The Eldrazi Titans Explained | Magic the Gathering Lore

I think one of the reasons why Emrakul basically allowed herself to be locked away is because she realized she came to Innistrad too early, I think what she meant was that, planes welcome her arrival when they're old, and fulfilled their cycle, so the eldrazi arrive and clear out the aging planes, to make room for more, Ugin did compare them to the Multiverse's immune system, essentially the Eldrazi know when a plane is old and decaying, so they clear it out and leave it empty, that's what I feel she meant when she thought the world would welcome her arrival, instead, Innistrad was defiant, angry, hateful against the titan that came to consume it far too early, and that's where the whole thing spun on it's heel, Emrakull can't stop herself from consuming a plane, but she could slow herself down with a little "help" from the tiny creatures so willing to stop her.

In short, I think the reason why Emrakull let herself be stopped, is because she realized she was deceived, that Innistrad wasn't dying, so she wasn't ready to consume a yet thriving world, and since she is smarter than the other titans, she was able to use Jace's help to stop what she'd figure was a mistake.

But Eldrazi are not villains, Emrakul will save us all.

Doubt it’ll ever happen, but I’d love to see a blind eternities focused set that really goes into the eldrazi lore

I still think it was a missed opportunity to not have the phyrexians try to compleat Emrakul, only to realize that Emrakul is infinitely more powerful than them and effectively turn the phyrexians into colorless biomechanical eldrazi thralls. Even have phyrexian colorless mana in her cost. Would make her line about being "incomplete" feel like a fantastic foreshadowing.

Don't you think the term "Antagonist" might have been better used instead of "Villain" given the fact that the Eldrazi are not evil and more like a force of nature.

Emrakul devours planes.

Me: launches 15 squirrels at it.

The conceptualization of the Eldrazi as inscrutable, eldritch Lovecraftian beings was one of the greatest triumphs of MtG worldbuilding. Their subsequent reduction into MCU-style cartoon villains with clear motives and frailties was one of their greatest failures as well.

The eldrazi have always been my favorite piece of lore in the entire magic history.
They are different from other "villains" in the lore.
Phyrexia wanted to conquer and corrupt, Bolas wanted to enslave and overpower everyone; the eldrazis don't have such superficial goals. They are an impartial force of nature doing what nature built them to do, recycle mana and planes and, while doing so, mortal planebound beings see them as terrible unstoppable all-devouring monsters without any form of rational or logical pattern of action.
They are odd and uncomprehensible for normal minds that reason in a cause-effect scheme, going beyond conventional reason.
They are not "villains" in the true sense of the term, but just agents of the multiverse's natural composting cycle.

I like the idea that Emrakul will suffer a metamorphosis on the moon. When Emrakul said she was not ready on Innistrad, what I thought is that she was waiting for the other two titans (my idea is that eventually they reborn as they are a natural phenomena of the blind eternities)

The important thing to remember about Lovecraft’s mythos, of which the Eldrazi are clearly based, is that there are multiple pantheons and they are not equal. What nearly bought planes to their knees could be but specs of dust to far, far greater horrors.

I can’t wait to see the Eldrazi return! They’re easily my favourite “villains”, if you can even call them that, when our mortal follies of morality couldn’t possible apply to them.

I like the idea that each Eldrazi does a different part of the world. Theyre all described as consuming mana, but I like the idea that theres mind, space, and substance.

Ulamog recycles the substance, the matter of the plane. It's wake is ready to release its physical matter back into the multiverse.

Kozilek recycles the space, the reality, of the plane. Removing the boundaries between the plane and the blond eternities.

And Emrakul recycles the life, the minds. The hardest to understand of the Eldrazi, maybe she brings the minds of the dying plane into herself, a collective mass of ancient peoples given a final rest, or maybe she disperses them amongst the planes, to be born anew.

Emrakul evolves into Emrakruel at level 37
Ulamog more like Ulamoggles
Kozilek my Kouhai

A friend of mine had an interesting theory that Eldrazi are something like Galactus meets the borg. Some universes create a race that tries to turn it's entirety into a single hive mind. If they succeed in making everything one, that hunger to continue assimilating everything they eventually break out of the shell of their universe and enter a new place outside of the known planes, where they themselves are assimilated into the waiting Eldrazi hive mind and birth a paragon of their universe in the form of an Eldrazi titan. Their thirst to assimilate is repurposed into a instinct to consume other universes. Each Eldrazi's spawn are just twisted echoes of the entities that were once a part of universe that their hive mind came from. In theory the Phyrexians were the proto-form of a new Eldrazi titan and it's spawn that was stopped before it conquered it's universe and broke free into the space beyond the multiverse , which was why Emrakul doesn't react to their activities and the Eldrazi never attempt to consume them. Don't think it's right but it was a cool concept.

Imagine a Compleated Nicol Bolas (with a captured and corrupted Ugin) in control of the Phyrexian army vs Emrakul and the Eldrazi. The ultimate showdown

On one hand I think the Eldrazi are the biggest danger but I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to call them villains. Villainy implies an intent that I feel the Eldrazi don't have.

I know this was a quick rundown of the entire history but you got one key part incorrect. Nahiri did not seek the aid of Sorin to deal with the Eldrazi that were on her plane. In fact, the Eldrazi were not on Zendikar at all.

Ugin was the one who asked Sorin for help with the Eldrazi. Ugin needed to study the phenomenon and determine what exactly they were and if the Eldrazi were a threat to the multiverse. Sorin and Nahiri aided the attacked planes against the Eldrazi while Ugin studied them from within the plane and from without. Ugin determined that the Eldrazi's trajectory would eventually hit the home planes of the three eventually. So to protect their planes and those of others, he came up with the plan as seen on the video. One thing not mentioned in the video is that the hedrons would not only work as a prison but also beacon to draw the Eldrazi to the plane. However, which of their planes to choose from to be the prison? Sorin's plane of Innistrad was too small. It would not be able to hold all three titans with its mana leylines. Ugin's plane of Tarkir was too far. It would take a few decades perhaps even a century and dozens of planes would be consumed while the Eldrazi were drawn to it. Nahiri's own plane, Zendikar, had the mana capacity and was much closer by comparison. Nahiri did not want Zendikar to be the prison but to choose Tarkir instead meant she would be choosing a large number of other planes and trillions upon trillions of inhabitants to die instead.

If the Eldrazi truly so important in the health of the multiverse, would trapping them also be bad for the multiverse? As bad as killing them? I remember Ugin told the Gatewatch that killing the titans could have dire consequences on the multiverse, maybe someday they can have a major story about the death of two of the titans causing trouble for the multiverse, or at least to Zendikar, where they were killed. It could be a while till we see Emrakul again. I would love to learn more about the Eldrazi in the lore.

Ayy, always great to have an updated video. I usually listen to the old one when mowing the lawn

My full art ugin got here last night to add to my eldrazi deck (Gorgeous card btw). Excellent timing with the great video haha

Im just hoping theres more titans out there, even if they dont show up for the mainline lore, i love eldrazi for giving good high power counters to other strategies in game.