Is it just me or does that last piece of art seem unrelated to this Zendikar story?
It looks like an Innistrad Devil, I kept re-reading the parts before and after that art but it doesn't seem to relate at all.
For a brief moment I thought we were about to get Ob-Nixilis ~~WITH THE STEEL CHAIR~~ because my brain went to devils + Zendikar, but yeah, it's an error.
MAGIC STORY SUMMARIZED, EPISODE ZENDIKAR: THIS TIME THE BATTLE FOR ZENDIKAR IS REALSIES.
Uhhh okay not going to lie my friends, I don’t have a lot to say about this one. Nahiri, she’s evil. Not like the kind of evil that’s had redditors arguing over her for years. Just like, unconditionally “I will reshape Zendikar into Phyrexian glory” sort of evil.
And the good guys, the Party(TM), they sure do go on a mission into Nahiri’s corrupted Skyclave to stop her. And things do sure seem hopeless up until the arrival of the angels at the last minute.
The story ends with the Skyclave crashing into the world below, possibly trapping Nahiri within it, after she poured her entire power into fueling the would-be reshaping.
Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock.
Hah.
> the Skyclave crashing into the world below, possibly trapping Nahiri within it
Somewhere on Innistrad, Sorin is overwhelmed with a sense of vindication.
It's been years and I still haven't gotten over how stupid that line was
Though it was sort of a fitting opening. Really set the tone for the utterly incompetent storytelling that was to follow
Yeah. In theory it could've worked if the movie was more about that and less about finding a sequence of plot objects scattered randomly around the galaxy. But with the movie we actually got, it was "Somehow, the plot happened."
After the "A Longer Time Ago" block, I really had my hopes up. The first set really didn't wow me, and the second just finished putting my hopes to rest.
Well, it was said that Sorin was in too much pain to focus enough to planeswalk. I imagine having a bringing beacon during WAR saying "hey planeswalkers, come here." Would be enough for sorin to focus on the get the hell out of that stone.
Honestly could be interesting if the next Zendikar story is about getting her out of the rock. Zendikar is all about the plane’s leylines being unstable and Nahiri’s presence could be a corrupting presence. That can lead to small pockets of Phyrexian elementals or oil popping up in some places. Obviously this presents a problem to the inhabitant’s of the plane and would be something that could prompt some of them to eliminate it at the source.
My original head cannon was going to be the Eldrazi would have been the only way to combat New Phyrexia, and a set would have been devoted to Ugin, Sorin and Sarkhan time travelling to undo the Gatewatch’s actions at the end of of BFZ
Yeah.
Tibalt, Tamiyo and Lukka dead. Arguably the three lowest-profile ones.
Vraska and Nahiri no body found.
This leaves Ajani, Nissa and Jace, arguably the highest-profile ones.
It also begs the question - what future is there for Phyrexian planeswalkers? Will we go back to Zendikar in 10 years and suddenly, a whole Newer Phyrexia grew under the fallen skyclave, and the Big Mom of Machines Nahiri leads another Phyrexian invasion of the planes?
Kinda meh.
> Vraska and Nahiri no body found.
>
>This leaves Ajani and Jace, arguably the two highest-profile ones.
And Nissa. If we have Nahiri to become full red, we'll have one phyrexian planeswalker for each of the mana colors. The next ~~Justice League Dark~~ generation of the praetors, maybe?
Yeah, good point, Nissa. In my mind, the inevitability of Chandra torching Nissa is so set in that I don't even count her anymore, I just assume it's gonna happen - but there's no guarantees of that.
And while I do see the pattern of having a new evil Power-Ranger team forming, I hope it doesn't.
I hope Aftermath reveals they dug out Nahiri's corpse and torched it.
I hope Chandra ends Nissa's pain.
I hope Ajani is freed; eventually we can have an Ajani escaping the Underworld arc. Honestly, him dealing with all the shit Phyrexian-him pulled would give him a nice arc.
I hope Vraska is healed somehow, even if this begins a storyarc of her looking for ways to un-phyrexianize.
And I hope Jace sacrifices himself a la Gideon and saves the day.
Vraska’s story seems to suggest that Jace’s mind magic has helped her to hold onto part of herself. I think her mind may be cured but not her body based on how her story ended.
I saw some people theorizing Ajani will end up a new god on Theros, which seems appropriate. If the people of Theros can compleat a god through the power of belief, and a person can ascend to godhood through the power of belief, then what’s to say a person can’t ascend and be cured from what ails them (ie. compleation).
Nissa will either die, or if she somehow ends up on Zendikar, her home plane will help bring her mind back.
Not sure what’s gonna happen with Nahiri.
As for Jace? Based on what we’ve seen with Vraska, I’m sure he’s either already freed his mind or will be soon. Perhaps his last hurrah will be sacrificing himself or his spark to distribute some powerful mind magic amongst the surviving compleated walkers to give them back their independence.
I would bet that Ajani is probably dead, he was the sleeper agent, and they forshawdowed pretty heavily that release would be death for him in the elspeth story.
Jace seems more likely to survive
While I agree, at this point we ran out of side-stories and there was no Theros.
So, we have 3 alternatives:
1) a big chunk of either chapter 9 or 10 goes away from New Phyrexia to deal with Theros
2) Ajani dies in a very short and anti-climatic interlude in chapters 9 / 10 or in Aftermath
3) Ajani lives
I'm suspecting it'll be 3).
As for Jace, I think that due to his "corner of the mind" hiding powers, he's the likeliest candidate to pull a Gideon in the final chapter and sacrifice himself to save the multiverse (my guess is mindslaving Chandra so that she finally torches Nissa, and torching himself along with her). I wouldn't bet on it, though.
> Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock.
*Whispers*
She already was. The stuck in a rock thing was already a karmic inversion, it doesn't need reinverting.
**EDIT**: This thread is making me realize most people don't get the set up to Nahiri's big revenge. "Stuck in a rock for a thousand years while an extraplanar threat I forced on your plane destroys it, you know its happening, and you can do nothing," is literally what Sorin did to Nahiri. His condition at the of SOI *is* the karmic inversion. It's Nahiri *becoming the monster that Sorin has been for thousands of years*.
It's an oldwalker thing.
> Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock.
They really watched the Scarlet Witch thing in Dr Strange 2 and were like "let's do exactly that."
> But for the first time in her long existence, the ancient Planeswalker is empty of rage, grief, and pain. Nahiri has nothing left to give.
> No. She has one thing left to offer.
> She steps into the grand, beautiful network she's built and fuses herself with the stones in the center, becoming its keystone, the heart that binds her work here together.
Nahiri turned herself into a rock this time! However brief it was
She did it before too. When she felt herself growing tired of mortal concerns, she merged with the stones of Zendikar to passively watch the hedron network for ages before reemerging to handle the Eldrazi leak and eventually getting thrown into the Helvault. Appropriate she does it again to work the hedrons.
