Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #846: Planeswalkers, Part 3

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

This podcast is part three of a three-part series where I discuss every Planeswalker ever made into a planeswalker card.

I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work, coronavirus edition. Okay, so I've spent two different podcasts talking about all the planeswalkers that have ever gotten a card up until this recording. And when I last stopped, I was at S. So I just talked about Sarkinval, so it's time to talk about Sarah. Sarah the Benevolent. Okay, so Sarah shows up in the first Modern Horizons.

So she's a character that goes way, way back to early magic. In fact, she's referenced in Alpha, probably best known for making the Sarah Angel. Oh, so one of the misnomers of Sarah. Sarah is not an angel. She did make many angels. The Sarah Angels were made by Sarah. She made a whole bunch of angels.

She made Sarah's Sanctum, which was kind of its own plane. And she was part of the Homeland story. She fell in love with a guy named Faraz. So anyway, Sarah definitely was one of the early magic characters, played a role in early magic stories. And

when we were making the first Modern Horizons, it was sort of like we wanted to go back and sort of revisit some older planeswalkers. And she's probably there's not a lot of planeswalkers that are referenced in Alpha. I mean, Sarah and Urza

might be it. So anyway, she was, I mean, her card right now is very connected to angels. She makes angels. She helps boost angels. So she is our angel-focused Planeswalker card, although she herself is not an angel.

Next up is Sorin. Sorin Markov, who is our vampire Planeswalker. So he, one of the interesting things about him is he's not actually undead. Undead creatures can't hold a spark. But on Innistrad, the nature of how the vampires work on Innistrad, they're not undead. A little quirky. But anyway, it lets us have a Vampire Planeswalker. And so, he has been involved in a couple different things.

For starters, we first met him on the first Zendikars when he first showed up. So he was involved with the trapping of the Eldrazi on Zendikar. It was him and Ugin and Nahiri. And so he had a role in the Zendikar story. Then we went to Innistrad. He showed up in Innistrad. And we learned that he was from Innistrad. And he's very interwoven into there.

He recognized in Innistrad that if the vampires ate all the humans, they'd run out of a food source, so he did some things to help the humans stay alive, although less for the good of the humans than the good of the vampires. So anyway, he's definitely an interesting character. While he's based black, he definitely has some white about him. He's shown up as a white-black version numerous times. But anyway, his power suite is very vampire power type things. That he tends to do things that vampires do. Make bats or drain things. So he's very vampire-centric and does things that vampires do, make bats or drain things. So he's very vampire-centric and does things that are tied to vampire.

Another important thing is, I won't get into the whole story, but he ended up trapping Nahiri in the Hellvault. When she got out, she wasn't happy about it. She came to Innistrad. She lured happy about it. She came to Innistrad. She lured one of the Eldrazi to Innistrad. And anyway, the two of them got in a pretty bitter fight. She trapped a sword in a wall.

But anyway, he later managed to get out, obviously. He was in War of the Sparks. We saw them fighting War of the Sparks. So anyway, he and Nahiri have a bit of a grudge. Okay, next up, Tamio. So Tamio first showed up in Avacyn Restored. So Tamio's an interesting character. She is a moon folk from Kamigawa.

So a lot of other characters are adventurers. She is a scientist. And in particular, she studies the moon. And so she travels from world to world studying moons. She is very fascinated by Innistrad's moon. It's a silver moon. And it has really strange properties. So she spends a lot of time studying the moon on Innistrad.

It's, I think, her favorite thing to study. studying the moon on Innistrad. It's her, I think, her favorite thing to study. She did take place in, when we went back to Innistrad, Shadows Over Innistrad, Jace was solving a mystery.

He found her journal. He ended up finding her. So she played a role in that story. Oh, the other interesting thing about Tamio is there are not a lot of parents, planeswalkers that are parents. She is one. She has a bunch of kids.

