#mtgaer

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Ghirapur Osprey by Zezhou Chen

[hurleyburleystudio]

Paradox Engine - Distressed Alter #mtg #mtgaer #mtgalters #mtgalter #decaying #distressed #commission #scgindy (at Dover, Delaware)

[wizardsmagic]

We’d like to take a moment to highlight the work of an up-and-coming artist!

Yongjae Choi is a freelance digital illustrator and concept artist from South Korea, who has contributed stunning artwork to Aether Revolt and Amonkhet.

There is good news for fans of Yongjae’s bright, colorful style. Art Director Mark Winters says, “Fans can expect awesome things from him and I can’t wait until we can share more of the work he’s been doing for Magic!”

Click here to check out Yongjae’s portfolio.

[refreshdaemon]

This is the most consistent planeswalker deck of the first four.

[island-delver-go]

Round 1 went poorly but my pick off the prize wall was decent!

[cardboard-crack]

[coincidencetheories]

The Gatewatch Have Failed Each Task So Far

There’s been a lot of talk on my feed about how the Gatewatch are just waltzing through the challenges they face like a home-made banner at a pep rally. While they are all currently whole in body, and the perceived threat from each plane is no longer actively threatening, follow me down this line of thought.

The Gatewatch have failed at what they have set out to do, every time.

Their name is synonymous with failure.

Battle For Zendikar

Nissa and Gideon toil on Zendikar. Ulamog is loose and really bringing everyone’s grand Hedrons and Felidars game night down. Scion and Spawn scuttle around, and the very color is draining out of the mana. Gideon hits his main man Jace up for a solid to gather some help, which Jace initailly fails to do, asking LIliana and Chandra, who for diverse reasons have bigger personal demons they are wrestling with. So Jace, heads back to Gideon, and decides what he needs most is information. Nissa is looking for Ashaya, as Nissa did for several stories in a row. Turns out Nissa just had to believe. But Jace stumbles upon Ugin, doing vague and portentous spirit dragon things, as spirit dragons do, at his Eye. He tells Jace “These are beings beyond our understanding, here for a purpose we cannot fathom’ and then proceeds to give a very understandable metaphor about fishermen in streams. But he tells Jace that they can’t just blow up Ulamog. It will have untold ramifications now and in whatever distopian future we can bring ourselves to imagine.  (Side note... what were the ramifications of metaphorically driving a stake through the hand of the fisherman for 10,000 years? Riddle me that, Ugin dear.)

So Jace knows the stakes Ulamog is a fragile and precious part of an ecosystem beyond our ken. So he agrees that perhaps just pinning him to a butterfly display is the best course of action. Jace, Nissa, Kiora, Gideon and Ob Nixilis respectively fail, fail, lose their pet leviathan, drown in a puddle, and successfully disrupt this plan using the tried and true ‘Surprise Kozilek with a chair from the top rope’ method. Ob reignited, Walked on, walked back and captured three planeswalkers. And he would have gotten away with it to, if it wasn’t for that meddling pyromancer.

Oath of the Gatewatch

What Gate do the Gatewatch watch, exactly?

Sea-gate. The Gatewatch are watching the Sea Gate fall, to Ulamog, then to Ulamog again, then to Kozilek and Ulamog.

Now a lot of nifty stuff happens in OGW, not least of which is the insight we get through General Tazri of what a world where Kozilek out-watches the gate looks like. And in the end, Zendikar is saved from the predation of the two titans. But Jace and co had to physically drag multi-demensional beings into three dimentional space, then channelXfireball in a way that hadn’t been done since the days of the oldwalkers. Impressive, no?

Imagine you go to the doctor and you find out you have a blood disease that delicate surgery could halt the ravages of. Now imagine that, while you were under anesthesia, , your doctor slipped up and the cancer was about to kill you before the Dr. House stormed in and told the surgery team to flush your entire body with pure oxygen, then light it on fire, flash burning away all the bad stuff. Your life is, indeed saved. Phew. I was worried there for a minute.

But would you call that a successful surgery?

Shadows over Innsmouth Innistrad

We have ourselves a good old fashioned mystery here. With Ugin’s warning ringing in our ear to remember they came as three, all apparently we had to figure out was who that mysterious ‘They’ were, that Ugin referred to in the middle of a conversation about the Eldrazi Titans. The stage is set. Liliana has a veil, Tamiyo has a Journal, Thraben has an inspector, and Jace has too many cloaks. Also, too many clues. Avacyn is going crazy. Bruna and Gisela start doing their Shining Twins cosplay, despite Sigarda telling them repeatedly that it creeps her out, and The Gitrog Monster is a fan of 1990s Elton John . 