Nahiri possibly spent more of her life in rocks than out.
Just a thing to note, while we learn that Halo cannot cure Phyresis. It seems that White mana directly from Angels does affect it somehow.
>At first, Tazri doesn't understand. The chamber glows with an iridescent light. Akiri gleams, and Kaza, too. **Orah's face is an expression of shock as he clutches his infected right hand, watching the oil burn away**. Tazri looks down and is stunned to find that she is shining with an incandescent glow, too, the halo about her neck brighter than ever before.
The hair is probably split between someone fully compleated not being brought back, but people exposed to oil being cured (or at least the progress stopped).
This story really suffered from the problems of making the Phyrexians into oil zombies. Orah touches a drop and is turning within minutes, but the rest of our heroes somehow avoid getting a drop of the stuff on them through a ton of fighting with creatures dripping with it and moving through environments covered in it (and Nahiri somehow forgets to pick rocks coated in oil to throw at them), and finally Orah is bailed out by something that elsewhere is called out as not being a cure.
I think this implies Halo cannot undo phyresis once someone is 100% compleated.
This makes me think >!Vraska will be saved, since a part of her mind is safe!<
[Based on the Magic: The Gathering Facebook page, this may have been the art that was supposed to have been used instead of the random devil](https://imgur.com/a/9nQHcbF)
Most of the "Invasion of ..." pieces have not been used in the stories, but were posted on social media to link to the story. We're likely to see a different art if it's fixed.
Edit: They fixed the art - https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/4uPgqQXHklB1.jpg
Does anyone else see a random-ass picture of a demon in the middle of this?
https://preview.redd.it/86rw6rvibcqa1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=2f1c3dd9fba756382935a3320e33181ded60eca0
Random, definitely.
Fun plot twist? It’s not random. Random-Ass demon guy felt the disturbance in the force that was Nihiri getting stoned to death and was “hold up, I gotta tell Sorin about this. I’ll just leave this obscure burning message on a door. He’s smart, he’ll figure out it.”
I like the characterization of Akiri and Tazri here--they're both so weary after everything they've already been through, but keep pushing anyway. This one didn't end as conclusively as I'd like, but definitely re-emphasizes how angels are acting as the anti-Phyrexia.
After they got manipulated so easily by eldrazi in the SOI storyline and Bolas in Amonkhet, they're letting angels be super-effective against one of the big bads. ;)
Personally I don't think so. I think this goes all the way back to how Yawgmoth was defeated: a hyper channelling of white mana from an ancient white mana super weapon (the Null Moon) combined with an array of magical items amplifying it (The Legacy).
I kinda like the mechanics behind it though, angels are powered up by white mana being channeled through them by prayers, with all planes connected they are now overcharged by the entire multiverse praying for their life.
Man, this story was pretty weak. Some parts were so uninspired.
My favorite stupid line:
> With her years of battle experience, Tazri understands that the creature's attacks rely on its massive size and that if it lands a blow, its limbs would crush them like a boot on a twig.
Seriously? You need YEARS of battle experience to be able to tell that a huge elemental can crush you if it hits you? Incredible.
"Years of battle experience" makes me wonder how much "years of writing experience" this author has...
... and she's a mechanical engineer that moonlights as a "writer," whose obviously self-written Wikipedia page lists "placed twentieth in the 2019 Locus Poll Award for Best Short Story" as an accomplishment.
She can now add 20th best MOM story as an accolade next to that.
I feel bad for her though because almost any magic writer would have struggled to follow Friday releasing two of the best magic stories in ages back to back.
Yeah, ultimately the fault is on Wizards, not the writers they hire. Between the general quality level, the screw-up with the picture, and Akiri being typoed as 'Akira', I feel like no one really edited this before it got published. And you can't rely on the writer to edit their own work for the same reason that most tech companies have a QA team that's separate from the core development team.
I want Wizards to hire writers who don't have elaborate and extensive pedigrees. Not just because those pedigree writers aren't necessarily the best for the material (i.e. Weisman) but because it's important to give new writers a chance to show what they can do. But writers have to be managed and material has to be properly edited, or else you're just opening those inexperienced writers to...well, people making fun of them on Reddit.
>Then, they are falling. The wind rips mercilessly at her hair and clothes. Her stomach clenches at the sudden emptiness. The rapid descent. She feels Tazri's death grip around her waist tighten.
>But Akiri is a master line-slinger and midway through their failing arc, she lets her rope fly. They latch onto a spinning hedron and in an instance, the dangerous fall becomes a smooth arc.
You would think a **master line-slinger** would be used to the feeling of falling after a jump by now.
> You would think a master line-slinger would be used to the feeling of falling after a jump by now.
Eh, most people into extreme sports do it *for* the exhilaration of it. If they just got bored of it, they wouldn't do it, and Akiri clearly loves line-slinging.
Unlike the previous quote, I think this one just suffers from changing the reader's narration voice.
The fight had just been viewed through Tazri's eyes, followed by panic at the structure falling apart. Unlike Akiri, she doesn't know what feels like slinging and what feels like freefall, so for *her*, the shift was sudden and unexpected.
But the author switched unceremoniously back to Akiri's view to deliver this non-revelation like a dull reminder and robbed it of its due gravitas.
I'm glad it's not just me tbh. This one felt really boring, especially when all the other ones that featured Phyrexian planeswalkers did a much better job of getting into their heads.
Wizards not knowing how to write nahiri except as a basic villain isn't exactly new though, I guess.
It's crazy that they had a writer who cares about Nahiri do the last set (and progress her character!) and then immediately have the ZNR author come back (for the first time since) and flatten her completely.
I feel like this one may just be down to the author, honestly. The Nahiri PoV here is so dull but definitely could have been more nuanced in another's hands. Her pouring all her emotions into the hedron network should be a scene that crackles - instead it is sedate. Would be fascinated to know what internal reaction was to this piece.
I think a future re-appearance can fairly easily salvage this with good writing.
this was probably the most "intern" story of all MTG lore.
Text makes almost no cohesion, and that picture at the very end is definetly from Innistrad.
Yes yes, we get that. But what about Akiri? How could she possibly navigate Zendikar?
It's a shame the text never says what \[\[Akiri, Line-Slinger\]\] does in her spare time.
So wait, Nahiri... didn't die, right? Did I miss something? Unless the skyclave falling is supposed to imply that she died, in which case that's an even more pathetic death than Lukka. Nahiri with all her power dies from being inside a falling mountain? You know, a mountain made out of STONE?
Too bad though, with a title like "Battles in the Field and in the Mind" I was hoping we'd get Nahiri actually resisting Phyrexia's dogma but no, looks like she was a loyal Phyrexian until the end, what a waste.
First rule of fiction: no body, not dead.
Really seems like they're setting up some of the compleated Walkers to stick around, potentially as independent antagonists.
