As I was reflecting upon how New Capenna managed to pique my interest after my curiosity was nuked by Elspeth, and subsequently my sentiments were proven right as the story fell apart, I dwelt upon how the last time we had a story that wasn't solved by a bloody Planeswalker was freaking Lorwyn (good gods, it had to be that trainwreck...)

I mean, okay, we've had natives that became walkers, but our past two years or so have been rather riddled with characters whose stake in the world have been negligible at best. Or they were just Nissa.

But, with that gripe out of the way, I'm left to consider what the Brother's War is going to do to fill the roster of walkers that absolutely must be filled for market purposes. Which left me with the logical conclusion we're going to get an Urza Planeswalker. Ideally, a double face one to represent the ascension.

But you can't scam sell a set on one walker. So, that left only two other options I can name: Bo Levar and Lord Windgrace.
And I think I'd be okay with that, partly because it wouldn't have anything mentioning commander smeared on it and we could get a proper card for Windgrace. (Of course, I could see them having a problem with that since they're all dudes)

But what are your thoughts about how they'll fill out the walkers come Brother's War?

Windgrace seems like a fairly easy call since he already has a popular PW, and thus brand would be more interested in the character. Guff could also theoretically show up, since he's old and associated with Dominaria. Tev Loneglade is also contemporary, though wouldn't yet be in his more famous form.

I'm kind of afraid they'll pull a big insult and have Karn and/or Teferi there -- if they do, hopefully as an observer/print from the Frame Story rather than meddling with time, which would be vaguely acceptable "Ah, the secret to the current problem must be in the history of Dominaria, let us view the Brothers' War through the migtstone/weakstone!"

We don't know how old Kristina is unless I'm mistaken, but she was trapped in the Shard and is certainly older than Freyalise. I could see her making a cameo.

I think you spot on about them mostly because there isn't that many planeswalker who are as old/older than Urza to appear here, both have histories tried to the the Brothers War and I know Bo Levar has a decent number of fans who have been wanting him as a card. You also get a nice mix of two "new" planeswalker characters and one who already had a card.

Will be easier to also guess after Dominaria United and which planeswalker are in there. They try to have a rough balance of colors of planeswalkers so you can predict what characters/color of planeswalkers they might put in. Currently without knowing whats in Dominaria United the colors are pretty balanced out. I'm gonna guess they will simplify Urza as mono-blue, WIndgrace likely in RG and not too sure for Bo.



I do think Brothers War will be flavored as the present characters looking into the past to learn more about Phyrexia, but I'm not buying the time travel aspect too much and I think your right that they will at most be observers. Plus I think Karn would more likey get a card in Dominaria United instead.

"Insults" I wouldn't mind: a pneumagog card.

Oh, look, people are talking about The Brothers' War!

I'll just copy what I wrote about it in the previous thread about the set:



So, yeah, pretty much in line with what others have said. I can never quite remember whether Lord Windgrace ascended during the Sylex Blast or whether he already was a 'walker back then, though...


Yeah, I'm still not fully convinced this isn't going to be either another "time travel story" like Tarkir or a retcon fest like Magic Origins where they are "finally" telling that story "for the first time"... The wole timing behind this set is just kinda suspicious, and so is the fact that they decided to do something like this in the first place. But let's wait and see...

As far as frame stories and people looking back is concerned, I'd rather have more flavourtext with new quotes from Kayla's The Antiquities War. Nature's Spiral already did it, though I'm not sure it actually preserved the formal criteria the text is supposed to have acording to pre-rev soures... I guess I'll have to look that up and figure it out on a rainy Sunday afternoon or something. The only thing I can say for sure is that it's not a direct quote from the parts of the pre-rev text that actually exist, because I checked that when Dominaria came out. Then again, those excerpts aren't completely in line with revisionist continuity anyway (e.g. Feldon is Urza's son) and condense important parts of the story in a really awkward way, so I would't worry about that too much. Still, I hope they at least considered the formal criteria and ideally some references to the existing pre-rev text that still fit the novel's continuity.

I'm not really sure how old she is either, or whether it would contradict anything on the timeline, but from the top of my head, I guess it could work. Then again, I'd argue putting Kristina into the context of the Brothers' War might have weird implications. At the very least, it would raise the question why a powerful nature 'walker didn't intervene if she was around. Personally, I hope they don't add any 'walkers we didn't already know had a connection to the story (like Bo Levar, Windgrace or Szat/Loneglade).






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Allow me some non-'walker-related speculation: I had this idea the other day that the set might actually use DFCs (most likely transforming ones) to show the scope of the conflict and how the setting changes from the beginning of the war to the end. A young recruit might turn into a bitter old veteran, a lush forest into a strip mine, an excavation site might reveal another Thran artefact, and mechanical creatures could become bigger or more sophisticated versions of themselves as the arms race progresses. Flip 'walkers would organically plug into this as well, and it would really show history unfold over the course of decades. Dominaria is now thougt of as the "history plane" after all.

I'd expect gameplay to be rather slow and grindy as well. I think sacrificing stuff or converting resources should play a role, and ideally it wouldn't so much let you pile up resources (like Kaladesh block did with energy counters) but rather have you sacrifie something and instantly convert it, if that makes sense. I think that would get the feel of the war across more accurately.

God, I just hope the actual war in Europe doesn't put people off the set, that would be a shame...

They said this set was originally planned as a side set that they decided to make into a main line set to herald in magic's 30th anniversary along with Dominaria United.

That said, story can be written pretty quickly, so they'll probably do what everyone has speculated to the point of tedium: the phyrexians are going back in tiem to make Yawgmoth win (even though he's not directly involved in the Brother's War and none of the new phyrexians actually give a **** about Yawggie boi, with Jin Gitaxias and Vorinclex in particular hating him) so they'll win, even though such an action would probably mean they do not exist.

That seems highly unlikely