I Hope that Bolas Does not Return to the Story at any Time Soon
Lore forum
Posted on June 3, 2025, 9:26 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
When Bolas was imprisoned in his own meditation realm, everyone predicted that WotC had written the story in such a way that Bolas could return, if they chose to do so, and, with Bolas having escaped, it is likely only a matter of time before he again plays a major role in the story, but I do hope that WotC waits for at least several more sets before re-introducing him, because, despite War of the Spark having been released six years ago (wow, has it really been that long, already?), I have not yet had a chance to miss Bolas, and I would like to see some other villains be major antagonists, before having a legacy villain return; at this moment, WotC seems to be strongly hinting that Tezzeret shall be the next major villain, or, at least, the main antagonist of Edge of Eternities (and, as a side note, the fact that Bolas escaped from the meditation realm shortly before EoE has me concerned that he may be involved in the story of that set), so I hope that he shall be very impressive, and not be overshadowed by anyone else. If WotC does wish for Bolas to return, I hope that they wait at least until every set that has currently been announced is released, to give players more time to miss him and actually anticipate his return.
What does everyone else say, about this? Do you hope that WotC shall wait for many more sets before focusing on Bolas, again? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, on this matter.
Also, as a side note, why did Jace even enter the meditation realm, anyway? Did he intend to release Bolas, or was that an unfortunate side effect?
Jace wants to undo all the hardship of the Multiverse. No Eldrazi, No phyrexians, no Bolas. Only happy fun times brought to you by the worst choice for the Living Guildpact. He's a winy baby. I don't love all the things that have happened either. I hate that Nahiri brought the Eldrazi to Innistrad. But I have come to accept the things you cannot change. Jace needs an intervention, and an execution. But I have hated the prick since he stole the power of the Guildpact and instead of protecting Ravnica and hosting the duty of being arbitrator of inter guild issues he up and left. He used this power to clone himself into Ashiok and steal from people's dreams and left them with nightmares. (or it was a disguise? IDK but if he didn't make a spark double of himself why did we even bother connecting those dots? Why did he choose that evil to hide as? Especially with Ashiok's relation to Elspeth and how Elspeth left him the last time they had met) He is a bad soul and needs to be ended...
On the Note of Bolas. I agree. I would like another 10-15 years of machinations before he is a REAL villain again. He is one of my favorite characters in MTG but I would love to see Ugin shown in a darker light too. I think it would be grand to find that ALL Elder Dragons are so vain that even Ugin becomes a threat. As for Bolas, if they just whip him out super fast it will be War of the Spark all over again. Too much, too fast with no time to worry about what might happen.
Right now he only knows his name, He does not yet recall who he used to be just that he was something more before he was locked up. Hell he didn't even know why he was chained to Ugin. But if Tezz is the big bad of EoE it could be leading to giving back Bolas' memories. But again, I agree that some other threat should take the spotlight for a bit.
At this rate though, It will take 6 years to get 12 MTG sets if they keep filling STANDARD with things like FF and Airbending. Things that have no relation to the story. So it may happen in 6 sets, which may be 3-4 years away. Depends on how Wizards moves forward with releases.
June 4, 2025 2:56 p.m.
RiotRunner789 says... #4
Honestly, after reading @IlLupo643's comment, Jace should be the next big bad (and ultimately die permanently). But Wizards is neither that brave or creative.
June 4, 2025 5:26 p.m.
I just want a major green-white villain, or at least a good shakeup of the villain colors. Trostani barely counts, she was only one-third villain and went face-first into red at the end. Mono-white isn't surprising or subversive as a villain color any more. It's been deeply explored.
The long-term arc villains so far have been mono-black (Old Phyrexia), blue-black-red (Nicol Bolas), colorless (Eldrazi), and white-primary five color (New Phyrexia). If every color is capable of good and evil, let's see a blue-green or green-white villain who's more than a bit character.
As far as story goes, and kind of the inversion of that mini-rant, I'm kind of hoping that Nicol Bolas joins the good guys for a while. Give us a Grixis-colored hero. If he doesn't have any memories, and The Multiverse's Greatest Mind Mage wants to do something interesting and heroic, why not turn one of his greatest enemies into one of his closest allies? Load up Bolas' mind with thoughts of how much he wants to preserve and protect the people of the multiverse, take advantage of his narcissism while tamping down his lust for power, and send him out. "Hey Bolas. Everyone will love you and honor you if you protect them from Bad Things. Remember how much you wanted to do that? Remember how good it felt to have people wanting you to be their protector?"
A hero against a villain. I don't think WotC will go for it any time soon, but I'm having fun with the idea.
June 4, 2025 7:34 p.m.
