I just don't think it's an inteersting mechanic. The difference between being hit by 2 damage or 1 poison are minor.
Sets (ONE) Phyrexia: All Will Be One Previews
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I mean, yes and no. Poison damage can't be healed, and it's also half as effective in creature on creature combat as regular damage. Not that I am interested in poison, I think it's boring as well
landofMordor
Administrator
From what we've seen of Toxic and from leaks, it seems like poison will be used in this set as a threshold criteria ("Activate only if an oppo has 3+ poison counters") as much as a kill condition. I quite like this new implementation.
For one thing, it signals your Phyrexian army gets stronger as your opponent is more corrupted. Good flavor.
A second -- it pulls against the linearity of Poison as a kill condition by giving you rewards well below 10 Poison. Those rewards are not in the currency of Poison, either, so you will tend to use Poison as a way to unlock power, rather than using your deck's powerful pieces as a way to stack Poison.
And finally, the Toxic implementation deals normal life-point damage to players in addition to Poison (as far as we know from the leaks). So Poison is truly an additive bonus like Lifelink or other saboteur abilities, rather than a radical shift in deckbuilding incentive.
All in all, I'm vastly more optimistic about Toxic than I would be about the return of Infect. Will have to see if the rest of the card file builds on this implementation, but I'm not writing it off just yet.
Here are some other oil slick cards that were supposed to be shown off:
The most surprising thing about this leak is Jace and Nissa are being Compleated. WOTC confirmed there will be 10 Planeswalkers in this set, with 5 of them becoming Phyrexianized and five remaining normal:
We already saw Koth will be fine:
So that left the other 9 to be debated.
My original guess was that both Jace and Nissa would survive compleation, but as it turns out, I was wrong! My new guess is there will be two mono-color planeswalker cycles: one set of five incompleat Planeswalkers at Rare, and five compleated Planeswalkers at mythic. That would leave Lukka being Compleated for Red, and either Nahiri or the Emperor (probably Nahiri) being Compleated for White, with the Emperor surviving in White, Kaito surviving in Blue, Kaya surviving in Black, and Tyvar surviving in Green.
Some have suggested that the Oil Slick Planeswalker collector numbers indicate that there isn't a mono-red Phyrexianized walker, but the Booster Fun card collector numbers are notoriously nonsensical, so I'm not writing off the mono-color theory just yet.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Predicting now that they are going to retretcon the Jace & Vraska love arc and abuse it to redeem/undo Jace's compleation at the tragic cost of Vraska.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Real Phyrexians are soulless, though. They weren't able to compleat planeswalkers before, because the spark was tied to the soul, and removing the soul meant removing the spark. I think it was Jin-Gintaxias who found a way to compleat a planeswalker without removing their soul, which technically mean they can be redeemed?
I wouldn't actually be too terribly surprised if we never got compleated red planeswalkers, since red is the "hero color" in the overall Phyrexian arc. If we go off of the ones that we know were compleated, it seems like the most "vulnerable" colors are
(since all of them are either blue or green as part of their core color identity), with white being reasonably close behind (Ajani is core white, with Jace and Tamiyo touching on white sometimes thematically).If it is a pair of mono-colored cycles, though... my guess would be that the cycles are going to be:
Nahiri (
), Kaito (), Kaya (), Koth (), and Tyvar ()The Emperor (
), Jace (), Vraska (), Lukka (), and Nissa ()So mostly what Train has down, except I swapped Nahiri and the Emperor. I feel like they'd go that route because that increases the amount of drama, especially since a big part of the Emperor/Kaito narrative is based on them being forcibly separated from each-other by circumstance.
Alternatively (but way less likely, since it'd involve changing a ton of characterization):
Kaya (
), Kaito (), Tyvar (), Koth (), and Lukka ( - haha no)The Emperor (
), Jace (), Vraska (), Nahiri (), and Nissa ()Kaito and Tyvar are pretty much the only non-Koth characters we know are safe, since both of their colors are already taken in the mono-colored cycle.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Only if we assume all ten planeswalkers are going to be monocolor, and exactly one of each color is going to be compleated!
