#gruul-gate

1. Spoilers for Choice

Forsake the Worldly | Original MTG art by @steveargyle

Wow! The second and final week of Amonkhet spoilers came upon us like a sandstorm. The Amonkhetu pantheon of deities has been filled out with cards for Oketra, Rhonas and Bontu showing us that not all god’s combat restrictions were created equal. Oketra and Rhonas, who have an interest in creatures being present, or simply being big seem to promote a very safe and straightforward playstyle, as opposed to having to have creatures around to kill, or sandbagging 7 cards in your hand, or simply going all out with no cards in hand to respond to your opponent. It remains to be seen if the unusual play styles encouraged by the Grixis gods. 

Speaking of Gods, and the Planeswalkers who love them, Nissa, Steward of Elements was also unveiled and was full of surprises. Firstly, a new Nissa planeswalker so soon after her Kaladesh and Planeswalker deck iterations. Secondly she had been shifted to a Green-Blue casting cost, something that had been slowly and subtly infusing her appearances in the story. Finally, Nissa, Steward of Elements marks the first planeswalker card with X in its cost ever! This has the minds of constructed brewers from Standard to Commander percolating with ways to take advantage of this ability.

Gods of Amonkhet | Original MTG art by Chase Stone

With the full spoiler unveiled on Friday, we have an inkling of understanding of the limited archetypes that Amonkhet draft and sealed will offer. From the overwhelmingly grinding value of White and Blue’s embalm themes, to Red and White’s aggressive, go-wide with team pumping effects, it remains to be seen how the speed of the format will play, although signs point in the general direction of a slower format.

As with every time new toys are given to the brew-masters and jank-junkies, new combos and archetypes float around Tumblr, either for magical-christmas-land value that kills on turn 3, or the flavor absurdity of a Heart-Piercer Manticore flinging an Aradara Express to the face of an opponent that it also is driving. (thanks to @transreliquat for that amazing visual)

— Liam W, @coincidencetheories

2. Standard Shakeup?

Gideon of the Trials | Original MtG art by Izzy

Amonkhet is in a fantastic position to shake up Standard, providing competent answers to the two menaces of Standard: Mardu Vehicles, and Saheeli combo.  

Gideon may have shouldered a ballista into rubble, but Red has the real automotive issues in Amonkhet! Harsh Mentor is a callback to red’s punisher effects of olde, and punishes your opponent for turning their cars on. By force is a fantastic way to eliminate their vehicles, and scales magnificently. 

Saheeli cat didn’t get as many options, but the one answer we got for it is absolute. Trespasser’s curse forbids the combo from even going off for just 2 mana. Alternatively, Haze of Pollen can stop it for a turn, and give you an extra turn to take the combo apart.

– Nick D, @nick-dowdle-jeskai-judicator

2. This  Week’s Magic Story Review

The Writing on the Wall by Alison Luhrs

Foul Orchard | Original MTG art by Mark Poole

As the Second Sun inches its way closer to the horns of Bolas on the horizon, the Gatewatch try to make sense of the plane. When we begin the third installment of the Amonkhet story, Nissa has a dream in which she communicates with the soul on the plane. It’s sick, corrupted and crying out for help.

Nissa wakes Chandra up and the two take a walk outside to try and make sense of the city of Naktamun. Everyone seems very young and always training. They encounter Hapatra, who appears to be in her mid 30’s and is the oldest person they’ve seen so far. 

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons | Original MTG art by Tyler Jacobson

One of the most interesting things they discover are pictoglyphs on an older building. These pictoglyphs tell of the gods of Amonkhet, but instead of the five we know, there are eight gods. Above the glyphs of the eight gods is a more recently made carving of Bolas’s horns. When Nissa confronts Oketra about this, the god’s reaction is possibly one of the scariest things from this storyline so far: “the cat’s ears twitch back in a moment of fleeting, subconscious fear.” When a god is afraid, things are very wrong.

There’s much more in this story. In a bit there’s a whole section about Nissa/Chandra and the post-publication edit one of their interactions received. But there’s also more to be learned about Amonkhetu sarcophagi. For the world building fans among us, this was a super interesting story, where we are left with more questions than we started. Keep your eyes open for hints in artwork and flavour texts. By next wednesday I hope we get some more revelations about Amonkhet’s history.

— Alma V, @hopelessly-vorthosian

3. Gruul-Gate (Chandra x Nissa Discourse)

Trash | Art by @inudono​

Shortly after the release of the Magic Story on Wednesday, some Tumblr users noticed that the there was some changes to story. The changes were only a few sentences, but it was a conversation between Nissa and Chandra. Originally, the context in the story appeared to hint that Chandra had romantic feelings towards Nissa, but after the second version went up those implied feelings were hard to detect.