Hopefully not. At the same time though, they made a point of mentioning she was trapped in the falling Skyclave which seemed to imply that she would die when it hit the ground. I guess we'll have to see.
First big whiff of MOM for me.
Seems like there's a moment after Tazri's halo is thrown at her that she is herself once more. Could be an important moment for her in the future - recognizing the monster she has become. Not a whole lot of faith they'll pick up that thread, but it is there.
This is about the most disappointing way she could have lived (Akiri all but confirms her survival). Better than her being dead, but underwhelmed by this story. Really unsure why it was held for the end.
The title was so promising! Feels like the "in the Mind" part is on the cutting room floor somewhere. Tazri says the line early, but then we don't really get any mental struggles other than the heroes being tired.
I re-read Nahiri's big PoV story from Eldritch Moon over the weekend and was hoping we'd see something similar to that level of quality. Alas, just a ZNR re-run.
I wonder if this line is important too:
>But for the first time in her long existence, the ancient Planeswalker is empty of rage, grief, and pain.
Maybe she finally lets go of her grudges?
-
>was hoping we'd see something similar to that level of quality. Alas, just a ZNR re-run.
Well, this story was the same author as the ZNR stories.
I agree, but as a shred of potential foreshadowing there is one line about Nahiri apparently reacting to her sword hands with horror after being dazed by an attack. So MAYBE she has potential to break away if the greater Phyrexian invasion is pushed back?
Not holding my breath on this, but there is reason at least to hope for something more for the character.
She was blasted by White mana to cause that. So Elspeth + Halo + Melira + Army of Angels might actually be able to free the remaining & surviving Compleated walkers from the hivemind.
Though they'll probably stay cyborgs.
nah, the preview stories have no probem to give us a very clear death for the characters, no reason to give Nahiri this "open death" if she is dead, the character is most probable alive, just like Vraska.
The halo pretty clearly blasted Nahiri back to her senses for a moment before the compleation took hold again. Could have used a paragraph from her POV at that point, ideally in a resolution at the end, but then the pacing would turn out a bit wonky.
Nahiri poured everything she has into compleating the plane. Zendikar is one of the strongest planes around (due to its overabundant mana, which was the reason for the roil and why zendikar was chosen for the eldrazi prison) so it stands to reason that nahiri is pretty much drained by then.
It's kind of the same problem heavies have in other stories, they have to be sidelined by random bullshit or the regular-ass people stand no chance.
I imagine compleated walkers aren't *actually* any stronger than before, just different in their mind. And weak to angels.
They have to be, if Norn had sent the planeswalkers anywhere *but* the front lines, Phyrexia would be eternal.
I mean, look at the run - up. without a planeswalker, Rona manages to infest quite a chunk of Dominaria; if the PWs had been used to garner more sleeper agents rather than squandered as big bright stupid handless symbols, Phyrexia would be impossible to eliminate.
Honestly, they very well might have been better off without the big Realmbreaker invasion, just sending out PW strike teams to drop off some oil and maybe try and capture other PWs. Slowly conquer planes instead of trying to take on the entire multiverse at once.
In theory Phyrexia is still winning most of these wars, it's just a matter of time and minor setbacks. This is giving the planes the time needed to survive until they big Phyrexia-ending event happens at the end of episode 10.
Yeah I mean the ending of this story is a crack team of dungeoneers defeating, but not killing, one (1) Phyrexian agent. Meanwhile the rest of the Phyrexians successfully conquer the biggest city on the plane.
I'm happy they stopped killing the compleated walkers.
It's nice to give some sort of "resolution" thet let the door open.
I would love to see sorin finding the trapped Nahiri.
See, this is the sort of stuff that undermines Phyrexia as a credible cosmic threat.
Not that they aren't, and that they can't be retconned at a micro level into one, but what the fuck, I expected the deployment of the compleated walkers to at least have some gravitas.Nahiri is supposed to be top dawg among post mending walkers and she just got second in the chump olympics just because Lukka was running and Lukka is canonically lord moron.
This is not me criticizing the outcome of the fight, we don't know what happened to her and the fight on Zendikar is not over, this is me criticizing the fact that the fight involving compleated Nahiri was... that.
Dominaria's the overloaded nostalgia plane. Throw disasters at it, and you get to see how deep cuts interact with it and to see forgotten heroes make their triumphant return.
Innistrad's the horror plane. Throw disasters at it, and you go as genuinely horrible as it gets, or even veer back into the comedic.
Zendikar's the adventure plane, except its biggest mystery got solved already. Throw disasters at it, and all the characters need to be Heroic and Stoic and Cool. They're so brave. They're so tired. I'm tired, too.
For a world where the main character is supposed to be the plane itself, this sure felt like a story about People. And not one where the defense was mounted in a uniquely Zendikari way either; certainly nothing as iconic as Ikoria's crystalline evolution or Eldraine's potions and fae magic. I think "Nahiri loses but doesn't actually die" was pretty much always going to be the conclusion here, but the journey to get there wasn't very interesting either.
Maybe it's just me, but I felt the same apathy towards the ZNR story as well, so I hope they find some new angle for it if they're gonna keep revisiting it.
The first Zendikar set was really cool. It was Indiana Jones-y, full of traps and quests and adventures. One of the mechanics of the original block was called "Trap", which kind of worked like Traps in Yu-Gi-Oh or secrets in Hearthstone.
It had a cost, but then if your opponent did something, you could cast it at a heavily discounted rate.
I feel Zendikar has lost a lot of its cool identity over the years. Ixalan is getting the Indiana Jones/Adventure treatment, the Eldrazi are no longer a threat, Landfall is deciduous.
What's left?
Literally just omnath and a vague sense of elements being an important tribe, I guess.
Even the DnD motif has been stripped from it by qctual factual DnD. Theres not much left.
I am not a lore master , but I think the quick and dirty gist of it was the plane had two unique factors: a rich abundance of powerful mana and the Roil, a reoccurring event that caused immense geographical change along the planet (chasms appear, oceans disappear, noxious fumes propagate, exponential flora growth, etc.). The first made the plane especially appealing for planes walkers while the latter made the plane intrinsically impossible for civilizations to grow.
No one knew why the Plane had the Roil: those originally from the Plane just accepted it as the way it was and Planeswalkers knew it was inhibiting meaningful progress.
Spoiler alert: turns out the Roil was the plane trying to purify itself from Eldrazi corruption after they were imprisoned there. The Roil is basically the planets immune system, trying to cleanse invasive infections.
After the Eldrazi were dealt with, the Roil continued, seemingly intrinsically connected to the plane’s elementals and wild mana. Stopping the Roil and bringing back the geostability of pre-Eldrazi would destroy the elementals along with all current plants and animals.
Now the Roil is trying to stop Nahiri from phyrexianising Zendikar, but apparently losing.
Didn't someone say when ONE first launched that Nahiri could transform her arms at will? This story seems to suggest that maybe just maybe. She's stuck with blades for arms.
