Community

This thread is for discussion of this week's Savor the Flavor, which goes live Wednesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Magic as a trading card game is not really in the business of having spells you can only cast ONCE EVER

Well, there are two examples


Blacker Lotus


Chaos Confetti      

Very interesting response to the letter, other than that an alright article but nothing amazing.

In reading about Avacyn's creation, I keep finding myself wondering one thing: was the church (or at least the really high-ranking clergy) aware of Avacyn's artificial nature? And if so, were they aware of the identity of her progenitor?

Don't dis the "little toe" as some unimportant body part.  Without it, people walk awfully strange.  It seems small, but it's incredibly important and underappreciated.

It's nice to see that even pre-mending walkers had their limits and creating Avacyn was a stretch even for Sorin Markov.
My question is whether post-mending Sorin is now less powerful than his own angelic masterwork. That could lead to some rather interesting interactions depending on how Avacyn views her progenitor.
I would also like to entertain the notion that instead of giving up part of himself  Sorin had to gain something, something akin to a soul. My theory's a little out there I'll admit but I rather like the flavourful implications. A creature of darkness moved to make a deal with the angels (so to speak) out of cold logic. The Faustian deal to allow one's self to be corrupted for the greater good is a powerful trope, but the reverse is something I've never encountered before and it raises all sorts of tricky moral questions. From now on I'm using this rationale to justify  less-than-vile acts Sorin may commit.

TPmanW: I like that thought. Avacyn did seem to be the real deal: actually altruistic, as opposed to Angel of Despair . Just like how an artist can only create beauty if they have it in their heart, perhaps Sorin had to open himself up to a epiphany in order to create Avacyn. Either that, or he was the beggar who killed Serra and Avacyn is just her zombie.

 

Jan 24, 2012 -- 9:41PM, zammm wrote:

In reading about Avacyn's creation, I keep finding myself wondering one thing: was the church (or at least the really high-ranking clergy) aware of Avacyn's artificial nature? And if so, were they aware of the identity of her progenitor?

It would be interesting for the Church to have a Gnostic sect within it ("Sorin is the Demiurge!"), but I'm sure that's something that both Avacyn and Sorin would have tried to surpress. It seems that high-ranking vampires knew of it, but I think that this would just make the Church more skeptical of that claim if it came from bloodsuckers.

And even if they knew it (or especially if they knew), they would surpress it to the level of wiping it out from the official records and swearing those who know to not pass it down to future generations. The current situation highlights how important faith is to the religion. In some ways, I think that the loss of Avacyn wouldn't have been so detrimental if the people didn't place their faith so much on her deeds and presence. All her hands-on work made people dependent on her being there instead of them doing it themselves. If Avacyn trained more than she helped directly, her absence wouldn't have been so traumatic.       

With regards to the Letter of the Week, the only analogy I could draw is that Sorin won the Multiversal equivalent of the Magic Invitational.

Jan 24, 2012 -- 9:44PM, Dragon_Bloodthirsty wrote:

Don't dis the "little toe" as some unimportant body part.  Without it, people walk awfully strange.  It seems small, but it's incredibly important and underappreciated.

But aren't a lot of models taking it off to fit into shoes better?

Jan 25, 2012 -- 1:23AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

But aren't a lot of models taking it off to fit into shoes better?

Models aren't exactly the poster children for "walking normally".

I would argue that Magic has several examples of spells cast at great cost . Seriously, that's not at all a non-magical concept, you just have to view it from the perspective of having to sacrifice resources in a single game.

So we have confirmation Sorin was a pre-mending 'walker. I really want to see the interaction between Avacyn and Sorin now, especially because, as a poster above pointed out, she's probably more powerful than he is now. That sounds like it could lead to a very interetsing relationship between the two.

Bonus points if Sorin forgot to ensure Avacyn knew who he was. 

I liked the article; it's news to me that Avacyn is trapped in a rock.

Odd how short our memories are these days.  Has everyone but me forgotten that Sorin was among the planeswalkers who crafted the Eye of Ugin, the spiritual prison that shackled the Eldrazi on Zendikar, millennia ago?  Eye of Ugin is Legendary, so clearly creating it was also a "once only spell".  And clearly, a planeswalker can do multiple such tremendous acts in their lifetime.

Other examples include, obviously, Serra's realm; Karn creating Mirrodin and turning the Mirari into Memnarch; Urza creating Karn himself, the one and only truly sentient artificial being that we know of, as well as the unprecedented feat of transferring his spark to that being; Teferi's noble sacrifice of his spark to help save Dominaria; Liliana's veil-wrought curse upon Garruk (it was strong enough to permanently alter his form and color allegiance), and Bolas's creation of his own pocket plane (remember Bolas's Meditation Realm from Planechase?) and re-engineering the beaten husk of an Esperite named Tezzeret into a new and improved Planeswalker with an altered color allegiance.

Turns out such titanic, once-ever magic is something most planeswalkers try their hand at eventually, given enough time.  What I'd like to see someday is a card or location that represents the failure of such an attempt:  a botched or abandoned "planar spell" (my name; "Epic" is already taken). 

@Dragon_Nut:  she may be more powerful / be represented by a higher mana cost, but she will still just be Legendary Creature - Angel (maybe Angel Warrior or Angel Cleric), and he will still be a Planeswalker.  Yeah, maybe she can deplete his Loyalty in one swing.  But story-wise, all that represents is that Sorin has taken enough pain / done enough work that he's lost interest and decided to 'walk away, where she can never catch him.  PW > Creature, always and forever, and relative numeric power levels in the card game has no bearing on it.  :P 

All this is nice...but why would Sorin ever let the other Vampires find out he created an archangel to combat them in the first place?

That's a good point... but i think he just doesnt CARE. He's 100000+ times more powerful, and feels like they've been lording it over the humans too long. and I honestly think he feels BAD that his grandfather caused all the problems (or at least most) on innistrad. So he's going to fix it, and **** what the others think.

Jan 25, 2012 -- 7:29PM, Raedien wrote:

All this is nice...but why would Sorin ever let the other Vampires find out he created an archangel to combat them in the first place?

Perhaps he also told them why he did it (to ensure that vampirekind wouldn't overharvest its food source) so that they wouldn't muck up his little eco-system, and force him to be more draconian.

"If you don't like my Angel, perhaps you'd prefer my newest invention: Garlic Elementals."    

Jan 25, 2012 -- 6:02PM, ProfN wrote:

and Bolas's creation of his own pocket plane (remember Bolas's Meditation Realm from Planechase?)

You mean from Kamigawa =D
EDIT: I'm wrong 

Jan 26, 2012 -- 1:40AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Jan 25, 2012 -- 6:02PM, ProfN wrote:

and Bolas's creation of his own pocket plane (remember Bolas's Meditation Realm from Planechase?)

You mean from Kamigawa =D

What does Kamigawa have to do with Bolas's Meditation Realm?

Jan 26, 2012 -- 3:30AM, GreenBuster wrote:

Jan 26, 2012 -- 1:40AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Jan 25, 2012 -- 6:02PM, ProfN wrote:

and Bolas's creation of his own pocket plane (remember Bolas's Meditation Realm from Planechase?)

You mean from Kamigawa =D

What does Kamigawa have to do with Bolas's Meditation Realm?

Oops, seems I have mistaken Toshiro Umezawa for Tetsuo Umezawa

Creating all-powerful angels seems to actually be a pretty common experience. Ixidor busted out an Akroma Angel of Wrath without even being a planeswalker. When it comes to stomping the dark-mana out of a demon, Akroma is probably the angel to get it done.