Why is WotC Rushing Through the Eldrazi Storyline?
General forum
Posted on June 20, 2016, 11:58 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
WotC originally was building the eldrazi to be a grave and dire threat to the entire multiverse, so I was expecting that each eldrazi titan would have their own block dedicated to them, with several blocks between each block, to help make the saga of the battle against them seem more epic and dramatic.
However, when WotC chose to have two of the eldrazi defeated in one block, I began to worry that they were rushing through the eldrazi storyline, although that worry was partially assuaged when it became apparent that Emrakul was missing and its whereabouts where unknown. I was expecting that WotC would not reveal where Emrakul went for many blocks, to prolong the mystery and create a sense of tension and dread, leaving the players of the game and the characters of the story to wonder when it would appear next.
However, it has now been revealed that Emrakul is, indeed, the source of Innistrad's madness, as many players predicted, so I worry that WotC is seeking to conclude the story of the eldrazi much sooner than I thought that they would. It is certainly possible that Emrakul may not be defeated on Innistrad, that it may flee and then reappear, later, but the sense of mystery and suspense would still be lost, and I also doubt that WotC shall print a third version of Emrakul, since Ulamog and Kozilek each had two incarnations.
What does everyone else say about this? Why is WotC rushing through the Eldrazi storyline?
Postmortal_Pop says... #3
I honestly hoped they would kill off the eldrazi and phyrixians in one go by having phyrixia invade zendikar
June 21, 2016 12:19 a.m.
Im with ya on the disappointment. I can only hope for one of two things.
A: Emrakul isn't defeated and shows up much later on. This would be ideal because I think her new incarnation, while undeniably good in its effectiveness, isn't really as earth shattering as Emrakul should be. It isn't like she's lost any strength since Zendikar, but she has practically no defense outside of suiciding all your opponent's resources when you control them, and the extra turn I feel was unnecessary. The name and art is stunning, but overall I'm mildly disappointed.
B: Emrakul is defeated, and whether it's hinted our not, more Eldrazi Titans are out in the multiverse, far off in the Eternities near unknown planes, for the Gatewatch to eventually stumble upon or hunt down. After all, there is no rule or official documentation insisting there are only three Titans, just that only three were imprisoned on Zendikar. Perhaps there is another, or many more, some may even be more powerful than Emrakul.
June 21, 2016 12:36 a.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #5
By having the events of the blocks tie directly into each other, this creates a way to tie up loose ends. It's just the way they've decided to go forward with telling the story.
June 21, 2016 12:36 a.m.
Well obviously it's the way they decided to go, no one is contending that. :/
Just feel like Emrakul is (or should be) so massively powerful and oppressive, both in lore and in paper, that holding her over our heads, having us wait and speculate and dread the day she is revealed, would have been such exceptional storytelling. As is, having her story presumably end so soon after her brothers fell, like practically right after, is disappointing. Not bad or disconcerting, but she could have been such a perfect "oh shit I forgot about that."
June 21, 2016 12:54 a.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #7
@Postmortal_Pop y u want to kill off the phyrexians Q_Q
look at this face! why would you want to kill him, you monster?!
he was happy :[
June 21, 2016 12:56 a.m. Edited.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #8
I just thought this up....
if they had instead saved Emrakul, once we came back to Kamigawa it could have been super fucked with eldrazi! I mean, sure, the flavour of the set would have been lost, but lets face it, there isn't really a better plane to do this on. Aside from Muraganda. And besides, Tamiyo is FROM Kamigawa, studying the Eldrazi. She could have been doing to save her own world, perhaps doubling back on the idea of more than 3 Eldrazi gods, with others Ravaging the Universe.
It could have been glorious.
June 21, 2016 1:07 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #9
A cult can't rock the sock without a strong leader and yogmoth died back in the 90's. Yeah the preators are nice but all they do is bicker about which part of the robo-bible is better.
Though I will admit, seeing a perfected eldrazi Titan would be beautiful.
