Biggest threat to the multiverse?

Lore forum

Posted on Feb. 13, 2015, 1:06 a.m. by asasinater13

Of the three major threats going on; bolas, phyrexians, and eldrazi, who is the more likely to succeed?

Eldrazi are extremely difficult to stop, but primordial and so unplanning. they go where they go continuing their destruction, but Ugin and others were able to study them and trap them before.

Bolas is scheming and powerful, but ajani was able to make him retreat on alara, he needed the help of Ugin's dragons to stop him on Tarkir... He seems to rely on manipulating others to help him to succeed fully.

Phyrexians are, as yet, unable to travel between planes on their own, though they seem to win nearly every battle they're in.

I'm not nearly an expert on magic lore, and I've only been playing/following since alara. So correct any mistakes in there. but in everyone's opinion, who is more threatening to the multiverse? (or is it some threat I didn't mention?)

VampireArmy says... #2

Forgot slivers mang. Fuckers are rutheless

February 13, 2015 1:07 a.m.

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is probably the biggest threat. it is because of him that the Eldrazi are even out right now. Tezeret, Agent of Bolas, if I am not mistaking, is leading the hostile phyrexians. again, a pawn of the Elder Dragon. so because bolas has orchestrated all of this, he is clearly extremely intelligent, while also being the single most powerful being in the multiverse. I am quite confident that bolas could defeat the eldrazi if he wanted, and the only reason Ugin survived the fight is because Sarkhan came in after bolas left. Bolas did not need the dragons to take down ugin, however it is unclear if he could have done it if the dragons helped ugin as they originally were created to do.

February 13, 2015 1:33 a.m.

asasinater13 says... #4

I feel like bolas wouldn't have gone through the trouble of getting the other dragons' aid if he didn't need it. just seems kind of unnecessary.

slivers I've not read much on, but they seem like they're not a threat to the whole multiverse, just the plane they may be on. Do they travel/exist on multiple planes at all?

I think I would agree that it's bolas. but there's the chance that he over estimates himself and his abilities to manipulate/defeat eldrazi and/or phyrexians. the eldrazi seem pretty scary. They just kind of don't have the intelligence to persist long now that ugin is in play again.

February 13, 2015 1:39 a.m.

RoarMaster says... #5

Bolas is the smartest. Having orchestrated more planar mayhem than any other being in the multiverse. However, he has been defeated before quite a few times, not just in tarkir and alara, cant remember all the details, it was way back in mtg history, but he was 'killed' at one point, or thought dead at least. So I would not say he is uber strong himself, just cunning and manipulative.

Eldrazi the most powerful. 1v1 Im sure an Eldrazi could take out any of the others, although like you said, dont have anything we would recognize as 'plans' going on, so they have that random factor going on.

Slivers the most powerful tribe, but without a queen are basically rebels without a cause. Also without the ability to transverse planes, they are more of a localized threat(Till they eat a planeswalker?).

Phyrexians are probably the most well rounded of them all. Smart technology using race, powerful due to their ability to 'convert' pretty much anyone/thing to their cause, a 'planet wide' threat like Slivers, and although they havent managed to reliably planeswalk, that hasent stopped them from attacking other planes, like 3 times at least they have broke through into other planes. There were at least 2 phyrexian wars with urza, and then mirroden.

I dont really know a ton about Ugin, but considering he is dead, that probably doesnt bode well for his overall strength.

February 13, 2015 2:06 a.m.

he didn't go through the trouble of getting the dragons to fight for him. that was Yasova Dragonclaw. I don't think he needed the dragons, but I think he probably wouldn't have been able to beat Ugin if the dragons were on Ugin's side, although that is unclear.

I think the phyrexians wouldn't be a big deal for him at all. after reading up on it, Tezzeret was sent by bolas to essentially keep the phyrexians disorganized. I think Bolas could destroy them, but he probably sees a way to further his goals through manipulation

February 13, 2015 2:07 a.m.

A few things to get straight: Bolas won on tarkir. he left Ugin to die. he escaped virtually unharmed. On Alara, Ajani summoned the essence of Bolas, so technically Bolas lost to himself, not to Ajani. He was "killed" once by Tetsuo Umezawa (his body destroyed, but his mind was left intact, and was later "reborn"). Tetsuo used a spell to destroy the structure that bolas was in, so it was kind of a cheap shot

February 13, 2015 2:11 a.m.

VampireArmy says... #8

To be honest, you seem favored towards Bolas no matter what but can you honestly say you're not letting your bias play a part in your judgment COB? I don't mean to come off accusatory or rude, just asking a question.

February 13, 2015 2:13 a.m.