The Community responded with confusion at first. @voiceofallmtg was one of the first blogs to make a post  about the change, even showing screenshots of the edit. Others, like @suddenlycomics did not want to express panic until there was an official statement from Wizards. All in all, there was a lot of discussion throughout the Community about the edit in the Magic Story. Others, like @bace-jeleren did express mild frustration, but, like the rest of the Community, wanted to hear what Wizards would say.

Comparison of the two versions, Original on the left, final/updated version on the right | Picture by @bachelor-biomancer

Other discussions that occurred within the Community were about why the Community was even upset about a change in the story. Some had confusion, thinking that the Tumblr users who ship Nissa and Chandra together were disappointed that their pairing wasn’t canon. In reality, it was about representation and some of the Commuity felt cheated that their possible representation was ripped from them with the edits in the Story. Some Tumblr users, like @the-foxwolf, said that the edit is not as big a deal as the Community was expressing becuase the edit changes nothing about the context of the story.

Later in the day there was an official response  from @wizardsmagic that helped to alleviate the confusion and frustration about the edit. Wizards stated that there are multiple versions of Magic Stories during the editing process, and that an earlier version was uploaded by mistake and there was no intent to change the context of the conversation. There was relief from the Community that that it was simply a mistake and it remained true to authorial intent. @flavoracle even expressed that is was a “perfectly reasonable explanation.” 

Others however, were still upset about the edit in the story, because it still showed that the hints at LGBT+ representation in the Gatewatch is harder to detect in the new version then it was in the older one. Tumblr user @commandtower-solring-go, who asked the question that got the official response from Wizard, made a post , expressing their disappoint at the cuts, because it leaves out details and that “ the original really does a good job to normalise the idea of non-straight relationships in the multiverse.” All in all, there were a lot of mixed emotions from the Community in regard to the Magic Story change. 

What do you, the Community, think? Do you like the original version or the new version better? Do you think there is a change in context, or is the intent of the conversation still there?

— Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

4. When It Hits the Fan-Art

Gideon Seeking | Original art by @oddsbod

It’s painting cats and dogs this week! With all the danger and menace and thrilling action on Amonkhet and the Trials of the Gods, @jakaltimes took on a more sedate subject, the Sacred Cat and the Flameblade Adept. On a similar theme, @sticksandsharks gives an interpretation of Hazoret and Oketra. and from this week’s Magic Story, The Writing on the Wall, @hirafel gives us a short animation of the unexpected breakfast visitor, 

The Gatewatch feature heavily this week, with offerings such as @erybiadraws‘s Happy Gideon, @sketchydoodles‘s Amonkhet Nissa, Jace by @0x00fj and a cheeky Liliana, by @circlesmadeofglass

Finally for the retro crowd, we have a series of pixel-art masterpieces from @the-panther4444, looking either like an authentic early 90s dungeon crawler, or possibly MTGO’s latest graphics update.

— Liam W, @coincidencetheories 

5. Quoth the RavenMan

(Source) | @dragons-suck

Late Sunday evening found the Community engaged in a long discussion about the identity of the Raven Man. Naturally, this led to some top-quality memeage. Here is a collection of some of the memes that were created:

Reblog if you think the guy on the left is also the guy on the right

@chelsea-beleren-vess​

Is the Raven Man secretly a 1/1 trampler for G?

@kideon

My Raven Man theory, by Chanda-Nalaar

@chandra-nalaar​

If anyone here is *not* the Raven Man, please raise your hand.

@phyrexian-without-a-cause

— Compiled by Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

5. Manic Scribes

Manic Scribe | Original MTG Art by Matt Stewart

This week, for those looking to hide from all the spoiler seasons mania, here are some articles from around the web that you don’t have to frantically be refreshing pages to see if they’re superseded by the latest new reveal! Top 10 Limited Formats by Mike Sigrist,  (ChannelFireball.com) Graveborn Muse: Mind-Altering Substances by Daryl Bockett   @gathering-magic​ examines cards that subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) mess with how the game is played 

Why Aren’t There More Women Playing Magic by @not-another-mtg-fanblog

Kolaghan’s Commander by Ryan Sainio @hipstersofthecoast offers some reasons why you might actually play Dragonlord Kolaghan in Commander The Trials of Amonkhet Prerelease by Inkwell Looter, (Magic.wizards.com)

— Compiled by Liam W, @coincidencetheories

…and finally: An Historic Absence?

@askkrenko makes the point that with the absence of Goblins in Innistrad, Kaladesh and Amonkhet, the last Standard legal goblins were released in Oath of the Gatewatch. While there have been absences of varying length before, the regularity of goblins in the core set means that Goblins have always been in standard even before standard was a format (looking retroactively). However, if the currently unknown plane that follows the Hour of Devastation, it is entirely possible that we will have the first Goblin-less standard in Magic history. Perhaps we will find out when announcement day comes in June, perhaps we will remain in suspense…

Thank you again for reading this week’s issue of the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap. Hope to see you next week!