Magic: The Gathering (Unreleased Sets)

That presumes that punching Bolas is the only important thing that could possibly be happening, and that they should be so stupid as to attack a being who can disintegrate gods with a wave of his hand. While it isn't necessarily skillfully rendered, the struggle of the people of Amonkhet to not be exterminated in the face of this extraplanar conflict is still an important part of the story.

If I were plotting out Hours of Devastation, I would probably have spaced out the Gatewatch's defeat - have Bolas show up a bit earlier and stomp one of them immediately, then maybe take some measure to keep them from planeswalking away and start hunting them.

Sure, fighting Bolas seems like a hopeless proposition, but you know what else is a hopeless proposition? Repelling the onslaught of the Eldrazi on Zendikar. Preventing Emrakul from destroying Thraben. Even before the Gatewatch narrative shift, things like stopping Phyrexia from overtaking Dominaria were hopeless causes undertaken by a people whose backs were against the wall.

"Shit's f*cked, start punching Cthulhu" is basically a standard of Magic's storytelling. Even this arc did it to a lesser extent with the Scorpion God. But with Bolas, it's like everyone's gotten the memo that the Gatewatch are supposed to get curbstomped so they're just not going to even bother.

edited 20th Jul '17 7:34:05 AM by TobiasDrake

Well I for one at least look forward to Oath of Samut.

will it be as mediocre as the planeswalker

It'll probably be along the lines as "As long as I get a chance to slit that damn dragon's throat, I'll keep watch"

According to Mark Rosewater, a certain famous card will be reprinted in Unstable. It's Steamflogger Boss, with black borders. Riggers and contraptions will also be part of the set.

Other pictures and tidbits about Unstable.

So I got the Nicol Bolas Planeswalker Deck, two booster packs, and a 10 pack booster box.

So far I've started work on an Afflict / Eternals Blue Black Red deck, an Eternalize deck focusing on white and blue so far, and I got Djeru's card in case I want to make Superfriends.

-silently grumbles about superfriends decks in edh-

Full info from the recent panel on Unstable.

edited 24th Jul '17 1:59:44 PM by Druplesnubb

New Story

TLDR: Bolas wipes the floor with the Gatewatch.

The dragon got some great lines in there.

I love just how absolutely full of himself Bolas is. Exactly what I expect from the bastard.

edited 26th Jul '17 9:30:32 AM by M84

Indeed.

So, we have a Breaking of the Fellowship already, eh? Wonder where each of them are going to end up, since they each just Planeswalked away in desperation with no real idea of where they were going.

Will this be the end of the block, though?

The best part was when he mockingly asked if he could join the Gatewatch.

Now I'm imagining an "Oath of Bolas" card...

Ral? Noooooooooo!

So next we get Jace of the Jungle? Green mana is good for you Jace. G/U represent!

That was everything I wanted it to be. And yes, the best part was Bolas mockingly requesting membership. I also loved Bolas's logic regarding greed. "It's not greed if I deserve to have it."

Truer words have never been spoken. ^.^ Dragon solidarity, yo.

Also, wow, Ral Zarek is an agent of Bolas. I did not expect that. It's kinda ironic. He won lots of points for being an Izzet mage willing to work in secret to undermine the agenda of his dragon master. That he was doing this in service to a greater dragon master is hilarious.

And awesome in retrospect. I had a hunch Bolas was already aware of the Gatewatch and that the entire plan to catch him with his pants down was foolish, but the extent to which he was aware is surprising. He's had an agent on Ravnica actively monitoring the comings and goings of planeswalkers this entire time.

Seconded. Bolas' last in-person (or dragon, rather) appearance in the story was just before I started playing, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from seeing him take the field himself instead of working through his planeswalker agents, but his smugness was a sight to behold!

Now I'm wondering how seriously Liliana is about accepting Bolas's offer to teach her how to control the Chain Veil. Would this be a serious turn to his side, or is she just saying that to give herself an excuse to flee from him now so she can backstab him later after she's gotten what she needs from him? The plot thickens...