I agree this is also a good possibility assuming the mono-color theory is correct. The reason I lean Nahiri for Compleation is twofold:Nahiri (
The Emperor (
So mostly what Train has down, except I swapped Nahiri and the Emperor. I feel like they'd go that route because that increases the amount of drama, especially since a big part of the Emperor/Kaito narrative is based on them being forcibly separated from each-other by circumstance.
1. We already have a Compleated character from Kamigawa (Tamiyo), so having another character from the same world get compleated basically right after the first seems like it stifles the diversity a bit. Nahiri is from a different world and has a completely different look.
2. Nahiri's story has basically been exhausted, while the Emperor's is still beginning. Nahiri's whole thing was getting revenge on Sorin, which has basically happened between the Shadow's block (when she put him in a wall) and War of the Spark (when they had their rematch but then put aside their differences to fight Bolas). Nahiri's character arc is mostly
3. Compleating the Emperor removes her biggest mystery and one of her main gimmicks: not knowing her name. A compleated Emperor would probably share her name with the Phyrexians, which would remove a lot of the mystique around the character.
I think you are correct in your assertion that the "drama" aspect of the Emperor's compleation would make her a good candidate (I actually thought Kaito would be compleated as a Blue walker instead of Jace before the leak for the same reason), but I think Nahiri being compleated makes more sense for her individual character. We will see!!
much as i like them both and hope neither get metalized, i agree nahiri’s story is basically told and emperor’s is just starting
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The good thing is they're going to compleat some planeswalkers I don't really care about personality-wise this time around XD Unless they do compleat the Wanderer >_> They did Tamiyo dirty though
*hits Report button *
See, I have the opposite take: The Phyrexians have killed my favourite 'walkers before Wizards ruined them! Three cheers for the Phyrexians! (Also, previously: Dack and Gideon in WAR, thank god they died I loved them too much for me to trust Wizards with them any longer.)I don't like it. I don't like the Phyrexians. They ruined my favorite planeswalkers
Also I like it when there are like, stakes and consequences for fictional things I care about.
It's impossible to give a shit about Elspeth as a character, her arc is "Be scared, hide from plot, be convinced to run at plot by mentor who is probably Ajani, watch someone she cares for die, return to start" for like every single set.
Alara had the person die before the mentor dragged her back into the conflict, then she ran away from a place she viewed as paradise because it was different now rather than putting in effort to change it for the better. How twagic.
Mirrodin Beseiged was Ajani and Venser, then she ran away rather than put in effort so save the plane from Phyrexia. How twagic.
Theros, she gets distracted by an irrelevant plot while the multiverse is in danger from the biggest bads of the setting. Oh no her boyfriend died, Ajani is all like "Jesus Christ do your job", she tries and now she's dead too, how twagic.
Theros again, only now she's not dead. She escapes (runs away) and oh look now we have a new planeswalker hunting her down for running away is this finally a consequence? No.
New Capenna, no idea what happened as I wasn't playing but I bet you anything Ajani made her do it. She probably got scared about Phyrexians/Demons, got sad that a place wasn't literally perfect, watched a friend sacrifice themselves to save her life, got given some magic BS to get out of the problem she was in, and refused to communicate vital information with an ally when given the opportunity. It's basically a bingo card at this point.
Meanwhile Gideon is like "Oh shit the Eldrazi are a multiversal menace, better continue to deal with that over on Zendikar while ALSO helping with the whole Bolas situation! It sure would be useful if I kept people up to date with what is going on and the stakes involved, so I will!" and my boy Ajani actually gets to like, grow as a character, mentor his allies and still do plot relevant shit! And now they're both dead! Actually tragic! I was sad they died, and got amped up about the fact I was sad that they died! Hell yeah Bolas and Phyrexians!
Alara had the person die before the mentor dragged her back into the conflict, then she ran away from a place she viewed as paradise because it was different now rather than putting in effort to change it for the better. How twagic.
Mirrodin Beseiged was Ajani and Venser, then she ran away rather than put in effort so save the plane from Phyrexia. How twagic.
