Magic Untapped takes a look back at War of the Spark as Magic: The Gathering's Nicol Bolas story arc comes to a close.
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Video Transcript:
War of the Spark, the final set in Magic: The Gathering’s unofficial block of the same name, came out on May 3, 2019. The 264-card set saw Mark Rosewater taking the lead on vision design and Dave Humpherys heading-up set design.
The set finished off the collectible card game’s Nicol Bolas arc as the story reaches its climax.
The story itself is told in three acts across the set with the first act covering Bolas’ initial invasion, the second act covering Ravnica’s response, and the third finishing things up. While, yes, it’s three consecutive sets on the same plane, don’t call it a block.
<MARO INTV 21:42:07-21:42:57 “What happened was…missed out on Ravnica.”>
Wizards of the Coast took the story of War of the Spark rather seriously and published three novels for the set: Children of the Nameless by New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, War of the Spark: Ravnica by Greg Weisman, and War of the Spark: Forsaken, also by Weisman.
That final book, War of the Spark: Forsaken, was met with harsh criticism due to what readers considered to be poor writing and an overall butchering of the game’s characters, including seemingly reversing many of the developments characters such as Jace, Chandra, Nissa, and Vraska had undergone over the past few years as well as unceremoniously killing off some of the game’s named characters off-screen.
Wizards of the Coast later put out a statement acknowledging the book’s poor reception and that they’ll be addressing possible character retcons, such as the relationship between Chandra and Nissa, in future stories. Weisman also released a public apology, saying the creative and editorial process with Wizards as well as publisher Del Rey was to blame.
Beyond the novels, Wizards of the Coast also released a series of web-exclusive short stories (also written by Weisman), as well as an art book and a Japanese-language manga.
As for how the story goes, for the purpose of this video, we’ll set the stage, then focus on how things are more-or-less told through the cards themselves.
With Nicol Bolas looking down upon Ravnica and the Izzet Guild’s Interplanar Beacon lit, planeswalkers from across the multiverse find themselves irresistibly drawn to the plane. And not just the Gatewatch and their allies – those sworn to protect the multiverse from threats such as Bolas – but others completely unrelated to the Guildpact and their cause.
“If you can’t save yourself, you fight to give someone else a chance,” Ajani Goldmane tells many of the others as the Ravnican resistance builds.
Looking up and seeing a familiar symbol much like the one he had seen during his time on Ixalan, Jace surmises that they were all walking into Bolas’ trap. He felt no joy in being right.
Meanwhile, on behalf of Bolas, Tezzeret uses the Planar Bridge device he had stolen while on Kaladesh previously and uses it to form a link between Bolas’ home base of Amonkhet and Ravnica.
On Ravnica, the Planar Bridge opened over the Chamber of the Guildpact, reducing the symbol of Ravnica’s endurance to rubble. Ravnica is at war. And it’s almost like the heart of Ravnica disappeared before anyone could strike a blow in its defense.
Through the plane-linking bridge marched Bolas’ Dreadhorde army comprised of zombies coated in the nearly-indestructible metal, lazotep. Death greeted the world with a roar of desert air as Bolas’ army began to invade the city in service to their God-Pharaoh.
Leading the army is Bolas’ dreadhoard general, the planeswalker Liliana, who is working under contractual servitude to the dragon. In a relentless advance the army approach in formation, every movement efficient and sure. They halt, listen, and then press on in silent unison.
Ravnica’s citizens can only hope to run and hide from the widespread brutality overtaking their home – one that looks less and less like the Ravnica they know through a combination of destruction and monuments being phased into the land by the dragonic invader including his citadel and a statue of himself complete with a dictator’s infuriating smirk, which is an affront to everything Ravnica stood for.
Dissent is crushed. “All I ask is complete obedience,” he bellows to the plane-spanning city.
Dissent, however, is exactly what the Gatewatch and the other planeswalkers arriving on scene at the beacon’s beckoning plan on providing to Bolas.