She adopted some kids. And anyway, Tamiyo is definitely, Tamiyo has a lot of fans. So she is a very cool. I like the fact that she has a role other than adventure, that she's a scientist to me is really cool. And she definitely mechanically, she is about information. So she has things that interact with information

she's base blue but she's also she's had green she's had white in her next up Teferi so Teferi is another character that goes way back in fact one of the few living planeswalkers that really has that goes way back. In fact, one of the few living planeswalkers that really

has, that goes way back in story. Teferi does, Karn does, Kaia does, there's a few. But, so Teferi, we first met Teferi in the Mirage story. Then, in the Urza Saga story, so he

played a role in the Mirage story. In the Urza Saga story, we go back in time, and we meet a young Teferi studying at the Tolarian Academy. Anyway, Teferi has an interesting role. He was very much involved in the Mirage storyline, a little bit

in the Urza storyline. He was in the Invasion storyline. He ended up his home of Zelfir. he phased it out to protect them from the Phyrexians, and then wasn't able to phase it in. That's been a big heartache to him. He ended, he, during invasion, or not during invasion, during time spiral, he gave up his spark for the mending, and so for a while he didn't have a spark. He did a long time ago drink water so he doesn't age, I think.

Now Teferi is another planeswalker like Tamio in the Gangrath that has a family. Both his daughter and his wife have been on cards. Anyway, Teferi during Dominaria got his spark back and he ended up joining the Gatewatch. And so oh, his power suite. Teferi's power suite is he manipulates

time. He's able to stop time and speed up time and so he manipulates time. And his cards, we make them, all are trying to capture the sense of him messing with time. Okay, next up, Tevish Sot. He, along up, Tevish Sot.

He, along with Freyries and Lord Wingrave, was part of the Nine Titans that Urza put together to stop the Phyrexians. He originally had a human form, and he takes on this draconic form. Anyway, I don't know tons about Tempest of Scythe. He's a bad guy. And he's up to no good. And Urza kind of knows he's up to no good.

Anyway, he definitely has a history of harming a lot of people. And his ability is very... all about sacrificing other things and controlling other things. And he was in Commander Legends. He's another

Planeswalker that can be your commander. Okay, next, Tao. So Tao... Interestingly, Tao first came about because we were making War of the Spark, and we had to color balance all the Planeswalkers, and we had a few holes. One of which was an uncommon white planeswalker

hole, and so we just decided to make a cool card that did something like, sometimes, like with Dovin Bon, we make characters that have a cool ability but are really hard to represent on a card. Dovin Bon sensed weakness. That's hard to design magic mechanics around.

So for Teo, which was the opposite approach, because we didn't know who the character was yet, we just said, okay, we're going to make a defensive character. White is very defensive. What if we made a Planeswalker all about being defensive? Later, after we made the character, he ended up becoming the main character, the point of view character for War of the Spark,

for the novel. And so he got a lot more sort of screen time, if you will. He's from a world we've not met yet. And mostly his magic is about creating these shields that he can do this protective magic. And so that's what he does. He's protective.

Will we see more Tao? I don't know. Maybe. There's a lot of planeswalkers. But I've gotten a bunch of requests to see more Teo? I don't know. Maybe. There's a lot of planeswalkers. But I've gotten a bunch of requests to see more Teo. So maybe one day we'll have him revisit. Next up is Tezzeret. So Tezzeret was also from Shards of Alara,

along with a few others. So he, once again, so he's one of the earliest planeswalkers. Lord of the Worlds was the first batch of planeswalkers, but Shards of Alara was the second. He is from the Shard of... I'm blanking on the name right now. He's the white, blue, black Shard.

It'll come to me in a second. From the Shards of Alara. Esper. He's from the Shard of Esper. So the Shard of Alara. Esper. He's from the shard of Esper. So the shard of Esper is blue aligned, meaning it has blue in its allies, white and black, but not its enemies, green or red. And so it became a world really about pursuing the perfection of blue.

And all the creatures were upgrading themselves, so much so that all of them became artifact creatures. They had this material called Aetherium. Tezzeret had, I'm not sure whether he was missing an arm or had a weak arm. I think he had a weak arm that wasn't working properly, and so he replaced it with a prosthetic Aetherium

arm. So he has a prosthetic Aetherium arm. So, chunks of his body have been remade with Aetherium. He's the closest we have to kind of like a cyborg in magic he is his power suite is he can manipulate

metal and he tends to make artifacts usually he makes creatures he and Saheeli overlap a little bit. She tends to more make objects, although she can make creatures. He more makes creatures.

