More predictions about characters in games
Sep. 8th, 2021 03:34 amI haven't gone back and evaluated my last set of predicitons along those lines yet, but, uh, they haven't done very well. Well -- perhaps I'll go back and evaluate them more properly once the year is over and the final character is out.
Meanwhile, Wizards of the Coast has announced that next year, they're going to be going back in time and making a (new) set based on the Brothers' War storyline!
So, lots of characters who badly need cards (Ashnod, Tocasia...) are finally going to get them! I'm not here to predict that, though, because I assume that it's just going to be like... all the obvious candidates. They're not going to want to disappoint people by leaving anyone out.
No, the question I want to try to guess at is: Who are the planeswalkers going to be?
Wizards of the Coast is not about to make a Magic set without planeswalker cards these days, not unless they decide they don't like money; they even forced them into their D&D set by just arbitrarily saying, OK, certain characters will get planeswalker cards rather than creature cards. But with a canon set, they've said they're not going to do that; for sets taking place within the Magic storyline, planeswalker cards are reserved for planeswalker characters.
But this presents something of a problem, because, well, the Brothers' War storyline doesn't involve any planeswalkers. I mean, other than Urza, but he only becomes one at the very end of the story. So, given that they presumably want to include their usual three planeswalkers per set (maybe they'll make do with two)... who are they going to be? That's the question I want to try to answer.
(Note, this post arose out of a conversation with Seth, so, uh, some credit to him also for these suggestions. Also yes I am doing this even though I don't actually play Magic. :P )
So, OK, first off, what are they going to do with Urza? Making him a planeswalker doesn't seem right, but making him just a creature and not a planeswalker also doesn't seem right. Seth pointed out to me the solution here -- Urza will be included as a creature that transforms into a planeswalker. Perhaps a blue creature that transforms into a 5-color planeswalker, based on what people at Wizards have said in the past? IDK. (I feel like Taysir really ought to be the first 5-color PW, but...)
OK, that's one down; but that leaves us with two more slots to fill and no other planeswalkers who are involved in the story. Now, notionally they could just some new character and say "oh also this person was there", but, well, that feels a bit cheap; I'm assuming they won't do that.
So, the first question then is, among existing planeswalker characters, which ones were even alive then? This is not so easy to answer; pre-mending planeswalkers didn't age, and many don't have birthdates pinned down, so the answer is, potentially a lot of them. Some were definitely not born till afterward, but others... who knows?
Still, I don't think this is a hopeless problem. Like, consider Serra for example. Serra has no pinned-down birthdate. So, notionally, she could have been alive and planeswalking at the time of the Brothers' War, and thus could be in the set. But, well... no. Wizards wouldn't do that. It would not make sense to take a significant character like Serra and retroject her into the Brothers' War, being like "oh yeah she was there too".
Now not every planeswalker is as significant (to the Magic storyline in general or to Urza's story in particular) as Serra is, but for simplicity, I'm just going to go ahead and make this assumption: They're only going to pull from existing planeswalkers who are known to have been alive at the time of the Brothers' War.
That actually doesn't leave us with a lot. Nicol Bolas (he hadn't yet "died"), Azor (who had not yet given up his spark), Sorin Markov, Ugin, Nahiri, Tevesh Szat, Geyadrone Dihada, Dakkon Blackblade (I think?) and the obscure planeswalker Eskil. That's it, that's all I can find.
Most of these are pretty poor fits. For instance, it wouldn't make any sense to have Nicol Bolas present; similar to the Serra example I discussed above, it simply makes no sense to insert him into a story he's just not a part of. But one of these characters has actually been stated in official sources to have been present for the Brothers' War! Namely, Tevesh Szat, or rather, Tev Loneglade as he was known at the time. He apparently didn't participate, but he was apparently there, and so I'm predicting him for #2.
This leaves us with the problem of finding a third. Now, there might not be a third, they could stop at two! But they don't tend to do that for sets that aren't part of a block or pseudo-block. So let's suppose there's a third. Who could it be?
Well, once again, it could be a new character, but that still feels cheap. It could be an existing planeswalker who isn't currently known to have been alive then, but, eh, I'm guessing they won't do that. So out of the list above, other than Tevesh Szat, who seems reasonable?
I think we can rule out Nicol Bolas, Azor, Ugin, Geyadrone Dihada, and Dakkon Blackblade as either overpowered or ill-fitting. (Also, I believe Dakkon and Dihada are known to have been elsewhere at the time.) Remember, whoever it is, they apparently didn't really participate in this war, just observe, because they've never been previously mentioned as present. Eskil has the opposite problem -- drawing a new connection between him and the Brothers' War storyline would avoid reactions of "Oh, come on!", but it also just wouldn't get much of a reaction at all, because he's pretty fricking obscure if you ask me.
That leaves Sorin and Nahiri as potential observers who possibly hit the balance, neither being too obscure to be interesting nor being so powerful or well-recorded that it'd be ridiculous that they were there and we didn't know. Frankly I don't like either choice because they both kind of fall into "oh come on!" for me... but, Nahiri does have a mechanical connection to artifacts, so, I think that's suggestive. So, my prediction for #3, assuming there is one, is Nahiri. This is not a very confident prediction obviously; I'm not even sure I'd give it over 50%. I just think it's more likely than the other possibilities.