Some, like Gideon and Karn, were fighting in defense of the citizens of Ravnica. Others were fighting for a way out. For the Amonkhet native, Samut, the war was intensely personal. Every hour she faced enemies she once loved as friends and horrors she once revered as gods.
Meanwhile, two other planeswalkers who couldn’t resist the call of the beacon, also arrive on Ravnica: Nahiri and Sorin. Unlike the rest on the plane, neither are interested in taking part of either side of the war as they’re already deeply involved in their own personal conflict.
Sorin, who had finally been freed from his prison of stone back at his home on Innistrad, confronts the lithomancer whom he once considered a friend and ally.
“I see you’re out of the wall,” Nahiri says to Sorin as the two resume their feud.
The ancient Planeswalkers, Sorin and Nahiri, battle across Ravnica, their blows cutting as deep as their grudge. Not even a threat to the entire multiverse could persuade them to set aside their feud as they remained locked in single combat despite the chaos erupting all around them.
It’s not just the planeswalkers who are embroiled in this war, though. Ravnicans, too, find themselves fighting for their home with members from every guild doing their part – even if it means fighting alongside those you normally wouldn’t if it means turning the tide of battle.
This resistance, though, proves little more than an inconvenience for the nearly impervious dreadhorde army as some of the invading forces make their way into the home territoriy of the Selesnya Conclave and attack the city-tree of Vitu-Ghazi itself.
This incursion is something that Nissa, the elf druid planeswalker from Zendikar, takes personal offense to. The Eternal armies advanced on Vitu-Ghazi and, at Nissa’s command, Vitu-Ghazi began to advance on them. Now animated, the city tree crushed the eternal zombies attacking it and, shortly thereafter, advanced upon Nicol Bolas’ statue, toppling it.
Bolas cared little when his statue fell, though, thinking it a useful distraction. However, he underestimated the surge of resolve it would give his opponents.
As the tide of battle seems to turn in the Ravnican’s favor, Bolas brings out the big guns. Amonkhet’s God-Eternals enter the fray and easily dispatch the animated Vitu-Ghazi.
Not wanting the forces defending Ravnica to waver, Gideon calls for a pledge of unity.
“No one hero will save this day. Today we must all be heroes,” he tells them all.
Watching everything play out from afar as he often does, Nicol Bolas thinks its time to act. He casts his Elderspell, which allows his dreadhorde army of Eternals the power to extract the essence of planeswalkers.
Their very first victim is Domri Rade, the anarchist planeswalker head of Ravnica’s Gruul clans.
As the Eternal’s cold fingers tightened around his throat, Domri realized what kind of master he had rushed to serve. With the harvest of Domri’s spark, the Elderspell began to fuel Bolas’ ascension to godhood.
Other planewalkers were at risk of falling to the same fate as they were all trapped on Ravnica thanks to Bolas’ use of the Immortal Sun device which Tezzeret had stolen for him from Ixalan. But while the Sun disallowed planeswalkers from escaping via magical means, it didn’t disallow anyone from traversing the planes using the Planar Bridge device.
Jace, noticing this, comes up with a plan.
First, a handful of planeswalkers will need to slip past the invading army and across the planar bridge into Amonkhet to confront whomever is on the other side and (hopefully) find a way to close the portal.
Samut, Karn, Dack Fayden, and Ob Nixilis all agree to go through the bridge. While on the other side, Ob Nixilis took the opportunity to flee now that he’s beyond the reach of the Immortal Sun. The other three confronted Tezzeret and, while Dack distracted him, Samut and Karn destroyed the bridge control mechanism implanted within the cyborg planeswalker’s chest, collapsing the portal in the process.
Considering his role in Bolas’ scheme now over, Tezzeret planeswalks away, but not before telling them he hopes they can kill Bolas so that he can finally be freed of his servitude to the dragon.
The planeswalkers were then paid a visit by Hazoret, Amonkhet’s last surviving deity, along with planeswalker Sarkhan Vol. At Vol’s request, Hazoret lent them her spear to aid in their fight against Bolas. Dack considered leaving just as Tezzeret and Ob-Nixilis had previously, but Hazoret convinced him to stay and help and he, along with Karn and Samut, planeswalk back to Ravnica to continue to assist the war effort.
