Welcome to Magic Arcanum! I’m Ryan Gomez, behind the scenes is Nicole
Burdick and we’re so glad you’re here because it’s Story Time! The Brothers War. It’s both the newest set, and a significant
event in the history of Dominaria, and by extent, the multiverse. Recently, the planeswalker Teferi attempted
to revisit this moment in time, desperate to learn the secret to activating the Sylex,
a weapon he hoped to use against the Phyrexians in the present day. I covered all of that in another video, which
you should go watch if you haven’t already, because today we’re building upon that and
talking about what ELSE happens in the Brothers War. But first let me thank Into the AM for sponsoring
this episode! Their Black Friday sale runs from November
18 to the 25th, and features 30% off site wide. That also stacks with my promo code, MAGICARCANUM,
for another 10% off. And what kind of awesome, tailor fit, super
comfortable things will you find at these brain-melting discounts? Only the most magically-adjacent kind! If you’ve got a favorite card, or plane,
or commander deck, Into the AM has something to match. They’ve got graphic tees, hoodies, basics
- everything you need to be the best dressed wizard at your next game night, all 30 plus
10 percent off, when you shop using my link down in the description. So, check them out, and tell them the mustache
sent ya. Ok, now let’s hop into that Temporal Anchor
and get a first-hand look at what else happens in The Brothers War! In the story, Teferi makes several trips back
through time, searching for the exact moment the sylex is used, so he can observe what
sets it off. Sometimes he’s too early, and sees battles
leading up to the final confrontation, and sometimes he’s too late, and sees Dominaria
trying to recover from the resulting fallout of the big blast. This causes things to jump around a lot and
we meet characters who don’t appear in the set and while it does a great job building
up the scale of the Brothers War itself, it doesn’t really help us understand the key
players, or the order in which stuff really happens. So, I’m going to unravel things a bit, and
just walk us through the events shown on the set’s story spotlight cards, more or less
in their actual chronological order - temporal meddling notwithstanding. Things begin with Urza and Mishra, brothers,
born about four thousand years ago. From an early age, they both exhibited great
mechanical skill, including a love for tinkering with artifacts. One day, their father shipped them off to
learn from his old friend, and one of the kingdom’s foremost archaeologists. That’s Tocasia, who was studying remnants
of the Thran Empire. Tocasia became a bit of a mentor figure to
the brothers, and they bonded over their mutual interest in history - though occasionally,
stern lessons still had to be taught. As quarrelsome as they were, the brothers
did enjoy their time together, including the discovery and restoration of a Thran Ornithopter,
which brought some life to their study of ancient relics. It wasn’t meant to last, however. While exploring the Caves of Koilos, the brothers
found a powerstone, and each attempted to claim it as their own. The stone broke in two, leaving Urza holding
the Mightstone, and Mishra with the Weakstone. While either half would be enough to toast
your bread for several lifetimes, the brothers could not leave well-enough alone, and fought
with each other, hoping to walk away with the whole thing. This was effectively the end of their brotherhood,
and as it happens, the end of Tocasia, too, who was accidentally killed during their struggle. Showing remorse for maybe the last time in
his life, Mishra ran off into the desert, haunted by strange dreams full of darkness
and despair. Urza, meanwhile, headed to a capital city
called Kroog. He continued to develop his skills as an artificer,
and even built a construct to help him win a contest held by the king. The prize was getting to marry the king’s
daughter, Kayla, but Urza wasn’t super interested in that. He was more focused on a Thran book that happened
to be part of her dowry. Even so, Urza was now prince of Kroog, and
his brother was on a similar rise to power. Mishra was living with a group of desert tribesmen
when they were all attacked by a dragon engine. Fortunately, he was able to use the Weakstone
to dominate the mechanical beast, which earned him the respect and following of the desert
tribes. Eventually, Mishra was able to unify the various
desert factions and make a strike against Urza and his haughty-taughty city of Kroog. In a brutal display of power, Mishra and his
dragon engine razed it all to the ground, and the Brothers War was officially on. Each brother leveraged their skill as an artificer
to create bigger and better war machines, and each brother had a trusted right hand
to help them in this pursuit. For Urza, that was Tawnos, who started as
a toymaker, and eventually turned to nature for inspiration when it came time to improve
upon Urza’s avengers and other constructs. In Mishra’s camp, it was Ashnod who carried
out the gruesome work of turning fallen soldiers into transmogrants, a sort of mechanical zombie
that could stand up to the tireless automatons of Urza’s legions. And so, armed with virtually inexhaustible
armies, the two brothers continued their destructive conflict for nearly forty years. During that time, there were several other
noteworthy developments. First - the Third Path. This was a group of researchers who spent
their days looking for a way to stop the Brothers, or at least protect themselves from their
ever-expanding war. Feldon was a Third Path archaeologist who
discovered the Golgothian Sylex, which would eventually be instrumental in ending the war,
but that would come later, thanks to the meddling of another group, this one called the Brotherhood
of Gix. The Brotherhood was a sort of cult that managed
to spread unchecked, as everyone was focused on the war between the brothers. This allowed them to infiltrate both armies,
and act as a wedge, further driving the brothers apart, and even causing Mishra to distrust
his own advisors, including Ashnod. Then, they convinced Mishra to attack The
Third Path, which led to a wizard named Hurkyl casting a massive unsummon spell in self-defense. The surviving members of the Third Path fled