June 21, 2016 1:11 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #10
Planeswalking slivers should be the next weekly monster.
June 21, 2016 1:19 a.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #12
@Postmortal_Pop Phyrexia still has an inner council, and Sheoldred's reanimated corpse from Jin gitaxias seems like a pretty fitting ruler.
the only real question is who will rise up to fill the spot.
also, Yawgmoth*
June 21, 2016 2:38 a.m.
- Ravnica is tearing itself apart once more
- Theros is about to overthrow its non-caring gods, with Elspeth to be resurrected.
- Phyrexia and Nicol Bolas are at large and scheming.
- Lorwyn has enough to merit a revisit, as well as Tarkir.
That is 6 plot holes yet to fill, and they are doing a new plane coming this fall, opening up yet another. They have to resolve something otherwise it is all build up without any payoff.
Imagine an episode of Scooby Doo - what if they just had the mystery at start, the chasing by the villain and the exploration in the middle, but they never showed the villain being unmasked and saying "If it weren't for you meddling kids, I would have gotten away with it!"?
It would be absolutely bonkers and defeat the purpose set out. Villains have to be defeated at some point. Otherwise, you have a story with no end, which is no fun.
June 21, 2016 5:43 a.m. Edited.
lemmingllama says... #14
@Boza And Dominaria is still waiting to be returned to, since that story was tied up but never fully resolved.
June 21, 2016 6:54 a.m.
Not a block but a set. Each set was dedicated to each titan. This became impossible when they implemented the 2 set rule. So they had to find a way to shift one of the titans (they chose the biggest one) into the next set.
Emrakul fits innistrad better than any other set by twisting the fine balance that exists on that plane.
Phyrexian can be treated as a threat on another set...you dont just toss all the villians into a block and expect things to not seem clunky (in terms of lore).
June 21, 2016 7:07 a.m.
Wizards has to close storylines. There is no escaping that and remember that not everyone loves the eldrazi. Eldrazi aren't as much villains as they're forces of nature. They don't make such great antagonists as they can't communicate that well with our heroes. Once Emrakul is dead or near-dead, we can finally get to a new story and then continue one of the many open ended stories we have.
Long story short: Good ridance and let's hope for something fresh soon
June 21, 2016 7:15 a.m.
Well forces of nature can still make strong conflicts, even if they aren't antagonists per Se. And I forgot a third option.
Emrakul dies, and with the last Titan dead, the balance of nature in the multiverse is threatened as Ugin feared, letting either something more powerful take effect or things to fall apart without them.
June 21, 2016 7:53 a.m.
I doubt this is the end to the eldrazi titans...after all - unless Wizards are going to drop the ball on this one and then I'd truly be very disappointed - Ugin warned to NOT kill the titans. So unless Wizards state that the dissipation of the Eldrazi on Zendikar - if I may call it thus - by way of lay lines truly worked, I think that there will be a major catch...
June 21, 2016 9:26 a.m.
What if the true story they're building up to, is NOT the epic battle with the Eldrazi titans, but the epic struggle to survive in a universe that is collapsing after it's caretakers (the Eldrazi) were slain?
June 21, 2016 10:34 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #20
I imagine the eldrazi are the fungus of the multiverse, decaying the corpses of dying planes to release the energy back into the aether and start the process all over again. If you kill them all, dead planes will stagnate and new planes won't get the energy that's trapped in the dead ones, eventually choking out the whole deal.
June 21, 2016 11:35 a.m.
I'm not sure that they kill off dying planes (other than Eldrazi and it's inhabitants doing stupid things, I doubt there are many things that cause planes to die). No I think the Eldrazi are a natural population control, preventing the number of planes from reaching a critical mass that would lead to something akin to a "Big Crunch", where planes start to overlap and become one.