Theros, she gets distracted by an irrelevant plot while the multiverse is in danger from the biggest bads of the setting. Oh no her boyfriend died, Ajani is all like "Jesus Christ do your job", she tries and now she's dead too, how twagic.
Theros again, only now she's not dead. She escapes (runs away) and oh look now we have a new planeswalker hunting her down for running away is this finally a consequence? No.
New Capenna, no idea what happened as I wasn't playing but I bet you anything Ajani made her do it. She probably got scared about Phyrexians/Demons, got sad that a place wasn't literally perfect, watched a friend sacrifice themselves to save her life, got given some magic BS to get out of the problem she was in, and refused to communicate vital information with an ally when given the opportunity. It's basically a bingo card at this point.
Meanwhile Gideon is like "Oh shit the Eldrazi are a multiversal menace, better continue to deal with that over on Zendikar while ALSO helping with the whole Bolas situation! It sure would be useful if I kept people up to date with what is going on and the stakes involved, so I will!" and my boy Ajani actually gets to like, grow as a character, mentor his allies and still do plot relevant shit! And now they're both dead! Actually tragic! I was sad they died, and got amped up about the fact I was sad that they died! Hell yeah Bolas and Phyrexians!
It's odd you feel this way about Elspeth, I always thought she was one of the more compelling Planeswalkers.
Her whole story is about dealing with childhood trauma and trying to find a home where she can be comfortable enough to do that. After being tortured by the Phyrexians as a child, she (kind of) found a new home with Bant. But then the whole Confulx thing happened and the idyllic little Zoastrian Angel world got destroyed by weird demon entrail stuff from Grixis. So then she tries to confront some Phyrexians by helping out Koth, Venser, and co., but their plan fails horribly and the Planeswalkers barely escape alive. I wouldn't exactly characterize leaving a fight with a Phyrexian Obliterator after being mortally wounded as running away so much as trying not to die. So she trys to go to Theros to heal again, both physically and mentally, only to kill Polukranos, World Eater, and subsequently get conscripted by Heliod to take place in god war 2013. She actually succeeds in her goal, only to get murdered by Heliod at the last second.
Conquering death wasn't Elspeth running away, but her finally dealing with her issues and trauma head-on. Her goal is to finish the fight she left all those years ago on new Phyrexia. While we haven't seen the return of her new Planeswalking threat Calix since Elspeth left Theros, he's probably going to show up during the March of the Machines. On New Capenna, Elspeth went to find some information about how the Angels and the Demonlords managed to beat back a Phyrexian invasion. She also helped her new bestie with a promotion and pseudo-adopted an angel child? That part of the story was kind of weird not going to lie. But now Elspeth is finally back on New Phyrexia, ready to face the Phyrexians. She doesn't have a card in this set, but we've seen some art where she's with what remains of the resistance. Maybe the next two sets will finally let Elspeth deal with her trauma like WOTC has been teasing for the past 15 years...
Elspeth is just so much more interesting than most of the one-note characters we get on a regular basis. She has an actual emotional arc outside of the plot-driven weird magical shenanigans that drive most Magic characters' stories. This makes her easier to empathize with than most other Planeswalkers because her issues are grounded in human emotion.
I know there are a lot of people that really like Elspeth, some of whom do for the reasons you outlined above, and that's great - I don't take issue with that at all and I'm definitely not trying to attack anyone for liking her. I wanted to like her after Alara, especially with her teased history with Phyrexians from *somewhere* - which had potential to link back to back when they were wandering the multiverse while the Shard was still intact, the sort of little lore hints I love.
She's just consistently presented as 'the hero' of the story, while not actually filling that role for me.
I do just want to leave this quote here:
I find it frustrating that Elspeth was introduced in the second set to ever have planeswalkers, and we've seen a greater range and growth/change in motivations from tertiary characters like Vraska.
Edit: Also want to make it clear I'm not just hating on Elspeth. There are a lot of planeswalkers I have frustrations with.
Generally speaking, if Wizards has killed them off, I liked them and I'm happy they're gone before they could get retconned into being irritating.
She's just consistently presented as 'the hero' of the story, while not actually filling that role for me.
