The Brothers’ War Announcement Stream – New Cards, Mechanics, and More!

Wizards of the Coast will debut their their upcoming Standard-legal set The Brothers’ War, which will be released on MTG Arena on November 15, 2022. This set covers a momentous event in Magic‘s history: the war between brothers Urza and Mishra for control of the plane. There is also a time travel element to the set’s story, with Teferi and others returning to the past to find a solution to the threat that the New Phyrexians pose present-day Dominaria.

We’ll be showing off everything that Wizards shared with us today! We will update this page as it happens, so you can bookmark it to come back to later, watch the stream with us and keep up to date on all the new stuff previewed today!

What do we know so far?

• MTG Arena release on November 15, 2022, November 18 worldwide
• Prerelease Events from November 11-17, 2022
• Launch Party on the Weekend of November 18-20, 2022
• Game Day from December 3-11, 2022
• Time Period: This set covers a 40-60 year period in Dominaria’s past.
• Completion of the “Painland” Cycle reprinted in Dominaria United: Brushland, Underground River, Llanowar Wastes, and Battlefield Forge
• Full-Art Basic Lands: Basic lands from this set are full-art and depict huge mechanical creatures, representing the conflicting pervading Dominaria during this time period.
• Retro-Frame Artifacts with Blueprint Treatment: This set will come with artifacts that get a special blueprint art treatment to depict them as pages from the sketchbooks of Urza, Mishra, Ashnod, and Tawnos.

Blueprint Treatment Artifacts

The Brothers’ War booster packs will come with a set of retro-frame artifacts that will be available in three treatments: retro frame with regular art, blueprint art depicting cards as pages from the sketchbooks of Urza, Mishra, Ashnod, and Tawnos (like the Ashnod's Altar above), and special numbered blueprint cards with rainbow-style foiling. This serialized printing will only be available in Collector Boosters, while one regular or blueprint card will come in each Set and Draft Booster.

We already knew about a few of the cards in this Mystical Archives-like set, such as Wurmcoil Engine and Lodestone Golem. Thanks to this announcement stream, we also can look forward to Ashnod's Altar, Goblin Charbelcher, and Ornithopter.

The Brothers’ War Mechanics

According to senior Magic editor Matt Tabak, an important aspect of The Brothers’ War is the presence of war machines across the plane, thanks to the savage conflict between Urza and Mishra. The set’s mechanics are meant to represent these mechs and show off their destructive power.

Prototype

Artifact creatures with the Prototype ability let you play them with smaller power and toughness for a discount. They keep their abilities.

The preview card for this mechanic, Phyrexian Fleshgorger, starts out as a seven-mana colorless 7/5. If you pay the Prototype cost, it becomes a 3/3 creature that is black instead. It’s unclear whether all Prototype cards become colored artifacts if you pay the alternate cost.

Powerstones

Powerstones are artifact tokens that tap for one colorless mana but can’t be used to cast non-artifact spells. The mechanic debuted in Dominaria United, but only featured on one card, Karn, Living Legacy. In The Brothers’ War, it looks like we’ll see many more cards that either produce Powerstones or key off them.

Unearth

This returning mechanic lets you pay a creature’s Unearth cost from the graveyard and have it return to the battlefield with haste until end of turn.

Meld

The Brothers’ War features three pairs of cards with the Meld mechanic introduced in Eldritch Moon. The Meld pairs depict Urza, Mishra, and Titania at the apex of their powers. We’ve already seen Urza and Mishra, and this announcement stream spoiled the last pair, Titania, Voice of Gaea, and Argoth, Sanctum of Nature.

As with other Meld pairs, one of the cards instructs you on how to activate the ability and transform them into their joined second face. You must own and control both halves of the Meld pair to transform them.

The Brothers’ War Commander Decks

Senior Magic designer Gavin Verhey discussed the set’s Commander Decks. The design team chose to hone in on the theme of the main set and pit the two brothers and rivals against each other in decks that both focus on artifacts but utilize them in different ways.

According to Verhey, the Urza deck wants to go wide with artifact creatures, while Mishra’s deck wants to go tall with artifacts and leverage noncreature artifacts.

Notably, Verhey also revealed that every card in these Commander decks come in the retro frame. He explained that this was to make players feel like they were unearthing or discovering relics from the past by playing with these decks.

Preview Cards

The announcement stream showed off several new cards and theme from The Brothers’ War. One important aspect of this set the the design team revealed was using multiple cards to depict Urza and Mishra at various stages of their lives.

Urza, Prince of Kroog

We saw the youngest version of Urza above in Urza, Powerstone Prodigy. The stream also spoiled the “middle” version of the great Artificer in the form of Urza, Prince of Kroog. This card’s ability is meant to emphasize the progression of Urza’s power from his younger self, before he becomes the mythic rare Urza, Lord Protector.

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Mishra’s Progression

Just like Urza, Mishra gets several cards in the set representing his progression from young prodigy to Phyrexian agent. Check out the excellent synergy between these two versions of Mishra, rewarding you for building a theme deck around the artificer.

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Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

Gix is a major character in the lore of Dominaria and Magic in general, so it’s awesome to finally see this Praetor get a card.

Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim

With so much going on in this set, it might be easy to forget that we’re only visiting Dominaria’s past because Teferi has traveled there to discover a way to defeat the present-day Phyrexian invasion.

If you saw Mark Rosewater’s teaser post for the set, you’ll remember an interesting snippet that read, “a Teferi with a new way to gain loyalty counters.”

Well, now we know that the new Teferi gains loyalty every time you draw a card!

Hurkyl, Master Wizard

The stream also spoiled Hurkyl, Master Wizard, finally giving the character from Hurkyl's Recall her own card.

The Brothers’ War…Robot Battles???

Before announcing important event dates for the set and ending the stream, Wizards announced a special partnership with Extreme Robots. Two robots representing Urza and Mishra will compete in several challenges as well as a head-to-head battle on November 8.