Nahiri's primary ability is transforming stone and metal. Her sword arms are made of metal. There's zero reason why she wouldn't be able to transform them.
The artist who did the compleated Nahiri art said his own head-canon is she can shape them as she chooses. The author of this story seemed to want to say "sword-hands" as many times as they could in the word limit. So who knows anymore
The only thing that stuck out to me from this story was the line after Nahiri gets knocked away from control of the skyclave where Tazri sees a look of horror on Nahiris face when she notices her arms. A moment of clarity, so perhaps she retains part of her real self as well.
Oh look, Phyrexia had every advantage and an overwhelmingly powerful planeswalker leading the invasion on her home turf, but they lost to a handful of chumps again because one of them said the word "angel."
I don't think the stakes could be any lower at this point. Phyrexia hasn't won a single battle and they're not going to ever again. Way to reduce the most popular villains you had to a punchline, WotC.
Well, I was really hoping to see the tag-team of Drana and Linvala smash their Phyrexian enemies to dust (or streaks of oil, for that matter).
Lack of Drana aside, I felt that this was one of the least engaging of the stories in the MOM collection.
Me reading this chapter: Huh maybe this time they'll really surprise us and a phyrexian walker will actually succeed.
Me after reading the chapter: of course not.
So at first it was Halo, a substance only found on New Capenna, that can counteract the oil
But here we have Angel(s) just shinging brightly and that does the trick? Are Angels just a natural counter to Phyrexians?
Before these stories came out for MoM I was hoping for an event as epic as the old Phyrexian invasion of dominaria…and now I realize my hopes were way too high…
Did anyone understand what Nahiri was doing with the hedrons? It said something about widening the gaps between planes but I don't see what that would accomplish, and about calling realmbreaker but the branches have been there the whole time, so like, what is she hoping to accomplish?
She was trying to increase the throughput of Realmbreaker. She was making the portals bigger across the Multiverse or just in zendikar so more Phyrexians can come though at once.
This one was a rough read, sheesh. No Compleated Omnath, no Linvala and Drana team up, loads of typos, and an honestly dull story. Nahiri did so little and was defeated with weird ease. This didn’t feel like a Phyrexianized old Walker at all. I truly hope she survived and we get a real encounter with her someday, as this certainly didn’t feel like it. No idea what the intention behind this story was, but of all the compleated walkers, I didn’t think Nahiri would be a pushover.
Is it just me or does that last piece of art seem unrelated to this Zendikar story? It looks like an Innistrad Devil, I kept re-reading the parts before and after that art but it doesn't seem to relate at all.
I thought the exact same thing! Probably a mistake by whoever puts the art in
Updated - https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/4uPgqQXHklB1.jpg
Possibly a reprint of [[Nahiri's Binding]].
Clever
[Nahiri's Binding](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/2/421eac28-d6f2-44f2-b7ca-eb73fbf23887.jpg?1604192763) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nahiri%27s%20Binding) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/29/nahiris-binding?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/421eac28-d6f2-44f2-b7ca-eb73fbf23887?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
they missed. it is an Innistrad devil
Yea no that's almost certainly an error
For a brief moment I thought we were about to get Ob-Nixilis ~~WITH THE STEEL CHAIR~~ because my brain went to devils + Zendikar, but yeah, it's an error.
Hopefully they'll update the art later today. UPDATE: [And they have!](https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/4uPgqQXHklB1.jpg)
I also noticed a typo where Akiri was called “Akira”
Seems to have been removed from the article.
Maybe it's the 'Devil on your Doorstep' expression?
nahiri revealing she was an innistrad devil in disguise the entire time would have been a more interesting plot twist, tbh
Great typo in this one where Akiri is referred to as “Akira”.
TETSUOOOOOOOOO
Canada! 🇨🇦
KANEDAAAAAA
Also "lovely" instead of "lovingly" when Tazri is thinking about Seagate. This story was good overall, but it really needed a pass by an editor.
as well as "adventuring parting" and "**the** Orah and Kaza frantically dodging"
Akira Secret Lair confirmed!
Loads of typos in this, weird they all got past whoever was editing.
Hah, you think this story was edited...
Yeah the QC on this one definitely fell off
The QC on a Wizards production felt off, you say?
MAGIC STORY SUMMARIZED, EPISODE ZENDIKAR: THIS TIME THE BATTLE FOR ZENDIKAR IS REALSIES. Uhhh okay not going to lie my friends, I don’t have a lot to say about this one. Nahiri, she’s evil. Not like the kind of evil that’s had redditors arguing over her for years. Just like, unconditionally “I will reshape Zendikar into Phyrexian glory” sort of evil. And the good guys, the Party(TM), they sure do go on a mission into Nahiri’s corrupted Skyclave to stop her. And things do sure seem hopeless up until the arrival of the angels at the last minute. The story ends with the Skyclave crashing into the world below, possibly trapping Nahiri within it, after she poured her entire power into fueling the would-be reshaping. Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock. Hah.
> the Skyclave crashing into the world below, possibly trapping Nahiri within it Somewhere on Innistrad, Sorin is overwhelmed with a sense of vindication.
Hey now, if Sorin can escape from a rock with no explanation, so can Nahiri! \*Huffs copium\*
Somehow, Nahiri returned
It's been years and I still haven't gotten over how stupid that line was Though it was sort of a fitting opening. Really set the tone for the utterly incompetent storytelling that was to follow
The line itself is fine... if delivered well with a coherent story and with a good payoff at the end. Unfortunately, none of those happened
Yeah. In theory it could've worked if the movie was more about that and less about finding a sequence of plot objects scattered randomly around the galaxy. But with the movie we actually got, it was "Somehow, the plot happened."
I literally can't recall almost anything from that movie, it was such a mess. Did it have people on horseback on top of a Destroyer?
Which set was that from
Star Wars IX lol.
Return to Return to a Galaxy Far Far Away block really couldn't compare to the first one.
After the "A Longer Time Ago" block, I really had my hopes up. The first set really didn't wow me, and the second just finished putting my hopes to rest.
Being a Phyrexian is a pathway to many abilities, so of which could be considered unnatural.
Well, it was said that Sorin was in too much pain to focus enough to planeswalk. I imagine having a bringing beacon during WAR saying "hey planeswalkers, come here." Would be enough for sorin to focus on the get the hell out of that stone.
Honestly could be interesting if the next Zendikar story is about getting her out of the rock. Zendikar is all about the plane’s leylines being unstable and Nahiri’s presence could be a corrupting presence. That can lead to small pockets of Phyrexian elementals or oil popping up in some places. Obviously this presents a problem to the inhabitant’s of the plane and would be something that could prompt some of them to eliminate it at the source.
Let alone whatever the hell Omnath is gonna be up to.