The energy given off by such an event would be... Catastrophic. And who else would want to obtain that power other than our lord and master Bolas? :D
June 22, 2016 4:52 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #22
Boza, ifired, I know that WotC cannot prolong storylines for too long, but, if they were not planning to have the eldrazi storyline last for very long, why did hype the eldrazi as being such a colossal and horrifying threat to the multiverse?
Also, Boza, among those unresolved plot lines that you mentioned, only Phyrexia and Bolas are multiverse-wide threats; all the others affect their own planes, only, so I feel that the eldrazi should be more significant than them.
June 22, 2016 10:01 a.m.
Well, technically speaking, until Eldritch Moon, the Eldrazi threat was only on Zendikar.
I subscribe to the theory that the Eldrazi were caretakers of the universe and destroying them all will unleash something even more devastating, which Ugin mentioned not to do, but is already 2/3s done.
June 22, 2016 10:09 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #24
Boza, what could possibly be more devastating than world-devouring eldritch abominations (apart from Phyrexia and Nicol Bolas)?
June 23, 2016 1:07 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #25
An over abundance of chaotic mana in the aether left unchecked because the being that fed off of it are extinct. Or the parents of the eldrazi you just murdered. I mean, they're big, but they're native to a place literally referred to as the blind eterities, they can't really be the biggest, baddest, thing out there.
June 23, 2016 2:09 a.m.
DemonDragonJ, it has been long. How long ago was Rise? And in the mean time we've seen planeswalkers get ready to fight the monstrosities. They want to close stories and this was one that was long overdue.
June 23, 2016 3:28 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #27
ifired, it has been six years since Rise of the Eldrazi, so I suppose that that is a sufficient time for the eldrazi storyline to last, but my main complaint is that all the eldrazi are being defeated in consecutive sets/blocks. Would it really have been that difficult to have two or three blocks between the battle against each eldrazi titan, to make the story more dramatic and the threat that they pose more dire?
June 27, 2016 4:52 p.m.
When Emrakul dies, a single bigger threat will be revealed at some point. It should lead to the explanation of the titans existence.
June 27, 2016 6 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #29
CChaos, I do hope that defeating the eldrazi does have unintended consequences, because Ugin warned Jace about that, and it would be a great twist if killing the eldrazi upset the balance of the multiverse.
June 28, 2016 12:31 a.m.
DemonDragonJ, and then have even more people complain when Wizards give us a new threath? "Eh, not as threathening as Emrakul. When will we see Emrakul?"
Wizards wanted to send a clear message, which kinda sounds like "WE'RE RESOLVING SHIT! NO MORE OPEN ENDS!" and I really like how they did that. Emrakul fits in Innistrad as the Eldritch horror
June 28, 2016 6:06 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #31
ifired, this has me worried that New Phyrexia and Bolas may be defeated in a single block each, which would be a terrible way to conclude the storylines of the two longest-running major antagonists in the game.
June 28, 2016 9:31 a.m.
DemonDragonJ, they said that defeating the eldrazi so quick after each other was an exception. I don't see them killing off Bolas as he's kinda the main antagonist. I see a lot of fights though, more insight in his plans as we don't really know much about it. And New Phyrexia? I don't know. I see them first invading a new world, this time failing when the planeswalkers find a weakness and then the gatewatch go to retake Mirrodin
July 2, 2016 5:25 a.m.
But aren't the eldrazi only limbs of the actual eldrazi? So maybe killing them will somehow open the way for the actual eldrazi beings to enter, rather than sending in pieces of themselves?
July 2, 2016 2:46 p.m.
_person_, yes and no. We are absolutely certain that Ula and Kozi were completely killed. They pulled the whole eldrazi in
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #2
so they can get back to the only truly interesting universal enemy, the phyrexians. You all know it to be true. The eldrazi are cool and might have an interesting backstory, but in execution they're just big stompy machines. Thats boring. The phyrexians are awesome! They Eviscerate stuff!They corrupt and take over from the shadows! Their backstory is the deepest and richest and by far the most interesting in all of Magic!
They. Are. Awesome.
June 21, 2016 12:08 a.m.