The Lore of Sandcrafters And Azir's Magic

at first i wanted to cover the lore of all the shriekman cards in one big video well that was before i realized that that video would be way over 30 minutes long so instead i decided to separate the video into two parts so today we will have a look at all the cards related to azir which even includes the hidden deck of cards which you can get if you level azir up to his third form and then later on i wanna have a look at renekton and nasus and all the bakai these two kinds of cards really give us a lot of new lore and especially when it comes to azir we learned about some really interesting new details so without further ado let's have a look at what is happening with azir you see although the concept of azir was always really cool there were some holes in his story after his death being resurrected by the blood of his bloodline makes sense shurima has its fair share of history with blood magic getting ascended just as he was resurrected would also make sense it is the light of the sun disc that ascends people and we know just as he was resurrected the light of the fallen sun disk reflected onto him but then with his resurrection the entire empire was raised from the sands and that part was never explained we never learned about why the sun disc was raised from the sands or how it happened it simply just did so i am super happy to see that azir scars actually explain it now we know why the empire was risen from the sands after azir's resurrection so let's get into it let's start with azir's own description when azir took up the mantle as emperor of shurima he was arrogant blind he accumulated power and planned his ascension so that he might stand as ruler over not just shrima but the entire world a quote from the history of the ascended host here you can see that azir is using some kind of a celestial sandy magic which you know makes sense he is the guy who can apparently resurrect mirror images of his own soldiers from sand in fact according to azir story the sand soldiers which he summons are actually images of the soldiers that died in the past he can essentially create an image of his fallen people anyway we will get to the details of that in just a second what's interesting about this image is that using his sandy magic it almost seems like azir is viewing some kind of a calendar from his point of view at the top you can see an indicator of the sun disc and around it i assume you can see the position of the sun and on the sides you can see the cycle of the moon i wonder if this stream and calendar is revealing when the next ascension would be possible maybe you can't ascend people whenever you want maybe you have to wait for the right lunar cycle it would make sense since the sun disc is reflecting the power of the sun so without the sun being in the right position it makes sense why the ascension wouldn't be possible last thing to point out here yes azir has pants i'm sorry to those of you who enjoyed his naked legs then there is the leveled up form short of fulfilling his destiny azir's lifelong friend and a newly named brother hatefully cast him off the diocese in that hateful moment shrima was cursed doomed to ruin for thousands of years to follow of course this quote of the history of the ascended host is talking about xerath azir's advisor who technically betrayed him because of misunderstanding if you are interested in what happened between zerath and nazir we recently talked about it in nasa's story regardless here azir is using his sandy magic to reconstruct portions of his empire this is already hinting at how the entire empire was resurrected but once again we will get to that in just a second and finally there is the third ascended form the emperor azir though hud is generous above all he cares deeply for those who would march alongside him into sharima's golden future as the nation rises anew its people once again united under his rule now in the canon timeline we know that right now azir is in the process of remaking the empire so maybe these final steps of the finishing touches are actually scenes from the future there is also a card for arise which as we mentioned is just azir making an image from the sand of one of his fallen ancient soldiers connected to this there are the sand soldiers azir's legions were reputed to be unstoppable even before shurima was reborn but now they are truly innumerable this confirms that these soldiers were actually real people in the past once again azir's story explained that he can use the sand to make images to view what happened in his empire in the past but here he can also use those images of the past as warriors to fight for the future then there is this gorgeous art showing us the buried sun disc in fact this is absolutely a scene of what happened when azir was resurrected when azir beheld the shuriman capital sandisk he saw it not for what it was but what it could be the key to returning shrima to its former glory so yes this is a scene from right before he raised the sun disk from the sand but now you may be wondering how would he even be able to do that none of the other ascended have this kind of power when the others ascended they either just became powerful warriors or in some of the rarer cases like nezuk who was an ascended from ishtal which is a nation focusing on magic nazouk became an ascended mage but even there he was using more of an arcane magic well right did actually explain azir's magic and for that we have to skip forward and have a look at the sandcrafter few are taught the ways of the desert and even fewer given the ability to command its sands as azir can to wield this power and know the secrets of the sands is a gift given only to azir's most faithful and capable followers so yeah just like you have elementalists who can manipulate the elements of runeterra or stoneweaver such as talia who can manipulate stones there are also the sandcrafters which are mages who can manipulate the sands it is possible to be born with this kind of power although it is very rare but the reason why there are