The First Shall Be The Last: Urza
Being a Vorthos Magic player way back when was to scour the flavor text of cards and try to piece together the lore. Mostly, us creative Vorthoses had to invent our own stories behind the cards[I still maintain that Wizards should have created a cartoon series, with each cartoon telling a different story from one of the cards; like one week the Shivan Dragon and the next week the Force of Nature]. Sometimes, Wizards would reward us Vorthoses by releasing a collection of stories or a novel. And they created one of the most enduring characters of the Magic: The Gathering world, a character that would become the very first planeswalker and a veritable god: Urza.
Urza, and his brother Mishra, were introduced in the original set of Magic cards but with no flavor text(so we didn't know that they were brothers, yet). Then, Wizards gave us the Antiquities set, with even more Urza and Mishra, and we found out some more about the duo, like the fact that they were brothers[Artifact Blast] and that they waged war on each other[Strip Mine]. We also got to read about characters like Ashnod and Tawnos, and how each one assisted one of the brothers. We even got to learn an important piece of lore; that with their master, Tocasia, in the cave of Koilos, Urza found the Mightstone and Mishra found the Weakstone(I could have sworn it was the Meekstone he found; I will have to find my copy of The Brothers War and double-check)(and I would have posted a picture of each of the stones but the picture on the Weakstone is creepy as all get out; kudos to artist Justin Hampton for making such a memorable piece). The rest of the story of the brothers got fleshed out in an entertaining and Vorthos-friendly novel by Jeff Grubb where we find that Urza destroyed a continent just to win a war.
But Urza’s role in the greater Magic world did not come to an end with the destruction of his brother Mishra, and the whole of Argoth. Urza would go on to start the Tolarian Academy, created a race of creatures, dabbled in genetic engineering and turned his head into a weapon. However, he did defeat Yawgmoth and the forces of Phyrexia, so you can argue if it was all worth it.
Per the story line of the game, Urza is dead; his final act being his severed, yet living, head being part of the weapon needed to destroy Yawgmoth once and for all. But Wizards did finally give us an Urza card(after the card in the Vanguard set and the planeswalker card that came out in Unstable), albeit not a planeswalker card; we received the Lord High Artificer of Yotia. And, as Mark Rosewater has stated before, Urza is blue and(OF COURSE!) artifact-centered.
I have a feeling that we have not seen the last of Urza. A figure of his magnitude, and Wizards penchant for time travel; and who knows what kind of chaos is going to be realized when Teferi finally phases Zhalfir back into reality, we will see the spectre of Urza rise once more. Plus, while this card was just for people to make Commander decks out of, I’m sure fans of Commander and the history of the game would have wanted a multicolored Urza card, much like the one Mishra got in Time Spiral. But seeing as there is so much out of Urza’s life that can be mined, Urza will be back.
Thank you for coming and reading my article. I truly appreciate every eye that scans across these words. I hope you all had a Happy New Year, and that 2020 brings you everything you hope for. Until next week, may Svyelun and her tides favor you.