But who is this mysterious corrupting force, and seriously, what’s with all the spaghetti. Sorin’s mansion of foreboding has been renovated, but he’s nowhere to be found! Jace follows the hundred of arrow shaped rocks and finds Nephalia! Zombies! Mystery is solved, it must be Liliana! Liiiana says no. oh. The angels are turning on the humans, Avacyn must be stopped! Jace has GOT this one, guys.... nope. Jace is rescued by Tamiyo, and Sorin permanently grounds his daughter who in no way resembles his former protege. Well, Another successful investigation.Except it’s not. Jace, you don’t know what it is at all right now, in fact you don’t find out until...

Eldritch Moon

...until Emrakul emerges from the water, like a tribute to all those bond girls before you. “I know who it is now!” says Jace, thinking he’s Hercule Poirot, but is in fact barely keeping up with Captain Hastings. So here we are, Eldritch horror setting up residence in the middle of Thraben, and creating life like there’s no tomorrow, which might just well be the case. If only there was an inter-dimensional team of powerful mages, who had some dealings with.... oh my it’s the Gatewatch. We need the Gatewatch, don’t we. Well, they got together just in time, didn’t they. Innistrad, is today your lucky day. Jace 'walks to Zendikar, where presumably the Naya walkers are ‘overseeing’ the Zendikar rebuilding efforts from the comfort of a king-sized bed built for three. Come fastest, Jace cries, What’s with your outfit, they reply, Then off they go. (meanwhile Sorin and Nahiri two oldwalkers that are battling with current generation powers, must feel like two former boxing champions having a punch-on in their retirement home. But that’s not really germane to the success or failure of the Gatewatch.) Smash cut to the Battle of Thraben. Olivia and the vampires are here. Sigarda, Thalia, St Traft, form an unlikely alliance, killing Brisela. Also Arlinn Cord and the wolves. Surely they are around here somewhere during this battle? Maybe they just were on the other side of town. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Liliana is drunk on Chain Veil power and summons zombies by the hordeful and marches on the town. The Gatewatch are in the thick of it, somehow managing not to get sural’d to pieces every time Gideon has a backswing. Emrakul’s massive form crowns the town. The vampires, humans, geists, even Rem Karolus’s are driven back. Only Jace and the Gatewatch can help us now. They try their most successful Eldrazi Titan-defeating play in the playbook, aaand... it fails. It fails so badly that Tamiyo is about to read her plane-destroying story spell. But Emrakul and Jace had a mutual Zach-Morris ‘Time-out’ and Jace saved the sanity of the gatewatchers and Tamiyo (by delving into their deepest, darkest story hooks, apparently) and Emmy simply re-wrote Tamiyo’s story, taking a vacation into the moon for the now.

Was that a win? What aims were achieved? Again the ‘plane was saved’, but despite all the effort that Jace and co. put in, the final call was Emrakuls. And i doubt she locked herself in without taking the key with her.

So, Zendikar is safe. But the ecosystem of the Multiverse may be irreparably altered; innistrad has gone from passively being influenced by Emrakul to ACTIVELY being influenced by Emrakul to being passively influenced by Emrakul again. Great job guys and gals. Which leaves us with...

Kaladesh

You know, I wonder exactly how many mage traps Captain Baral has around the city, Whether they are one-countermagic-fits-all, or if he has to lead the fire mages to different ornately engineered snares than the telepaths. Also, Can you planeswalk to the plane that you’re on? If you can, neither Nissa or Chandra know of it. And I have to say, I guess that in the Kaladesh block, ultimately the Gatewatch succeeded. Succeeded in picking the queen in Three Card Monte while street hustler Tezzeret picked their metaphorical pocket. Yes, they saved Pia. But Tezzeret simply used the conflict between the Consulate of benign-if-overly-paternalistic-bureaucrats and the revolution-if-that’s-alright-with-the-rest-of-you guys renegades to snatch up the inventions and Stockholm Syndrome the inventors.

Aether Revolt

So while Chandra is focused on the personal issues, and their ramifications vis-a-vis the cancer within the consulate, Jace and Liliana, with backing vocals from Gideon and Ajani, identify Tezzeret’s plans with, well with anything Tezzeret plans is going to be bad news. Especially when they find out about the planar portal. So they defeat him! I mean, do they? He puts something suspiciously like the functioning part of the portal into his own arm and then planeswalks away as the roof caves in. The Bridge on Kaladesh is no longer functional. But we find out that Tezzeret is doing something (planar portal or othewise) for Bolas. And the Scooby Gang have no idea what that, in fact is, or if he completed it, or anything.

Going Forward

So each time, the Gatewatch have gotten something accomplished that subjectively gets them a tick in the win column, but with more scrutiny are questionable at best. Going to Amonkhet with no plan, no intel, and no backup just because ‘well, bolas would use that time better’ seems like a great way to stumble into, once again, a technical victory that has lasting consequences that are at best uncertain, and at worst offer comfort to the enemy.But I suppose, given their track record, going in with no plan merely skips the Gatewatch past the part where they come up with a plan and then completely fail to execute on it.