And his stuff's a little more destructive. Her stuff's a little more constructive. His is a little more destructive. Tezzeret has shown up in a bunch of stories. He has been a minion for Bolas. He's the one that Bolas sent to Kaladesh. He ended up stealing the Planar Bridge, which he used

to transport the zombies from Amonkhet to Ravnica for the War of the Spark. Interestingly, he didn't trust, he knew Bolas enough not to trust him, so he didn't actually, he didn't come to Ravnica. He stayed out of Ravnica and transported stuff into Ravnica.

And that's why he was the buy-a-box for War of the Spark, because he wasn't actually on Ravnica. He was sort of off-world, putting things into Ravnica. Anyway, he's a sneaky character. He's definitely somebody who is up to no good. He had a book that he played a major role in, and like I said, he's definitely been in a bunch of different...

He's played a role in a bunch of different stories. And I have faith we'll see Tezzeret again. He's a good villain. Okay, next up, The Wanderer. Okay, so The Wanderer is an interesting character. She, I believe, is the only planeswalker that doesn't have a subtype.

Because we don't know who she is! So the Wanderer... In fact, we don't even know what she looks like. She has a hat that covers her face. So her whole power thing is... She's a good fighter. But something about her spark forces her to constantly be planeswalking. Some force keeps making her planeswalk,

and she can't stay still. And so one of the cool things about the Wanderer is she's kind of become the Where's Waldo of magic. We just have her show up from time to time. If you look in the background, not every set, but every once in a while, you'll see her fighting in the background. She's just pulled into worlds. And it's not that she's part of the background, not every set, but every once in a while, you'll see her fighting in the background. Like, she's just pulled into worlds.

And it's not that she's part of the story, necessarily. I mean, not that she can't be, but I mean, she shows up as a cameo a lot of times in the background fighting things. And so, anyway, it's been a fun character. I think the mystery's a big part of her.

Who is her? We don't know. We know she's a really good fighter. Like I say, she has her blade, and she's a fun character. I think the mystery is a big part of her. Who is her? We don't know. We know she's a really good fighter. Like I said, she has her blade and she's a good fighter. We don't know much else about her. Next up, Tybalt. Okay, so Tybalt is a devil who uses pain magic. Tybalt first showed up in Avacyn Restored.

We were trying to make a two-drop Planeswalker. Ended up being very weak because it's hard to make a two-drop Planeswalker. And so Tybalt was... Tybalt the Fiend-Blooded might be the weakest Planeswalker we've ever made. The fact he was so weak, he became a little bit of a magic meme.

I mean, he's a stylish dresser who looks awesome. So people kind of like Tybalt, but love to make fun of how weak his card was. So Tybalt did come back, by the way. So he showed up in War of the Spark, and then he showed up again in Kaldheim. He pretended to be sort of the Loki-inspired character, or the Valky, the God of Lies.

And then it turned out that the God of Lies was lying himself and was secretly Tybalt. Also, by the way, Tybalt is a black-red character. The first two times he showed up, he was mono-red. But in Call of Time, we get to see a black-red version of him. I do think the character is squarely black-red. When you use other people's pain to fuel your magic, there's a lot of black in that.

So anyway, he is definitely a character that is sort of a fan favorite. I think the meme quality of him really got people excited. But anyway, he is somebody who... He's another villain that we've made that hopefully will show up again. Okay, Tyvar Kell. So Tyvar Kell is an elf. He is from Kaldheim. In fact, he's from, I think, the Black Green World,

the elf world of Kaldheim. I don't remember the name. But anyway, we were... One of the things we've been trying to do lately with Planeswalkers is make them a little more niche because it's hard to design Planeswalkers. If we keep reusing the same abilities, it'sers is make them a little more niche because it's hard to design planeswalkers. If we keep reusing the same abilities, it's hard to make them unique.

