MS: Hour of Devastation
Lore forum
Posted on July 26, 2017, 11:14 a.m. by AgentGreen
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/hour-devastation-2017-07-26
The season finale is here, the Gatewatch has their climatic clash with the Evil Nicol Bolas to bring him to justice for the crimes he committed across the multiverse.
Of course....Bolas has plans of his own
Damn. Ral Zarek working with bolas?? Bolas has the planar bridge?? This story left us with so many more questions than it did answers
July 26, 2017 11:53 a.m.
AgentGreen says... #4
But does he really have the Planar Bridge; last I read it was destroyed. Did Tezz create two?
Also, I firmly believe Ral knows exactly where Vraska went and straight up lied to Jace. If Ral is in cahoots with Bolas; and if he starts causing trouble on Ravinca; and that the Guildpact is MIA in the mulitverse, things are not looking good
July 26, 2017 11:57 a.m.
Holy mother of Bolas...
Ral was working with Bolas the whole time?! THERE, ladies and gentlemen, is your main antagonist for Ravnica 3!
AgentGreen: I believe Tezzy infused the Bridge's core into himself, so the work wasn't lost.
July 26, 2017 12:13 p.m.
AgentGreen says... #6
I wonder what he was going to share with Bolas before he was cut off
July 26, 2017 12:23 p.m.
Ok so,
Ral Zarek working for Nicol Bolas makes a lot of sense. Jace, who's supposed to hold the guilds together, disappears regularly and for long periods of time from Ravnica. Ral could be working for Bolas thinking that he could somehow help the Izzet becomes lords of Ravnica, or Bolas could've forced Ral to do his dirty work, or it could just be that Bolas could give him additional power for his experiments. It makes sense kind of.
Also, the fact there's a planar bridge does make sense once you think about what Tezzeret's primary training is. The dudes an artificer. He probably built one of his own after seeing the device.
Also, Bolas was characterized great in this story. He's not just menacing and scary like some of the villains, but actually really sarcastic and is able to mock the heroes well.
July 26, 2017 12:33 p.m.
Story retcon, Nicol Bolas is a Dragon Troll. Much trolling in this story, very well placed.
"He had not needed wings to fly for a very long time"
-What kind of witchcraft is this!?
"Why bother being smart when the Multiverse so conveniently conspired to keep your idiocy alive?"
-Confirmed, WotC is referred to as "the Multiverse" within the story and lore.
This is really exciting stuff. Best story in awhile imo. It really sets up years worth of storytelling. We have confirmation that we won't get so much Gatewatch together, so we could have six blocks with one member in each, not factoring other random stories.
Planar Bridge belongs to Bolas. Ral Zarek belongs to Bolas. Oh I can't wait for more story!!
July 26, 2017 12:52 p.m.
Well as much as the story is left on a cliffhanger, I hope Ixalan is its own story,with Jace's memories remaining gone till RIX at least. I want a story with a clean slate.
Ral being on Team Bolas the whole time kinda makes sense, because as powerful as the eternals are, 12 clans fill to the brim of mages could do some decent damage to his army. Maybe the Kraul will start their revelution to cause additional disruption to Ravnica,but who knows? Vraska might be searching for the Lost City for Bolas, but I really hope not. I also doubt that the army of eternals could take on the entire Mutiunivers, I mean, we are talking about Pyrexia, emrakul is far from dead, we still got Alara and dominaria and who knows what else! We will just have to let the story unfold, I guess.
Sorry for all the speling mistakes....
July 26, 2017 1:23 p.m.
RazortoothMtg says... #10
Bolas has some of the best quotes in magic
"Nicol Bolas looked down at the planeswalkers and smiled. 'And then there were three. I didn't want to annoy your dear departed necromancer, but between us, I admit I know a fair bit of necromancy. Do you have an opening in your Gatewatch? Is there some type of application process?'"
Definitely one of the best lines I've ever heard from any magic lore.