[tiocleiton]

How could she tell this new life to laugh and weep without reservation or regret; to sing to the stars and waters, or to nothing at all; to love unreserved and unguarded; to treasure every moment with those beloved; to forgive any regretted trespass; to dance when moved to; to savor long silences in warm company; to greet each dawn, each face with the thought, this will be an adventure; to be brave, and kind, and trusting, and…

…like Chandra.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider by Cryptcrawler

[vorthosjay]

Let’s Talk About Renewal

Well, Aether Revolt wrapped up this week with Renewal, a series of vignettes hinting at what’s to come. A few very key things were dropped, but mostly it was about relationships and acceptance. And also kitty hugs. As always...

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Oath of Ajani by Wesley Burt

The Dhund is dismantled, save a small handful of prisoners. This means Kaladesh’s mage population is going way up.

Pia Nalaar is the new Consul of Allocation, replacing Kambal (whose fate is left unclear).

Yahenni finally gets their Penultimate Party.

Ajani joins the Gatewatch, invoking the tyrants he’s encountered with no regard for those they rule.

Liliana mentions that, as far as she knows, Bolas created Amonkhet. We’ve got a new Artificial Plane!

Ugin is described as an elder dragon like Bolas (lower case e, however). In this case, it just means they’re both very old dragons, in the Tarkir elder dragon sense, not that they’re both capital-E Elder Dragons from the Elder Dragon War. Which still only officially has one line of lore, from Bolas’ planeswalker profile.

Ajani impresses Chandra when he mentions he defeated Bolas, once. That was not how Ajani meant it. Ajani advocates for gathering allies before challenging Bolas in his seat of power.

Ajani tells Gideon he’s going to get people killed charging in to Amonkhet. Gideon is good at getting people killed, so that’s what they decide to do. The Gatewatch is WAY overconfidant about their abilities after the last three blocks.

Yahenni dies at their Penultimate Party, but not before Nissa reveals the secret of the Multiverse, to their joy.

The story once again acknowledges Nissa’s old xenophobia.

Chandra x Nissa shippers have a LOT to work with this time around. Mrs. Pashiri attempts to set Chandra and Nissa up on a date, although it isn’t explicitly called that.

Nissa, while meditating the aetherstream, witness the birth of a new aetherborn... who might be the reincarnation of Yahenni, based on some hints.

[wizardsmagic]

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

[moisellethefae]

The immediate threats to Ghirapur have been defeated. Now the Gatewatch and the people of Kaladesh must decide their paths into the future.

Patreon     iTunes     Google Play     Soundcloud

Original Story: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/renewal-2017-02-01

Voice Credits: Chandra: Piyo https://pyonpyokopyonpyonkawaii.tumblr.com Pia Nalaar: Amie Bailey https://twitter.com/ajbailey Baral: Liam Wilson https://twitter.com/korybantic Ajani & Hixus: Pragmatticus https://twitter.com/pragmatticus Gideon: David Ford Nissa: Bace Jeleren http://bace-jeleren.tumblr.com/ Jace: Isa http://ysrnty.tumblr.com/ Liliana: Susie Odneal https://twitter.com/musicalsoozical Yahenni: Gen Doukeshi Depala: Ashlen Rose https://twitter.com/AshlenRose Mrs. Pashiri: Ninty Star http://nintyart.tumblr.com

Music Credits: "Cambodian Odyssey" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Sounds from: https://www.audioblocks.com/

[fresh-prince-of-beleren]

Some people might appreciate this art from the Aether Revolt story mode campaign in Magic Duels.

[cardboard-crack]

[temurtrickster]

Another fun art fact: Tezzeret's touch shows him animating the servo token from Kaladesh.

[talinthas]

On Kaladesh Pronounciations part 2- Aether Revolt legends

A lot of folks have been asking me if I’d update my pronounciation guide for the new legendary creatures in Aether Revolt. I didn’t initially because there are only five of them and I didn’t think folks would be that interested, but it turns out the names were more confusing than I thought, so here you go =)

Baral - not a real name, but phonetic rules would imply ‘buh-RAHL”.

Kari Zev- First off, best character in the block, let’s just be up front about it.

Kari rhymes with Starry, Zev has the same sound as the first syllable in beverage or levitate.

Ragavan- Rah-guhvun. emphasis on the first syllable. Best monkey.

Rishkar- rhymes with wish-car, or fish star.

Sram- this is hard, cause it’s more Cambodian or Thai style hindu name than indian. Sr is a hard sound for a lot of westerners to make as an initial sound, myself included. In north india, it would be Shr instead. but yeah, Sram is liek Spam or Slam, just with an r instead.

Yahenni- not a real word, but the way everyone seems to say it is yuh-henny.

Anway, hope that helps!