While Dack and crew are handling the Planar Bridge, the second part of Jace’s plan involves deactivating the Immortal Sun. That would mean taking out the planeswalker operating it, the Azorius head and Nicol Bolas ally, Dovin Baan.
The ever-overconfident Baan, though, can sometimes be his own worst enemy. Chandra, with assistance from the shapeshifting head of House Dimir, blind the planeswalker. With Baan now no longer concentrating on keeping the Sun active, the device powers down and Dovin planeswalks away to lick his wounds.
As for the next part of the plan, Jace believes they need to find some way of getting through to Liliana, whom is commanding the entire invading army as their general (though Bolas won’t make that part easy) – especially as the dreadhorde army takes the life and essence of one of their allies, Dack Fayden, newly returned from closing the portal.
Meanwhile, as Jace’s multi-faceted plan is being put into action, a plan of a different sort is occurring elsewhere.
Three other planeswalkers – Vraska, Kaya, and Ral – meet with their own goal in mind: Resurrecting Niv-Mizzet, the former head of the Izzet Guild who had fallen at the talons of Nicol Bolas almost as soon as the dragonic planeswalker had arrived.
While Niv-Mizzet had perfected a plan, he had no control over the mortal minds who had to agree to implement it. Gathering bonds from each of Ravnica’s ten guilds, the planeswalker trio went to work.
They gathered Niv’s charred bones, along with a brass model of Niv-Mizzet’s head they called the “Firemind Vessel,” together and channeled the mana from all of Ravnica’s leylines into it at the same time in a ritual led by planeswalker Nissa Revane.
Above the Firemind Vessel opened a portal clear as water as wispy smoke merged and descended as if being sucked in by the item. Niv’s charred bones began to glow.
One of the invaders – a zombified version of Kefnet, one of the gods from the plane of Amonkhet – noticed the commotion and attacked, but the planeswalker Teyo Verada shielded the ritual from harm and, once enough mana had been absorbed by the vessel, the bones went ablaze. The blaze began to take a shape – the shape of a dragon.
Niv-Mizzet was reborn, but not entirely as he was. With scales of gold and a symbol of a decagon seared into his chest. His eyes aglow, he incinerated Kefnet, then collapsed – the strain of killing a god almost too much for his newly-reborn self.
Shortly thereafter, once he rested a bit, Niv-Mizzet re-entered the fray in defense of the plane he called home.
Back with Jace and his plans, while the first two parts went overall quite well, they had to pivot on the third part. Plan “B” was now to get the impervious soldier, Gideon, equipped with the lifeforce-stealing Blackblade that they had previously stolen from the Cabal on Dominaria, as close to Nicol Bolas as possible, hoping the blade’s magic could handle the rest.
“Would you give your life to save this world?” he murmered to the pegasus he was to mount and ride into battle. The pegasus snorted and spread wide its mighty wings.
Airborne and on their way to Bolas, Gideon’s mount is fatally struck by an arrow from the God-Eternal, Oketra. As they tumble down towards the ground, the demonlord Rakdos catches the Blackblade-wielding warrior and continues him towards the dragonic planeswalker.
“No one will ever ride me again, Gideon. Expect no further favors,” exclaims the demon.
Once close enough, Gideon dismounts from Rakdos and lunges himself towards Bolas. Ravnica held its breath as the hero of the resistance – their last hope – flew through the sky, his dark sword ready to strike a god.
Gideon strikes true, but rather than stabbing through the Dragon-God, the Blackblade shatters upon impact.
“The hero with the magic sword slays the dragon? Not this time,” gloats Bolas.
Gideon falls to the ground below the dragonic planeswalker and finds himself battling against more and more eternals as they try to snuff him out and harvest his spark for their Dragon-God.
The dreadhorde general, Liliana, witnesses her friend – one of her very few friends – facing certain demise at her hands. It’s something she couldn’t bare to see.
