Magic Story: Old Friends and New
Lore forum
Posted on May 8, 2019, 9:04 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
At last, after many weeks, the stories have returned! I was certainly excited, but this story was too rushed and scattered, moving at a fast pace and in many directions; I have not yet the War of the Spark novel, so was this story a selection of passages from it, or was it entirely new?
I am annoyed that Teyo was introduced in the middle of a massive event that was the climax of several years’ and sets’ worth of storylines, since that will provide less room for him to have his own depth and character development, so I do hope that a future set shall visit his home plane of Gobakhan.
Also, having mentioned that, there are already plenty of planes that have been named, but not explored in detail (i.e., those that appeared in the Planechase sets), so why is WotC not using them, instead of introducing entirely new planes?
At this point, it seems very likely that all stories from this point forward shall be told in first-person perspective, which greatly displeases me. Also, having mentioned that, there has not been a story told from the perspective of a planeswalker in quite some time, so I wonder if there ever shall be one, again?
Given that this story ended on a cliffhanger, I believe that it is safe to presume that next week’s story shall resume where this one ended. I do hope that the rushed pace and scatted direction of this story is not an indicator of the quality future stories.
Flooremoji says... #3
The story is always interesting, but since Rat is a talkative character, there are loads of big blocks of text. And that makes me want to skip reading them, which isn't the best reading experience :(
May 9, 2019 12:53 a.m.
RicketyEng says... #4
This comment will be spoiler-free wrt the WAR book, but may offer one or two insights which allude to it without really revealing anything.
This was great to see things from Rat's perspective. We actually see in the book all of the events onward from the moment she meets Teyo, but we see them from Teyo's and other planeswalkers' perspectives. The cliff hanger ending isn't really a cliff hanger for anyone who has read the book.
I had been trying to think of Rat's colour identity. Her Gateless state combined with her Gruul heritage and attraction to Selesnya and Rakdos had started to make me think everything but blue. However, in this story we got a few more details confirmed about her abilities which were only strongly implied in the book. Her natural bit of psychic ability definitely gives her some blue. Once I consider all of the above together and also a couple of spoiler-ish things she accomplishes in the book I think I would be quite satisfied to see her as 5-coloured.
She is definitely the type of character for which fans will be asking for a card. I actually think it would be neat if she were 5-coloured in the style of Transguild Courier . After all, it's hard to imagine casting Rat for the same cost as Niv-Mizzet Reborn .
May 9, 2019 1:56 p.m.
RicketyEng,
LOVE the concept of a Rat card! I like the idea of her as colorless too ... though maybe with multiple colored activated abilities (kind of like
General Tazri
). Unblockable unless opp spends a ton of mana to "notice" her maybe? It's kind of too bad Teyo's a Planeswalker, since I'd love to see the two of them with the Partner ability in EDH ...
clayperce says... #2
DemonDragonJ,
Thanks for sharing this; I had totally missed it on the mothership for some reason.
It starts a little before the Ravnica book, but pretty much parallels it. It feels kinda like they "zoomed" in on Rat for this story, which is really interesting ... for example, we get more of Teyo's backstory in the novel but less of Rat's.
It will be interesting to see where they go with future Magic Stories, but I'm making no assumptions about anything after the next one (which like you say, will almost certainly be the second part of this one).
May 8, 2019 11:53 p.m.