General [WAR] War of the Spark

[Velrun]

War of the Spark will be Magic’s 81’st expansion and be released in April 2019.

(Sorry I have no spoilers for you guys! However I do have some topics to talk about already)

Prefix
War of the Spark will be the ninth Ravnica set and will most likely feature a war between Nicol Bolas and the Gatewatch. Both sides will get plenty of help. Bolas has since 2007 tried to get his old spark back which made him a god. Not like the Theros and Amonkhet ones but like the ones that could create planes and were too powerful to be printed as cards. Think in the lines of Power 9 but for actual win conditions. Think Cruel Ultimatum at 4 mana etc. It was the Mending that caused all planeswalkers to become mortal being with regular power level and thus they were printable on MtG cards (2007 and onward). This is what Bolas wants to change.

The war

On Bolas side we have:
Dovin and Azorius
Domri and Gruul
Kaya and Orzhov
Vraska and Golgari
Ral and Izzet

On the Gatewatch side we have:
Lazav and Dimir
Rakdos
Trostani and Selesnya
Vannifar and Simic
Aurelia and Boros

This is how it looks now but much can change. There is plenty of room for betrayal. Vraska could be one of them because she has actually grown to like Jace when they were trapped together on Ixalan but Bolas wiped her memory so she will not recognize him at first.

Plot
Nobody truly knows what goes on in Bolas’ head but he is heading to Ravnica by the summon of Dovin. With him he has his Eternal army from the ‘worthy’ from Amonkhet. He will probably bring Tezzeret with him which he has been using as his personal Planar Bridge for his army since Kaladesh. The Immortal Sun is also in play from which is the powerful artifact from Ixalan that traps planeswalkers to a plane and keeps them from planeswalking. Bolas’ newest servant, Liliana, will also travel to Ravnica. It is speculated that Bolas wants to either kill all planeswalkers OR steal all planeswalkers’ spark and thus once again create his oldspark to make him a fully all-dominating oldwalker tyrant again.



Gideon Jura now has Blackblade. A truly legendary sword from Dominaria. The strongest sword ever wielded by a human and has drawn all of its power from blood/death sacrifices. This is how it grows in power and Dakkon sacrificed thousands (his son among them) to boost the sword. Perhaps an Aristocrats support equipment coming soon?

My two questions to you guys are:

1. What do you expect from WAR?

2. Do you think WAR will be Guild-focused because Ravnica, Shard-focused because Bolas or not multicolored at all because we just had two multicolored sets in a row?

 

[astraedm]

Apparently WAR is not going to be a "Ravnica Set", but merely set on Ravnica, so I don't expect the full multicolor gambit. It will be interesting getting another Bolas with one already so strong in standard. I also really wanna see what the hell Niv has been doing.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, I believe it was confirmed somewhere a while ago that the third set on Ravnica would not be about its guilds. I do wonder how Rakdos is against Bolas, but Domri Rade is with him? I would have expected that to be the reverse. Though of course, if Bolas promises destruction, wouldn't both bite?

Of course, we also have the Jace trump card from the Ixalan storyline. He and Vraska became best buddies, but he completely blocked her memories of that time so she could convincingly play the role of Bolas's lackey. The plan was to bring that memory back at an opportune time, evening the odds at least a little bit?

My guess is a few planeswalkers will die in this battle, quite possibly a few Gatewatch members as well.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Of course, we also have the Jace trump card from the Ixalan storyline. He and Vraska became best buddies, but he completely blocked her memories of that time so she could convincingly play the role of Bolas's lackey. The plan was to bring that memory back at an opportune time, evening the odds at least a little bit?

What if Bolas added a "Jace Fail-Safe" of sorts to his lackeys? He obviously knows Jace is a threat, so maybe Bolas has a contingency plan in place to stop the meddling mind-mage.

The WOTC story has been so predictable up until now that I feel a twist like this would add a more interesting conflict to the final chapter of this story arc.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I'm mostly surprised we even get a "season finale" in MTG. Really big fan of the set code "WAR"

 

[ravnic]

What you think, will we get some Eternalize creatures? I'd like some in green, red and black.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

What you think, will we get some Eternalize creatures? I'd like some in green, red and black.

I highly doubt it. The eternalization has already taken place. I doubt Bolas is bringing the azure gloop that's needed for the transformation to Ravnica. Plus, no there's no tradition of ambalming the dead on Ravnica whatsoever.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

What you think, will we get some Eternalize creatures? I'd like some in green, red and black.