I readily admit that I love Nicol Bolas, but my love for him comes from his power, my perception of his power does not come from my love for him. does that make sense, VampireArmy? in other words, I am being as unbiased as I possibly can

February 13, 2015 2:17 a.m.

RoarMaster says... #10

CommanderOfBolas When you said "...escaped virtually unharmed." it leads me to believe he was 'escaping', as in running away. You generally only run away if you are not going to win.

And "On Alara, Ajani summoned the essence of Bolas, so technically Bolas lost to himself, not to Ajani." Ajani still defeated him, he just used a Clone like spell, lol. Ajani's magic was enough to turn the battle against bolas, doesnt matter what spell he used. Thats like saying when someone wins by killing you with one of your own Cloneed creatures, they didnt win.

February 13, 2015 2:21 a.m.

Poor choice of wording on my part. my apologies. As far as tarkir goes, Bolas did not need to "escape." he left the battle both victorious and virtually unharmed.

Yes, Ajani did technically beat him. all I am saying is that it was Bolas's own magic that defeated him, not Ajani's magic. it is different than a Clone type of effect, as it wasn't a copy of Bolas, but an actual piece of him

February 13, 2015 2:25 a.m.

And the other thing about the battle of Bolas and Ajani is that Bolas and his "clone" disappeared in a flash of light, so no one is actually sure what condition bolas was in at the end of it.

February 13, 2015 2:30 a.m.

Kenthris says... #13

You are all a bunch of fools... The most ferocious being on the multiverse, are rats. I mean look at this fucker... Typhoid Rats. They can kill both phyrexians and eldrazis. If they team up, they might be able to infect bolas with typhus. Joke aside though , I would love to see a sliver eating a planeswalker. To be more specific, I want to see a battle between phyrexians and slivers. Then, a sliver eats Tezeret, Agent of Bolas . and slivers , manage to take planeswalking abilities...Upon hearing the news , bolas would shit his pants. The eldrazis, are only 3.The fucking slivers, share everything they have.The new planeswalker, would boost majorly the slivers, while it would act like a sliver queen. It would guide the slivers through the plains and unite them.On the other hand, I don't think that slivers are as parasitic as the eldrazis. They don't want to destroy the plain they are into. Just because the queen is gone they act like rebels.

Now , to conclude, Bolas, is hands down the smartest being in the multiverse. This is definitely a bad thing when it comes to battle. The eldrazis, just DON'T care man. They wanna eat. Even if someone manages to kill them , they would just continue to eat till the last moment. This is their strongest point. When someone doesn't care about death, he will simply fight more freely in a battle. Bolas though ,can't take part in a battle, that might even hurt him.A second disadvantage of Bolas, is that he plans everything from the start, when this simply can't be done. You won't know all the factors that will define a battle from the beginning.Correct me if I am wrong, but he left "victorious" from tarkir. with ugin dead, while sarkhan was there and revived him. He planned everything, but he didn't have in mind that there is a possibility that sarkhan would be there and help his rival ugin.

In a nutshell, apart from Bolas being smart, he is arrogant too, which might be his Achilles heel. I don't think there is such thing as most powerfull being, because you have to take into consideration all the facts of a battle and sadly they are too many.(P.S. sorry for some syntax mistakes, English is not my native language :D)

February 13, 2015 6:08 a.m.

lemmingllama says... #14

Well, I would want to say that all Planeswalkers are more threatening to the multiverse than any other force. Nicol Bolas doesn't want to destroy the multiverse, he wants control over it. The Eldrazi want to eat, and so they will simply travel through the Blind Eternities until they find a plane with enough mana to attack and eat. There are plenty more planes to go around though, the Eldrazi likely can't eat them all, and if they can it would take waaaaaay too long. The Phyrexians have been the classic threat of the game since the very beginning, but they want to convert other planes to become Phyrexians rather than destroy them. That isn't destroying the multiverse, that's just changing it's state. So we need to look at past events that could have damaged or destroyed the Multiverse. There is only one that I can readily thing of, and that would be the Mending.

The Mending was basically caused because planeswalkers were dicking around and being too powerful, so they caused problems in the Multiverse and in space/time in general. The act of planeswalking actually caused the time rifts to form, with some catastrophic planeswalker stuff (Apocalypse Chime anyone?) widening them to the size they got. If the time rifts caused would have stayed on Dominaria, then the Multiverse would have been irreparably damaged. Instead most of the planeswalkers died and we got the neowalkers, the current planeswalkers with crippled powers. These guys don't have the same strength, but they still have immense power. Their planeswalking destabilizes the multiverse, and after another long time there will likely be another Time Spiral block with the same stuff happening.