I do just want to leave this quote here:
I find it frustrating that Elspeth was introduced in the second set to ever have planeswalkers, and we've seen a greater range and growth/change in motivations from tertiary characters like Vraska.
In his first appearance in Lorwyn we got a basic framework of a person, a vague concept of who he is/will become - worse than Elspeths' first (and best) jaunt in the story, but that was true of the entire Lorwyn 5.
His next appearance is a jump back in time to when he was young and angry about the death of Jazal. The trauma of that death and of his sudden arrival on Jund - a place devoid of white mana and centered around red - pulls him towards a more vengeful path. The advice of Sarkhan, already a fairly incomplete person even before his corruption by Bolas, further leads him down this self-destructive route. He then spends time hunting his own people trying to track down his brother's killer, is badly injured (and healed by Elspeth which is relevant later), gets sent on a wild goose chase by Marisi, only to end up empty-handed when it turns out Jazal's murder died at the hand of another. While exercising that rage at Bolas instills some healthy fear in the dragon, he has no actual outlet for it and it's self destructive - he needs some kind of healing process to get out of this space he's put himself in. So he heals himself by helping others, and more specifically aiding the one who helped him in his time of greatest need - Elspeth.
That's an entire character arc in one set. He's clearly flawed, but works towards bettering himself as well as furthering the plot. His flaws both hurt him and progress the story, and the ramifications of Bolas' fear of pissing Ajani off slow the dragon down elsewhere which is fantastic because we, outside the story, know that Ajani doesn't -want- to be that person and likely wouldn't go rage-mode even if pressed. In fact, when he -is- pressed during WAR, he proves that he lives up to his ideals by not going rage-mode at the lead conspirator of the plan that incidentally led to Jazal's death and instead works tirelessly to save civilians who have nothing to do with Bolas's conflict. Dude has convictions stemming from lessons we've seen him learn, which he tries to instill in others and consistently lives up to. He's actually community minded, selfless, ordered, considered and disciplined - a White planeswalker. And his entire arc suits his home plane - his arc takes him across the Naya spectrum.
He also does a different thing each time he appears in the story - he's been the main character, a 6th ranger who rocks up to save the day, a wise mentor figure who grants guidance, an inspiration by example, a vehicle to communicate plot between characters on different planes and in different stories, a figure with reputation that shapes the actions of those around him. And now he's Compleated, after having had a narritively satisfying arc and being built up as a Big Good - which makes him, and by proxy the Phyrexians, all the more threatening, which is fantastic.
His next appearance is a jump back in time to when he was young and angry about the death of Jazal. The trauma of that death and of his sudden arrival on Jund - a place devoid of white mana and centered around red - pulls him towards a more vengeful path. The advice of Sarkhan, already a fairly incomplete person even before his corruption by Bolas, further leads him down this self-destructive route. He then spends time hunting his own people trying to track down his brother's killer, is badly injured (and healed by Elspeth which is relevant later), gets sent on a wild goose chase by Marisi, only to end up empty-handed when it turns out Jazal's murder died at the hand of another. While exercising that rage at Bolas instills some healthy fear in the dragon, he has no actual outlet for it and it's self destructive - he needs some kind of healing process to get out of this space he's put himself in. So he heals himself by helping others, and more specifically aiding the one who helped him in his time of greatest need - Elspeth.
That's an entire character arc in one set. He's clearly flawed, but works towards bettering himself as well as furthering the plot. His flaws both hurt him and progress the story, and the ramifications of Bolas' fear of pissing Ajani off slow the dragon down elsewhere which is fantastic because we, outside the story, know that Ajani doesn't -want- to be that person and likely wouldn't go rage-mode even if pressed. In fact, when he -is- pressed during WAR, he proves that he lives up to his ideals by not going rage-mode at the lead conspirator of the plan that incidentally led to Jazal's death and instead works tirelessly to save civilians who have nothing to do with Bolas's conflict. Dude has convictions stemming from lessons we've seen him learn, which he tries to instill in others and consistently lives up to. He's actually community minded, selfless, ordered, considered and disciplined - a White planeswalker. And his entire arc suits his home plane - his arc takes him across the Naya spectrum.
