- 15,614
- 7,054
Okay, so while the Neowalkers and post-mending beings of the M:tG verse aren't nearly as powerful as the monstrous, multiversal forces that existed before the mending, this thread is to show some of them aren't quite as weak as people think, as well as upgrade some current profiles while justifying stats for ones I plan on making very soon. Skip to paragraph four to get into the meat of things.
When looking for feats in the post-mending M:tG setting, I eventually came to Theros, which is a Greek-themed plane ruled by 15 immortal gods; one for each of the five types of mana, and one for each two color mana combination. While these gods were always treated as being quite impressive, I couldn't remember any very explicit feats for them. Then, a friend of mine reminded me that there was lore referring to them as living constellations or something to that effect. Interested, I decided to try and dig this info up. There was only one problem: this lore was supposedly on one of the pack-insert lore/rules insert ads, but who the hell keeps those?!
After trying and failing to find what I was looking for on google images, I decided to try and watch some Theros unboxing videos to see if anyone paid attention to the back of the pack insert adds. You can imagine how well that went. FINALLY, I found what I was looking for in, hilariously enough, an ASMR unboxing video. All because the girl unboxing the packs was taking the time to read through the info cards.
Here is the important info. If you can't watch it right now, this is the passage.
"The night sky of Theros is not merely filled with stars for the mortals to stare at in awe. The all-powerful gods reside in the divine realm of Nyx. The gods are infused with stars and live their lives like moving constellations."
Seeing as the realm of Nyx is literally the night sky, that means the stars all over the gods such as Phenax and Keranos aren't just a pretty design. That's at least Multi-Solar System level by size, alone.
Now here's the really interesting part. When Elspeth, a new Planeswalker devoted to white mana, came to Theros, Heliod, the god of the sun, grew jealous of her planeswalking ability and tried to kill her...twice. However, without even knowing it, Elspeth thwarted his attempts, because her Planeswalker spark was too damn strong, and this freaked Heliod out. Yes, Heliod, this immensely powerful god whose being is filled with innumerable stars, not only failed to kill Elspeth, but was scared of her and believed that if she realized her true power, she could ascend to godhood, absolutely destroy him, and become the new god of white mana. Since Xenagos, a satyr Planeswalker of red and green mana, ascended to godhood, and Heliod obviously wasn't having any of that shit, he appointed Elspeth as his "champion" and decided to use her.
Long story short, since even gods can't kill other gods (as they exist as and are empowered by concepts such as war, victory, revelry, etc.), Elspeth receieved a weapon called "Godsend", which was a blade created as a result of Heliod and Purphoros fighting, as well as supposedly the only thing that could kill a god. Elspeth fights Xenagos, kills him with Godsend, and then when she's weakened and has her guard down, Heliod takes Godsend and kills Elspeth with it. Dick move, Heliod.
Now then, lets get into the most important stuff: upgrades and who all this craziness scales to.
First of all, the gods of Theros (who don't have profiles yet but I'm going to make some) should be at least 4-A by virtue of size alone.
While I'm not sure about Elspeth's (who I will make a profile for, soon) regular AP, her durability should be "Likely at least 4-A" because Heliod failed to kill her TWICE, despite the fact her guard was down. With Godsend, her AP should be the same as the gods due to managing to kill Xenagos after a long battle.
Now for a profile we already have, this should scale to post-mending Nicol Bolas. Why? Well, Bolas is repeatedly described as pretty much the strongest Planeswalker left in the setting, with the only possible exception being Kar. Hell, during the Shards of Alara storyline, Elspeth needed help from Rafiq to defeat Nicol Bolas' general, the immensely powerful demon-dragon hybrid Malfegor, who was much more powerful than each of them, individually. Yet, despite all his power, Malfegor is still much, much weaker than Bolas, and was really nothing but a pawn in the ancient dragon's schemes.
By extension, this should probably scale to Ajani, but only for one particular technique he used to fend off Bolas, which essentially makes his opponent fight an equal projection of himself. This could be a good measuring stick of how powerful of an opponent he can copy.
Finally, this should scale to the bound Eldrazi Titans, such as Emrakul. I know they're technically ALREADY this tier, but this is even more solid justification. Not only are the Eldrazi's lower-dimensional shadows more powerful than any Planeswalker left in the multiverse, but when Kruphix, the oldest and most powerful of the gods, saw the Eldrazi in Kiora's mind, he feared that should they set their sights on Theros, he would be unable to stop its complete destruction.
As a last little bit, I'm going to shoot down a few counterarguments people might have.
1. "The gods can't contain real stars. Purphoros' picture show's he's only about twice as tall as a volcano!"
Nope. While Nyx is Theros' night sky, it is also an entirely separate realm which mortals can only view, but not interact with. The gods as seen by the people of Theros are only their influence cast down from Nyx.
2. "But when Heliod kills Elspeth, they're only around the same height."
Two reasons possible for that. The first of them was, since Elspeth entered Nyx, she was in an entirely different plane of existence and brought there specifically by a god for the purpose of killing another god. There's no reason she'd remain human sized.
The second is that Heliod specifically shrunk down to that size when he killed Elspeth. He made a point of taunting her in her last moments of life, which would be much easier while looking her face to face. Notice how when she fought Xenagos, he was still drastically bigger than her, despite both being in Nyx.
