Magic: The Gathering (Unreleased Sets)

Which may be the case but would be rather orthogonal to the Phyrexia discussion given the notable lack of Greek myths where the goddess Nemesis unleashed armies of biomechanical demons with a taste for flensing upon the innocent in order to carry out a personal vendetta.

Except Nemesis wasn't strictly about vengeance. She was about retribution against those who fall into hubris. She was a goddess of justice.

I could see a Returned Elspeth feel that bringing Heliod to justice would warrant taking up a Phyrexian weapon.

Edited by M84 on Dec 12th 2019 at 9:20:46 PM

Justice rather than vengeance is exactly my point: "sure, doing this will probably get lots and lots of people flayed alive by hell cyborgs, but at least Heliod will finally get his" is the latter, not the former!

It is a very Knight Templar kind of justice. “Heliod must answer for his crimes no matter what” or something.

Remember that she is Returned and may not exactly be in her right mind.

Edited by M84 on Dec 13th 2019 at 3:53:43 AM

So, like notably non-monowhite character Nahiri?

Like, your rationales do not fit together! Either she's like the goddess Nemesis, in which case she could be monowhite but she would not be down with getting countless innocents flayed by zomborgs; or she's obsessed with "justice" to the point of not caring how many innocents get flayed by zomborgs, in which case she would not be monowhite; or she is monowhite and is fine with people getting flayed by zomborgs, in which case she presumably believes the zomborgs are good, so she's gone past "not in her right mind" and into "why even bring Elspeth back if all that's left of Elspeth is the name and one of her two most defining enmities".

Edited by CountDorku on Dec 13th 2019 at 7:55:01 AM

If we're going to bring up Nemesis, I note that in this scenario Nemesis would be fucking up Elspeth for having the hubris to challenge Heliod. Heliod himself is definitionally in the clear because the code Nemesis enforces considers the king of the gods above the law.

Not that this nitty-gritty is necessarily relevant to the broad-strokes-Greece of Theros, granted.

I don't think Returned Elspeth has enough passion left to be WR.

Yes, I'm well aware that actual Greek Nemesis was all about punishing mortal hubris.

Which makes it even more ironic in a way.

Edited by M84 on Dec 12th 2019 at 10:06:16 PM

In which case WB would still be a better fit than monowhite.

It ultimately depends on how much personal motivation Returned Elspeth retains. Maybe all that drives Returned Elspeth is the desire to see justice done no matter what.

Heck, the lack of really personal motivation might be why she's willing to use a Phyrexian weapon. She doesn't have the really personal enmity her living self had for the Phyrexians.

This is of course assuming that it is a Phyrexian weapon.

Edited by M84 on Dec 12th 2019 at 10:53:06 PM

Here's the Theros Beyond Death trailer:

One thing this trailer reminded me of is the Ashiok will also be playing a role in this set. That Phyrexian-like ichor one her spear might simply be Ashiok exploiting Elspeth's history with them to mess with her head somehow. Also, Arena is having an "Elspeth vs. Ashiok" themed event until Dec. 16.

That would be a clever way to bring Phyrexia into this without actually bringing Phyrexia into this.

Mechanics article is up.

• Escape is not locked to four cards.
• Devotion is back. Side note: "Demigod" is a type now, which I guess means Mistform Ultimate is now one and a half gods.
• Constellation is also back, although now it also appears on non-enchantment permanents.
• And Theros now has its own Sagas!

Yeah, like, maybe Elspeth's memories of Phyrexia interact with Nyx's "Dreams Become Reality" thing and externalize from her into the form of that spear possibly via Ashiok's nightmare magic, resulting in Gods' End looking as Phyrexian as it does.

And possibly functioning like a corrosive Phyrexian weapon. Which might be just what the doctor ordered for taking down a god.