July 26, 2017 2:56 p.m.
beakedbard says... #11
Well i always wanted a reason for Nicol Bolas and Niv-Mizzet to meet and this is a good enough reason. Seems like Bolas still wants the gatewatch alive to use for other things because this just seemed like a demonstration of power more than anything he probably still has uses for them.
July 26, 2017 6:47 p.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #12
While I have my doubts about Ral being on Team Bolas the entire time, I wouldn't be surprised if Bolas recruited him to work on building the Planar Bridge with Tezzeret.
July 26, 2017 7:04 p.m.
OneItsStarted says... #13
Ral Zarek bent easily to the temptations of Nicol Bolas, all it took for Ral to be a loyal servant was a single Krark's Thumb
July 26, 2017 9:40 p.m.
In case anyone missed it, this is how we're going to go back to Vyrn:
"Jace had never encountered a mind so impenetrable, except for . . . the merest moment of a memory surfaced of a mind as smooth and dazzling as a wall of crystal. But even as the thought entered his mind, it erased itself, and he could not remember where he had seen such a thingor even what kind of thing it was.
What . . . Jace shook off the sudden fugue that had overtaken him. It hadn't seemed to come from Bolas, but rather from inside himself. What was I thinking about? But he could not recall."
Jace is likely remembering Alhammarret here. Bolas's mental assault is probably going to unlock some sections of his mind that were destroyed in Jace and Alhammarret's duel. He's likely going to have amnesia of much of his other experiences as well, maybe even to the point of not recognizing the other member's of the Gatewatch, or that he's the living guildpact on Ravnica.
Also, Ral is likely the one who's completing the planar bridge for Bolas. He's an artificer, and despite overseeing Rashmi's work, Tezz was probably too arrogant to realize he was overlooking key details of the design. Rashmi was thinking to herself that Tezz would never have been able to build it on his own, and honestly her insight was pretty spot on at that point. Bolas could still have easily pulled all the info out of Tezz's head and passed it on to Ral.
There's also still the possibility that Ral doesn't know he's working for Bolas, as we didn't get any indication of that in his the last two stories he was part of.
Ral's version might also have more lightning to it. Yay.
July 26, 2017 9:56 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
Wow, this was an amazing story!
I liked how the first section was told from Bolas's perspective, since rarely have any stories been told that way, and I also liked how each hero had their own perspective, as it helped the audience to feel their despair at the hopelessness of the situation.
The greatest surprise of the story was that Ral Zarek is working with Bolas, although perhaps that should not have been too much of a surprise, given that Ral shares two of Bolas's colors. I wonder what Ral is doing for Bolas? I imagine that he is collaborating with Tezzeret to build another planar portal, so that Bolas can transport his armies across the multiverse. The writers are very clearly setting up the story for a third Ravnica block in the future, so I am certainly excited about that.
I imagine that each member of the Gatewatch fled to a different plane, so I now expect that each of them shall have their own solo adventures before they ultimately reunite, which I think could potentially make for some great storytelling.
July 27, 2017 12:05 a.m.
Beaked bard you are forgetting that Niv would hate to know people with greater power than he, remember why Jace and Ral sabotaged project lightning bug?
July 27, 2017 4:15 a.m.
AgentGreen says... #17
Well with the packaging of Rivals of Ixlan; iirc I do see Ajani in the art; so that tells me that he might be looking for the Gatewatch to help them recover from their disastrous defeat. He has to find them first; and it starts with Jace.
Something that occurs to me. What did Bolas accomplish by not killing the Gatewatch?
July 27, 2017 9:09 a.m.
RicketyEng says... #18
What did Bolas gain from letting the Gatewatch survive?
Bolas gained infamy. A dread pirate and his crew who are rumoured to never leave any survivors from their raids can strike fear at their mere mention. But where do the stories come from? Word of mouth will help Bolas intimidate others a lot more easily.
