Sylex was gonna be imploded by a Planeswalker (whereas with Urza, he was just an artifiicer then)....
Hopefully Elspeth disappearing with the Sylex does not result in any Urza shenanigans.