He also does a different thing each time he appears in the story - he's been the main character, a 6th ranger who rocks up to save the day, a wise mentor figure who grants guidance, an inspiration by example, a vehicle to communicate plot between characters on different planes and in different stories, a figure with reputation that shapes the actions of those around him. And now he's Compleated, after having had a narritively satisfying arc and being built up as a Big Good - which makes him, and by proxy the Phyrexians, all the more threatening, which is fantastic.
Edit: Also want to make it clear I'm not just hating on Elspeth. There are a lot of planeswalkers I have frustrations with.
Generally speaking, if Wizards has killed them off, I liked them and I'm happy they're gone before they could get retconned into being irritating.
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Dom Harvey
Contributor
critical support for Nicol Bolas in his anti-PW crusade tbh
I think they've been telegraphing this for many years now, actually. Teferi will replace Jace as the monoblue "Face of Magic" planeswalker that Jace was for a long time. If they don't kill Jace and be done with it, I will be very surprised.
Yes yes. I actually thought they were about to be done with Teferi after so many years (2018->2022) with him being center. He’s also white blue.
Dear god please no. Jace is a great magnet for all the terrible writing and inconsistent characterization, and he's already been ruined. Leave Teferi alone. Kill him off before you make him do anything else stupid ("hurr durr I learned nothing from my time at Tolaria, the Mirage wars, or the events of Timespiral - time to build a time machine and meddle with the Brother's War!").
Leave Jace as the 'brand new writer' bait.
Leave Jace as the 'brand new writer' bait.
landofMordor
Administrator
If we’re criticizing magic lore here, then it should be acknowledged that the entire magic story has just been wannabe Avengers for the last decade, and bargain-bin high fantasy before that. From a literary perspective it’s ALL awful storytelling, regardless of one’s favorite planeswalkers.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy the story (heck, Jace x Vraska Ixalan era story was what got me interested in magic lore in the first place, and I reread it when their Phyrexian cards were spoiled to mourn my fav Magic couple). I’m just saying there’s no use taking it too seriously, expecting Hugo-winning web fiction, or even hoping for coherent characterization. It’s fiction-by-committee to serve a game’s sales; of course it’s nothing but a pale shade of a notoriously cliched and commercialized genre (superheroes).
My magic story mantra: just enjoy what’s enjoyable and don’t sweat the rest.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy the story (heck, Jace x Vraska Ixalan era story was what got me interested in magic lore in the first place, and I reread it when their Phyrexian cards were spoiled to mourn my fav Magic couple). I’m just saying there’s no use taking it too seriously, expecting Hugo-winning web fiction, or even hoping for coherent characterization. It’s fiction-by-committee to serve a game’s sales; of course it’s nothing but a pale shade of a notoriously cliched and commercialized genre (superheroes).
My magic story mantra: just enjoy what’s enjoyable and don’t sweat the rest.
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I would like to point out the Weatherlight saga was also a pale shade of a notoriously cliched and commercialized genre involving gathering a team of superhumans to fight an apocalyptic threat, so yeah this is nothing new
That said, I do think your take is a little reductive - just because it's marketing doesn't mean it can't be good. It's the same sort of genre-pidgeonholing that led to Sturgeon's famous declaration and the Hugo award being necessary in the first place - after all, 90% of all Sci-Fi is crap why bother with the genre. Likewise, the comic book industry has produced some pretty well written notoriously cliched and commercialized genre writing - I'm not pointing at works of art here, I mean commercial series that are used as a vehicle to sell products but remain well written - Invincible, Starman, Ultimate Spider-Man, Gotham Central. It's not an either-or proposition.
FWIW I'm not holding up the lore of the past as some perfect piece of fiction, Oddysey and Onslaught happened after all - but it has had some real high points and can't all be considered bargain bin. Nemesis in particular, which is very relevant to the current set frankly as it'll be a retread of the same story - "Oh no our friends have been captured and Compleated" - and probably look worse for the comparison.
I happen to agree with your mantra too, though extended to all of Magic - which is why I exclusively cube and complain about the game and lore online nowadays