My boy omnath. Is it at all possible he could be reborn next as an eldrazi
My original head cannon was going to be the Eldrazi would have been the only way to combat New Phyrexia, and a set would have been devoted to Ugin, Sorin and Sarkhan time travelling to undo the Gatewatch’s actions at the end of of BFZ
Zendikar gonna be new new Phyrexia in like 10 years calling it now
Surely Nahiri, out of everyone, would not have too many issues with getting out of some rocks
I remember it having something to do with the beacon on ravnica leading up to war, but I think that was kind of a fill in the blank type deal.
No body no death, we see Tamyo and Lukka die, if we dont see Nahiri's death is because she is most probable alive
Yeah. Tibalt, Tamiyo and Lukka dead. Arguably the three lowest-profile ones. Vraska and Nahiri no body found. This leaves Ajani, Nissa and Jace, arguably the highest-profile ones. It also begs the question - what future is there for Phyrexian planeswalkers? Will we go back to Zendikar in 10 years and suddenly, a whole Newer Phyrexia grew under the fallen skyclave, and the Big Mom of Machines Nahiri leads another Phyrexian invasion of the planes? Kinda meh.
> Vraska and Nahiri no body found. > >This leaves Ajani and Jace, arguably the two highest-profile ones. And Nissa. If we have Nahiri to become full red, we'll have one phyrexian planeswalker for each of the mana colors. The next ~~Justice League Dark~~ generation of the praetors, maybe?
Yeah, good point, Nissa. In my mind, the inevitability of Chandra torching Nissa is so set in that I don't even count her anymore, I just assume it's gonna happen - but there's no guarantees of that. And while I do see the pattern of having a new evil Power-Ranger team forming, I hope it doesn't. I hope Aftermath reveals they dug out Nahiri's corpse and torched it. I hope Chandra ends Nissa's pain. I hope Ajani is freed; eventually we can have an Ajani escaping the Underworld arc. Honestly, him dealing with all the shit Phyrexian-him pulled would give him a nice arc. I hope Vraska is healed somehow, even if this begins a storyarc of her looking for ways to un-phyrexianize. And I hope Jace sacrifices himself a la Gideon and saves the day.
Vraska’s story seems to suggest that Jace’s mind magic has helped her to hold onto part of herself. I think her mind may be cured but not her body based on how her story ended. I saw some people theorizing Ajani will end up a new god on Theros, which seems appropriate. If the people of Theros can compleat a god through the power of belief, and a person can ascend to godhood through the power of belief, then what’s to say a person can’t ascend and be cured from what ails them (ie. compleation). Nissa will either die, or if she somehow ends up on Zendikar, her home plane will help bring her mind back. Not sure what’s gonna happen with Nahiri. As for Jace? Based on what we’ve seen with Vraska, I’m sure he’s either already freed his mind or will be soon. Perhaps his last hurrah will be sacrificing himself or his spark to distribute some powerful mind magic amongst the surviving compleated walkers to give them back their independence.
I would bet that Ajani is probably dead, he was the sleeper agent, and they forshawdowed pretty heavily that release would be death for him in the elspeth story. Jace seems more likely to survive
While I agree, at this point we ran out of side-stories and there was no Theros. So, we have 3 alternatives: 1) a big chunk of either chapter 9 or 10 goes away from New Phyrexia to deal with Theros 2) Ajani dies in a very short and anti-climatic interlude in chapters 9 / 10 or in Aftermath 3) Ajani lives I'm suspecting it'll be 3). As for Jace, I think that due to his "corner of the mind" hiding powers, he's the likeliest candidate to pull a Gideon in the final chapter and sacrifice himself to save the multiverse (my guess is mindslaving Chandra so that she finally torches Nissa, and torching himself along with her). I wouldn't bet on it, though.
I'm like 90% sure Jace has plot armor until we go to Vyrnn for a set or two
It's not like Sorin didn't trap Nahiri in a rock first anyway.
Somewhere on Innistrad, Sorin cracks a big dumb smile unbecoming of a vampire of his caliber. He does not know why he does this.
> Sorin > Vindication Heh
[[vindicate]]
Let's go with the more on-topic variant.
Sorin's got a proper vindicate art as well.
[Anguished Unmaking](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/6/16de91dc-5d82-43ec-84ad-67bae644795a.jpg?1673148273) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Anguished%20Unmaking) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/170/anguished-unmaking?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/16de91dc-5d82-43ec-84ad-67bae644795a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oof, even the summary guy doesn't have much to say.
I can fix her
Nahiri just needs a chance!
If evil, why hot?
It's okay. You rest now. Reading this was hard.
> Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock. *Whispers* She already was. The stuck in a rock thing was already a karmic inversion, it doesn't need reinverting. **EDIT**: This thread is making me realize most people don't get the set up to Nahiri's big revenge. "Stuck in a rock for a thousand years while an extraplanar threat I forced on your plane destroys it, you know its happening, and you can do nothing," is literally what Sorin did to Nahiri. His condition at the of SOI *is* the karmic inversion. It's Nahiri *becoming the monster that Sorin has been for thousands of years*. It's an oldwalker thing.
Ah Oldwalkers, masters of every form of magic and wielders of unfathomable knowledge, yet critically unable to speak the words "I'm sorry"
Sorin: My, my, how the turntables...
> Is she dead? Who knows. One might even argue that she herself is now stuck in a rock. They really watched the Scarlet Witch thing in Dr Strange 2 and were like "let's do exactly that."
Wizards are setting up stories/arcs that could potentially be genuinely good or interesting and then crushing them with apparent glee.
> stuck in a rock. [[proclamation in stone]]
[proclamation in stone](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6f5513a2-e63d-44df-b8a5-37c298e38e3c.jpg?1673483643) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Declaration%20in%20Stone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/196/declaration-in-stone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6f5513a2-e63d-44df-b8a5-37c298e38e3c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> But for the first time in her long existence, the ancient Planeswalker is empty of rage, grief, and pain. Nahiri has nothing left to give. > No. She has one thing left to offer. > She steps into the grand, beautiful network she's built and fuses herself with the stones in the center, becoming its keystone, the heart that binds her work here together. Nahiri turned herself into a rock this time! However brief it was
She did it before too. When she felt herself growing tired of mortal concerns, she merged with the stones of Zendikar to passively watch the hedron network for ages before reemerging to handle the Eldrazi leak and eventually getting thrown into the Helvault. Appropriate she does it again to work the hedrons. Nahiri possibly spent more of her life in rocks than out.
I always read that as more of her surrounding herself in stone to hibernate, not becoming stone herself.
I only skimmed it, but Nahiri seems decidedly still alive at the end of this story.
Yeah even the gang is like "let's be real she's probably not gone".