I think we are more likely to see afflict than eternalize, if we even see the eternals at all. This set might literally involve the Gatewatch trying to blow up the Planar Portal again...

 

[ravnic]

Okay makes sense. Too bad. Hope this set will be interesting mechanically. I don't care too much about these planeswalkers and their troubles.

 

[Velrun]

Trailer:

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Someone is going to diE

 

[ravnic]

Hoping for Jace and Gideon

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Hoping for Jace and Gideon

I want:
-Jace and Vraska to hook up
-Chandra and Nissa to hook up
-Gideon to go home
-Liliana to die
-Bolas to not die, but be significantly weakened so he can come back in another 15 years
-Ugin and Karn to become buddies
-Teferi to go to Theros
-Vivien to battle Garruk
-Jaya to continue being awesome
-Sorin to get out of the wall
-Domri to visit a 19th Century UK World
-New Phyrexia 2: Electric Boogaloo

Also, I want new Jace to cost 4 Mana. Maybe a watered-down version of the Mind Sculptor for medium powered cubes.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Sweet lord, that was an awesome teaser trailer! The smoke forming the horns of Bolas at the end, niiiiiiiice I also think it's heavily implied Bolas's plan will fail, assuming he's the top candle, and not, in fact, the last candle burning. Hyped!

 

[Velrun]

Maybe he’s not even a candle?

 

[Velrun]

Nicol Bolas who wants to optain an oldwalker spark again. This has been his plan since Alara.
The Planar Bridge from Kaladesh block.
Liliana slave.
The Eternal Army from Amonkhet block.
The Immortal Sun from Ixalan block.

Planeswalkers are trapped on Ravnica now.

 

[Aston]

My predictions for this set:

1. Lots of planeswalkers, far more than we've ever seen. Maybe every mythic is a planeswalker.
2. Some or all of the current main characters (the Gatewatch) either die or lose their spark. This will be shown on cards that transform from planeswalker to creature, the opposite of the Origins flipwalkers.
3. The set signals a change in approach to how planeswalkers are treated, similar to Time Spiral block. From now on, planeswalkers will be much rarer; not every set will have one, and very few sets will have more than one. (this one is kind of wishful thinking on my part, but WotC has said walkers are the cards with the least design space and they might be finding they've almost exhausted it)
4. The Gatewatch wins and defeats Nicol Bolas but pays heavily for doing so. Let's say, uh, Sarkhan gets the final blow. Why not.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Looks legit, except obviously Liliana gets the final blow, releasing her from "a" master at last (only for the Raven Man to become the next major villain).

Alternatively, Gideon gets the final blow.

Sarkhan killing a dragon, and one that made him go insane for an extended spell no less, is very poetic though. I could live with that

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

My predictions for this set:
2. Some or all of the current main characters (the Gatewatch) either die or lose their spark. This will be shown on cards that transform from planeswalker to creature, the opposite of the Origins flipwalkers.

This sounds so fucking good I hope you're right. What a good way to let planeswalkers move into a new kind of phase frequency-wise!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

There's a foil planeswalker in every prerelease pack, source.

I could do a sarcastic "yay" if anybody wants me to? I mean, I do like some of the planeswalkers, but I think most of them don't make for very fun limited games... I've been cutting more and more planeswalkers from my cube, to the point I'm running only 7 at the moment, plus four of the flipwalkers (who are quite an improvement over normal planeswalkers imho).

 

[CaptnIrony]

There's a foil planeswalker in every prerelease pack, source.

I could do a sarcastic "yay" if anybody wants me to? I mean, I do like some of the planeswalkers, but I think most of them don't make for very fun limited games... I've been cutting more and more planeswalkers from my cube, to the point I'm running only 7 at the moment, plus four of the flipwalkers (who are quite an improvement over normal planeswalkers imho).

I've been wondering if you could do a PW focused cube (I'm sure that many have attempted) with some of the weaker planeswalkers. The ones that don't generate easy CA or aren't good removal spells. Or that generate CA or kill stuff but not both. Stuff like



and so on.

Who knows?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

There's a foil planeswalker in every prerelease pack, source.

I could do a sarcastic "yay" if anybody wants me to? I mean, I do like some of the planeswalkers, but I think most of them don't make for very fun limited games... I've been cutting more and more planeswalkers from my cube, to the point I'm running only 7 at the moment, plus four of the flipwalkers (who are quite an improvement over normal planeswalkers imho).

