MS: Testing the Dark Waters

Lore forum

Posted on Oct. 17, 2018, 8:33 p.m. by AgentGreen

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/testing-dark-waters-2018-10-17

An Izzet Chemister makes a discovery about herself and the world itself...

DemonDragonJ says... #2

I disliked how this is now the second consecutive story to be told from a first-person perspective, so I hope that not every story is told from that perspective, from now on, but, apart from that, I really enjoyed this story; it had great character development and just the right amount of twists that were not too predictable nor strained the reader's credibility.

The scenes in the sewers, with the fatberg, were very gross, but they certainly helped to add to the atmosphere of the story, so they did not detract from my enjoyment of it.

This is now the second story that involves the Dimir demonstrating their skill at infiltrating the lives of others, so I wonder if that shall be a recurring theme in the stories of this block?

Being that this was a one-shot story, I doubt that Leighbet or her discovery shall be mentioned, again, but it would be nice to know what, exactly, caused the rift that was so important to the plot of this installment.

I definitely am enjoying the story of this block, so far, so I really hope that the writers can maintain this level of quality when the battle between the Gatewatch and Bolas begins.

October 17, 2018 9:39 p.m.

RicketyEng says... #3

Link

The ending of this one reminded me of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

I am also curious of what that rift could be. If it's something impervious to electricity then I wonder if it could either be related to or have implications for Project Lightning Bug.

October 17, 2018 11:34 p.m.

landofMordor says... #4

I'm kinda enjoying these stories, but I'm also a little frustrated that I have to wait to figure out what Bolas is doing on Ravnica. That is, I actually miss the cast of characters that were just starting to get interesting, like post-Ixalan Jace, a decent-human Liliana, and mature Chandra.

That said, this story was enjoyable, but I think there's something to be desired in the shock-value ending (no pun intended). Not every story has to end with an O. Henry twist.

October 18, 2018 11:49 a.m.

DuTogira says... #5

I honestly hope we keep getting stories like these. I know that eventually we have to get back to the main arc explaining why we are on Ravnica etc. etc, but these stories provide a background and understanding of the plane which previous MS stories have lacked.
Examples:
BFZ mostly turned zendikar into "land with some races an a roil and floating islands. Now back to Eldrazi v Walkers"
SOI gave a bit of Lovecraftian horror with the gitrog story, but was mostly "Spooky lovecraft horror plane has Eldrazi v Walkers"
KLD was "Industrial plane features rebellion against a corrupt govt led by Bolas' minion"
AKH was "Egyptian fight club plane features Bolas and a demon v Walkers"
DOM was "Plane of nostalgia features walkers v a demon. Also recruit more friends?"
IXL was a bit better with "Jurassic park w/vampire church features a love story between an assassin and a mind mage suffering amnesia. Also the search for El Dorado?"

We've (overall) been trending to the positive as far as background lore and actually featuring the planes we are on. I dread a return to "it's a not-so-metropolis featuring bolas v walkers. Also class struggle?"
Having good development could make me happily regret the damage Ravnica will inevitably suffer from the coming conflict, rather than the AKH/BFZ/SOI situation where the reader doesn't even really care that an entire plane was razed and devastated, or in my case being supremely upset that WotC would just ruin Ravnica like a jenga tower.

Basically I want to care about a plane like I did with Tarkir or Alara or Theros, where actual characters that can be sympathized with are developed. Whether thats through first person storytelling or third person I don't particularly care... I just want to care about these planes from a lore perspective, which is doubly true for Ravnica, my favorite plane of them all.

October 18, 2018 5:14 p.m.

WhichKing says... #6

I hope we get more of these stories as I know that I'll just be disappointed with Bolas' "genius" plot. His whole scheme on Amonkhet was plain dumb, since the payoff was just a bunch of lazotep-coated zombies.

He destroyed the adult population of an entire plane, reprogrammed their gods to become administrators of what amounted to a gigantic training camp, all to get a bunch of lazotep-coated zombies. Oh yeah and the harsh training mainly involved the humans sacrificing their teammates to monsters and traps in order to get past them to the next "obstacle". This is supposed to make them "elite warriors" when they become zombies. "Genius" indeed.

October 19, 2018 1:31 a.m.

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