#mtg gatewatch

I was hanging out in the @thevorthoscast Discord server yesterday, and sharing my thoughts on how I could see the Gatewatch defeating Nicol Bolas at the conclusion for War of the Spark.

I approached this not from a strategic "Here's what they need to do, and the weaknesses they need to exploit" point of view, but rather from a narrative point of view as a writer. In other words, "What do the characters need to do in order for the audience to feel like they've EARNED their victory? And how do you make it plausible to the reader that the brilliant mastermind actually lost?"

I wanted to share my thoughts in a Tumblr post, but rather than rewriting everything, I figured I would simplify things by simply posting screenshots from yesterday's conversation. (I only used my own comments, since I don't think it's polite to share other people's comments from Discord.)

Here are my thoughts:

Hmm... I had a few more thoughts to share, so I guess I'll reblog this with my thoughts on Chandra and Nisa in Part 2

So I recently discovered this free mobile app called FaceApp that lets you run photos of faces through A.I. filters.

And since I have the stomach flu today, I thought I’d take my mind of puking by downloading art from the first five Gatewatch “Oath” enchantments, and running them through various filters.

The four filters I used for these collages are:

Young/Hollywood

Smile

Old

Gender Swap

Jace can’t make up his mind, so he uses an illusion as his costume and constantly changes it throughout the party.

Ajani goes as his brother Jazal, but nobody gets the reference and everybody but Chandra is too nervous to ask.

Nissa goes as a tree. Like, she literally grows a tree around herself and stays inside its nice, quiet trunk until all the other guests go home.

Chandra and Gideon go dressed as each other. Everyone thinks they’re hilarious.