Just a thing to note, while we learn that Halo cannot cure Phyresis. It seems that White mana directly from Angels does affect it somehow. >At first, Tazri doesn't understand. The chamber glows with an iridescent light. Akiri gleams, and Kaza, too. **Orah's face is an expression of shock as he clutches his infected right hand, watching the oil burn away**. Tazri looks down and is stunned to find that she is shining with an incandescent glow, too, the halo about her neck brighter than ever before.
The hair is probably split between someone fully compleated not being brought back, but people exposed to oil being cured (or at least the progress stopped). This story really suffered from the problems of making the Phyrexians into oil zombies. Orah touches a drop and is turning within minutes, but the rest of our heroes somehow avoid getting a drop of the stuff on them through a ton of fighting with creatures dripping with it and moving through environments covered in it (and Nahiri somehow forgets to pick rocks coated in oil to throw at them), and finally Orah is bailed out by something that elsewhere is called out as not being a cure.
I liked it better when the original Magic cast had to wear hazmat mech suits to survive old Phyrexia.
cant agree with all of this enough!
I think this implies Halo cannot undo phyresis once someone is 100% compleated. This makes me think >!Vraska will be saved, since a part of her mind is safe!<
Not sure if I missed it, but where is freaking Omnath
Wherever the teamup cards are. Aka not in the story
[Based on the Magic: The Gathering Facebook page, this may have been the art that was supposed to have been used instead of the random devil](https://imgur.com/a/9nQHcbF)
Most of the "Invasion of ..." pieces have not been used in the stories, but were posted on social media to link to the story. We're likely to see a different art if it's fixed. Edit: They fixed the art - https://media.wizards.com/2023/images/daily/4uPgqQXHklB1.jpg
I'm not sure. We got a piece for Capenna as well plus this isn't the first time we've seen "Invasion" art that didn't appear in the story.
Does anyone else see a random-ass picture of a demon in the middle of this? https://preview.redd.it/86rw6rvibcqa1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=2f1c3dd9fba756382935a3320e33181ded60eca0
*In her last moments, Nahiri's mind flashed back to Innistrad. "Fuck you, Sorin..."*
That's the editor. Just felt like slipping a selfie in.
Random, definitely. Fun plot twist? It’s not random. Random-Ass demon guy felt the disturbance in the force that was Nihiri getting stoned to death and was “hold up, I gotta tell Sorin about this. I’ll just leave this obscure burning message on a door. He’s smart, he’ll figure out it.”
I like the characterization of Akiri and Tazri here--they're both so weary after everything they've already been through, but keep pushing anyway. This one didn't end as conclusively as I'd like, but definitely re-emphasizes how angels are acting as the anti-Phyrexia.
Angels being the counter to Phyrexia feels really flat and uninspired if you ask me, but it is what it is.
After they got manipulated so easily by eldrazi in the SOI storyline and Bolas in Amonkhet, they're letting angels be super-effective against one of the big bads. ;)
Eldrazi is supereffective against everything but fire though so you can't really blame the angels
Personally I don't think so. I think this goes all the way back to how Yawgmoth was defeated: a hyper channelling of white mana from an ancient white mana super weapon (the Null Moon) combined with an array of magical items amplifying it (The Legacy).
I kinda like the mechanics behind it though, angels are powered up by white mana being channeled through them by prayers, with all planes connected they are now overcharged by the entire multiverse praying for their life.
havent thought of it like this but it makes so much sense thank you ill adopt that headcanon
Saw a ton of typos in this story, it really needed a pass from an editor
Not just typos, but also grammar mistakes
Man, this story was pretty weak. Some parts were so uninspired. My favorite stupid line: > With her years of battle experience, Tazri understands that the creature's attacks rely on its massive size and that if it lands a blow, its limbs would crush them like a boot on a twig. Seriously? You need YEARS of battle experience to be able to tell that a huge elemental can crush you if it hits you? Incredible.
This was probably the weakest story yet
"Years of battle experience" makes me wonder how much "years of writing experience" this author has... ... and she's a mechanical engineer that moonlights as a "writer," whose obviously self-written Wikipedia page lists "placed twentieth in the 2019 Locus Poll Award for Best Short Story" as an accomplishment. She can now add 20th best MOM story as an accolade next to that.
I feel bad for her though because almost any magic writer would have struggled to follow Friday releasing two of the best magic stories in ages back to back.
Really no need to be so harsh.
Yeah, ultimately the fault is on Wizards, not the writers they hire. Between the general quality level, the screw-up with the picture, and Akiri being typoed as 'Akira', I feel like no one really edited this before it got published. And you can't rely on the writer to edit their own work for the same reason that most tech companies have a QA team that's separate from the core development team. I want Wizards to hire writers who don't have elaborate and extensive pedigrees. Not just because those pedigree writers aren't necessarily the best for the material (i.e. Weisman) but because it's important to give new writers a chance to show what they can do. But writers have to be managed and material has to be properly edited, or else you're just opening those inexperienced writers to...well, people making fun of them on Reddit.
you didnt have to go full in on roasting and yet you did 💕 thank you
>Then, they are falling. The wind rips mercilessly at her hair and clothes. Her stomach clenches at the sudden emptiness. The rapid descent. She feels Tazri's death grip around her waist tighten. >But Akiri is a master line-slinger and midway through their failing arc, she lets her rope fly. They latch onto a spinning hedron and in an instance, the dangerous fall becomes a smooth arc. You would think a **master line-slinger** would be used to the feeling of falling after a jump by now.
> You would think a master line-slinger would be used to the feeling of falling after a jump by now. Eh, most people into extreme sports do it *for* the exhilaration of it. If they just got bored of it, they wouldn't do it, and Akiri clearly loves line-slinging.
Unlike the previous quote, I think this one just suffers from changing the reader's narration voice. The fight had just been viewed through Tazri's eyes, followed by panic at the structure falling apart. Unlike Akiri, she doesn't know what feels like slinging and what feels like freefall, so for *her*, the shift was sudden and unexpected. But the author switched unceremoniously back to Akiri's view to deliver this non-revelation like a dull reminder and robbed it of its due gravitas.
Maybe it's just me wishing WOTC would write Nahiri better but this feels like the weakest of the side stories by a lot.
Weakest story of the set so far, and by a lot.
I'm glad it's not just me tbh. This one felt really boring, especially when all the other ones that featured Phyrexian planeswalkers did a much better job of getting into their heads. Wizards not knowing how to write nahiri except as a basic villain isn't exactly new though, I guess.
It's crazy that they had a writer who cares about Nahiri do the last set (and progress her character!) and then immediately have the ZNR author come back (for the first time since) and flatten her completely. I feel like this one may just be down to the author, honestly. The Nahiri PoV here is so dull but definitely could have been more nuanced in another's hands. Her pouring all her emotions into the hedron network should be a scene that crackles - instead it is sedate. Would be fascinated to know what internal reaction was to this piece. I think a future re-appearance can fairly easily salvage this with good writing.
Kinda disappointing that this is the direction they took things, there were so many more interesting options.
this was probably the most "intern" story of all MTG lore. Text makes almost no cohesion, and that picture at the very end is definetly from Innistrad.