I kinda want to see Niv Mizzet meet Bolas some day. He thinks he's such hot shit but Bolas just outdoes him in every single way.

edited 26th Jul '17 4:45:15 PM by Elfive

I kinda wanted to see Lili attack Bolas with the Chain Veil. Both Bolas and the Raven Man assert that it would be fruitless despite the incredible performance we've seen from it against demons and Emrakul. I'm confident they're correct. But I wanted to see it.

Also, I don't think the preceding chapters did a good job setting up Gideon's blind fury. Yeah, what's happening to Naktamun is traumatic, but so was that shit on Zendikar. He was still able to keep a cool head as Zendikar was burning around him. Gideon needed a really potent emotional gut-punch and some screentime to show him processing it to justify behaving this way.

The death of Oketra is the obvious gut-punch, but shunting the Gatewatch into the background for all these chapters meant Gideon didn't get to lay the requisite emotional groundwork onscreen to justify abandoning his usual characterization and storming off half-cocked into an attempted Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

Gideon's smarter than this. There's reason enough within the context of the story that his behavior could be justified, but the actual journey that brought him to this point was relegated offscreen, making him suddenly being like this jarring.

edited 26th Jul '17 7:19:01 PM by TobiasDrake

The only thing I can think of to explain Gideon's rage is that now all of the horror and destruction and mayhem has a face. He may have been similarly infuriated on Zendikar if Ulamog and Kozilek were beings that you could have a conversation with, rather than natural disasters with legs. If it was apparent that the carnage was being wrought not by animals or inscrutable beings, but by something with moral agency that could conceivably have just chosen not to.

I guess despite Gideon's best efforts, he's still got some of that impetuous hotheaded youth in him.

Maybe this will be the impetus for Gideon learning to really focus and channel his rage and passion as opposed to suppressing it all the damn time. Who knows, maybe this will end with us getting a WR Gideon card.

edited 26th Jul '17 7:34:55 PM by M84

I wouldn't really call everything since Gatewatch sunshine and daisies. Three of the four planes we've visited have ended in apocalypses of various sizes. It's implied that on Innistrad civilization's been knocked down a few rungs on top of their angel-god being dead, and there are whole continents of Zendikar that are simply *gone*. Kaladesh comes out pretty clean, but then again that was kind of a lower-stakes character focus story.

Shadows of Innistrad and Eldritch Moon in particular are what happens when a superhero story meets a cosmic horror story and the cosmic horror story tops out. I mean yeah, okay, it's a victory in that not everyone's dead, but in the end the Gatewatch does absolute jack against Emrakul; if it had wanted it could have ended them right there. Instead it goes back to sleep until The Stars Are Right. The Gatewatch (and Innistrad) are saved purely on a technicality—classic cosmic horror. You're left with this vague unsettled feeling. Ultimately, you don't matter. Nothing you've done matters.

As an ending, it's a fair bit darker than the original Innistrad block.

And I mean, I think you do need to allow the Gatewatch a win or two at the start or else they simply stop mattering in the narrative sense. Bolas here serves as the Empire Strikes Back moment; it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying if the heroes didn't have any wins. It'd be more like kicking a bag of injured puppies. The heroes got a few easy wins, got a bit full of themselves, and now have to be knocked down a peg or two so they can regroup and grow a bit as people.

edited 26th Jul '17 8:42:12 PM by y3k

I think a big part of the dissonance was that the early win was against the Eldrazi Titans, which people had taken as being a greater power than even oldwalkers, you know?

I'm intrigued by the image of black currents winding between planes, and wonder if the Eldrazi would have served to break them.

And depending on how you take Nissa getting assistance in manipulating leylines from an echo thing of Emrakul, Emrakul either has designs for Nissa, or for whatever reason after letting them imprison it in the moon, Emrakul has decided to help.

Maybe Emrakul felt like sticking a disruptive tentacle into Bolas' schemes and maybe setting something up involving Nissa further down the line.

...the cosmic horror, the being of incomprehensible terror and mutation, has possibly decided to intervene against Bolas.

If anything will catch Bolas off-guard, it's probably the revived Ugin and time-orphaned Sarkhan Vol. Ajani may play a role too, especially considering his previous victory over Bolas means Bolas has personal motivation to get rid of him. Sooner or later, Ajani will have to face the dragon again.

Didn't Sarkhan Vol serve Bolas though?