History Headscratchers / MagicTheGathering

** I think Bolas released them not out of wanting to get people after him but more of a diversion for the heroic walkers that were bound to appear to stay out of his hair.

*** Well How Would you use it? It See to be useless on a Mono Red Pack.
*** like most of the red cards that cause a creature to attack, it's not really meant for a monocolored red deck. it can, however, be used against a "utility creature" to help you get it out of the way by blocking with a larger creature, or you could use it with something like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220195 Celestial Purge]] to make a two-part creature removal. also, you could use it when all of your opponents' creatures are protected from your (nonred) creatures to get around those protections. Overall, it's an unorthodox spell for unorthodox thinkers.

** Because, IIRC, you can't recover poison counters. Healing cards are common, but poison healing cards are not(again, as far as I know)

*** However it still is different from your life, and as such, it forces you to make between two tough decisions. Either make a permanent mark on a creature you control, or take damage that you cannot recover in standard, and can run ONE card that can deal with it in legacy (Leeches.) In the end, yes it's the same as life, however, it differs in it's permanence, and that makes one's thought processes regarding how you deal with combat significantly different.

** The colors aren't intended to be absolute templates, which is the reason we can have, say, Elspeth and Heliod in the same block embodying the same color and yet end up with two very different characters. An example of a 'good' Black character is Sorin: pragmatic and ruthless, but generally working to prevent something horrible, or Toshiro, who wants to save his own skin but ends up helping to save Kamigawa. A Black character could do something of great good simply because they wish to prevent something bad happening to them. [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Star-Lord]] probably isn't a Black character, but the sentiment of wanting to save the galaxy because you live ''in'' said galaxy could motivate a Black character into doing good despite the selfish motivation.
** Thank you for your answer, I didn't count Sorin because of his white mana and Toshiro because he just wants to save his own life.(which isn't selfless so not passing neutral)Bringing up the film version of Starlord got me thinking about [[Film/IronMan1 Iron Man ]] who IMO now that I think of it seems to be a black character before his character development in the other marvel movies.

* I think Bolas released them not out of wanting to get people after him but more of a diversion for the heroic walkers that were bound to appear to stay out of his hair.

* OK, as of ''War Of The Spark'', we've learned the whole of Bolas' plan! We know why he needed the Eternals, the Immortal Sun, the Planar Bridge... so, why did he want the Eldrazi released? That, after all, was the very thing that ''started'' the Bolas Vs. Gatewatch arc and yet... they don't really seem to have ''benefited him in any way?'' Was it that he ''wanted'' a group like the Gatewatch to form? Why? He already had the Planar Beacon so it's not like he needed to give 'Walkers a ''reason'' to come after him. As it is, it just seems like the writers forgot he was the one who engineered their release.

* OK, as of ''War Of The Spark'', we've learned the whole of Bolas' plan! We know why he needed the Eternals, the Immortal Sun, the Planar Bridge... so, why did he want the Eldrazi released? That, after all, was the very thing that ''started'' the Bolas Vs. Gatewatch arc and yet... they don't really seem to have ''benefited him in any way?'' Was it that he ''wanted'' a group like the Gatewatch to form? Why? He already had the Planar Beacon so it's not like he needed to give 'Walkers a ''reason'' to come after him.

** One possibility would be that since green and white were the colors most strongly associated with Innistrad humanity, Sigarda had a stronger connection to those humans and was able to resist Avacyn turning against them.

** An update is that, a lot of people know the Dimir exist, but along with its secretive ways, they also put up fronts as librarians, messengers, information brokers, etc, to put up an overt front to further hide their covert actions. This allows people to know they exist and think the guild is a shadow of its former self, when in fact, it still carries power and influence in the shadows.

** The fact that it's a wall is the problem. Heck, Wall creatures in general JustBugsMe. I just don't think it fits well with the flavour of worldwake. Walls have no will of their own, or locomotion, for that matter.

* Something I hope we get answers on soon, but...why was Sigarda the only Archangel able to resist Emrakul's influence?

** The odds of having a spark is itself a one-in-a-million chance, which would lead to a handful of people on every world. But igniting their spark is not random chance, but comes from something tremendous happening to you. So, we get a concentration of Planeswalkers in places where big plot things are happening.

