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Hey all, it didn't seem to fit anywhere else so I thought I'd post it in a new topic.

So, what is Eldritch Moon really about?
Nahiri's been building the new prison for Emrakul!

Think about it. She's building a new moon (probably made to resemble the Helvault), there's Cryptoliths everywhere that function like Hedrons (I think the first time Jace sees them he's even reminded of Hedrons in a way) and finally: Sorin would be the new keeper of the prison.

It's like she said, as her world has bled, so will Innistrad. As she has suffered, so will Sorin.

What do you all think?

I'm not sure she cares about imprisoning Emrakul at this point... Setting up bait? Sure, I could see that.

I have had similar thoughts. JUST wrecking Innistrad doesn't seem like something a white walker would do (And Nahiri is still white), but using Innistrad in exactly the way Zendikar was used, feels very red/white to me.

Although if I am honest, I'm still really hoping its not Emerkul

Booster: Exactly what I was thinking.

And on the Emrakul thing... There's actually a secret puzzle in the set. You see... there are actually six different printings of Tamiyo's Journal. They have different entry numbers on them referring to the flavor text on the clue tokens.
When applied to the flavor texts, it spells out a sentence: "Remember this: they came as three".
This is a direct quote from Ugin, referring to the Eldrazi.Which means I'm pretty convinced that it actually is Emrakul that's coming.

Wondering where I get my info? Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4bm66i/soi_puzzle_clue_token_flavor_texts/

Yeah ive seen that puzzle too, I just think when you create a block surrounded in mystery, to the point where you create a mechanic called clues, and keep the set symbol for the second set secret, if the answer ends up being the most obvious possible thing, its kind of a let down.

I agree. It would probably have been better to wait a bit before doing this storyline.

To absolutely no one's surprise...

Protection from Instants is weird... Now I just want to see Emrakul taken out by a simple Sinister Concoction or transforming a Kindly Stranger or something. "I am an other-worldly being who can cause destruction just by appearing... wait, that lady got all scary-looking! Peace! I'm out!"

Also, Clip Wings... Emrakul doesn't even HAVE wings to clip!

I'm still not super happy its Emrakul, but I LOVE what they are doing with her. The uncharted realms was so good. And the EMN trailer got me super hyped.

I've been speaking to a friend and emrakul is definitely worth her price,most decks should be able to cost her for about 10 mana and I think Amy delirium deck should be able to cast her for 7 or 8 mana. So a flying, 13/13 trample creature for 8 mana is insane and that's not even the cheapest she can be without resorting to tricks. Then protection from instants stops her from being caught out on the turn you bring her in (yeah sinister concoction or kindly stranger would be funny, but if you cast her with those on the field you deserve it) but then because you control your enemy on their next turn you can waste any deadly spells they have.
Now she's definitely not broken, there's plenty of blue/white enchantments that can stop her in her tracks and black has plenty of sorcery speed spells that can kill, a murderous compulsion at instant speed?
So emrakul being brought out by nahiri (something you no longer need modern or legacy to do) is just a huge flavour win.

demiteddybear wrote:(yeah sinister concoction or kindly stranger would be funny, but if you cast her with those on the field you deserve it)

Clip Wings, though.

AdmiralMemo wrote:

demiteddybear wrote:(yeah sinister concoction or kindly stranger would be funny, but if you cast her with those on the field you deserve it)

Clip Wings, though.

Is Emrakul going to be the only flying creature? The image is funny but then again as lsv argues can a tireless tracker be affected by sleep paralysis? Or are you saying that a creature can die to removal?

Actually I would just love for there to be a sudden spike in the price of clip wings for this reason.

I'm both pointing out the flavor fail and pointing out that it's an instant that can kill something that has Protection from instants (if that's the only flying creature, though).

Also...

Triskaidekaphobia was actually a plotline card all along!

To be fair, a lot of the more invested players knew it was likely Emrakul. But I don't think it was as obvious to newer/more casual players. Plus there was some room for doubt that lead to interesting theories. And honestly, I wouldn't have been as sure if not for the evidence I saw while checking out the subreddit (mostly the easter egg in Tamiyo's Journal).

Honestly, that comic kind of bugs me. It leads me to infer it's trying to say WotC should have just said it was Emrakul when the very vocal section of their fanbase was confident it was. Which, if they had, would have acted as somewhere those people could point to in order to crush other theories or spoil it for anyone who didn't know.

To be fair, I also kind of enjoyed the speculation. It's just kind of a letdown to see a mystery get solved by the easiest solution of them all.