so many sandcrafters in azir's army is because azir taught them how to use this magic himself so it is safe to assume that since he is also an ascended azir is the most powerful sandcrafter on roon terra that's how the shuriman empire was reborn using his sand magic azir ripped the sandisk from the ground and he rose the entire empire back to its feet this also means that all those endless armies of sand soldiers were not risen just by azir those armies were risen with the help of the sandcrafters and the description of this card also references what we already talked about it says to wield this power and know the secrets of the sands i believe that this is referencing that you can use the sands to show you an image of what happened in the past azir himself did that he climbed onto the dice of ascension and there he used the sand to not only see his family before it was annihilated by the sun disk but also to see how zeroth betrayed him so it is safe to assume that these sandcrafters can do that as well that's what the secrets of the sands are so now that we know that there is a new kind of magic in shrima let's have a look at how it affects all the other cards related to azir one of those is the dune keeper as the emperor commands both the sand and eye obey word of azir's return has spread across the deserts from shurima to the world beyond i have ensured that myself so not only is this person a follower of azir he also seems to behave like a messenger he's the one spreading the word around that shrima has risen but unfortunately for this sort of a messenger it didn't end up well for him then there is emperor's dice which also references the sandcrafters the sandcrafters lifted their hands willing the sand into the familiar shape of armored faceless soldiers a tireless army ready to fight for their god emperor then there is also the spell unworthy the sun will shine again upon the shreeman lands well i do believe that this is referencing azir's turrets in the game you can see that these are just miniature versions of the sun discs but they serve as automated constructs that defend shrima and then there are waking sets this one has a quote from sivir the box might be worth something but whatever's inside sure as sand isn't by which i mean it's not worth opening speaking from experience here interestingly enough this box contains a sandstone charger another image shaped from the sand but here i wonder is this an image of a buckeye which for those of you who are unaware the bakai are the ascended who are unworthy to be ascended they are basically the result of a failed ritual of ascension but if these are not bakkai i wonder if this is an entire new being which we have not heard about before because you know we have never seen a centaur on runeterra even hecarim is not one hecarim is just a combination of his soul combined with the soul of his horse so i wonder if this is perhaps something similar if it's not either of those this could be just a sandcrafter morphing the image of a soldier with the image of a horse remember there are horses in shrima so this may be what this is unfortunately the quotes in game don't confirm anything and neither does the description they appeared out of nowhere made up of swirling sands then after they had dispatched our forces their forms simply disappeared melted back into the desert in a moment we will have a look at another card which will give us more info on these but interestingly i wonder what's the symbol on their belt about this is clearly an image of a minotaur though it could be referencing some fallen ascended god warrior then there is the devoted council nothing special about these they are just the people who decided to join azir when the empire was reborn i have sworn myself to azir and to shurima my home will you not do the same as a nice easter egg among these people you may see what appears to be nasus but nasus is supposed to be quite tall so this might be just some random vastaya then there is esteemed hierophant which is this person who's being carried to the capital oh that's pajuman one of the elders of nashuame i think everyone has come to our city today papa the words of an excited onlooker of course nashrame is one of the cities in the north which heads the massive library where nasus and renekton fold then we get a bunch of sandy spells which don't really give us any more context there is desert's wrath and emperor's divide but then we get the golden ambassador also one of the people who decided to serve azir although she is a much higher ranking one she is the person they probably sent to the neighboring regions to get abducted our shining future lies just beneath the sands and it is up to us to pave the way for azir the golden empire in the desert will rise again and after her we get the voice of the risen i saw her speak long ago the older soldier smiled and for an instant his granddaughter could picture it shrima gold and gleaming proud azir standing over the city heralded by the voice of the risen she stirred in us all a passion we thought long lost so she is basically trying to tell the common folk what the empire could be like in the future next up there is the inspiring marshall to receive the blessing of azir is a great honor to give blessing in his name and honor greater still the blessing of azir is of course the ability to send craft and to give a blessing in his name would be to craft his soldiers although it is also possible that the martial is just enhancing the soldiers but finally then there is the sand swept doom as they passed through the ravine the sandcrafter spoke the word of magic a gust of wind echoed through a canyon and turned to a thunder of oncoming hoofs you see most people thought that this person in the background would be azir but the description confirmed that this is just a sandcrafter one of azir's followers and the sandcrafter used the magic to release the centaurs from the tombs but this makes me wonder the previous one definitely looked like an image of sand but these look far more physical with that said in some of