So, uh, in a little over a year we'll find out whether I was right!
-Harry
Meanwhile, Wizards of the Coast has announced that next year, they're going to be going back in time and making a (new) set based on the Brothers' War storyline!
So, lots of characters who badly need cards (Ashnod, Tocasia...) are finally going to get them! I'm not here to predict that, though, because I assume that it's just going to be like... all the obvious candidates. They're not going to want to disappoint people by leaving anyone out.
No, the question I want to try to guess at is: Who are the planeswalkers going to be?
Wizards of the Coast is not about to make a Magic set without planeswalker cards these days, not unless they decide they don't like money; they even forced them into their D&D set by just arbitrarily saying, OK, certain characters will get planeswalker cards rather than creature cards. But with a canon set, they've said they're not going to do that; for sets taking place within the Magic storyline, planeswalker cards are reserved for planeswalker characters.
But this presents something of a problem, because, well, the Brothers' War storyline doesn't involve any planeswalkers. I mean, other than Urza, but he only becomes one at the very end of the story. So, given that they presumably want to include their usual three planeswalkers per set (maybe they'll make do with two)... who are they going to be? That's the question I want to try to answer.
(Note, this post arose out of a conversation with Seth, so, uh, some credit to him also for these suggestions. Also yes I am doing this even though I don't actually play Magic. :P )
So, OK, first off, what are they going to do with Urza? Making him a planeswalker doesn't seem right, but making him just a creature and not a planeswalker also doesn't seem right. Seth pointed out to me the solution here -- Urza will be included as a creature that transforms into a planeswalker. Perhaps a blue creature that transforms into a 5-color planeswalker, based on what people at Wizards have said in the past? IDK. (I feel like Taysir really ought to be the first 5-color PW, but...)
OK, that's one down; but that leaves us with two more slots to fill and no other planeswalkers who are involved in the story. Now, notionally they could just some new character and say "oh also this person was there", but, well, that feels a bit cheap; I'm assuming they won't do that.
So, the first question then is, among existing planeswalker characters, which ones were even alive then? This is not so easy to answer; pre-mending planeswalkers didn't age, and many don't have birthdates pinned down, so the answer is, potentially a lot of them. Some were definitely not born till afterward, but others... who knows?
Still, I don't think this is a hopeless problem. Like, consider Serra for example. Serra has no pinned-down birthdate. So, notionally, she could have been alive and planeswalking at the time of the Brothers' War, and thus could be in the set. But, well... no. Wizards wouldn't do that. It would not make sense to take a significant character like Serra and retroject her into the Brothers' War, being like "oh yeah she was there too".
Now not every planeswalker is as significant (to the Magic storyline in general or to Urza's story in particular) as Serra is, but for simplicity, I'm just going to go ahead and make this assumption: They're only going to pull from existing planeswalkers who are known to have been alive at the time of the Brothers' War.
That actually doesn't leave us with a lot. Nicol Bolas (he hadn't yet "died"), Azor (who had not yet given up his spark), Sorin Markov, Ugin, Nahiri, Tevesh Szat, Geyadrone Dihada, Dakkon Blackblade (I think?) and the obscure planeswalker Eskil. That's it, that's all I can find.
Most of these are pretty poor fits. For instance, it wouldn't make any sense to have Nicol Bolas present; similar to the Serra example I discussed above, it simply makes no sense to insert him into a story he's just not a part of. But one of these characters has actually been stated in official sources to have been present for the Brothers' War! Namely, Tevesh Szat, or rather, Tev Loneglade as he was known at the time. He apparently didn't participate, but he was apparently there, and so I'm predicting him for #2.
This leaves us with the problem of finding a third. Now, there might not be a third, they could stop at two! But they don't tend to do that for sets that aren't part of a block or pseudo-block. So let's suppose there's a third. Who could it be?
Well, once again, it could be a new character, but that still feels cheap. It could be an existing planeswalker who isn't currently known to have been alive then, but, eh, I'm guessing they won't do that. So out of the list above, other than Tevesh Szat, who seems reasonable?
I think we can rule out Nicol Bolas, Azor, Ugin, Geyadrone Dihada, and Dakkon Blackblade as either overpowered or ill-fitting. (Also, I believe Dakkon and Dihada are known to have been elsewhere at the time.) Remember, whoever it is, they apparently didn't really participate in this war, just observe, because they've never been previously mentioned as present. Eskil has the opposite problem -- drawing a new connection between him and the Brothers' War storyline would avoid reactions of "Oh, come on!", but it also just wouldn't get much of a reaction at all, because he's pretty fricking obscure if you ask me.
That leaves Sorin and Nahiri as potential observers who possibly hit the balance, neither being too obscure to be interesting nor being so powerful or well-recorded that it'd be ridiculous that they were there and we didn't know. Frankly I don't like either choice because they both kind of fall into "oh come on!" for me... but, Nahiri does have a mechanical connection to artifacts, so, I think that's suggestive. So, my prediction for #3, assuming there is one, is Nahiri. This is not a very confident prediction obviously; I'm not even sure I'd give it over 50%. I just think it's more likely than the other possibilities.
So, uh, in a little over a year we'll find out whether I was right!
-Harry