Ive heard the argument of "well it might be obvious to the super enfranchised player but not the other players", and I don't buy it. Yeah the casual player may have had a more difficult time figuring out it was emrakul, but I doubt they were trying very hard to figure it out. I think back to when I was a casual player, and didn't worry about story, it just wasn't something I paid attention too. I don't think the casual player in question would have been upset if it had been the Phyrexians, or Marit Lage, or whatever other theory. All those things would basically be the same to the casual player. But a lot of the enfranchised players had reactions varying from mild disappointment (which I think is reasonable) to actual anger (which is pretty unreasonable but this is the internet)

Drecon wrote:To be fair, I also kind of enjoyed the speculation. It's just kind of a letdown to see a mystery get solved by the easiest solution of them all.

Here's the thing, it was the easiest solution because almost all of the evidence pointed to it. Beyond Thing in the Ice (which is a fairly common reference), the thing in Engulf the Shores, and the symbol in Root Out, pretty much everything was pointing to Emrakul. I would say even the set names did so. They could have done it differently. But if they had, it's just as likely we would have called the different thing as well.

The evidence was so heavily pointed towards Emrakul that I feel it would have been a cheap shot to be anything else. There's a red herring, and then there's having most evidence point one way and having it be another. They could have been much more subtle about it on every angle. And, for a mystery, I feel they did a fairly poor job with it. But I think this is the outcome it should have been. It's the outcome that makes sense, even if it isn't the 'surprise lol it's Phyrexians' that some players wanted.

Booster wrote:Ive heard the argument of "well it might be obvious to the super enfranchised player but not the other players", and I don't buy it. Yeah the casual player may have had a more difficult time figuring out it was emrakul, but I doubt they were trying very hard to figure it out. I think back to when I was a casual player, and didn't worry about story, it just wasn't something I paid attention too. I don't think the casual player in question would have been upset if it had been the Phyrexians, or Marit Lage, or whatever other theory. All those things would basically be the same to the casual player. But a lot of the enfranchised players had reactions varying from mild disappointment (which I think is reasonable) to actual anger (which is pretty unreasonable but this is the internet)

To be clear, I'm not talking about casual vs enfranchised as much as I'm talking about socially active vs privately active. There are a ton of casual players who check out places like the MtG subreddit. And due to that, they likely had the same level of confidence I did.

And the thing is, the ones not on those social media sites likely wouldn't have been disappointed. But given the evidence we had, it wouldn't have made much sense for it to be anything else. It doesn't take a story buff to see Emrakul's lattice on Thraben Inspector, and tentacle-based physical mutations, and then be confused why it's suddenly Phyrexians. Or why a planeswalker who has seemingly no connection with Phyrexians or Maret Leige would be trying to summon either of them, especially when she compared the damage she wanted to do to that done to Zendikar.

For a lot of people who figured out it was Emrakul early, it would have been a surprise. And given it was a mystery, that seems to be what a lot of vocal people wanted. But I think it'd make those who didn't find out it was Reddit or solve the Journal puzzle more confused than anything.

Of course, that's not what happened. This is the outcome we got for better or worse. So there's no saying what might have happened the other way.

Also, the story reads fine as a "Jace solces a mystery" instead of "the player solves a mystery"

I agree that it reads fine as Jace solving a mystery. But I also think WotC wanted to keep an air of mystery for the players to keep it more interesting/talked about. Which worked... though not necessarily as a positive for some players.

On another note, there's something I just realized about the recent Magic Story. It feels like it's implying that Emrakul identifies as female for gender pronouns. Every reference to those becoming 'one' with her talk about Emrakul as a 'her', 'she', or similarly. Of course, there's nothing hugely relevant about that. But considering I often see people trying to correct others that the Eldrazi are genderless, it just caught my attention.

They've consistently referred to Emrakul as a her throughout the story. She's definitely female.

She was always referred to as female, but realistically we don't know if Eldrazi have a gender or not. As far as I'm aware she was always referred to as female due to being worshipped as Emeria. But I think this is the first time that we can infer she considers to herself as female as well. That is, assuming that those affected by her corruption have some kind of insight to her mind. Or, more likely, it's all for ease of flow in terms of storytelling and sentence structure, which means I'm just overthinking it. I mostly just thought it was a neat implication.

There's the psychological concept of the gender you are vs. the gender you perform. Perhaps Emrakul chillin' at home in the Blind Eternities = genderless, while Emrakul actively eating a plane = female.

Also, there's the fact that, meta-fictionally, many hive minds are seen as having a hive queen, like the Borg. So WotC could've been going for that.

True. And like I said, the actual reason is likely because 'she' reads a lot better than 'it' in the stories. I'm pretty sure that Eldrazi don't actually have a physical gender. It's because of that that I found it interesting Emrakul would be able to seemingly choose what to go by. Which might mean that she's more than an eating machine like the other two seemed to be. And the only reason I really thought about it is the number of people who correct others about the Eldrazi being genderless.