So having planeswalkers that are very focused lets us make more planeswalkers. And so we decided we wanted to make an elf planeswalker. I'm sorry, an elf tribal planeswalker. Nissa had played that role long ago, but she went from being

the Elf Planeswalker Tribal once again to being a Land Planeswalker. And so we were kind of missing the role of an Elf Planeswalker. There was a little bit of Elf Tribal that went on in Call Time, and there was an Elf World. So we decided to make a new Elf. Because we had Nissa, we decided

to make a male Elf rather than a female Elf. I don't know a lot about him. I mean, I know mechanically the card was to allow us to make elf tribal, which is why he's an elf. He's a good fighter, but mostly his card's about interacting with the elves. So,

anyway, that is Tyra Kel. Okay, so next up is Ugin. Okay, so in Future Sight, we have to go all the way to Future Sight, we made a bunch of cards that hinted at the future. And the idea was, we were just

sort of teasing things that could be. So one of the cards, I made a card called Ghostfire, which was a red card, well, sorry, it was a colorless card that required red mana. It did three damage to a creature or player, or I guess now to any target.

And it was... The idea was it was a card that required red, but the card wasn't red. It was colorless. And what did that mean? Oh, it's the future. So anyway, somebody on the creative team, or someone who wrote flavor text, wrote the following

flavor text. Only those gifted with the Eye of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, can see his fiery breath. Now, I gotta stress, when that was written, there was no Ugin, there was no Eye of Ugin, there was no Spirit Dragon. Like, all that was made just to try to explain this card.

And the idea is, oh, there's this character, and somehow his magic is tied to explain this card. And the idea is, oh, there's this character and somehow his magic is tied to being colorless. So anyway, we just kind of hinted. We just threw something out there. And I think the person that wrote it didn't know where it was going. It just was kind of an evocative piece of flavor text.

So anyway, we got very intrigued by the Eye of Ugin and the Spirit Dragon. So anyway, we ended up, as we started building the Zendikar story, part of what was trapping the Eldrazi was called the Eye of Ugin. And then we explain

that there were three planeswalkers that trapped them. One was Sorin. One was Nihiri, who was known as the Lithomancer for a long time. And one was Ugin. So for the first time, you heard about Ugin. You heard about Eye of Ugin. He was the first time, you heard about Ugin, you heard about Eye of Ugin, he was called the Spirit Dragon. And then, when we made Fate Reforged,

when we were doing the Khan's of Tarkir storyline, Nicole Bolas, in one of the stories, had talked about killing Ugin. And we didn't know whether it was real or not, was he lying, did it actually happen? So when making Khan's of Tarkir, we ended up making, we decided that we wanted Sarkhan to go back in time and to save the dragons so it ended up that he

saves Ugin from dying in this fight. That Ugin and Bolas are fighting. We later learn that they were twins. And the saving of Ugin is what changes the timeline. And so because Ugin was associated with Cullus magic, because of Ghostfire, we made him Cullus.

He and Karn, I think, are the only two Cullus planeswalkers. And anyway, he is definitely... He's one of the more expensive planeswalkers, because he's the more powerful. Like Bolas, he's very, very old. You know, 25,000 plus years old. And anyway, his card was very much made to sort of be a

mirror of Bolas because he's so related to Bolas. But anyway, he's somebody, he now, in the story, during the War of the Spark, he helps Jace when they are able to make Bolas lose his spark.

And then with Ugin's help, they get him back to Bolas' meditation realm, of which they trap him there. And then Ugin's sort of his jailer. So sort of, I don't know, some penance for Ugin is to watch over his brother and make sure nothing bad happens. So that's what Ugin's curling up to. Ugin, by the way, was not a fan of the Gatewatch killing the two Eldrazi that they did

and warned them of dire consequences. We don't know. We'll have to see what that means. But he did warn them of dire consequences. We don't know. We'll have to see what that means, but he did war them of dire consequences. Next up is Urza. So Urza is the second un-Plingswalker, if you will. Although the character of Urza actually goes way back, once again, back to Alpha.