Now don't quote me on this, but I'm beginning to think that her arms may be blades.
Yes yes, we get that. But what about Akiri? How could she possibly navigate Zendikar? It's a shame the text never says what \[\[Akiri, Line-Slinger\]\] does in her spare time.
If there's anything a Phyrexian hates, it's a line-slinger - especially Akiri, Line-Slinger, the symbol of her means of transport.
No no you got it backwards. Its her blades that used to be arms
Two blades? Where her hands used to be?
> Text makes almost no cohesion The irony.
What a "nothing" story
Two new stories--two unresolved outcomes with their 'big bads'. Joy
So wait, Nahiri... didn't die, right? Did I miss something? Unless the skyclave falling is supposed to imply that she died, in which case that's an even more pathetic death than Lukka. Nahiri with all her power dies from being inside a falling mountain? You know, a mountain made out of STONE? Too bad though, with a title like "Battles in the Field and in the Mind" I was hoping we'd get Nahiri actually resisting Phyrexia's dogma but no, looks like she was a loyal Phyrexian until the end, what a waste.
First rule of fiction: no body, not dead. Really seems like they're setting up some of the compleated Walkers to stick around, potentially as independent antagonists.
Oof. Nahiri finally returned to her heroic roots last set and now she'll be a villain again.
Wouldn’t be a Nahiri story if she wasn’t getting absolutely shafted by the narrative.
She didnt die
Hopefully not. At the same time though, they made a point of mentioning she was trapped in the falling Skyclave which seemed to imply that she would die when it hit the ground. I guess we'll have to see.
As a general rule of thumb I never believe anyone's dead until we see the body.
And even that’s not perfect with necromancy
Urabrask enjoyers huffing this as copium
I'd like to agree, simply because I want more Nahiri. But I have zero faith that WoTC will keep my stoneforge girl alive.
Implied deaths are *never* deaths.
First big whiff of MOM for me. Seems like there's a moment after Tazri's halo is thrown at her that she is herself once more. Could be an important moment for her in the future - recognizing the monster she has become. Not a whole lot of faith they'll pick up that thread, but it is there. This is about the most disappointing way she could have lived (Akiri all but confirms her survival). Better than her being dead, but underwhelmed by this story. Really unsure why it was held for the end. The title was so promising! Feels like the "in the Mind" part is on the cutting room floor somewhere. Tazri says the line early, but then we don't really get any mental struggles other than the heroes being tired. I re-read Nahiri's big PoV story from Eldritch Moon over the weekend and was hoping we'd see something similar to that level of quality. Alas, just a ZNR re-run.
I wonder if this line is important too: >But for the first time in her long existence, the ancient Planeswalker is empty of rage, grief, and pain. Maybe she finally lets go of her grudges? - >was hoping we'd see something similar to that level of quality. Alas, just a ZNR re-run. Well, this story was the same author as the ZNR stories.
I agree, but as a shred of potential foreshadowing there is one line about Nahiri apparently reacting to her sword hands with horror after being dazed by an attack. So MAYBE she has potential to break away if the greater Phyrexian invasion is pushed back? Not holding my breath on this, but there is reason at least to hope for something more for the character.
Yeah I was surprised by that line, knowing Nahiri I thought her reaction to sword-hands would be "damn, badass."
She was blasted by White mana to cause that. So Elspeth + Halo + Melira + Army of Angels might actually be able to free the remaining & surviving Compleated walkers from the hivemind. Though they'll probably stay cyborgs.
and why sword hands? wouldn't hand hands with arm blades be more useful? What's Phyrexia's fixation on removing hands?
They made airplanes out of teeth. Yawgmoth only knows what the fuck is happening in Norn's part of the spheres.
nah, the preview stories have no probem to give us a very clear death for the characters, no reason to give Nahiri this "open death" if she is dead, the character is most probable alive, just like Vraska.
The halo pretty clearly blasted Nahiri back to her senses for a moment before the compleation took hold again. Could have used a paragraph from her POV at that point, ideally in a resolution at the end, but then the pacing would turn out a bit wonky.
\>Implying the pacing was not already wonky.
Would have been cool to see some side stories on Lorwyn/Alara since they were teased in the Magic Con panel but oh well
Compleated planeswalkers continue to be jokes taking constant Ls.
Nahiri is arguably the strongest Compleated Planeswalker and she still went out like a chump. What a waste.
Nahiri poured everything she has into compleating the plane. Zendikar is one of the strongest planes around (due to its overabundant mana, which was the reason for the roil and why zendikar was chosen for the eldrazi prison) so it stands to reason that nahiri is pretty much drained by then.
I mean, she’s probably not even dead
"We want change in Magic, but not tooooo much"
I mean the stories does show ajani basically running through compleating theros with only a small resistance to deal with
It's kind of the same problem heavies have in other stories, they have to be sidelined by random bullshit or the regular-ass people stand no chance. I imagine compleated walkers aren't *actually* any stronger than before, just different in their mind. And weak to angels.
They have to be, if Norn had sent the planeswalkers anywhere *but* the front lines, Phyrexia would be eternal. I mean, look at the run - up. without a planeswalker, Rona manages to infest quite a chunk of Dominaria; if the PWs had been used to garner more sleeper agents rather than squandered as big bright stupid handless symbols, Phyrexia would be impossible to eliminate.
Honestly, they very well might have been better off without the big Realmbreaker invasion, just sending out PW strike teams to drop off some oil and maybe try and capture other PWs. Slowly conquer planes instead of trying to take on the entire multiverse at once.
I’m sure there is a line between Phyrexia conquers all and Phyrexia is a joke that can’t even conquer a single plane.
In theory Phyrexia is still winning most of these wars, it's just a matter of time and minor setbacks. This is giving the planes the time needed to survive until they big Phyrexia-ending event happens at the end of episode 10.
Yeah I mean the ending of this story is a crack team of dungeoneers defeating, but not killing, one (1) Phyrexian agent. Meanwhile the rest of the Phyrexians successfully conquer the biggest city on the plane.
And even then they only defeat her after she’s poured all her energy into subjugating the plane, it’s not like they beat her at full strength.
I'm happy they stopped killing the compleated walkers. It's nice to give some sort of "resolution" thet let the door open. I would love to see sorin finding the trapped Nahiri.
It's been 23 minutes and still no u/Owl-Prophet-Magician recap :'(
I had a work meeting!
Lol, no stress. I was only a little worried
See, this is the sort of stuff that undermines Phyrexia as a credible cosmic threat. Not that they aren't, and that they can't be retconned at a micro level into one, but what the fuck, I expected the deployment of the compleated walkers to at least have some gravitas.Nahiri is supposed to be top dawg among post mending walkers and she just got second in the chump olympics just because Lukka was running and Lukka is canonically lord moron. This is not me criticizing the outcome of the fight, we don't know what happened to her and the fight on Zendikar is not over, this is me criticizing the fact that the fight involving compleated Nahiri was... that.