* If fully-fledged Planeswalkers are only about one-trillionth of the multiverse's population, why do so many seem to appear in the same place within a short time frame? Assuming the planes aren't much more densely populated than Earth, you can expect less than 1% of them to even have one Planeswalker at a given time, but many of the known planes have several. Even if you discount characters who became Planeswalkers millennia apart (like Sorin and Arlinn) or in different timelines (like Sarkhan and Narset), Alara, Fiora, Theros and Zendikar still have at least two each and Kaladesh and Ravnica both have three. Is there something about certain planes that makes them produce more Planeswalkers than expected?

* In the Weatherlight Saga, why didn't the crew of the Weatherlight just destroy the Stronghold or at least cripple its Flowstone production capability while they were there to rescue Sisay and fight Volrath? It seems like Urza, being onboard incognito as the Blind Seer, would have told someone at some point that several ''billion'' lives could have been saved by preventing the Planeshift between Rath and Dominaria. Even it wasn't an option right that moment, why didn't Urza go back later and planeswalk to the stronghold with a soul bomb?

** They do do it occasionally (in ''Godsend'', Elspeth summons a dozen soldiers to help her fight Polukranos and Nissa summons some elementals to fight an Eldrazi in one of the lore articles), but otherwise it's as above. Plus the general idea is that the Planeswalkers each have different specialisations and abilities, so while some Planeswalkers do learn how to summon creatures, others will specialise more exclusively in various forms of magic or enchantment (which in game terms would be akin to building a deck without any creatures).

** This answerer has only ever read one ''Magic'' novel (''Literature/TheBrothersWar''), so perhaps I'm not the right person to chip in, but my guesses are as follows: 1) It adds to the ComplexityCreep of the novels. You have to justify why Nissa isn't constantly dropping [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240027 Craterhoof Behemoths]] all over the place ''and'' explain to readers who don't play the game (or at least didn't play Innistrad -- I didn't) why the creature is special enough to want in the first place. 2) The way planeswalkers operate in-story seems to be more about being low-profile {{Guile Hero}}es, whereas the ones you and I embody when we play ''Magic'' are throwing extravagant spells everywhere and not caring who sees us. 3) Stories and games have different needs. Instituting {{mana}} or {{Magic Point}}s makes sense at the tabletop; it does ''not'' add tension or interest on the page. 4) It opens too many narrative cans of worms when characters can spawn hordes of {{Mook}}s out of nowhere, repeatedly; there's very little you can't solve with a RedshirtArmy. '''TL;DR:''' Because ''the story'' is better when planeswalkers can't or don't do that.

* Summoning creatures is the fundamental strategy for almost all actual Magic players, so why do the characters not do it all the time in the fluff and the stories? Why doesn't Ajani call up a few centaurs when he needs a diversion, or Gideon conjure a few dozen soldiers to fight beside him? Why does Liliana restrict herself to reanimating zombies, instead of creating aetherborn and demons and vampires and all the other goodies Black has in its toolbox?

** I was bothered by this again because I realised that Sorin being W/B now muddies the waters, so I actually took the question over to MaRo on blogatog and got [[http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/146765606933/im-having-a-discussion-on-another-site-with this reply]]: 'A character centered in the Black part of the color pie can be heroic in their ends but not very often in their means. They can save the day but it’s never for altruistic reasons. The closest they get is looking out for people that are important to them.' So the idea seems to be what I suggested previously, that Black characters don't act altruistically, only out of their own interest but can end up doing good things in the process ('why do you want to save the galaxy' 'because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it' etc).

** Thank you for your answer, I didn't count Sorin because of his white mana and Toshiro because he just wants to save his own life.(which isn't selfless so not passing neutral)Bringing up the film version of Starlord got me thinking about [[Film/IronMan1 Iron Man ]] who IMO now that I think of it seems to be a black character before his character development in the other marvel movies.

** The colors aren't intended to be absolute templates, which is the reason we can have, say, Elspeth and Heliod in the same block embodying the same color and yet end up with two very different characters. An example of a 'good' Black character is Sorin: pragmatic and ruthless, but generally working to prevent something horrible, or Toshiro, who wants to save his own skin but ends up helping to save Kamigawa. A Black character could do something of great good simply because they wish to prevent something bad happening to them. [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Star-Lord]] probably isn't a Black character, but the sentiment of wanting to save the galaxy because you live ''in'' said galaxy could motivate a Black character into doing good despite the selfish motivation.

* So I understand how each of the colors have capacity for evil but I'm having a hard time understanding how Black can rise above being neutral to good as when black helps it always has the ulterior motive of looking out for itself and doesn't believe in morality in the first place.

** Probably because that precedent would open up too many cans of worms, especially given all the strange AWCs out there.