Anyway, I know this was really lengthy, but I'd like to hear some opinions on it.
When looking for feats in the post-mending M:tG setting, I eventually came to Theros, which is a Greek-themed plane ruled by 15 immortal gods; one for each of the five types of mana, and one for each two color mana combination. While these gods were always treated as being quite impressive, I couldn't remember any very explicit feats for them. Then, a friend of mine reminded me that there was lore referring to them as living constellations or something to that effect. Interested, I decided to try and dig this info up. There was only one problem: this lore was supposedly on one of the pack-insert lore/rules insert ads, but who the hell keeps those?!
After trying and failing to find what I was looking for on google images, I decided to try and watch some Theros unboxing videos to see if anyone paid attention to the back of the pack insert adds. You can imagine how well that went. FINALLY, I found what I was looking for in, hilariously enough, an ASMR unboxing video. All because the girl unboxing the packs was taking the time to read through the info cards.
Here is the important info. If you can't watch it right now, this is the passage.
"The night sky of Theros is not merely filled with stars for the mortals to stare at in awe. The all-powerful gods reside in the divine realm of Nyx. The gods are infused with stars and live their lives like moving constellations."
Seeing as the realm of Nyx is literally the night sky, that means the stars all over the gods such as Phenax and Keranos aren't just a pretty design. That's at least Multi-Solar System level by size, alone.
Now here's the really interesting part. When Elspeth, a new Planeswalker devoted to white mana, came to Theros, Heliod, the god of the sun, grew jealous of her planeswalking ability and tried to kill her...twice. However, without even knowing it, Elspeth thwarted his attempts, because her Planeswalker spark was too damn strong, and this freaked Heliod out. Yes, Heliod, this immensely powerful god whose being is filled with innumerable stars, not only failed to kill Elspeth, but was scared of her and believed that if she realized her true power, she could ascend to godhood, absolutely destroy him, and become the new god of white mana. Since Xenagos, a satyr Planeswalker of red and green mana, ascended to godhood, and Heliod obviously wasn't having any of that shit, he appointed Elspeth as his "champion" and decided to use her.
Long story short, since even gods can't kill other gods (as they exist as and are empowered by concepts such as war, victory, revelry, etc.), Elspeth receieved a weapon called "Godsend", which was a blade created as a result of Heliod and Purphoros fighting, as well as supposedly the only thing that could kill a god. Elspeth fights Xenagos, kills him with Godsend, and then when she's weakened and has her guard down, Heliod takes Godsend and kills Elspeth with it. Dick move, Heliod.
Now then, lets get into the most important stuff: upgrades and who all this craziness scales to.
First of all, the gods of Theros (who don't have profiles yet but I'm going to make some) should be at least 4-A by virtue of size alone.
While I'm not sure about Elspeth's (who I will make a profile for, soon) regular AP, her durability should be "Likely at least 4-A" because Heliod failed to kill her TWICE, despite the fact her guard was down. With Godsend, her AP should be the same as the gods due to managing to kill Xenagos after a long battle.
Now for a profile we already have, this should scale to post-mending Nicol Bolas. Why? Well, Bolas is repeatedly described as pretty much the strongest Planeswalker left in the setting, with the only possible exception being Kar. Hell, during the Shards of Alara storyline, Elspeth needed help from Rafiq to defeat Nicol Bolas' general, the immensely powerful demon-dragon hybrid Malfegor, who was much more powerful than each of them, individually. Yet, despite all his power, Malfegor is still much, much weaker than Bolas, and was really nothing but a pawn in the ancient dragon's schemes.
By extension, this should probably scale to Ajani, but only for one particular technique he used to fend off Bolas, which essentially makes his opponent fight an equal projection of himself. This could be a good measuring stick of how powerful of an opponent he can copy.
Finally, this should scale to the bound Eldrazi Titans, such as Emrakul. I know they're technically ALREADY this tier, but this is even more solid justification. Not only are the Eldrazi's lower-dimensional shadows more powerful than any Planeswalker left in the multiverse, but when Kruphix, the oldest and most powerful of the gods, saw the Eldrazi in Kiora's mind, he feared that should they set their sights on Theros, he would be unable to stop its complete destruction.
As a last little bit, I'm going to shoot down a few counterarguments people might have.
1. "The gods can't contain real stars. Purphoros' picture show's he's only about twice as tall as a volcano!"
Nope. While Nyx is Theros' night sky, it is also an entirely separate realm which mortals can only view, but not interact with. The gods as seen by the people of Theros are only their influence cast down from Nyx.
2. "But when Heliod kills Elspeth, they're only around the same height."
Two reasons possible for that. The first of them was, since Elspeth entered Nyx, she was in an entirely different plane of existence and brought there specifically by a god for the purpose of killing another god. There's no reason she'd remain human sized.
The second is that Heliod specifically shrunk down to that size when he killed Elspeth. He made a point of taunting her in her last moments of life, which would be much easier while looking her face to face. Notice how when she fought Xenagos, he was still drastically bigger than her, despite both being in Nyx.
Anyway, I know this was really lengthy, but I'd like to hear some opinions on it.