February 13, 2015 8:33 a.m.

meecht says... #15

Bolas isn't the biggest threat TO the multiverse because he isn't out to destroy it. He's probably the single biggest threat IN the multiverse, though.

I don't think he "calls for help" (i.e. Tarkir) so much as he attempts to "guarantee victory" with the least amount of investment. An extremely powerful being wouldn't expend more resources than are needed to remove a threat.

As Scrooge McDuck once said: Think SMARTER, not HARDER.

February 13, 2015 8:55 a.m.

Caes says... #16

I would say that the Eldrazi are currently the greatest threat to the Multiverse. There's an inevitability about them as they go plane to plane and consume its mana before moving on the next. As of yet, there is no known way to actually kill the Eldrazi. Because the physical creatures ( what we see on the cards) are only a projection of the actual Titans, who remain in the Blind Eternities, and only represent a small fraction of their true power, I would say they are definitely the most powerful of the three major threats mentioned.

February 13, 2015 9:16 a.m.

Kenthris says... #17

meecht nope :) he is not the biggest threat man. The biggest threat are the eldrazis. Just think about it. Were not the dragons against ugin, ugin would defeat bolas. Now that he is resurrected, we will see who is more powerful .Well, I hope that we will also meet a new threat in the near future. We can't get enough bad guys.I also, want some slivers in the Bolas' story. I mean, these guys are fab as fuck. Bolas, can't control something that hasn't got a mind and as I stated before, it is a matter of time for the slivers to manage to planeswalk :D

February 13, 2015 10:20 a.m.

meecht says... #18

Maybe I worded my statement wrong. As far as single entities go, Bolas is the biggest threat in the multiverse. I think he could even defeat Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in a 1v1 fight.

However, the Eldrazi AS A COLLECTIVE are probably the biggest threat.

Serra help us if the Phyrexians get their claws on the Eldrazi, though.

February 13, 2015 11:25 a.m.

asasinater13 says... #19

bolas could definitely not take on any of the eldrazi in a 1v1 fight. He needed to hypnotize ugin's dragons to guarantee victory there (we don't know who would have won without the other dragons involved. but with them on ugin's side I'm pretty confident bolas would have lost) Yasova only tricked the dragons at bolas's orders, still his doing in the end. Emrakul is more powerful than bolas by far. he eats mana an erases whole planes from existing. there is no match for her. It's unknown if it's even possible to kill an eldrazi. or what would happen if someone did.

Phyrexians with Eldrazi I'm not sure would matter. the eldrazi are like. instinct-driven eat-everything. I'm not sure being compleated would change them at all.

February 13, 2015 11:52 a.m.

meecht says... #20

In the Ugin VS Bolas fight, Bolas actually had the upper hand, then Ugin called upon the dragons of Tarkir to help him. Only then did Bolas spring his trap to dominate their minds because he knew he couldn't fight everything and win.

February 13, 2015 12:09 p.m.

FatherLiir says... #21

Inserting obligatory Storm Crow joke here

February 13, 2015 12:57 p.m.

Psyloarchy says... #22

I agree with lemmingllama; Planeswalkers are The greatest threat to the multiverse. Bolas is defiantly the smartest threat, but he's too confidant, and his plans can be foiled (just like the one on Alara, or Ugin's assassination). As for the eldrazi, I don't think they're going to destroy the entire multiverse. I see the eldrazi more like a plane's natural predator, and new planes can still pop up in the multiverse. The phyrexians are are quite threatening, but Planeswalkers can keep them down. Planeswalkers are defiantly the nastiest threat. The ability that makes them who they are is tearing the fabric of the multiverse it self. Also Planeswalkers managed to imprison the eldrazi, and are responsible for making the phyrexians an interplanal threat. (Also mention that Nicol Bolas is Planeswalker him self).

February 14, 2015 1:22 p.m.

JexInfinite says... #23

So, who is the worst/most powerful? I think that MaRo confirmed that Bolas, Eldrazi and Phyrexians are all huge threats, but Phyrexians are technically the more dangerous ones.

Besides, the Phyrexia storyline is god damn amazing.

February 15, 2015 3:04 a.m.

JexInfinite says... #24

Psyloarchy You're right in saying Bolas is the smartest threat, but you just can't beat those nasty Phyrexians.

I'm not sure if there was a single success against them. Urza and Karn ended up losing to them.

February 15, 2015 3:06 a.m.

Kenthris says... #25

LOL! guys , we forgot about Yawgmoth! I don't think his death is permanent... I believe , that either through Karn, or through his poisonous blood , he will be able to resurrect himself. Then HE will take control of the phyrexians and they will again begin to dominate one plane after another. Mark my words, we will se him again :D

February 15, 2015 5:17 a.m.

