The Brothers’ War Teasers
I realize I’m a little late on this one but I’ve been busy with other designs, this round of teasers actually inspired me to work harder on my mining/underground plane (though I’ll admit I’m probably using it to procrastinate on Elemancer. I’ve got some major decisions to make for the future direction of that game). Several cards from Mark Rosewater’s BRO teasers have already been spoiled, but I’m going to give you my initial thoughts and designs for what I felt were some of the more interesting teasers. I’d also like to preface this with the fact that I’m largely unfamiliar with the lore of the Brothers’ War and the era of Urza in general. I also wanted to note that I’m adding in actual images for my designs this time. It felt easier than explaining the rules text and is more visually pleasing. I use Magic Set Editor to keep track of my MtG designs, so I’ve taken screencaps from that. And without further ado, our first teaser:
A command with X in its mana cost
We know the set focuses on Urza and Mishra, but Titania is important to represent green. With this I thought it could be a skewed cycle, where Urza has a UW command, Mishra has a BR command, and Titania was a mono-G command. So I decided to design one for each, pulling a lot of effects from other cards. The first question I asked was what kinds of effects can scale up with X? Destroying targets, drawing cards, damage, scrying, regrowth (returning cards from graveyard to hand), and possibly tutoring (basic lands in G is probably the safest).
I know Servos are basically restricted to Kaladesh, but I felt I needed a small artifact creature token without flying (sorry Thopters). In retrospect, Soldier artifact creature tokens would be a good fit. These cards all take a lot of inspiration from other X-cost spells like the Intervention cycle of Theros Beyond Death. I tuned Mishra’s Command down a bit with the extra 1 in the cost, but it’s largely on-par with other effects. It was mainly because of the “Deal twice X” but I think the cost could definitely still be XBR.
a spell that mimics an element of the effect of a creature that was originally printed with the picture of a World Champion on it
This is a pretty small subset of cards, and we’ve seen similar effects on cards already. Anointed Peacekeeper is reminiscent of Elite Spellbinder, but I could see more of that taxation effect. I want to look at Fervent Champion, specifically it’s third ability, and Ranger of Eos.
With the current state of design Battle Harness could probably have a combat benefit too (+1/+1 or First Strike), but I liked the idea of an aura that synergizes with equipment. It could potentially be a mono-W card, but RW is the color pair most associated with equipment and voltron strategies in commander. Meanwhile, Tutor of Eos is fairly straightforward since white cares about small creatures. Not flickerable like Ranger of Eos, but the teaser did say it was a spell that mimics the effect. Of course, a “spell” is technically any card in Magic, even though it’s sometimes used to mean just instants and sorceries.
“Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 6 or greater,”
There are three major effects I could see as the result of this trigger: copy that permanent spell, some big general effect (draw cards, deal damage, tutor), or buff the permanent this effect is tied to. I opted for #1 in this case, it’s simple enough.
A reference to Treasure Mage, and it comes down (potentially) the turn before casting a 6mv artifact. It’s strong, and about as flashy as Panharmonicon in that the card itself appears plain and it’s more about what you combine it with.
“Look at the cards in each pile, then turn a pile of your choice face up.”
This is my favorite prompt, because it asks three big questions that form somewhat of a puzzle: how are these piles being split, what does turning them face-up do, and why is the information hidden in the first place? One key factor here is that the player casting the spell can look at both piles, so there’s no hidden information to the caster unlike a Fortune’s Favor kind of card. There needs to be a compelling reason for the cards not to be revealed on cast, unlike Steam Augury/Fact or Fiction. If this were from a commander set then multiple opponents could be involved in providing the cards (exile cards from an opponent’s library) and separating the cards (“an opponent separates those cards into two piles”), but that’s awkward in a standard-legal set.
Then there’s the trigger of turning them face up. This could put a subset of cards into their owner’s hand (revealed creatures/artifacts/etc.), deal damage based on card type or number of card types (a la Delirium), or potentially put them onto the battlefield. It is the last one that got me thinking about Manifest. I don’t think they’d use that as one of the set’s main mechanics, but I think it makes for a very interesting card.
A reference to Collected Company, but I also think this is an elegant way of satisfying the conditions of the teaser: there’s a reason the cards aren’t revealed initially, the two piles are unknown in some way to the caster, and turning them face-up puts all permanents onto the battlefield. The random split was the one part that feels a bit like a cop-out to me, but if an opponent split the piles then they’d know what your manifested/face-down cards are as well. So it’s a necessary evil, and fits with the chaotic theme of the card.
“gains your choice of flying, vigilance, deathtouch, or haste.”
Initially I was considering a spell that gives X target creatures these abilities, then I quickly realized the templating and language of this ability is a dead-ringer for Urza’s Avenger and Jodah’s Avenger. So naturally, I slapped them onto Mishra’s Avenger (I’m unsure if Mishra had Avengers, or exactly what they are apart from unmanned mechs).
Pretty simple, but what really tipped me off is that MaRo’s teaser ended with a period. Typically when you see a card or ability grant keywords there is the “until end of turn.” clause at the end of the line. Unless of course it’s an activated ability where “Until end of turn” appears in the beginning, which is totally acceptable. I decided to keep the 6 mana value and 4/4 stat line.
Those were some of my more interesting takes on MaRo’s teasers, but as mentioned I was definitely inspired by the prospect of this set. In my alternative The Brothers’ War here would be my draft archetypes:
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Thopter tribal. A take on the classic WU Fliers draft archetype.
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Discard matters with an extra benefit from discarding artifact cards. UB should be able to stock the graveyard, which will play into other related archetypes.
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Unearth, now on artifacts. I’ll admit I lifted this from some cards that had already been previewed. Though they hadn’t spoiled any non-creature artifacts with Unearth at that point.
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Power 4 or greater matters (Ferocious). Ideally this archetype wants to play big artifact creatures and slam.
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Go-wide and soldier tribal. GW often wants to get a board full of small creatures and win with an Overrun effect, another classic strategy. Incidental token synergy is also par for the course.
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Reanimation and reclaiming artifacts from the graveyard. This will be returning artifacts from the graveyard to your hand or straight onto the battlefield. Plays well with the discard from UB and Unearth cards in BR.
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Big non-creature artifacts and ramping with Powerstones. More cards along the lines of Treasure Counterfeiter, where you get a benefit from casting artifact spells with mana value 4 or greater. Some cards will specify non-creature artifacts. Powerstone generation will allow you to ramp into big things in a reasonable time in the draft environment. Tokens will synergize with GU
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Self-mill, number of artifacts in graveyard matters. Similar to UB, BG will want to stock the graveyard, and in this case count the number of artifacts to get ever-scaling effects. I consider this Undergrowth for artifacts, but cards could also have thresholds, i.e. “as long as there are four or more artifact cards in your graveyard, <bonus effect>.”
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Equipment and/or vehicles, some soldier tribal. I’ve since been informed that there will be no vehicles in the set to maintain the “retro feel.” This seems like a big missed opportunity provided there were any piloted mechs in the Brothers’ War storyline. The one thing about going back so far in time but using modern design is that we now have Vehicles and Equipment to better represent the machines and implements of war. Regardless, RW cares about equipment, and Battle Harness would be my draft signpost uncommon.
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Tokens-matter, with a sub-theme of hand size matters. I envision GU as having cards that bounce other permanents back to your hand and leave behind tokens in their stead. The tokens could be copies of the thing on higher mana value cards (or rare effects) or more generic tokens like Powerstones and various artifact creatures (Thopters, Servos, Soldiers, Constructs).