the other images the other soldiers also look like they have physical bodies that's just the illusion of the sand but in this case since these centaurs seem to be locked within the tombs as in they were just standing inside they don't seem to be shaped from the sand right at this moment i wonder if these are actually bakai maybe they really were looked inside and they were just waiting for someone to open the tube and finally for the last one there is the sandstone chimera a creature which either seems to be sucking the sand from the soldiers to shape itself or it may be a creature that is creating even more soldiers upon azir's return schriemann's caught sight of ancient beasts of legend made of sand but no less impressive notice how it said beasts of legend meaning that there is more than just this one chimera i wonder if we ever get to see the other creatures too i don't really have much to say on this though it's just a really awesome image of a beast that lived during the times of the ancient shrima but now even though that is it for the cards you can see in game we are still not done because if you get azir to level 3 your entire deck gets replaced with special cards this is called the emperor's deck but unfortunately you can't find those cards in game you have to go to something like the wiki to find them so i did do just that and so now i want to present you all the special cards unfortunately they won't reveal too much more info but they show us what the armies of azir would look like once the empire is fully reborn and it is ready to conquer the world first there is golden herald now more powerful than ever azir has risen his most loyal soldiers to lead his armies you can see that because these two also have glowing eyes just like the soldiers these were also risen from the sand then there is crumbling sands those who oppose us will be reduced to dust which just shows us azir's magic interestingly i wonder if the image he crafted from the sand is stargone it looks kinda similar so it would be cool if azir's next goal was to attack targon though it might be improbable this could be just a random structure from the sand though you know the sun disk is kinda linked to the targonians and especially the celestial magic then there is shimmering mirage between the sand the sun and the heat it can be difficult to tell what is real and what is merely a mirage the card shows us an image of a rider on a lion which is actually the eternal gladiator behold see how our champion sits astride lion even the king of beasts would yield to his power for he is the will of azir seeing that this person's eyes are also glowing i wonder if these are also just sand images it certainly would make sense because to this day we have never seen a lion anywhere on rontera so it would be cool if the lions of runtera were gone from the world but you can still see them because azir can craft images of them then there is emperor's prosperity birds found in the desert climbs are all considered symbols of azir and tremens find their presence a good omen i honestly wonder if these birds are what shaped azir into his ascended form you know the ascendant gets shaped in the image of animals there is the theory that those animals are actually one of the celestial beings but still i wonder if these somehow link to azir's appearance then there is generals palace observe our god emperor he knows the power of these lands better than any and his army only grows shrima is risen and it shall never fall again interestingly enough azir's generals were his ascended god warriors for example both nasus and renekton were his generals so i wonder if this was like their main hideout either way this is actually a scene from the cinematic which makes all of this even more possible one of nasus's gateways led underneath this place remember there they took an elevator and they rose up there so this may actually be nasus's home then there is emperor's guard the emperor's golden guard moves as one a succession of regiment warriors that is as terrifying as it is impressive to behold these gold warriors are azir's most loyal soldiers and interestingly enough if you look at their helms it reveals that the main character of the cinematic was also one of the golden warriors we still don't really know who it is specifically but we know that person was one of these then there is a card for sandstorm you know the root jokes and finally there is the ascendance call they will serve their emperor my generals will make sure of it interestingly enough from the quotes in game both nasus and renekton as long as they are in the same deck as azir are happy to serve their emperor of course they get some angry quotes when they are enemies but in general they are both still on azir's side which makes sense azir has never done anything to them it's just that nasus and renekton just don't like each other so i wonder if this trio of ascended warriors will get some special story in the future of course xerath will have something to say against them as well but the story of nasus and renekton may get really interesting soon but we will dive deeper into these in the next stream and video nasus renekton and all the buckeye revealed even more new cool info so that's what i want to have a look at next there are also talias cards which are interesting but they don't really reveal anything new and sivir simply references her own bio nothing new there honestly the most interesting cards out of those quote-unquote leftovers are all the zillion cards now it is highly likely that zillion will become a champion eventually and that's why i don't want to cover these just now just know that all those chronomancer cards have a lot of references to igafia but i also love the reference to zhonya's hourglass you

Channel: Necrit

Views: 136,211

Rating: 4.9741101 out of 5

Keywords: Lore, Story, Necrit, Necrit94, Narrated, Explained, League of Legends, LOL, TFT, Teamfight tactics, legends of runeterra, Azir, Nasus, Renekton, Shurima

Id: dzkBfhSwlzc

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021