Emrakul, Phyrexian Master

Legendary Creature-Eldrazi Horror

Emrakul, Phyrexian Master can't be countered.

When you cast Emrakul, take an extra turn after this one.

Flying, protection from colored spells, annihilator 6, infect

When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.

15/15

February 16, 2015 11:11 a.m.

Psyloarchy: Planeswalkers used to be so powerful that they tore at the fabric of the multiverse, but they haven't been harming the multiverse since the mending (which fixed the tears and took away a lot of power from the planeswalkers).

February 16, 2015 11:52 a.m.

Kenthris says... #28

CommanderOfBolas rly? I don't think so. ONLY Karn, had body powerfull enough to sustain a time travel. He was the only reason that the multiverse got harmed. Were another pw in Karn's position, he would have immediately die.(this is why I don't get Sarkhan's time travel)Also, keep in mind , that the three planeswalkers, did not beat the eldrazis. They simply managed to sustain them. They were too powerfull to be beaten. The plane of zendikar, was doomed since the beginning. Even in their prison they consumed the mana of the plane and eventually the plane would dry out of it(that's why Nissa didn't help Sorin to sustain them once more, because she thought that they would leave the plane.)

I told you before, the biggest threat of the multiverse, is something that does not mean its harm. The eldrazis. They don't care about anything but their food.They won't stop until they have eaten ALL the mana source of all planes.This is because , their home is the blind eternities. They don't have a "home".

The phyrexians, won't destroy their plane, neither will Bolas.

February 16, 2015 12:34 p.m.

@Kenthris: I am not just referring to time travel. the act of planeswalking used to cause small tears that gradually grew. since the mending, planeswalkers are no longer immortal and they cant contain as much information.

As far as the time travel issue goes: Karn's time travel was through science, whereas Sarkhan's time travel wa through Ugin's magic. technically, anyone could travel through Ugin's magic, but only silver could go through time using Urza's time travel stuff, which is why he created Karn. Anyway, I think the walkers will find a way to trap the eldrazi in the B.E. so that they cant consume the planes anymore. I understand your opinion completely, but this whole thread is simply opinion. tthere is no right or wrong, just a discussion between us. I still think Bolas is a bigger danger simply because he is trying to regain the power he lost through the mending (which is what the whole Alara Conflux was about)

February 16, 2015 12:49 p.m.

Kenthris says... #30

CommanderOfBolas LoLs , I only like slivers man AND Typhoid Rats .I still wait for a block to be based around slivers xD.As for the biggest threat , I would want a new one to immerse.Bolas , is behind everything man, that's for sure. I don't think though , that he is so much evil. I mean , he hasn't done the crimes of yawgmoth. I mean, HOW THE FUCK can't you notice sarkhan? I don't believe that because he might not know him at that time, he couldn't recognize him. Ugin and Bolas, have completely anti-diametrical abilities, so I believe Bolas can too time travel.The phyrexians , are in a way or another in his control.He will know what to do most of the times. I would call him more like an assassin. He doesn't get dirty , when there is no need to.I don't know about you man, but I think the whole point of magic, is to show us how strong dragons are :D . See Ugin, Bolas, Niv Mizzet etc.I am kinda disappointed though, that they won't make a full set about dragons.

February 16, 2015 1:23 p.m.

I was reading through the comments and I saw someone wrote that they have no way to kill the Eldrazi.

What about Ghostfire?

February 16, 2015 1:49 p.m.

Kenthris says... #32

bananamaniaman Yeah, it apparently did nothing to the eldrazis.

February 16, 2015 3:28 p.m.

lemmingllama says... #33

@bananamaniaman Because the Eldrazi live in the Blind Eternities and have no physical form. Ghostfire could hold them back, but it certainly can't kill them.

February 16, 2015 3:50 p.m.

The eldrazi cant be killed. Not in the way you think, anyway. The creatures we got in that block were projections of their forms (in other words, not the real thing). Ugin created the trap to hold the Eldrazi, and to prevent them from moving around and wreaking havoc on the planes. killing the physical form of the eldrazi doesn't do anything about their true forms in the B.E.

February 16, 2015 4:23 p.m.

What if the planeswalkers did something funky to the mana on a plane, so when the Eldrazi consumed it it might not kill them, but stop them. If something like that exists, it would be much easier than trying to trap them.

Lets say that's possible. What plane would be the best plane for that? Maybe a completely barren plane that's not worth anything anyway. Lure the eldrazi there and poison them?

February 16, 2015 10:31 p.m.

Phyrexians, if they manage to catch a planeswalker and compleat him or her, the multiverse will me in enormous trouble. That or bolas, because bolas

February 17, 2015 9:25 a.m.

This discussion has been closed