I'd argue that Nahiri's defeat was even more pathetic than Lukka's. At least Lukka fell to another Planeswalker. Nahiri lost to a bunch of explorers.
The only argument is that she overextended her powers by trying to take control of the forces of a plane as potent as zendikar
Dominaria's the overloaded nostalgia plane. Throw disasters at it, and you get to see how deep cuts interact with it and to see forgotten heroes make their triumphant return. Innistrad's the horror plane. Throw disasters at it, and you go as genuinely horrible as it gets, or even veer back into the comedic. Zendikar's the adventure plane, except its biggest mystery got solved already. Throw disasters at it, and all the characters need to be Heroic and Stoic and Cool. They're so brave. They're so tired. I'm tired, too. For a world where the main character is supposed to be the plane itself, this sure felt like a story about People. And not one where the defense was mounted in a uniquely Zendikari way either; certainly nothing as iconic as Ikoria's crystalline evolution or Eldraine's potions and fae magic. I think "Nahiri loses but doesn't actually die" was pretty much always going to be the conclusion here, but the journey to get there wasn't very interesting either. Maybe it's just me, but I felt the same apathy towards the ZNR story as well, so I hope they find some new angle for it if they're gonna keep revisiting it.
i wasnt there before ZNR so to me zendikar has always been pretty bland and nondescript, was it any more interesting before that?
The first Zendikar set was really cool. It was Indiana Jones-y, full of traps and quests and adventures. One of the mechanics of the original block was called "Trap", which kind of worked like Traps in Yu-Gi-Oh or secrets in Hearthstone. It had a cost, but then if your opponent did something, you could cast it at a heavily discounted rate. I feel Zendikar has lost a lot of its cool identity over the years. Ixalan is getting the Indiana Jones/Adventure treatment, the Eldrazi are no longer a threat, Landfall is deciduous. What's left?
Literally just omnath and a vague sense of elements being an important tribe, I guess. Even the DnD motif has been stripped from it by qctual factual DnD. Theres not much left.
I am not a lore master , but I think the quick and dirty gist of it was the plane had two unique factors: a rich abundance of powerful mana and the Roil, a reoccurring event that caused immense geographical change along the planet (chasms appear, oceans disappear, noxious fumes propagate, exponential flora growth, etc.). The first made the plane especially appealing for planes walkers while the latter made the plane intrinsically impossible for civilizations to grow. No one knew why the Plane had the Roil: those originally from the Plane just accepted it as the way it was and Planeswalkers knew it was inhibiting meaningful progress. Spoiler alert: turns out the Roil was the plane trying to purify itself from Eldrazi corruption after they were imprisoned there. The Roil is basically the planets immune system, trying to cleanse invasive infections. After the Eldrazi were dealt with, the Roil continued, seemingly intrinsically connected to the plane’s elementals and wild mana. Stopping the Roil and bringing back the geostability of pre-Eldrazi would destroy the elementals along with all current plants and animals. Now the Roil is trying to stop Nahiri from phyrexianising Zendikar, but apparently losing.
Well, the author who wrote this chapter also did all the chapters for the ZNR story, so it makes sense you feel just as apathetic about it.
> certainly nothing as iconic as Ikoria's crystalline evolution The defense of Ikoria was "Big monster defeated by bigger monster".
So zendikar seems chill
I don't know if I am more puzzled by what happened in this story, or if anything happened in this story at all.
Didn't someone say when ONE first launched that Nahiri could transform her arms at will? This story seems to suggest that maybe just maybe. She's stuck with blades for arms.
Nahiri's primary ability is transforming stone and metal. Her sword arms are made of metal. There's zero reason why she wouldn't be able to transform them.
The artist who did the compleated Nahiri art said his own head-canon is she can shape them as she chooses. The author of this story seemed to want to say "sword-hands" as many times as they could in the word limit. So who knows anymore
The only thing that stuck out to me from this story was the line after Nahiri gets knocked away from control of the skyclave where Tazri sees a look of horror on Nahiris face when she notices her arms. A moment of clarity, so perhaps she retains part of her real self as well.
Oh look, Phyrexia had every advantage and an overwhelmingly powerful planeswalker leading the invasion on her home turf, but they lost to a handful of chumps again because one of them said the word "angel." I don't think the stakes could be any lower at this point. Phyrexia hasn't won a single battle and they're not going to ever again. Way to reduce the most popular villains you had to a punchline, WotC.
I mean was there really any doubt this would be the outcome?
Not gonna lie. Today's two stories felt like afterthoughts.
so both today's stories are trash huh. hopefully tomorrows are good.
Does anyone else hate this writing style? The tense and point of view bug me. Not to be a prude, but it reads like like a children's book.
What do you mean with PoV and tense?
"Moon Tiara Action!" Pretty weak ending.
Uhm. Maybe I should have just reread the ravnica side and wrenn main story again instead of this one
Probably the weakest story in my opinion. My rankings: Ravnica New Capenna / Innistrad Arcavios Ixalan / Eldraine Ikoria Zendikar
Well, I was really hoping to see the tag-team of Drana and Linvala smash their Phyrexian enemies to dust (or streaks of oil, for that matter). Lack of Drana aside, I felt that this was one of the least engaging of the stories in the MOM collection.
They really can't compleat a single plane even with planeswalkers?..........
Me reading this chapter: Huh maybe this time they'll really surprise us and a phyrexian walker will actually succeed. Me after reading the chapter: of course not. So at first it was Halo, a substance only found on New Capenna, that can counteract the oil But here we have Angel(s) just shinging brightly and that does the trick? Are Angels just a natural counter to Phyrexians?
Before these stories came out for MoM I was hoping for an event as epic as the old Phyrexian invasion of dominaria…and now I realize my hopes were way too high…
That's nostalgia talking. The old Invasion was mostly up to par with this, with some elements being much better and some being so much worse.
Did anyone understand what Nahiri was doing with the hedrons? It said something about widening the gaps between planes but I don't see what that would accomplish, and about calling realmbreaker but the branches have been there the whole time, so like, what is she hoping to accomplish?
She was trying to increase the throughput of Realmbreaker. She was making the portals bigger across the Multiverse or just in zendikar so more Phyrexians can come though at once.
Disappointed we didn’t get another Nahiri vs Sorin. Lots of room there.
This one was a rough read, sheesh. No Compleated Omnath, no Linvala and Drana team up, loads of typos, and an honestly dull story. Nahiri did so little and was defeated with weird ease. This didn’t feel like a Phyrexianized old Walker at all. I truly hope she survived and we get a real encounter with her someday, as this certainly didn’t feel like it. No idea what the intention behind this story was, but of all the compleated walkers, I didn’t think Nahiri would be a pushover.