Deciding that death is better than life as Bolas’ eternal slave, she turns on her master and sends the army of Eternals – God-Eternals included – against him.
The price of betrayal came quickly for the necromancer. The moment Liliana defied Nicol Bolas, her contract was broken, and her life was forfeit. But she was free to choose her fate, and she decided it was worth the price.
That’s when she felt a hand upon her shoulder. It was Gideon’s.
The battered and war-torn soldier used what strength he has left to protect his friend, transferring his invulnerability to her. To Liliana’s surprise, the cost of betraying Bolas did not fall on her. Gideon, forever her friend, was there to help one final time.
There was no time to mourn. The Eternals had closed in on Bolas.
Liliana whispered to whatever consciousness the former Amonkhet gods Oketra and Bontu has left. “You are the gods. He is the usurper. You know what to do.”
As Bolas was locked in combat against Oketra and Bontu, a newly rejuvenated Niv-Mizzet flies towards the Dragon-God. Armed with the Spear of Hazoret, the Firemind runs the dragonic planeswalker through from behind. Bolas blasts Niv away, but the distraction allowed for an opening for Bontu to bite him and drain his essence away thanks to the blessing of the Elderspell.
Bolas now unconscious and a weakened shell of his former self, the gathered planeswalkers go for the final attack.
From the Meditation Realm, Ugin telepathically reaches out to Jace and convinces him that he needs Bolas alive in the event that Bolas’ arrogance and love of contingency plans means that the dragon has a way to yet again cheat death. Jace conjures up an illusion of the former draconic planeswalker perishing where he lay, disintegrating into a pile of ash.
The charade was all Ugin needed to appear on Ravnica unnoticed and retrieve his brother. The Spirit Dragon bringing the broken Bolas back to the Meditation Realm.
The invasion now over, a planewide celebration erupts across Ravnica. Even in this joyous moment, though, Liliana – feeling unredeemed and unworthy due to her role in it all – planeswalks away.
Kaya, seeking to atone for past mistakes, offers to join the Gatewatch: “So everyone gets what they truly deserve, I will keep watch.”
In the afterlife, the spirit of the fallen hero, Gideon, returns to his home plane of Theros. There, he is reunited with fallen friends and comrades from his days as a soldier. Once again referred to by his original name, Kytheon had known war every day of his life. Now he finally knew peace.
And that does it for not just the story of War of the Spark, but the entire multi-set, multi-year Bolas story arc. As for what comes next, that’s for another video. Besides, there’s still quite a bit to say about War of the Spark as a Magic set.
The 81st expansion for the collectible card game, War of the Spark is what Magic Head Designer calls an “event set” as it’s built around an event rather than the plane itself.
<MARO INTV 21:47:41-49 “It’s fun to…a little bit different.”>
The set was sold in regular booster packs, single-color theme boosters, a bundle containing 10 booster packs along with other goodies, and two preconstructed Planeswalker Decks, this time featuring the cards Gideon, the Oathsworn and Jace, Arcane Strategist as the face cards.
While the set’s booster packs are par-for-the-course for packs of its time, there was one twist to them: You were guaranteed to open at least one planeswalker card in each pack. After all, the set features 36 planeswalker cards – the most ever printed in a single set – across three different rarities: mythic rare, rare, and (for the first time ever) uncommon.
<MARO INTV 21:43:13-21:44:17 “So, Doug Beyer…core of what the set was.”>
In order to make planeswalker cards work at scale, Wizards had to simplify what a planeswalker card is.
<MARO INTV 21:44:27-21:45:35 “I’ve been saving…weren’t so complex.”>
Also, each planeswalker card has a Japanese anime or manga art variant available that can be pulled. While these alternate art cards are only available in Japanese language booster packs, Wizards of the Coast made sure these boosters were available worldwide.