...though on the topic of mono-white characters, do take heed to remember how Akroma was during the Onslaught era. Bitter, vengeful, full of rage against Phage. Let alone some of the other mono-white characters from that block.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 12th 2019 at 9:32:12 AM

Akroma was indeed printed as monowhite...under a much older design paradigm (remember, Onslaught block is 17 years old), and one where they were vastly less willing to print cards in multicolour. I very much doubt that a modern character with what I know about Akroma's personality would be mono-white, and her card would almost certainly be RW because it has haste.

Do you think Lieutenant Kirtar would've been White Black colors due to...well, everything we know about Lieutenant Kirtar?

I mean, I don't know shit about Kirtar, but if his whole deal is very much about having an in-group that shits on the out-group...yeah, probably?

Like, I learned this game existed with Mirrodin, I started playing with Zendikar, and while I'm not immune to the temptations of being a history packrat, I've never really dug into Onslaught the way I got interested in, for example, Invasion.

Edited by CountDorku on Dec 13th 2019 at 5:27:18 AM

It's quite possible that the other Theros gods are now making their moves against Heliod. Erebos would go against him for obvious reasons, while it's possible that it's because of Phenax that Elspeth was a different kind of Returned (unlike her lover Daxos). And Daxos is now blessed by the sun so there's that...

The weapon seems to be more of a "solidification" of the essence of the Underworld, and not the ichor from the Phyrexians.

Phenax's involvement would also be two-fold then in a sense, directly through Ashiok (since they've already established a "prior relationship") and indirectly through Elspeth (perhaps she's an attempt of making a new and improved Returned, but not necessarily having her do something on his behalf or negotiate something to their mutual benefit).

Edited by entropy13 on Dec 13th 2019 at 2:49:04 AM

Then again...

This is the next time when Phyrexians have come up, and Phylaskia is very, very suspect.

Could Elspeth be somehow involved in their creation via her nightmares interacting with the world around her?

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 24th 2019 at 7:16:54 AM

"Phylaskia", by itself, could be a simple Greek-ism, but that thing on Elspeth's fancy card art is definitely a Negator, and in combination with that "Phylaskia" does become suspect as well.

There's a new Red/Green god, too, which raises interesting questions about where this fellow came from.

Edited by Theriocephalus on Dec 24th 2019 at 9:55:37 AM

I mean considering how vibrant and dangerous her memories of Phyrexia are...what if her memories are somehow being externalized?

Her past literally resulting in whole new Phyrexians being made due to her Planeswalker Spark interacting with Nyx and / or the Underworld.

Less her being aligned with them, more her unwittingly giving life to them.

...Would that make Elspeth, in the cruelest of all irony, The Mother of Machines?

No less cruel an irony than Karn, a golem literally created to destroy Phyrexia, becoming the new Father of Machines and the unwitting creator of New Phyrexia.

But then again, Phyrexia generally has a way of corrupting champions and heroes who challenge it. Even Urza who dedicated most of his life as a planeswalker opposing Phyrexia no matter the cost surrendered himself to Yawgmoth because he saw Phyrexia as everything he wanted the world to be.

Edited by M84 on Dec 25th 2019 at 12:30:39 AM

Well, in far happier news, Gary's back.

Gary's return is giving me bad flashbacks, but then I remind myself that there's no way in hell they're putting Thoughtseize in Standard again, and that eases my mind a little.

x5 I read somewhere that Klothys was locked up in the Theros Underworld. The new green saga implies it was part of a plan to bind some titans in there with her.

The first Theros Beyond Death Mothership preview article by Mark Rosewater is up.

And here's a few more useful preview-related links.

• Theros Beyond Death Card Image Gallery
• The Theros Beyond Death Story on Cards. There aren't any actual Story Spotlight cards among them (yet), but it will be continually updated as preview season goes on.

Update: As I was browsing the Card Image Gallery after getting home from work today, I saw a Saga named "Kiora Bests the Sea God". And then I remembered that the art on all Saga cards exists in-multiverse, too. I can only imagine the look on Thassa's face if she were to see that. I'd be like the ancient Greek (-ish) version of Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!.

Edited by Lightblade on Jan 7th 2020 at 7:56:42 AM