There are a couple cards in Alpha that, sorry, yeah, a couple cards in Alpha that mention Urza. Urza's glasses, Urza's sunglasses. So when the first sort of magic story got made during Antiquities, the Brothers' War, essentially, Urza played a major

role in it. Both Urza and Mishra had been mentioned in Alpha. We find out they're brothers. We find out that they discover in the Cave of Coilos the Might Stone and the Weak Stone, the Power Stones, and they end up fighting over resources and end up having this major battle that becomes the Brothers' War

that takes place over decades. And anyway, Urza played a big role in that. He played a role in the Ice Age story. He plays a role in the Weatherlight Saga. He's the person that sort of makes the legacy and sort of sends all legacy and sends, you know, sort of sends all the characters down their path, Gerard and such,

to fulfill it. I've talked about the Nine Titans. He put those together. So anyway, in the storyline, in Invasion, he gets his head cut off, and I think his eye's taken out. And anyway, but he lives for a while in the story,

so I thought that was very funny. So in the Underverse, which is the parallel universe of the Unsets, he is alive as a disembodied head. We saw he has a hot tub, we saw, in Unhinged. And anyway, he's the headmaster, I assume, of

Teleria. We've not defined that, but I'm guessing Teleria because it makes sense. So anyway, and we did a goofy thing with him because it was an unset where you have to go online to figure out what he does, but he does all sorts of things. There's a lot of different planeswalker abilities in there, and so he has three to do plus one, minus one, or minus six, and different abilities happen.

If you've never played with Urza, by the way, he's fun, he's fun. A lot of random and crazy things can happen, so I recommend giving him a shot. Okay, next, Venser. So Venser first showed up, the character first showed up during the Time Spiral storyline.

He played a role in helping with stuff, and then post-mending, he became a planeswalker. His power suite is teleportation. He's able to teleport things and so all his abilities interact with teleportation. He's white-blue. Oh, the important

storyline part of Vance is probably the most important is Karn had gotten captured by the Phyrexians, was Phyrexianized, was in danger of becoming... in danger of horrible things happening to him with Phyrexians. And Venser sacrificed himself. Karn originally had gotten Xantcha's heart,

which is how Karn became a planeswalker in the first place. Venser gave him his heart. So that's how now Karn has a spark because, once again, golems are artificially made and can't naturally have a spark. But anyway, Venser sacrificed himself for

Karn. I like Venser. He was fun designing for maybe one day in a sub-metal product, make another Venser. I like... Unlike... I keep joking about Dovin and his finding weakness is so hard to design. Teleportation is actually, there's a lot of cool things you can do with teleportation. So it's a fun thing to design.

Okay, next up, Vivian. Vivian Reed. She first showed up in Magic Corset 19, 2019. So, okay, so I talked about, or I didn't talk about this. So, a little bit about Gideon that I didn't say when I talked about Gideon. So, Gideon first showed up in a video. We had

made a video that was internal that was just for partners with Magic. It wasn't meant to be for the audience to see it. And in it, we told the story of this planeswalker who was the last surviving member of his world. Now, in the video,

it was Gideon. We ended up changing Gideon's story. He ended up coming from Theros. But we liked that story of a planeswalker who survived their world. And that is Vivian. And so Vivian, she has a special bow

that has the spirit animals of the animals from her world that she magically sort of connected to the bow so she can fire spirit animals that are from her home world. She has shown up a couple times. She was the main character in the Ikoria story. And anyway, she's a hunter.

I mean, she's a fighter. Her cards tend to be creature-centric and finding creatures. She often will find creatures off the top of your deck or boost creatures. She's very creature-oriented. Okay, next up is Vraska. So Vraska the Unseen. So she first showed up in Return to Ravnica. She's a Gorgon.

So the one thing I should mention, in magic, the way Gorgons work in the magic world is, so in Greek mythology, whenever you looked at a Gorgon, you turned to stone. In magic, the Gorgon has control of their stare, meaning they can turn it on or off. So they can control whether they make you turn to stone or not.