I think that the trifecta of Nicol Bolas, The Eldrazi, and the Phyrexians as MtG's Big Villains of the multiverse has kind of taken up a lot of the design room for villains in the game's story, at least when it comes to multi-plane storylines.
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Nicol Bolas is the scheming noble archetype. Lots of power, resources, and intellect invested into long-term plans to gain as much power for himself as he can. People end up under his influence without even knowing it.
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The Eldrazi are essentially massive, eldritch, world-ending forces of nature. They don't have any real plans, they just want to consume worlds and don't really spare much thought for the lives and machinations of the other beings in the multiverse.
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The Phyrexians check off the "space invaders", "corrupters", "evolving mutators", "robots", and "evil collectivist" boxes. You could even count them as covering the "wants to make everything better, their way" angle too. Now that we have Phyrexian philosophies centered around each colour, you can't even say that they are restricted to one particular outlook in their collectivist bent either. They cover a lot of angles.
So between those three villains they cover an awful lot of the creative territory for what a multiverse level Big Bad can be in MtG. If you stick to smaller, set-specific storylines then there are all sorts of villains that could be invented for more limited circumstances. When we get up to the multiverse level though, it will be tough to create another big threat that won't just seem like a more toned down or variant version of one of the three villains listed above.
Although, Jace as a villain does open up the option for a slightly different option. He's doing the "I know what will make everything better" angle but it's in a more conservative "return everything to how it was" sort of way that differs from the Phyrexian "We will progress everything to the superior state" approach. What makes Jace a threat though is that, while he has been given some pretty strong abilities, he might not have what it takes to really pull off what he wants to and he could end up messing it all up at the end with multiverse level consequences. Urza is an example of what the machinations of a powerful mono-blue character can get up to, and it doesn't inspire confidence in a smooth outcome.
Nicol Bolas being freed up as a possible villain again kind of makes sense in a "swinging of the pendulum" sort of way. We've come out of a massive war arc with the Phyrexians so shifting the story from armies to a powerful individual threat again gives a change of pace. The Omen Paths also gives Bolas a way to engage in multi-planar schemes again despite having lost his spark. His current memory loss leaves a lot up in the air though. Personally, I think it will be annoying if WotC ends up having him pretend to have the memory loss even after remembering so that he can pull some double-cross for one of his schemes down the line. It would be a petty, small-scale move compared to the grandiose plans he's usually involved in.
June 5, 2025 7:15 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #7
IlLupo643, I definitely would like to see Jace as a major villain in the story, but I am not certain if WotC is willing to commit to such an idea, since Jace is practically the poster boy of the game.
June 5, 2025 8:52 p.m.
RiotRunner789 says... #8
Maybe they could be creative enough to have Jace inadvertently cause the next big bad.
Such as, Jace in his jace-ee brilliance thinks he can control Slivers for some sort of jace-like good. But, in a gremlin-like fashion, the plan goes awry and the Slivers get out/loose/self control back. They then use the Omenpaths Jace showed them (for some Jace purpose) to spread across the verse.
But instead we'll probably just get Tezzerett zapping Bolas to reset him or something and Jace does X and Y and both X and Y are pointless and dumb.
IlLupo643 says... #2
Jace wants to undo all the hardship of the Multiverse. No Eldrazi, No phyrexians, no Bolas. Only happy fun times brought to you by the worst choice for the Living Guildpact. He's a winy baby. I don't love all the things that have happened either. I hate that Nahiri brought the Eldrazi to Innistrad. But I have come to accept the things you cannot change. Jace needs an intervention, and an execution. But I have hated the prick since he stole the power of the Guildpact and instead of protecting Ravnica and hosting the duty of being arbitrator of inter guild issues he up and left. He used this power to clone himself into Ashiok and steal from people's dreams and left them with nightmares. He is a bad soul and needs to be ended...
On the Note of Bolas. I agree. I would like another 10-15 years of machinations before he is a REAL villain again. He is one of my favorite characters in MTG but I would love to see Ugin shown in a darker light too. I think it would be grand to find that ALL Elder Dragons are so vain that even Ugin becomes a threat. As for Bolas, if they just whip him out super fast it will be War of the Spark all over again. Too much, too fast with no time to worry about what might happen.
Right now he only knows his name, He does not yet recall who he used to be just that he was something more before he was locked up. Hell he didn't even know why he was chained to Ugin. But if Tezz is the big bad of EoE it could be leading to giving back Bolas' memories. But again, I agree that some other threat should take the spotlight for a bit.
At this rate though, It will take 6 years to get 12 MTG sets if they keep filling STANDARD with things like FF and Airbending. Things that have no relation to the story. So it may happen in 6 sets, which may be 3-4 years away. Depends on how Wizards moves forward with releases.
June 4, 2025 2:41 p.m.