Oh… wait… did we say there’s 36 planeswalkers in War of the Spark? That’s not right…
<MARO INTV 21:45:47-21:45:55 “There’s a…there were 37.”>
Just like with Ravnica Allegiance and Guilds of Ravnica before it, a Mythic Edition of War of the Spark was made available via the Hasbro website. Like the others before it, the 24-pack Mythic Edition sold for $249.99 and featured eight “Masterpiece” planeswalker cards: Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Gideon Blackblade, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tezzeret the Seeker, Garruk, Apex Predator, Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, Nahiri, the Harbinger, and Sarkhan Unbroken.
According to reports, all 12,000 units sold out in roughly five minutes, which caused various problems with customers who had it in their carts but couldn’t pay and others who had their orders cancelled.
As far as mechanics go, War of the Spark introduced one and brought back another.
The returning mechanic is proliferate, which hadn’t been seen in years.
<MARO INTV 21:46:00-21:46:38 “We had been…loyalty.”>
Proliferate also worked well with the set’s new mechanic, amass. Amass let you create a 0/0 token creature with +1/+1 counters upon it that, ideally, would grow over time.
<MARO INTV 21:46:39-45 “We had the mechanic…that big a deal.”>
In terms of cycles, War of the Spark had eleven. Perhaps most notable among them are:
- The Gatewatch, split between rare and mythic rarities;
- Triumphs, which is a contrast to the defeats cards found in Hour of Devastation, which are enhanced if you control a planeswalker of their respective types;
- Gods at mythic, four of which are the “eternalized” versions of four of Amonkhet’s gods, plus the Gruul clan’s god, Ilharg, the Raze-Boar filling the red slot;
- Finales, mythic mono-colored “X” sorceries that each get a bonus if at least 10 mana is spent on X. The names of each of these five cards reflect the original “hours” cards seen in Hour of Devastation, and;
- Bonds at uncommon, which are sorceries that depict the pairing of two of Ravnica’s guilds.
In terms of single cards worth a mention, War of the Spark has a nice variety:
- Dreadhorde Arcanist, which allows its controller to cast spells with mana cost equal or less than its power from their graveyard, which led the card to becoming quite the combo and synergy engine. The card was banned in Legacy in February 2021;
- Finale of Devastation, a card that lets you search your deck for any creature costing equal to or less than the amount of mana you put into the spell. And, if you’ve paid 10 or more mana for “X,” that creature comes into play with haste and +X/+X until end of turn, which can turn nearly any creature in the deck into a finisher;
- Karn, the Great Creator, a card that can (when combined with the card Mycosynth Lattice) essentially turn off your opponent’s deck. The card was most popular in “Tron” style decks where it turned one’s sideboard into a “wishboard” of cards it could fetch. The card wound up becoming restricted to one copy per deck in Vintage;
- Narset, Parter of Veils, a card that has become rather popular in eternal formats due to her card drawing limitations for opponents. Like with Karn, the card wound up being restricted in Vintage;
- Teferi, Time Raveler (also known as “Three-feri” due to its low mana cost) has a passive ability that slows down opponents’ spells along with a +1 ability that speeds up its controller’s. Aggressively costed and frustrating for opponents, the card wound up being banned on Magic: The Gathering Arena’s Historic format in October of 2020 and banned in the Pioneer format in February 2021.
In terms of promotional cards, prerelease participants (as they still do today) received a foil-stamped rare or mythic rare, but they also received a foil-stamped planeswalker card to boot this time around. The Magic Open House promo was a full-art Liliana’s Triumph. Draft weekend’s promo was an alternate art Bolas’ Citadel. Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, the set’s 37th planeswalker, was the Buy-a-Box promo. An alternate art Karn’s Bastion and a full-art Time Wipe were the set’s Planeswalker Weekend event promos.
The set’s Friday Night Magic promos consisted of Augur of Bolas, Paradise Druid, and Dovin’s Veto.
So, in the end, how was War of the Spark received? Let’s just say that it went over fairly well.
<MARO INTV 21:47:05-26 “In the history of…War of the Spark.”>
So, where does War of the Spark rank for you amongst Magic: The Gathering sets? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
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