So she does have that ability. She is a Gorgon. She can turn people to stone. So she started, she had a bunch of assassins she oversaw. She was part of the Golgari. During the Guilds of Ravnica storyline, Bolas puts her in charge of the Golgari. Also, important part of the story is

he sends her to Ixalan to get an important item he needs, the Immortal Sun, which is the thing he uses to trap the Planeswalkers as part of his plan in War of the Spark. Anyway, she goes there. Because of the sun, she gets trapped. She ends up becoming a pirate

and she meets Jace who has lost his memory who is also on Ixalan despite what seems like incredible odds

the two fall in love and she ends up Jace ends up having to erase the memory of them being together because she's about to go back to Bolas and Bolas has some ability to read minds.

Anyway, in War of the Spark, during the Guilds of Ravnica storyline, she gets her memory back. The two lovebirds, I think, are broken up right now, but I will personally I liked them as a couple, so I'm on

Team Jace and Braska. I don't know if they have a think are broken up right now, but I will personally, I like them as a couple, so I'm on Team Jason Vraska. I don't know if they have a group name. Jaska Vraska. I don't know. Okay, next up is Ren and Six from the First Modern Horizons. So Ren is a dryad who bonds with

tree folk. And so she's had numerous treefolk. In fact, it has become so hard for her when she loses her treefolk that she started numbering them. So six is the sixth treefolk since she started numbering them.

Anyway, red-green character. She's a dryad. She has a combination of dealing with land and dealing with damage she also interacts with spells a little bit but anyway what happened was Grist and Ren fall in the same category

where the creative team had just made a really weird and quirky planeswalker and they didn't quite know what to do with it, but they liked the game. So, Modern Horizons has been a good place to sort of experiment and make sort of new and different kinds of Planeswalkers.

You know, Ren and Six and Grist are both not your normal Planeswalker. So, it's pretty cool to see. I don't know. I like seeing sort of untraditional planeswalkers.

But anyway, I hope we see more of Ren Engrist. Two awesome female planeswalkers that are not your normal planeswalker, which is kind of cool. Okay, our final planeswalker. We get to X is Xenagos. So, Xenagos has the honor, well, Xenagos is a satyr

from Theros. So, Xenagos is interesting in that Xenagos first shows up as a Planeswalker in Theros. Red-green, very much about sort of interacting with satyrs and he gets you mana

and gets you cards and like sort of he's a character that very much embodies having a good time and enjoying things and loving life and very much embracing sort of the satyr way if you will interesting in the story he realizes there's a vacancy

in the red-green planeswalker slot. He realizes that and finds a way to sort of ascend to godhood. So in the second set, he becomes a god, so he's the only planeswalker ever to be both a planeswalker and be a god. And so, although I think

that he's only a god while on Theros. So if he, I mean, so anyway, what ends up happening is Heliod is not happy that Xenagos has sort of become a god, so, um, he gets Elspeth to kill Xenagos, so another spoiler there, Xenagos dies, um, uh, and he, I think he was killed in Nyx, so he doesn't even get to go to the underworld, so, like, Xenagos is, is dead dead, even for Theros. But he definitely is a fun character, and like I said, he is...

He embraced... He was definitely sort of a villainous character in a very different way from some of the other villainous characters we've done. You know, and that... He was trying to do something because he thought he could do it more so than he was trying to commit evil or something

necessarily, but he caused some chaos and such. Well, anyway, guys, in three podcasts, I managed to get through all the Planeswalkers, so hopefully you learned something. And to all the Vorthoses out there, I hope I didn't get too much wrong. I know a decent amount, but not as much as all the Vorthoses out there, I hope I didn't get too much wrong. I know a decent amount, but not as much as all the lovers of our story.

So to all the Vorthoses listening, I hope I got the majority of it right. I think in episode one, I accidentally said that... I said... I said... I said Planeswalker was from Theros when they were from Kaldheim. Um, so I apologize for that. But anyway, guys, I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope you enjoyed, oh, Nico. Nico's the one

I messed up on. I hope you guys enjoyed the listen to this, uh, walk through all the Planeswalkers, but I'm at my desk, so we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work, so instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.