Magic: The Gathering (Unreleased Sets)

Apologies.

After a few seconds of thought, I would like suggestions for a deck that embodies the "It can Think" trope: a reckless animal, focused on dealing damage as quickly and as often as possible, assumed to be thoughtless until it starts pulling tricks out of it sleeves.

edited 14th Sep '17 4:47:12 PM by fredhot16

Hmm.

My first thought is to use a prowess build. Open with aggressive creatures with prowess and a mixture of damage-dealing and card-drawing instants. Keep some more elaborate ways to ambush your enemies in the background: spells that can be cast for virtually free to cause mayhem like Crowd's Favour, for example (suddenly your opponent's best blocker looks much less impressive with a pumped, first-striking creature bearing down on it).

Edit: Although this might be better in the spoiler-free thread, unless you particularly want to make it about pirates or dinosaurs.

edited 14th Sep '17 6:41:12 PM by CountDorku

Format?

Whole-set spoiler is up on the Mothership, btw.

"Swashbuckle" is a really good card name.

Is there a way for me to practice MTG without buying any cards?

• Magic Story: The Talented Captain Vraska
• Ixalan Planeswalker Deck Lists

Magic Duels?

Proxies.

I could swear I replied to this question. Did I hallucinate? Anyway...

Magic Duels is free to play, and is the "official" option. Has a kind of neat campaign, as well.

Cockatrice may be a bit more piratical.

Vraska might just be the most interesting and sympathetic Agent of Bolas yet. I really like her. Also interesting that the Thaumatic Compass seems to be what led her to Jace.

Ral Zarek tried to pique Jace's curiosity about Ixalan by telling him that Vraska had planeswalked to a place that doesn't exist in the Blind Eternities. Knowing what we know now about him being an Agent of Bolas, that was a clear attempt to lure Jace to Ixalan.

Then Jace went to Kaladesh and Amonkhet, fought Bolas, and Bolas fractured his mind which made him blindly planeswalker to safety...in Ixalan.

And now the Thaumatic Compass given to Vraska by Bolas has led her straight to Jace. Bolas clearly wants Jace to solve Ixalan for Vraska, and with his memory gone, he just might do it. Of course, an eleventh hour restoration of his identity just in time to save the day is all but mandated narratively.

Meanwhile, Ral Zarek's back home on Ravnica with Lightning Bug, monitoring the comings and goings of all planeswalkers on the plane including the Gatewatch for Bolas. It will never stop being funny to me that through Zarek, Bolas persuaded Jace to help build and maintain a system designed to monitor Jace for Bolas.

edited 20th Sep '17 7:58:09 PM by TobiasDrake

Vraska is a Punisher-like Serial Killer who tried to seize power in Ravnica. That she is still the most sympathetic of Bolas' agents (Sarkhan doesn't count since he quit and sided with Ugin) says a lot about the others.

Also, the image of Nicol Bolas studying sailing despite not needing it out of sheer boredom is hilarious.

edited 20th Sep '17 8:35:01 PM by M84

I count Sarkhan but with a caveat. He only became sympathetic after he stopped being an agent of Bolas. Before Tarkir fleshed him out, he was just a dragon-crazed madman who worshipped Bolas for being the most awesome dragon.

Do we actually know anything about Ral's motives, aside from having a massive superiority complex? The most believable motive I've been able to gather is that he feels like he has something to prove after spending a significant portion of his life in poverty, but there hasn't been a whole lot in the story to really suggest what he's up to aside from doing something for Bolas.

I got back from an Ixalan Prerelease. Here's my pool. Rares were;

• Bishop of Rebirth (Promo)
• Bishop of Rebirth
• Jace, Cunning Castaway
• Sword-Point Diplomacy
• Angrath's Marauders
• Rampaging Ferocidon
• Conqueror's Galleon

I made an Esper deck with this pool. My prerelease went for 7 rounds, followed by a cut to top 8. I won my first match after a Game 1 that I won handily, followed by a very grindy Game 2 that went to time and ended in a draw involving Jace getting off his ultimate. But it was all downhill from there, with me losing the next 5 matches. I pulled off a rather spectacular win in the final round with Jace once again bringing out his clones, and my Conqueror's Foothold repeatedly getting back Walk the Plank from my Graveyard. But my final record was 2-5.

edited 29th Sep '17 4:41:13 PM by Lightblade

New story.

Nissa would love these guys.

edited 27th Sep '17 11:44:00 AM by googlebot

So the Last Guardian seems to have clearly been an Oldwalker. I don't think the Immortal Sun originated on this plane. Someone brought it here. I wonder if it might be a relic from a previous Magic arc? My mind shot straight to the Golgothian Sylex, but that was destroyed a long time ago.

This world has an ancient artifact of cosmic doom, a mythical figure shrouded in holy reverence, and a mysterious enchantment preventing anyone from planeswalking away with the prize. Someone really didn't want the Immortal Sun leaving Ixalan.

Whoever the Last Guardian was, I'm inclined to say it's not Nicol Bolas. If Bolas had deposited it here for safekeeping, there's no reason he couldn't have gone straight to it and then just done whatever the agent Vraska's calling is supposed to do in order to break through the enchantment and go home. If it was already his property and he knew exactly where it was, he'd be doing this himself.

Nicol Bolas wants the Immortal Sun. The fact that obtaining it requires any effort at all on his part means it does not already belong to him.

edited 27th Sep '17 11:47:33 AM by TobiasDrake

Maybe the reason Bolas isn't going by himself is that if his Agent refuses to cooperate once he calls him, he'd be trapped on Ixalan until he found another way out. And we all know that his Agents aren't exactly the most loyal, and he probably knows that too.

Azor is involved. Bolas didn't do it himself because he can't leave the plane too. The aether-gate from Kaladesh made possible to transport the MacGuffin. Jace will be able to leave because he is the Living Guildpact, as per spell from Azor.

I'm guessing Ugin did it. Sealing away powerful and dangerous things instead of destroying them is his modus operandi.

I'm hoping hoping hoping it'll be someone who will bring the story circle in.

I'm hoping for Urza prior to his death, mostly because it'd be a neat way to loop in the Weatherlight Saga in preparation for the return to Dominaria in Spring.

* Characters stand around looking a bit confused*

* Fandom collectively shits itself*

I mean, all we really know about the Immortal Sun is that it's an object, probably a sphere, capable of generating immense planet-destroying power and left here by what was probably an Oldwalker.

Powerstones were all the rage in Urza's time.

You know, Bolas is a bit more interesting than a lot of power hungry villains because he's motivated by a loss of power that we witnessed. You know? We know what he's lost, and what he wants, because it used to be what was normal.

Also remember: he's one of the oldest if not the oldest Planeswalker, being around 25,000 years old. His duel against a demonic leviathan was the first Planeswalker Duel on Dominaria. He was a god for millennia. He could shape entire worlds, entire planes with his power. Reality was his toy.

And then it was gone. The spark dimmed. His godlike power and immortality stripped away. For the first time in a long, long time, he felt weak. Vulnerable. Afraid.

His entire driving goal now is to get that power back with interest. To remind the multiverse that he is its master. That he deserves it all.