the scene, including a woman named Loran, who was loved by Feldon. Loran carried the Sylex with her, but was
unfortunately captured, and tortured by Ashnod, who wanted to learn the secrets of the magical
bowl. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Gix continued
to work on Mishra, and eventually brought him before their leader, who was...unsurprisingly,
named Gix. Gix was actually a Phyrexian, and had managed
to come to Dominaria through a portal, which had been held shut by the very powerstone
the brothers removed and fought over at the start of this whole thing. So in a way, karma had caught up with Mishra
- it would come to Urza, too, don’t get me wrong - but for the moment, it was the
younger brother who would be claimed by Gix. Now the story is a bit murky here. Mishra was either killed by Gix and had his
skin stretched over a phyrexian body, or, Mishra believed a promise Gix made about having
supreme power and willingly allowed himself to be compleated. Either way, the war was entering its final
phase, as both sides desperately needed fresh materials to fuel their armies. The brothers turned their attention to the
island of Argoth, and tried to claim its resources as their own. An elemental named Titania Awakened the Woods
to fend off both of the invading armies, but even she was unable to stop their wasteful
harvest. The Epic Confrontation was now at its absolute
pinnacle, and the brothers met on the battlefield, where a Gruesome Realization awaited Urza. He discovered that Mishra was no longer Mishra,
and while he didn’t yet know the word phyrexian, he knew the situation was going to require
a drastic solution. Fortunately for him, Ashnod had recently had
a change of heart. She passed the Sylex over to Tawnos, and begged
him to pass it on to Urza, who she recognized would be the only one able to stop Gix from
taking control of Dominaria. And so we come to Urza’s final moments as
a mortal. He activated the Sylex, and let it destroy
his brother Mishra, along with a good portion of the plane and both armies. Urza himself survived, thanks to his spark
igniting, making him One With the Multiverse. He would go on to have many more adventures,
but that’s a story for another time. Tawnos also lived to see the post-sylex era. He had sealed himself in a stasis coffin,
which protected him from the blast. (GREEN CUP) - Hey wait, did Indiana Jones
steal that from MAGIC? Anyway, Kayla also survived, and began the
difficult work of reconstructing her kingdom, even as the weather grew worse, and food grew
scarce. The Ice Age would soon follow. Indeed, the Brothers War would have a lasting
impact on the development of life across Dominaria. Even now, four thousand years later, our heroes
find themselves affected by what happened that fateful day, and that’s why Teferi
traveled through time to that moment, in a desperate gambit to learn the secrets of the
sylex. And that’s it. That’s what ELSE happens in the Brothers
War. To recap, two brothers find a magical rock
and manage to break it in half. This opens a portal to Phyrexia, but more
importantly, drives the brothers into war with each other. Over some forty years they build increasingly
powerful weapons, while a praetor named Gix gets his claws into Mishra and attempts to
steer the course of the war. Ultimately Urza realizes the only way things
can end is if he destroys it all by using a supremely powerful magical artifact known
as the sylex. This kills Mishra and turns Urza into a planeswalker,
while decimating Dominaria - the effects of which can still be seen today. Like I keep saying, it was a massively important
period of time, and this set tries to cover, like all of it, at once. I do like how we got multiple versions of
Urza and Mishra, showing them at various points in their lives, and culminating with their
melded forms. We also got cards depicting characters who
appeared in the original Brothers War novel, and for fans of the old stories, that’s
always a real treat. But how well did the new story explain the
significance of these characters? We did get to experience several distinct
scenes throughout the Brothers War thanks to Teferi’s time hopping, but Urza doesn’t
appear until the very end, and Mishra not at all. Which reminds me, I should touch upon that
final moment, when Urza uses the Sylex. Teferi finally gets the Temporal Anchor dialed
in and is able to observe, but he realizes there is more information to be had, and so
he breaks his promise of acting only as a spectator and addresses Urza directly. He justifies this by saying this moment in
time exists like a branch on a river, that will form its own lake, and eventually be
separate from the main flow of time, or dry up completely. So he feels safe explaining to Urza that he’s
from the future, and then shares some information about what is yet to come, and asks Urza for
specific directions on using the Sylex. Meanwhile, Urza is literally breaking apart. His body is being torn to shreds and a brilliant
light is bursting from within, as time is super slowed, with Teferi desperately trying
to hold things together in this exact moment. It’s a really cool scene and the only thing
that remotely captures it in the set is One with the Multiverse - a neat card, don’t
get me wrong, but I feel like they could have done so much more here. My criticisms from the companion video, What
Happens in the Brothers War, remain true. I think this set tries to do a lot. It’s telling a very big story, all within
a single release of cards…ok plus some commander decks, but still, things are crowded. But what do you think? Are you able to understand the story after
looking at the 40 spotlight cards? Do you understand the order of events, including
Teferi’s ping-ponging between them all? And do you have a good idea of where the story
is heading, based on what we’ve seen here? Let me know down in the comments! And while you’re doing that, check out Into
the AM and pick up something during their Black Friday sale, for yourself or for the
planeswalker in your life. Then make sure you like this video and subscribe
to the channel so you don’t miss the great stories you’ll only find here on Magic Arcanum. We’ll see ya!