The Gatewatch has been humbled and brought low. Bolas took advantage of their hubris and leaving them so badly on tilt could foster more rash decisions from them as they seek revenge. I think Bolas recognizes some potential in the Gatewatch if ever they manage to overcome their weaknesses. Nipping that threat in the bud will serve to remove the Gatewatch as a threat to his future plans and leaving them alive may cause them to cause more harm than good in whatever efforts come about to oppose him.
I suspect that Bolas recognizes that he is not powerful enough to achieve whatever his larger goal is. I think he is seeking to divide his enemies and increase his ability to intimidate them. Next I think he'll use a large misdirection while he secretly goes after his true goal. Part of that misdirection might be a very overt invasion of a plane.
July 27, 2017 10:13 a.m.
I feel like bolas plans to subjugate the gatewatch at some point, perhaps to harvest their sparks or something of that sort to regain his former god-like power. He can't make the gatewatch serve him if they believe themselves capable of fighting him, so instead of killing them (and wasting their sparks) he is destroying their senses of hope and comradere in hopes of making them his servants, one by one.
That's my best guess. As far as ral goes... he may very well have been in league with bolas the whole time and I wouldn't doubt it. I'm not sure he lied about vraska though. Isn't she an entirely independently motivated walker? As far as I can recall she isn't one of bolas' servants. Maybe bolas fears vraska (a walker killer not unlike the scorpion god) and wants to break and use the gatewatch to subdue and subjugate her, deepening the number of allegiant walkers bolas has, and similarly increasing the number of sparks at his disposal for whatever plan he has in motion.
July 27, 2017 1:25 p.m.
If you check the leaked River's Rebuke from Ixalan, Bolas gave Vraska some kind of compass. They're in kahoots.
July 27, 2017 5:34 p.m.
AgentGreen says... #21
This is what makes Bolas such a fantastic villain. We've had Eldrazi, we had the Phrexians...we never really had a real big bad in Magic lore. We all suspected that Bolas was going to be the big bad, and now WoTC confirmed it.
Bolas is both powerful and cunning, he has plans up the wazoo; each one independent and not mission critical to his endgame....and we STILL don't know what his endgame is going to be
I am really excited to see where WoTC takes the story from here
July 27, 2017 7:51 p.m.
I'm giggling as I imagine Tezzeret being a beleaguered employee, staying just outside having a smoke break while Bolas deals with the Gatewatch, who's spent the last month trying to tell his boss about the hitches in the plan except that Bolas never checks his voicemail. It's eventually going to blow up that something's gone wrong and Bolas is going to start yelling at Tezzeret while Tezzeret is saying it's not his job to remind Bolas to check his messages and he's ALREADY fixing it.
And then they can argue again about whether Test of Metal is canon.
July 28, 2017 12:30 a.m.
WarbossEfan says... #23
Based on the last bits of the story, Bolas DEFINITELY wants people to hear about him, referencing his name being known and so on and so forth. But knowing him, there's no way he JUST wants the gatewatch to spread that good news. I'll bet he's banking on them and/or Ajani mustering up all the homies they can, allowing him to identify and crush all who would oppose him. He absolutely knows about Ajani having worked with them, and apparently has some good connects on Ravnica.
More answers and yet even more questions. Does he plan on overthrowing a good bunch of the guilds before attacking outright? Ral Zarek, Vraska and Mazirek seem all pretty straight forward. Perhaps Teysa as well. They could use Kaya to kill the ghost council. Does he know of Sarkhan's betrayal yet? Or that Ugin lives? Or anything regarding Sorin and Nahiri? What role will New Phyrexia play, and what will come of their internal strife? Will Karn march in with an army of Slivers to the rescue? Whatever happens, I'm content with knowing that a war across the Multiverse has just begun.
Aztraeuz says... #2
All hail Nicol Bolas, creator of the Multiverse!!
July 26, 2017 11:30 a.m.