Magic: The Gathering (Unreleased Sets)

Magic Story: Return to Dominaria: Episode 5

So am I the only one who really likes Tiana, the Wrench Wench angel? I hope her card's mechanics do a good job of merging her angelic nature and her proficiency with artifacts.

She became very popular on Tumblr within about eight minutes of her art being revealed, I know that much.

Tiana's card has been officially revealed, so I don't have to feel bad about linking this.

Let's see...

Flying and First Strike. Standard Angel and White abilities (First Strike usually being associated with a lot of White creatures). She's a Guardian Angel who was originally intended to fight and defend something, after all.

Her power and toughness of 3/3 seems just a tad underwhelming for an Angel (a lot of the ones I remember were 4/4 or higher and/or had a lot more special abilities to make them more powerful in combat), but that make sense too. She is a rookie Angel who is only days old and has no real combat experience.

Being able to bring back Equipment and Auras. Makes sense for a character who is a combination of a mechanic and a being of pure magic.

The White and Red combination isn't unheard of among Angels, but it's interesting that this particular one alludes to Red's more passionate, creative, and freedom-loving aspect as opposed to its war and bloodshed aspect like other Red-White Angels. Tiana's whole character arc revolves around her finding her own meaning and purpose in life after losing the purpose she was literally born to do even before she was born.

edited 12th Apr '18 12:08:20 AM by M84

Also, Arvad is 3/3 with lifelink and deathtouch... but because he doesn't have first strike, Tiana would indeed end him if they met in combat.

I think Tiana's an interesting character, too. She's quite down-to-earth for an angel.

Anyway, the Full Dominaria Card Image Gallery is up!

Also;

• The Tokens of Dominaria
• Dominaria Planeswalker Deck Decklists

One odd bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation with Tiana's card is that she can only restore Equipment and Auras. She can't actually repair other Artifacts. Not even the Weatherlight.

Plot Twist-the followup set reveals the reborn Weatherlight is actually a piece of equipment, one that Karn will incorporate into his arm a la Voltron after growing to the size of Darigaaz.

Well, it was part of the Legacy, as was Karn.

...That was the joke...

I wonder if they had a version that included vehicles in the list of things she could restore, but got rid of it for some reason. Maybe I'll ask Maro!

My guess would be that they felt it'd be odd to have a Vehicle-related ability in a set with only one Vehicle, but that's only a guess.

That seems likely. I was thinking in terms of standard, but you're right that it'd be odd in, like, a prerelease or something.

Well, she didn't repair the Weatherlight. She helped extensively, but it was a communal effort that brought the ship back to the sky.

edited 14th Apr '18 7:44:18 AM by TobiasDrake

Story is up [1], and Teferi is back; and altogether rather reasonable for a former Oldwalker, considering our current reference pool.

And somehow, Jhoira wound up with his Spark. Seriously, WTF?

Given the card spoilers, we already know Teferi will get his Spark back, but yeah...how did that happen?

And even from the beyond the grave, Urza's an asshole.

edited 18th Apr '18 6:28:57 PM by M84

I do sort of wonder why he'd even leave a solvable puzzle to recover the artifact in the first place.

He wanted to give a Hope Spot to Teferi. He knew Teferi would be the one going after it. And he made sure it's something that would be impossible for Teferi to actually solve so that he'd spend the rest of his life (immortal or not) wasting effort. Because Urza, again, is one of the biggest dicks to ever grace the Multiverse. And that's taking into account the likes of Nicol Bolas. The only reason it ultimately failed was because Teferi let other people help him with the puzzle. Someone like Urza would never have comprehended that.

What an asshole.

edited 18th Apr '18 7:10:04 PM by M84

Based on what Jhoira says, at least one part of the Mana Rig is still functional, and his spark should still be in the rift; if it was more like a suture than a plate/set of pins, then it might have been possible to safely extract the spark after giving the rift a few decades to stabilize.

And I am loving the fact that Teferi makes no bones about what kind of person Urza was; the rest of the universe was experimental subjects that might graduate to manipulated tools if they were smart/capable enough. Sealing some abandoned project or 'break glass in case of emergency' artifact in a tomb that would be almost impossible to crack without the direct aid of Urza...just the sort of thing he would do to keep his bauble out of the hands of his allies, let alone enemies.

edited 18th Apr '18 7:10:13 PM by ViperMagnum357

And Teferi actually underestimated Urza's dickishness. It didn't occur to him that Urza engineered the puzzle to be totally unsolvable for him. Urza's a cheating asshole.

Really, it's for the best that Urza isn't around anymore. Things are bad enough with Nicol Bolas and Tezzeret and Ral Zarek and Ob Nixilus and Nahiri and Garruk Wildspeaker...we don't need another asshole Planeswalker screwing up the Multiverse.

edited 19th Apr '18 9:28:13 PM by M84

Urza's a UB planeswalker who fancies himself W. He's an interesting take on the Big Good archetype. Normally, the Big Good is this paragon of good who's kept out of focus by his other duties or plot contrivance or because the story's about his underlings or something. With Urza, it's more that he really sucks at the job and frequently causes more harm than good.

It says a lot about Urza that after literally millennia of justifying his dickishness as doing whatever it takes to stop Phyrexia, the biggest spanner in the works that nearly cost Dominaria everything wound up being when this happened.

• Urza: Alright, guys, let's blow this thing and go home!
• Yawgmoth: Hey, I know you're gonna blow up Phyrexia and all but did you see this cool shit I made?
• Urza: Wait, you make cool shit here?
• Other Planeswalkers: ...Urza....
• Urza: Hold on, let's hear him out. I'm very intrigued by the prospect of cool shit.
• Yawgmoth: My whole world is a giant experimentation workshop. Have you seriously never noticed that before?
• Urza: He makes a compelling point, you guys.
• Other Planeswalkers: URZA NO
• Urza: Urza YES

Thousands of years of dedicated preparation, planning, strategizing, building, arranging, manipulating, all for the sake of being able to take Phyrexia on when it comes. And then it all nearly wound up being for nothing because Urza decided on the spur of the moment that he didn't want to do that anymore.

edited 19th Apr '18 9:14:36 PM by TobiasDrake

It's not quite spur of the moment, though it's still incredibly dickish. There's foreshadowing in various cards and in the stories showing Urza growing to admire the Phyrexians even as he worked to destroy them. And during the journey through Phyrexia itself, Urza finds himself surrounded by a plane that embodied everything he ever wanted the world to be. A perfect construct. As a result, all Yawgmoth had to do at the end was ask Urza what he wanted. Yawgmoth knew that he and Urza were Not So Different.

And Urza wasn't B. He was WU...in all of the wrong ways.

edited 19th Apr '18 9:23:43 PM by M84

Well, if we want to get technical, Urza was full on WUBRG with a hard on for artifacts, which was spelled out in a Q+A way back.

It was hardly spur of the moment; he was pure, grade-A douche nozzle going back to his early mortal days. Urza employed most of the same tactics as Phyrexia; right down to implanted cybernetics, genetic modification, breeding programs, and enslaving anyone who he found useful, albeit through more subtle means. In a sane Multiverse post-Ice Age, Urza would have been public enemy #1, what with the Eldrazi in stasis and Bolas taking a dirt nap

I guess one could say that Urza was the ultimate pragmatist in a way. He would be the kind of guy who would exploit every color type to achieve his ends. But personality-wise? I'd still say he's more the embodiment of all of WU's assholish traits.