I think most of the PWs will look something like this:

Daretti, the Playable
2RB
+1 Create a 1/1 Colorless Construct Artifact Creature Token.
-1 Daretti, the Playable deals 1 damage to any target.
-3 Daretti, the Playable deals damage to target Creature or Planeswalker equal to the number of Artifacts you control
SL: 3

Not great, but playable in limited and good in grindy games.

We could also see:

Narset, Sarkhan's Bae
1WU
+1 The next Instant or Sorcery spell you cast until your next turn costs 1 less to cast.
+1 Draw a card. Then, discard a card unless you control a Sarkhan Planeswalker
-5 You get an emblem with "The first Instant or Sorcery spell you cast each turn costs 1 less to cast."
SL: 2


Sarkhan, Narset's Boo
1RR
+1 Sarkhan, Narset's Boo deals 2 damage to target creature
-2 Create a 2/2 Red Dragon Creature Token with Flying. If you control a Narset Planeswalker, put a +1/+1 counter on that token.
-4 Exile the top 4 cards of your library. You may play any number of those cards until the end of your next turn.
SL: 2

Buddy Walkers. Again, not great, but playable. Planeswalkers have this somewhat stupid goal of always needing to be amazing cards that can sell sets, even though the more interesting Planeswalker design space is in a lower powered zone. Any of these cards could be rare or uncommon in my opinion, yet they are more interesting than at least half of the "Generically good" walkers WOTC has been pumping out recently.

 

[CaptnIrony]

I think most of the PWs will look something like this:

Daretti, the Playable
2RB
+1 Create a 1/1 Colorless Construct Artifact Creature Token.
-1 Daretti, the Playable deals 1 damage to any target.
-3 Daretti, the Playable deals damage to target Creature or Planeswalker equal to the number of Artifacts you control
SL: 3

Not great, but playable in limited and good in grindy games.

We could also see:

Narset, Sarkhan's Bae
1WU
+1 The next Instant or Sorcery spell you cast until your next turn costs 1 less to cast.
+1 Draw a card. Then, discard a card unless you control a Sarkhan Planeswalker
-5 You get an emblem with "The first Instant or Sorcery spell you cast each turn costs 1 less to cast."
SL: 2


Sarkhan, Narset's Boo
1RR
+1 Sarkhan, Narset's Boo deals 2 damage to target creature
-2 Create a 2/2 Red Dragon Creature Token with Flying. If you control a Narset Planeswalker, put a +1/+1 counter on that token.
-4 Exile the top 4 cards of your library. You may play any number of those cards until the end of your next turn.
SL: 2

Buddy Walkers. Again, not great, but playable. Planeswalkers have this somewhat stupid goal of always needing to be amazing cards that can sell sets, even though the more interesting Planeswalker design space is in a lower powered zone. Any of these cards could be rare or uncommon in my opinion, yet they are more interesting than at least half of the "Generically good" walkers WOTC has been pumping out recently.

I'm actually thinking we might get more "generic" planeswalkers:

Agent of Bolas 2UB
Planeswalker (not legendary)
+1 Tap up to one target creature and it doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
-2 Scry 3, then draw a card.
-4 Creatures your opponents control get -3/-3 until end of turn.
SL: 2

Supporter of the Gatewatch 2W
Planeswalker (not legendary)
+1 Up to one target creature you control gets +1/+1 and first strike until end of turn.
-2 Create a 2/2 white knight token.
-6 Creatures you control get +2/+2 until end of turn.
SL: 3

Unfortunate Participant 3R
Planeswalker (not legendary)
+1 Discard a card, if you do, draw a card.
+1 Create a 3/1 Red Elemental token with haste.
-2 Target opponent sacrifices an artifact.

SL: 4

Bad at naming them. Also make tokens galore and less/smaller creatures as to let planeswalkers shine more.

 

[Velrun]

I think most planeswalkers will be Masterpiece and other promotional variants such as prerelease foils and/or box toppers in order to ‘have a lot of walker’ in WAR but without affecting limited or Standard too much.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think most planeswalkers will be Masterpiece and other promotional variants such as prerelease foils and/or box toppers in order to ‘have a lot of walker’ in WAR but without affecting limited or Standard too much.

That sounds like a reasonable solution. Either that or they would have to do some serious downgrading on the power level of planeswalkers in this to avoid standard becoming a mess. Maybe walkers with only minus abilities, so they're effectively charms-like cards. You know, something like...

Garruk, Charmy Boi
Legendary Creature - Garruk
-2: Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
-2: Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of lands you control.
-4: Untap all lands you control. They become 1/1 black and green Wolf creatures with deathtouch until end of turn. They're still lands.

I don't know, you catch my drift, right?